Silly girls

I'm trying to get Macey to smile for the camera and coo on video... next to impossible. I'll keep trying.

But Evie's MORE than interested in having videos taken of her. :) Every night she's doing something silly. Usually it involves dancing to some kids' cds for about an hour.

Ice Castle

I only have a few weeks left on maternity leave and so far we've been spending a LOT of time at home. It's been the four of us together almost every day which has been a blessing, but we finally decided this week that we need to take advantage of this time together and go on some excursions. So on Tuesday we took a drive into the mountains to Silverthorne to see this really cool ice castle.

This guy started making smaller versions in his back yard for his kids. He "grows" icicles first and then sticks them onto the structure. Every night they spray down everything and it keeps growing and changing. There were big tunnels and huge structures made only out of icicles. SO COOL!

We all had a great time and it was nice to get outta the house for a bit. :)


Yes, Macey's in there in the pink hat...

Fun with the Girls

It's hard to believe, but Macey is already over 2 months old! Time is FLYING by and she's changing so quickly. At her 2 month well visit she measured as the size of an average 4 month old! Overall she's a great baby: she sleeps for 5-6 hours at night (I'm hoping for a bit more soon, but I'll take this for the time being...), she likes to sit in the bouncy seat, swing or lay in her jungle for 30-45 minutes without fussing, and she really doesn't cry all that much. She's smiling SO much now and is "talking" more and more too. She and I have "conversations" which cracks up Evie. :) Her head is so strong and she likes to stand with our help. The one catch with Macey: she has a huge blowout in her diaper EVERYDAY! It's like she holds it all in for one explosive diaper! And there's nothing like pulling a onesie over her head after it's filled with poo. :)

Evie and Macey get along SO WELL! Evie is infatuated with her little sister and is SUCH a big help. She sings to Macey when she's crying, she loves to hold her, and loves giving her kisses.

Evie's updates: she's really enjoying preschool and is learning so much! Her lead teacher is very impressed with her intellect and said she's reading ready and really attentive and interested in their writing activities.

Unfortunately in December Evie's arthritis came back. She's back on Methotrexate and Meloxicam, but we're still waiting for the inflammation to be completely gone. Her range of motion is good and luckily there are only occasional mornings that she's stiff, but by now the inflammation should be totally gone. We have to up her dosage of Methotrexate and hope that within 3 weeks it goes away, otherwise we have to look at switching her meds. She's such a trooper though, she never complains and takes all of the doctors appointments in stride. An amazing little girl, for sure!

Here are some pics from January and February at the Hornickel household.




In Macey's jungle together


Evie LOVES to wear matching clothes with her sister!


Valentine's pics



One of Evie's favorite past-times: dressing up! Thanks Grandma Hornickel for the dress-up clothes and accessories!




Chef Evie (thanks Grandma Johnson!)


Just hanging out


Big sis/little sis shirts




Standing!

WI Trip

At the end of January we flew back to WI so the family could meet little Miss Macey. It was SUCH a great trip! The girls did really well during the flights and we had an amazing time with the family, as usual. It was a great reminder of why we're trying to move back to WI.

The highlights of the trip:
Awesome time with the girls' cousins, a day spent at Kalahari with the Johnson clan, and seeing the immediate and extended family on the Hornickel side.

The only downer: Macey and I came down with a bad cold which was then passed on to Evie and Kyle. Not one of Macey's "firsts" that I was looking for...


Johnson cousins with their bakers hats and oven mitts made by Grandma Johnson!




Macey with her bear made by Grandma Johnson (a family tradition)


Hornickel cousins


Grandma & Grandpa Hornickel

Macey Charlotte

Macey Charlotte was born at 6:00pm on Thursday, December 15th, 2011. She's an amazing addition to our family and we're truly blessed to have her in our lives!!

We're also very fortunate to say her labor story was pretty similar to Evie's: pretty smooth sailing.

I finished my last day of work on Tuesday after being sick the day before. On Wednesday Kyle and I had a great day together, what would be the last day before Macey was born. Evie was at daycare so we drove around running errands, looking for house rentals, having a lunch date at an Indian restaurant, taking an afternoon nap, and going for a walk around the neighborhood to try to bring on labor. I felt great that day which was a little discouraging because I didn't think labor was going to happen anytime soon.

On Thursday morning we all woke up as normal, and started the day around 6:30am. By 7:00am I started feeling contractions which were already about 6 minutes apart. We got Evie fed and dressed ad Kyle took her to daycare. By the time he returned, contractions were getting a bit closer, and by 9:10am we were on our way to the hospital after consulting with my doctor. Contractions were a few minutes apart now.

At the hospital I started at 3 cm. Things seemed slow-going at first. At 1:00pm I was 4 cm, then 6cm by 3:30pm. At 4:00pm I had had enough and got the epidural. (Proud to have made it to 6cm though, my goal was 5cm like with Evie.) By 5:30pm I was at 7cm and shortly thereafter the doctor broke my water. 15 minutes later I had progressed to 10cm and started pushing. I pushed 3 times and 8 minutes later she was born at 6pm on the dot. It was a much more painful pushing process than with Evie, so I'm SO glad it didn't last longer! :)

Macey was born 8 lb 3.2 oz, 20.5 inches long. And 2 days early! Woo hoo!

Many thanks goes out to our amazing friends, Rena and Jeff, who picked up Evie from daycare, brought her to the hospital Thursday evening, stayed with her at our house that night, then took her to daycare Friday morning. Evie was a trooper through the whole thing. She was a little timid at the hospital when Kyle introduced her to Macey, but she quickly got over that and wanted to hold her. And then of course was focused only on having the hospital's Jello. (Whatever works...)

Thanks also goes out to Kyle's Mom who flew in Friday evening and helped SO MUCH with the girls. Evie had such a blast with Grandma for 4 days! Kyle stayed at home Friday night while Macey and I stayed one more night at the hospital. We all were home by Saturday afternoon.

Just after delivery.

Our first picture as a new family!

Proud big sister.

She loves her swing!

Evie LOVES to hold and help out with Macey. It's awesome!

Overall Macey has been amazing. She's been a great eater from the start and as of the second day at home she goes for 4-4 1/2 hours at night, which has meant that for most nights I only have to get up once! It's also been great that we get to spend so much time together as a family. We have almost 3 weeks together before Evie goes to Preschool and before Kyle starts subbing, which has been SO helpful for me to heal and get some rest, and for us to get used to our new "normal". Kyle is an AMAZING Daddy! He takes everything in stride, creates so much fun for Evie (they're building an igloo in the backyard right now), continues to cook everything for us, and of course is adorable with Macey too. I feel so blessed to have the awesome family that I have!

We look forward to watching Macey and Evie grow up together, but for now I'm cherishing this newborn stage: trying to soak up how little she is cuz I know it won't last long!!

Baby H

We're all set for Baby Hornickel to arrive! Should be any day now. (We're hoping for sooner rather than later, of course...)

Here's the baby's room:

A before shot: THANK YOU KYLE for doing all of the hard work on this room. As you can see the before was HORENDOUS! Even the closet doors and ceiling fan blades were painted these obnoxious colors...


And the beautiful after shots!! It turned out so well! Evie picked out the purple and I made the wall hangings. Who knew accordian folding could turn out as a nice wall decoration!





And some belly shots:

End of September at 28 weeks


End of November at 37 weeks

Christmas Prep

Christmas preparations have been so much fun this year! Evie's at such a great age so for the first time she's been involved with all of the processes: picking out the tree, decorating it, helping make Christmas cookies, and a slight interest in Santa.


We've had a ton of snow already this winter. Evie, Daddy and Louie LOVE to play in it!


Helping me make Christmas cookies. The decorating process was interesting... much more frosting licking than anything... :)


Our tradition is to watch Elf each year before Christmas. We thought it'd be a good one for Evie: turns out, there's a couple not-so-kid-friendly scenes in that one... oops. But she enjoyed her hot cocoa nonetheless.


Evie-no-pants helping to decorate the tree.




Watching Charlie Brown's Christmas (with a hot cocoa mustache, of course).


Santa came to my work! Evie was mortified and didn't want to get near him at all. But once she was about 6 feet away, she told him what she wanted. :)


Evie's FAVORITE game right now! Every night she asks Daddy to bounce on the big blue ball.