The Peine Family

Friday, February 18, 2011

Happy Valentine’s Day

We don’t make a huge deal about Valentine’s Day at our house. Rosemary had a party at her preschool while Ben, Charlotte, and I went to MOPS. Jonathan and I usually just order food and eat after the kids go to bed and watch a movie (this year it was Carrabba’s and Charlie St. Cloud). The kids had heart-shaped pancakes. At least, I attempted to make them heart-shaped, they really just looked like circles gone awry.

Rosemary showing off the roses. This is the first time I’ve gotten roses on Valentine’s Day. Tulips are the tradition.

The three Peine kids

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Charlotte meets the alligator

Happy 1 month birthday, Charlotte!

February 10, 2011

As we expected, this first month has flown by. We've been so thankful for the friends and family who've helped us transition to a family of five. This transition so far has been a bit harder than the last. Just getting out the door is much more of an adventure (I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get all three kids in the car without one of them running around a parking lot) but it's been fun. Life has been full. Not really busy, but very full.

Charlotte has proven to be another great baby. When she was 12 days old though she caught her big brother's cold so Jonathan and I got to tag team sitting up with her through the night so she could breath. It's the first time with any of our kids that we've ever stayed up all night with one. I thought it would throw off her night time sleep, but thankfully we were able to get back on track. By the end of the month she was just getting up once a night and giving us about 4-5 hour stretches of sleep. The night she turned a month old she slept from 11pm to 6am. Can't complain about that! We did move her out of our room and to her crib just after she hit 3 weeks, so that's helped.

During the day she's been a happy baby and sleeps good stretches then too, even napping for about 2-3 hours when Ben and Rosemary nap so I'm getting a bit of break to rest as well. She's a great eater and has done well with the bottle too when I've needed to be away.

Charlotte attended church for the first time when she was just shy of 3 weeks old and our friends Katie and Jimmy were in town. She slept most of the service in Jonathan's arms.

She got to go to Rosemary's fifth birthday party. She wore a little tutu and everything, but spent most of the party snoozing in Grandma P's arms.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Ballet Observation Night

I got to sit in and watch Rosemary and Hannah during ballet class again last week. It's so fun to watch them.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Charlotte’s Newborn Photos

Charlotte was just nine days old for her newborn photos. It was a bit chilly out, but Charlotte was a champ during her first photo shoot and Linda got some beautiful shots. Here are a few of our favorites.

And because Linda is amazing, she and Shari even came over to do more when Charlotte was just shy of 3 weeks old.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Fire Station Visit

On Monday while Rosemary was at Preschool, Ben, Charlotte, and I went to one of the local fire stations with our MOPS group. It was so fun having a morning out with just the youngest two. Charlotte cozied up in the Moby so it was a bit easier to keep up with Ben.

Cheezin’ for the camera as we waited for everyone to arrive.

Ben’s best buddy, Landon, was there too. Every night for the past several weeks (maybe even longer) Ben has asked that we pray for Landon at bedtime. Landon’s about the be a big brother too.

Heading in to see the fire man put on all his gear.

Ben didn’t sit up here very long. He was somewhat reserved that morning and wanted to hang back. As soon as he stood up from sitting here beside Landon and Zach though, he bumped his head on that table beside him. But, in true second-born fashion, he whimpered a bit then moved on. Had the same thing happened to his older sister, there would have been a little bit (or a lot) more drama.

Outside, the boys got a good look at the fire truck. A call came in while we were there so before we got to go through it, it had to leave. Instead, they let us check out the chief’s truck. Soon the big engine came back, but Ben chose not to go through the inside.

Cheezin’ again.

The boys

It was a great morning out!

I was a little nervous about how Ben would adapt to being a big brother, but he has been great and we are SO proud of him! He’s so loving with his baby sister.

We’ve also noticed his vocabulary increasing since Charlotte arrived. He’s putting more words together and learning new ones everyday, which is so exciting. The latest words? Well, today, he said ‘tutu’ when Charlotte was getting her picture taken in hers. Yesterday, it was ‘juice box.’ and last week he added ‘poop’ to the list. Kinda gross, but I gotta say, it’s pretty useful!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Rosemary turns 5

On January 31, 2006, we met this little lady…

And today, she turned five years old!

All decked out and ready for school.

Rosemary picked out her birthday party theme months ago so we started getting things ready even before Charlotte arrived. The theme she chose? Ballerina, of course, a perfect theme for Rosemary. It ended up being a super easy theme too because we had a bunch of pink ballet stuff already at home.

We knew we wanted to make sure this birthday didn’t get overshadowed by all of the other excitement in our lives at the moment so we asked for help from the grandmas and from friends and together were able to put together a pretty fun party without going crazy. We decided just to do pizza and juice boxes to make it easy. Brandi agreed to make the cupcakes so we didn’t have a cook a thing. Mom helped with favors, decorations, and setup and Janice helped with setup and keeping up with Charlotte at the party.

We made the invites in December and bought a whole bunch of tulle and netting during Joann’s after Christmas sales.

A little happy birthday sign. I got the tile at our last MOPS meeting and painted it one night and added some scraps of netting and ribbon. The pointe shoes were my first pair. They’re about 20 years old now.

It’s hard to see, but Rosemary helped to make the pennant at the top of the pic above. She picked out the paper she liked, I cut it into triangles for her and then she threaded it on the twine.

Brandi made the day infinitely easier by making the cupcakes for the party.

We had a craft table and two eating tables.

Little tutus my mom and I made for the girls.

Another pair of old shoes. I don’t know that there are very many types of shoes where you could get away with using them as party décor…especially ones this old. Keds party anyone? :-)

Rosemary’s model pose with Dynah, Brandi, and Karen

These two have known each other pretty much their entire lives. Dynah actually attended Rosemary’s baby shower.

Once everyone arrived, the girls colored some ballet coloring pages.

Next, we did a little ballet lesson.

Check out those beautiful girls! There was a lot of pink and purple in that room!

Then the girls started doing a bit of Ring around The Rosie.

After dancing a bit, we headed over to make some ballerina hair bows. I don’t have any photos of the craft time, but you can see the results in the pics below. I tried to pick a craft that the girls could do and would be useful later. I think the girls liked the bows, but the adults had to basically make them. Ah, well.

Enjoying their pizza

Getting ready to sing happy birthday

Present opening was a whirlwind!

Ben wanted to help with the presents too.

After presents, we headed outside for some playground time. It was a gorgeous day so it was nice to get out and let the girls run around a bit.

At the end of it all, Rosemary declared that it was ‘awesome.’ I was happy it went well and that the girls had a good time. While it wasn’t stressful getting it together, we were all absolutely exhausted by the time it was over. That afternoon, every single person in our house passed out.

Today was Rosemary’s actual birthday. Per Rosemary’s request, we met Jonathan for lunch at Chick-fil-a.