Jack was born on Thanksgiving day. Yes, I never did get to eat my traditional feast- but honestly, I never missed it Jack officially made his appearance at 8:28pm weighing in at 8lbs. 7oz. and 21 inches long – exactly like his big sister Addison! Jack’s birth did not go as smoothly as planned. He was in the NICU for 11 days. Most of those days were spent just monitoring him. It was emotionally excruciating for both Christer and me. I visited him everyday and was lucky to have Christer home with the girls so that I could. Jack is very healthy and has no lingering effects.

Here is Addison, Liz and Jack at their 2 month pictures-

Addie and Liz both love being a big sister to him. Addison is such an incredible helper and tries to teach Jack how to make funny faces and do her silly laugh. Liz has been practicing the art of “soft kisses” on Jack and is close to perfecting it.

Being a mother of 3 children ages 3 and under is incredible to say the least. My only weakness is not getting enough sleep. What is strange is that before I had Jack, I still felt like a kid myself most days. Yes, I was a  mother to my 2 beautiful little girls, but it wasn’t until Jack that I felt like a “mom” – as if it was official now.

I am doing great and got to see the dr yesterday. Jack-Jack is measuring spot on and I’m not gaining too much weight- which is great since I have some left over from Addison and Lizzie My dr is so great and did an ultrasound “just because.” I got to see his little face perfectly! He has Addison’s nose and is just as cute as can be! That morning I had felt either a foot or hand just sticking out of my stomach and the ultrasound confirmed it was a foot. Apparently his feet were up by his head! Crazy flexible baby! After my dr measured his head/belly/femur to calculate how much he weighs, etc. he tried to get another face shot of Jack-Jack. He moved the ultrasound around and around on me and looked very confused. He then asked me if the baby moved. I told him that as soon as he starting calculating things on the screen, Jack flipped. So the dr kept looking and sure enough- Jack-Jack had flipped to the other side and was now face down. It was pretty funny to see the dr’s reaction! I told him about how I’ll try to get Christer to come feel the kicking when it’s especially strong, but the SECOND he puts his hand on my belly- Jack-Jack will stop. It’s pretty funny to me but Christer has given up on trying now.

If any of you did know- my parents are from East Texas and when we were being “squirrelly” my dad would call us Squirrel Bait- it’s still habit for me to call my kids that and right now it fits Jack’s personality perfectly!

Addison is loving summertime and being able to ride her bike outside. Her legs are almost long enough to reach the pedals! For now she happy just shuffling along.

This is a picture of Lizzie sleeping while she was sick – the teddy is a constant friend to her though. He goes any and everywhere with her and she loves him like no one else! A couple weeks ago he was getting pretty crusty so after she fell asleep I threw him in the wash and even made sure he was drying before I went to bed. At 3am she woke up (she never wakes up in the middle of the night unless something is really wrong) crying. I tried to soothe her totally spacing about Teddy- but I got the, “I’ll take you if I have to, but you’re not what I really want” impression. So I ran downstairs with her and showed her that Teddy was just getting dry from his bath time. She went back to sleep, with him in her arms, before I even got her back upstairs.

I’m calling this one “Morning Beauties” Addison always has such CRAZY hair in the morning (from the Byrd side) and I thought the comparison of their eye color was so striking. The both love to hang out in bed with mom and dad on Saturday mornings.

This has got to be one of my new favorites- Christer giving Lizzie a kiss. She is still in the adorable open mouth kiss phase and is going in for the kiss as well

I asked to her to wave “hi”- which she can, but she did this instead.

…And that’s our Lizzie scaring the crap out of us. Like I’ve mentioned before, she has amazing balance and LOVES to dance- so what better than to climb on top of the table and dance her little heart out

Addison always has the best smile that can make anybody’s day. She is such a great big sister and friend to Lizzie. She is learning so much everyday at preschool and I am reminded everyday how truly intelligent and beautiful she is.

You may be wondering what it is you’re looking at… well tonight Christer is teaching class and so it was just me and the girls for dinner. I was making pancakes and had Addison scrambling the eggs. I turned my back and told her that I needed to put the eggs in the pan soon, while I was cutting up a pancake for Lizzie. All of the sudden I here this hot swishing sound- I turn around towards Addison and see that she has taken it upon herself to put the eggs in the pan. One thing- it was the wrong pan I had a pancake already in there. So I quickly took the bowl  and dumped what was left into the other skillet and thanked her for helping. I just stood there looking at the skillet with pancake and scrambled egg in it trying to figure out what to do with it. A couple minutes later I decided to flip it- and this is what turned out! Kind of the opposite of an egg-in-the-hole, more of a pancake-in-the-hole. Addison was so excited about her creation that she cstarted it eat it as soon as I put it on the plate. After a little convincing that she’d still be able to have it if she moved to the table, she moved on over and put some syrup on it (just enough) and ate it right down! Yes… ALL of it!

Update on Baby Edwards #3 – I’ve been feeling him kick for a while now but today was something new. I had my arm draped over my stomach and suddenly I felt this kick and my arm bounced up a little. It was pretty cool knowing that he’s getting big enough to do that now. He continued kicking for several minutes but not quite as hard. Tomorrow is the “official” gender ultrasound and baby well-being. I’ll keep you updated!

So those are the names we’ve been playing around with. Maybe I’ll have Christer put a poll on the site.

As the doctor put it, our little baby has a “ditsel.” (boy)

#1 for a girl would be: Reese Anne (my suggestion)

#1 for a boy would be: Jackson Range (both came up with it- Range is my dad’s middle name)- We’d call him Jack.

What suggestions do you have? We don’t like “popular” names- but of course with both girls we ended up LOVING names that were climbing the charts that year! Just so you remember- if you want to compare sibling names- Addison Jane, Elizabeth Marie.

Lizzie just adores her dad and is calling him “Da” now. This morning she was looking for him, walking around calling out, “Da, Da, Da?” It was pretty cute. When I told her that dad was already at work she stuck out her bottom lip and tried one more time, “Da?” I told her that he would be back soon and she was content with that answer.

I love my girls

I am a working mom now at American Nutrition Inc. as a personnel assistant. It’s been… entertaining, stressful, and mostly makes me miss my kids. Christer is working at PartNet still and also teaching at the U of U. He loves that he’s “Faculty” at the university.

Addison is now 2 years old going on 7. She is extremely bright and loves to color, paint, ride her bike, run, “work” – which means she’s fixing something with the screw driver, cook, wash dishes, read, and try to take over her sister just to name a few. She’s carrying on full conversations telling about what she did, who she was with, etc. It’s really quiet entertaining having her in our family. She’s learning the “house rules” which are: 1. Listen/Do 2. Be Nice 3. Clean-up. She is a very fast learner and Christer and I are realizing that we’re going to need to start saving for her college fund asap! Christer is thinking MIT

Lizzie has such a spunky personality and can easily hold her own next to her sister. She started walking only a month ago be is so agile and has such awesome balance. She’s going to be our gymnast. We’re thinking the Olympics She loves to be outdoors and I think she’s going to love swimming this summer. Lizzie has the personality that is SUPER friendly, she gets along great with other adults and children alike. I was in the nursery at church for awhile and so Lizzie came with me and Addison- and she completely captured the room. The children loved playing with her and she loved pretending she was as big as they were.

Baby Edwards #3 is coming along great. Due date is Dec. 19th but both the doctor and I are planning on the baby coming early so we’ll see! I saw the doctor today and he did an ultrasound  (he loves doing them- I of course LOVE having them)! It was so amazing! With the girls I saw them move and they each have their own ultrasound story- so this is the story for baby #3 (I’m still giggling:) ). Dr. Farley started the ultrasound and I immediately could see the baby and could tell where everything was- he/she was curled up with it’s hand over it’s eyes/face. Then he/she stretched out and I could we had a prefect view- just looking at him/her with it’s belly up and then it started to kick it’s legs and wave it’s arms pretty intensely- even Dr. Farley was a little taken back by it.  So we just watched and laughed as it went on for maybe a minute. Then little baby put his/her hand back over it’s face and curled up like he/she was taking a nap. It was incredible!

So that’s that for now- got to get back to work!

Love you all!