jacob and otto

joe's sister tina has four kids....the oldest is jacob, followed by 3 sisters. poor jacob. and then there's otto, sandwiched in between two sisters of his own.
even though jacob and otto are about 8 years apart, something tells me they will seek solace in each other the older they get.
one of otto's latest loves is to play "guys" or "friends", which basically allots to standing up whatever figures or toys there are, and then moving them to another spot and doing it all over again. so imagine his excitement when he discovered "jacob's guys" at grandma and grandpa's house....entire bins of figures that he can set up. he now loves to play "jacob's guys"....sitting on the dining room table playing with these figures. and bless jacob's heart for letting him.

visitors and food!

in addition to the visitors who came to welcome selma at the hospital, we've also had some friends and family stop in to meet her at our house. in the pictures are joe's aunt joy and uncle jim, and our friend carol.

the other great thing has been people bringing food by for us. i cannot tell you what a blessing that has been....to have delicious food for dinner that you didn't have to make! thanks to ann, carol, meg, stacy, janet, holly, christine, and anyone else i'm forgetting. we are truly so thankful for these meals. and we've also discovered some new foods our kids will eat!

reading

greta and otto can often be found sitting on the stairs together, reading books. the book they are reading ("i'm a big brother") is on loan to us from our friends the sprungers. and although it's about becoming a big brother (not sister), it has been a great read for both kids. especially greta. it hits on how lucky it is to have a new baby in your family, while also mentioning how special the big kids still are. and how lucky it is to be big, because babies can't eat things like ice cream or pizza. i think that's actually the message the kids really are clinging to. and we're going with it....
both greta and otto seem to be adjusting pretty well to having selma around. at first, every time she cried they'd both come running to her, yelling, "what's wrong with the new baby?" now they will guess that maybe she needs to eat or needs a diaper change. they like to hug on her and kiss her (which is why she has a cold already), and they always want to know where she is and what she's doing.
i think the biggest adjustment so far is not selma, but rather having mama out of commission a bit because of my recovery from the c-section. greta has said things like, "when is mama going to drive me to school again?"....i think they are noticing how i'm not doing as much as i was before. and they are acting out a bit....just sort of testing the limits. which makes sense. and when i say acting out, they are still greta and otto, so their acting out is not too hard to handle. i think once i am feeling better and we can all sort of adjust to what our new routine is like, things will settle into the new normal.

sleepy selma

(and sleepy papa!)
it's amazing how much babies sleep in the first few weeks of life. greta has mentioned several times that selma is "boring." ha! i should let her try getting up with me every few hours in the nighttime to feed selma. that's anything but boring.

the other thing i want to note about these pictures is that selma (please GOD don't let me jinx it) is able to sleep without being swaddled. we had to do basically a baby straight jacket with greta until she was about 5 months old because she would startle in her sleep, causing her to throw her arms out wide and wake herself up. we tried the swaddle blanket with selma, but she seemed pretty mad about it. once she was able to put her arms up by her face, she was fine. here's hoping.....

playing doctor

otto and greta got a great new doctor kit from megan as a gift for when selma arrived. (thanks megan). here they are, playing doctor on their baby dolls.

Happy Birthday Selma

Greta and Otto really enjoyed what seems to be a new trend.... Birthday treats.... Selma got cookies from Meg, Birthday Cakes from Holly and Mindy, Cookies from Janet and Stacy and a whole slew of other treats... since she can't quite eat them yet, Greta and Otto are more than happy to take care of them for Selma...

Happy Birthday Selma -

Selma and the Ford Cousins

The last two times around the ford cousins got to invade Greta and Otto at the hospital.... with new hospital restrictions at Hospitals during flu seasons, only siblings can visit. So the Ford Cousins visit with Selma had to wait for a week.... No less exciting though...