Welcome Susan Faith

Susan Faith ~ Born March 10th, 2014

7lb 4 oz (my smallest by far!) 19" long

12 hours old - so peaceful

Ben and his three girls

Paul seems to like Susie, but he's not sure how to react when she cries.

Grandma helping with Susie

Helen Sue has been waiting for Susan's arrival
almost as impatiently as I have been!

Lucy is my big helper
(and Helen is not thrilled about giving Lucy a turn to hold Susan) 

Me and my sweet baby girl

Baby Susie still mostly keeps those eyes shut during the day and wide open all night.
I'll have to take some night pictures soon to show you her awake ;-)

Cozying up for the Cold

My children think it is so exciting to put on coats and hats and go outside in the (literally) freezing cold. Left to myself I might think it was exciting to cuddle up on the couch in front of the fireplace in the warm house, but they get me out so I get them bundled. I do love the look of warm winter coats :-)

I actually got a photo with all three children smiling!
It took clicking away about twenty times but - Yay!

A very sweet (and warm) pass-me-down "cozy coat" for Lucy
from a good friend (thank you Kathleen!)

Helen now get's Lucy's pass-me down "Lizzy Coat" - named thus
because cousin Lizzy gave it to us and has a matching one.
(What, doesn't everyone name their coats?)

Lucy definitely has a certain "mom is taking too many pictures" expression.
Hmmm. Her daddy gets that expression as soon as he sees the camera
pointing anywhere near his vicinity. 

At Last...

A Phares family photo. Paul is now 9 months old and we have our first photo of us all together since we took one at the hospital the day after he was born. Ben has a strong dislike of posing for pictures but he was being very kind to me by allowing us to get this photo taken at a wedding we attended this past Saturday. As you can see, the children have changed quite a bit :-)

May 2013

August 2012

Just Because We Like Our Puppies

I made this little video for my girls to watch, because they love our dogs. The song is not exactly accurate, as both our dogs are girls and they are labs, but I couldn't find a better song. (If anyone out there knows a good "doggy" song let me know and maybe I'll use it on our next video.)

Lucy's 2nd Birthday

Lucy turned two on March 30th. And yes, I'm terribly late on posting this! It'll be Helen's birthday (she's turning one on April 30th) before I know it. All along their dad and I have said we're not going to be those kind of parents that have crazy big parties for their 1 and 2 year olds. They don't need tons of toys. They're happy with one new book or sheet of stickers. Right. But it sounded so fun to have a lot of friends over to our house - to actually host a party and make special treats and make everything look fancy. We ended up squeezing 32 people (14 of which were 10 and under) into our little house. All my good intentions of taking photos of the whole party went to the wind once the guests actually started arriving, so I don't have any pictures of the whole group squeezed in. I got this video and photos from a friend, Ruth Hicks. Thanks Ruth! It was very fun, although I have to admit it was more for me than for Lucy. Although she has opened presents before she really didn't have any concept of what a "birthday" meant. When everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" to her the pressure was simply too much. (see the video below) However, once she saw the mound of presents and we let her open the first one she got the picture really quickly :-) A very memorable evening - but Helen better not get any ideas. We're NOT having a huge one year birthday party for her in two weeks!

Lucy opening her present from Auntie Missy

Helen enjoyed all the friends

A new kitchen set from Daddy & Mommy!

Our Family Vacation

We had a wonderful family vacation - a week in Maui. Although it rained and stormed for 4 days we still spent every possible minute on the beach. Our last 3 days were wonderful and the girls both really loved the beach; both sand and water.

Here is a little video I put together for Lucy to watch ~ IT's just Lucy and Helen and some of their little friends on the beach.

Learning Legos

Notice Lucy's multi-tasking. Snacking & positioning Daddies.

 Lucy's just starting to learn how to put lego pieces together. Of course at first she only wanted to break apart whatever I built for her. Now if I build something she

Happy girls

arranges all the "daddies" on it. All little toy people are daddies, didn't you know? She is happy with any basic platform, which is lucky for me, since I'm more autistic the artistic when it comes to my lego structures. My mom, on the other hand, can build the most elaborate little towns, with grocery stores and houses... I'll have to get a picture of one of them sometime when Grandma makes one for the girls.

What could be more tasty than a lego?

Helen is "standing" already - even if it is only for a few seconds and while she's holding on to something. This is crazy! She's my baby.

A Weekend at the Coast

We spent a lovely weekend at Ocean Shores. Our crew consisted of Ben and I, our two girls, and two of my sisters. It was very fun and relaxing. On Saturday we actually enjoyed the nicest weather I've ever seen there!

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A calm evening at Grandpa's house

Who looks like Grandpa?

Cousin Eloise isn't so sure about Helen