First week home

Thankfully I have a husband who isn't afraid to do some blog posts to mark things like birthdays since he knows I won't get around to it! :) Here are some pictures of our first week at home with Tirzah (minus the birthday stuff which you have already seen).

On Monday night Camille came over to meet little Tirzah Camille for the first time. (No, the name is not just a coincidence!) :)


Greg stayed home all day on Monday, worked half days Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then had Good Friday off, too. Between that, Mom Beutel coming over two mornings, and Mom Rassi one afternoon, the week went pretty well!

Our little Tirzah...she's so pretty. :)

Carmen brought Kate, Lincoln, and Creighton over one afternoon to meet Tirzah...Max and Nora were still napping when they came, but at least Kate got to hold the baby! (I love those curls!)

One of the afternoons that Greg was home, he and Max made homemade playdough after naptime. Max got to 'help' stir it while it cooked.

Ta-da! A snowman!

I have been very excited that Nora's hair is long enough to get a tiny ponytail now! It's so cute! :) Of course, it never stays in for very long.

Just a Nora face.

On Wednesday night, Rustin, Sharon, Grace, and Eden came over. Here are the crazy kids, minus Tirzah who slept through all the hubbub in her bouncy seat. Gotta love newborns and their amazing power to sleep through anything they choose!

I did a mini photo shoot with the kids and Tirzah on Thursday. Here are the sisters:

...and the protective big brother:

Thursday night Dad Beutel finally got home from his 3 week business trip to Asia/Europe (China, Singapore, India, Germany). His meal of choice for the night? Hamburgers, green beans, and boiled potatoes. Guess he had plenty of seafood and strange veggies on his travels. :) Here he got to meet Tirzah for the first time!

Of course we had to get a pic of Annika and Tirzah...5 weeks apart, but Tirzah looked so tiny next to her older cousin! It's amazing how quickly babies lose their 'newborn-ness.' Annika has never looked so grown up to me until we saw them side by side. :)

Only the boys from our family went to church on Easter Sunday. Nora was acting funny and went back to bed at 8:30, not waking up until 12:30! I'm not sure what her deal was, but she was completely normal when she did finally wake up. I didn't really mind, since Tirzah isn't too loud yet and I was able to sit and listen to the service in peace and quiet. I probably heard more of it than Greg did! :) It made me think of Christmas Day when our whole family was home because of sickness. I was thankful to be home with a new baby and sleeping Nora this time instead of feverish kids!


Sunday after church, my brother Philip came over to meet Tirzah, but somehow I didn't get a picture of him with her. We stopped by the Rassi/Schweigert gathering just to say hi to a few of the family, and then went to Dad and Mom Beutel's so Max, Nora, and Elena could do an Easter egg hunt. They're getting pretty good at it!

Elena let Nora wear her extra pair of bunny ears. :)

I love how her tongue is sticking out...finding these eggs takes concentration!

Cute little E-bops with her pink bunny ears.

Poor Tirzah is definitely a third child. She's eleven days old and Greg and I realized last night she hasn't had a bath since the hospital. This morning she was awake for a while after I fed her so I decided to give her one. (Max and Nora were still sleeping, too.) She did okay, but it wasn't just her favorite activity ever! She was clearly not impressed with Mommy's attempt to warm up the bathroom with the space heater. :)

All clean and smelling good!

Finally warm and dry...ready for a nap!

Just thought I'd journal a little bit here about Tirzah...she has been a very good baby, even though I know she's not even 2 weeks old. She wakes up once or twice at night and usually goes 3 or 4 hours between feedings, unless she has a wakeful period. Sometimes during the day she's awake for a couple of hours, in which case she eats (snacks, really) more often. So far I have had to nurse her to sleep pretty much all the time. I have been so spoiled by Nora who, almost from day one, only wanted to be laid down and would fall asleep by herself. No rocking for her! I'm thinking Tirzah is going to be a rocker...just like her brother Max. I'm trying to get her to take a paci so I don't have to always nurse her to sleep, but so far she's not too impressed with it. All in all, though, Tirzah is living up to her name's meaning...she truly is our delight! :D