4 Week Picture

Professional Pictures of Caroline and Family

Click on the picture to see the rest of them.

At the hospital

Here's a quick video of Tessa meeting Caroline at the hospital

Christmas Morning Video

I've been sick

Hopefully soon we'll be back up and running and I'll update on Christmas and Caroline. But for now I'm uploading the Christmas morning video...

3 Week Picture

Play time

Christmas Season

Before Thanksgiving, yes Thanksgiving, we took Tessa to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops. She said she was "a little bit scared", however she skipped down the aisle to sit on his lap. And the whole way she was saying "choo choo, choo choo", as she has decided that this is what Santa is bringing her for Christmas this year. Tessa was very excited about seeing Santa, and would have liked to have sat on his lap for a lot longer... We also took her to the Kennedy Krieger Festival of Trees, the highlights for Tessa were not the trees...but the train ride and merry-go-round.

Not sure why, but she has decided that this face is smiling...

Our girls in their Reindeer jammies.

Putting the star on the Christmas tree with Dad.

The train garden at Kenilworth...again not a big hit with Tessa this year, maybe next year?

All dressed for her Playgroup Christmas Party

All the kids checking out Santa at the party. Sitting on Santa's lap.

34th Street Lights

A family picture, even Caroline braved the cold to see the lights.

2 Weeks of Help...

Tim and I (and Tessa for that matter) have been very fortunate to have had Nana and Mimi with us for the last two plus weeks. Things should get interesting around here tomorrow when Mimi leaves...I'm sure there will be much less blog posting going on. So I'll give a quick update on the past two weeks.

Tessa is doing amazingly well with Caroline. There doesn't seem to be any jealousy...at least not yet. She is starting to understand that babies sleep a lot. She is always asking to hold Caroline, and loves to help change her diapers and put lotion on her. She is as helpful as any two year old. She puts cream on Caroline, and takes the dirty diaper and puts in the pail, and then puts the wipes/cream/mat away. I'm very lucky! She loves to give Caroline kisses, and most of the time they are gentle. Anytime Caroline starts crying Tessa starts singing "Twinkle Twinkle".
Outside of her involvement with Caroline, Tessa continues to be a "2 year old". Most of the day she is very well behaved, but of course there are times where she doesnt listen, or purposefully does things she knows she's not supposed to do. Hopefully I'll be able to get the two of them out of the house enough, as she does much better when she is kept entertained.

And on Caroline...so far she has been quite the "dream" baby. She is generally happy and content. The only time she really cries hard is to eat. And she likes to eat every hour during the day (she might eat every hour for 3 hours and then take a 2 hr nap). At night she is sleeping pretty well, she has gone 5-6 hours at a time. And we're obviously hoping that this becomes the norm. By the time Tessa was 10 days old she was already pretty miserable and demanded to be bounced for most of the day, we're hoping that based on the fact that we made it past that point with Caroline that we are in the clear. I'm not sure how I'd bounce Caroline for 4 months with a very active 2 year old...

Hopefully I'll be able to upload some more pictures later, and post about the Christmas prep.

2 Weeks Old

1 Week Old

First Family Picture

Tessa was great while she visited the hospital and met Caroline! She kept saying that she was tiny. She was also very pleased that she was given a "Big Sister sticker". We got some of the visit on video, and when time allows I hope to edit it and get it posted. Assuming all goes fine in the nursery this morning we should be going home real soon.

Caroline Mary O'Neil

Caroline was born at 11:19am this morning, after 4 short hours of labor. She weighed in at 7lbs 4oz. Here's a picture with mom and dad, and one of just her. We are both doing great. And looking forward to seeing Tessa in the next day or so.