{ike}

isaac brian rabe

born january 24, 2012

10:13pm

7lb 7oz

20 inches long

my delivery went just fine.  a little longer than i usually have been but by far the most special because jake delivered our baby.  my doctor didn't even get all scrubbed out.  he was by my side like a husband.  jake did the whole thing!  seriously a very neat moment.  and i have to say that doctor rabe did a fabulous job.  i only had to give three pushes and ike was out.  and so perfect.  i have to give myself some props because ike was our biggest baby.  a whole 2 pounds more than luke.  i did my job. 

the first time the crazies got to meet ike!  they were so excited.

nolan is a fabulous big brother.  as soon as he got to the hospital he asked if he could hold ike.  and he hasn't stopped asking since.  nolan especially likes it when ike grabs his finger.  there is lots of love at our home.  this baby has made our place so much brighter.

grammy was so kind to fly out and watch the crazies. she flew in the day i delivered so it worked out perfectly.

ike is so amazing.  i have missed having a newborn around. i love kissing his soft little head all day.

nolan has taken quite a liking to little ikester.  he gives him kisses all day long.  and whenever i change ike and he cries nolan tells me, "mom, don't make isaac sad."  such a good big brother.

nolan insisted on taking a funny face picture.  he has been really in to that lately.

we are so in love with this boy.  our family feels so complete with him here.  i am one lucky girl to have four amazing men in my life.  now i'm going to go snuggle my ike and take a nap.  i'm tired.

{before and after}

we have been doing some work in our home since we moved in.  i thought it would be fun to do some before and after pictures.

here is what our kitchen looked like before we moved in.

the walls were a nasty ivory color when we bought the house.  with a little paint magic and jake putting in our subway tile backsplash the kitchen has been transformed.

here it is now.

jake did such a great job on our back splash.  

and here is the table that we painted.  we seriously live at this table.

and here is how my states turned out.  i love that all my kids were born in a different place.

i wish that you could see the kitchen in person because the pictures don't do it justice.  we love our kitchen now!!!

since we are doing before and after shots i thought i would show you what our living room looked like before we moved in and before we got things going.

they had the walls a very gross green.

and here is what it looks like now.

the reason i am showing the living room again is because we have a new addition to the room..................

my new rug!!!!!  i'm so in love with it!!!!  the living room is slowly coming together.  i can't wait to start working on some pillows. 

having a home is so much fun.  the next room we are going to tackle will be the dining room.  it is a very sad sight right now.  i have so many ideas for it.  until then...

{robots}

we like to keep things interesting around our house.  jake decided one night after dinner to make some robots.  the boys are really in to that right now because of the movie "astro boy."  these are quite the hit at our place.  we are easily entertained if you couldn't tell.

watching the boys makes me laugh.  they are so much fun.  i can't wait to see what this next little man is going to be like.  i think we are in for it.

when the crazies aren't pretending to be robots they like to watch diego.  i couldn't help but take a picture of all of them sitting totally in to "go diego go."  they are my little zombies.

{christmas day}

i seriously love christmas.  i don't know if it's because i loved it so much as a child and i love seeing my kids get so excited but it is wonderful.  we really tried to focus on the savior this christmas.  i kept asking the boys why we celebrate christmas and they would say, "it's jesus' birthday mom."  i loved hearing that. 

we also tried to get them thinking of giving instead of getting.  so we had the boys pick out their gifts for the cousins and a gift out for each other.  i think each year they will understand it a little bit more.  

i feel so blessed to have my family.  i love my husband so much and i'm in love with my children.  we can't wait for this next little guy to get here.  (mostly because i'm done with caring him inside me.)  we have really been looked after by our heavenly father.  

ok, enough with all the sappy stuff.  christmas morning started out with the boys waking up around 7.  we only opened stockings and whatever gifts that santa brought out.  then we got ready for church.  jake and i had to speak so we needed to look our best and be early to church.  but the boys did wonderful.  they didn't mind being ripped from their toys because they knew we had more presents to come home to.

this is what "santa" left the boys.

i don't know where i went wrong with teaching my boys to smile.  they must get that from their father because i am not like this with a camera.

lukie having fun with the new tools.

the kitchen was a hit.  the boys played with the food and made us stuff all day.  and now if we have girls over to play, they will have something other than trucks.

but i think the biggest hit for toys was luke's car carrier and nolan's garbage truck.

let me tell you we searched high and low to get this particular garbage truck.  they were sold out everywhere.  we finally ordered it online but it came without the garbage can so we had to take it back to the store the next day.  interestingly enough, they had plenty in the store the next day, like they knew we were going to be coming.

we also got the boys some remote control cars.  the boys like them but not as much as jake did.  

we were so blessed this christmas from family back home.  this marks our second christmas in a row not visiting family.  i miss seeing everyone but i do enjoy just being able to relax. 

later on that day we went over to our friends the monroe's.  they made a fabulous ham dinner.  the kids just played and we laughed and enjoyed the rest of the day.  christmas was perfect!

new year's was a little boring.  jake had to work.  which is totally fine because we had him for 6 days during christmas.  but it wasn't as fun as last year.  jake did manage to get home just before midnight so we acted like we were 80 years old, gave each other a kiss, and went to bed.  i blame it all on me.  i'm so done with being pregnant. 

i'm looking forward to the new year.  my birthday, the baby coming, and me getting my butt in gear.  i will be working out like you wouldn't believe.  it has been way too long.  i miss going to the gym so bad!!!  so here's to the new year.  i know it will be better than the last.