A New Addition

On September 10, 2018, we welcomed another adorable baby boy to our family!

Nehemiah Asher Deen was born at 7:37am and weighed 7 lbs 11oz.

Here he is at seven weeks old when we had our annual holiday card photos taken.

Everyone is changing right before our eyes!

Back to School 2017-2018

Note: I started this post almost two weeks ago and I'm just getting around to finishing it.

We've kicked off another school year.  So far (barely two weeks in), I've received 4 calls from the nurse and two from the assistant principal.  Yeah, it's gonna be one of those years.  Did you know that you need a doctor's note to send cough drops with a kid to school?  

Now, almost a month into the school year, they've managed to bring home one cold and one stomach bug.  Let's hope we are getting past all of the bad things at the beginning and the rest of the school year will be smooth sailing.

Gabe has returned to preschool at St. Francis.  He enjoys it very much, and I get a few hours of quiet time three days a week.  It's a win-win.  I do miss him though.  He has started saying the sweetest thing lately.  When I'm putting him down for nap or bedtime, I give him a hug.  As he squeezes me he says, "Stay here forever."  Melts. My. Heart.

Surprise

I'm not quite sure what prompted me to type in the web address for our blog...boredom..nostalgia...who knows.  So, there I was looking at a picture of Gabe at 2 months old, when I decided I'd try to tap into this thing.  I had to reactivate my Google account first though. Ha!  Hopefully, this process will come back to me.  

Here's a few updates: 

Gabe is three!  Yes, that's right.  He's three years old.  I'm slacking in the potty training department.  We've got the #1 thing down, but going #2 in the potty is a no-go.  It's not happening.  I've tried.  He's tried.  It's just not happening...yet.  His sweetness and excellent manners make up for his lack of pooping in the potty.  He's my good ol' southern boy with his "yes, ma'am", "no, ma'am", and "please" and "thank you".  

Silas is five!  Yep, he'll be in big boy kindergarten this year.  Not only that, he'll be in dual language like his big brother.  (Psst,...this will be my chance to redeem myself on learning Spanish.  I've faked my way so far with Micah.  Google translate is my best friend when it comes to Spanish homework.)

Micah is inching closer and closer to nine years old!  He's my big third grader.  He's sweet, polite and so well behaved.  At this moment he's at Camp Olympia for two weeks.  I miss him dearly, and not just because my dishwasher needs to be unloaded and the trash needs to be taken out.  He's my sweetie and my pal.  He's also my sports star.  He'll be playing kid-pitch baseball this fall and his soccer team will be bumping up to 11u.  

Tom and I haven't changed much except in age.  He's still a geologist and I'm currently a SAHM.

The picture above is from our most recent family vacation.  We took a Disney cruise up the coast of California up to Vancouver.  It was a great trip that the boys keep begging to do again and again.  

Well, that's sums us up currently.  Who knows, I might wait another 3 years before I update this thing again...and maybe not.  Thanks for stopping by.

Gabriel at 2 months old

Ok, so at the time of this post he's already 4 months old...bare with me.  Life's busy!

The Facts:

1.  Weight: 14.72 lbs (94%)

2.  Height:  23 in (48%)

3.  Head Circumference:  16.25 in (97%)

4.  He smiled at me for the first time on my birthday (a few days before he was 2 months old)

5.  He wears 3-6 month clothes and he's moving into size 2 pampers

6.  He likes to be in a sitting-up position and is rather lazy when it comes to putting weight on his legs.

7.  He's eating 3 oz of booby milk every 2-3 hours with only 1 or 2 feedings during the night.

8.  He grunts more than he cries

9.  His hair is a strawberry blonde.  He's showing the beginnings of a mullet.

10.  Like his older brother Silas, he has eczema, but it is easily controlled with zinc.

11.  He's a happy little guy and we love him!

Official Announcement

Better late than never.  Here's Gabriel's official announcement.  

Birthdays

Well, everyone is a bit older than some of my last posts.  Here's a recap of the birthdays.

Micah turned 5 and celebrated with a hockey birthday party.

Silas turned 2 years old and celebrated with a family trip to Build-a-Bear.

Tom also had a birthday.  The candles may not have been a match, but that cake was delicious--the best chocolate cake EVER!

I turned 32 a few weeks ago. Sadly, well kinda thankfully, I don't have any pictures.  I had a cookie cake and I think I ate three quarters of it. Yum!  Thank goodness I'm still nursing.

Gabriel Foley Deen

Gabriel Foley Deen

May 5, 2014

8:01am

8lbs 3oz 19.75in

Gabe was another C-section like both of his brothers.  It was a rather uneventful pregnancy besides the polyhydramnios, or extra fluid.  He was swimming around in there with well over 4 liters of fluid.  My OB said that if my water broke it would be much like two 2-liter bottles exploding.  Yikes!  Thank goodness that never happened!  

We woke up early on Cinco de Mayo and headed to the hospital for the scheduled delivery.  Everything went as planned and we couldn't have asked for a better delivery.  We are so blessed to have Gabe in our lives!

His Name

Gabriel- As many of you know, we had a rather eventful August last year.  Within a week of Tom's diagnosis, we found out we were having #3.  Talk about overwhelming.  I started going to daily mass a few days a week before work.  It was my quiet time. My time to relax and let God carry my worries.  A few weeks in, the reading was the story of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary and telling her she was going to have a baby.  At that time the story spoke to me.  It felt like God was giving us this baby at that exact moment in time to help us get through the rough times and look forward to the blessings of a new baby that were to come.  Gabriel is our angel in a way.  He is our blessing of hope and a future.

Foley- Twelve years ago I went off to Minnesota for the summer to work as a camp counselor.  While I was there, I met this great guy who later became my husband. :)  Camp Foley will always have a special place in our hearts!

Hey Y'all!

Guess what! We had another baby...2 months ago.

Micah 5yr 11mo; Silas 2yr 9mo; Gabe 2 mo

It's funny how my intentions to update the blog more regularly fell through.  Here's my next attempt at reviving this blog.  It seems as though my mommy duties are a bit more time consuming than they once were.  

Here we go again...I'm going to start on the next post now while the baby sleeps and maybe, just maybe I'll get it posted today. Or next week. Or, well, one day.

Hello...

 

 

Hello.  Is anyone out there?

 

Several weeks ago, I scanned through a few blogs I once read regularly.  I even skipped through a few I'd written to see how things have changed.  Seeing that I haven't written in six months, it made me sad that I've missed keeping records of the little things that have happened in our lives.  These boys are growing up and I'm not documenting them. 

 

It all sparked an interest to get back to blogging.  I may not do a full-blown recap of the last six months, but I'll try to hit the high points as well as keep things moving forward.  After all, we have new big things coming.  We're having another boy in May!

 

 



[Micah 5yr 5mo, Silas 27mo, Me 6mo pregnant]

 

As many of my readers know, we have recently experienced the most overwhelming six months of our lives. Per Tom's request, I will not be posting any news regarding his condition here.  If you would like to follow his updates, please email me at talieann@yahoo.com and I will be happy to add you to the email list. 

 





Ears Lowered

When we arrived at Sharkey's, the children's hair salon, and the receptionist said, "Someone with be right with her", you know it's time for a haircut.  I politely said, "She is a he and I realize he's long overdue for this."  Poor thing was so embarrassed.  I felt a little awkward too.

 

 

Here's the final result.

 

And here's his best "cheese" face.

 

I'd say he's all boy again.

I Turned 29...Again

 

Yep, that's right!  I turned 29.  Well, I'm really 31, but my husband is sweet and bought the "29" candles instead.  He knows how to make me feel good. 

It was a pretty ordinary day for me.  I went to work. Same as usual except I got to eat lunch with Micah and Tom.  Micah was out of school for the morning and attending VBS (By the way, he LOVED it).  I scooped him up from church after mass and we met Tom at 5th Street Café, one of our favorites.  I finished out the day at work, but got to enjoy a nice night out on the town with my hubby.  We had a great time!

4th of July

We didn't have an extraordinarily patriotic day, but we did spend some quality family time together.

 

Tom fired up the smoker and smoked a couple of chickens. (I still don't eat beef or pork.)  While that was going, he set up the Slip-N-Slide for the kids.

 

Micah had tons of fun but had a hard time getting over the inflated bump in the middle of the slide.  Silas liked the sprinkler effect the slide made.  He also liked throwing inflated balls at his big brother as he came down the slight hill.

 

 I know this kid is a bit shaggy.  He needs a haircut and I just can't find time to take him that isn't right in the middle of his nap time.  We'll get there one day.

He loves his hand-me-down towel from his cousins.

 

The rest of the day we relaxed on the patio and played with the kids.  Nothing fancy.  Just us being us.  It was good.

 

Hope you had a nice 4th as well!

Graduation Day

June 4, 2013 was a big day for our little guy.  He graduated from Pre-Kindergarten!  Almost 50 kids (two classes)were in the graduation ceremony.  Each class sang and danced to a song or two and then each child had their time to shine on stage as they received their diplomas from their teachers.  It was really sweet.  I may have teared up a bit. 

 

Here are a few clips from the whole ceremony.  Sorry I'm not too savvy with videos and couldn't mix it all into one long video, but here are the highlights:

 

 And we couldn't leave without a picture with his girlfriend Sydney:)