Merry Christmas

Make Aheads

For those of you who know me well, you'll remember that I LOVE organization! My friends joke but I really do love my label maker :) Orderliness (is that a word?) makes me very happy. A part of being well organized is planning ahead.

Having a newborn in the house makes both organization and orderliness (I say it's a legitimate word) difficult or near impossible. Especially when it comes to meal planning. Through God's kindness, extended through our amazing church friends, we've had meals delivered for the past two weeks. It was great not having to shop for, plan and cook dinners for two weeks. I never wanted it to end! But end it did. Now I'm trying to figure out, again, how to plan meals for this growing family of ours.

We are still involved in our dinner co-op which takes care of three of seven nights but what about the other four?

I found these recipes that look delicious and might be the perfect answer.

I love using fresh ingredients. Especially fresh fruits and vegetables because we never seem to get enough of those. And I love using my crockpot, because it's EASY! So these recipes seem like the perfect combo.

photo from Mama and Baby Love Blog

What's even better is you can plan ahead (YAY!) and freeze these crockpot meals for as needed. LOVE IT. I can't wait to try them and thought you might like them as well.

This busy mom wants to know: how do you plan/prepare/think ahead for meals for your family?

The Newest Big Brother

 

Being a big brother is a big responsibility. I was the oldest of four children so I know the burden that can be. I frequently share with my oldest boys the importance of their own example to their younger siblings, of their need to contribute to the responsibilities of the home and most importantly, how to love the little ones. It’s not easy to do, but through it all comes maturity, patience and gentleness for young children.

In my experience, I’ve found that when you have subsequent children, the most commonly asked question is this…”is the youngest child jealous of the new baby”. Truthfully, I’ve never had that problem with my first two boys. They were genuinely excited and happy when the new baby arrived. Then again, the first three were all three years apart. This is the first time I’ve had children so close together (2 years apart). So I wondered (and mostly feared) how Austin would react when Evan came along.

To my delighted surprise, he has been the MOST loving, the MOST thoughtful and the MOST concerned for the baby! I am so blessed with wonderful children. Sure it’s difficult for him to learn to wait for Mommy and it’s a hard lesson to realize you can’t have what you want when you want it, but, he deeply loves his little brother.

He wants to help at every turn and is the first to let us know when the baby is crying. Sometimes, it’s the first thing he asks when he wakes in the morning is “Bebe?” Meaning, where is the baby?

All that to say, our 2 year old is genuinely enjoying being a new big brother!

A Golden Birthday, turning 9 on the 9th.

This month, we celebrated two births, one week apart. First, the birth of our fourth son, Evan. Second, the birthday of our first son, Jacob. I would love to know how other families celebrate sibling birthdays that are so close together. My brother and sister were born on the same day two years apart and I know they did not always appreciate sharing birthday parties. Does this just mean we're destined to spend two of our December weekends having back-to-back birthday parties? Maybe I should ask my sister-in-law who has 3 of her 6 children's birthday's in May.

Jacob looks forward to his birthday each year and likes to think of fun and creative ways to celebrate. So this year, he wanted to have a Lego party. Because of Evan's birth, we knew it had to be low key but I still wanted to make it fun. So we invited two very close friends...

built some Lego sets...

and ate some Lego cake!

The very next day, Jacob was hard at work on his birthday present. An 800 piece pirate ship. Needless to say, he was a very happy boy! Happy Birthday Jacob.

Guess Who

Having the privilege of being an all boy family is fun to think about. Counting up the gazillion sports events we'll go to, times I'll have to say "boys, go wrestle outside" and hospital visits we'll end up making, makes me think, "you gotta love boys!".

Each one of them is so unique. Fearfully and wonderfully made by their Creator. When Jacob was born, we were amazed at how adorable the combination of Ian and I were. When Nathan was born, we thought he looked EXACTLY like Jacob (even though he doesn't). When Austin was born, we thought he looked like a perfect combination of his two big brothers.

Recently with Evan, we couldn't see any of the boys in him. He looked like his own person. So what do you think? Who does he resemble most?

Any way you look at it, he is now a part of one handsome bunch!

Evan-"God is gracious"

His name says it all about this little-big guy!

God has indeed been gracious to us. Gracious to answer prayer, gracious to give our family another beautiful son and gracious to grant us a safe delivery and healthy baby.

Evan Manny Jorgensen was born at 11:35pm on December 2, 2011 to two very proud parents. Weighing in at 9lbs 6oz and 22 in. long, he is officially the biggest of all the boys.

The boys couldn't wait to meet their new little sibling and were surprised relieved to find out he was a boy. Nathan was most anxious to love on his new little brother and only gave up holding him when he declared "Mom, this baby is making me hot".

He smells so sweet. His skin is so soft. He is so fun to snuggle. We love him already and are so glad he's finally here!