So much Snow!

Our weekend has been filled with SNOW! We are putting Aaden's new sled to use! So much more snow is coming our way, so there will be more pictures to come.

Today was fun though as Aunt Lacey and Uncle Tim stopped by to play...we raced our sled and toboggans down our hill.

Enjoy some pictures and a video or two.

 Warning: PG-13 rated video. :)

Owee is 4 Months!

I can't believe that 4 months has passed since Owen's birth. We just love having him around so much, it feels like he has always been with us.

He continues to be such a joy for us. He is one happy boy! He had is check-up today and was over the top great! Our pediatrician loves our big, healthy boys! He had five boosters today though, he did great only yelping a little bit. As always, it hurts the Mama more. He's now sleeping the day away, poor guy.

Was anxious to find out his stats --

Height: 27" (100th percentile)!!
Weight: 16lbs 15oz (87th percentile)

These compared to his brother at 4 months --
Height: 26" and Weight: 17lbs 9oz

So we have a longer, leaner boy by an inch and 10oz.

His newest highlight, eating solid food. He has been getting up to eat every 3-4 hours at night, lately. I was just so exhausted and couldn't keep up that we decided to try sweet potatoes and oatmeal cereal this last week. Here are his first adventures with eating and drinking out of a bottle:

 Huh!? What's this?!

 Ohhh, I like it!

 ...and I couldn't resist not sharing these baby blues!

Aaden also wants me to share his adventures at the park. We have had a string of sunny, all-be-it cold days, so have taken to the outdoors. He loves it!

Such a big boy, over the summer he needed help scaling this TALL latter. Now he just easily climbs on his own. So independent!

Christmas Week

We had a lovely holiday spent with family. The best part was having Kristofer home for nine days in a row! We started the Christmas weekend off by having a quiet Christmas Eve at home with the boys. We had our traditional clam chowder and then headed to the candlelight service at church. It was beautiful and is always the highlight for me, singing Christmas hymns by candle light. Christmas morning we opened our stockings in bed together and then gifts by the tree and ate our traditional Christmas breakfast. It was so fun to celebrate as a family of four together!

In the afternoon we headed to Tim and Lacey's house for a Mensonides/Dobelstein/Haak/teVelde Christmas. There were so many people there and tons of food and presents!

A few days later my folks came to town and we did Christmas Eve 2 at Jonathan and Megan's house. The next morning/day we did Christmas 2 all over again. So fun!

New Years day was spent with the boy's grandparents. What a great week it was!

Dobelstein Christmas Newsletter

We are trying something a little different this year with our Christmas letter, saving paper and writing it on our blog! If this is your first time visiting us, welcome! For those of you who visit regularly, most of this will be old news.

Our year in review -

• We found out we were expecting our second child, days after the New Year.
• This pregnancy was a doozy for the Mom, so winter was spent mostly in doors trying to keep a 2 year old entertained.
• Spring was a welcome relief and also when we we found out we were expecting boy #2!
• While the Summer weather was not nearly as nice as we had hoped, there were still many days spent outdoors, playing in the sandbox, gardening (Kristofer's new hobby) and barbecuing. 
• We made our annual trek to Black Butte, OR with Sarah's family in addition to some good friends tagging along. We rested, swam, enjoyed the heat and were sad to come home.
• We welcomed Owen Philip into our lives on September 7th. To read more about his epic birth, click here.
• The Fall has been a season of adjusting to life as a family of four (+ the craziness of our dog, Emma)!

Kristofer is still a hardware engineer at Dynon Avionics, January will mark his 6th year there. He continues to fix broken hardware and dabbles in some hardware design as time permits. Over the summer he began the Lean Manufacturing/Six Sigma certification program at Everett Community College. He took a number of classes and is looking forward to resuming them soon. In his spare time he has enjoyed gardening, planting perennials in our yard, fly fishing with his father-in-law and being an all around awesome dad!

Sarah is in her second year of being at home full time. While the addition of a second child provides more challenging, she is still loving it. She has had more time to work on sewing projects and enjoys craft days with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. She also started an all mom's book club and while they are currently on "baby hiatus" (3 of the 6 moms had babies this Fall), she is hoping to pick it up again in the new year. She continues to enjoy reading and as of last count has "devoured" nearly 70 books this past year.

Aaden turned 3 at the end of October. His personality is definitely all 3 these days! He is still the sweet, caring and easy-going guy most of the time. But, the occasional fit is a sight the behold. We are working on listening! He is definitely working on figuring out what he wants! As for being a big brother, he is warming to the idea. With prompting and a little reminding he gives his sweet "Owee" kisses and hugs. Just yesterday he told us that he can't wait for his brother to be big enough so he can play cars with him. Melted our hearts.

Owen is the sweetest, most content baby. He's growing nearly as quickly as his older brother and eats/sleeps like a pro. For his recent update, see the blog post below (3 months).

We are looking forward to the year ahead, thankful for our health and for the support of our families.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! ~Kristofer, Sarah, Aaden and Owen

Photos taken by: http://www.lifedefinedphotography.com/

3 Months

Today marks Owen's 3 months. I know everyone says that time flies, but wow does it! At the same time, Owen fits so perfectly into our family that I can't hardly remember it without him.

A few highlights:
1. Owen is sleeping through the night, usually 7-9 hours and than another 3-4 hours after one quick feed. I'm loving the extra sleep finally!!

2. He loves his naps. He usually naps between 10-12:00pm, 2:00-4:00pm and than another short nap around 6:30-7:30pm. He's also been going to bed consistently at 8:30pm every night. The schedule is working out perfectly for us!

3. He is a chatty, smiley and happy little guy. During his awake times, he loves to look at your face, talk to you and laugh. He is perfecting his sweet chuckle, which will just melt your heart when you hear it.

4. He LOVES his big brother. He watches his every move and tries his hardest to get him to interact with him. Aaden is getting better at showing him affection, but is usually more interested in playing with his toys.

5. He's a chunk, just like his brother! He's also lost most of his sweet red/brown hair. Excited to see what it will look like when it starts to grow back in.

6. I keep saying..."I can't believe he's an even more easy-going kid than Aaden". We are truly blessed!

Trimming the Tree

This year we didn't make it out to cut the tree as a family. I'm sad that we didn't get a chance to have Owen out hunting for his first tree this year...but between an infant's feeding schedule, a toddlers nap schedule and all the weekend errands that needed to be run...we just didn't make it out there together. Kristofer thankfully was able to make the trek out alone and hunt for, cut down and come home with a pretty little Fraser fur.

When we got Aaden up from his nap, he was in awe! He remembers last Christmas and was very excited to start the decorating for this Christmas. He helped me during the week get the house decorated, Sunday all that was left was the tree. We snapped a few pictures of him helping put up some of his favorite ornaments. I'm so happy that he has such fond memories already of some of the same ornaments that were my favorite as a child.

 His favorite airplane ornament...

 Hanging with care! 

Loving the 4 stockings too!!

 The wagon is almost 30 years old, one of my favorites!

Taking his job seriously!

Owen Philip's Baptism

The long holiday weekend was topped off by having Owen Philip baptized at my parent's church by the pastor who married us. It was so special to have both of our extended families and close friends there to celebrate. Owen wore a baptismal gown that was 130 years old, he was the 6th generation of children to wear it (on my mother's paternal side). My brother Jonathan and his wife Megan are Owen's God parents. Here are a few photos that other's snapped for us on the special day: