Trudy rolled over!

Yeah, that's right, she's movin' and groovin' and rollin' over these days! Check out her fabulous video for a slice of Trudy's life.

Backlog of photos and lots of video

Here's the pictures from the past couple of months. Enjoy!!

If you haven't been to the site recently (like me :)), please take a look at the previous videos section, which has some video links that never appeared in the "Latest video" sections for Trudy, Lenny and Faye.

Ed and Trudy on Trudy's one month birthday.






Lenny practicing his wrestle-mania moves on a ball.









Faye snuggling with Iggy.






Lenny helping make cookies.







Faye helping to make cookies.










Trudy wearing my favorite baby-science tee, "Ontogeny Recapitulates Philogeny." Which is a fancy way of saying that the phases of development a baby goes through in utero mirrors the way scientists believe we may have evolved as a species. Makes one think about the miraculous nature of evolution, hunh? Who says there's no God in science?

Trudy looking all pudgy.







Lenny and Faye catch up with their reading on the couch with Iggy.






Ed took Lenny and Faye to the woods and got some super cute pics of them: holding hands....





and hugging!







Lenny practices his bat moves for Halloween.










Faye is uncertain whether or not that spider cookie should be eaten.






Lenny says, "I LOVE CANDY!!!! Yay, Halloween!!!!"









Ed tackles pumpkin carving with the twins. What a brave man!






But as you can see he does most of the work. He's not foolish enough to arm Lenny and Faye with knives!





Here's my Grandma Gottmann with all three of the kids on Halloween.







Trudy was a pumpkin.










Lenny was a bat.











Faye was a butterfly.










Lenny and Faye with my Grandpa Gottmann.

Trudy update

Things are moving along at the Bannon household. Trudy is certainly keeping me on my toes. Just when I think I won't be able to handle having three kids, she sleeps 7 hours through the night or behaves like an angel all day. Then when I think, "This is totally easy!" she gets me by getting up every two hours at night. Oh well, at least it's not boring. Check out the latest video widget up on the right, now we have Trudy on video for your viewing enjoyment.

Cuteness all over

Just a few pictures I meant to put up earlier in the week, before I got sidetracked by going into labor!

On Wednesday, Faye decided it would be fun to dress up in her father's socks and shoes and grab her cell phone to make some calls.




























Here's Lenny just relaxing and playing a little T-ball.






And then smiling for the camera.







And here's Miss Trudy, three days old and looking cute (and sleepy). We took her to the pediatrician on Saturday for a quick, regular check up and the doctor said she looks great. We couldn't agree more!

And baby makes three

She finally came!!!!! That's right, after much complaining on my part, Trudy finally picked out her birthday, September 3rd. After having been sent home from the hospital on Saturday for not being in full labor, I was a bit reticent to believe the time had finally come late Tuesday night, but by 11:30pm my contractions (which had been going on for four and a half hours by this point) were 5 minutes apart and there was no denying that she was on her way.

We made it to the hospital in record time (Thank You, Ed!!!!) and a few hours (and one mercifully easy labor) later, I had my baby girl! Everything went so well that I was able to go home the next day and we've been getting settled into our routine ever since.

Ed gets to snuggle with Trudy minutes after she was born. Having a full term baby is so much more fun than having her whisked off to the NICU right away!







I also got to hold Trudy since my insides stayed on the inside this time!








Look at that chubby baby!

40 weeks and 2 days

Yes, Trudy has decided to stay a little longer in her comfy, snug spot and we're officially overdue. And while that's fairly normal (both my brother and I were late pregnancies for my mom), it's maddeningly frustrating! Anyway, here we are:

Time to catch up....

It seems like every few months or so I'm putting up a post that starts out, "So I know it's been a long while, but..." Well, it has been a long while, almost all summer, but we've been out enjoying ourselves, so there's no crime in that. To cover the backlog of photos (something I wanted to do before Trudy shows up), let's just get started.

Here's Faye dressed up in her jams and my heels.










Faye makes her fish face at Lenny as he angles for a spot in the toy box.






But as you can see he eventually gets in.






Then they settle in for some goofing around on the couch.




I decided to take an art class on Saturdays this summer, so Ed got to spend Saturday mornings with the kids (which they all loved). Here they are at the mini-airplane field by our house.



Faye is astonished by the small planes.











And Lenny was equally entranced.







Even though our summer has been mild, Lenny and Faye enjoyed celebrating the Fourth of July with popsicles in our backyard.




As you can see, they were thoroughly enjoyed. Yeah, Kool-Aid popsicles!!!!






The week after the 4th is usually when all the Bannon grandkids come into town for Grandparents Camp. As their "camp site" was more of a swamp this year due to the Rock River flooding, they spent the week doing different activities around Chicago. Here's a picture of 10 of the 14 grandkids at the Lincoln Park Zoo. What a day that was!!!!!

Later in July, we got together for a small welcome party for Trudy (like a baby shower but not quite). Here's Nana with her first three grandkids, all three just as cute as can be!







As July rolled on, we wound up spending a lot of our time in the back yard, sucking down popsicles, playing in the sandbox and being hosed down by Mommy. Faye takes a moment to savor her treat.







Lenny, looking like a hippy because I haven't gotten around to getting his hair cut, enjoys a cool treat too!








The sandbox is always popular.







But not nearly as much as the sprinkler on a hot, sunny afternoon!










Lenny and Faye amuse each other through the sliding doors at our house.










Finally, here I am (with Trudy) at 36 weeks. You can see I've soaked up some sun running around with the kids this summer. It's been great and now we're just waiting for Trudy to make her appearance in order to make everything complete!

Tubby time...

Since the babes were born, I've been waiting for them to wear these bath towels of their own volition and finally (with the help of a bedtime story that talks about being wrapped up "cozy warm" in a towel after a bath) they let me.

Faye actually smiles in her bunny towel instead of ripping it off of her head as she has every other time she's worn the towel.








Then a big yawn.










A view of the bunny head.










And a shot of her name on the back.










Lenny just barely tolerates his hippo.










A shot of the hippo head.










And the best we could do at getting his name. I guess cozy warm just isn't Lenny's style!