Gemma's First Days

Above is Gemma sleeping - aren't they all so beautiful when they are asleep?! :)

Below is a picture of her tiny little feet. I am amazed by these teeny feet ... I don't know why, but they are the tiniest, most perfect things I have ever seen!

My dad and mom came over and we celebrated my dad's birthday. Here is dad below with sweet Monkey3 and Monkey5 sneaking a bit of frosting!

Here is my mom with all the kids:

Here is my dad getting to hold Gemma for the first time - a pretty cool birthday gift IMO!

Here is Monkey1 holding Gemma - look how tiny she is in her arms!

Last week we started Homeschool Band, which has been a GREAT experience so far! Monkey1 is old enough to be in "orchestra" and she has chosen to learn the Violin. She has been in love with the violin since she was a very small child [Vivaldi has always been her favorite composer]. So, the violin seems a fitting choice for her for sure. Here she is with her violin:

Monkey2 is in the "Recorder" class, and he is *fascinated* with his recorder. He is practicing it all the time. He only got his recorder on Friday and he has already learned one song. He is supposed to practice for 10 minutes a day, and he is practicing for more than an hour. He's so cute and so enthusiastic!

Monkey3 and Monkey 4 have a little kid music class while the big kids are in their classes - their class is sort of a "Kindermusic" type class and they both really love it. Though Monkey3 is already learning to play the recorder too because her big brother is teaching her -she is very eager to get her own so she can play with him. I may just buy her one so they can learn together - like they do everything else!

Below is Monkey2 putting together one of the complex lego sets he got for his birthday last month. It would drive me INSANE to have to put together something like that, but he loves it. He amazes me at his little engineering brain... once he got this whole thing put together, then he took it apart and designed and constructed his own space ship designs from the pieces. [He is on the top bunk of his bed in case you are wondering - the only "toddler safe" place in the house! LOL!]


I am doing OK. Recovery has been awful - it turns out that I have a uterine infection. My incision has healed well, but the inside still hurts like crazy and I have a horrible "flu like" body ache and alternate between chills and sweats. *sigh* I am on antibiotics now, but so far [48 hours into it] they aren't helping at all. DH is getting a little freaked out that I'm not responding better. Hopefully it will just take a couple of more days.

It is really killing me to be "down" this long though! I am the kind of person who "hits the ground running" after every birth [not so much because I want to I guess, but because I *need* to] and it is very difficult for me to be "laid up" for this long - we are two weeks post surgery now and I want to be "back to normal".

I hope the antibiotics kick in soon. Leave it to me to get an infection and make this as hard as it could possible be. Geez.