Happy Thanksgiving

This year was an especially thankful Thanksgiving with Julia Kate with us AND with most of both of our families together for a major holiday for the first time. It was such a fun, wild time. :)
It started out with our new favorite Thanksgiving tradition, the Williamsburg Turkey Trot. :) While cold, it was a gorgeous morning for running. Everyone ran it except my mom, myself and Julia. We did show up at the last minute though to watch and cheer on everyone else running it.
Gearing up for the big event!
Pre-race…pretending to be turkeys…

Run run run!!
  
Victors!! (minus Nathan, E, and G)
Enjoying the free croissants and trying to stay warm :) 
This picture makes me feel like a slacker but I like it anyway. :)
Nathan’s parents came down too to help cheer on the runners too. :)
After changing and warming up we all headed to Grandma and Grandpa Mortier’s house for cooking and feasting. :) Our friends the McHenrys were there as well and Evelyn and Grace loved introducing their friends to Julia. :)
“She’s this big!!"

Uncle Aaron arrived that afternoon as well and got to meet Julia for the first time!
after introductions everyone (but Julia and me :)) got to work!
The girls had a ball playing while the food cooked.
With so many musicians in one house there was bound to be much playing and singing of Thanksgiving songs and after dinner, even some Christmas songs :). Here are pictures of just a few of them.

This very full day ended quite well with multiple kinds of delicious pie enjoyed by all. :)

Settling in...

My hope all along with this pregnancy was that I’d be home for Thanksgiving and I was SO thankful that not only was I home, but little Julia was with us out of the womb, not still in. :) She was born on Monday and I was able to come home Tuesday afternoon. Katie arrived late Tuesday night for the Thanksgiving festivities and the rest of my family came Wednesday. It was very nice having all the help as we settled in.
Wednesday morning Gracie couldn’t wait to come see her baby sister and introduce Aunt Katie to her!

Both girls are very concerned when Julia is upset. Evie’s solution the first night home was to make silly faces at her and try to get her to laugh instead of cry. Haha - I’m not sure Julia fully appreciated it, but the rest of us enjoyed her idea. ;)
Julia gave the girls this new kitchen as her new baby gift and its fulfilled its purpose quite well providing hours of entertainment as we settle in. :)
One of Nana’s gifts that she brought were water babies with baby bath tubs. Evelyn and Grace have loved them and were quite pleased to give their babies baths as we gave Julia her first bath. :)
Comforting Julia after her traumatic bath experience. ;)
Gracie is enjoying her role as one of the big girls very much and has become quite the little mama to all her babies, imitating whatever we do. :)
We certainly enjoyed our first, busy days at home!

Welcome Julia Kathryn!

It’s hard to believe it was just a week ago that little Julia Kathryn arrived!
Julia Kathryn Mortier
7 pounds 13 ounces, 20in long

She arrived rather quickly and in our rush to get to the hospital, we didn’t grab the computer. This meant that my carefully put together list of who to email, text, and otherwise contact along with all the contacts was left behind. I’m sorry everyone had to find out through Facebook, I was kind of too much in a daze to even think about the fact that I could text people. :)
Monday was Julia’s due date and while I’d been having sporadic contractions since Sunday night, nothing had been regular or that painful. We had a play date scheduled Monday morning and while the contractions were a little more noticeable, they still weren’t super regular. I didn’t feel great but I felt lame staying home when the girls would enjoy the time with their friends and the contractions would probably stop as soon as I decided to stay home anyway. :p By the time we left the play date at noon the contractions were more noticeable and regular so I decided to start timing them and give Nathan the heads up that he might need to come home early. By 1:00 I was texting Nathan that he needed to come home right then! Grandma Mortier arrived a little after 2 to stay with the girls. It was about this time that I realized I was resisting the urge to push with each contraction and I was still at home! I had a friend who delivered her baby on the side of 199 and I knew this was Nathan’s greatest fear. The 15 minute drive to the hospital was the hardest of my life. Thankfully Nathan is an amazing driver and got us there safely and FAST (I don’t think 90 was ever hit…..maybe?). Julia Kate arrived about 15 minutes later and all four of us are so in love with the newest member of our family!
Poor baby came so fast that she got a little bruised up! Thankfully it all faded within a day.
Some very excited sisters visited that evening.
They wanted me to try on the blood pressure cuff and Evie tried to make it inflate by blowing on it - haha.

Kisses for Julia!

They were fascinated with all her black hair and kept wanting to look at it and feel it. :) Sweet Gracie has some catching up to do I think. ;)
We had several visitors, but only got a picture of Julia Kate and Annette.
We were so glad that we were able to head home the next day. After waiting just a bit for all the dismissal papers to go through, we were on our way!
Worried about the baby…

Rocking her to keep her happy. :)  
More pictures of the big family Thanksgiving celebration and our family of five to come soon! :) We love our sweet Julia Kate!