Cooking with Grandma and Grandpa!

After Dad and Carol's Caribbean cruise, they stopped by New York to welcome the newest little Platt! Carol had taken a cooking class on one of the excursions and she graciously shared her newest recipes with us one night. Danielle had a blast 'helping' Grandpa and Grandma prepare dinner.....

And by the way -- it was all WONDERFUL!!!!

Visitors!

We had so much fun with everyone coming out to visit and meet Ashley, but Danielle also had fun visiting with everyone who was here. Here's a few little snapshots of her.....

And I still need to find a few decent pictures of Aunt Linda and Auntie Beth with her....soon, I promise!

Because Aunty Beth asked....

....so I'm posting pictures of Ashley in her swing!

A wonderful tool for Mommy to be able to get some work done when Danielle is napping!

And here she is almost all the way asleep....

...and she's asleep.....and absolutely adorable!!

Ashley Jean Platt

born February 4, 2009 at 9:03pm

6 lbs., 10 oz.

20" long

She's here!!! And she's beautiful!!! (I might be biased....) We're all at home and doing well -- family that's been here is so happy that they got to meet her before having to leave. We had quite a different experience this time around; Danielle was born after 26 hours of labor in the hospital and this time Ashley was born after only an hour or so. I think somewhere in between might be ideal. I was checked at 8:30 and was still only 2 cm, then contractions REALLY picked up and Ashley was born 33 minutes later at 9:03. The nurse was trying to get an IV into me to be able to give me some sort of drugs (I was begging for them) but we never even got that far -- she had to run get help when she glanced down and saw Ashley's head....and so only Bob and Beth were in the room when Ashley joined us! 2 seconds later there were lots of nurses everywhere, but Ashley was already crying on her own before they got there. Anyways, enjoy the pictures and hopefully I'll get around to catching up with everyone soon!

Danielle is very impressed with her new sister -- Auntie Beth had fun helping her to say hello!

Giving the baby a kiss!

Just over a week to go.....

Not that anyone's counting -- okay so maybe I am! It seems like everytime I pass a mirror I am even more ginormous! The baby has dropped, so I feel absolutely huge, and she likes to play at night when I go to bed, so getting to sleep is a trick or ignoring the pummeling from within. Other than that, I can't wait and am hoping the the baby does wait until everyone comes out in less than a week!!!! I can't wait to see everyone!!! Danielle is having fun playing with her babies, and yes, she knows the new baby's name (which a few of you enterprising ones have gotten out of her!). As far as what still needs to be done, I really only have to pack a bag for Danielle (mine is set and ready to go) and finish the grocery shopping. Bob is such a wonderful husband -- I wrote out a list of chores that I wanted to get done this week, and he went through them and put his name by almost all of them and told me that he doesn't want me stressing over them, so he'll do it. What a great man!

Chillin' with Daddy.....

So what do you do on Sunday afternoon when you have a cold and don't feel like running around?

You camp out on Daddy's lap and learn how to play his Tiger Woods golf game.
And by the end of the round, the two year old has figured out how to do it all by herself. She even knew to wait for the scorecard to finish loading before pushing "X" to advance to the next hole........very SCARY!
And at that point, she just wanted to sit on Dad's lap and do everything on her own......

Yes, I am getting LARGE....

So some of you wanted to see just how large I'm getting -- I have 3 1/2ish (but who's counting?) weeks to go......

And then I just have to post a fun picture of Danielle cooking with Mommy.....it didn't really work very well, but we had fun trying. Danielle wanted to do everything by herself and not get any instruction or let Mommy do anything!