Merry Christmas!

We've had a wonderful year with the addition of Hannah and despite the minor illnesses, the kids are healthy and happy. Andrew and I both still have jobs, so you can't beat that and we adore our kids and each other. We've got a happy family and love watching our kids grow and do new things. We hope everyone can experience this joy. I'm a day early, but we wanted to wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and a properous New Year. Hope to see you all in 2008!

Love,

The Marlers ~ Andrew, Traci, Ian, and Hannah

Hannah at 5 months

Our little or should I say big girl. She's alittle over 17 pounds now. We were talking to a neighbor's friend two weeks ago and they had a little baby girl. I asked how old she was. The father said 11 months. So, he asked me how old was Hannah and I said 4 1/2 months. He said wow, I think our kids weigh about the same. I said Hannah is 17 pounds, he said, yeah, that's how much my 11 month year old weighs. Everyone is always surprised that she's only 5 months, they think she's like 7 or more months.

Hannah at her 4 month checkup (November 14):

Weight: 16 pounds, 1 ounce, 92%

Height: 25 1/2 inches, 88%

Head Circumference: 17 inches, 94%

Okay, so much to update you on...

Hannah is rolling over these days. As soon as we put her on her back, she rolls over to her stomach. She doesn't quite roll from her stomach back to her back so much but she can do it. She can also hold her head up 90 degrees when on her stomach.

We have Hannah in daycare now. It just worked out better for us. However, 3 days after she started, she got her first cold. She got the stomach virus. It was a whole week of non stop poop. It was just awesome! She's gotten over that now, but at her 4 month check-up, the doctor said she had RSV. It's a respiratory virus that Ian had too, so we had to start giving her breathing treatments like we did for Ian. A week later at the follow-up, the doctor found she had an ear infection. Andrew took her for a follow-up appointment the monday after and the doctor said she's all good. Phew! However, two weeks ago, we took her in because she started to feel warm and her breathing didn't sound good. The doctor said she had a bad ear infection and the RSV wasn't better, so back to the breathing treatments again. We have to give her a breathing treatment every day now, twice a day. The doctor wants to do this for the next couple of months, through the winter season to prevent it from getting worse. I take her in for a follow-up appointment tomorrow and hopefully the doctor will say she sounds and looks much better.

Hannah is such a good girl. She has been so much easier to take care of than Ian. The daycare teachers love her. They said she's like the model baby. She hardly fusses and she's so patient with her loud bigger brother who likes to wake her up. The only time she screams is when she's tired of being on her stomach and when she's hungry. She recognizes the bottle and what it means. So, when she sees it, she expects it right now! If you don't, she screams. She also likes to talk, smile, and laugh.

We've started to put Hannah in the Exersaucer and bouncer. She loves both. She grabs for the toys and puts them in her mouth instantly.

Hannah has popped two bottom teeth and we suspect she's popping another on top. Ian was an early teether, so we're expecting the same from Hannah. We've tried to start feeding Hannah rice cereal but she hasn't really liked it or figured out how to swallow it, so I think we're going to wait a month and try giving it to her then.

Hannah does rasberries as well as talking and shouting, it's so cute. She also loves to grab my hair. I remember now why I kept my hair short when Ian was younger. I'm sure she does a lot more than I'm forgetting to mention, but just know she's the cutest most awesomest little girl. She's our princess.

Ian at 2 years, 5 months

I have to start out with this...Ian pee pee'd in the potty three times two weeks ago! We haven't been working on potty training with him lately, but he told us twice in one day as we were about to change his diaper that he had to pee pee. Andrew took him to the potty both times, he aimed and pee peed in the potty. We were all so excited and happy. We were jumping for joy and giving him praise. What a big step for him. We just hope he keeps this up.

Ian's about 35 pounds and 37 inches tall. People are always telling us that Ian's pretty tall for his age. He's the second tallest boy in his class. Andrew and I don't know how this happened, but we hope it continues.

Ian has his good moments and his bad moments. We'll start off with the bad. He's doing the following but I think it's typical in a 2 year old:

- Throwing things

- Dropping his food

- Hitting Mommy sometimes

- Screaches

- Screams loudly, after we've told him to not scream or use his quiet voice

- Doesn't want his diaper changed

- Doesn't eat sometimes

- Doesn't like to pose or sit down for pictures. He wants to take the pictures now

- Fights us to shower or bath him sometimes

- Fights us to go to bed. It's such a struggle to get him to go to sleep at night or for a nap

And now the good and cute things:

- Loves his sister, he'll go and put a hand on her

- Good helper

- Being a boy, he loves to jump, run, play with trains, cars, and planes

- Bouncing a ball. He's getting pretty good at bouncing a basketball

- Talking. He says so many words now, I can't list them all. Here's some of my favorite phrases "I Like It", "I'm two", "No, it's Sister Marler" (after we say Hannah Marler), "See you later alligator", "Ho Ho Ho Merry Chrismas" (without the t), "Halloweeeen Lightx".

- He corrects us if we pronounce a name wrong such as "No not Papi, it's Popi" or "No, not Kuo Kuo, it's Clifford"

- He can name a lot of the basic colors - Red, Yellow, Blue, Green

- Watches everything, he's so observant and detailed

- He can count up to 16

- He knows the ABC song by heart as well as Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Your Boat, and he knows lots of phrases from songs especially from the Backyardians

- He can do a forward roll

- Can mimic the sounds a police car and fire truck make

- Identifies a taxi cab, ambulance, fire truck, bus, yellow bus, bicycle

- Knows which sodas are mommy's and daddy's and knows daddy drinks beer

- Loves cable cars. When we were in San Francisco, we rode it so many times. He never gets sick of it.

- LOVES his bicycles. He's actually very good with his new bicycle (as well as the old ones) and steering it. He wants to ride them every chance he gets.

New Pictures - New Format

I'm trying a new way of posting pictures to see if it'll be easier for me. It's through Shutterfly Collections where I can have my own web space to post pictures. The added benefit is that you can also order pictures from them directly instead of having to download it from my site and then uploading it to another site for printing. The Photos link below will still take you to the photos, but you can also go to http://marlerfamily.shutterfly.com/ to see all the photos that I've posted on Shutterfly from here on out.

If you want to save any of the pictures to your computer, click on the smaller picture (thumbnail) to go to the bigger picture. Then, right-click and select "Save Picture As". You should then be able to pick a location on your computer to save the picture.

If this new way, doesn't work, let me know.

Finally.....pictures added

I know, it's been a long while since we posted new pictures. The Marler family here has been quite busy. Mommy's back to her busy work schedule. The kids of course have gotten sick and decide that they want to wake up one or two times during the night. I think Mommy's number one wish for Christmas is SLEEP. Sleep feels like such a priviledge now.

I posted pictures that we had on one of our cameras from October until now. We took several pictures on our other camera, but the battery is dead and mommy needs to find where we put that camera. So, more old pictures will be posted when we have time.