Let's hear it for the boys

Let's give the boys a haaaaaaaand...

Here is Caleb's very dramatic and suspenseful talent show act for his school.

You'll notice the confusion at the beginning because the coordinators turned on the music too soon...and maybe you'll wonder how one of the skinniest kids ended up in the bottom center of the pyramid (big mistake) but will they recover?  Will Caleb be a Talent Show flop or a Talent Show hero???  

We think the answer is clear.

Guess which Hahl boy this is in the striped socks???

Answer: this guy.

 Quin wanted us to shoot a video while we were sledding down the hill so he could feel the sensation of sledding, even from Tennessee.  Actually, he wanted me to do it on Skype with my laptop.  Here's my compromise:

Here are some post wipe-out pics

This was Brooksie's first sledding adventure, and when he crashed to the ground, he said, "Oh, man."  

When it's still winter but we're tired of the snow, we go to obscure places like the Waltham Museum of Innovation and Industry where Brooksie won't get into trouble.  Oh yeah, he got into trouble anyway. He ran onto the floor where they were preparing for a bar mitzvah and I had to chase after him with Josie in the baby carrier and then carry him down several flights of stairs. But I digress.  Here we are at the museum where they just so happen to have an old fire engine that you can climb in.  

 Cool, huh?

And we made it another weekend without good weather.  What a relief!  We're running out of random museums, though, so spring had better come soon!

Dose o' Josie

Here is over a month's worth of Josephine pictures!  (She's only been here for two months, so this is pretty much most of her life.)  Here she is in her cute Valentine's outfit that Aunt Ainsley gave her.

She often appears a little bit anxious.  "What was I thinking coming to this family???!"  She's about a month old here.

 She loses her hand in her sleeve a lot.  Maybe that's why she's so worried.

 The boys love to read while I feed her...especially Brooksie.

First recorded smile!  Circa 7 weeks

Back to concerned.

And back to happy again!

Two months old and lookin' good.

Cassie, this outfit comes from you!  She rocks her zebra-print leggings. :-)

Here she is one of her church "glory" dresses.  She's always the belle of the ball when she wears this one.  This was her St. Patrick's Day dress because of the small stripes of green on it.  It's hard to find an appropriate holiday outfit for her when just about everything is pink...

See you later!

Ahhh...Boston in the wintertime

Yep.

It snowed about two and a half feet in Boston, but our driveway formed a sort of wind tunnel where a lot of snow in the area collected, so the snow on our driveway was about four feet high, with a drift of six feet on the side of the house.

Good thing we have our boys to help us!

And the boys couldn't have been happier. 

Oliver shoveled for over four hours and made only about 12 feet of progress in our 90 foot driveway.  I went out there for 45 minutes and took care of the rest!  Here's how that happened: I felt kind of bad for Oliver, so I went out there while he was taking a break and started shoveling, despite the doctor's orders.  Within ten minutes, two neighbors had taken pity on the poor new mom shoveling snow, so they helped me out (and one of them had a snowblower.)  Voila! 

Josephine!

She's here!

Our beloved Josephine Serra Hahl made a fashionably late entrance into this world.  It took a while for her to warm up to the idea of being born. I was induced nine days after her due date, and even then, the contractions were pretty weak for the first six hours or so at the hospital. I felt like I needed to hide the fact that I was playing Ticket to Ride online with Karisa so the midwives wouldn't send us home. But when Josie made up her mind to come, she didn't waste any precious time!

She came on fast and furious.

We learned very quickly that she's particular about hats.

And she doesn't like to make her weight public knowledge. (Psst...7 lbs. 11 oz.)

She makes this face all the time when she's upset.  She's got the best pout out of all our kids!

Even the swaddle wasn't enough to calm her, after all she had been through. Clearly, we interrupted her plans with this induction.

Once she finally did calm down, she's been pretty reasonable ever since.  Every once in a while, she flashes her loud-and-angry side again, but she picks her battles carefully.  She has even started smiling--it's a goofy open-mouthed grin that melts your heart.

 

We of course celebrated her big day in the best way we know how.  We think our cake decorator may have had one too many when he tried to design this one.

Here are the presents Josephine gave her big bros:

Candyland to Chase

Lightning McQueen and Mater to Brooksie

A chess set to Caleb

And Wii Sports for everyone!

Here we are, the happy couple with our first daughter. 

Sorry to bore you with more photos, but Ain, if you ever give birth at Mt. Auburn Hospital, you want to get this room...#514.  Corner room with a great view of the lovely River Charles.

See?

Here she is coming home to her beautiful yellow palace!

This is more what she looks like now.  Her eyes have gotten bigger and she's very thoughtful.

Here's her cute room.  Thank you to both moms for helping us to rethink the hard-core jock theme we had going before.  We love the new look!

Oma covered up all the holes in the wall with a piece of the dust ruffle.  Genius!

Cabey and Chase's latest

Caleb on his first day of Cub Scouts

and Chase at swimming lessons.  Notice the wet hair...he's not afraid anymore!

Christmas Cheer

 The boys got to meet Santa at Barnes and Noble this year.  Caleb has gone from agnostic to atheistic about Santa over the past year, but he made sure he was first in line.  He told Santa that he wanted The Essential Pokemon Handbook, which he ended up getting for Christmas. :-)

 Chase thought really hard, but he couldn't think of one thing to ask for.  Not sure if that's refreshing or frustrating for Santa.

 

We loved adding characters to our advent calendar.  Oma and Alyson made this magnetic one and it has been a huge hit.

Here's Caleb at Longwood Gardens outside of Philadelphia. We went there for the carol singalong at the organ and for the Christmas lights.  Basically the entire city was there with the same idea, and the way you stayed happy in the cold was to drink hot cocoa.  It tastes even better when you're missing a few teeth. :-)  Caleb impressed us with his good attitude, even though we spent a good portion of the night trying to handle Brooksie's craziness or searching for lost family members...we're still debating who was lost and who was in the right place!

Hahl family boys