WELCOME BABY CHELSEA!

Chelsea Lorelei Moore

was welcomed with love on

10-20-10

at 7:44 in the evening

weighing 8 pounds, 1 ounce

and 20 3/4 inches long

We love you!

- Jesse, Kristin and big brother Lee.

pictures to follow

as promised...

By the end of this week, Lee will no longer be an only child. Wednesday, (10/20), I am scheduled to be induced so I dedicate this post to him and all of the things that I love about him....at least all of the things I can think of right now!

Lee is such a wonderful son. . He surprises me everyday with new words, ideas and actions.

Here are a few things that I love about him:

Lee is a caring boy. This really came out when I became pregnant. He is much more gentle with me now. He knows that I can't carry him all of the time anymore and does surprisingly well considering the physical attachment he previously had to me. Yeah, I carried him everywhere! Now he is showing a lot of compassion and holding back his aggressiveness while still showing me with lots of hugs, kisses and his own cute way of practically cheering the phase, "I love YOU MOMMY!!!" When Jesse gets home, they get all of that aggression out in a wonderful father-son bonding time.

Speaking of Jesse, Lee has really grown close to his Daddy. Lee started out his life as more of a "Momma's Boy" in that I was around more so it was only natural that he wanted me to do more for him. After we both had full time jobs, it seemed to even out. Now that I'm a full time Momma again, he has bonded more with me, but he doesn't exactly prefer me all of the time. Several times during the week I get asked, "where's Dadda?" to which I reply, "He's at work." Now he usually just says, "Dadda's at work" but there has been more than one occasion where is has...um...."requested" that "MOMMA WORK!!!" Even with his angry tone, I couldn't help but just laugh.

Lee really is a good boy. I find multiple days where he doesn't receive any time-outs. Even recently when he does get a time-out, he often will go to his corner by himself when I inform him his action has granted him a time out. Now if he will just stay there! Oh well, what can you expect from a 2 1/2 year-old.

Lee can be very particular! He loves having choices. I find he can tolerate things pretty well if he has any sort of choice in the matter. For example, when going to the grocery store, Lee use to NEVER want to sit in the shopping cart for any length of time. Now we can ask him which cart he will want to sit in and *presto!* we have a boy who doesn't complain about sitting in a shopping cart. When it seems to get out of hand, we can tell him "it's not a choice." After this he sometimes wants to bargain with us. This doesn't always work, but parenting isn't a perfect system either. At the same time, we have been able to successfully set limits by using the phrase, "Lee, this is the last book. No more books after this." (We started off with this phase for night-time story time but now use it for about anything.) Luckily this works so well, when we start the phase, he finishes it for us and follows it too!

Sometimes, being particular is a good thing. It turns his life into a nice routine. For example, when we go to church, he knows first he plays with his friends and then afterwards, it's playground time! He can also point out the church every time as well as any playground within a 5 mile radius. :) Back to routines...Lee also knows his exact bedtime routine and looks forward to certain aspects like story time and prayer time every night. I probably look forward to our family prayer time every night just as much as he does! It's such a blessing to have a boy who likes to pray.

I mentioned story-time above, but don't get me wrong, that is not the only time during the day that we read. Lee LOVES to read books. We have so many books, we could support a small children's library! He loves to be read to and we love to read to him. I believe this has expanded his vocabulary as he likes to ask, "What's that?What's that?"

Lee is so friendly and imagitive. In the beginning he can be a bit shy, but he warms up pretty easily and loves to play with "friends," especially at a playground setting. He loves chasing and running with his friends and enjoys playdates too....which is super for this Momma! He has also gotten to enjoy alone time too which is cute to watch him play with his toys as his imagination runs wild! I love watching him babble and and have conversations between toys.

I could go on and on....and on. Jesse and I have been so blessed with Lee. He is so precious and we love calling him our son. We can wait to see you as a big brother. Lee, we love you and are so proud of you. We are so blessed.

All about Lee

coming soon!

Changes!

So guess what? A LOT of changes have been taking place! I hope to blog more about them, more currently!

First of all, I (Kristin) quit my job and am a SAHM! (Stay at Home Mom!) I felt with baby girl coming, it was getting so hard to do my job and my stress kept going up while my health was going down. It was a very, very tough decision, but I'm positive it was what I needed to do.

Next, obviously I am getting more and more pregnant! LOL! I was gaining a lot of weight pretty rapidly...say 10 lbs in a month! Luckily, since I quit my job this has slowed down. I think it was stress related because I wasn't sitting around eating all day...or was I? Hehehe!

Now perhaps the most exciting is that we are potty training Lee! Oh yeah. After reading a lot of articles and getting SO MUCH advice, we decided that now is the time. We bought his "big boy" undies and after convincing him that they didn't go on his head or on his arms, we began this adventure. The first day was interesting and eye opening. Second day, he was definitely learning new things, but no "hits" in the potty. At the end of the third day (and spending the whole day nakie), I was wondering if this kid ever was going to get it. Finally, he looks down, says "hurry! hurry!" and runs PAST the bathroom to the other end of the apartment into the living room and sat on his potty and PEED! :) PRAISE GOD! Yes, Jesse tried to credit me, but I think this was all God's doing. We are on day four and still making some progress.

Since I'm on our tiny computer, I can't load pics. For some reason, you need available free space and this one has NONE! How can you use ALL of your free space? Get a tiny computer! :) Be grateful for a blog!!! :) I will try to add more pics later, okay? Okay.

Hoping that another 7 months don't go by....

-The Moores

Looking back on OUR decade

So as we spent the very low-key night bringing in the new year, Jesse stated, "We met 10 years ago....this was OUR decade!" :) Very true honey. And what a decade it was!

Some of the highlights include:

Meeting on a cold December day

Our first date to see Toy Story 2....and then Jesse's car breaking down. :)

Asking me out in espanol!

Dating which includes:

Prom in the decked out Uhaul

The next year flying to Chicago before the prom

Repelling

the boat...that did NOT float

really LONG phone conversations

picnics in the field

high school marching band practices

pep band games

Roses in my locker

Letters to one another

QH family camp every year

Jesse's family becoming my own

Graduating from High School

Jesse going to college...I joined him two years later

Jesse helping through that first year at UIndy

Jesse spending a month in Mexico

Meeting my biological dad

The proposal!

The RA and RD years at UIndy

Getting Eli, our puppy

THE WEDDING!!! <3

The honeymoon!!! :)

Graduating from college as Jesse graduated from Grad school :)

Moving to St. Louis

Getting pregnant!

Jesse getting his first post-grad job!

Going to social work classes at Wash. U.

Finding our church, The Journey

Meeting incredible people from the Malone/Stark community group

HAVING LEE!

Buying an apartment building

Buying a car....while saying goodbye to my beloved Saturn! :(

All of Lee's "first's"

first words

eating baby food, then real food

walking before crawling

first time we knew he understood us (we asked him if he was ready for a bath)

first and second Christmas

Lee's FIRST birthday

Going to South Africa!

Graduating from Wash. U.

Getting my first post-graduate job

Jesse going BACK to school....I don't think he will ever stop :)

Lee's baby dedication

Jesse's first promotion

and many more I can not think of right this minute

It's been a really great last 10 years! It, mostly, flew by. I'm amazed with everything that has happened in this short amount of time. But most of all,

I can NOT wait for the next 10 years!

Happy New Year!