Introducing Cooper Joseph

My best friend and sister finally delivered Baby Cooper Joseph Friday Aug. 20th. She was induced Thursday night and went through 20 hours of labor, only to have to endure an emergency C-section. Becky did a fantastic job! When he was born, he weighed 9 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 inches long. Apparently he does not want to be smaller than his cousins! We are very fortunate to have been blessed with this beautiful boy, who came into the world with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and a true knot in the cord. It is a miracle that mom and baby were doing wonderfully after the whole ordeal. I was very disappointed that I could not make it down to see them right after Coop was born since travelling with three newborns is not the easiest thing to do, but I did get to meet him this weekend. Isn't he so cute?!?

Happy mother with a sleeping baby:

Proud Grandma with her two grandsons:

God Bless Us

Sunday, Aug. 29th, we celebrated the baptism of the babies! The babies entered the Catholic faith during the mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in Genoa with many family members and friends present. The hot day was beautiful and the babies looked very precious as they wore the baptismal gowns made by my mom. Father David L. Ritchie, along with the congregation, enjoyed the sacrament we celebrated. Al and I could not have asked the babies to have acted any better! There was not one peep from them the entire mass!! Father even asked what I had put in their bottles because they all did so well. Everyone knows how pictures go after a ceremony like this...now picture that, times 3!!! It seemed to take forever to make sure we had the pics we wanted with each of the babies.

Aren't these outfits BEAUTIFUL!!! Thank you so much mom! You did a wonderful job making these :)

Matt lighting Addison's baptismal candle from the Easter candle:

Everyone tracing a cross on babies' foreheads:

Final Blessing:

First family picture of all 5 of us since the hospital I believe:
The Westrick side of the family including Al and I, with babies, Mike and Dani, Matt, Ben & Becky with Cooper, and my proud parents:

Four generations of beautiful women:

Four generations of handsome men:

Our family with Al's parents and grandparents:

Our family with both sets of grandparents:

Father David with us:

Lillian getting baptized:

Lilly chilling on her blanket given to her from the church. These are beautiful quilts the women of the church make for each baby that includes their name and baptismal information:

Lilly with her Godfather Dave and Godmother Becky (doesn't Becky look awesome for just having a baby 9 days ago!):

Griffin being baptized:

Sleeping after church:

Griffin with Godfather Mike and Godmother Andrea:

Addison being baptized:

Addison after church, who at this point was tired of pictures and getting very hungry:

Addison with Godfather Matt and Godmother Jody:

Cake I made for the lunch we had at our house after church. Unfortunately with all the events and desserts others brought, I forgot to bring the cake outside with the rest of the food, so we now have a lot of cake to eat!
Babies in their party clothes. (Lilly is in the light pink headband and Addy is in dark pink ;)
Three babies with cousin Cooper joining them. They were not happy about this!!

The day was fantastic and we thank everyone that joined us in celebration, and those that could not be with us, but kept us in their prayers. We also thank everyone for the wonderful gifts the babies received. They now have Bibles, personalized plates, CD of Bible songs, Jesus Loves Me bunnies, and a good start on their college fund. I am also looking forward to using the gift certificates for a photo shoot and for the babies to make picture frames with their footprints. Thanks everyone!

Look Alikes?

Everyone always asks the question..."Who do the babies look like?" When looking at the pictures, it is very EASY to see that Griffin is a spitting image of his daddy! I opened Al's baby picture and at first thought it was my baby boy. The girls are a little more difficult because they seem to be a combination of many people. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken a "mug shot" picture of the babies, similar to our hospital pictures because the hospital only took the cute photos with the babies' clothes on. The one's I took on a previous post are the closest to this pose that I think I have. Can you see the resemblances?

2 Weeks Old

Guess Who

Wow...I haven't posted in awhile, as I'm sure you can guess we are quite busy at this household! I will mainly post some pics to get caught up quickly. I took these pictures to see how similar the babies are. Can you guess who each one is?

Correct Answers from top to bottom: Lillian, Addison, Griffin

Sidenote: These were taken the beginning of July. At this time, Addy and Griffin looked very similar, but since then, it seems that Addy and Lilly look almost identical.

Happy 4th of July!

How did we celebrate Independence Day this year? Well, babies woke up, they ate, the messed their diapers and got changed, took a nap, and then repeated the process 7 more times that day :) Needless to say, we did not go anywhere :( We had asked the doctor how soon we could really "go places," and she recommended not taking the babies in any kind of crowded place for a couple of months, especially since we have people coming in and out of the house to visit the babies. We were fortunate enough to be able to see some of the surrounding town's fireworks from our house, so Al and I made the long trip to our front porch with the babies and watched them from there. I do have to say that I am starting to get cabin fever pretty bad. I don't think I would have so soon, except that I have not really been doing too much outside since about April, when I stopped working. I am really looking forward to being able to take the babies out a little more than now. Al and I are thinking about making a one-night visit to my parents, who live about an hour and half away this weekend. Hopefully that works, so I can at least get out of my house for a little while!

Here are my cute firecrackers in adorable outfits from Katy and Justin:

Not sure if all babies are like this, but all three seem to have their hands by their face all the time!

Sisterly love:

Yes, Lilly still has her hospital band on because I am really paranoid that we will mix the girls up! I feel like I definitely know them apart, but since others still get them confused, it makes me question it...and I want something that is for sure. It would be much easier if one of them had a birthmark or something distinguishing, but I have not found anything permanent like that. They seem to continuously change each day, and are starting to look more and more alike with each passing day! I guess I may have to get the polish out and paint a toe on each girl...

Babies' First Doctor Appointment

After talking with many others, we have decided to take the babies to Perrysburg Pediatrics. Everyone had such great things to say about them. We were originally going to take them to Dr. Carmen, but after having Dr. Kennedy see them every day while in the hospital, we have decided to continue seeing her, and we just leave her. Their first appointment was on Friday, which was also the first time leaving the house. I had packed the diaper bag prior to the excursion and we planned our feeding times around the visit. It actually went much better than anticipated and we were at the doctor's ON TIME!!! (insert cheering here!)

The babies had all of their measurements taken and Dr Kennedy checked them over. All of the babies are doing very well, and their PKU's all came back normal. The only concern there was was that the babies were not quite up to birth weight yet. While this is something we need to watch, I do not think it is unusual since they were only 9 days old, and are eating only breast milk. We do have an appointment scheduled for July 13th, which is just a weight check to make sure they are gaining weight. The following are the babies' measurements:

Lilly:
Birth Weight - 5 lbs. 12 oz.
9 days old - 5 lbs. 3 oz.
Length - 19 1/4 "
Head Circumference - 12 1/2"

Addy:
Birth Weight - 4 lbs. 13 oz.
9 days old - 4 lbs. 9 oz.
Length - 17 1/2 "
Head Circumference - 12 1/8"

Griffin:
Birth Weight - 4 lbs. 14 oz.
9 days old - 4 lbs. 13 oz.
Length - 18 1/2 "
Head Circumference - 12 1/4"

Overall, the babies' were not even on the charts for the percentile in which they fall, since they are so young. This is not a problem, we just need to watch how they grow.