Schenk Christmas

While the Schenk's were in town we had a little Christmas celebration.  It was not cold enough to feel like Christmas but I pulled out the little tree we to at least make it feel like Christmas.

The kids enjoying the weather

Opening Gifts

 Gracie invited Sawyer over for cookies

The Schenk Cousins

Schenk Visit

For Thanksgiving Troy's parents drove to Canton and brought Troy's brother Jake and cute wife Audra, aka Adi.  We had a full holiday with lots of happenings.  It was so busy with just having a new baby and the added guest made to it but it was fun to have them.   Below you will see a flurry of pictures from our time together.

This is how we spent our thanksgiving:

dancing

seeing Santa again, the last one is better

Gracie on Papa's shoulders

Papa & Nolan

Nora & Nolan hanging out

Uncle Jake & Aunt Audi with the little ones

Cliff & Jess

eating

celebrating Jake's Birthday

Gracie loving the cake

Nolan love his naps

Comparing My Babies

Over the years we have gotten mixed opinions on who my little miss Gracie looks like.  Of course each of our mom's see each of us in her but from outside the family we have a mix of comments.  Gracie's doctor thinks she is dead on Troy, this is because as you can image the serious face Troy has when he has seen Dr Weber and Gracie is pretty serious as well.  A lot of people thinks she looks like me or gives looks like I do.  Honestly she is a great mix and I can show you tones of pictures around the same age where we look nothing a like but we were looking at old photo's the other night were we had a couple where it was so close.  The one thing Gracie had that neither of us had were those big cheeks.  Yes we both had cheeks but not of that size.  Each time she was about to hit a growth spurt they would get bigger and bigger until she went up in size and then they would go down.

Now we knew from the 3D ultra sound that our little Nolan would have cheeks because that was the first thing the tech said "look at those cheeks".  I just wondered how much thy would look a like.  When Nolan was born besides having some cheeks I did not think he looked like Gracie.  He had a much smaller head and face.  We just thought he looked different.  Most that came to visit thought Nolan and Gracie look so much a like, most comments were he looks like a Schenk.

Over the last the weeks he has changed and it is hard to say they no longer look a like...

Both taken in the Hospital

Gracie

8lbs 1oz

Nolan

7lbs 7 oz

Both taken around 3 weeks

gracie

nolan

I would say that with all the eating Nolan and those cheeks have 

caught up to Gracie's.  I would have to say they look very much a like; )

Roll Over, Roll Over

Our newest member of the family likes to eat, a lot.  On this night we were again trying to hold him off from what he loves to do before bed which is cluster feed.  We also thought maybe he just had gas so we tried all the different things that people say can help.  One of them is laying the baby on the floor face down which also counts as tummy time.  So we did and he was so mad.  Mad enough that he rolled himself over while Troy and my MIL watched.  I missed it, I was their but not watching.  So Troy thought we should try it again and video tape it just in case.  Here you go.


Nolan Rolls Over from Candace Schenk on Vimeo.

Another Dance

Maybe this is getting old but I love it.  I love having the opportunity to watch the bonding between father and daughter, the unique love that is growing there.  It is so touching to watch Troy take on these special moments.

More then anything this little girl loves to play dress up and she loves to dance with her daddy.  Sh has obviously taken in some dancing from Cinderella because she seems to know more and more about dancing and how it should work.  On this particular night she wanted Troy to dip her, swing her and even told him where his hand should go on her back.  It was so funny to listen to her as he dipped her so we got a few pictures and then video taped it just for documentation purposes;)

holding tight

big dip

twirl

wanting flipped

Cinderella

The apple does not fall far from the tree in our family.   I have talked before about what a helper Gracie is and that she loves to clean or she loves doing what ever we are doing;).  While my mom was in town she blessed us with a very clean house.  Gracie wanted in on the cleaning frenzy.  I found her in the kitchen with a rag cleaning the floor.  She looked like Cinderella who in fact is her favorite princess.  And since I had my camera close by I took a quick picture of her hard at work.

Faces of Nolan

This little guy smiles, yawns, stretches, sneezes, eats, gets angry and has more gas then Gracie ever did.  He loves to be swaddled and loves his handles held.  Here are just a few great pictures of Nolan.