Our own Benjamin Button

Gage is experiencing some early male pattern baldness. He had a beautiful head of dark hair when he was born, and then it all started falling out...from the front to the back. It's stopped falling out so fast now and I don't know if the back will ever fall out. Hopefully that shiny spot in the front grows in soon. I guess it's a good thing his face is so cute! : )
Here are a few new pictures of our house. It's almost finished! Scott is doing a walk through with the builder today so hopefully we'll be moving in a couple of weeks.

Downstairs family room (the opening on the side goes into the hallway and to the stairs)
View of the other side of the downstairs family room. It was such a long skinny room that we decided to break it up with an arch. We'll use one end for TV and couches, and the other end for a play area and one day maybe a pool table.

Finished upstairs family room. I love having the carpet in. It makes it seem like a home!

As for the kids...they are all doing much better, just some lingering coughs and runny noses. Gage is sleeping well at night, but is still a little stuffed up. The pediatrician said on Friday that Gage just has a regular cold, his lungs sound fine. I was so relieved to know that he didn't have the nasty RSV that has been going around!

A long week

It has been quite a week. Sunday was good. We blessed Gage that day and had fun spending lots of time with all of our family.
The rest of the weekend and all of this week has been spent battling sick kids. First Jace had a fever, now a cough and runny nose. Katie was actually the one who didn't get very sick...just a little cough. Gage is the hard one. He has had a stuffy nose all week. Now he has a cough. I'm taking him in to the pediatrician today to make sure it's not getting into his lungs. Poor little guy! I feel so bad for him. He's so little to be sick.

All of this has made Scott and I really tired too. Long nights of snuffling, coughing, and trying to clear out Gage's nose has kept us up at night. Three kids has definitely been hard this week! Hopefully they'll all start feeling better soon and we can get back to normal.

On a lighter note, carpet was put into our house this week (sorry no pics of that yet) so we are almost finished. We hope to move in Memorial Day weekend, but we'll see how long the touch ups and inspection stuff takes. Anyway, here are a few long promised photos of our house. I'll take a few more now that the carpet is in and post them soon.

Master tub

Master bath

Entryway

Kitchen

Family room upstairs

Getting bigger

Gage is growing quickly! At his two week appointment he'd already gained more than a pound and grown more than an inch since birth. I'm still trying to adjust to less sleep, but having three kids isn't quite as hard as I thought it would be. Granted, I haven't tried going shopping with all three yet...I might think differently after that. But for now things are going pretty well. We are at least still smiling. :)
Our house is coming along. Like most construction jobs, the finish date is constantly being pushed back. Right now we have a closing date of May 31, but hopefully we'll be able to get things finished before then. All of the flooring is in except for the carpet, and they just finished putting in the cabinets. In the next week they'll do the final plumbing work and countertops and then all the little repairs and touch ups. It is looking great and we are excited to get in! I'll try to get some inside pictures taken soon.

Easter

We had a good Easter this year! It's so great to be near family and be able to see them often and spend holidays with them.

I helped the kids make bunny ears last week. On Easter morning they came running into our room wearing their ears, bouncing around because they were so excited to see what the Easter bunny had left them.

My mom came over last Friday to spend the day with us. She was such a big help and we loved having her here! She brought a fun tissue paper Easter egg art project to do with the kids and they had a blast!

We had an Easter egg hunt at the Allen's with all of the cousins. Katie loves to look for eggs, and loved even more the money she found in them. She counted it over and over again until Scott finally took her to the store to buy something with it. Jace couldn't care less about finding eggs, but he did like the candy prize at the end.

We decorated Easter eggs the night before Easter. Holidays are so much more fun with kids!
On Easter morning Katie and Jace loved looking for their baskets, and loved it even more that they could actually have treats before breakfast. Later that day we went to the Allen's for a yummy Easter dinner.

Here's a few random pics...

Jace came up to me the other day and told me he was a golfer man because he had that 'hat' on. This kid loves anything to do with balls!
Here's a couple glamor shots of Gage. He's off the bililight and doing great. He's such a good baby and has grown so much already. I love having a newborn in the house again!

Our glow bug

Gage has a bit of jaundice so we had to start using the biliblanket yesterday. His levels weren't dangerous, but they wanted him to get treated for it so it doesn't go any higher. We went in to get his bilirubin tested again today. It went down a little, but it's still high so we have to keep him on it another night. It's so annoying to keep him hooked up to this machine 24 hours a day! It makes it hard for me to hold him much because I can't walk around the house, and the hose coming out of the bottom of his pj's is awkward. Hopefully his levels keeps going down and we can be done with the biliblanket soon.

The guy who gave us the biliblanket said Gage would look like a little glow bug and he does, especially at night!

Here's a quick pic of the kids to show they really are still here. Today is actually our first day home together. They've been staying with Grandma Allen during the day the past couple of days so I could rest and get things done. So far the day has gone great! They've been really patient with me having to feed Gage and have played well together. I know every day won't be like this, but I am sure enjoying the ones that are!

We're home!

We got home yesterday afternoon and are sure glad to be back! Our little guy finally has a name...Gage D Allen (D for his grandpas - Duane and David). The kids sure love him. The first thing Jace says when he walks in the door is, "I want the baby." Katie's a little mommy and loves to show how gentle she can be giving him hugs. Luckily we've had lots of family help with the kids so Scott was able to go back to work today and I am resting here at home with Gage. We're working on getting settled in and trying to keep up with our sleep. Gage has been a good baby and did pretty well his first night home. We love that he's finally here!

It's a...

...BOY! Baby Allen (no name yet) was born today at 8:58 a.m. He weighs 8 lbs and is 21 inches long. The delivery went smoothly and besides a bruised face he is doing great. He's a pretty mellow kid so far and we're excited to welcome him into our family!