Fall Flies by

Wow - Fall sure flew by. The time between Halloween and New Years is one big rush. Even though it is snowing out now, I thought I should post an update from November before getting to the Christmas photos.

Every year, whether in NY, VA or KS, we try to get out as a family and see the trees turning color. This year we took a hike to the nature sanctuary in Parkville, MO. The trails were pretty challenging, but the kids did great. Melissa and Dave took turns with carring Drew in the Baby Bjorn. He loved being outside.

Of course, what would Fall be without ranking of leaves? We don't have nearly the number of leaves to rake like we did in Virginia, but it was enough to keep the kids busy. We even got help from the neighborhood's kids. Ty is playing in a pile of leaves with Lily, who lives down at the end of the cul-de-sac and is in 1st grade with Tyler.

A few more pics - from Tyler's 7th birthday party. We had a soccer party (indoor) at All American Indoor Sports. Lots of fun - the kids played soccer for an hour, than ate pizza, cake and played games.

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we made our annual trip to the KC Pumpkin Patch with some friends of ours, the Wilts. The kids all had lots of fun with hay rides, corn maze, pumpkin cannon, petting zoo and haunted barn. We even managed to convince the kids to pose for a few pictures.












One we got home, Dave spent the better part of the day carving the pumpkins. You can see the results of my attempts online at
http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.french/PumpkinPatch

Ellie's 4th Birthday Party

Eliana had her 4th birthday party at nearby rec center . In honor of her birthday, we had a "Barbie 12 dancing princess party. For the first hour, each girl got to dress up in ballet costume, complete with tiara, wand and tutu. The girls really seemed to enjoy it.

I am trying a new feature this week - I am only uploading a few photos, as usual to the blog. However I am uploading more pictures to an on-line photo album. If I do this right, all you have to do is click on the link above to view it. If that does not work, try entering this URL: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.french

Tea for two, downtime and a new babysitter

Ellie recently went to a friend's birthday party - a tea birthday party. Melissa curled Ellie's hair and dressed her in a beautiful navy dress. The party was held at a Victorian gift shop and tea room. The place provided fancy dresses & hats for all the girls to wear. Ellie had a pretty red and black dress and hat. The girls were served tea and crumpets (soda and cake) and had a lovely time.


However I don't want you to think all we do is run the kids around from one event to the next. We do occasionally get some down time. I couldn't resist taking this photo of Melissa and Drew catching some zzz 's together. Too bad you can't hear them both snoring in this picture.









I am happy to report that Melissa and I finally found a baby sitter we think we can trust with the kids. She is very patient with them, can match their energy level, and is someone we have known for years. I included a picture of her watching Drew for us the other night.

Family Photo time

We had some family pictures done recently at a couple of different places. Before I get to them, wanted to share a candid of Drew. He is growing fast!

The next few pictures were done by a local portrait studio.

Back to School

Wow - I can't believe summer is already over. Tyler started first grade last week. He is very excited about going to school for the whole day. With the birth of Andrew, I think this is perfect opportunity to put a little more structure back in Tyler's day.

Lots of other firsts also. Andrew had his first bath at home. He screamed bloody murder through the whole thing, but snuggled up nice once he got the towel around him.

Tyler and Eliana continue to be wonderful helpers and great big brother / big sister for Drew. Eliana insists on helping us change Drew, usually by singing him songs and holding his 'bink' to help keep him calm. Both kids are always asking to hold Andrew and rock him to sleep.

Melissa is recovering very well. All the help we have received from our extremely generous neighbors, friends and family has made it easier for all of us. From bringing over meals to driving the kids to events or offering play dates, we are extremely blessed and can't thank you enough.

We even got a visit from 'Auntie Ceil' who flew all the way out from DC area. I am not sure who was more excited - Ellie to have someone to play with, Tyler for having someone to kick the soccer ball around with, Melissa for having one of her best friends to talk with, or Dave, who got to go mountain biking with Ceil. Always good to catch up with good friends.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good - We celebrated Andrew's one week birthday by taking him to Children's Mercy for a follow up on his PAC. They performed a second EKG and a chest X-ray. The cardiologist said everything looks okay, and definitively ruled out PVC, and Long Q T syndrome , both of which would have been cause for concern. That leaves PAC, which is just something we will have to watch, but is not cause for extra concern.

The Bad (relatively speaking) - Little Drew is doing his best to follow in his brother's footsteps, so to speak. For those who can remember, Tyler's nickname when he was an infant was 'Sir Whizalot'. Well let's just say Drew is no slouch when it comes to peeing all over the place. We try not to laugh, but when he gets himself all wet and then gets upset about it (dare I say.. p!ssed off?), it is pretty funny.

The Ugly - No, I am not going to subject you to a picture of me in the morning. This is worse - we have officially embraced suburbia by giving in and buying a mini-van. After much research, we chose to go with the Hyundai Entourage. Not as cool as the HBO series by the same name, but a great car. The kids absolutely love it. Melissa and I find have found we actually like it too. Like our neighbor said, mini-vans are the car you want to hate, but can't.

Next post - Ty's starts back to school

We have finally decided on a Name

It is official - we submitted the birth certificate today. Baby John Doe French is now.........

Andrew Richard French.
Melissa always favored that name. My hang-up was Andrew has been a top 10 name for at least the last 5 years. I am a little sensitive to that, having a somewhat common name myself (Seems when ever I am in a group of more than 5 guys, at least one other is named David). Turns out that Drew is not nearly as common. While his name is Andrew, we will call him Drew.

Melissa has been doing great - she is recovering well from her c-section. She started walking around yesterday, and was up for a shower and solid food today. Drew has a slightly irregular heart-beat, called premature atrial contractions. However it is pretty common and almost always corrects itself. If all goes well, we will be going home tomorrow (Thursday). As you can see, Tyler and Eliana are very excited to have their little brother come home.

Pics from the kids

We bought the kids digital cameras. We figured we'd need assistant photographers to help us keep up with all of the recent changes in our family. Plus some pictures from kids' point of view should be interesting.

Tyler's camera is a Polaroid i531. Very kid friendly, easy to use and hold, with 5.1 MP camera and video. Tyler has learned pretty quickly how to use it.

Ellie's camera is Fisher - Price Kids Tough camera. While the resolution is not nearly as crisp (640 x 480), the camera is great for 2 - 4 year olds. Easy to hold, both LED and view finder, it is a great camera for her. The last photo gives you an idea of the range of output.

New baby is here!

No name yet, but Tyler and Ellie now have a new baby brother! 7lbs, 13 onces and 19 inches long. Melissa and baby are both doing great. The little monkey has already learned how to roll over on his side and is grabbing everything in sight.

Now if we can just settle on a boys name.

Zoo, Pool and grandma

A few more pics to show what a tough live the kids lead. Trips to the pool, the Kansas City Zoo (snake picture is for Grammy French), Princess Dance class and visits from grandparents.





Even thought we moved to KC within a couple of months of our parents moving to Charlottesville, they have been wonderful about coming to visit. And yes, I realize it is a little weird that both sets of grandparents live near each other and that they are good friends.


Also, I finally got the video loaded from Ellie's dance recital. Be sure to go to the bottom of the post to see video.

4th of July bike parade

Last week was annual 4th of July neighborhood bike parade. Ellie was thrilled that she could ride her own bike this year. We spend part of the morning decorating the bikes. Then we walked down to the start, lined up behind the police car and rode down to the pool in a parade of red, white and blue. After the parade, there was plenty of water and Popsicles to cool off. We spent the afternoon one street over, eating hot dogs & playing kick-ball (the kids beat the adults once again).

We meant to make it out for fireworks, but the weather was questionable and the kids pretty worn out. We decided instead to let the kids fall asleep on the couch watching fireworks on TV.

Summer Fun

Melissa has been keeping the kids busy, or is it the kids have been keeping Melissa busy? Either way, the kids have had lots of activities this summer. Both Tyler and Ellie are taking swim lessons through our gym. The instructors are great, I guess you could say they are hands on (ha ha). The small class size has allowed Tyler and Ellie to make a ton of progress. Tyler is now doing the backstroke, while Ellie is learning the crawl, swimming underwater, and floating on her back. As you can tell, she thinks it is all great fun.

Besides swimming, Tyler & I just finished up baseball. The season was a little long, in part because all the rain outs forced a few games to be rescheduled. With coaching help from several team dads, the team showed great progress. At the last game, our team caught 3 or 4 fly-balls for outs, and everyone had a least one hit. However I think their favorite part was at the end of each game, when I handed out games balls. Even though I made sure everyone got at least one game ball during the year, the kids really seems to enjoy it.

As for Ellie, she just finished taking gymnastics. She had tons of fun. She learned how to do somer- saults, hand- stands, swinging on parallel bars, walking the balance beam, and pretty much being the little monkey that she is.

Somewhere in all that, Melissa found time to take Tyler to soccer camp. The camp was through our church, taught by a former pro and world cup player. It was very good learning experience for Tyler. Meanwhile, Ellie took part in a 'Princess Dance' camp - something that combined two of her favorite things. Each day, the girls dressed up in their favorite princess outfit and learned dance steps.

That is all for this post. I hope to have pics up from the 4th of July bike parade in a week or so.

New connection to the French Family

We have tried to keep it a secret as long as we can, but as you can see, it is no longer possible. We are expecting our 3rd child in mid-August. Both Tyler and Ellie are very excited. Tyler, who is a great big brother to Ellie, says "now I will be responsible for two kids." He is definitely the oldest child.

Before you ask, no, we don't know the sex of the baby. Tyler is okay having either another sister or baby brother. Ellie , on the other hand only, only wants a baby sister. She says "boys are yucky". Apparently Tyler is not a boy, since he is her brother. I probably should mention that the photo to the left is intentionally cut-off. Not that I don't think Melissa is beautiful, but the focus of the picture is the kids (all 3 of them).

Speaking of the pictures, I included a couple of sonogram pictures as well. Yes, I am actually putting pictures of my wife's uterus on-line. Besides, you know how they say you take less pictures with each kid? Well this one is getting its face on the Internet before either Tyler or Ellie did.

Tyler and Ellie have been wonderful since we told them. They love going to the doctor's with Melissa to see the pictures of the baby and hear its heart beat. Ellie is always asking to kiss the baby (Melissa's big, beautiful belly).

In case you aren't as good as the kids at reading sonograms, the first one shows a profile of the baby's head, arms and chest. Good looking kid, huh? The last picture is of the baby's feet, or more accurately, one of the baby's feet. Sort of looks like the baby is getting ready for a good kick into Melissa's bladder. Must of have been watching Tyler play soccer.

Boys of Summer

Last weekend, Tyler had two soccer games and a baseball game 0 Phew! He did well, scoring a goal in one soccer game (see first photo) and getting a couple of hits in the baseball game.

Guess who was 'volunteered' to coach Ty's baseball team? Turns out the league had enough players, but no coach. So I volunteered. Of course I end up missing the first game and team pictures due to work. Fortunately for me, I have lots of help from all the other Dad's - everyone 'pitches' in.

Unfortunately for Melissa, she is stuck being the Team Mom, which means she handles all the emails, coordinating practices and did I mention all the emails? I think I got off easy.

For kindergarten and first grade, games are coach pitch, with each kid getting 5 pitches to swing at. Like every sport he has tried so far, Ty really likes it. He has a good arm, and is getting very good at hitting. More than once I have had to jump out of the way of a line drive or risk ending up on episode of America's funniest home videos.