Carter George Pasko

My next sister-in-law, Lauren, had her baby tonight! Carter George Pasko weighed in at 7 lbs., 15 oz., 20 1/2 inches long. Still waiting for the first photos, but my mother in law says mom and baby are doing well. I'm actually in Philadelphia right now so I'm hoping to get a chance to visit my newest nephew before I head back to WV. Hopefully I will have photos to share soon!

First glimpse of Kaylee Mae...

Here are a few of the first photos taken of my niece! Her mom dressed her up in the cute outfit for her hospital photo--isn't she sweet? Check out my sister-in-law Renee's blog to see some pictures they took from this weekend when they went to visit. Alex and I will be stopping out in Harrisburg to meet her next week on our way to Philadelphia, so I will have some new pictures to add soon! (Sorry they are so small but that is what happened when I downloaded them!)

My co-worker and friend, Kathryn also had her second baby on Saturday, Oct. 20--his name is Alden. He is the younger brother to Sam--I have so many close friends with 2 little boys (Heidi, Victoria, Jessica)!! Kathryn was due 2 days after Kendy, on Halloween, and she had Alden 2 days after Kendy--it seems everyone wants to deliver pretty early these days! 2 babies down--3 more to go!! Marlon's sister Lauren is due Nov. 7-so we're expecting news any day on her, my friend Amy from State College is also due in early November, and Renee is due around Thanksgiving! I am looking forward to the arrival of my next nephew and niece!

The next photo was taken of Alex the other day on our way to Marlon's soccer game-she's dressed in her WVU track suit! She loves going to daddy's soccer games, although she rarely watches much of the game at all--for her it's all about eating popcorn (she can polish off a box all by herself--not that this is something to be proud of!) and watching DVD's--I usually bring along the portable DVD player and we can usually sit inside one of the boxes, so it's perfect because it allows me to watch the game and her to have fun! Daddy's games are also a special treat because she gets to stay up really late! The game on Friday night started at 8:00, and we stuck around until the very end. The parents had a tailgate for the team afterwards, and we even stayed for a bit and Alex loved all the goodies they had to eat! I think we left a little after 11 pm! She showed no signs of being tired until we got in the car, but even still she stayed awake the whole way home, although she crashed pretty quickly once we got inside. She's our little energizer bunny!

Kaylee Mae

I have my very first niece! Kaylee Mae was born yesterday, October 18, around 10:20 pm.--6 lbs., 13 oz. She shares her birthday with her mommy (my sister-in-law Kendy!). No pictures to share yet but the family is doing well. I hope to go meet her soon, but we're excited to add another member to our family! More to follow soon....

Hail, our house, and Jessica Seinfeld

So this post has a little bit of everything in it--some random things I wanted to document and chat about...the first photo is from our recent hail storm. This was a few weeks ago, and since I'd NEVER experienced anything quite like it I had to make sure and take a photo. Both Marlon and I were wondering if it was actually a tornado--we had 60+ mph winds, rain, and hail pelting all of the big windows in our house. It was pretty scary! This day had been a nice sunny day in the 80's, and the storm came through around 10:00 pm and I couldn't believe our deck was coated with white balls of hail. It blew all of our furniture clear across the deck--it's a miracle nothing broke!

This is a picture taken the other day of Alex wearing her plastic fireman's hat while playing with her dad. It's a rare one of her smiling so I had to share it!

As promised, here are a few photos of our house. West Virginia is a state filled with mountains, so finding flat land is very difficult to do. We're fortunate enough to have a small portion of flat ground in our backyard, and a flat area on the driveway. In case you can't tell from the following photos, we live in a new development so we have the joy of seeing all of this construction when we look out our back window! It will be interesting to see how the landscape changes once we have a huge house sitting behind us!

The final one is of my sweet girl kissing the scarecrow out front. Too cute to not share!

My last random question--Did anyone see the recent Oprah about Jessica Seinfeld's book, "Deceptively Delicious"? She basically mixes all sorts of vegetable purees (squash, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, etc.) into everything she makes for her kids--according to Oprah the food tastes pretty good, too! I'm actually considering buying this and trying it for Alex. As most of you know, she is a very picky eater--she doesn't eat fruits (other than applesauce and the occasional bite of banana), she eats virtually no vegetables, and doesn't eat much meat either. Oprah made all the foods look so yummy-like brownies with spinach in them, chicken nuggets cooked with sweet potato or broccoli puree. Jessica says she just spends an hour once a week pureeing all of the veggies then putting them in ziploc bags, then throughout the week she pulls out bags as she needs them and adds them to whatever she's cooking. I think I might give it a try--I would feel better knowing that Alex was getting a more balanced diet than she gets now! Anyone else see this?

A day in the life of our 2 year old

So I'm too lazy to post pictures this evening (but I promise to do that soon!)--I'm watching SYTYCD and waiting patiently for Alex to decide to go to bed. Tonight she came to her door with every excuse imaginable....I dropped my hair bow (twice), I tore my bandaid and I need a new one (twice), I bumped my head, I need to put Dora's clothes on...the list goes on and on. I think she's finally quiet (sleeping in the middle of the floor--at this point, she can sleep wherever she'll close her eyes!)--she was up this morning at 5:30 am so I'm hoping she gets a good night's sleep!

I thought I'd share some of the interests she has these days...she likes to recite nursery rhymes (I can thank school for that--we never read nursery rhymes at home--isn't that horrible?) She has Jack & Jill went up the hill down pat, and she's also mastering Little Miss Muffett. She's testing my memory of the correct words in those nursery rhymes--definitely not something I've thought about in a long time! She likes to play "Where is me?" which is a very simple version of hide and seek where Alex "hides" (usually in plain sight) and Sophie (the dog) and I have to pretend to look for her. We can play this game over and over for a good 20 minutes, and she thinks it's hysterical every time. She can count to 10 in Spanish (again, a school thing)--Marlon and I had to ask ourselves how old we were when we could count to 10 in Spanish...suffice it to say, we were much older than 2! She is slowly expanding her picky eating habits--she will eat anything for daddy, so we've gotten her to eat chicken pot pie and mashed potatoes this week. She still gags with every bite of mashed potatoes (probably because she tries to swallow everything she doesn't like whole) but at least she's eating it! She's taken a new liking to chocolate pudding (thanks to Grammy for introducing it to her at the pizza place!), although we're trying to limit her milk intake these days due to some bowel issues! She is learning her full first name (although saying Alexandra is definitely a mouthful!), she knows daddy's name is Marlon, mommy's name is Jenn, grammy's name is Ann, granddad's name is Ken, pop-pop's name is Keith, and nana's name is Jenny. She loves to run around the house and play with Marlon--their favorite game is yet another version of hide and seek, where Marlon hides and Alex goes looking for him, then shrieks and screams when she finds him. She has recently begun to stick objects in her nose--so I'm realizing we have to pay close attention to what she's up to--so far I've caught her sticking a raisin and a cheerio up there--the cheerio came out pretty easily but I had some difficulty with the raisin...hopefully that was the last time for that, although I have a feeling it's only the beginning!

That's a little glimpse into the life of Alex these days...pictures will follow! My husband just pointed out to me that most of you have never seen where we live, so maybe that will be a topic of a future post...seeing as how the blog is titled the LeBlancs in West Virginia, I guess I should show you a bit about our life here!

It's a BOY!!!

That's right--my friend's prediction (or should I say the pencil's prediction) was correct--I am having a boy! This was an exciting day-early birthday present for me as we went to get an ultrasound yesterday--this was a 16 week ultrasound since I was determined to be slightly high risk since heart defects have occurred on my mom's side of the family, but even at this early stage there was no mistaking it! I will have my regular 20 week ultrasound at the end of October which will hopefully provide a clearer picture of his face, but I just wanted to share this news with all of you! At this point everything else looks healthy with the baby and we will find out more definitively about any potential heart issues when I have a fetal echo done in early November, but so far there is no cause for concern. We just pray that our baby boy will be healthy, and we can now get Alex excited about having a baby brother! Marlon has already started to toss out names of famous soccer players we could name this baby after....of course they are all foreign so I'm not sure how well they will work out, but we'll see if we can compromise!

Below is the nice clear ultrasound photo--no doubt about the sex of this baby!