Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everybody! We had a very nice Christmas this year - my parents came down for the weekend prior to Christmas for an early celebration, we went to the Yakubiks for their annual Christmas Eve party, and finally we hosted the Yakubiks at our house on Christmas day. Stella really got into the spirit this year - we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Night Before Christmas every day for a couple of weeks leading up, she loved opening presents (a Tricycle, a tea set, and a dress up dolly were some favorites this year), and especially loved getting to spend some time with her out of town family. Jake had a nice Christmas as well, though for the most part Stella confiscated all his presents.

Check out the photos by clicking on the picture below, and we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year this coming week!

Holidays, 2008

Five Weeks In

Well, we're now five weeks into our crazy new life.

For the first four, we were all together at home, getting to know our newest addition and figuring out how things were going to work now that the adults no longer outnumber the kids. It really is quite a bit more than double the work... In general that time was amazing, and once again I was so glad to work for a company that has such a generous paternity leave policy. There were a few bits of craziness - I discovered that I'm allergic to fire ants (and ended up in the ER as a result), Chris and I both got sick at the same time for the first time in quite a while, etc. There were quite a few wonderful bits as well - Chris's mom moved in with us for the first week or so, which was amazingly helpful; my parents came for a four day visit and left us with a freezer full of delicious dinners; Courtney and Dave came for a quick visit (right between the fire ant incident and the sickness), which was a lot of fun; we got a piano, which I'm really excited about; and, of course, we had plenty of wonderful moments with both Jakob and Stella.

Last week I went back to work on Wednesday, which was a big adjustment for everybody. So far, so good - we'll see how the first full week goes starting tomorrow.

Jake is doing really well - he's up above 10 lbs now, which is great, and he's started to sleep pretty well at night (from 8 to 2 am, and then from 2 am to 6 am when we're lucky). He's much stronger than Stella was at this age - he can really throw his neck around, can turn his head from side to side during "tummy time", etc.

Stella is doing great as well - she's talking up a storm, including some rudimentary sentences, etc. She repeats everything we say now, so we've really got to be careful with our language! She loves animals (ducks, frogs, our cat, and especially dogs), balls, balloons (she calls them "badoons"), and books. She's not a big fan of the piano yet (she says "no piano" when I try to play for her), but continues to enjoy the drums.

Anyways, check out some pictures by clicking on the photo!

One Month In...

Jakob Anders Hallberg

Here's the post I should have done about four weeks ago:

Our new son, Jakob Anders Hallberg, was born on Friday August 22nd at 9:49 PM. He weighed 8 lbs 7 ounces, and measured 21 1/4 inches. Check out some photos here.

Mom and baby are doing very well, Stella is slowly adjusting to her new role as big sister, and dad is trying his best to enjoy his four week "vacation" from work.

More updates coming soon!

The Four Siegfrieds

Abbey, Kevin, Skyler, and Marika (pictured here) paid us a visit a while back... We had a great time together - here are some photos!

-Aaron

Stella at 18 Months (and Chris at 9)

I'm going to go back in time for a couple of quick posts before finally coming back to the present... So - think back, if you can, to a time before the economy had collapsed, before the venerable governor of Alaska had been nominated for Vice President, and before we NC Hallbergs had a fourth member. Or, just have a look at these photos (click on the one here to go to a gallery) and marvel at how big Stella and Chris were!

-Aaron

Pictures

Well, I'm officially too lazy to write much of anything. I did, however, finally upload a bunch of photos. To wit:

Bahamas / Purple Dress / Mother's Day

And a few more:

Stella's Haircut

In non-photo news, Stella is now walking, talking (a lot), and generally turning into a cool toddler. I recently got promoted to development lead (meaning I am now managing a team of six developers, including myself), which is going well but taking a lot of adjustment. Chris remains super awesome, although according to "Brain Age" she is somewhere north of 80. She's working on it.

Stella's First Birthday

Well, it's already been a year. How crazy is that!?

Stella had a very nice birthday week. On the Saturday before her birthday, she had a lovely party with Nana and PopPop (i.e. Grandma and Grandpa Yakubik) and Uncle Nick. She opened some presents, got lots of balloons, wore a really cool little birthday tiara thing, and even ate cake. Check out this video:



On Wednesday (her actual birthday), the three of us went out to dinner at Chili's. Stella had a cheese quesadilla and some lovely steamed brocolli (which had a lot more butter than it does at home!).

Finally, Grandma and Grandpa Hallberg came for a visit the weekend after her birthday. We had a really great visit, and Stella enjoyed their company a lot. We were all very sad to see them head back to Boston on Sunday.

In other big news, Stella is expecting a little brother or sister! Our apologies to those of you whom we haven't managed to tell in person yet, but as you can imagine things have been a bit crazy. Chris is back in the throes of morning (read: all the time) sickness, and my work schedule has only recently returned to normal after an extended period of craziness. The estimated due date is August 16th, and we are both thrilled and nervous, as is probably to be expected. For those of you doing the math, Stella will be 18 months when the new one arrives. Craziness. Please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers!

-Stella, Chris, and Aaron