Neil Leslie Diamond!!

This is what started it all.  The cassette tape that we listened to and practically wore out as my family drove through Wyoming, Nebraska and other states to get to my grandpa's cottage in Wisconsin year after year.  

It is Neil Diamond baby, and the Winegar love for him started young!  I knew his music was totally amazing, but I didn't find out just how amazing until a couple of weeks ago.

Back in December my sister schemed a very thoughtful gift and gave Adam and I Neil Diamond tickets for my birthday.  For Christmas, she also gave tickets to my parents and sister and her husband.

It turned out to be perfect timing for the concert in July because Adam finished the bar exam on the 25th and so how perfect to celebrate big on the 28th at the Neil Diamond concert!

It was kind of a big bonding joke with my family and we all had some good laughs that we were going to the concert.

As we were walking in I mentioned to Adam that we were the only people our age at the concert.  He said, "Oh no, look there are some...." then he started to count and point out "one, two, three....oh there's four others."

Yea, we were totally outnumbered by an older crowd, but Neil is just that cool he can draw in all ages.

I left totally pumped.  If you have not seen a Mr. Diamond in concert, go to the next one, if he lives to do another one...he is 71 years old.  I don't doubt that he'll be back though, he was gliding all over that stage and shakin' his pleather covered hips.  Man does he have moves, we were huddled over laughing so hard as he opened his arms and practically floated across the stage.

He definitely knows how to please the crowd with 4 reprises of Sweet Caroline (such a great moment!).  On the last one he didn't even sing, he said jokingly that he was totally sick of the song and that he wasn't going to sing it anymore (pause)..."but you can with my band!"  The crowd just roared it was seriously perfection.

I thought I knew the man well.  I mean, I had even watched a Christmas concert of his years ago in Chicago at my awesome Aunt and Uncle's home.  We were drawn in by Neil then as we dined over Buona Beef.

I had no idea, however, that he wrote Red Red Wine and that UB40 did a cover of it.

He also wrote the classic song sung by the Monkees "I'm a Believer".

Other classics he sung were Shilo, Cracklin' Rosie, and of course Comin' to America!

We were a little disappointed also that we weren't dressed appropriately!  A true fan only wears sequins to the concerts, we will be prepared next time.  I already spotted some sequin shorts in a variety of colors for our next concert.

erika. justin. corinne. me. adam with sweet baby jane

Baby armoir

Years ago I found a pine armoir that I fell in love with.  Little did I know in my single, childless days that I would enjoy using it for our little girls clothes, blankets, shoes, and more later on!

I used it in Caroline's nursery, but didn't for Olive because there wasn't room in our little New Hampshire or Virginia apartments.  

I am excited to use it again in Jane's nursery and the first thing is up, the clothing dividers.  I have 3-12 month dividers that keep the dresses and bubble suits organized.  This keeps the favorite little pieces on display for you each time you open the doors to the armoir so you can enjoy them longer than they fit!  (Jane is already in size 1 diapers and almost out of newborn clothes at weeks.)

I have a set of wooden stamps that I got at PB kids on clearance years ago and that is what I used to stamp the numbers on the paper circles.  

The final outcome is something like this just for an  idea of what you can do! (We are not quite that organized yet, pics to come)

I was absolutely giddy to get out the teeny tiny clothes again.

I am so so grateful for baby Jane and her sisters.

Is it swim lessons yet?

"Is it swim lessons yet?"  This is what we heard every five minutes as we drove down to St. George last week.  Olive is obsessed and it's so fun to see her light up when we do anything at the pool.

While we were waiting for Jane to arrive, we found some swim lessons that fit into our schedule perfectly.  It was also a bonus because a dear friend of mine had her little girl at the same neighborhood pool so we had time to catch up!  Jane came with 2 lessons left and so my incredible mom took the girls for the last two days.

Our girls are little fish and have no fear when it comes to the water.  Having no fear is a bittersweet thing because water and children scare me to death, it can be a fatal combo.  It is also the best combo when they are watched like hawks.  I loved watching them do their ice cream scoop arms and dolphin kicks.  Olive has taken a liking to cannonballs as well after she saw Caroline do one.

She stands at the edge of the pool and yells in her excited toddler voice, "CANNONBALL!"  and then proceeds to jump into the pool.  

Here she is looking like an Olympic swimmer: composed, focused, and intense....and I must say that her toddler belly is a pretty cute one!

Ready, set,

Cannonball!

These two little sunshines made my day each morning when I got to watch them splash around completely giddy.  They cheered each other on and were so proud of each other too.  In St. George we played "Polympics" as Olive said.  Caroline was Missy Franklin and Olive was Rebecca Soni and they gave Michael Phelps (Adam as assigned by Caroline) a run for his money.

Every morning at 7 a.m., Olive would come up and say "I want to go to swim lessons."  Then she would put on goggles and wait until 10.  

Simply to die for!

30 years of fabulous!

While waiting for Jane to arrive, we tried to stay occupied so the wait wouldn't seem so long.  There are several posts that will be coming from the "waiting for Jane" phase.

One of the most exciting things that happened was Adam's big 3-0 birthday!!  

I had been looking forward to this day for a long time because I had a present that I had been anticipating to give him.

A long time ago last year I saw a really cool idea on pinterest, of course.  I became obsessed with the idea, as I do best, and began to get the ball rolling to make it happen.  I emailed family and friends back in September and told them my plan.  I mentioned Adam's big day was coming up in June 2012 and that I wanted letters with memories and things they admired about Adam.  Being so early, I didn't get any response right away, but many people were working away on their thoughts.

As time came closer, the letters started coming in.  I put them all in old air mail envelopes and numbered each one with a sticker number.  

There actually turned out to be a few extra envelopes needed because Adam's dad wrote about a 15 page letter to him, which was absolutely tender.  

So many of the thoughts brought tears to my eyes actually, as they came in and I read them.  I kept thinking to myself, yes, Adam does put me and the girls first and always has our best interest at heart.  Yes, he does genuinely care about everyone he comes into contact with and goes above and beyond to help them.

The girls and I had more fun watching him read the letters than we do watching a favorite movie.  There were some pretty funny memories included that had us laughing really hard.  It was fun too because as he opened the letters, he would begin reading it without looking at who it was from.  Then he would try to guess.

I think here he is reading one of the nephews letters that began, "Adam my darling...."

Pure comedy.

I was so glad that I started pulling it together so long ago.  I kept having the feeling to have Adam's now late mother write a letter.  Things with her illness progressed too quickly for her to write one on her own, but Adam's sister wrote down thoughts that his mom had.  

Things turned so tearful as he opened her letter and kept looking at the line "Thoughts from mom" and then looked at what was written.  He did that a couple of times to figure out if his mom had really included some memories.  He had a look of surprise, happiness, and mourning all at the same time.  

That day he really missed her.  I burst into tears as I explained how that letter was possible because it was done last fall.

The tears didn't last too long as we read the sweet and funny things his mom had remembered about her boy.

Thank You to Jamilyn for following through on a requested favor to do that many months ago!

The pictures that the girls drew also made Adam teary.  He gets so many beautiful drawings from them, but he knew these were special.  He just loved them climbing on his lap to explain where the balloons were and that Olive drew a backpack (he has been studying for the BAR exam.)

Happy Birthday sweets!  We just love you more every year!!

Sweet Baby Jane

She has arrived!!

We were so lucky to welcome Jane to the world on June 28th at 12:58 a.m.

She is absolutely perfect and I can't even talk about her without getting a huge grin on my face.  

She was a healthy 7 lbs. 1 oz. and 19 1/4 inches long, our biggest baby yet.  

She came out and took a refreshing breath and cried, which was beautiful to our ears after Olive gave us a scare at her birth.

The delivery went super fast, as I was just about ready to push when we arrived at the hospital.  My contractions went from random 20 or 15 minutes apart to 2 1/2 minutes apart all of the sudden.  It seemed like the longest and bumpiest ride to the hospital!  I am glad that Adam stayed calm and didn,t speed the whole way as I was desperately requesting.

Oh she is so lovely and calm, I rarely put her down, which is why I am typing one handed right now :)

The proud and babealicious dad shortly after she was born.

We are so glad that Jane wanted to come join the fray!  Adam and I stayed the maximum time at the hospital so we could just enjoy one on one time with her.

Liam and all 8 other nephews were thrilled to hold their new little cousin.  

Now that Jane is here our other two babies are so so huge!  Where has 5 years gone with little C?  And boy are Olive's diapers ginormous!

I love how they just swoon over their new little sister.

Since being home things have been awesome!  Yea there are a lot of crazy moments, or sometimes entire mornings of lots of tears, but I don't want to wish any of it away.  I will take a bit drama to have these sillies in my life that make me so content to just be.  They truly mesmerize me.

Welcome Home Sweet Baby!!

Look Who's Five!

After being here for six weeks, we are finally in our home.  We were in a few weeks ago, but had to leave again because the odor from the hardwood floors was too strong to be around.  Even after it was probably ok to sleep inside, I was just nervous about breathing in anything harmful through the night, so we decided to sleep under the stars in our backyard.  It was one of the best nights sleep I've had, even with a little sprinkle of rain!

We stayed with both of our gracious parents who gladly open their homes to us.  Thank you for all of your help you guys, we are so so lucky to have you!!

It has been exhausting, and my mood was starting to turn a bit sour with moving all over and having to kind of move our things out again after they were put in place.  Also, I must be screaming EASY TARGET because someone also got into our stuff and stole some things from my drawer.  Remember when we lived in New York last summer and my phone was taken?  Well, I need to toughen up my look or something because I hate feeling so violated.

Anyway, the girls and I have all been on edge, but I think we are through the roughest transition.  Olive was so wiped out working on the house every day that she couldn't even move the book before falling asleep.  Olive has been off the binky for about 3 weeks and it was a pretty seamless weaning!  We cut to snips in the end of the binky and gave it to her one night as usual.  She put it in her mouth and started sucking on it.  I thought the trick had failed, but after our bedtime book, she took it out and gave the binky the most disgusted look.  She told us it was broken and she needed another one.  We gladly handed her another one, snipped as well, and she went to bed sans binky!!

The Thomas cousins and the girls enjoyed all of the boxes lying around.  We are so glad to only have a few left that are a little playhouse for the girls now :)

Luckily, we were settled permanently in the house just in time to celebrate our big C's 5th birthday!  It was seriously one of the best. parties. ever.  Not because I did anything extra special, she made it that way!  She was dying to help decorate, set up the food, and planned her cake.  It was easy peasy which I totally needed.  She and Olive hung up the balloons all over the yard and set up plates and cups and even the birthday banner.  Her excitement was completely contagious.

She was so thrilled about every gift she opened,  and she made everyone feel so good about their choice in gift.  

 The unicorn pillow pet has been a request since she was 3, and she said that receiving it was "more than she ever could have dreamed!"  She seriously kills me with her one liners.

Ahhh...to be with family was just perfect.  She has eaten up every minute and has picked up right where she left off with cousins.

 The girls have had a lot of practice getting ready for our sweet little babe (coming in less than two weeks) by holding Nora every chance they get.  I have loved snuggling Nora too and hope that some easy going vibes transfer to our baby just like sweet Nora.

Olive was pumped to be at the party as you can see.  Actually she was because Adam and I just let her wear her p.j.'s and princess dress that she had been in going on day 3.  

The punch balloons were totally the thrill of the party!  Luckily I had them because it was too cold to do the water balloon pinata.

A lot of them were blown up a bit too big and so we had some pop.  Luckily the cousins could get a smile back on the tearful birthday girls face!

Adam and his sweet dad that has stayed countless late nights to do whatever tasks have needed to be done on the house.

Caroline's bday baby as we call it (someone with the same birthday) is our dear friends little girl Ava.  We attended her party later in the week and had a fabulous celebration!

It was a bumble bee party and Caroline insisted on dressing the colors of the theme.

The little ones were actually a pretty good aim at the pinata.  They just hit it over and over and luckily some of the bigger kids had the umph to break it open for some candy!

Olive was so pleased with her Laffy Taffy find.  She couldn't believe she got to keep it and munch on it.

Happy Birthday to our little girl who's happiness is contagious and brightens anybodies day!

She makes friends with anyone she meets and protects her little sister fiercely.  

She loves to read and do math and really is enjoying discovering bugs!  

She is always singing and dancing around the house is super easy to tickle.

She makes the best banners, even if we are just coming home from the dentist.

She helps us all to be better people because she is a shining example to us.

We adore you Caroline Ella!

A Father to Celebrate!

We couldn't be more excited than to celebrate our babe dad Adam today!  He is someone that the girls and I learn from every day, little small lessons on ways to be simply magnificent.  Truly, we couldn't have someone better to be beside us every day.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude that our girls have him to look up to and to have in their life.  Even though it seems that the past whirlwind of three years has been nonstop busy, he has taken the little extra time he has had to be silly with them, explore new places, cuddle up and read countless books to them, teach them from example about loving the gospel, and calm any sadness when emotions are high.

We are so proud that he graduated a month ago after three years of pure intensity!

He has worked so hard and it has been so fun to watch him just dive in to all opportunities that have come along.  We love you babe!

Happy Father's Day AND Graduation!!!!