The Hannig Home

I am relaxing in my bed at 9pm on a Monday night.  I open my bedroom window and the sounds of frogs and crickets rush in.  It's amazing - the sound, the volume .  There must be thousands out there in our woods and pond.  As I take in the sweet sounds of Spring, I watch my belly bounce with the kicks of the baby growing inside.  Tomorrow I am 30 weeks pregnant, just 10 more to go.  Newborns are hard.  Hard.  But I think of Luke and Benny and can't believe I will have another baby to love so deeply. My sweet baby boys are snuggled in their bed together, fast asleep, Lukey in the clothes he wore with his daddy to the golf course tonight (he won't take them off) and Benny in a PJ top and only his diaper because he refuses to wear pants.  At times you can hear them snore a little, but always the sweet sound of their steady breathing.  Ben might have his 2 fingers in his mouth, sucking.  Or maybe they've fallen out.  His blankie i...

I feel like I've rambled on about this in previous posts, but where have 4 years gone?  LUKE IS FOUR. I love him and the boy he is growing up to be. His first trip ever to the dentist right before turning 4.  He was AWESOME!  For a boy who screams bloody murder getting his hair cut, I was 100% blown away that the outcome was what it was.  He didn't mind getting his teeth scraped, polished, or flossed.  I'm baffled! Helping decorate his cake Luke wanted to wrap his own present.  Over the course of an hour or more he used 2 entire rolls of Scotch tape...and the remaining Christmas wrapping paper scraps.  He is very detailed and dedicated to his projects. The boys pushing snow on a warm Saturday - March 30.  We didn't expect we'd have to do it a few more times this Spring! We found a salamander hibernating under our well cover.  I thought it was dead.  When it moved I was disgusted.  Luke was not - obviou...

Luke started calling Benjamin "Ben-Ben."  I like it.  Ben-Ben has become quite a little boy.  Here are some things that make our Ben-Ben, well, our Ben-Ben. **He loves to wear undies (over his diaper), which I believe I already mentioned in a previous posting.  He comes barreling down the hall with a new pair of undies every few hours and launches them at me, yelling, "Undies, Undies!"  He refuses to wear pants or socks. **He fell in love with the game of golf and plays from morning till night.  He sleeps with his golf clubs and brings them in the car with us wherever we go.  At 7am he comes into our room with his clubs and says "Ready golf Daddy?!"  Check out this video I posted on Youtube: And here he is bringing his golf clubs with him to get the mail with me. **He follows direction and is very obedient.  If we ask him to get a diaper, throw something in the garbage, put away his jammies, bring his dinner plat...

Check it out. Not only are Luke and Ben now sharing a room, they are sharing a bed!  We knew when the baby came in July, Ben would have to move in with Luke (because we don't want to move Luke into the basement bedroom).  I was planning on working on this transition in June, but Benny was showing interest already and Luke was on board, so we gave it a try.  It started with Ben coming into Luke's room for story time at night.  After the story, he'd happily transition to his crib in his own room for the night.  But recently he started wanting to stay.  At the same time he was becoming more flexible with sleeping in beds at Grandma and Granpa's houses overnight as well as at sleeping in beds at friend's houses during nap time.  So last week we put a crib mattress on the floor next to Luke's bed and he stayed in Luke's room (picture.  quite blurry): Surprisingly they both slept better than ever, although Ben woke up and wanted to go to his cri...

Hi Baby, I am almost 20 weeks pregnant with you (half way to your due date on July 9).  I have been feeling great in the past month or 2.  The first 12 weeks were full of extreme fatigue and some nausea.  I felt you move for the first time just a few days ago (at about 18 weeks and 5 or 6 days)!  At first I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was indeed YOU, but after lying on my back for a while, I realized that what I was feeling was definitely a little squirmy baby moving around.  We wonder what you will be - a boy or a girl.  I don't care.  I would love three boys, but a girl would be sweet and exciting for all of us.  I just got results today from one genetic screening test (it detects Spina Bifida and other neural tube defects) and the test result was negative, meaning the likelihood of you having a neural tube defect is slim to none.  What good news!  Next week we will get the results of the other 3 tests.  We are praying for ...

It truly seems like Luke JUST came into our lives, but of course almost 4 years have passed since he physically came into our sight and lives with jet black wavy hair and huge hands and feet (and it has been almost 5 years since he was created and my pregnancy started - in July of 2008).  Well now he is off to preschool!  It may seem like he is starting at an odd time - February - but we weren't on the ball enough to get him started right after the New Year, and this past Fall he wasn't quite ready to separate from his mama.  So February it is.  He is going one morning a week (Fridays from 8:30-11:30am) to Praise and Play preschool at Faith Lutheran Church in Spicer.  It is a perfect segue into preschool:  just one morning a week; on Fridays when there are only 4 kids in the class; his good friend, Liam Macik, is one of those 4; and the teacher is Ms. Paula, perhaps the sweetest woman in the world next to Luke's Grandmas, Annie and Marcy. We talked about ...

Paul and I were recently blessed with a week long vacation to Cancun!  Thanks to AMAZING grandpas and grandmas, Paul and I were able to leave the boys and have some precious one-on-one time together.  The boys did so great this year (last year Luke was a little blue each night and Benny was probably P.O.'d from being cut off from nursing cold turkey).  :) I communicated with my mom via email quite a bit during the week, which eased my mind considerably and made me truly enjoy my time with Paul.  She let me know that all was fine and that the boys didn't seem to miss us at all.  :)  Here are a few excerpts from my mom - which captures the spirit of Luke and Ben better than I seem to be able to at times! This first email is regarding the first night (when we left at 1:30am) and the boys woke up to Grandpa and Grandma Dold until the Hannigs arrived to take the boys for the first part of the week: Hi....glad you're enjoying yourself. The boys did not make ...