Ashley Beth Says

Family Fun

2012-02-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, we decided to have a fun family day. We bought a membership to Edventure - the children's museum in town. Membership was half price on Living Social's website - woohoo. So we went to check it out. I've now been to this place twice and I think I may have seen half of the exhibits. The place is huge and has so much for kids to do.

Working on the farm. Caroline could stay in this area for hours!

The grocery store is another favorite. We filled up the grocery cart about 4 times, checked out and returned our items. Caroline was ready to do it again, but we were ready to move on.

This time, we discovered an area specifically for 3 and under. This place was great for Lucy. She could get out and stretch and play too!

Lucy was fighting sleep. She laid back in her stroller for a long time with her eyes open.

Caroline was also sleepy by the end. I love how she is sucking her thumb while driving the car.

Giving me her "big smile" while pumping gas.

That night, we decided to do a "movie night". This is our first ever "movie night" - what fun! We popped popcorn and ate it while watching Mary Poppins. We decided to watch Mary Poppins because Caroline already knows the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite". We sing it every time we eat PB&J because I cut her sandwich in the shape of a kite.

Puzzled

2012-02-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

This is a 40 piece, interlocking puzzle that Caroline put together all by herself. She and I have put it together several times, but about 2 weeks ago I was playing with Lucy and looked up and noticed Caroline had already put about 10 pieces together. I sat and watched her put the rest together. I was so proud!

A 7 month old

2012-02-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

I'm trying not to be so shocked by these milestones - to just accept it is shocking how fast they come. My goal is that maybe by the 12 month post, I won't start the post saying "I can't believe she's 12 months old" - we'll see...

Lucy's had a big month. She is desperately wanting to be mobile. She can flop to her belly from the sitting position and she can scoot backward a little ways. She gets pretty frustrated that she is not moving forward though. She hasn't figured out yet how to get up on her knees so I'm thinking we still have a little while before she takes off. I'm pretty sure that as soon as she figures out how to crawl, she is going to be pulling up too because she is trying to pull up from the sitting position. She grabs a hold of my leg or a nearby object and pulls with all her might. Her little rump will even come off the floor a little.

Lucy's also gotten 2 teeth this month - the bottom front teeth. They came in quietly - no sleepless nights or irritable baby syndrome here. However, she seems to be drooling more than ever now. Perhaps more are on the way. She's had plenty of new things to try to eat with those teeth: barley, green beans, acorn squash, butternut squash, peaches, pears, and apples. Lucy eats anywhere from 2-4 cubes of food 3 times a day - she has really stepped up her game this month! I'm also letting her play with a sippy cup.

If baby talk is any indication, we have got another talkative little girl on our hands. Lucy loves to jabber loudly. She says "mama", "dada", "baba", "gaga", "yaya", and all sorts of vowels. None of these are actually associated with anything in particular. Although, I do think she tends to make the "m" sound when she is hungry or tired.

Poor Lucy doesn't have a prayer when it comes to tickling. She seems to become more and more ticklish. Sometimes the kid can't take a bath, get a diaper changed or get her clothes changed without losing it. Yesterday was one of those days and as her mother, I can't help but egg it on. I just love how she tucks her chin into her chest and squeals in laughter.

Lucy is our sweet, laid back baby. She goes with the flow, which can be tough to do in these busy days. We are so thankful for this precious girl.

Other things this month:

Reaches for Mommy
Rolls tummy to back
Turns the pages in a book (It was a board book and I assisted some.)
Has "surgery"
Bath in the big tub with Caroline - although I was a nervous wreck the whole time so this only happens if both Adam and I can do bath time together. She's a great sitter, but it's just so slippery!
Sucks her thumb (uh oh, but the girl will not take a paci!)

Before the glass in her foot incident....

"I want to crawl!"

Sorta matching PJs.

Loving hugs from Caroline.

In an outfit that used to be mine.

Look hard and you'll see those teeth!

Mom's Night

2012-02-02T18:37:00.000-08:00

I have been looking forward to Mom's Night at preschool since Dad's Night back in October. Mom's Night was on Thursday of last week - the same day Lucy had her surgery. On Wednesday, when we found out Lucy was going to have surgery, I decided Caroline and I wouldn't be going to Mom's Night. But then Lucy did so well and was back to herself a few hours after surgery so Adam insisted that Caroline and I go.

The event had a circus theme so Caroline and I went as clowns.

Something about the clown outfit and makeup made Caroline a little silly.

Caroline impressed me. We were standing in line for one of the activities. She pointed at the "d" on this sign and said "that word says Daddy!" So smart - even though it was at the end of the word. She then pointed at other letters and told me what that "word" said - all were words that started with that letter. She looked up at the word "Clowning." She didn't know about that word. It started with a "C", but she knew it didn't spell "Caroline". It was very cool to see that little brain working so hard.

Racing motorcycles.

Pin the nose on the clown.

Taming lions (or beanie babies) - throwing them through a hula hoop.

Walking the tight rope. This was Caroline's favorite. I was so impressed with her balance. She went across this pretty quickly.

And dinner. She ate dessert first, but she did eat all her dinner =)

What a fun night! Mom's night definitely lived up to the hype.

29 (for the first time)

2012-02-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Adam's birthday was last Tuesday. We sent him off to work with a hardy breakfast. That night we had a special dinner in our dining room using our fine china. Caroline wore her Cinderella dress. I had plans to make a cake for the weekend, so on his actual birthday I made warm banana pudding - a favorite recipe that Adam's family makes. Since we couldn't really sit any candles in the banana pudding, we lit a random one and stood it beside the banana pudding. Little Lucy was so tired by the time Adam got home from work. She basically gave Daddy a hug and went to bed.

On Saturday, Adam's family came into town to celebrate with us. Caroline helped me put the finishing touches on Adam's Snicker Bar cake. There are 4 sticks of butter and 8 Snicker's Bars in this cake.

After lunch and cake, we headed to the playground 2 blocks down.

Adam and I also went on a date that night - woohoo! We saw The Artist. Adam said it was a recipe for my kind of movie: 1) Black & White, 2) Almost no speaking, 3) French. (Just in case you don't know, that was a very sarcastic comment Adam was making. This is a recipe for a movie I would normally hate.) However, it was very good. We both enjoyed, but mostly enjoyed an evening together.

What a great way to do 29. We had so much fun.

Lucy's ordeal

2012-01-30T18:45:00.000-08:00

Lucy had quite an ordeal last week. My sweet girl has recently discovered the walker and it's her absolute favorite spot right now (besides Mommy's arms). Last Monday, Adam had dropped a glass at lunch that broke on our kitchen floor. He and I both swept and thought we had gotten it all. Later that evening, I popped Lucy in the walker while Caroline and I colored in the kitchen. She cried out a little bit later and I quickly noticed her little heel was bleeding.

Sure enough, she had a tee-iny piece of glass in her heel. I went after it with tweezers and had no luck. When Adam got home from work we tried again - only making it worse. The doctor's office suggested soaking the foot, which we also did.

Long story short - the glass had to come out and Lucy was going to have to be put to sleep in order to get it out. Talk about emotional. We had less than 24 hours to process that information and to make plans for it. I guess we should be thankful for that much time.

What I AM thankful for is a great surgeon, a great hospital, and a wonderful anesthesiologist who did the very minimum anesthesia possible to get the job done. Lucy didn't even have an IV - which everyone told us she would have one, but the anesthesiologist recognized this would be a very fast, simple surgery and there were no complications.

Starving!! So hungry she is eating Daddy's tie.

So cute in the hospital waiting room.

Trying to pass the time. She is so hungry and tired at this point.

Hospital gown.

Finally fell asleep.

The piece of glass that caused this whole thing is in this cup.

6 month stats

2012-01-21T18:06:00.001-08:00

At 6 months, Miss Lucy is:

18 pounds 5.5 ounces (86%)
26 inches long (55%)
and her head is 43 cm (64%)

She's a growing girl =) The 6 month appointment went very well. Lucy was funny about her shots. She cried hard after the second shot and gave the nurse quite a look. I thought maybe I was just seeing things, but the nurse even said "Ok, ok. I'm leaving now," to Lucy so apparently she noticed it too.

First Haircut

2012-01-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

Caroline got her first haircut on Friday, January 13th. She did great. As part of the package, they also styled her hair (curling iron) and painted her finger nails. What a special treat for a first haircut! Although, I think I'm going to try my hand at cutting it. At least now I have a baseline to go by.

This was after the cut and blow dry but before the styling. That curl at the bottom is all natural =)

Rice Cereal and other solids

2012-01-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

Lucy got her first taste of real food on New Year's Eve Eve - not a typo - Friday, December 30th. I actually made it myself. It was brown rice cereal. Despite her awful faces, she ate really well that night.

Solid food eating has been a bit of a struggle since then. Lucy is a bit picky. She likes the food warm and smooth. She's not a fan of my rice cereal - it's very gritty. She likes store-bought oatmeal better. Also, if she doesn't want to eat - she doesn't want to eat - and she will spit the food in your face until you get the point.

We also had a bit of an episode with bananas. On day 3 of bananas, Lucy up-chucked - and I mean up-chucked. My fear was an allergic reaction. We waited a few more days and tried bananas again. The next time we tried bananas all was well. I'm pretty sure she just didn't want to eat so she gagged on what I was trying to feed her.

So far, she has had brown rice cereal, oat cereal, sweet potatoes, bananas, green beans, and barley cereal (introduced in that order).

Lucy is a laid back, sweet, easy baby, but she has always taken her food very seriously =) I should not have expected any differently with solids.

And a video:

2012

2012-01-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

So I know that we are more than 2 weeks into this new year already. Some people have probably already faltered on their new year's resolutions. Well, that's ok - I am just now making them.

Here are some things I want to do in 2012:

Finish my YouVersion Bible plan. It's a plan to read the Bible through in a year. Assuming I finish in 2012, I will have read it in a year and 3 months because I started the plan back in October. (YouVersion is just an app on my phone that I use for the plan)
Pray daily - other than meal and bedtime prayers.
Talk to family more often. I love our families - mine and Adam's. Seeing all of them over Thanksgiving and Christmas reminds me of how much I like them =) They are great people.
Focus less on teaching "A, B, C...1, 2, 3" and more on teaching "Jesus Loves Me". This is a struggle for me. Our world is constantly telling us all of the things our children need to know to succeed in kindergarten and therefore life. But the truth is, God doesn't care if my children learn to read before kindergarten or even if they go to college. I want to focus on teaching my children about the things God cares about.
Memorize verses as a family. The children's ministry at church has a verse a month that they work with children to memorize so we are going to take this challenge on as a family.
Read books. W-What?? Did I really just write that? Yes, I did. Contrary to popular belief, I do like to read some. I like to read non-fiction books about my current interests. Of course, right now that is usually child-rearing. I have a couple of books that I've been wanting to read for a while so I'll start with those. I won't read them cover to cover. I'll probably pick out the chapters and sections that apply to me and I'll read those. That probably angers a lot of readers - Adam doesn't like it, but it's still reading!
Take pictures. I'm loving our new camera. Of course, now I take WAY too many pictures. So along with this goal, I want to organize the pictures as I go.
Finally, blog...blog a lot cause life is happening - it's not slowing down - and I don't want to forget. It's too precious to forget.

Notably missing from this list is running or any exercising for that matter. That will come. Maybe next year when I'm not nursing and getting up at all hours of the night. This is not my season for running.

Christmas Part 2

2012-01-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

After church on Christmas Day we drove to the upstate to visit our families.

There was lots of sugar, lots of staying up past bedtime, lots of laughing really hard, lots of loving on grandparents and lots of loving on cousins.

Lucy Photoshoot

2012-01-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

Photos with our new camera. Unedited...

Lucy is 6 months

2012-01-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness. How is my baby 6 months old?? I just don't know. My baby is the most cuddly and light-hearted little thing. I had forgotten how much I love this age. Of course I love them all, but I guess I had forgotten what I love about this age.

I love that she laughs at peek-a-boo and silly voices. I love that her face lights up when I come in the room and she even reaches a little for me. I love that she buries her face in my shoulder, reaches for whatever I have in my hands, and squeals with delight.

Here are some things my sweet girl is doing:

She sits awesomely. Her sitting skills soared in just a few days right around Christmas. All of the sudden she could sit for 30-45 minutes at a time.
Lucy likes to stand too. Of course, standing is supported.
Lucy got to try sitting up in the shopping cart a few days ago. She's a big time shopper so she told me that was super fun for her =)
Lucy gets her toes in her mouth. I am so impressed since I can't even touch my toes.
She recognizes her name.
She is watching Caroline like it's her job. They are even interacting some and laughing together =)
Lucy has started to rub her eyes when she is tired. It is precious.

Lucy wants to move badly. She easily flips onto her belly, but that is all right now. She still hasn't rolled tummy to back, but maybe she just doesn't want to be on her back. She's a ways from crawling, but I can tell she wants to be mobile so we will see how this all plays out.

We started solid foods just after Christmas on December 30th. I actually made her rice cereal. I'll have to do another post on that. Her first bite was of brown rice cereal. We are still struggling with the solids. Some days she does great and eats really well, but other days she blows raspberries constantly and you can't get a bite down. Yeah - the raspberries are cute until she spits food onto YOUR plate of food or onto YOUR face. Then, it's kind of not cute and even gross. So far she has tried: brown rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, sweet potatoes and bananas (more on bananas later).

Lucy still doesn't have any teeth. I seriously can't believe it. She started "teething" and drooling long before Caroline ever did. So I thought for sure she would have had them by now, but I'm not complaining.

Lucy still isn't back to sleeping those glorious 10-11 hours. Sometimes she wakes up 3-4 times to eat at night, but sometimes only once. Hopefully as she gets better at eating, this will go back to normal. Side note: How come whenever Adam and I decide that it is "his" night, she only wakes up once and on "my" nights she wakes up multiple times??

I can't wait to get Lucy's 6 month stats. Her doctor's appointment is a little late this time. She's definitely a growing girl. She's still in 6-9 month clothes, but they are starting to get tight.

We love our sweet girl!

Here's the picture roll: (Couldn't you just eat up those blue blue eyes and sweet cheeks?)

Christmas

2012-01-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a little different this year. We decided to stay home for Christmas morning. Our family Christmas festivities started on Christmas Eve. It was a special day where we enjoyed each other - the four of us.

Caroline and I spent the latter half of the morning baking a birthday cake for Jesus.

And setting the table for Christmas Eve dinner. Shown prominently in the picture below is Caroline's place setting. Adam and I got two of these place settings as wedding presents. It is part of a series of plates that tells the story of Jesus' birth.

During nap, the cake baked and I prepared our Christmas dinner - manicotti and asparagus.

After nap, we decorated the birthday cake.

We then headed out the door to our church's Christmas Eve service. The service was really beautiful. It was a great time of reflecting on our savior's birth and thanking God for sending His one and only son to Earth for us.

After church, we headed home to eat dinner.

My beautiful Lucy watched us from the high chair.

Just beautiful =)

Then it was time for cake.

We had 4 candles on Jesus' birthday cake - one for each member of our family - each candle representing a person He came to earth for.

Then Adam read the Christmas story to the girls in bed.

And the babes slumbered =)

On Christmas morning, we had to convince Caroline there were presents in the family room for her. She kept saying "No! Just one present!" - haha!

But when she saw them - she ran in!

Caroline is hugging Lucy - thanking Lucy for her gift. (Lucy got Caroline a Little Mermaid barbie doll.)

Lucy loved it!

Little Mermaid and Beauty visiting the dollhouse.

After playing with toys for a long time. We enjoyed a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole.

Using the timer setting on our new camera. (all pictures above were taken with the new camera)

We then went to church to celebrate some more.

Random things to remember:

The Little Mermaid doll was one of the first presents Caroline opened. We had to entice her to open other presents she was so preoccupied with the toys so we told her "Mermaid might have a friend." We then handed her the present with the Beauty doll in it. She got very excited. For every subsequent present, Caroline would say "Maybe Beauty has a friend!" - hoping it would be Snow White or Cinderella. Unfortunately, there were no more friends.
Caroline was so fun this Christmas. She memorized so many Christmas songs after hearing them only a few times through - Jingle Bells, Away in a Manger, The 12 days of Christmas, Hark the Herald, Silent Night, and some others. She even called all grandparents one afternoon and sang a song to each of them - her own initiative.
We really focused on giving this year with Caroline. She participated in picking out and wrapping a lot of the gifts. She only told one time - she told Adam one of his gifts.

I'm a sitter!

2011-12-22T19:21:00.000-08:00

Lucy is sitting by herself longer and longer everyday. She can sit for several minutes at a time. I usually stay within arms reach to rescue her if she suddenly loses balance, but she's actually pretty good at falling. She slides onto her tummy.

Christmas dresses

2011-12-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to take a couple of pictures of the girls in front of the Christmas tree on Sunday mornings. Here's what we've got so far. Keep in mind, this is the best of what we've got so far...

"Cheese!!"

She sticks her tongue out a lot.

"I don't want to hold sissy!"

Swinging

2011-12-22T19:07:00.000-08:00

Look who's swinging...

Preschool's Birthday Party for Jesus

2011-12-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

Preschool had a birthday party for Jesus last week. The party was on a day that Caroline wouldn't normally attend school so she got to bring her parents =)

We made a Christmas card.

She raced a friend to swaddle baby Jesus.

She made reindeer food. Recipe: snack size Ziploc of oats mixed with Green, Yellow and Red magic!

She tossed bean bags - ok so she placed bean bags into the hole. She took a running start from the line every time.

She pinned the nose on the snowman.

She's so smart. She knew she would need to see to put the nose on so she lifted her blindfold just in time!

We ended the party with a minicupcake and some chex mix. It was so fun to join Caroline for her preschool party.

Smile Big!

2011-12-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

Currently, when you ask Caroline to "smile", this is what she does...

We were able to recover well for the school picture when I said "say cheese". She did a perfect smile. However, when we went to see Santa, we were crunched for time. This was a take-your-own-picture Santa with a mile long line and elves that were rushing us. Everyone around us was saying "smile". I frantically said "say cheese! say cheese!" But alas, it was too late. And I was so focused on trying to recover Caroline's expression that I didn't even attempt to get Lucy to smile.

So here is the Santa picture:

All I want for Christmas

2011-12-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

Is my 2 front teeth....

So I forgot to mention that Lucy's "tooth" at 2 months old ended up being just a calcium deposit - hooray! She is fiercely working on those 2 bottom teeth. Gee - if she could only have her two front teeth, then we might get some sleep around here =)

How do you find a Christmas Tree?

2011-12-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

Try using your "magifying" glass

And we need a picture of the final product.

Go Tigers

2011-12-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

Adam and I used to go to a lot of football games. Even after we had graduated, we would go to several Carolina games a year and usually one Clemson game. However, the last football game we had both been to was when I was pregnant with Caroline.

My dad invited us to go to a Clemson game this year and being the second-time-more-relaxed-mom that I am, I thought maybe we would even bring the kids...to a noon game...yes, that is nap time.

Clemson was playing Wake Forest. Adam and I really didn't get to watch much of the first half of the game. There was pizza to break apart and hold, a bottle to go warm up, a diaper blowout to change, and many bathroom trips. But both girls quieted down for the second half and even napped a little. We really had a great time. And afterward, we showed Caroline the amphitheater and reflection pond.

Adam just had to bring his Carolina fleece pullover =)

Thanksgiving Feast

2011-12-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

So I'm really behind on blogging. I'm going to attempt to catch up here. Caroline's preschool had a Thanksgiving Feast. It's so fun talking up holidays with Caroline right now and preschool is helping us add to all the hype.

Caroline made a Native American outfit to wear at her feast. She also wore it some on Thanksgiving day.

Here are some snapshots that her teacher and my aunt sent to me.

Lucy's 5 months old

2011-12-16T18:50:00.000-08:00

Lucy turned 5 months old almost a week ago. We've been so busy the last 2 weeks with our church's Singing Christmas tree and then recovering from our church's Singing Christmas Tree (lol) that I haven't posted anything in a while!

I can't believe this sweet girl is 5 months old. She is doing way too many things right now.

She easily rolls back to front.
She likes to get on her tummy to play - huh - what a concept! Surprisingly, she is not a tummy sleeper though - at least not yet. I thought most babies flipped to their tummies for sleep as soon as they got the rolling over part down pat. (It's amazing how many things I attributed to "most babies" even with just my one - silly Mommy!)
Lucy is also grabbing all kinds of objects and toys easily. She loves to grab! She plays the bouncy seat music for herself all the time and loves the toys on the excersaucer.
She has also gotten a hold of her feet. She loves them and grabs them all the time except when I bring the camera out!
Lucy can also sit unsupported for a whopping 3 seconds or so.

This month, she has tried out the doorway jumper, a second excersaucer at my aunt's house, and even the high chair. She hasn't had any solids yet. I just like to have her in the high chair with us when we are eating dinner. Our high chair is very upright so she is usually slouching by the end of dinner. We'll have to work on her table manners!

We are definitely getting closer to eating solids. I was hoping to make it through the holidays and traveling before getting into all that. I think we are going to make it, but sleep will be questionable. Lucy has woken up at least one time a night every night this month to eat. For about a week and a half it was 3 times a night - whew! That = one tired mama. We are back to just once a night. We plan to start solids later this month so hopefully that will help us get back to that wonderful 10-11 hours!

Lucy is really getting her naps in order. She takes a 1-1.5 hour nap around 9:30 and 1-2 hour nap around 2:00. Sometimes takes a third nap around 4:30 for about 30 minutes. Other times she powers through and just goes to bed at 6:30.

Lucy is trying so hard to make consonant sounds. I love watching her spit raspberries and move her lips. She has been successful at the "B" and "M" sounds. She's even done a little "Mumumum". I eat it up! I'm sure it's for me =)

Lucy is holding firmly in 6-9 month clothes. She's on the medium setting in cloth diapers and wears size 2 for disposables. She mostly wears size 1 shoes.

Lucy is such a fun baby. She loves to laugh and is easily entertained. She rarely smiles without laughing a little. She loves my Evil Mommy voice and any other crazy sound. And she is still so so ticklish. We are so blessed to have her in our lives!

Often tuckers herself out on the playmat.

Fascinated by lights!

He's Still Working On Me

2011-12-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

type A
uncoordinated
shy
nervous
messy
co-dependent
intense
moody
rebellious
fearful
guarded
frugal

I say these words a lot - about myself, about my husband, about my children. I'm trying harder and harder to not say them as if they belong to that person. Perhaps these words describe a behavior and that's ok. But I don't want to create personality boxes for my children.

"There really ought to be a sign upon the heart,

Don't judge her yet, there's an unfinished part.

But I'll be perfect just according to His plan

Fashioned by the Master's loving hands."

There is a fine line between getting to know and understand their personalities and then promoting those personality traits. I think, as parents, we get so excited when we think we have figure something out about their personality. We get so excited and we tell others and then we plan around it. I want to promote and strengthen the good. I don't want to accept the bad as "well, that's just how they are." Praise the Lord, at 28 years old, He is still working on me. And if He is still working on ME, then I know HE is still working on my 2 year old and 4 month old.

"He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.

It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,

The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.

How loving and patient He must be, He's still working on me."

Trivia

2011-11-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

Interesting tidbits about Caroline and Lucy's births:

Both girls were delivered by the same doctor - Dr. P. This is by luck because there are 4 doctors in the practice I go to and Dr. P happened to be on call when I went into labor each time.
Dr. P's "firstborn" is a dog named Lucy and her oldest child is named Caroline.
I was put in the exact same Labor and Delivery Room. This is pretty wild because I think there are more than 20 of these.
Both girls had NICU specialists present at their birth. They were present at Caroline's birth as part of protocol since she was < 37 weeks gestation age. They watched her for less than 5 minutes and left because she was fine. They were present at Lucy's birth because she had to be deep suctioned. There was meconium in the amniotic fluid when my water broke so it's protocol to deep suction in that situation. That process took less than 10 minutes and then the team left. Lucy's NICU bill was a whole lot more than Caroline's!

Halloween

2011-11-18T17:31:00.000-08:00

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. We really talked it up to Caroline. We talked about her costume (a bumble bee) and Lucy's costume (a pumpkin/flower). We read lots of Halloween books. So we were ready. We set a date to carve the pumpkin a few nights before Halloween (we've learned from experience that you don't do that too early). That night, I cooked a very fall meal - Oyster Stew - and Caroline helped me make some pumpkin muffins.

Adam made a fire in the fireplace and then cut the top off the pumpkin. After that, Caroline and I got to work.

We made sure to separate out the seeds so we could roast them - yum =)

And tada!

After the girls went to bed, Adam and I went to work carving 2 more pumpkins. We were trying to use patterns released by The State Newspaper - patterns of Dabo Swinney and Steve Spurrier. However, when we were only about 25 percent done at 11 p.m., we decided to turn the pumpkins around and do the traditional triangles and circles.

A couple of weeks before Halloween, the museum was having a special Halloween day. We decided to take the girls in full costume. We weren't there long when we decided that the event was really for older children - probably 5-10 years old. It will probably be a lot of fun in a few years. The highlight for Caroline was the balloon artist.

She carried that thing around the rest of the day =)

The Thursday before Halloween, my Aunt treated me and the girls to Boo at the Zoo. This was our first time there. I love this picture. This is Attempt #1 at a picture with me and both girls.

And picture #2: I've got Caroline in a death grip and poor Lucy!

Caroline did great at waiting her turn and saying "Thank you". She never did get the "Trick or Treat" part.

Holding hands with cousin Crystal.

Riding the train

Riding the Carousel. Caroline just automatically waves.

On Halloween night, we were all prepared to go trick-or-treating at a couple of houses. We got the girls ready to go. Lucy wore her flower costume since it was pretty cold that day. But Caroline wasn't feeling good. I had actually taken her to the doctor that afternoon. So after we completed our photo shoot on the front porch we decided to just stay in and greet the other trick-or-treaters. Caroline didn't seem to notice that we weren't going out and I figured she already had plenty of candy!

Lucy is always willing to take a picture.

The only decent picture we have of both of them on the front porch.

In most of our pictures, Caroline is doing this. Looks like she's trying to sting Lucy - haha!

Miss C is 2.5

2011-11-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

Caroline turned 2.5 on November 13th and boy does she know it! Caroline is bursting with personality all over the place these days. Sometimes it is a really wonderful and sometimes it is not so wonderful.

Mornings are not really Caroline's thing. This has been the case for a while. She gets plenty of sleep every night - usually right at 12 hours, but still seems to roll off the wrong side of the bed most mornings. Adam and I decided to try giving her a little free time in the mornings. We usually have to wake her up a little early so that she can have 15 minutes of free time before she has to get ready. Caroline usually chooses to play with Legos. After a few minutes of play time, she is one bright and happy girl.

Caroline's imagination is unreal right now. I often think about how cool it would be to live in her world for just a day. Caroline is always talking with her barbies and stuffed animals. She imagines some pretty humorous scenarios and often reenacts stories from books and television shows. She also imagines characters and animals are playing with her. So far she doesn't have an imaginary friend per se - no one is a constant.

In the last 6 months, Caroline has become more and more independent. If she needs something that is out of reach, she goes to get her stool so she can get it herself. She also plays in her room for long periods of time by herself (30-45 minutes).

She's also finally using utensils by herself, climbing into her own car seat, and opening up doors by herself. She even started getting out of bed consistently by herself this past week. I say these last couple of things sarcastically because most kids Caroline's age have been doing these things for a long time. Caroline can be really timid.

Lately Caroline has gotten into some fun games like "I Spy" and "Hide 'n Seek". She doesn't quite get the concept of Hide 'n Seek. She likes to hide in the same spot most of the time - her closet. She also has to have help hiding the closet so she'll ask the adult to close the closet door for her. She likes to tell the other participant where they should hide - she can be bossy =) When I go to find her, I usually say "Hmmm...where is Caroline?" Caroline can hardly contain her excitement and squeals "I'm in the closet!!!!"

Caroline has an exceptional memory. This summer we would borrow 10 books a week from the library. By the end of the week, Caroline would have most of them memorized word for word. And these were not easy books. These were Dr. Seuss's, Fancy Nancy's, Llama Llama's and so on - long books with complicated words. She definitely loves books and loves reading.

We are definitely in the Terrible 2s. I feel as though I correct speech and behavior all day every day - "Yes Ma'am", "No Sir", manners, holding an adult's hand, greeting people nicely, obeying adults, etc. Parenting a 2 year old will definitely teach you patience. I constantly have to remind myself that she is 2 and that she is learning social skills. Whew!

Caroline's singing is definitely taking off. She loves to sing. She has even learned some of the Christmas songs that are in our church's adult Christmas program this year. Adam and I listen to them a lot since we are in the choir.

Even though she can be quite bossy, Caroline is one of the sweetest gals I know. She has a very tender heart is always asking me if I'm ok. She loves to give us hugs and kisses. If I fall or bump my elbow, she wants to kiss it for me. She really cares =) She is incredibly gentle and sweet to Lucy. She is a great big sister.

It's been a busy 6 months for Caroline. She's become a big sister, started preschool and had surgery. I'm so completely proud of her.

Here are some random pics from the past six months that have never made it to the blog:

Enjoying a sucker

Riding the tricycle - she's getting pretty good.

Legos in the morning

Chilling while watching the TV.

Picking pecans and Nana and Papa's

Even dramatic while taking a swig.

Mixing dry noodles while I cook dinner = "helping with dinner" =)

Lucy is 4 months old

2011-11-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

Lucy is 4 months old now. Four months in and you'd think I'd be getting used to the fact that she's here, but it just seems like yesterday when Adam put her in my arms for the first time. I'm not ready to start all the rice cereal and sitting up stuff!

Lucy is such a fun baby. I have a feeling she is going to be extremely ticklish. In my (limited) experience, babies her age usually aren't ticklish but Lucy IS. She always gets the giggles when I undress her at night. I can't help but start to laugh myself while I watch her squirm and giggle. Just below the neck and in the armpits are also some tickle hotspots.

Adam and I both said separately that we think she's going to be a crawler unlike Caroline who never crawled (not any style at all). Lucy definitely does stuff different than Caroline did. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not that Caroline wasn't strong. She was very strong - she was independently sitting at 5.5 months and cruising on furniture at 6.5 months old. And Lucy is very strong too, but it's just different. Maybe if I had them side by side at the same age I could tell you what it is.

Lucy is affectionate in her own way. She loves to grab a hold of your shirt while you are holding her. She also does this with my hair. I imagine she's saying "I got you Babe" - Sonny and Cher style.

Lucy is for the most part an easy going girl. She's pretty serious about her food though. She wants her bottles warm! Warm, I said! And don't tease her. If you started to give her a bottle and then take it away before she's ready, she will get very mad. Bottle is definitely second choice for Lucy. She sometimes takes her feedings really far apart during the day when I'm at work. One day last week, she went 6.5 hours in between feedings. Dr. G said this is ok since Lucy makes up for it when I come home, which she certainly does. Lucy eats about every 2 hours in the late afternoon and evening. I don't mind because she eats in less than 15 minutes.

Lucy loves to look at herself in the mirror right now. It's a great tool for making tummy time last longer. She is also really loving that Bumbo seat. And she is easily sitting on your hip these days. She is definitely a strong little girl.

Here are some of her other milestones this month:
Laughing out loud - she does this all the time. She rarely even smiles without laughing a little.
Turning around in the Bjourn
Playing the music for herself in the bouncy seat
Trying out the excersaucer

Lucy is still bigger than Caroline was at this age. She's topping most of the charts for weight and height, but she has actually slowed down on the growth curve so I think we will see some of this start to taper.

Stats:
Weight = 15 pounds 3 ounces (86%)
Height = 25.5 inches (95%)
Head Circumference 41.5 cm (81%)

For right now, she is wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes. Please tell me what happened to the 3-6 month clothes!

We love our little Lucy and the dynamic she brings to our family. Here are some other photos from this month:

Lucy had 2 costumes this year (same 2 Caroline had her first Halloween - one was free and the other was $3).

Lucy still sleeps with her eyes partially open some times.

Happy girls.

Flower costume

Nothing like a sleeping baby =)

Desperately trying to watch television - haha!

Love a denim jumper on a little girl

When's it her turn?

2011-11-10T17:12:00.000-08:00

Folks, when is it going to be her turn??? Can you tell she loves The Little Mermaid?

She doesn't quite know all the words =) Things to listen for:
"When's it my turn?"
"part of your world"
"I know where the people are. Wanna see them dancing around!"
"Look at this....isn't it meet. Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?"
"What do you think of the girl? Girl who has everything."

She also often sings "I want so much more than this provincial life!" from Beauty and the Beast. She's so deprived!

Caroline says the darndest things

2011-11-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

I can't write out all the things Caroline is saying these days. She pretty much says it all. It's so fun to hear her practice language. Most of the time she gets it right, but sometimes she really gets it wrong and it's so funny. These are just some things she has said lately:

"I'm Dora!"

"Mommy, I'm really awake."

"It's my favorite, favorite."

"Oh no! She spilled! "(Lucy spit up)

"Can I hold her? Can I kiss her? Can I hug her? Can I take her hand?" (all about Lucy)

"Mommy will you hold (fill in the blank) for a little bit?"

"I can't wait to take a bath." (when she does NOT want to take a bath)

"Can you hold Bubby real soon?" (meaning right now)

"It's a question." (but there was never a question)

"She'll be back next year." (talking about Nana or Bubby or somebody else)

"Fall is here for Daddy!" (Adam was outside raking the leaves. We've been reading a book about how you rake leaves in the Fall.)

"You're sure." (If we ask, "Are you sure?")

"Mommy, will you marry me some time?"

"What is it?....I spy sompin....blue! What is it?" (playing I spy)

"Nember? Do you nember, Mommy?" (without telling me what I'm supposed to remember.)

The Fair

2011-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we took the girls to the State Fair. Caroline is at such a great age for this. She LOVES rides! After riding the pavilion rides at the beach twice this year - she is quite the expert.

See how an expert rider waves. She could wave from a ride in her sleep =)

Miss Lucy loved the lights. She looked out from her Bjourn as much as she could.

Dad's Night

2011-11-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

Caroline's preschool had a Dad's Night a couple of weeks ago. The theme was Down on the Farm so she and Adam dressed the part. They had a blast eating chicken nuggets and playing carnival games. I'm glad I took a pic beforehand because we don't have any of the actual event. One of the highlights of the night was pin the tail on Daddy. Caroline is still talking about some games from Dad's Night. I can't wait for Mom's Night in January =)

Adenoid update

2011-11-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Caroline is now adenoid free. We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am and we were back home before 9 am. Caroline took all the princesses and Bubby with her. They went all the way to the OR =)

It was definitely a challenging day. After the procedure was over, Adam and I could hear Caroline screaming and crying from the waiting area. It took a while for them to come get us. It was not fun listening to our baby so upset. I guess they thought they would try to console her before we got back there so we wouldn't be upset. But she was inconsolable. She was mostly scared. Lots of nurses, doctors and people she didn't know in her face, lots of monitors and cords still attached to her, and she was on this funky medicine that was making her feel weird. Adam and I tried to console her for about 15 minutes, but the sweet nurses wouldn't get out of her face - they were being a little too overbearing. We quickly decided that we just needed to get out of there so they discharged us in the recovery room and we left the hospital with her screaming and crying the whole way. (One of the nurses also told us that redheads typically don't do well with anesthesia.)

Once we were home, she calmed down some, but she pretty much cried off and on until lunch time. We did lots of snuggling all day and watched lots of movies.

Her hands are both pretty beat up. The nurses had trouble finding a good vein for her IV. She walked around like Frankenstein all day and wouldn't user her hands AT ALL. She's a little bit of a drama queen. She's been using her hands just fine today.

All these things are temporary and will be better in just a few days. Dr. V is very pleased with the outcome of the surgery. He said that her adenoids were huge and that this will help her have so much more room to breathe! She's already doing a lot more nose-breathing instead of mouth-breathing. Nose Breathing is something Caroline rarely does - even when she's well so this is a really good sign.

We really appreciate the support of our family and friends this weekend. My dad and Adam's mom came down from Greenville to help out and just be with us. We are so thankful!

Adenoidectomy

2011-11-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

Caroline will be having an adenoidectomy tomorrow. She's already been sick twice since mid-September. The first time, she was sick for 20 days and took antibiotics for 18 days. She was well for less than 2 weeks and now has another sinus infection. Please be praying for a speedy recovery for her and for safe sedation. Adam and I are also praying that this fixes her problem. I know she will still catch viruses, but I'm hoping that they won't settle and become infections like they have been.

We check in to the hospital at 6:30 am. Please say a little prayer for us if you can. Thank you!

Beach X 2

2011-10-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

The girls and I were so lucky to get to go to the beach TWICE this year. Adam's parents were going to the beach towards the end of September and invited us to come along. Unfortunately Adam had to work, but since I was on maternity leave I jumped at the chance to play at the beach. We stayed with Adam's parents, his grandmother and one of his sisters Amber.

We stayed at this hotel that was also a resort. They had their own water park. When Caroline saw that, it was over. She wanted to stay at the water park all day.

Showing Nana.

Lucy chilled on the beach.

We took all 11 of Caroline's library books. She had everyone read them to her many, many times. By the end of the week she had almost all of them memorized - and these were not short books either!

Lucy is happy to be wearing an ice cream cone. I took advantage of being at the beach and put all her cute summer clothes on her one last time!

Aunt Amber is so much fun!

We went to the Pavilion Nostalgia park where Caroline rode the cars, the boats, the whales and the carousel.

I was so happy to convince Aunt Amber to ride the whales with Caroline =)

Caroline loved laying on her belly to have a little chat with Aunt Amber. She would say "So...how do you like the water?"

Lazy River.

Papa had some extra tickets for rides so we went back for more fun the next night.

As they were boarding the carousel, Caroline told Nana she wanted to ride the "truck". Apparently the benches on the carousel are the "truck".

We had a really great time. Lucy and Caroline really enjoyed all the extra loves. On a side note, this was my first time sharing a bed with Caroline (except for early morning snuggles). It's amazing how a 2 year old can take up the entire bed and push you off the edge =) But this just reminded me of how sweet and tenderhearted she is. One night she waited on me to come to bed. When I finally crawled into bed (after 10 pm), she put her hand on my cheek. I thought it might be a momentary touch, but she fell asleep like that - with her hand on my cheek. I tried to stay awake as long as a physically could soaking in that moment!

Lucy Guffaws

2011-10-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

You've seen Lucy laugh. Now she guffaws.

Flower Girl

2011-10-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

This is really late. These pictures are from Adam's sister's wedding on June 3rd. But here are some pics of the cutest flower girl ever!

(pics above were taken by Blue Mountain Photo Works. All other pics were taken by my dad.)

Life of the party. Way, way, way past bed time =) At this point she was living on sweet tea and gummy bears!

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, we had a fun family outing at Sease Farms. They have a pretty good pumpkin patch and a lot of other fun things to do. Their claim to fame is their corn maze. I'm sure that will be fun for us when the kids are older. For now, we had fun playing in the miniature mazes, the fun slides, the playground, the hay ride and so many other fun things.

"It's too heavy!"

And then our camera ran out of room on the memory card......Lesson learned. Take a family photo first!

Beach photo shoot

2011-10-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

My dad took these pictures of Caroline when we were at the beach in July. The pics turned out so good. I'm so proud of him. Here are several of the pictures. I think several of them are very artistic.

Caroline's inspiration for this photo shoot =)

Cousins

2011-10-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

My dad took these pictures of Caroline and her cousin Audry when we were at the beach. I've been dying to get my hands on them! Audry is my sister's daughter. She is 4.5 months older than Caroline. In this picture, the girls are wearing dresses that belonged to me and my sister. The dresses were made by a lady who was good friends with our grandmother. So these pictures are special for a lot of reasons!

Lucy is 3 months old

2011-10-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

Lucy is 3 months old. She is becoming so social this month. She does lots of cooing and laughing and she coos loudly! Lucy just loves it when Caroline is in the room. She bends her neck and turns her head searching for Caroline. Caroline mimics Adam and I when she talks to Lucy. She talks in a very high pitch, shrill voice - whew - it's hard to listen to, but Lucy LOVES it! Lucy prefers to be held so that she can look out and see what is going on.

Lucy also has this great tickle spot at the base of her neck. It's a guaranteed way to get a laugh. But she laughs fairly easily. Earlier this week she laughed at a song that was playing from one of Caroline's cds.

Lucy is still growing like a weed. She's had 2 colds this month so from those doctor appointments I know that she is roughly 14 pounds. Last week she weighed in at 13 pounds 15.6 ounces. She wears mostly 3-6 month and 6 month clothes and size 1 shoes.

Two days before turning 3 months old, I felt something poking through Lucy's lower gum. I looked and sure enough you can see something white is poking through. I'm still hoping it's not a tooth - maybe it's just a calcium deposit. Only time will tell. Regardless, Lucy is definitely teething. She can easily soak a bib and she is gnawing on those pacis. Poor thing - she is way too young for this.

Lucy is intentionally reaching her hands towards the toys on her playmat and her bouncy seat. Sometimes she gets a good swat. She is also very good at grabbing hair - youch! So watch out. Lucy rolled over once this month - I kinda mentioned that in her 2 month post. I'm pretty sure it was by accident because she hasn't done it since.

Lucy continues to amaze me with her sleep. She sleeps from about 8pm - 7am with no dreamfeed! We took the swaddle off for a few nights to see what she would do. She still slept from about 8pm -5am - very impressive for her age, but we've gone back to the swaddle. Even though she sleeps so long at night, she still eats on average 6 times a day. She cluster feeds in the late afternoon and early evening.

I started back work this month. Lucy has done really well. Of course I knew she would - she is with my aunt. I was a little worried about her taking a bottle. She had only had a few and hadn't really done well, but she has adapted and is doing awesome.

Lucy is such a sweet baby. We are completely in love.

Here are some other firsts for Lucy this month:

Rocking it in the Bumbo seat
Grabbing/swatting at toys in bouncy seat and playmat
Tooth?? - Right Lateral Incisor, I think - if it is a tooth.
Rolled over back to tummy
Sick doctor's appointment - infected tear duct - prescribed eye drops =(
Sliding down a slide (with Daddy's help)
Gone to see Aunt Alice

And here is a photo roll of our sweet girl this month:

Right after rolling over.

I love this sweet face. You can also see in this pic that her hair has some red tint to it.

Soothing herself to sleep.

"Hey everybody! I'm in the Bumbo!"

Fell asleep while playing hard.

Leg lifts!

Here she is looking for Caroline. She was more interested in what Caroline was doing on the playground than going down the slide herself!

Pocket-size Nana

2011-10-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't we all like to have a pocket size Nana that we could just carry with us everywhere we go?

Laughing Lucy

2011-10-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

Music to my ears =)

Current thoughts

2011-10-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

These are the things that are on my mind lately:

I started back work on Monday. Boo. I definitely miss my girls. I'm counting my blessings that I don't work full time, that I have great coworkers, and that my girls are cared for by the sweetest person ever - my aunt.
We were all sick last week and are still sick this week. It wasn't quite the last-week-of-maternity-leave that I was hoping for, but we snuggled close. We went to the doctor twice. Caroline is now on her 2nd antibiotic.
It's looking like it could be a very sick winter season for us. Caroline may end up having surgery. I'm not against surgery. I'm so thankful to God for healing Caroline this past spring and giving us more time. God's timing is perfect and surgery this summer would have been really difficult for all of us. We will continue to pray that surgery isn't necessary, but we will also pray for the wisdom of the doctors and we will do what they recommend.
Lucy has to be the easiest baby in all the planet. We haven't done any sleep training with her at all and she sleeps 10-11 hours every night and soothes herself to sleep for naps and bedtime. I often worry that I'm not paying her enough attention. She's just so good at entertaining herself. Adam looked at her the other morning while she was laying on the play mat and said "I think she could raise herself."
Lucy is coo-ing a lot now. She loves it when you respond to her and often gives a little "ha" laugh. She also kicks her legs and throws her arms in excitement. Sometimes she sounds like a squeaky toy. I love watching her personality come alive.
I feel like I've unlocked a parental secret with Caroline. The imagination is just wonderful. We don't have to take toys or books anywhere for entertainment - we just take our minds. At the doctor's office last week, Caroline and Bubby were crawling through a tunnel which was really crawling on the floor underneath the exam table. All I could picture were germs all over Caroline and Bubby. I started to tell her to "get off that floor now!" But instead I asked her and Bubby to join me in the boat (the two chairs in the exam room). She and Bubby put on their life jackets and jumped in =)
Caroline has some imaginary friends sort of. She often plays with Swiper and the piggies. These are all from Dora. She takes them places and sets up games and food for them as if they were really there. When we get in the car to go somewhere she begs me to let them come.
Maternity leave could not have been better. The girls and I played hard. We savored and we enjoyed each other.
I can't believe Lucy turned 12 weeks old on Sunday. I can't believe it's October. I'm pretty sure I'll be saying those kinds of things for the rest of my life.

Cloth Diapers

2011-09-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Am I crazy?! Well, maybe a little =) Seriously. Who is this mom that I have become? Four years ago if you asked me about cloth diapers or baby food making I would have told you "No way!" For real...."No way!" But here I am doing those very things. Why? ..... Well, because 1) I thought I'd give it a go, 2) I thought I would save us some money, 3) I'm a little crazy like that =)

When Caroline was about 6 months old, I had a friend post on Facebook about cloth diapering. She talked about how easy it was and how she just loved it for her family. Shortly after that I saw another friend post on her blog about it. She even had pictures and woah those cloth diapers didn't look at all like I had pictured. These cloth diapers had snaps and velcros. Hey - I might could do that. That doesn't look so bad.

Then there's the poo.....I mean, could I really do that? That seems kinda gross. You have to wipe it off and all. Hmmm...not so sure about that part. Then, when C hit about 9 months old I realized, "I'm doing that part ANYWAY!" Hahaha! So about when C hit 12 months old was when I decided I wanted to give cloth diapering a try when the next kiddo came along.

Lucy started wearing cloth diapers at 2 weeks old. She wasn't in them 100% of the time. She was probably only in them 50% of the time. I bought my cloth diaper stash slowly so that I could experiment a little and figure out what I liked. We have one-size-fits-all diapers so they are good from 8-35 pounds. Seems crazy that my 2 girls could actually wear the same diaper, but they could! We do use disposable diapers whenever we travel because it can be difficult to get a load of laundry done when you are out of town and just want to enjoy. But as of about a week ago, Lucy is in cloth diapers 100% of the time.

Am I saving money? You betcha I am. So far, my total investment is $117.73. With that investment I have 5 covers and 21 inserts - together they make 18 diapers. And if I want, that can be all that I spend. I think I want a couple of more covers though. I may see a need for other products as Lucy gets older, but even if I were to double my initial investment and spend a total of $235.46 that wouldn't come CLOSE to how much I would spend on disposables. Oh and did I mention that I bought midline cloth diapers? Just think how much I could save if I bought the really cheap cloth diapers.

"What about laundry expenses?," you say. So far, I do about one extra load of laundry a week. This was top priority for me. I do not have time to wash a load of diapers every day. In fact, our laundry is usually all done on the weekends. But I thought I could squeeze in one more load midweek. We'll see how well that works when I return to work next week, but so far it's been fine. I do have to run an initial cold rinse on a diaper load and then do a hot wash. So in total I have 2 extra cold rinses a week and 1 extra hot wash - these I wouldn't have if I wasn't using cloth diapers.

The best part?? Are you ready for this? As long as baby is not eating solids, I do NOTHING with the cloth diapers - they go straight in the diaper pail. I don't wipe them or anything. Easy as pie!! From the diaper pail, they go straight to the washing machine for a cold rinse and then a hot wash.

"What about laundry detergent?" - Also easy. I use one of those "free and clear" detergents. They are usually approved for washing cloth diapers I get them super duper on sale. I can usually get it for the equivalent of 9.3 cents a load. But since these are cloth diapers, you are only supposed to use a very small amount of detergent. I use about half of what I would use for a miniature load. So the detergent is probably less than 4 cents a load. Folks, you just can't beat it!

Cloth diapering also has all of the other benefits that you have heard. Lucy has very little diaper rash. I notice a dramatic difference between the disposables and the cloth in this regard. Also, the environment - blah, blah, blah. Overall, I'm one happy mama. I'm really enjoying this. I may change my tune in a few months when Lucy is eating solids, but I just don't think so.

Seriously could not do this if my aunt wasn't completely on board. I'm so thankful for her!

Just look at this happy camper

Dimples =)

2011-09-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

How many dimples can you find?

Preschool

2011-09-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Caroline started preschool last week. She will be going one day a week from 9am-1pm. It's so weird that I'm packing a lunch for her! I am so thankful that it worked out for her to start going while I am on maternity leave. I really wanted to pick her up and hear all about her day and help her with this transition. Caroline had a pretty nasty cold the first day of school so she didn't get to go. I was worried about her missing the first day of school, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter for 2 year olds =)

Caroline is going through this phase where she does not like to smile for pictures. We tried to do a photo shoot at the house before we left and only got out-takes.

I thought this one was pretty funny. She is angry with us for trying to get her to smile so she finally smiles and this is what we got...

Can you tell there was a little bit of attitude in that picture?

We got to the school early so that I could try for another photo shoot. It worked out well because she could run up and down this sidewalk. As long as I didn't ask her to stop and smile she was amicable to photos being taken of her =)

She has a Little Mermaid lunchbox. She is in love with it!

She walked right in the room and got started on a puzzle. No tears here! I teared up as I was leaving the building - I can't believe how big she is!

She had a great first day. On the way home she told me that they talked about Jonah and the whale. She told me, "the whale swalled him!"

Lucy is 2 months old

2011-09-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Our little Lucy is 2 months old and she's not so little anymore. These were her stats at her 2 month check up:

Weight: 12 pounds 10.6 ounces (94%)
Height: 23 inches (90%)
Head Circumference: 39.5 cm (89%)

She's a full 3 pounds bigger than Caroline was at her 2 moth appointment. (Lucy was also 1 week older at her 2 month visit, but still....3 pounds!)

Lucy sleeps likes she's 10 pounds heavier than she actually is, which is just amazing and wonderful for all of us! Most of the time she sleeps about 10 hours at night - some times longer. I'm such a bad momma - I don't have her on a great schedule yet, but I know we will have to be on a schedule when I go back to work. And any schedule would have been constantly changing as she has been quickly stretching out her sleep at night. All that to say that the 10 hour stretch starts and ends at different times, but is usually between 8pm and 6am.

Lucy is such a sweet little girl. She smiles so much right now and her smiles are enormous! She still doesn't cry much. She basically only cries when she is really, really hungry. All other times she grunts.

Another interesting fact about Lucy, is that she often sleeps with her eyes open. Usually it's just little slits, but sometimes they're about 50% of the way open. It's a little creepy and it can be hard to tell if she's awake or asleep.

Here are some pics of her asleep with her eyes open. In the first one, she is doing a double-whammy - smiling with her eyes open in her sleep.

Lucy also loves her fists. We are trying to push the paci, but I'm not sure it's going to work. We may have another thumb sucker on our hands.

Lucy's hair definitely has some red in it - not as much as Caroline's at this point, but we will see. We are completely in love with our sweet baby Lucy and we are so thankful for her.

Some firsts this month include:
Real tears
First cold - she actually had a small fever. 99.8 was the highest. Doc said it doesn't count, but Mommy said it does.
Coo-ing
Laughing - not a big belly laugh but a reactionary "ha" to Daddy playing with her
Drooling - yikes! this started at 7 weeks old. Bring on the bibs. Hopefully other teething signs will hold off for a while longer.

And the camera roll of all other pics...

Playing with her friend, Mrs. Elephant, in Nana's port-a-crib.

All bundled up in early August to protect from the mosquitos!

She's very serious about getting those toys on her playmat.

Cute in a sunhat!

Loving her fist.

So close to rolling over on Labor Day. How weird would it have been to say my 1 month old just rolled over?! Except now I can for real say that my 2 month old rolled over. She finally made it all the way over last week! Crazy girl - she is way too young for that!

Showing off her cloth diaper =)

Yeah - she likes the cloth =)

Hippy Mommy

2011-09-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Oh my stars! I have to write about this while it is still fresh.

Today I took the girls to a Hippy Mommy Class. It's not really called that, but that is what I'm calling it. It's a class about cloth diapering, baby food making, breastfeeding, and baby wearing. It is a one time class that a local library was holding. I'm still new to cloth diapering so I was really excited about the class.

So we arrive at the library and I load up the girls into the stroller like always and we stroll our way in. The class was held on the bottom floor of the library so I take the girls down the first ramp I see. Well that ramp only goes down to a little platform sitting area - not all the way downstairs. So I see a librarian and I ask her how to take the stroller downstairs. She tells me that they don't have an elevator, but they have a wheelchair lift and she points to it. She tells me she will get the security guard to unlock it and help me down.

So I stroll the stroller back up the ramp and over to the wheelchair lift wondering how in the world am I going to fit a double stroller on that thing!!

Sneak picture I took of the lift while the librarian wasn't looking =)

The security guard comes over and after a good bit of maneuvering I get the stroller in. Then I squeeze in sideways to fit next to it. The security guard locks us in and hits the button to send us downstairs. With a loud "vroom" the wheelchair lift fires up and begins moving. Those things are sooo loud! especially in a quiet library. I couldn't help but smile and laugh at the situation as I saw all the heads turn and look our direction. It also moves incredibly slow. The security guard had no problems walking around and down the stairs to meet us at the bottom - she got there long before we did.

When we arrived, I pushed the stroller out onto the level. Then the security guard points to the next wheelchair lift across the way. That's right. This was a split level library. We had to use not 1, but 2 wheelchair lifts to get to where the class was! So we load up on the next wheelchair lift and go through the same thing - maneuvering the stroller, squeezing in beside it, and "vroom" all the way down with everyone in the library watching!

Finally, we made it - about a full 10 minutes of wheelchair lift riding, but we made it. We stroll off to the conference room where the class is being held. Did I mention that this class includes the topic of baby wearing? If you are unfamiliar with the term "baby wearing", it basically means anti-strollers. That might be a little strong, but it's not too far off. So all of these ladies are staring at me....staring.

Don't worry, I think we made up for it because 1) this is what Lucy wore:

and 2) I forgot to wear deodorant! We fit right in with the hippies =)

And in case, it couldn't get ANY more embarrassing or funny....I set off the wheelchair lift alarm as I was squeezing in the lift on our way out!

Songs for Lucy

2011-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

Adam and I sing to Caroline all the time. Some all time favorites are: "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, "Oh my Darlin'" (substitute "Caroline" for "Clementine"), and "You are my Sunshine" (substitute "Caroline" for "Sunshine").

We had sorta been singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to Lucy, but we know what people think that song is about. BTW, Adam looked up the history of that song and that is not what it is about. On Lucy's birthday, my dad told me he had found a song for Lucy. He played it for me and I got so excited. It was a song I loved as a young teenager.

So here is "Lucy" by Hanson. We sing it to her often =)

Also, somewhat naturally, Adam started singing "Baby Beluga" to Lucy except we substitute "Baby Beluga" for "Lucy Belue Beam". It goes something like this:

Lucy Belue Beam in the deep blue sea

Swim so wild and you swim so free

With Heaven above and the sea below

You're just a little baby on the go

Lucy Belue Beam

Is the water warm? Is your mama home?

With you so happy?

Caroline loves to join in on these songs. One time, completely unprompted, she changed "You're just a little baby on the go" to "You're just a little sister on the go." Sigh...melted my heart =)

Updated for Rachel =): Resources

2011-08-31T12:00:00.001-07:00

So...I've had a couple of people ask me where I've gotten the stuff for activities with Caroline. So here are some of my links that I use. I hope you can have fun with these.

First of all, we love Online Storytime on Barnes & Noble's website. You can watch a 5-10 minute video of a book being read by either the author, the illustrator or a famous person (if the author is dead). They always have 12 books available to "watch". A new book is featured each month and one of the other 12 rolls off and can't be viewed anymore. Currently, you can find Eric Carle reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and Molly Ringwald reading "Split, Splat Splash" along with many others. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp

Another great website is this homeschool share website. We use Level 1 lesson plans, which is for 2-4 year olds. They have a lot of the printouts I used for Goodnight, Gorilla week. They also have a bunch of file folder games. If you don't know what file folder games are, you have to check them out! Here is the main website: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/. And here is the exact link for Goodnight, Gorilla stuff: http://files.homeschoolshare.com/docs54478/goodnight_gorilla.pdf

More lesson plans and printouts: http://www.first-school.ws/

Here's another one. Most of the stuff on this website is for kindergartners and older, but the Language Arts category has stuff for Pre-K. Goodnight, Gorilla is actually under the Kindergartner link though. I haven't dug through all this stuff yet, but I would assume you could modify some of the kindergarten stuff for a younger child. http://www.lessonpathways.com/Pathways/Detail/13246/language-arts

This is a fun website: http://www.makinglearningfun.com/.
And here are some printouts for Do-a-Dot art: http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/DoaDotMiniMarkerPage.htm. Do-a-Dots are these awesome paint/stamp things that paint/stamp in a perfect circle. We started using them with Caroline as young as 18 months and they are still her favorite art item. The best part is they really aren't messy unless the kid purposefully stamps the floor/couch/whatever. If the stamper falls over, it doesn't leave a mark. Do-a-Dot printouts encourage the child to put the dot stamp exactly in the circles so they are more of a challenge. Here is their website to see what I'm talking about: http://www.dotart.com/. You can find Do-a-Dots at any of the small toy boutiques. I bought ours at Bebeep Toys, but I've also seen them at Creative Kids Toy Shop in Five Points and at Learning Express Toys. They're kind of expensive - $16.99, I think, but totally worth it! We've had ours for over a year and they haven't dried up.

Caroline using Do-A-Dots

And here is a great one my aunt found. In the 2-year old curriculum, they have ideas for how to do a color theme for a week. For example, on "red" week you cook a lot of red foods and one of the books you read is "Llama, llama red pajama" http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com/

Fun on ML - Library

2011-08-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

We've made a practice of going to the library every week. We've gone to a couple of story times, but most weeks we just go for our own experience. I hope to start up a regular story time in September. Every week we check out roughly 10 books. We put them in Caroline's library bag (a gift from her Aunt Amber and Aunt Alli - perfect size for all those library books!) It's been a good experience for Caroline learning how to use the library.

Returning her books.

We play in the children's area for a while.

Checking out.

We read all 10 of our library books at least 3 times a day. Caroline usually has all of them mostly memorized by the end of the week. She is such a reader! I'm so thankful for that.

Lucy Smiles =)

2011-08-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

You still have to work pretty hard to get a smile out of her. I feel like in a couple of weeks I'm going to have a million pictures of this sweet smile. But for now, here are some of the smiles we have captured as of 7 weeks old.

Very blurry.

Smiley eyes. Her eyes smile a lot. I just had to include these to show that. She has such beautiful eyes! And I totally think she looks like my sister in this top picture.

Goodnight Gorilla week

2011-08-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

So last Tuesday we were at the library and I saw "Goodnight Gorilla." I had this great idea that we could have a theme week at our house. I knew where I could find a movie version of the book online (about 10 minutes long) and I thought I could find some activities to go with the book just by googling around. So we checked out the book.

Sure enough, there is a plethora of Goodnight Gorilla activities online. Each day that week we read the book, watched the 10 minute movie while turning the pages of the book, and then did a little craft type activity.

The first day we retold the story placing thumbnail pictures over significant words. For example, we placed a thumbnail picture of a gorilla over the word "gorilla" and a picture of keys over the word "keys". Once all the pictures were in place, I read the story and let Caroline fill in the blanks where the pictures were. We also colored big pictures of all the animals.

I don't have a picture of the second day, but we made a lion face on a paper plate. This one was more fun for me. Caroline got bored half way through and never wanted to put the paper plate over her face. Oh well, maybe she is still a little too young for paper plate masks.

The third day, we matched a colored key with the same color cage. Then we went through the book and put the correct animal in that color cage. (In the book all the animals are in a specific colored cage.) We then glued all of these pages together to make a little book of our own. We made sure to put them in the same order as in the book. This was Caroline's favorite activity all week and she was awesome at it.

The 4th day and the last day, we made finger puppets of all the animals and acted out the story with the finger puppets. I got printouts for these online and so all we had to do was cut them out and tape them to our fingers. Caroline didn't want to put them on her fingers so this was another one that seemed to be more for me =) Oh well. It's a good idea and may work better when she is a couple of years older.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. It bought us about an hour of educational entertainment each day with about 5-10 minutes of prep work for me. I am going to try to do this with more books. I'm thinking "Llama, llama red pajama is next."

Fun on ML - Marionette Theater

2011-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

On the 3rd Monday of every month, the Children's Marionette Theater does a 10:00 production and then a backstage tour. August was pretty much our chance to go since Caroline starts preschool on Mondays in September. We went and saw The Little Mermaid. Caroline had already seen this show with my aunt so she was really looking forward to it. The show was really awesome and afterwards Caroline acted like she owned the place. She knew exactly where to go for the backstage tour and exactly which puppet she got to play with. I was running with the infant carrier trying to keep up with her!

Fun on ML - Playground

2011-08-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

We have a playground about 2 blocks from our house. It has been a go to place when we don't have anything scheduled or when we find out daddy is working late or just when we need to run off some extra energy.

I can't believe how much Caroline has changed physically since Lucy was born. Caroline would never have gone on the playground by herself, but now she climbs the whole thing and does all the slides (even the big one) all by herself. I'm so proud of her. She totally had the ability before, but was nervous. Now she is all over that thing!

This is how Lucy does the playground.

Fun on ML - Zoo

2011-08-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

So apparently I need to take more pictures at the zoo because this is all I got and we've been there 4 times now. Sad that the only pics I took were of Caroline with a FAKE animal.

The monkeys are Caroline's favorite at the zoo. She also does really good on the little playground at the zoo.

Fun on ML - Edventure

2011-08-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

I also took the girls to Edventure on dollar night when Adam was working late one evening. It is an incredible children's museum and now I understand why it is so expensive for tickets. Even though it is awesome, we will continue to attend dollar night until it is more in the budget.

Here is Caroline in the stroller looking at the fire truck. Kids can put on fire suits and climb on the truck, but Caroline was very nervous and did not want to get out of the stroller. She even turned to me and asked me to put her sun shade over her head - "Mommy, you put my cover on?" - LOL! Like that tiny sun shade was going to protect her from the fire truck - haha!

Grocery shopping was a big hit. This is a miniature Piggly Wiggly. Caroline almost filled up her whole basket with canned goods. I had to drag her away from the can aisle.

And this is what Lucy thought of Edventure - big yawn =)

Caroline loved these doors. It was a giant bone and you could open up the doors to see the insides of the bone. Caroline would say "oooo..pretty picture!" and then she would try to sit in the door.

Mixing up the bones!

Terrible, terrible picture, but you can see she is having so much fun. This is also a good picture of her running - it is really a fast walk, but she calls it running =)

Fun on ML - The museum

2011-08-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

The girls and I have been living up my maternity leave time. We have several spots that we love to go. One of them is the museum. Caroline LOVES this place. Over a year ago, I took Caroline here with a friend and Caroline couldn't really do much. She was just starting to walk. This year is totally different. Caroline is all over the place and loves the interactive exhibits. We never see it all when we are there. We usually get to explore 2 floors of the 4 story museum and then we are worn out and ready for a nap.

Pretty much all these pics are from my phone and have terrible quality because my phone is easy and right there, but I just love the memories we are making so I capture the moments anyway.

Riding the train.

Conducting the train.

Sister-Sister

2011-08-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

When I see these outfits, the theme song to the tv show "Sister Sister" plays in my head. I love coordinating outfits =)

Adam fan

2011-08-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

So if you are a big Adam Beam fan like me, you have probably noticed that his blog http://blogs.thestateonline.net/metrodesk/ has been particularly lacking lately. If you are a really big fan and read the newspaper, then you know why.

Adam is now covering the state government instead of the city government so he is no longer updating the city blog. It is a very exciting opportunity. The girls and I are very proud of him. He started the week before Lucy was born. He has already gotten to write some pretty big stories and gotten to follow around some presidential candidates.

Pray for us as we continue to adjust to his new schedule. We see him a little less than before and we are going to continue to see him less as the November elections draw near - that is...November of 2012.

You can follow him a little closer on Twitter. His handle is @adambeam.

The Beam girls are Beam-ing in pride for the man in our lives. We love you!

Let me tell you a story

2011-08-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

Caroline has gotten really into pretending lately. It is so fun to see her imagination at work. I often find her eating imaginary blueberries or changing her barbies into imaginary bathing suits to go to the imaginary beach or popping imaginary bubbles or saving the imaginary prince or....well you get the idea.

She loves to hear and tell stories. Stories can be about anyone and anything. There doesn't need to be a climax or an antagonist or even a plot in the story. Often it is about a princess and her friend Caroline going on a picnic.

Stories always start "Once there was a little girl/boy named..." Because of that, Caroline has become intrigued by gender. She often asks me if someone is a boy or girl.

Here is a quick story from Caroline.

She also has conversations all day long with the cardboard dolls that we made, barbies and stuffed animals. Here is a glimpse:

First week

2011-08-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some pictures of Lucy's first week home. I anticipated this week and enjoyed it so much. I anticipated the wonderful emotions of a new baby and I relished in them.

Little Lucy on her changing table admiring Nana's handy work.

Trying out her cradle.

And the bouncy seat. So wonderful to see Lucy in all of these places - floods my heart with so many memories of Caroline being there too.

Nana took Caroline to a water park in Greer for the day on Wednesday. Caroline played all day with her aunts. Adam and I got to take care of a few things at home and got to love on Lucy.

Nana pushing the girls in the stroller to the playground.

Girls playing around =)

The cutest little pajamas that she only wore twice - she outgrew them =(

Posing with Nana on her last day with us.

That first week of welcoming Lucy home was so precious. We are so blessed that Adam's mom could come and take care of us and love on us while we recover a little and adjust. Caroline was especially blessed as Nana took care of her while we were in the hospital.

Beach Week

2011-08-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Wow! Beach Week! Soo much fun. I was so looking forward to beach week, but I had plenty of reasons to be nervous too. Lucy was not quite 3 weeks old when we left, which also meant I was not quite 3 weeks postpartum when we left. Caroline hadn't seen the ocean in over a year so I had no idea how she would react. My entire extended family would be coming, whom I love, but that's a lot of people in one house - my parents, 5 siblings, 4 spouses, 6 grandchildren, and other people throughout the week. And did I mention that we were taking a 2 week old?!?!

We had such a great time. We woke up slowly every morning (as slow as you can with a 2 week old and a 2 year old). We strolled onto the beach around 9:30-10:00. We came back to the beach house for lunch around 12:30. Adam or I one would go back to the beach while the girls napped in the house. We ate an early dinner and after that we would play some more. Ahhhh - now that is THE LIFE!

Caroline LOVED the ocean. She dove right in with all her clothes on the first day we were down there. She embraced the waves even if they knocked her down. The last couple of days she became more timid of the ocean. We aren't really sure why, but I am thankful. I was honestly a little scared that she had no fear. We were having to keep a very close eye on her.

Catching "the big one" with Grandpa (big wave). She loved it and after the wave crashed on them, she asked Grandpa "You ok, Grandpa?"

She also loved playing in the sand.

Digging with cousin Crystal (second cousins).

Digging with cousin Anna Grace

Grandpa, Anna Grace and Caroline.

Lucy loved the beach too. The waves and warm air put her to sleep immediately. This was how we walked out to the beach everyday.

Enjoying a Dum Dum. Caroline had her first sucker at the beach - and she probably had at least 7 that week! They were a huge hit.

We took 3 of the two year olds to the Pavillion Nostalgia park one night. It was so fun to watch them ride the rides we had ridden as kids. Kayden, Anna Grace and Caroline are driving the boat.

Lucy loved on Grandma. Maybe she can ride a ride next year.

You can't see it in any of these pictures but her smile was enormous while she was on the rides. I can't wait to take her to the state fair this year!

First Icee (sharing with Daddy).

Eating dinner with cousins at a picnic table. Adam and I couldn't believe how grown up she looked.

Playing with cousin Audry.

Dress up!

Meeting a mermaid at Ripley's aquarium on the one rainy day we had. The mermaid show was only about 15 minutes but was a huge hit for Caroline. We got to meet the mermaid afterwards and Caroline talked about it for a week!

Milkshake at Johnny Rockets.

Cruising around at Broadway one evening. Lucy was in the Bjourn.

Lunch at Grouchos on the way home. Adam taught Caroline how to dip her chips in the dip. She's a big dipper now.

We totally could have stayed another week. It was such a relaxing and fun time. A huge "Thank you" to my parents for treating us to this trip.

Other random wonderful things:

Homemade peach ice cream
Spades and poker (Don't mess with the Beams!)
Krispy Kreme
painting our nails
Coffee in a rocking chair on the porch in the morning

Days of the week

2011-08-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Lucy was born on a Sunday and we both came home from the hospital on the following Tuesday. Adam's mom - Nana - took care of all of us the next week. We asked her to move in with us and she said she would love to but someone has to take care of Papa.

The next week we were sort of on our own. We had lots of visitors scheduled to come by, but in between it would be just me and the girls. I wanted Caroline to know what to expect so I put together a little project for us. As a bonus, the project entertained us for about 30 minutes.

Materials required are simply construction paper, scissors, tape, marker, and any other "decorations" you may want to add. We use stickers, crayons, and Do-it-Dots.

I cut the construction paper in half and I use it to represent a day of the week. I save the other half to use next week. Caroline decides what color each day is. We sit down together and discuss each day one at a time. I tell her what we are going to do that day. As I tell her, I draw key objects for that day in a black marker. Occasionally I use other color markers. For example, if we are going to see Aunt Alice one day, then I color her hair with a yellow marker. That distinguishes Aunt Alice from all the other stick figures. When we have finished discussing that day, I ask Caroline to decorate it. And she goes to town.

Using Do-it-Dots.

She amazes me with how creative she is. She is tracing her hand print for this one.

We also use a lot of stickers and crayons.

She decorates for a few minutes and is ready to talk about the next day. Once we have decorated all of the days, I tape them together. So far the project has sat on our coffee table the whole week. It could also be hung on her wall.

We refer to the project all week long. Caroline has done awesome at identifying what we are doing for the day. She will get excited and come tell me we are going to the zoo or going to the library.

I took it to another level and we learned a song for the days of the week. Caroline loves to sing it all the time!

The project has also really been awesome for me. It has helped me plan out our weeks and make sure I am intentional about this time I have with my girls. I love it. So far we have made a "calendar" every week we have been home.

Beach Preview

2011-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a little snippet of our drive to the beach....

And when we arrived late in the afternoon, we decided it was too late to go for a swim in the ocean so we would just walk out there and look at it. But this happened...

More pictures to follow.

Lucy is 1 month old

2011-08-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Lucy was 1 month old on Wednesday. I swear this has been the fastest month of my life. I am loving my time with my girls. I'm convinced Lucy has done more and been more places than most 1 month olds. Miss Caroline and I keep her busy. In her first month of life, she has been to the zoo, the library, the museum, Edventure, grocery shopping, the post office, the park, and even the beach! Lucy loved all of them =)

This is pretty much how Lucy has reacted at each new place. She observes from the infant carrier (with her eyes closed).

She was a great beach bum. Adam and I are so happy that our girls love the beach.

We also bum around the house a lot too.

Lucy is such a joy to our family. She's an easy going baby and doesn't cry much. She's big on grunting. Caroline used to grunt as a warning that she was about to cry. Many times Adam or I would hear Lucy grunting and we would "wait for it" - to see if she would start crying like we did with Caroline, but she would just keep grunting for a long time. So I don't let her grunt as long anymore.

I think Lucy is close to 10 pounds. She is a great eater and a great sleeper. Twice she has gone for about 7 hours between feedings at night. This makes me very optimistic about my sleep when I return to work. Lucy technically "slept through the night" for the first time Tuesday night. She slept from 10:30 pm to 5 am!! (Even though she went 7 hours between feedings once before, she had some random wake time for a couple hours during that 7 hours and only actual slept for like 4.5 hours. We were at the beach and her schedule was a little crazy.)

Some other things about Little Miss Lucy:

She doesn't seem to mind tummy time too much. She bobs her head with the best of 'em.
We saw her first smile on Saturday, August 6th (1 day shy of 4 weeks). My sister and I witnessed it together - so fun! Adam swears she smiled at him before that, but I'm the mother and it doesn't count unless I see it. She is a big sleep smiler and has been smiling in her sleep from day one.
We are still doing sponge baths. Her umbilical chord thingy didn't fall off quite right. It took a little longer to heal. We actually gave her two immersion baths before we were supposed to (I thought it had fallen off but just looked weird). Anyway, I think it is all healed up now, but I'm not going to risk it - we will do sponge baths until I get the all clear from the doc at our 8 week appointment.
She soothes herself to sleep sometimes. Yes, I know, she's a rockstar =)
She has outgrown most NB clothes and is in 0-3 months.
She has outgrown NB diapers, but I'm going to finish off this last pack.
She lights up when she hears Caroline's voice.
She often makes these sweet little humming noises in her sleep. I love it!

Lucy's entrance

2011-08-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

I am so thankful to have Lucy here and in my arms instead of still in my body. It was not an easy pregnancy and not an easy labor. I don't really consider my labor with Caroline to have been a natural labor because I had to be induced with Pitocin (my water broke and I wasn't progressing fast enough). I didn't really know what it was like to labor naturally. I had no idea that it could start and stop, that it could take days and possibly weeks!!

I mentioned in my last pregnancy post that I had 2 bouts of "false labor" where I was up all night with frequent consistent contractions that eventually just tapered off. Well, third time's a charm, right? Wrong. Late in the evening, on Friday, July 8th, the contractions were coming harder and faster than before. They got to 5 minutes apart and we decided to call my aunt to come over and sit with Caroline while we went to the hospital. We took the picture above before we headed out the door. I was so excited to take a last picture. (The picture was between contractions - hence the smile.) When we got to the hospital (in the wee hours of Saturday morning), the contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. They allowed me to walk most of the time, but I had to be hooked up to monitors in the bed for 15 minutes every hour. After a few hours, the contractions started to taper again. They were getting less frequent and weaker. I was exhausted and frustrated.

At about 8am, the doctor came in and told me I could have a baby that day if I wanted. She could break my water or put me on Pitocin OR I could go home and wait it out some more. She told me, "I may see you back here in a few hours or maybe just in the office for your next weekly visit." At that point, I was hungry and exhausted. The contractions were every 8 minutes, but I knew I could sleep through them. I really wanted a labor without Pitocin so I chose to go home. We grabbed Chick-Fil-a on the way home. I scarfed it down and crawled into bed. I took a good 3 hour nap.

When I woke up the contractions seemed to be even further apart - probably about every 15 minutes. Adam and I did our normal Saturday chores and then went to a birthday party. We came home and were ready to hit the sack early since we had gotten very little sleep the night before. But of course, contractions started to pick up again. They started just before midnight. I tried to sleep through them, but they were getting stronger and more frequent. I woke Adam up and we decided to go into the family room and time them together. I was afraid that in my exhausted, slightly delusional mindset, I wouldn't be able to time my own contractions accurately so I put Adam in charge of the timer. We timed contractions for about an hour and a half. We watched them go from every 6 minutes to under 3 minutes apart in that time frame. They also got pretty painful. So we called my aunt again. My sweet aunt came over AGAIN and we headed out the door.

I was extremely emotional on the way to the hospital. For the second night in a row, I had gone in Caroline's room and kissed her cheek while she slept and whispered that she would be a big sister soon. I really didn't want to be wrong this time.

When we arrived at the hospital, we left all of our things in the car. If we had to face the frustration of leaving in a few hours, I did not want to walk out with all of our bags in our hands - that was just embarrassing. However, when the nurse checked me, I was so excited to learn that I would not be leaving that hospital without a baby in my arms. That was at 4 am. Based on my progress, the nurse projected that Lucy would arrive around 8 am. So we started calling our families to let them know. I really thought my labor was well on its way, but I should have known better. My labor continued to ebb and flow. Contractions would lessen in strength and would get further apart for an hour or so, and then they would pick back up again. It is NOT like that on Pitocin. It is full speed ahead on Pitocin.

By noon, I was really tired. Actually, "tired" doesn't really begin to describe how I felt. In the last 53 hours, I had maybe slept for 6 hours. I had been almost completely dilated for the last 4 hours, but contractions were actually slowing down and getting weaker. I had paced the hospital room for 45 minutes of every hour for the 8 hours I had been at the hospital desperately trying to keep my labor going, and that doesn't even include all the walking I had done at home. So I'm not sure what word would fit, but "tired", "exhausted", "drained" - they just don't seem like strong enough words to describe how I felt. I honestly wasn't sure I could continue like that much longer. So we decided to ask the doctor to break my water. That did the trick. Within minutes, the contractions were....well, I'll just say that all the contractions leading up to that moment didn't equal one of the contractions I had after the doc broke my water. Less than an hour later, the doctor was back in the room delivering Lucy. Miss Lucy was born at 1:49 pm. She was perfect and gorgeous - oh the love I have for that little girl.

My labor with Lucy was so different than my labor with Caroline - I wasn't hooked up to any IVs, I got to walk around and work through my contractions, and most importantly, I got a break between the contractions. I never felt like I got a break between my contractions with the Pitocin. I felt like a completely normal person between contractions. However, 3 days worth of labor was pretty miserable. With Caroline, that wasn't an option - she had to be born in 24 hours or I would have a C-section. In the end, my Little Lucy is completely worth it - completely worth 2 emotional, painful false labors and 3 days of for-real labor.

I also have to add what an incredible coach and support system Adam was through the whole thing. He never made me feel bad for going to the hospital twice. I am so thankful to have a supportive and loving husband!

Big sister

2011-08-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions I get is about how Caroline is adjusting to sisterhood. I've been so proud as to how patient both of my girls are with each other. There are times when Lucy has to wait while I am doing something with Caroline and there are many more times when Caroline has to wait while I am doing something with Lucy.

I just knew that potty training would go out the window when Lucy was born, but if anything it has actually gotten better. Since Caroline is still a very young potty trainer, she needs a good bit of help in the bathroom so a lot of times I have to tell her to "hold it" until I can help her and she does.

We have also had to make some changes for Caroline to help me out. We bought her a little potty so that I don't have to lift her on and off the big potty. We took her booster seat out of the kitchen chair to see if she could climb into the regular chair by herself. That is another lift I can now avoid. Caroline has been excited about both of these changes. She loves her new princess potty and she feels like a big girl in the big chair at the table.

For 2 nights Caroline woke up when Lucy woke up to eat. She wasn't really sure what was going on. But she hasn't woken up since. Her sleeping is back to normal.

Caroline gets very concerned when Lucy is crying. Caroline will say "Oh no! She's crying." and "She's not smiling at me." It's so cute that she is concerned and I think it speaks to her sensitive personality.

Caroline loves to give Lucy multiple hugs and kisses throughout the day. She loves to lay with Lucy on the play mat and bring Lucy pacis and blankets (dish towels, "sheet sabers", and burp cloths all serve as blankets). Caroline always involves Lucy in our play time whether it is baking pretend cupcakes for Lucy or just reading to Lucy. Caroline loves to sing to Lucy and hold her hand. Oh how I pray for such a sweet bond between them - a deep love and friendship.

Here are some pics of my girls:

Going home from the hospital day. The girls are holding hands.

A pic by Katie Smoak.

Daddy reading to his girls. We hope this becomes a daily tradition.

First Sunday at church and first coordinating outfits (first of many)!

Playing together (Caroline had something all over her mouth - I'm not sure what it was)

2 weeks old

2011-07-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

I am so behind on my blogging, but I'm deferring blogging to naps right now =) But somehow Lucy is 2 weeks old and I can't let it pass without documenting a little. We had a 2 week doctor visit this week. Our little Lucy is almost a pound over her birth weight! At 2 weeks old, Caroline was just one ounce over her birth weight. Dr. G was very pleased to say the least. At 2 weeks her stats are:

Weight = 8 lbs 13.8 ounces (69%)
Length = 21 inches (82%)
Head Circumference = 37 cm (81%)

For about a week, Lucy has only been having 7 feedings a day. I wasn't sure what the doc would say about this, but doc said the weight gain does not lie and 7 feedings is just fine - hooray! Also, Lucy has significantly sped up her feedings. At her 1 week well visit she was taking about an hour to eat for every feeding, but she now eats between 12 and 25 minutes! I also wasn't sure what the doc would say about that, but again doc said the weight gain does not lie and Lucy is just efficient - hip, hip, hooray! This seriously amazes me because Caroline never nursed that quickly. She nursed for 30+ minutes until she was weaned at 12 months old. Dr. G laughed at this and said I have 2 very extreme girls =)

Lucy is on a beautiful schedule right now. She roughly eats at 7am-10am-1pm-4pm-7pm-10pm-3am. Between 10pm and 7am, she has no wake time and goes right back to sleep after eating. She has been doing this since she was 3 days old. We don't have to bounce her or put the paci in her mouth a thousand times - it is beautiful =) She also doesn't have any wake time between 1pm and 4pm. I do this on purpose because this is Caroline's nap time and it allows me to have a nap time - it is also very beautiful =) I am currently waking her up at 3am to eat. Doc said I should continue doing this for a few more weeks and then I can just let her go.

Some fun things about Little Lucy:

She smiles in her sleep all the time! It is the sweetest.
She kind of giggles in her sleep sometimes.
She hums in her sleep (wow - lots of these are sleep related, but that is her main activity)
She likes to curl up her whole right arm into the top part of the sleeve of her pajamas. It looks like her forearm doesn't exist.
She loves her big sister and definitely recognizes her voice.

And at 1 day shy of 2 weeks old, my friend Katie Smoak took some wonderful pictures of our little Lucy. Above are two teaser photos and you can see a bunch more here: http://katiesmoakphotography.blogspot.com/2011/07/sweet-little-lucy.html

Lucy's here!

2011-07-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

We welcomed Lucy into the world on Sunday, July 10th at 1:49 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 15.1 ounces and was 19 inches long. We are so in love with our little girl. Everyone told me the difference between and 36 week baby and a 40 week baby was huge and now I can testify! Lucy is a fabulous eater (only lost 5.7 ounces in the hospital), very alert and had no jaundice issues - YAY! It is everything we have been praying for.

Adam and I are learning a lot about Lucy - her likes and dislikes. The first night was a rough one with very little sleep, but the next night was a good bit better. Ever since then, Lucy has been an amazing sleeper - waking up only to eat. Lately, I let her sleep for one 5 hour stretch (beginning of a feeding to beginning of the next feeding) and then she does a 4 hour stretch. Both times, I actually wake her up to eat. I'm excited about our next visit to the doctor because I plan on asking how long I can let her go.

We are so thankful for this precious gift and so excited to be a family of 4 - thank you Lord for blessings in beautiful little packages!

Late Father's Day post

2011-07-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Adam is such a great dad - such a great dad! As we approach Lucy's birthday, I'm flooded with sweet memories of his first few days of daddyhood. I remember how amazed I was that he fell into the role so easily. He looked like a pro as he brought Caroline to me in his arms. I remember watching him suction her in the hospital and I thought "I don't even know how to do that." He had listened intently and watched the nurses to do it. I remember that he changed the first several diapers that day and didn't even flinch.

Sweet guy - he has only missed one of my prenatal appointments with Lucy and he only missed one the whole time I was pregnant with Caroline. He attends almost all of Caroline's doctor appointments - he has only missed a handful. I know that not every dad can do that because of schedule. I'm so thankful Adam can and does. It gives me and the girls so much support.

He is our rock when we've had a hard day. And I know that I can count on him to jump in and help when I'm simply tired. I'm so thankful for him.

Caroline and I treated him to an OHOP (a local pancake house) breakfast the Saturday before Father's Day. We then had a wonderful time at the pool. On Sunday, Caroline gave him a hat that she had made at my aunt's house. She was so proud of herself. She loves it when Adam wears it, which he does quite a bit.

Caroline, Lucy and I are so so blessed!

Still pregnant!

2011-07-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

I feel like I say that at least 5 times a day. I'm so excited to be here - really I am. It gives me confidence in my body - that I can carry babies to term because as of this moment I hope this isn't my last pregnancy. However, I may change my mind in a couple of weeks =) Most of all I am praising God for a little longer in the womb to have a bigger and more alert baby with maybe a little less jaundice.

Am I ready? Boy am I! You can totally be ready and terrified at the same time =) Logistically, we are ready too. Two of Adam's coworkers told him about how quickly their second babies came. Both of them have that story of almost delivering in the car on the way to the hospital. Well, that has terrified Adam. So about a week and half ago, Adam made me completely pack for the hospital - down to toothbrush and toothpaste! So I am currently living out of my packed hospital bag and that is getting old!

Miss Lucy is a tease. I've had 2 bouts of false labor. I guess that is what you call it "false labor". It felt pretty real to me. The first time was about 5.5 hours and the second time was more than a week later and lasted about 8 hours. Each time I had regular contractions about 10-15 minutes apart. And they were decent ones. We didn't feel the need to go to the hospital either time - they weren't that bad. And I'm glad we didn't go because the contractions just stopped. This girl sure is a stinker.

Hopefully the next time will be for real. As of right now, we have set a date. If Miss Lucy doesn't arrive before July 18th, I will be induced that morning. It felt so weird and wonderful to come up with a plan. I'm so thankful to have the luxury to do so and to no longer be concerned about preterm labor.

A sweet friend, Katie Smoak, took these beautiful pictures of my bump last week. I have mixed feelings about maternity pictures. I absolutely LOVE the way these turned out! She did a fabulous job!

Creepy?

2011-06-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

My aunt has been giving us a lot of hand-me-down books from my cousin since Caroline was born. Many of them are books that my mom gave to her as hand-me-downs from me, my sister and brother. I'm not sure where this particular book originated from, but it was perfect timing. We got this batch of hand-me-down books around Christmas when we announced that we were expecting a second little munchkin.

The book is a Little Golden Book called "The New Baby". It is from the perspective of the little girl whose mommy has another baby girl. I held onto the book, not sure what little bit's gender was. When we found out little bit was a girl, I couldn't believe how perfect and somewhat creepy this book was. You see, the older sister actually looks a lot like Caroline - Ok - maybe just similar. They both have strawberry blonde hair and have the most beautiful plump cheeks. What do you think?

Lambie

2011-06-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

So several weeks ago the girls in my Sunday School class threw a sprinkle for me and Lucy. For those unfamiliar with the term "sprinkle" - it's like a baby shower but a little more low key since it's not for the first baby. I had a great time and got a lot of really cute stuff for Lucy.

One of the cute items was a bunny lovey. I was so excited about this lovey because I know how much Caroline loves Bubby. The new lovey went in the cradle in Lucy's room and has been there ever since. Thank you so much Tracey!

About 2 weeks ago, Caroline was at the dinner table pitching a fit screaming "Where's Lambie?" Adam and I were dumbfounded. Who was Lambie? We brought in several of her stuffed animals, but Caroline let us know that they were not Lambie.

Finally, Adam took her down out of her booster and said "Show us Lambie." Caroline ran straight into Lucy's room and picked up Lucy's new lovey out of the cradle. Uh oh. How did she even know that was in there?! She hugged and kissed "Lambie".

I didn't have the heart to take it away from her and tell her it was Lucy's. It's also the first stuffed animal/baby doll she has really named. Adam and I have named all of the other ones. Bubby started out as Bunny, but Caroline mispronounced it and that is how we ended up with "Bubby". Nommy started out as Tommy, but was also mispronounced.

So lately Lambie, Bubby and Caroline are best pals. We'll see what happens when Lucy arrives, but we may have to get a new lovey for Lucy.

What a beautiful wedding

2011-06-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Adam's little sister got married on June 3rd. It was a perfect day and a perfect week. Adam, Caroline and I all got to participate in the wedding - Adam was an officiant, I was a bridesmaid and Caroline was a flower girl. It was such a privilege and joy to be a part of Amber and Bobby's big day.

I was very nervous about Caroline being a flower girl. I could just picture her standing at the top of the aisle, seeing all of those people and falling on the floor crying. But she was awesome! I even started to cry when she came running down the aisle because I was so proud. She didn't drop a single petal, but her smile stretched from ear to ear and her basket (or "flower bucket" as she called it) was just a-swingin as she came down that aisle =) She ran straight to her daddy who was waiting up front with the groom. And then went to go sit with Grandma.

Amber was a gorgeous bride - glowing with excitement and gracious to all of her guests. We had a wonderful time at the reception. Caroline danced her heart out even though it was WAY past bed time! That girl just loves dancing to music. Even 8.5 month pregnant girl danced to a couple of songs =)

We love Amber and Bobby and we wish them blessings on blessings along with so many opportunities to serve the Lord together.

Probably one of our last pics of a family of 3.

Something to shoot for

2011-06-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

I've made "full term"! Yay! I still totally think that it is best for babies to bake as long as possible in their mommy's tummies, but now that I'm "full term" I'm getting so excited to meet this little girl and I'm getting more and more anxious about how and when she will make her appearance. There are a ton of milestone dates I can shoot for over the next couple of weeks:

6/21 (Today) - The day Adam asked me to go on our very first date
6/22 - coworker's birthday
6/23 - another coworker's bday
6/26 - The actual very first date
6/27 - My parent's anniversary
6/30 - Friend's birthday
7/4 - Independence day
7/7 - Just sounds cool
7/8 - B & L's birthday
7/11 - Also just sounds cool "seven - eleven" and my due date
7/14 - Friend's bday

So do you have any other dates I should "shoot for"? (like I have control over this) Please no dates beyond 7/21 - 10 days past the due date is just cruel. And while we are at it, any guesses on how big Miss Lucy will be? For comparison, Caroline was 6 pounds 8.9 ounces and 18 inches long at 36 weeks and 3 days. I was 37 weeks with Lucy yesterday.

What Caroline's up to

2011-06-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some things Caroline has been doing lately:

Things that we cannot find, Caroline tells us are "hiding"
She is constantly asking "What's that noise?"
She had her first dentist appointment last week. Our pediatrician has been pretty insistent that she have one since her 12 month well appointment. I wasn't sure she was old enough and after going, I kind of wish we had waited another year. We talked about the appointment a lot and Caroline got to go to the dentist with Adam and I for our appointments about a week before her appointment. She kept telling me "They're gonna brush your teeth." But when it came time for the dentist and hygentist to actually look in her mouth she cried and wouldn't let them look. The dentist finally got a peek - enough to see no cavities and all 4 two year molars have broken through. Caroline got an awesome goody bag at the visit - including games and even a t-shirt!
Caroline had her second eye doctor appointment last week. I haven't seen her lazy eye tendencies in a long time, but our ped thought we should keep our annual follow up appointment just in case. Caroline's eyes are great. Any lazy eye has corrected itself. The doctor still saw a good bit of allergic conjunctivitis in both eyes, but nothing some eye drops can't fix.
Have I mentioned how much Caroline LOVES dogs and cats? So weird because Adam and I aren't really pet people and we don't have a pet. She's very gentle with them. She even loves the ones that are twice her size - no fear!
Caroline loves airplanes in the sky. She talks about them often and loves when she hears them!
She has memorized the Bible verse on the canvas that hangs above her bed. We recite it every night while we pray that she commits herself to the Lord. "Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3
She has also memorized the story of the wise men coming to visit little Jesus. It's a story we read in her children's Bible and it is her favorite one - mostly because she loves pointing at the star on every page. We read one other story followed by the wise men story every night as part of bed time.
She has started adding stuff to the meal time prayer we taught her. She sometimes thanks God for Dora and for the blueberries she and Dora got on their trip together =)
"Did you drop your face?" - I've mentioned before that Caroline calls wash cloths "face" because we wash her face with them. I've also mentioned that she is oddly attracted to wash cloths and dish towels. She frequently sleeps with them. AND I've also mentioned that she says everything backwards often asking us questions that she really thinks WE should ask HER. On this occasion she had woken up from a nap and was softly crying. I went into the room and she had dropped the "face" on the floor and couldn't reach it =)

And some pictures just because:

36 weeks!

2011-06-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

This marks the week that Caroline was born! I am so excited to be here. There were times when I wasn't sure I would make it this far, but now I feel like I'm going to make it even further. I feel really awesome - better than I have felt my entire pregnancy. Lucy is crazy busy and measuring right on track.

My braxton hicks have really slowed down. I slowed down a lot at work after my 30 week appointment and it really seems like the BH slowed down with that. I was having 5-6 per hour several hours a day and now I'm down to 2-3 per hour. This is far fewer than I was having with Caroline at this point. My ankles have just now started to swell a little bit. I'm not really worried about it. I think it's just a factor of being 36 weeks pregnant.

Everyone always asks me if Caroline understands what's going on. I always respond that she understands a lot more than I thought she would. She has become very affectionate with my belly. This is not something I encouraged. I kind of thought it might be weird, but Caroline loves to give Lucy hugs and to rub her. Man, I thought, she is really understanding this! But then one day last week she asked about "Daddy's Lucy" and I realized - nope, she really does not get it =)

Birthday Cards

2011-06-15T16:57:00.001-07:00

I'm terrible about remembering to get cards for occasions. At times I feel like they are just a waste of money. But Caroline has changed my tune. The cards that people gave her for her birthday entertained her for about 2 weeks! She would bring them to me one after the other and ask me to read them to her. She memorized several of them. They made her smile so big.

2 of her favorite cards were the one my parents and the one Adam's parents got for her. They were almost the same card - a Dora the Explorer birthday card that sang AND they sang the exact same song. Caroline LOVED playing them both together. Of course she could never quite get them started at the same exact time so the cards would be singing in tandem. She played them over and over!

I finally took a video. Of course I waited too late and the video doesn't quite show the elation that these cards provided the first several days, but you get the idea =)

No surgery!

2011-06-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

About a week and a half ago Caroline had a follow up appointment with the ENT. This is the appointment Adam and I have been so anxious about. The plan was for her to have a hearing test and for the doctor to check to see if she had any fluid in her ears. If he saw any fluid, he was going to do surgery to put tubes in her ears and to shave down her adenoid regardless of the results of the hearing test.

Adam and I were mostly prepared to hear that Caroline needed surgery especially since our pediatrician confirmed stagnant fluid in both of her ears just 2.5 weeks before this appointment - fluid that she and our ENT believe had been there for over 6 months. If this hadn't changed in 6 months, how could it change in 2.5 weeks?

The hearing test was first. The technician who administered the test said that Caroline had negative pressure in both ears which had caused her ear drums to recede. She said this is probably from the fluid just being in there for so long. Amazingly, none of that affected her hearing and she scored normally on the hearing test. They did the same test that they use on newborns in the hospital - stuck probes in Caroline's ears and measured the echo of various frequencies as it came out of her ear - very cool! What a relief. I'm so glad her hearing has not been affected by all of this.

Then it was time to see the doctor. Dr. V came in and was amazed that there was NO fluid in either of Caroline's ears. He even double checked when I told him our pediatrician had found some 2.5 weeks before. I feel very confident about Dr. V's assessment because he is usually even more aware of fluid than our ped Dr. G.

Dr. V went on to say that while Caroline's weight loss is concerning, he would not want to do surgery for that reason alone unless we were absolutely sure her adenoids and ears were the cause of it. He wants to wait until we have our follow up with Dr. G. Caroline has been eating much better and feeling really good in general so I feel pretty good about weight check at the end of June. Hopefully we can stay well and healthy until then! Dr. V is hopeful that next winter season and allergy season won't be so tough on Caroline. He was very clear that he does not want to see her take as many prescriptions next year as she took this year.

I was on cloud nine after Caroline's appointment. Adam and I are so thankful to God that the fluid in Caroline's ears is gone! We attribute this to God and give Him the glory. I don't want to miss this opportunity to praise Him and acknowledge His work in healing Caroline.

6 years

2011-06-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

Adam and I got married 6 years ago May 28th. We had a very low key celebration especially compared to our big trip last year. After getting my final fitting for a bridesmaid dress, we took advantage of free grandparent babysitting and went out for dinner in downtown Greenville. We had reservations at Soby's and the food was just divine! After dinner we walked around a little downtown. We had plans to also go to the mall, but my eight month pregnant self was exhausted so we called it a night and headed back to my parent's house. We were in our PJs and watching TV with my parents by 8:30 pm - that is what you call living large and celebrating =)

My great-grandmother's funeral was the next morning. As we were driving to the service, I was thinking about how our 6 years of married life had included many funerals but also many births. We have experienced many family graduations and weddings. But these events in total are probably no more than the average couple's events who have also been married for 6 years. This is just life - life with my best friend. He is the one I get to laugh with and cry with and these thoughts brought a smile to my face. I love Adam Beam very much =)

After we got home from the funeral Adam cleaned our kitchen including mopping the floor, he ran ahead to get the car for Caroline and I so that we didn't have to walk in the rain, he loaded and unloaded the car numerous times, and he took care of Caroline while I napped. Who'd have known that 16-year old guy I started dating would become such a wonderful husband and father? I must be pretty smart because I picked out one great guy =)

Great-grandmother

2011-05-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

My great-grandmother passed away on Thursday. She was 103. This was my mom's mom's mom. The reverend speaking at her service said that even when death is expected it always seems sudden. And that is so true. Mama had been with us for so long, it was hard to imagine life without her. I feel very grateful for the time I had with her. Adam and I typically visited Mama when on our way to or from the Upstate (where our parents live). We especially did this after Caroline was born - having children definitely makes you cherish family more. I am so glad Mama got to meet Caroline and Caroline got to meet Mama several times before she died.

I know I'm very lucky to have met my great-grandmother and to have gotten to spend so much time with her. It's crazy to think that she was 76 when I was born. She attended my wedding and got to meet my first child. I am very lucky.

One of my favorite memories of Mama is from when I was very little girl (probably about 4 years old). Mama had come to spend the week with us in Charlotte. I told her that I wanted to watch "the little girls" ("Little House on the Prairie - one of my favorite shows - I know I am/was weird). Mama hoisted me up to look at the clock. She pointed to the clock and explained that "the little girls" would not come on TV until the big hand was on the 11 and the little hand of the clock was on the 12. It's not a funny or passionate memory. It's just an everyday kind of memory and it makes me smile.

I have some other not so great memories - like telling her that she didn't make PB&J like my mommy did and running away from the smothering of kisses she was about to give me. But I'm sure that these things just made Mama smile too.

Other things I never want to forget about Mama:

She never drove. She never even knew how.
She didn't think women should go out in the evening by themselves
She called hot dogs "wieners"
She had a really fun backyard
Holding her hand to cross a parking lot. Her hand always had a wadded up tissue in it.
Her plastic rain hat to protect her perm
Stroking her hair as she slept in the nursing home

Mrs. LeeIla Heatherly was dearly loved.

The Partay

2011-05-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

We kept Caroline's birthday party very small this year. Small shindigs are definitely more Caroline's personality. Caroline is shy and intimidated by large crowds. So on the Saturday after her birthday, we had a wonderful family gathering and celebrated Caroline. She had a wonderful time and felt extra special in her tutu. We had a Cinderella themed party, which simply meant a Cinderella cake and Cinderella plates. Caroline is all about the Disney princesses right now. She hasn't even seen a Cinderella show or movie - she's only read the books, but she adores Cinderella. She also loves "Booty" (Beauty) and "Mermaid" and Snow White.

Here are some pics of the birthday girl and the fun times.

Here is the cake that I made for her birthday. I had looked at cakes for the other Disney princesses. Ariel was dressed scandalously in the examples I saw so I wasn't going to do her. Then I found this Cinderella example and I decided to give it a try. I had a lot of fun making this cake for her and I learned a lot. My biggest lessons learned are: 1) Dye all the icing at the same time (notice the various shades of blue - those are not shadows), 2) Use homemade icing recipe - store bought icing melts as it warms to your body temperature while you are icing the cake, 3) I don't ever want to do this professionally! (I'll let my sister do that - she is much better than me)

Caroline's most treasured present is a Beauty piggy bank that my aunt got her. Caroline went around collecting every one's change and putting it into Beauty. Here she is collecting from Adam's grandma. Since this day, Beauty has gone many places with us and she has slept with Caroline in her bed. She almost went to church with us one Sunday, but then I thought her teachers might think this was Caroline's tithe =)

And Caroline decided to climb up into the tree house in our backyard at her party for the very first time. Of course she had help. She loved it and I couldn't believe how adventurous she was being. Way to go Caroline! Happy Birthday Baby Girl! You are cherished and loved by so many!

Caroline is 2!!

2011-05-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

Caroline turned 2 on Friday the 13th. Interestingly we officially entered the "terrible twos" on Friday the 13th. I wonder what that means for us =)

Adam and I both had off of work on Caroline's birthday. It was so great to have sweet family time on her special day. We started the morning with homemade chocolate chip pancakes.

Birthday girl at the breakfast table.

We then headed over to Cottle Farms to pick some strawberries (some of which would be served at her birthday party). Caroline did really great at picking this year. She knew to pick the red ones.

We then packed up and headed over to a friend's neighborhood pool. Caroline just loved the pool last year. We weren't really sure if she would still love it this year, but the verdict was....

She loved it again! Thankfully she has a few more inhibitions this year and didn't like her head going under the water. Last year she was putting her head in every chance she got. We really had to watch her. It's fun to see her be a little bit of a daredevil since she's not one anywhere else, but it's a little scary too.

I really enjoyed being cooled off and weightless. I also enjoyed being able to pick up my little girl and hold her a lot since the water made her weightless too. Eight months pregnant at the pool is nice.

We tried to get Caroline to wear this bathing suit since it had the cool floaties in there. I'm glad I brought the back up bathing suit because Caroline just cried while she was in the one with built-in floaties. She kept saying it was "too fat" - lol! We will have to keep trying it because I think she would really love to be more free in the water.

One good picture of her with the floaty swimsuit on.

We had such a great time playing together and pretty much had the pool all to ourselves. After we had splashed to our heart's content, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and then headed home for a nap.

Caroline on the ride home.

For dinner that night, we had one of Caroline's favorites - spaghetti. We then gave Caroline her presents. We should have known better though. We brought out strawberry short cake, which I had put together during her nap. Caroline wanted nothing to do with it instead she wanted to play with her presents. I guess we should have opened presents after strawberry short cake - oh well, Adam and I ate it for her.

Birthday girl so excited and wearing her birthday tutu (same one as last year).

It's been such a fun year with Caroline. Seeing her personality blossom has been one of the greatest joys of my life. She is such a precious person! She is kind and gentle, loving and content. She has such a tender heart. It's almost funny to me how nurturing she is. It's kind of strange to have a 2 year old come over and rub your back, but she does it often. I know that God has big plans for her big heart.

She is doing and saying so much right now. I am so excited about the things she is finally doing by herself. Since we put her in a big girl bed (beginning of March), she hadn't once tried to actually get out of it by herself. And even though that is a wonderful thing that I love, I was also so excited for her when on her birthday morning I opened up her door and she was out of the bed all by herself! She has only repeated that action once since then. Both times she really had to go to the bathroom so I think that motivation was what got her out of the bed. She still can't open the doors in our house so she is stuck in her room until I open the door for her.

Easily climbing on her play set this month!

Playing baseball with Daddy.

She is also really getting into art and play-doh. She can be occupied for 30 minutes or more working on a little project. Our refrigerator is now covered in her art work. I bought her Do-It-Dots for her birthday and they are perfect for her age!

She loves to do her art at her princess tray.

All of her art on our refrigerator. She LOVES that her art is displayed there and frequently will point at a picture and say "Did you make that?!?"

Caroline is also really into dress up right now. We got this really great dress-up dress as a hand-me-down from one of Adam's coworkers. She could wear it 24/7. She loves to show you how to courtesy in her dress. But right now, Caroline loves all dresses. She asks to wear a "pretty dress" almost every morning.

All decked out.

Books are still a number one must have when we have to bring Caroline entertainment. She is getting really good at reading to herself. Especially since she knows most of her books anyway - we have read them all sooo many times. And let me tell you, we are not hurting for books. We have about 8 shelves full of them! She takes after her Daddy in that regard.

Caroline's 2 year old stats are:
Height - 35.75 inches (95%)
Weight - 29 lbs 2 oz (75%)
Head - 49.5 cm (93%) -

If you're keeping track, Caroline has actually grown 3 inches since her 18 month well visit but she's lost 11 ounces since her last appointment (a sick visit back in February). Several people have suggested that maybe it's ok for kids her age to lose weight since they are thinning out and becoming more active. But our pediatrician assures me it is not ok. She said that kids can plateau, but losing is not good especially when they have grown 3 inches! Dr. G thinks Caroline is burning too many calories trying to breathe around her enlarged adenoid. Dr. G also saw fluid in both of Caroline's ears. The fluid was a really dark amber color meaning it had been there for a long time. So Dr. G really agrees with our ENT Dr. V that surgery is something we need to do sooner rather than later. We see Dr. V again on June 1st. So we will find out for sure then. We also have to go back to see Dr. G for a weight check at the end of June.

Please keep Caroline and our family in your prayers as we prepare for all of this. We have a lot of big decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. We love our princess and want her to be healthy!

Fantasy Maternity Leave

2011-05-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

I was telling Adam that lately I had been fantasizing about my maternity leave. I am so looking forward to spending this time with my girls. I want it to be as relaxing as possible - though I know adjusting to 2 children is going to be...well...a BIG adjustment. I just really want to maximize this time that I have with them.

I have this schedule in my mind of how our typically day will go. I'm sort of scared to actually write it down - knowing that 1) It's probably not going to happen, 2) If I admit that this is my plan, I will have failed if it doesn't work. But on the other hand, I love documenting this kind of stuff. I love looking back at things that I have said and done in the past and realizing how much I have changed/grown from that point. So I want to write this out too. Go ahead and laugh and tell me how ridiculously high this expectation is. Hopefully at least 1 day out of the 12 weeks will go this smooth. What do you think?

7:30 feed Lucy while Adam gets Caroline ready
8:15 Lucy goes back to sleep, Adam plays with Caroline while I shower and get ready for the day
9:00 Adam leaves for work, Caroline plays by herself while I do a chore
9:30 Caroline and I get ready for our Morning Activity (playing in baby pool in backyard, trip to the zoo, trip to the park or playground or library)
10:00 Grab Lucy and commence Morning Activity
10:30 feed Lucy while doing Morning Activity
12:15 Lunch at home
1:00 Caroline goes down for a nap
1:30 feed Lucy
2:15 Lucy goes down for a nap, Mommy goes down for a nap (yeah right)
3:30 - 4:00 Caroline wakes up (she really does sleep for 2.5-3 hours) and we play together
4:30 Caroline does Afternoon Activity (something I've prepared from maybe this website or play doh or coloring - something she can do independently). Feed Lucy.
5:30 begin cooking dinner - this will definitely be the hardest part of the day
6:30 Hopefully, Adam gets home and we eat dinner
7:00 Begin bedtime routine with Caroline
7:30 Caroline goes to bed and I feed Lucy
8:00 Lucy goes to bed and nighttime feedings begin.