Happy Birthday Sophy!

My tiny little girl is Two! I can't believe it! Thank you to everyone who sent cards and called. She has had a very exciting day! We went to the Zoo with her friends for cupcakes and juice and a chance to look at the animals. It was REALLY hot so we didn't stay as long as we had planned. She got several balloons so that people could spot us, one of which was a Mickey mouse balloon. She LOVED it! She held it the whole way there, the whole way home, and a lot of while we were there. She just kept saying "Clubhouse. Mickey. Clubhouse." over and over again. She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Disney channel. I always said that I wanted to wait until both the girls could ride all the rides before I went to Disney world with them, but now I'm thinking I might have to make a trip so she can meet Mickey. I just don't think Mickey will be as special if I wait. Of course Disney world is EXPENSIVE so it may never happen, but I can dream....

Party time!

Well sadly the last Harry potter book has been released. I say sadly because as excited as I am t know how it ends I'm very sad that it is ending at all. With that said I of course couldn't miss my chance to attend the last ever book party. I dress up the kiddos and off we went. I dressed both of the girls as House elfs. Sophy's costume turned out to be WAY to small for her and Lola's WAY to big. Simple solution...I switched them. So they both had cute fitting costumes. They of course didn't win the contest because there was a kid there who look JUST like Ron. There was a lot of fun stuff to do though. I really like the potions lesson. It was a silly science experiment for the kids to watch. After the costume contest Jeff and I took the girls home and put them to bed. Jeff started packing and I got BACK in the car and drove up to Wal-mart to stand in line at midnight. The book was considerably cheaper at Wal-mart. After receiving my copy at 12:08 I stood in a second line to pay and was home by 12:38am. I debated the whole way home if I was going to keep reading (I had started reading in line) that night or go to sleep. I decided to read until I felt sleepy. this unfortunately was a BAD idea because who can feel sleepy reading a new Potter book? I finally turned out the light and Made myself sleep at 2:45am. Jeff got up at 3:30am to start getting ready and I have woken up every 30 minutes since then afraid I was going to over sleep this morning. Boy am I tired!
As a side note: If you think Harry Potter is wrong or evil I encourage you to read the first book before you make a decision. I will be happy to discuss the books and their themes with you, or even those of other notable fantasy books that are also innocent or good depending how you look at them ("The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis for example). I believe the underling messages int he book to be VERY good and strong theme that the world needs and I plan on teaching to my girls.

Update

As I said int he last post all is well here. Sophy is almost two! Can you believe it? All around our house are fields. Most of them are covered in wild flowers. Ever since these flowers popped up I have been dieing to get out with Sophy for a photo shoot. I finally got the chance last night and the pictures turned out great. I included a few of my favorites here. I think I'll do this again with Lola when she is two and hang the pictures together.
Lola is well. She is getting very active and can hold her head up well. It's so sad to see my last baby growing up so fast. She'll be 3 months old soon! Boy does the time fly!
Jeff was supposed to go TDY in August and I was dreading being left alone with the two girls for a week! Then something came up at work and now he's leaving on Saturday! So I'll be all alone for 3 weeks. I decided that that was simply too long to be alone with the girls without help so I'm heading to my mom's house sometime next week so we can celebrate my dad's 50th birthday I am then traveling with my mom to my sister's house for her birthday party next weekend. So I'll be gone for a little over a week. I will be home in time for Sophy's birthday at the Zoo with her friends and my friend's baby shower. I hope that there is enough going on here after I et back to keep me from being too lonely. It'll still be hard to take care of the girls 24/7 alone though. I might have to call up people just for a chance of Adult conversation. So that is the next few weeks for us. Needless to say I may not be posting too much till I get home.

Just a quick note....

Sorry i haven't updated in a while. We have been SUPER busy. i am happy to report that we are all doing fine and I hope to have a "real" post up soon.

Smile!

We finally got Lola to smile for the camera! Man it wasn't easy to catch her grin on film! Here are a few pictures of that precious face!

Lola Update:

Sorry about the last post. It's hard to spell correctly with no sleep when the spell checker doesn't catch it! I fixed it though. And yes, I meant Dairy. Lola is doing well. She still has the eczema on her cheeks, but it's mostly gone everywhere else. I think the cheeks are still bad because she spits up in bed and lays on it. I'm still working on that. (In the picture I had been off dairy for almost 3 full days when it was taken. Two days before her face was 200 times worse than that. I tried to put some hypoallerginic lotion on it last night(wed. night) and today it's SO much better! YEA!)
On a different note: Sophy has decided she likes to eat dry onion flakes...plain. Weird, but whatever makes her happy. At least it's not going to hurt her!
We had a great time this last weekend with Tammy and Ron. Sophy even went to the safety fair with them while Jeff and I were in class. I have pictures of their visit, but Sophy just woke up so i will have to do another post with more of our weekend later.

Dairy is the Enemy!

Currently my house is filled with the aroma of baking bread. A sweet bread with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. Heavenly yes? Well not so much if you know that as soon as it comes out of the oven you'll have to set it aside and watch other people eat it while you get none. Why do I get none you ask? Well for a while now I have noticed that the bumps on Lola's face (which I thought was baby acne) were getting worse. After I while I started asking questions and looking things up only to find that she has eczema and it's getting worse by the day. She is also very grumpy and gassy all of a sudden. My mother in law happens to be in town and she takes a look over her and tells me that Jeff looked that way when he was a baby every time she had dairy because he is allergic to dairy. I responded that I knew about him being Lactose intolerant. Come to find out the two things are VERY different and Jeff is allergic not intolerant. Which means that as a baby he could have NO dairy of any kind even through breast milk. So Tammy could have no dairy. Needless to say I wasn't too happy about the idea of going dairy free, but I decided I would try it for a week to see if it helps any (it takes 3 days to get out of my system and 3 more days to get out of Lola's). Unfortunately for me/ fortunately for Lola her face started clearing up immediately and today she is smiling and happy like she hasn't been all week. So it looks like it's going to be dairy free for me till she's weaned. Also stinks that I already stocked up on Formula for later which she can't have....anyone want to buy some formula? Cheap?

Pool Time!

Here are pictures from Lola's first time in the pool. Trish and Emily came along too. It was a lot of fun watching the girls. We brought their Bumbo seats and put then on one of the shallow steps so that they could splash with their toes int he water. Annabelle thought the water was ok, Sophy LOVED it and Lola wasn't a little interested. She wanted to sleep and for goodness sake keep her toes out of that water! I think it was still a little too cold for her. She loves her bath though. Sophy has gotten so big! She loves to play and help out with her sister. Her favorite thing is to "go". She doesn't care where, just put her in the car! That is my kind of kid.

Fresh Fruit!

Beautiful Photos...

i Love how artist these pictures turned out! I had to share them with everyone. It gives me hope that maybe I haven't lost all my abilities as a photographer. When I stopped working to stay at home I never worried about that, but until recently I had been feeling a little less than par on my skills. Now I'm starting to feel better about it all. Now for that Zoo photo contest! Only people are a lot easier than animals!

Our "Quiet" weekend

We finally got a "quiet" weekend at home. Of course by that I mean that we were home without visitors, not that it was actually quiet at all. What did we do you ask? Jeff was super dad this weekend with the girls. We went to the pool and let Sophy swim. Jeff swam with her and I sat by the side with Lola. I forgot to take my camera so I have no pictures! gasp! I know I can't believe I was so thoughtless. I'll remember next time when I actually let lola go in the water! Then we went to the Zoo and walked all over the place! Jeff took Sophy in the Explorakeete Adventure so she could see the Lorakette's and got Pooped on! He was such a good sport and stuck around for another hour at the zoo even though he smelled yucky! Then we met up with Aaron, Trish, Annabelle, and Nicki for a picnic at the park and Ice cream at Freddie's. All in all a very good weekend and a very tiring one for Jeff. He might need a day off to recover from his days off! I know Sophy had a great weekend playing with her daddy, but poor Lola spent most of it asleep. Here are some pictures from the weekend. Notice the ADORABLE purple dress and hat on Lola. Thanks Nana for that one!

Check this out...

One of my friends mentioned this site on there blog. I went to it not expecting much, but I was surprised to learn how cool it was! Basically you set up a page with your favorite blogs and it checks to see if they have posted lately so you don't have to spend an hour checking all of them only to learn that 3/4 of them didn't post today. It has been working very well for me for over a month now so I highly recommend it! Check it out: www.bloglines.com
On a totally different note: There is a photography contest coming up at our zoo. I'm very excited about this and plan to spend many days up there with my camera in hand. I do really like this one though...Comments? Good enough to impress the zoo? I'm not happy with the composition, but I can try to twik that in photoshop. I had to "off-road" it so to speak to get this photo, but I think it was worth it.
For those wondering, yes, the girls and I are fine. We are very busy and doing well. I will post more cute pictures later this week.

New Pictures of the Girls.

For those of you who read my blog strictly so they can see new pictures of the girls.... Here are a few new ones from this weekend. Notice the cute dress Lola has on, I'd like to thank granddad Pogue for that one!

Memorial Weekend

For Memorial Weekend my sister came to visit us with her three kids. We took all the kiddos to the zoo, the park, shopping, and whole lot of other things! Needless to say Heather and I are Tired! Here are some pictures of the weekend!

Oh the cuteness!

I managed to hop on the computer before Jeff did so I thought I would post a few new pictures of our little girl. She's starting to get really big! Now if only she'd let me sleep!
Oh and Tammy: Notice the Duck hair on the 3rd picture. It showed up after her bath yesterday and I still can't get it to go back down! It's WAY worse than it ever was with Sophy! We love it!

Two Weeks old!

Can you believe that Lola is already two weeks old? It seems like yesterday I was griping about being pregnant! She is doing very well. We went to the doctor today and he said she looks the picture of health. Her weight isn't quite up to birth weight yet, but it's VERY close. The fluid in her ears from birth is now gone. We have to go back in two weeks to make sure she is still gaining weight, but I'm sure that will be fine.
Sophy is still having a hard time adjusting to Lola being here. She loves on her and thinks of her as her own personal baby doll, often playing a little too rough if mom and dad don't keep a close eye out! I think Sophy is just ready for life to go back to normal, not realizing that Life is never going back to the way it used to be. I have high hopes that it will get a lot better soon though.
My health has been good. I've had a harder time recovering than I hoped to have. A few set backs go a long way to slowing you down. I hope to be back to full capacity soon. In the mean time my help have all left me and I had to beg Jeff to stay home. I am so blessed to have a hubby who is willing to help out!
I think that is all the exciting news for our famly right now. I hope to be out and about again soon.

Home again, home again.

We are now home safe and sound. I still hurt quite a bit, but I'm healing well. Sophy is adjusting very well. She loves her sister, sometimes a little too much. She has had a hard time with me being sore and unable to carry her or hold her on my lap. I think shes doing very well for a little girl who's life has just changed in a HUGE way.

As for our new little girl...or should I say Leona Marilyn (we'll be calling her Lola) she is doing VERY well. She lost a little weight in the hospitol, but she has gained a lot now that my milk came in. Her cheeks have filled out quite a bit and she has such a cute face! It's amazing how my two girls could look so different and yet still look So cute both of them. She has dark eyes! They are blue right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if they turn green or even brown before too long! She loves to curl up in a little ball. She likes to eat and sleep and that is about all right now.

I want to thank everyone who came to visit us in the hospital. It was nice to break up the stay with friends and family coming by to visit. As nice as it was I am still very gladc to be home. I went home a whole day later with Lola than I did with Sophy. I do feel much better this time around. I was also a lot calmer during the surgury this time. All in all it has been nice.

And for all of those that said after I had Lola that Sophy would look older to me and wouldn't be my baby anymore. For me it was NOTHING like that. She is still my baby and I just have two babies now. One just happens to be alot bigger. I am also very in love with my new little girl. I can't wait to see how her personality grows and changes.

New Baby!

She's Here! 8 lbs 4 ozs! Can you imagine if I had gone 9 more days! She would have been over 9lbs! She is only 20.5 inches so she is short and chubby! I LOVE it! She's so cute. Sophy is doing well. She loves "her baby", but she doesn't like that she can't hold mommy. I am doing very well. I expect to go home on thursday so if you come see me you can find out her name!

Last weekly update before baby!

I'm 38 weeks today! I had a doctors appointment and the baby is moving up instead of down. Much like what Sophy did. I started contracting on Friday and it hasn't stopped so my doctor decided to move things up a bit. I'm now having the baby on Monday! She also gave me some medicine to help me sleep through the contractions and I'm supposed to take it easy until then. We had a little scramble of phone calls to try to rearrange everything. I think it's mostly worked out, but I have 5 more days to get it in working order. I just might have to call a few friends in to help if things don't quite fall into place in the end.
I think all the major cleaning and preparing has been done already. All I really have to do between now and then is sit back and wait. Which if you know me is not my favorite thing in the world to do.....so maybe some scrap-booking instead. I'm missing my monthly crop this month to have a baby so it would be nice to get some work done. That is if Sophy would cooperate. I think Jeff and I are going to go out to eat once this week as a finale family of 3 before things get crazy around here. That will be nice.
Sophy is doing really well. She is starting to catch on to the whole idea of the potty. We credit this to my friend Jessica and her daughter Ruthie who is potty training right now. Now we just need to go get the little potty cover and the step stool so she can start trying. She also learned several other new things this week:
- How to open a door.
- How to close a door.
- How to balance a spoon on her nose.
- How to blow bubbles with a bubble wand.
- To buckle herself into her highchair.
- To ask for a hug.
She is super cute too! I love to see her stretch out her arms and say "ug". She'll also give us kisses now. Bedtime is a lot sweeter than it used to be.
Now to get Jeff to do the things I'm not supposed to do......

Nesting

I can't believe I only have 2 weeks left! In two weeks around this time I'll be holding my sweet baby in awe that it's all over. It's amazing how quickly time flys! It seems like yesterday Trish was having her baby and already she's 2 months old! For that matter I can't believe that Sophy is as big as she is! She's talking so clearly now and have very definite opinions about things. She is such a wonderful little girl! I can't imagine having two little girls!
In other news we are having our house painted today. That is if the painter ever starts! We are going with a darker color to show off the brick better, but I'm still not too sure about it. We'll see how it turns out. I think I will just be happy when everything is all said and done. House work is TOO expensive to do too much of it!
While we've had people busy fixing the outside of the house I have been busy fixing the inside! I have swept and dusted and reorganized all over the place. It still seems like there is more work to be done than I can do alone. It's not that my house is very messy, it's just that small things bug me right now. Like the insane urge to clean my toilet bowl brush, or wash the door to our closets (in my defense they were dirty). I am currently washing all the rugs and mopping all floors. I think I might enjoy the hospital just so I can get a break from cleaning!

36 weeks!

Wow! I have been so busy! It's hard to even write out everything that has been going on, so I'll just hit the highlights. Last weekend was Easter. We had a lot of fun with Sophy. While she was hunting eggs (no joke) it started Snowing! Just a tad bit cold for easter! We were supposed to have a lot of family in town, but that didn't work out, but we still had a lot of fun anyway. We sure did miss the Sutherlins though. We had to have some work done on the front of the house. That wasn't too cheap. Now we have to have it painted (raw wood looks weird) and that SURE isn't cheap! Can you believe I spent over $200 on paint alone? Then the painters who are supposed to start work tomorrow call and reschedule because of the rain. So now it'll be next week. I like the color I picked out. It took a while because I had to check with the HOA and consult some others before I could choose a color. At least it'll be done before the baby comes. Speaking of baby- I only have 3 weeks left! I'm very ready to have this kid. I'm tired of being huge and always running my tummy into stuff. I had a doctor's appointment today and she said everything looks good. I'm holding steady at 3 lbs. weight gain! The baby has dropped a lot, something Sophy never did so it's nice to get to eat and breath easier this time around. I get to go in once a week from here on out. I think I have all nursery ready now. I'm just can't find a soft purple blanket with silk ribbon trim! Sophy has a pink one and I can't find a purple one. It's Sophy's favorite so I'd like them each to have their own. Babies R Us has one, but ours is always out of stock! So if you live near a Babies R Us run by and check to see if yours has one. I might have to get one there!
Here's what Baby Center says about the new baby:
Your baby is still putting on the pounds — about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little less than 19 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the creamy substance that covered and protected her skin during its submersion in amniotic fluid. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, which will stay in her bowels until birth. This blackish mixture, called meconium, will become her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Babies between 37 and 42 weeks are considered full-term; a baby born before 37 weeks is pre-term and after 42 is post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position by now, which is optimal for a smooth delivery.

What a crazy week!

What a week! After my last post things sure did get busy in our household! Sophy got a stomuch bug. Not a big deal, but a lot of mess to clean up. It only lasted 24 hours so that wasn't too bad. The next day she cut TWO teeth! Yes, the baby that had no teeth now has 12! She was cranky and fussy for the next few days because her mouth hurt her. She is now Much better!
On Saturday I came down with Sophy's bug! Not fun to say the least! Only bad part was that I wasn't just sick, I was in pain! So I went to the hospital and sure enough, I was having contractions. I was severely dehydrated so I ended up there for the day with an iv. As soon as they got the first iv bag in me the contractions stopped and I felt much better. the rest of the time there was just boring. The next day was my church baby shower. It was a lot of fun. The girls did a great job decorating and I was surprised by how much this little girl got! She was truly showered with love! I had a doctor appointment yesterday and she said the baby looks good. The baby is right where she should be and the happy news is I've only gained 3 pounds! Yea!
In all of this Jeff has been great. He ran to the store, sat bored at the hospital, and even helped with the house work a little. He has been a rock through it all and somehow always manages to keep from getting sick.

33 weeks! Where does the time go?

I know I haven't posted in a while. I haven't been on the computer too much at all lately. I have been busy with Sophy and friends. For those of you who asked Trish and Annabelle are doing great. Annabelle even smiled a true smile at me the other day! I can't believe she's already old enough to smile! Sophy is doing well. We are all three of us fighting allergies, but it is that time of year! The new baby is growing very quickly now. I have definitely gained weight now and have a hard time finding clothes to fit me, even a lot of my maternity clothes don't fit anymore. I have a very busy couple of weeks coming up. I'm having an ultrasound on Friday to check size and position. I'll try to post pictures as soon as I can. My friends from church are throwing me a baby shower on Sunday. I'm very excited about it! I have a new dress (that fits!), I got my toe nails painted, and I got a haircut so I'll look cute for all the pictures. It still seems like time is flying by. I guess that feeling will only get worse. I'm actually not too anxious about the new arrival, just busy!
Here's what Baby Center says about the new baby:

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and measures 17.2 inches from the top of his head to his heels. Thanks to his recent weight gain, he's losing that wrinkled alien look. Most of your baby's bones are hardening now, but his skull is still quite pliable. It's actually in separate pieces with spaces in between. This flexible structure allows your baby's head to compress so it can fit through your relatively narrow birth canal. The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance. This is totally harmless, normal, and temporary. Your baby's head will quickly take on a more rounded appearance, but his skull plates won't completely fuse until he's about 9 to 18 months old.

31 weeks and counting...

Everything is very well here. Sophy is growing and learning everyday! She can now eat applesauce with a spoon neatly! I'm so proud! She also knows the first 4 abc's. Just not the rest, although she does try to sing the whole song. She is quickly leaning to walk next to mommy and hold my hand so that I don't have to carry her all the time. That has been nice for me since my tummy is now getting BIG! Can you believe it's already March and I'm 31 weeks along! I only have 8 weeks left! I used to tell myself "theres no need to feel worried or rushed until after Christmas", then Christmas came and went. Then I told myself "theres no need to be worried or rushed until after Trish has her baby." and then she had Annabelle two weeks ago! Then I told myself "Rebbecca still has to have her baby so don't worry" and I found out yesterday that Rebbecca will be induced on Thursday! So now I'm starting to worry a little. Time is going so fast! I have the next several weekends busy which only makes time go by faster. This kid will be here before I know it...(and Courtney will finally know her name!)
Here is what Baby Center says about the new baby: This week, your baby measures about 16 inches long. He weighs a little over 3 pounds and is headed for a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and he's beginning to accumulate a layer of fat underneath his skin in preparation for life as a newborn. As a result, his arms, legs, and body are filling out.