My Girls

I'll start this post with some pictures of my sweet angels:

This picture was taken just before a complete meltdown on the way to church:

Avery and Madison at Madison's dance recital:

Avery's end-of-year ice cream party at school:

And here was one of Kate's first smiles (about 6 weeks old)

Let's see...what's new with us? Well, Avery started her "new school" on June 9th (Children of The Woodlands doesn't offer a summer program, so she's going to Interfaith on Tuesdays and Thursdays), but she's already missed two days of school because she had a horrible cold that developed into pneumonia. Who knew you could even get pneumonia in June?!? Anyway, after 6 days of a fever, a terrible hack, and a round of antibiotics, she's finally doing much better. I, on the other hand, could very possible have a nervous breakdown if I have to watch one more episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Kate is growing and changing every day. At her two month checkup she weighed 10 pounds, 7 ounces, and was 22 3/4 inches long! She's definitely developing her own little personality - she likes to be held (preferably rocked) and has made very good friends with the ceiling fans in our house. She becomes a bottomless pit for feedings in the late afternoons, but she practically sleeps through the night (we usually both wake up around 3 am for a quick feeding and then right back to sleep!). She's getting used to being pushed in the stroller and will hopefully become a better sport during my StrollerFit workouts. She's usually very content riding in the car (unlike her sister, who always screamed the entire time we were in the car), and boy, does she love to smile at her daddy.

Avery has been such an incredible big sister...helping with diapers, bottles and she loves to give Kate her pacifiers. I can see such a beautiful sisterly friendship developing between them (sniff, sniff). Avery is constantly asking me to take her picture with Kate (which is why I have a ton of photos like this):

Oh, Lee and I are fine, too...but we know you really just want to know about the cute kids! :-)

Fun days....

I had to start with this cute picture of Avery in my mom's pool on Mother's Day. She thought she was something else in her little swimsuit and sunglasses! Is she really only two?!?

We are so excited that Kate is gaining weight! She weighed in at 9.0 pounds yesterday, so she gained 12 ounces in a week! Yes, this is what excites us these days. But I am glad that she seems to be thriving on breastmilk alone and hopefully will be able to sleep through the night soon.

Here she is sleeping on the couch...we couldn't believe she stayed asleep there for over an hour!


This is the only place she will normally sleep (or just lay and be happy) during the day: on the bathroom floor while the shower is running. For some reason the sound just soothes her right to sleep. Whatever it takes to get my daily shower, right?


We had a great visit from Aunt B mother's day weekend. She got to meet Kate, and Avery and Harrison had a blast in the playroom upstairs.


In other news, Avery had her first "MUD" day at school yesterday. They played with water, bubbles and shaving cream on the playground. Lee went with her and took these pictures before her "accident":

Avery "washing" her car:


Here she is about to go down the slide with shaving cream (I can't believe she actually did it...she can be such a wuss!):


WOOSH! And here she is landing on her back at the bottom of the slide (Lee says that took a few minutes of recovery time afterwards):


After the kids' playtime outside, they went inside for ice cream and to change clothes. Apparently Avery was running to get in line for ice cream, tripped and fell, hitting her chin pretty hard on the giant carpeted steps in one of the rooms. Her mouth was bleeding quite a bit, and we were worried that she cracked a tooth because she couldn't take a bite of anything without screaming. But, since this morning, she managed to down pancakes, grilled cheese, apples, and graham crackers just fine, so we think she probably bit her tongue and it's in the process of heeling. She does have a nice rug burn to show for it, though.

And finally, another one of my favorites: my two girls bonding like only sisters can!

What day is it?

So life with two little ones is just as crazy as I was afraid it would be. Life with a newborn, period, is exhausting, but combined with a two-year old, it's enough to make me pull my hair out. Luckily, I've watched many before me go down this road, and they've managed to keep everyone alive and relatively happy, so I know I can do it too.

Kate is an angel. She sleeps A LOT - which is good, except for the fact that waking her up to nurse has become a major challenge. In fact, she falls asleep so much during feedings that she has not yet reached her birth weight - which the pediatrician was expecting by her two-week checkup. So, we are supplementing nursing with bottle feedings...which means I am doing some form of feeding her every hour and a half. But it seems to be working because in the last six days she's gained 7 ounces (yay!). Just 5 more ounces until she reaches her birth weight, and 9 more ounces until we can stop waking her up at night to feed (double-yay!).

Apart from the lack of sleep and sheer exhaustion, I'm feeling great! I'm anxious to get back into some form of workout routine (doctor says I can resume full activities after 6 weeks) and back into pre-pregnancy clothes (although I sure have come to love the elastic wastebands).

Avery has been a great big sister. She has been giving Kate all of her toys and books and always wants to know where Kate is and what she's doing. She only gets a little jealous when Lee holds Kate. Lee and Avery have gotten to be especially close since Lee has been helping out so much with her (bathtime, bedtime, taking her to school in the morning, etc.). So far, Avery has been really good about having a baby in the house, she's just been more challenging about everything else ("I don't want chicken for dinner"..."I don't want to take a bath!"..."I don't want to sit on the potty!"...you get the idea). Very much standard two-year-old stuff, but it certainly makes life much more difficult for the sleep-deprived padres.

All of that being said, we have been so blessed to have family and friends around us during this special time. Thank you to everyone who has brought meals for us...it has been such an incredible help not having to worry about cooking dinner every night. And everything has been so delicious...although it's probably not helping me get back into my old jeans :-)

I haven't been nearly as good about taking pictures of Kate like I was of Avery. I already forgot to take one of her first bath, and there are only so many I can take of her curled up and sleeping in her swing. But we did get some amazing photos of her at her newborn photo session (Misty Green was the photographer, http://www.photographybymg.com/). They are pictures I will treasure forever. So I will try to take more pictures and post them here when I can.

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts and prayers...they mean the world to us!