This week

I take soooo many pictures during the week it makes it difficult to choose which ones to post. I could do a separate post on each of these but instead I'll just share snippets. (bottom left going clockwise)

My babies are a month older today.
This kid cracks me up - future Virginia Tech Engineer.
Takin after Daddy, sleeping with her mouth open.
My days.
We are purchasing a baby gate this weekend. He's doing something new everyday :)
This outfit makes me laugh. A hand-me-down that needed to be worn at least once.

1month & 17months

We're one month into life with 4 & things definitely aren't easy or necessarily fun just yet but they are getting better. Reagan is having longer, happier awake periods, is on somewhat of a nighttime routine & Kevin and I are figuring out just how to juggle two young ones while remaining sane.

Knock on wood but most days I manage to get both babies down sleeping at the same time in the morning like they are right now :) It might not be for long but it's a nice silence while it lasts. And then in the evenings Kevin & I bathe and jammer up both babies and then I sit and nurse Reagan while Logan drinks his milk and Kevin reads a couple books. We put both babies down to bed at 8. Magically they both stay sleeping :) Logan sleeps until 7am and Reagans nights have been looking like this:

8pm - Nurse & Bed
12-1am - Nurse
3:30-4am - Nurse
5-6:30am - Nurse & Awake

Notsobad. I feel more rested than I did a couple weeks ago thats for sure.

I'm busy during the day and I feel like I'm always feeding someone or changing a diaper but 2 babies has definitely given my role as a stay at home mom more purpose. Kevin has even pointed out a few things that I've done recently that I might have, way back when... before kids, said that I would never do when I'm a mom. I sniff butts in public, clean ears with my pinky finger, sing baby songs while driving and dare I say it out loud look up mini-vans online :o

It would be a loosing battle to try to end his obession with Dylans food & water bowl - so instead, we take pictures.

Getting adventerous!

We've been taking the video camera in when we get Logan up from bed and naps hoping we might one day catch him doing this.

It's a long 1min & 46secs but I kept recording to see if he would try to cruise around the crib a little - notsomuch, but I did get a no hands clap :)

Ruff life

Foto Friday

I keep trying to put her down for a nap, but she prefers to rest her head on me & I should embrace that. One day I'll miss being able hold my babies while they sleep.

Memory Box

This one gets tucked into my mental memory box:

I took Logan up for his 2nd nap yesterday afternoon. We got into his room and normally I just dump him in his crib and leave and thats that. But today for whatever reason I tried to cradle him in my arms and rock him once or twice...both of which are impossible to do these days ...he fights being cradled and his shear size isn't conducive to rocking.

BUT

as soon as he was cradled he went really still and put his thumb in his mouth. I wanted to take advantage of the few seconds he was being sweet. But 5mins into it I'm still rocking him and his eyes are fluttering and getting heavy.

GASP!

Is my big boy going to let me rock him to sleep?!

YES :)

I stood there, my arms were burning and my back felt like it was breaking...but I continued to rock him for 20mins until he was completely still taking deep sleep breaths. I was determined to let him take his full nap right there in my arms because it had been months and months since he had fallen asleep in my arms and it probably won't ever happen again :/

But rocking his 25lb+ limp body was tooo much for me after that 20min mark. I kissed his forehead and transferred him to his crib.

Think the new baby in the house has him missing his mommy just a little :)

3 for Thursday

YAY!!

Logans been enrolled in the Birth to Three program for a little over a month now. We've been working with a Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist and a Developmental Teacher.

And it's helping!!!!

In the last month Logan has learned to get to a sitting position by himself, has learned several new sounds, and just in the last week he's been working on getting himself to his knees :)

Check his skills out:

3 weeks!

milk monsters

Enjoying a cup-o-milk in the peace & quiet before the other milk monster wakes up.

Lookin good

Classy.

Good Day

Just enjoying the sunshine and being thankful for having such a beautiful family with such a wonderful Daddy.

Love you :*

Foto Friday

Maybe I shouldn't have used the flash?

TGIF!

Girly things

Grandma Jo arrives today so I attempted to dress Reagan in something pretty. I think she's still too tiny to look cute in anything but onesies and jammers. But just because she looks like she is being swallowed by a jean jumper doesn't mean she doesn't need a picture or two snapped of her.



And Reagan & I are both having mixed emotions about the bows....

I have never had to match Logans socks with his outfit.....

Here we go again....

This is us right now - my coffee needs topped off but the baby is asleep in my arms & I'd much rather her stay sleeping than enjoy another fresh cup. Such is life now babies 1 & 2 come first momma comes 2nd. So instead I'll do the ole phone pic & one handed blog post.

I'm definitely feeling sleep deprived - mostly come evening time and then when I hear her screams in the monitor when its 5am...cause I know that means my day is about to begin and when you're up every couple hours you kinda wish the monitor had a snooze button.

Logan just started talking...he is saying over and over again "up, up, uuuuup" I love that without seeing him I know he's sitting up, probably switching between clapping and sucking his thumb. Most likely he only has one sock on and there is a good chance the missing sock is laying on the floor behind his crib :)

This is where my day starts ....relatively calm and normal seeming. Things are about to get dicey though. I'll put the little miss down while I go get Logan. Guaranteed she'll be screaming by the time I come back down desperately hungry even though she just ate an hour ago.

Then we'll all sit in front of the tv and have our morning beverages and play the rest of our day by ear.

First Day!!

Kevin went back to work this morning after taking a week of his hard earned vacation off to spend time with our family :) Which means ....today was my first day alone with both babies.

And we survived! Reagan did what she does best and ate & slept the day away while Logan helped with laundry, led the way on our walk in the double bubble, and had a snack on the porch while watching the cars go by.


And we finished up our day by loading up in the car headed to the Pediatricians for Reagans 2 week check up.....
Don't let this sweet little face fool you - little girl hit the scales big time - weighing in at 8lbs 12oz, up from 7lbs 8oz- her weight after leaving the hospital.

2 weeks old
8lbs 12oz

21 inches

Bright eyed morning

Someone was looking especially handsome this morning. Sometimes I wish he didn't have to cover up those big blue eyes with glasses :/

Foto Friday

We had our first family outing on Tuesday!

TGIF!

Daddy, the One Man Band

One Week

First week has been.....

A whole lotta this:

and a little bit of this:

with the in-between time spent eating.

Happy Monday

Good Morning!

Labor & Delivery

Leaving for the hospital at 1:15am Tuesday May 31st

We checked into the hospital at 1:3oish on Tuesday morning. By the time we made it back to the labor & delivery room my mind had started to turn to mush...proven by me putting my gown on backwards... and my body had switched into baby delivering mode with my contractions intensifying three fold. I laid in the bed and closed my eyes.

At 1:48am my water broke. And I was crawling up the side of the bed in pain. I grabbed onto Kevins hand & didn't let go.

1:50am The urge to push. The doctor isn't there. I told the nurse the baby was coming, she checked and immediately asked Kevin to push the red button. In the background I heard all the nurses reassuring me that they have all delivered babies before that everything would be ok. My eyes are still closed & I'm still holding (squeezing) Kevins hand

The nurses keep telling me to resist the urge to push.
Impossible. So I push.
The doctor comes in just before the baby is about to come out.

A handful of pushes later and about 40mins after checking into the hospital Reagan Grace was placed on my belly and I finally open my eyes & let go of Kevins hand. Born at 2:09am in room 209 on the 31st of May.

done!

So again I didn't get the chance for an epidural, didn't even give the nurses a chance to hook me to an IV and part of me is convinced that I may never get the opportunity to experience them should there be any more baby hawks added to the nest. People tell me I'm lucky....in the moment I would never believe them. But the second it's over I couldn't imagine being in that much pain for any longer amount of time.

So far....

We're soakin up our family of four life and although we've got tons of thoughts going through our heads & a million and two pictures on our camera - it isn't quite as easy as it was before to find the time to just pick up the 'puter upload pics and jot some thoughts out on the blog.

I'll get the hang of it soon - don't you worry. In the meantime the last 5 days of our lives can be summed up in this slideshow :)




Enjoy!

Bye Bye

Grandma & Grandpa left this morning :(



For more reasons than we can mention we were thankful for their stay. Not sure Logan has ever laughed more and I'm pretty sure his sitting up can be contributed to 4 adults consistently working with him on it.

Part of us is thankful Reagan was a week late too - Tom & Kevin were able to do a ton around the house & yard...things that would have taken us all summer to complete if we even managed to get that far. And now it's done :) And with my moms help I actually managed to rest and run a few errands baby free....gonna be awhile before that happens again.


Thank you for everything.

Belly to Sitting!

3 days ago Logan wasn't able to go from his belly to sitting.

Today? He does it like a pro!!

The occupational therapist gave us a little trick to help him learn the mechanism of getting to a sitting position - which we've been working on with him consistently for 2 weeks. And lo and behold 3 days ago he did it for the first time in the bath tub, yesterday he pretty much did it non-stop and today when Kevin & I went in to get him up from his nap there he was sitting and clapping :)


This is one of the first few times he was able to do it - he is always so proud of himself when he realizes he is sitting :)



Time to lower the crib!!

Foto Friday

Discharged

Our stay at the hospital was such a different experience compared to our stay with Logan. It was nice to have her placed on me right after she was born, it was nice to see her getting cleaned up, hear her cry & then have her back in my arms to nurse within minutes. It was nice to have her stay in our room, change her first diaper, change her clothes and pick her up whenever we pleased. BUT ultimately all of that is even nicer when done from the comfort of home. So here we are :) We managed a 24 discharge and were home today before noon to start adjusting to our new life.

She is doing an amazing job with nursing, is extremely sleepy all the time and has her first pediatrician appointment tomorrow afternoon.
Home Sweet Home.