8/26/10

Blythe's 2 year Birthday Party

Blythe was so excited it was 'Blythe's birthday.' Last year she really didn't get it, but this year she knew what a birthday, birthday party, and birthday cake was. We had celebrated Ian and Mike's birthday and we had been telling her that after Mike's birthday it would be time for her birthday, and to say she was ready is an understatement.

Jason and I started out the morning decorating the train cake we had cut, crumb layered and froze the night before. Blythe was more than happy to help us with clean up:

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[no, we didn't purposely coordinate the frosting color and the panties]

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After nap it was time to get lathered up with sunscreen and put on our swim suit for the pool party. Blythe even let me give her 3 pony tails. Getting her to pose for a cute picture with said pony tails was another story:

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Yes, I admit it is a lot of what appears to be the same picture, but my little one finally has enough hair to put in a pony tail and I am tickled so I took lots of pictures and I can't narrow them down.

Blythe helped us load the coolers. Although she has another 19 years before she can pick from this cooler she was happy to provide for her party guests:

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For some the 2nd birthday just isn't as special/important as the first birthday, but to me it was just as important. I thought about just celebrating with family, something small, but I really felt she needed a birthday party. Party we did, 15 kids and 16 adults. We very much enjoyed the toddler take over and the beginning smiles and laughs of the newest additions.

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*Take note how Blythe is on her own side of the table in the first picture, but by the third picture she has scooted right up next to Ian.

Then there was Cake. Blythe knew exactly what to do, she proudly listened to us sing Happy Birthday and then blew out her candle in two attempts, no assistance required.

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And Presents:

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Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate Blythe's second birthday. We had a great time and it was just as special as the first, just the way we like it!

8/24/10

Catching Up

Life with two is great, but life is busy. Busy is good for me, I like busy, but being busy also means some things go by the wayside. Being able to blog every day is one of those. I find myself throughout the day thinking 'oh I should blog about that, I want to remember this,' but if I am blogging during waking hours than I might miss a coo, a smile, a laugh, a coloring session, etc. So that leaves me with sleeping moments and let's face it this is a Mommy who sleeps when her kids sleep. I have actually lost a few precious minutes/hours laying in bed thinking about the memories that I should be writing about so I don't forget them so I have started writing down quick notes of items to blog about if given the chance.

One nap = a smidgen of an inch

Up until about a week ago our mornings started with a happy "mommy," coming from a jammied little one sitting up in her toddler bed waiting for open arms and a "good morning" from mommy or daddy. Then one nap time it all changed. I was woken by the sound of a closing door and the pitter patter of little feet as they made their way from the wood floor to the tile floor and then to the edge of my bed. I, pretending to be asleep, was woken by a tap and "Mommy, I'm awake, Blythe get in the bed." Why yes, you are awake and not only can you now somehow open doors, but you have decided that you can get yourself out of your big girl bed. Blythe devoted the rest of the day proving to herself and any other skeptics that yes she had grown that extra smidgen needed to open the doors. She made many, many circles around the house first opening the door to our room, then the bathroom, then her room, and then out the other door of her room to the hallway. Each time she make the circle she had a HUGE grin on her face and waited for me to acknowledge that she had made it all the way around again. The first circle had many sounds... Many attempts at each door knob to make them work, but after a few circles the sounds got fewer as she mastered the art of turning the door knob. Who knew so much could happen in just one nap.

Cinnamon Rolls

This could have been a long, very detailed post about these spectacular cinnamon rolls that Blythe and I made to take to our Bible study group, only to have them jump out of their container and onto the garage floor. Luckily for you that has been over a week ago so we have moved on and long forgotten about the tragedy of the cinnamon rolls. And for those of you who are wondering, no we did not take the cinnamon rolls to bible study to share the 'is that a spec of dirt or just cinnamon' with the group, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we did pick through those naughty cinnamon rolls when we got home and found several to salvage and get something from the fruits of our labor.

Evicted...Again

This seems to be a reoccurring theme for Jericho. Evicted from the womb at 42 weeks and now evicted from our room. This one is a LOUD sleeper. Blythe was loud and quite possibly just as loud, but I guess since this is my second round and I am not paranoid about whether Jericho is breathing and popping my head up over the side of the bassinet all the time, the grunting and groaning is no longer viewed as a nice way of knowing she's still alive and well. After several nights of thinking 'she must be about to cry and ready to eat, grunting that loud' only to find that when I got up to nurse her she really wasn't ready and then unable to fall back asleep for almost an hour because of the LOUD noises I decided it was dumb for the baby to be sleeping and not the momma. So evicted notice #2 was served and Jericho now happily and loudly sleeps in the living room. I move her bassinet out each night so she can grunt to her hearts content and I can get some sleep! Since our new arrangement she has been sleeping anywhere from 4.5 - 5.5 hour stretches and she pulled in a new record last night with a 6.5 hour stretch!

Just Like Mommy

Blythe is a great little Mommy to her babies. I guess prior to Jericho it never occurred to her that her babies needed to eat. No need to worry now though because they eat pretty much every time Jericho eats and they even get to nurse on both sides. Early on when I was switching Jericho to the other side Blythe would say "all done," and I said "no, she needs to eat on the other side." So now you will see Blythe hold her baby up to one side for a few seconds (she has some quick nursers) and then she will look at me and say "other one side," and move the baby to the other side. Each of her nursing sessions end with a good burp and sometimes they even spit-up and then Blythe has to get a "new one burp rag." I really need to try and capture this on the video camera because it's pretty hilarious and sweet.

And since there is no such thing as a good post without pictures:

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8/15/10

Dress-Up

Who knew that playing dress-up in Mommy's closet would start at such a young age!

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She had a little help from dad with this one. This is a tank top that Jason tied in the back and turned into a sun dress for Blythe. Pretty cute if you ask me.

And who can get enough smiles?
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8/13/10

The Package

Even at 25 the site of a package is still as exciting as it was when I was little. Seeing the UPS/FedEx or even USPS truck drive by and then stop in front of the house gets me excited with anticipation. Even when I am expecting a package it is just as exciting as the random package. This was a package I was expecting. Inside this orange box would reveal the Second Year memory book I have been working on for Blythe. It was everything I was hoping for and I must admit I am pretty proud of it!

Click here to view this photo book larger

8/9/10

Stream of Consciousness

I saw this done on another blog and I think it is the perfect solution for someone who has a lot of things they would like to write about, but not enough time to get all their thoughts organized into a way to make them flow. I hate to wait too long to write about certain things knowing I will forget them, so I will unload these thoughts in a very choppy, stream of consciousness kind of way.......

Jericho

Jericho is a great baby and is settling into her role as Thing Two very nicely. She is quite tolerant to Thing One shoving her paci into her mouth or being a little too rough when sharing her baby dolls who don't exactly have soft heads.

You can essentially set a watch by her 3 hour cycle. She eats and then is either up for and hour or two and then dozes off until the 3 hour timer goes off and she is ready to eat again. She does allow her 3 hour timer to lapse in the evenings and occasionally it goes off after 4 hours and then sometimes it malfunctions and goes off after only 2 hours, but we are working on that kink.

She is already showing signs of being a night owl like her dad. She sleeps great during the day and even during the night once she is committed to the night time, but she is not ready to commit to the night slumber until at least 11pm. But there is a positive side to this, this gives Jason and I several hours in the evenings to catch up with each other and have special time with Jericho. We usually spend this time chatting on the front porch.

Blythe

When did she get so big? It's like we have gone from Toddler to little girl in a matter of weeks. She is now eating and entire Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich instead of just a half, talking non-stop, and answering questions with full sentences. For example:
Jason: "what did you do today?"
Blythe: "Bye, Bye to Mike's house and play with Mike's toys."
Jason: "Who else was there?"
Blythe: "Ian, Crissy, Robyn, Baby Isaac, Baby Anna"

Her hair is thicker, her legs are longer, her love is stronger...and the best, she now randomly says "love you mamma." Talk about melting your heart into a million pieces. She knows what love is and she knows how to express it and being the one on the receiving end is absolutely delicious!

She is also proving to be a smarty pants counting to 10. More often than not she neglects the 4 and the 9, but were working on that. She is also saying most of the ABC's....ABCHIJKLMNOPQRSWXYZ..so her alphabet isn't quite 26 letter...we'll get there.

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Yes this picture is way over exposed, but I like it :)

Mass

Sunday mass is always a great way to start out the week, but then there is the occasional Sunday where you really feel the message/song/prayer is exactly what you needed. This was the case for me this past Sunday. We usually attend 9am mass, but our household didn't surface till 9am on Sunday so 11 o'clock it was. At 10:20am Jason threw out the possibility of taking a family photo after mass since Jericho was almost a month old and we still don't have a picture of the 4 of us. I just looked at him and said that I would need more notice than that, but of course I was still trying to make it happen..feeling guilty that we didn't have a family photo. 15 shirts later it was clear that it just wasn't going to happen and my stress level was through the roof. The reality is that nothing masks the donuts (for those of you who don't know what I am talking about that is another post for another day) and adding a shirt over the nursing tanks seems to almost make it worse. The best option was black so I went with that and off we went. As we were driving in the car I was having a mental pity party for about 2 minutes when I changed gears...remembering a story that I have been following about a child who seemed perfectly healthy until one doctors visit where they found out she had a very aggressive cancer and she returned to heaven within about 4 months of this tragic news. I pulled up my big girl panties and decided that if my cross to bear was wearing donuts and for my tops to look partially like I am stuffing and partially like I just have some weird lumpy stuff going on, so be it. O.K. I am getting to the point about Mass...one of the songs we sang was "The cross that we bear," which was very fitting and helped me to feel better about the odd looking top and then when I had a random let down in the middle of mass and I felt the moisture, I just kinda chuckled and sang a quick "cross that we bear," line in my head.

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Photobucket Silly me to stress about my top..that's the perk of having an infant, they can mask any remaining pregnancy belly and funny looking boobs too! I can't decide which one I like best, so I had to put them both.

Ribs With Daddy

They say that a picture is worth 1000 words so here are a couple thousand:

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8/2/10

2 week check-up and other happenings

This morning we had Jericho's 2 week check-up, never mind the fact that she will be 3weeks tomorrow. Apparently they do newborn appointments first thing in the morning or right after lunch and of course right after lunch is nap time so I opted to delay the 2 week appointment to wait for an early morning appointment. Jericho and I went back to bed at 6:15am and our alarm clock (Blythe) didn't getup till 7:45am so that left us with 25 minutes to get out the door. Luckily Jason I and were talented enough to pull it off!

For all the first time moms out there who have had to go through the dreaded 2 week heel prick just know that it is better the second time around. I was able to keep dry eyes and simply be the comforter instead of needing to be comforted. Jericho weighed in at 9lbs 12oz and 20.5 inches. The doctor said she looked perfect, of course we already knew that!

Starting Wednesday evening Jericho decided to go on a 24 hour nursing strike, which is a great way to stress a mommy out, even a second time mom. It just isn't right for your 2 week old to go that long without eating. So of course the 24 hours seemed to last forever and I tried not to stress out about it, but that was a frivolous effort. On Thursday morning I pumped and had Jason and Blythe give Jericho her first bottle just to ease my mind that she had something to eat. Despite Jericho's refusal to nurse we went about our 'normal' Thursday and hit up the Bryan library for story time. I think I needed story time more than Blythe this week, to get my mind off my non nursing infant and to talk/vent my mommy friends.

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Once she decided to eat again she hasn't stopped! She was nursing every 3ish hours during the day and giving me 4-6 hour stretches at night. Now she is eating every 2ish hours during the day and only sleeping for 2-3 hour stretches at night. I guess this is a classic example of 'be careful what you wish for,' but I like knowing my babies are getting enough to eat and making their diaper quota.

We recently took Jericho for her first dip in the pool. At first she wasn't too sure about it since the water was cooler than the bath water, but it wasn't long before she seemed to really enjoy it. Although Jericho has been out of the womb and on 'dry land' for 2.5 weeks she seemed to instantly go back to the place she loved so much. When water splashed over her eyes she would just blink and look delighted to be in the water. Even when the water would go in her mouth or there was a splash by a nearby toddler she kept this calm collected look like she had returned 'home.' Which makes me wonder, if we still lived in the olden days, before induction, would Jericho have made her appearance by now?

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8/1/10

Jericho's Frist Smile

Tonight was Jericho's first 'real' smile. Not a gas smile or a milk drunk smile, but a real smile as a reaction to an action. Jason and I were doing our normal late night Jericho oohing and aahing when we got those lips to crack from ear to ear (o.k. probably only mid cheek to mid cheek, but you know). We discovered that if you blow in Jericho's face she thinks this is quite funny and gives a big smile. We almost had to claim her first laugh as well because it did kinda sound like she was giggling. Unfortunately we didn't get a great picture of the first smile, but hey we have it in our memory which is better than digitally right?

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