2 month appointment

I took Rebecca in for her 2 month appointment this morning. Our little Bec Speck has turned into a chunk of lead. Chad has repeatedly referenced my "super milk" for all three of our kids as they sprouted through their first years.

The youngest is no exception. Her weight today was a whopping 13 pounds 8 ounces (94%) with a length of 23-3/4 inches (88%). Even her tiny little head has grown to 15-1/2 inches (62%). She is already in size 2 diapers and some 6 month outfits.

Here are some pictures we took over the weekend. I was fixing the bow on her dress and she just snoozed away on the couch.




After church, she gave us some dazzling smiles. Please ignore the spit up that occurred just before Daddy took the picture. :) And don't you just love the hair that stands up on top of her head? It has done it since the day she was born. I learned from a friend that I can take that section of hair and just clip a bow to it. Amazing how such a hideous style on an adult can look absolutely darling on a newborn!!

Emerging Personalities

In spite of the difficulties that come with having two toddlers in the house, they can also be such a joy to observe. It is during these early years that their personalities start emerging and some cute little quirks appear.

Hannah has begun to develop strong relationships with all her "friends," which include Piglet, Penny, Mickey, and about a dozen other stuffed animals. Don't even try to tell her that they aren't real because she simply won't believe you. This morning, Chad and I heard her through her monitor calling out to Piglet when she woke up. Upon obviously finding him, she then sang to him. It was so incredibly sweet.

Here are Penny and Piglet. They may appear to be the same doll, but only to the untrained eye.

Next, we have Zachary. My energetic sweetie who loves cars and trains and won't listen to you even if the house is burning down. Did I mention that we are having his hearing tested in January? Seriously. He is getting better, but the boy will drive you nuts with his amazingly selective hearing and his unusual language that resembles Ewoks.

Here is his newest trick. He laughs over and over upon doing this. If Hannah wouldn't interfere, it would be hours of fun.

I try to treasure these moments because they can be so fleeting. It is hard to believe that my oldest will be four before long and that my youngest is already two months old. What a joy and a privilege it is to be a mother!

Live for Christ

I am constantly amazed, outraged, and sickened by the news reports regarding children. I believe such horrible reports are not exactly new, but are easier to spread with the expansion of the Internet. And perhaps these reports did not bother me so much before I became a mother and before I sought to deepen my walk with the Lord. I am so saddened that our world has methodically removed God leaving behind a chaotic mess with no morals in sight.

Just yesterday, we were studying Proverbs 6 which talks about some things that God hates. Yes, you heard correctly. God does hate some things. This passage is contrasted with Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells us things that God loves. Time and again, our Lord commands us to preserve life, among other things.

If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, be bold for Him! Be in the world, but not of it. Allow God to shine through you. As Paul says in the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, be imitators of the Lord and let your faith in God be known everywhere!

Rejoice in the Lord and do not be afraid to live for Him!

Hannah's New Room

Hannah spent the night with Mamaw and Paw Paw Friday night so Daddy got busy and painted her room. I gave Hannah a few color choices, but I rejected her first choice of green and accepted the second choice of purple (to match the Dora lamp!). Since this room will eventually be for both of the girls, I chose a light purple to match the curtains and the few decorations that are already in place.

Here is Daddy after painting the last stroke.


The room turned out pretty good!



We moved her furniture to make more play room until the crib joins the room some time next year.

I find that I keep going into the room and staring at the walls with envy. Hannah's room was the first we decided to tackle in our bland white-walled home. Our hope is to paint a room every two or three months. With three small kids, I think that's a pretty lofty goal!!

Sick Kids and Trips

I have learned so much in the last week. First and foremost, I have learned that if a child throws up in the least amount and you were planning on a trip out of town, just go ahead and cancel the trip. If I had heeded my own advice, we could have avoided the troubling Thanksgiving that dropped in our laps.

It started the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I heard of some illnesses going around in the schools, but since our kids are not in the school system yet and don't have much contact with other children, I really didn't think about it. Plus I am just trying to keep up with my busy household so I don't have a lot of room right now to think about, well, anything! When Hannah threw up a little at lunch that day, I thought she probably ate something that disagreed with her. Both Hannah & Zach are prone to doing that, so no big deal in my book.

So then we move on to Tuesday. Packing arrangements have been going very smoothly for me and I ask Chad if he would like to leave for Mississippi on Wednesday instead of Thursday so we can be with his family there before the holiday. He was getting off early and has some extra time off so it's a go. Great! So I get busy packing for three kids.

Wednesday morning dawns and I go up to get Zach from his bed only to find him covered in vomit. It was all over him, his pillow, fitted sheet, cover, blanket, and one doll. Nice. Does that deter me? No. When I get set on a mission, I don't always recognize all the symptoms of that message that says, "Hello, dummy, will you just notice me?" I kept packing and watched Zachary through the morning. He would throw up and then just run around playing and laughing. He never had a fever and he simply didn't look sick to me!

After lengthy discussions, Chad and I decided to go ahead and leave at naptime after Zach had gone a couple of hours and kept some food down. We drove for just over an hour and Zach threw up everywhere. He and his car seat were completely covered. I had some spare clothes and changed him and we drove back home in holiday traffic, taking a lot longer to get home that it had taken to get to that spot! So now we have needlessly used up the few hours left of Chad's PTO plus I had to get out the car seat instructions so I could figure out how to remove the seat cover and clean it. We called it a day and decided to try it again the on Thursday.

Thursday dawned beautifully with no fevers (still) and no vomitting. Yippee! Off we went, meeting some family in Tyler for lunch and getting to Papaw's a little before bed time. All was great until Chad told me around 1:00 that Zach had thrown up again. Ugh.

And so the weekend went. Hannah got the virus next. Then me. Then Chad. Mercifully, Rebecca and Papaw never got it. But poor Pop Pop and Nana did.

So we traveled and descended upon the relatives with sick kids, crashed the party, and then spread our germs all around. We have become the relatives that everyone dreads. My absolute worst nightmare!!! So this will be the Thanksgiving I am choosing to forget. The only thing I am going to vouch to remember is my hard lesson on sick kids and trips.

Smiles Fix Everything

For the last week, my hubby has been talking about the beautiful quick smiles he had been receiving from Rebecca. Her official "first smile" was recorded on Sunday when she definitely returned his smile not once but twice in a row. I missed it being across the room.

The last few weeks have been a challenge for me as I deal with sleep deprivation and volunteer responsibilities. Don't get me wrong. I love both (okay, not the actual sleep deprivation, but the reason for it), but they can wear you down. Add to that a recent situation I have to address and you have a stressed out tired mommy.

God knew exactly what I needed. This afternoon I put H & Z down for naps and settled down to feed Rebecca. She gazed intently at me as I smiled and spoke to her. Then I got a big beautiful smile just for me. Not once, not twice, but three times in a row! I just boo hooed over her sweet little head.

At times, I have experienced how life can feel so pressing and fires can seem so overwhelming. It is incredibly important to recognize the many blessings that come your way. Something as simple as the first smile from your baby can just brighten the whole day. Just think if I had missed that little blessing. Sometimes a smile can fix everything. :)

Naps

Naps are just the bomb. Why do we ever decide to get rid of them? Daddy snapped this on Tuesday while I crashed with baby girl in the afternoon. My nap only lasted about 15 minutes, but oh what bliss!

Can I skip this age?

What is it about age three that makes them impulsively disobey? Here are some examples:

Scenario 1: Child is licking a foam block
Command: Take the block out of your mouth
Response: Immediately bite the block, leaving chew marks

Scenario 2: Child has xylophone mallet in mouth
Command: Take that out of your mouth
Response: Immediately run out of room - with choking hazard still in mouth

Scenario 3: Child is getting a tissue, wiping nose a few times, and throwing it away
Command: Please don't waste the tissues
Response: Immediately pull two tissues from box, almost touch face with them, and shove them in the trash can

Scenario 4: Child has a poopy diaper
Command: Let's go get a diaper change
Response: "No, Zachary made poop." Child runs out of room.

Anybody want a 3-year-old for a few months?

Time Flies

They say time flies when you're having fun, but I think it really flies when you have three young children. When I realized last night that we were going to church the next morning, I paused and thought, gee, didn't I just go a few days ago? Nope. The calendar confirmed that seven days had actually passed.

I can't believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas are but weeks away. Hannah keeps asking when we are going to put up our Christmas tree and I was able to tell her it would just be a few weeks! We put our tree up around Thanksgiving since we have a beautiful gi-normous pre-lit tree. We still won't be able to use all my lovely breakable ornaments, but there's no expiration date on them. They will be just as lovely after all my babies are past the break-it-somewhat-on-purpose stage.

Some updates on the last week. We went to Scare on the Square with my mom last Friday night. Zach really could've cared less, but Hannah figured out the whole system and it didn't take long for her to start muscling her way in to get candy from all the shops. While walking with the stroller, I turned funny and pulled something in my hips so we delayed our trip to the zoo on Saturday. Instead, we will try for this coming weekend. Saturday night brought the time change and with it came two toddlers who still wake up with the sun. Did you notice the sun is up at 6:30 now? They did. But they also don't mind going to bed around 8:30 so mommy is good with that! Now if I could only get the newest addition to agree to that time then I wouldn't look like a raccoon every day. Daddy keeps busy with lots of meetings for church. He also returned to work on Wednesday much to the chagrin of Mommy. But two weeks and one day were a huge blessing.

Which reminds me, the big appointment for the kids was on Tuesday. Miraculously, Daddy's office gave him one extra day of paternity leave and he was able to go with us. What a wonderful gift that was! Hannah was great for her shot - didn't even cry! Zach was not so great. I had to pin him down and he screamed his head off. And can you believe that they weighed the two older ones and they are only a pound and a half different? They really look like twins right now. Rebecca chimed in with her own screams plus bled all over the place after her PKU (heel prick). The sweet nurse just had to keep sopping up the blood which got all over me, Rebecca, and anything within heel-flinging radius. The good news was that Rebecca is gaining nicely at 9 pounds, 0.5 ounces and has gotten a smidge longer. Still has a tiny head and beautiful baby blue eyes. She has been sleeping between Mommy and Daddy but is about to graduate to the pack-n-play by the bed.

So we are busy but happy. Our church family has kept us well fed. I guess I'll have to remember how to cook this week!

Get out and vote!!

We cast our votes today! Have you? Your voice has never meant as much at the polls as it will in this election. Get out and vote!!!