Emory: One Month

Miss Emory Leigh, you are already a month old! You have been such a JOY to have in our family! We can't believe how fast time is flying. Here is a little bit about you...

Your Schedule:
You are following a rough 3 hour 'eat, wake, sleep' pattern although I haven't worried too much about a rigid schedule just yet. You're exclusively breastfeeding although I've had to supplement you with formula three times while I've had a few supply issues. You take a bath every night in the bathroom sink while your big brother bathes in the tub. You go to bed around 9pm and wake up at around 1:15am almost every night. Then you have another feeding at 4am and it's always a little touch-and-go to get you back down after that. Most mornings we start our "day" around 4am and then you take a "nap" around 6 or 7am. It's working for us right now and mama's not too tired so far!

-Your hair is not as thick as your brother's was but it's dark. You have a tall section at the crown of your head.
- For the most part you are a calm and content baby! This is SO nice after Landon who was colicky!
- Right now your eyes are a pretty blue/green color - I can't wait to see what they settle on in the coming months.
- You are sleeping in your Fisher Price Rock 'n Play in our room. We aren't ready to put you in your crib yet.
- You nap in our arms or in your swing.
- You are somewhat sensitive to your brother's noise as he plays around you, and he sometimes wakes you from your naps. We are working on that. :)
- So far you do OK in the carseat - you've fallen asleep in it on a few drives.
- You usually like being "worn" by mama in her Moby wrap if she needs to have both hands free.
- You HATE being cold - we learned right away that you need more layers and extra bundling to be comfortable.
- You are using your green soothie pacifier from the hospital - you need it to fall asleep for most of your naps.
- We've learned you prefer to sleep with your head tilted back - a very unique personality trait of yours!
- You are wearing newborn sized diapers and still practically swimming in your newborn sized clothes. 
- You are so curious about your big brother. He will often sit next to you and talk to you and you stare at him with such interest.

Here you are compared to your brother at one month. I think you do look alike!

The outtakes.. :)

Emory, we love you so much! You are the light of our lives!

Back to work

Joe went back to work last Thursday. He had Friday off. So today was my second day being "alone" with both kids! I  have been working on my juggling act! I have been trying to have a new activity set up for Landon when I'm sitting down to nurse (so he doesn't tear the house down while I'm preoccupied - hah!). We also changed our nap routine a little bit. But other than that we are getting back into our old schedule. I'm tired but it's feeling manageable right now! :) This little lady just gets sweeter by the day. I am obsessed with her eyes - you can't tell in this picture but right now they are the most gorgeous blue-green color.

Joe and I watched about 1/2 of the Downton Abbey season premiere last night! It was worth staying up for!! :)

Tonight is Monday night. Did you know that every Monday night you can get family platters of Johnny Carino's best meals for 1/2 off? It ends up being about $16 to feed our family which includes salads and bread too - and we always have leftovers. We do carry out at Johnny Carinos every single Monday night and it's nice to not ever have to worry about fixing a meal the first day into the work week!

Happy Monday!

2013 Highlights

I am sitting here reflecting on 2013 now that we are a few days into the new year. I think it may have been one of our biggest transitional years ever. Yes. I think my word for 2013 is "transition". We had a big move to a new state we had never visited (Arkansas). Joe transitioned from anesthesia resident to fellow. And then there's the big transition from one to two kids. They are all great and exciting changes but my 'need to be settled' soul is yearning for the year ahead when we can make some roots in Kansas City and grow into a family of four and be settled. But who knows what the year ahead holds!!

January:

• Landon turned 18 months old and his language skills exploded
• Mom visited and we enjoyed the premiere of Downton Abbey with tea and english treats
• Landon and I visited my college friend Rachael in Oklahoma

February:

• Joe and I went to see The Jersey Boys play when it came through town
• Our friend Katie took "Lifestyle Pictures" at our house
• Joe and I had a date night to the casino

March:

• My parents visited for four days to help us get our house prepped to sell
• The three of us traveled to Kansas City to see my college friend Jill get married!
• Joe traveled to Las Vegas for a work conference
• Got our house on the market and sold nine days later!
• Boomer was diagnosed with diabetes

April:

• Packing, packing and more packing
• Joe traveled to Chicago for a work conference
• Had a garage sale with my friend Robyn to purge before move
• Found out we are pregnant!

May:

• Celebrated my second Mother's Day
• Landon finished up Mother's Day Out and celebrated his birthday on the last day
• Traveled to St. Louis to see Joe's younger brother graduate from medical school
• Closed on our house and moved to a furnished apartment temporarily 
• Enjoyed a final night out with the other graduating anesthesia residents

June:

• Hosted a baby shower for my friend Jill in Kansas City
• Celebrated Landon's birthday with a train theme at a park in Wichita
• Attended Joe's graduation ceremony!
• Enjoyed the local River Fest in Wichita
• Moved to Arkansas

July:

• Celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary at a local steak house in Arkansas
• Celebrated the 4th of July at a local park and watched fireworks
• Found a new church we love!
• My parents visited for a week and explored Arkansas with us
• Boomer passed away
• Had a gender sonogram and found out we are having a girl!

August:

• Landon and I drove across I-64 for the "Bargains Galore on 64" garage sale
• Joe's parents met us in Branson for a weekend trip
• Landon started Mother's Day Out twice a week at our new church

September:

• Landon and I drove to Kansas City and then Wichita for visits with family and friends for two weeks
• I flew to Chicago for a four day girls weekend with my friends Katie and Trisha
• Joe worked long hours for the Cardiovascular rotation of his fellowship

October:

• Joe turned 30! We celebrated in Branson with our friends Nate, Becca and Jackson
• Had family pictures made
• Landon had his 2-year well child visit with our new pediatrician (a few months late!)
• Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, who all travel to Branson because I can't travel 
• Celebrated Halloween as the "royal family and guard"

November:

• Met Joe's parents in Branson for yet-another weekend trip; Landon visited Santa while there
• Traveled to Rogers, Arkansas for a spa weekend with my friend Rachael
• Celebrated my 30th birthday with a maternity photo shoot
• Received a visit from friends Nate and Becca for a long weekend
• Celebrated Thanksgiving 'just the three of us' in Arkansas

December:

• Bad ice storm was predicted so my mom came to Arkansas in case I went into labor
• Had Emory!!
• Enjoyed having our families visit with the new baby
• Celebrated Christmas 'just the four of us'

We are looking forward to another evenful year!

Christmas 2013

Exactly two weeks after Emory was born, Christmas was here. I really made it a point to be organized this year and have my shopping, cards, etc done early because I knew I'd be in no shape to do it after her birth. I'm glad it worked out that way because my mom was here to help and we were really able to just relax and enjoy those two weeks leading up to Christmas.

Our card was from Tiny Prints as usual :) I just love their cards -- their paper is nice and thick and I think the print quality is excellent. I actually had Tiny Prints mail our cards for us this year, we just supplied the addresses.

Our first outing as a family was when Emory was 6 days old. Landon had a Christmas program at his Mother's Day Out (which is at our church) and I really wanted to go and hear his class sing. It was SO cute and I'm so glad I went because originally we had planned to just have Joe go and record it.

My parents let Landon open his Christmas present early, which was a green tractor. We are OBSESSED with tractors right now. :) Joe's parents got him a workbench for his bedroom, complete with a set of matching wooden tools. It is so cute to see him walking around with a little hammer or wrench. We scaled back in terms of traditions leading up to Christmas. We didn't do Elf on a Shelf (I don't know that we will ever do the regular Elf on a Shelf anyway), but we did bake some cookies and just have a lot of "the four of us" time.

My mom went home a few days before Christmas so she could spend it with my sister and her kids and the rest of our family. The night before Christmas Joe put together our big gift to Landon -- a train table. The stockings were stuffed and we arranged everything neatly under the tree. The first thing Landon said when we went to his crib the next morning was "Santa!!" - haha!

We had such a nice and low key Christmas and it was perfect for 2013. Next year I'll be glad to be able to incorporate some more traditions because our kids will be older and I'll be glad to be able to see more of our families because we'll be living in Kansas City. :)

Welcome, Emory

Two weeks ago yesterday Joe and I welcomed our precious daughter into the world! We have had such a WONDERFUL two weeks enjoying her.

We named her Emory. It's a name I've always loved -- an old family name on my maternal grandpa's side. We thought about using some other more popular names but we always came back to Emory and now that she's here she really is an "Emory". The name just suits her! We used Leigh as her middle name; it's my middle name and I'm named after my Grandpa (he spells it Lee, my mom "feminized it" -- hah!).

I had a scheduled C-section this time (after some complications with my labor with Landon) and I have to say - this recovery has been MUCH smoother! I rested quite a bit the first week but since then I've been up and going and now I'm pretty much back to normal. I was on heavy duty pain medicine for 13 weeks after Landon and I'm glad to say this time I only needed them a week or so. This has been such a blessing because I have a spunky little 2 year old who I still want to chase around ;-)

Emory is a tiny little thing - she was born at 7lb, 1oz - but she feels so little after holding Landon. She is swimming in her newborn sized clothes still! Speaking of Landon, he adores his little sister. We've made sure to really make him feel special for being a big brother and so far he has loved on Emory as much as we have!

Joe got a full three weeks off work to be home for paternity leave. We figured out it has been his longest break since his 2nd year of medical school in 2007! He goes back to work on January 2nd and I've already begged him to quit his job because it has been SO nice to have him home!!

I am so grateful for being blessed with a healthy and beautiful daughter. Daughter. It still sounds weird to say! We are just so in love with her :) I WILL-will-will be back with more updates. I know I will kick myself if I don't document these precious (and crazy) days.

Pinterest Inspired Play

Just like everyone else I find myself getting overwhelmed by all the decorating, food, house and style inspiration pictures on Pinterest. I sort of have to force myself to lie low every once in a while because I feel like I will never have the "perfect Pinterest life" with the amazing house, designer clothes, perfect Paleo meals on the table every night, and so on. BUT, I have really been inspired by some of the homeschooling and toddler play ideas there lately!!

My favorite pins almost always come from Playful Learning. I think they post a great variety of activities and a lot of them are sensory things that I am very into with Landon right now.

I saw this pin where you make your own indoor ball pit with a cheap inflatable pool and plastic slide and thought that would be right up our alley. We already had a slide we keep in the Living Room (I know..) so I ordered a pool for $8 from Amazon. Plastic balls are expensive so I waited and kept an eye on Amazon to see if I could find a price drop.

Then one day I was in Goodwill looking for a piece of furniture for a project and found a set of 150 balls almost new in the bag! For $4! So we now have a ball pit in our Living Room we are loving for getting our energy out. Other balls and balloons have been added - it has been a big hit!!

Recently I also saw a pin on mirror play on one of the homeschool boards I follow. I loved the idea of using a simple mirror (who doesn't have one at home) to create a new experience with blocks or toys. Kids can learn a sense of symmetry by organizing materials onto a mirror. What a cool concept! We already had a set of plastic shapes I had gotten last year at a garage sale (tip: look for garage sale ads that say "homeschool" or "teacher" for awesome learning supplies!!), similar here. I was amazed how long Landon played at the mirror! He even got different vehicles out and built a tunnel for them with the pieces entirely on his own. :)

One of my "go to" activities when we are bored at home is to do some kind of sensory play with sand outside. I buy sea shells from the Dollar Tree and bury them, or I hide coins for Landon to dig up and then put in his piggy bank. He also likes to just pour sand from one container to another. I saw on Pinterest several ideas using rice, noodles and corn instead of sand -- which is more "inside friendly" because it they can be vacuumed up! I made a rice tub for Landon's diggers and it has been a huge hit! I think this might be a good thing I can pull out when I'm nursing the new baby to buy some time??

Thank goodness for Pinterst! If you want to see all of my Pinterest boards, click here:)

Randoms

Daily blogging fell off the bandwagon last week but we are back! Let's try this again shall we? :)

Some random thoughts:

- I am obsessed with the company Sevenly! The mission from their website:
In January of 2011, two young Entrepreneurs Dale Partridge and Aaron Chavez got together with the mission of leading a generation toward generosity. With a belief that people mattered, they began a journey to change the world. On June 13th 2011, Sevenly was born. By creating weekly cause campaigns where customers could purchase products that gave $7 to a weekly charity, Sevenly successfully unlocked not only a way to crowd-fund for causes, but to drive massive social awareness as well.
I bought this sweatshirt and I want to get a few more things too (maybe Christmas gifts??) :)

- I have been watching this YouTube makeup tutorial and re-creating it at least a couple times a week. LOVE.

- I decided I'm going to make Landon a Queen's Guard for Halloween and I will be pregnant Kate Middleton (I know.. I am really reaching here! Hah!) and Joe will be Prince William. I got this sweatshirt for Landon which is what gave me the idea. :)

 

-This recipe, which I found on Pinterest, has made it into our weekly rotation over the past two months. So good!

 

-Last Sunday in church our preacher announced that we had a 7-year old girl in the congregation who had memorized the entire Sermon on the Mount (over two chapters of the Bible). He had been preaching on it for 30 weeks and had challenged members to try to memorize some or all of it. He asked the girl to come forward and recite it for us and it was the most moving thing to watch that I embarrassingly cried when she finished.  

That's all friends! Happy Monday! :)