The Plight of the Second Born

I love Micah I do.
But if you look at his picture folder(s) you would find maybe 30 pictures of him each month.
Lo had 30 pictures each DAY!

Now in our defense most of those are bad and should have been deleted, but who deletes a picture of you precious baby's face? :)

I also feel like every time I blog it is about Lo and rarely about Micah.
I swore I would be fair. But I realize that is an impossible dream.
Everything Lo does is new and first. Everything Micah does is so yesterday. I don't run to get my camera because he moved like I did with Lo. I know he will move again. I will capture it next time. Sorry Micah. We do love you and we are trying to get just as excited about your firsts...as long as your sister isn't distracting us with something "new" she is doing/saying.

Man being a parent is rough.

So I am uploading a video of Micah AND Lo {of course because she is under the impression it is always the Leighton show}. It is long but I was finally able to capture him rolling over. So this is for you my Micah bear.

MW rolling over from Michele Keethler on Vimeo.

Book Worm

I read 1, maybe 2 books to Lo from 0-12 months. She didn't care and neither did I.
Then we started reading a book to her before bed around 15 months and then decided before nap was another great time to read a book, you know for consistency bedtime rituals.


Somehow between then and now she became a book worm. She loves her books and I can proudly say ::insert sarcasm:: that I had nothing to do with it. She just wants to read AND sleep with her books!

I should have known...

When it comes to Leighton she does nothing half way and does it when she makes up her mind to do it and then we never look back.

Take walking for instance. She never "practiced" by taking two steps falling, getting back up and trying again. Nope. Just woke up one day, let go of the couch and hasn't sat down since!

Walking!

Then there was weaning her from a bottle. At age one I decided we should start cutting back the bottles and replacing them with sippy cups. After maybe two days of replacing one bottle a day with a sippy cup I was met with a tantrum and her throwing her bottle across the room. I was floored; what was going on? She had decided she was done with bottles and never looked back.

This is seriously probably the last time she ever took a bottle.

Oh and who can forget potty training? We fought for one week over it, I quit, determined to come back to it the following week and what do you know, she was all about it. It clicked on day 3 and while we had ups and downs for the next several months she once again never looked back!

So what is the point to this walk down memory lane?
Well, I have been dreading transitioning her to a toddler bed. I felt like I would rather potty train her again than do this transition and that is saying a lot! Everyone around me seemed to do this with ease, but you don't know what it is like trying to put this girl to bed. Screaming and crying ourselves to sleep is the only way around these parts.

I tried way back in December to transition her, but I was big, fat and pregnant and not in the mood. I had to lie in there with her until she fell asleep and then nap time would only last 40 minutes on a good day. Oh heck no! So after 3 days of that I put her back in her crib and thought I would deal with this later...we still had at least 4-5 months before I needed that crib!

Currently, since we are moving, I decided I would just wait until we moved, put her toddler bed in her new room and say "welcome to your new life sister!"

I have been talking up her big girl bed to prepare her, but every time I asked her do you want to sleep in your big girl bed she would say "no, Leighton's crib!" Then last Friday {May 20th} she asked to nap in her big girl bed! I was so hesitant because I need nap time to go well, but decided since she brought up and was willing I couldn't confuse her by saying "no." From then on she has been solely sleeping in her big girl bed for nap and nights! No looking back! I should have known that is how she rolls and don't know why I dreaded it so, it was beyond easy. I guess because I didn't have to do a thing, that is the best kind of transitioning.

First big girl bed nap, for real this time.

We did have a rough first night, she woke up screaming at 1230a. Chad slept on the floor of her room, which was so funny until 230a when I woke him up to come back to bed. Then she woke up again at 3a screaming, and as usual we had to let her finally scream it out. By 430a all was finally quiet...until 630a! However, since then she has been great and she loves the freedom to get in and out of bed and do her thing.



I am so proud of her and a bit sad because she seemed to hit a bunch of big girl milestones all at once. I keep looking at her and then Micah wondering when she got so big and how I seemed to miss it all? I just want her to stay this age forever. I love the toddler years! I am really trying to live in all the moments with both kids even more so now, you just never know when it will be the last time they do something.

I'm a Big Girl Now!

Word{less} Wednesday

God is in the Details

I am in awe of how God cares for the details of our lives.

I have made mention as of late that we are moving and our house is SOLD! And while that is so awesome, how it all came about and where we are going is more awesome to me, God never left our side in all of this and as usual my stressing and worrying was all for naught.

Let me start at the beginning.
8 months ago, in September, Chad and I got this idea to move to what I affectionately call "Mayberry." We got a realtor and started the process. We found a house we wanted and were this close to writing a contract on it, but when it came time to list our house, figure out financing etc the numbers just weren't in our favor. Believe me I didn't get it. I talk a little bit about it here. It seemed so perfect at the time, God led and then boom, God slammed the door shut.

Fast forward to January after MW is born. While were we live is doable, we could clearly see we were out growing our home. However, after our attempt in September failed I just didn't see how we would yield any different results this time. We talked and prayed about it. One of the two houses that we wanted back in September was STILL on the market, so we decided to go for it. This time using a different realtor.

As life would have it, that house sold five minutes before we could do anything about it. We talked again and decided to just proceed forward with selling our home anyway. If it was God's will it would all work out and their would be another house and if it wasn't we both were completely content staying put!

Our house officially went on the market February 28th. Talk about stress. I thought I was stressed out doing it in September with one kid, try 1 toddler and a newborn! AH! For the first week or two nothing. We were discouraged. By week 3 we started averaging 2 showings a week. While this is awesome and everyone had lots of positive things to say about our home, there were no takers. In the mean time we kept looking for houses, never finding too much or if we found something we loved it was generally bank owned and therefore took no contingency offers. We had to get our house sold.

I was starting to get very discouraged and beat down by the process. I realize that our home had only been on the market maybe 6 weeks at this point, but it was a lot to deal with. A new baby, keeping my house spotless {which isn't my strong suit anyway}, and looking for a place to live. I was ready to give up!

Then on May 4th, 9 weeks later we had a contract! While this was beyond exciting, it was so overwhelming. The contract offer came in asking for a closing day of May 27th. We had no where to go, Chad was still working, how was I going to pack with two littles etc. Needless to say I was very emotional. We were able to push off closing until June 15th giving us some time to find a place to live, otherwise, we were moving in my in-laws.


While I was beyond thankful for that option I still wanted to have our own place. My greatest fear was coming true: Selling our home with no where to go and I wasn't convince {since the market was turning} that we would find a place in "Mayberry" in our price range giving us what we needed/wanted. I literally was in full on panic attack mode. Bottom line: I wasn't trusting God in the details.

That weekend we went out seriously, hard-core looking for a home. We didn't want to jump into just anything for obvious reasons. Everything we thought would work didn't. Until our awesome realtor pulled this house out of her back pocket. It was a house we would have never seen if it weren't for her. It seemed like there was no way we would be able to get it, but it was perfect for our family.

Long story shorter by God's grace all the details surrounding this home fell into place and we were able to put a contract on this house. This house is so great for us and it has pretty much everything on our "in our next house list." We close on both houses June 15th and while it is still all a tad stressful and emotional; it is worth not to have to drive to "Mayberry" over andover andover again. ;) {That is Chad's clever joke...}


I am learning, STILL, to trust in God and to STOP trying to take the wheel out of God's hands, because once again He wants the best for us and is always working even when it seems like He isn't.

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

PS we are getting some pretty good neighbors too! ;)

The Faces of Lo

Aunt Meg teaches Lo all sorts of things when she babysits. Such as gangster face. We are so pleased.
Thanks Auntie Meg for these faces.

My Little Micah Bear

A month or so ago I posted about Micah's tummy troubles HERE.

Shortly after that we upped his zantac dose and that seemed to help. Meaning it helped the pain associated with the spiting up but not the actual spiting up itself. We opted not to do the GI scan at that time because it would show nothing we didn't already know, plus someone would have to drink a barium bottle...yeah, wasn't going to happen.

A few weeks roll by and for the first part of May it seemed as we neared 16 weeks the spiting up decreased substantially. I thought "yay! We are finally growing out of this." I thought wrong. A week later we were back to puking up 1/2 of our feedings again. He is nursing non-stop it seems day and night.


At his 4 month appt he weighed in at 12# 10z. Not bad, but two weeks before that he weighed in at 12# 6z. He should have easily gained another pound in two weeks but instead he weighed basically the same. Not good. Looking back he weighed 11# at the end of March. So in 5 weeks MW gain 1.5# again, not good. He is really trending down on the growth chart meaning this borders on failure to thrive (FTT).

We can't get him to take a bottle so we can't put him on a soy-based or AR formula to see if that would ease the spitting up and help him gain better. {so that means I get to get off dairy, my friend Kelley did it for her son, and I thought she was a rock star for doing so...I really don't want to hassle with it, but guess I get too! Do you know how much milk products are hidden in everything we eat?!}

Our doc is awesome. He never acts like he knows it all, he always confers with the specialists in these matters. The specialist is putting us on Reglan (and anti-vomitting Rx). We are to try this for a week and do a wt. check next week.
IF MW is not gaining on track again and/or continues to spit up large quantities they feel their next step is to admit him to the hospital and put an NG {naso-gastric} tube down him and "force" feed him formula that way. Can you spell awesome?! They also may consider at that time to do a fundoplication surgery. This would tighten up the sphincter of the tummy to the esophagus. Again with all the fun.


How do I feel about all of this? Thanks for asking. ;)
I have a range of emotions.
1. I actually did a huge case study in my RD internship with a beautiful FTT little girl on this very thing. Only she was formula fed from the get go. So I understand it all, of course it is 1000x different when it is your baby on the operating table.
2. I don't want to do any of this hospital stuff!
3. I will do whatever it takes to make my baby feel better.
4. Please don't make us go to the hospital and cut my baby bear open.
5. If this is what will help Micah and he can be the happy boy I know he can be then let's do it.
6. Stress!
7. We can do this.

As you can see I am all over the board. There is a ton on my plate right now. Our house is sold we are to be moving in a few short weeks, {more on this later}, Micah is a hot mess, I am a hot mess, Lo is two, life is just plain nuts. I just need is all to slow down for just a moment.

So this is the latest for those of you who care on my little Micah bear. Prayers for Micah and my sanity are always appreciated.

Happy Birthday 'Bastian

Today you are THREE Tobias Sebastian! {or 'Bastian as Lo calls you}

We love you and we may remember to toss you an extra carrot today in honor of your birthday.

Snuggling with your bro Tuck.

You are my sweet quirky puppy and I am glad you chose us!

Baby Dedication

On Sunday, we dedicated Micah.


It was a beautiful ceremony challenging us as parents to focus on the kind of man you want your son to be when he walks out your door in 18 years. Focusing on the end puts all those daily raising challenges in perspective, because in a flash it won't matter how many of hours of sleep you lost, because now they are gone. I want to make sure I take all the teachable moments I can and develop both my children into godly adults. Dedicating your baby isn't about salvation, that will come later, but asking you as their parent, their grandparents, family and friends to commit to raising your child up in God's teachings and ways.

Lo dancing around on stage before the service.

Our children's pastor gave a brief message and then they played a video and put up all the babies pictures to bring us up on stage. As your baby's picture came up, you were to make your way to the stage, where you were greeted with a white rose. Their were 60 babies being dedicated. Our church is booming with kids!


I am so thankful for our amazing church and the amazing kid environments they have; it is a nice accent to what we as parents should be doing with our kids. As the pastor said they have 40 hours a year with our kids and we have over 3000+ teachable hours at home with our kids. I pray I make the most of those moments and am challenging myself to be intentional with the time I have.

After the dedication vows and prayer we headed off to a cookie and lemonade reception. I was so thankful that all the grandparents were there {little bummed I didn't take a picture of that} to take part in Micah's dedication.

The best I got of the grandparents.

My personal challenge is to:

¹ Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. ² Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Eph. 5:1-2

I watch how Lo imitates everything I do and one day so will Micah. My prayer for myself is to imitate the only ONE worth imitating. In order to raise a godly adult I must first act like one.

Micah 4 Months {Watch Me Grow}

Micah bear you are four months old! I love you to the moon and back even if you do wake me all night long. As the saying goes the days are long, but the years are short. I cherish all the moments I have with you.


Milestones:
*You love to blow raspberries now.


Language skills:
*You coo at us a ton.
*I have heard a few giggles from you too.


Eating:
*You are nursing every.two.hours around the clock still. I am so worn out by this, especially at night. Mostly you just need to soothe yourself and evidently mommy makes the best paci.


*You will not take a bottle. I even bought new fancy breastflow bottles thinking that would help. Nope. Nada. I have tried fresh breast milk, formula everything you will not take a bottle. This is making it difficult for mommy to leave your for longer than said two hours.
*You were doing better on the spit-up front a few weeks ago, but now we are back to puking up 1/2 of all your feedings. I am sure this has nothing to do with why you want to nurse every 2 hours. ;) HA!


Sleeping:
*I am starting to be able to put you down drowsy and you fall asleep on your own.
*However, you are the worst at sleeping. I don't know why my kids hate sleep so much!

*Because I have a boy and a girl, there are few clothes that you will share, but thought this was fun for comparison sake.

For Mother's Day you gave me the gift of sleep. Seven whole glorious hours, but I knew it was just that; a gift. Now we are back to waking every 1.5-2 hours. Yes, cue the violins. I am dying here.
*Nap times use to be decent 1-1.5 hours, now I am lucky if you do 45 minutes.
*When you are sleepy you bury your head into my shoulder. You don't want to be rocked to sleep. Sadly my babies like to just put themselves to bed, even if it means crying it out. It is a fight if I try otherwise. :(


Favorite Toy(s)/Books:
*Books: whatever you sister reads to you.
*Toys: still the play gym and bumbo.


Anecdotes/Quirky things you do:
* You will suck on anything, but a paci. You suck my shirt, your blankie, my arm, even the metal leg of the coffee table, but it is a no go on a paci AND bottle for that matter.
*Changing your diaper at night is a nightmare. You just cry and wriggle around the whole time, I hate it.

Facing forward for our walks. You seemed to like walks better now.

*You have/had really bad allergies I feel so sorry for you when you were all coughy and congested.
*Again for comparison sake here are your Winnie the Pooh Jammies. My babies look nothing alike, so weird.

Temperament:
*Overall, you are a happy baby for us, but you do have your moods. I think your meds need to be adjusted to ease your reflux discomfort again. We were doing so well.

Silly time with Papa

Stats: {clearly I have tiny babies}
Wt: 12# 10z (10%)
Ht: 23.5in (3%)
Head cir: 15.5in (2%)
Diapers: We have bumped up to 1-2 swaddlers.
Clothes: 0-3 months to 3 months depending on brands.

Happy Four Months Baby Bear.

Constant

I got this CD for Mother's Day from my MIL.
I am slowly losing my mind over this moving thing. For those of you who don't know we are SOLD. Well, technically I think it is called escrow, it is still pending inspection. Anyway, we have no where to go, except Chad's mom's house.

This whole process is giving me mild panic attacks. We are to close on June 15th.

Back to the CD. I was listening to it today and came across this song. I love when God speaks LOUDLY {for those us so busy talking we don't hear Him.} to me.

Enjoy.


ps if anyone wants to teach me how to make my videos smaller...I'm all ears.

I'm just a little bit afraid of where I'm going
And it feels like a hurricane is blowing over
Though I can't find the ground below
I've lived enough to know
I've lived enough to know

(Chorus)
You're my constant in every moment
Constant
You've never failed me
All my life
You have never left my side
You are my constant

Okay I really don't like change but I can't stop it
I'm moving forward anyway with the promise
You are my anchor for my soul
That's all I need to know
That's all I need to know

(Chorus)
You're my constant in every moment
Constant
You've never failed me
All my life
You have never left my side
You are my constant

Before I was a thought on earth
You knew me then and You gave me worth
When all of this is said and done
You will be the One I'm standing on

(Chorus)
You're my constant in every moment
Constant
You've never failed me
All my life
You have never left my side
You are my constant

Look What I did!

I am pretty proud of myself. I think graphic design is so cool. But sadly I lack any talent {and education} to be a true graphic designer. However, when I do figure out these few little things it makes me happy. I love to learn how to do new things.

One.
My blog. I designed the background by myself, well following THIS guidance to make it work.
I learned last year how to design my own header but never how to do my own background. So yay, for something new!

side note: The picture in my header was taken by the awesome Ginger Skillen Photography!

Two.
Another thing I love about digi scraping is all the cool things you can do quickly with it.
My background took my 15 minutes to design.

I made toy room storage bin labels in 15 minutes.

I designed Lo's birthday invites using digi scrapbook stuff in 5 minutes


as well as Micah's birth announcements in 5 minutes.


Do you realize how expensive birth announcements are. Seriously that alone paid for my photoshop. I got 65 birth announcements and 10 birthday invites for around $11 total!

Three.
And in the last week maybe two I have gotten Micah's scrapbook {post to come soon} done through month 2 and well into month 3! He will be 4 months next Monday. Again yay me! Sometimes you are the only one to pat yourself on the back. :)

Just a few more fun ways digi scrapbooking has come in handy for me. I hope you like my new blog layout, if not don't tell me it will hurt my feelings. :) I still have some tweaking to do, such as getting my blog roll re-listed {so if you get left off my blog roll, please let me know...mommy brain is still in full effect.} Why does it do that? So annoying. But it is a start! One day I will master you HTML! :)

Motherhood

'The ebb and flow of a mother's life is not unlike the ocean. Sometimes it is a gentle tide lingering upon a sandy beach; picturesque, mesmerizing and serene. Yet at other times vibrant, stormy - full and fierce, swirling and tugging her every which way...frothy and bubbling with strong under currents. Some days are naturally more heady or fraught with friction while others more peaceful and serene. Embrace the ebb and flow of your amazing life, the storm will dissipate and the currents will move on.... do not surrender to the swirls that would seek to pull you under but rather linger in the vastness of the ocean - in its beauty and grace. Embrace with open arms the ebb and flow of your full and amazing life.'

- kay weight

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

I've made mistakes being a Mom, sometimes more than I'd like to admit. But I will always be there for you, to hear you, to cheer for you, to laugh or cry with you, to protect you with my life and sometimes tell you things you don't want to hear. I will love you for all eternity. No one will ever love you more than I do, because I am your Mom.

These are some of the quotes I have seen floating around blogs and facebook over the last few days and I Love each one of them.

Motherhood is hard. It isn't what I expected it to be most every day, but it is an honor and privilege I don't take lightly. My road to motherhood wasn't an incredibly easy one and the road of motherhood has not come as naturally to me as it seems for some.


Some days I look around at other moms' blogs and lives and wish I could be more like them. I wish I wanted to do all those fun teaching activities with my kids. I want to be like those "perfect" moms that seem to have it all together.

But you know what I realized? I am not them. And I am doing a pretty good job doing what I do. My kids are healthy and thriving and isn't that all we can ask for most every day?


You want to know how well you are doing as a mommy? Just stop and really watch your kids for a moment. They will tell you. Not in I love yous, but in how they act. Some days I question my true ability to be a stay at home mommy, but then I see how Lo mommy's her babies and I think she does a fantastic job caring for her baby dolls. There is only one person on this earth that taught her how to take care of her babies and that person is me! Wow. That is humbling, she watches all I do and say. She wants to be just like me. I pray I am someone worth being like. That my words and actions are Christ like.


I love my babies; they are the ones teaching me how to be a better person and mommy. They are reflection of who I am at my very core. Thank you God for these precious gifts, there is no greater job I could ever do than be their mommy.


Of course these two great women help me to be a pretty good mommy too! With all their love, support and encouragement of me. And of course, there is only one person on this earth I learned to be a mommy from.

Happy Mother's Day!