6 to 7 weeks!

These are the "busy mom" pictures of what happens to the baby for a few minutes while the mommy loads the dryer!

She gets a lot more "sling time" than Lily did since she's a bit colicky. It's so sad when it's really bad and she gives this little pain-cry squeal before her pathetic cry and when it's bad she can't be comforted, which breaks my heart. I still do things and though it doesn't help completely it DOES help because it stops her from crying at least on and off. The sling really helps though because she is upright and it's easier to get the bubbles out. It also helps me to be able to do things! She has to be held upright for such a long time after she eats that if I didn't put her in the sling I'd probably never be able to do stuff. She likes it even when she's awake though as you can see from the picture, though usually she'll fall asleep in it or I'll nurse her and then she sleeps while she's working on burping for an hour or so. I usually can lay her down in her bed though and she'll sleep even longer which is nice. I think the Amby bed does help with that, but if I lay her down too soon then she'll start to wiggle and sometimes do the pain-cry and I have to pick her up or she'll spit up a bunch instead of just burping. I've tried to pay attention to what I eat to see if something that I'm eating is bothering her, but I can't really tell yet (possibly dairy, but I don't eat enough of it normally to really be able to pin point it when I do..)

She likes to face outward like this picture or face me or even nurse in the sling! It's so nice to have when I need to be making dinner or taking care of Lily.

I've noticed that my kids aren't quite as clean when there are two of them as apposed to one. This morning I was doing stuff with Renna and Lily got into the fridge and brought me the peanut butter jar... and I gave her a spoon and let her eat it! .. yep.. that's how it goes some times. I figure it's more important to play with them then that they are perfectly clean. I tried to give Lily some extra attention today too. I think she's been a little low on affection and that's why she's been getting into more things lately (like trying to paint her own toes with fingernail polish! I woke to find several bottles precariously laying uncapped on the floor! Fortunately it wasn't too messy .. just smelly for a long time.) Right now, Lily is getting into the boxes of tea and dumping them all over the kitchen floor, but they are individually wrapped. *shrug* She likes tea. ;)


Last Thursday Renna had her SIX week appointment! She was 9 lb 13 oz! So at least I know that the colickyness hasn't effected her weight gain (she spits up a LOT more if I'm not really careful to burp her well though, and I'm sure that wouldn't be as good for her to spit up a lot.)

I haven't been taking quite as many pictures lately. ;) And I really need to print all of them out so that I can start scrapbooking again or I'll get terribly behind! I'm just starting to get into the swing of a baby and toddler together and keeping the house tidy and trying to stay consistent with a Bible study. So, soon I'll get back into projects. :)

Little helper

Lily helped me vacuum today!!!  

This is the first time that I got some really good pictures because normally she doesn't help me for as long as she did today.  It was quite cute.  Maybe she was more into the vacuuming today because of all the cereal that we were vacuuming up.  She also pointed out the spots that I missed.  ;)

God bless the amby bed. (ha, ha..) ... a poem...

Once there was a baby, a very sweet lady, who'd only fall asleep by cuddling

But she found when she woke, a practical joke, a strange odd contraption for bundling?

It was cozy, thought she, but she couldn't quite see

What the point was for all of this fuddling.

But she slept long and longer and with each passing day

Was glad for the way this will stay

And now with a smile her Mom's here to say, "It's great! Even with all my muddling."

Lilyisms

She calls watermelon "UhMen"

In between practically everything Lily says she strings together "this is a"

Today she was super excited about a ball and kept saying "Thisisathisisa BALL this sisa BALL thisthis thisis a BALL!" You get the idea.

She also loves to say "look" But she can't say the L

So I hear a lot of "Ook! A cat. OOk a cat. Ook, ook a cat." (It's pretty funny how excited she gets about our own cat that she sees every day. ;)

She says sorry all the time too! Even when she doesn't do anything at all. She falls down (playing) and says, "Sawy" she jumps and says, "Oh, sawy." The only problem is that she won't say sorry when she really does need to. Like to the cat especially.

And since the new baby, she says, "Ook, a beebee, ook, a beebee, ook, ook, a beebee." Or, "sisissis sisis Beebee sis sisssis, Beebee!"

The last thing that I can think of that she says ALL the time is "Woe!" She likes to run around the house and say "Woe, woe, woe." While she jumps and spins and does other tricks and silly things.

Everything she says (except sorry) is usually really loud and excited.

She also repeats practically everything we say now! Which is only a little frustrating when I can't understand what she is asking for and I say, "What?" and she says, "What." back.

Oh, and she says, "Take" a lot too when she's done with something, and lately when I've needed to go to Renna in her bed when she's starting to fuss Lily will run over and say "STOP!" with her hand held out. If Renna goes back to sleep Lily is quite happy, but if I have to pick her up sometimes Lily freaks out a little bit and starts to cry. So, we'll read a book together so that she knows she can still do things with the mommy even with the new baby too. ;)

It's really fun to read her stories now since she's started "reading" them with me! She knows the books so well that she says some of it with me and points and talks about all the stuff in the pictures.

Lily had fun with the camera..

These are all some of the best that Lily took!  The top one just cracked me up.  I asked her if she wanted to take a picture of her little sister and apparently this is what she can see from her point of view (of Renna in her amby bed).

Random of our living room and "Bob"

The best that she took of me (I had to get low because she kept aiming the camera down)
Very artistic of her gigantic teddy bear.  ;)
We played "ball" down the hallway this afternoon.  She says "two, three, four, (sometimes five and six too) KICK!"  She doesn't say one yet for some reason!  We'll say, "Say, One."  But she's too fast with "Two, three, four.."  right away.  ;)

Bath time!

It's so freaky to me how much her eyes look like Youssef's!  Except that they are still blue (though you can't tell in this picture.)
She smiled while taking the bath too, but I always forget to bring the camera in before hand.

Then it was Lily's turn and she was showing off their new duckies.  Lily's is the blue.  She was just borrowing Renna's.  ;)
Maybe it's because I have two kids now, but it seems like cleanliness has gone a little more by the way side.  I decided Renna needed a bath when I found a speck of Jam in her hair!  Little miss sticky fingers was probably the culprit.  And Lily has been eating watermelon all morning (and other messy things like toast with jam) so she needed a bath too.  

I think Lily is more into having her picture taken when she sees me take pictures of Renna.  Lily is actually smiling in this too!  Usually she's too busy to stop for the camera.

to cell phone or not to sell phone... ;)

Our cell phone service is going to be cut off on the 28th of April.  They wanted to wait for the next pay scheduled (stupid) which is a whole month away from when we called them to end it.  Anyway, at least all of you who have our cell numbers can give us a call to get our home number if you don't have it.  Or if you want to chat for free (if you have verizon) then give one of us a call before the 28th and we can chat.  :)

Sleeping like a baby

Who ever made up that saying probably meant that babies can sleep anywhere? Because they don't usually sleep for long periods of time (and indeed shouldn't at a young age as it can actually be dangerous for them to not wake up every 2 to 4 hours or so.) I'm writing this because I'm so excited about how Lily is sleeping lately! The "No Cry Sleep Solution" book was really great and gave me so many ideas to help her sleep. She is now old enough to were she understands more and doesn't get as scared of the dark or being by herself. Renna is just like how Lily was at her age (one month) and wants to fall asleep nursing and in fact, if I let her, wouldn't let go on her own until she had been nursing for an hour at least and fell into a deep coma sleep. As she is my second though I had a few ideas to help her learn to fall asleep on her own and so far she is doing really well!

We went to National Treasure 2 tonight and Renna slept the whole time (just waking a couple time to nurse and go back to sleep), and Lily cuddled and ate popcorn. It was really nice. I think it's a lot easier going from one kid to two kids rather than from none to one. When Lily was born I was just going with my instincts, which was good for the most part, but then when I'd get advise or wonder how I could make things easier in different ways... I didn't know what advise I should follow and it made our lives quite complicated. Lily is doing SO good sleeping in her own room and Renna has been starting to learn that she can go to sleep many different ways and sometimes I can calmly tell her to close her eyes and go to sleep and she will! How great is that?! It's so much easier to start a habit than to break one isn't it?


Renna hasn't gotten into a regular nap routine yet. She's getting there and when she's having more awake times then I'll start doing even more to help her go to sleep on her own with regular naps and so forth. I really like having two girls! It will be fun to see them play together when Renna is older, but I'm really enjoying the newborn stage and don't want her to grow up too fast.


Well, Lily went to sleep really fast tonight and Renna is almost asleep (she keeps thinking that she needs to nurse and I'll give her just a little bit because I want her to know that it's available, but she doesn't need it to go to sleep and she's getting it!) I'm going to lay her in her bed so that she knows where she is before going to sleep so that she'll sleep longer.

And thus... they will each be in their own beds! At least for most of the night. ;)

Girl time!

This is our story time before the girls go to sleep (Lily likes to sit with her arm around me)

During story time Lily was stroking Renna's soft little fuz head.

and kissing her too!!

What a great big sister she is!!!

Renna is One Month Old!

Can you believe it? (She obviously looks quite surprised as well)
We'll pretend that she's trying to smile...

But she DID smile for one of the pictures!

Too sweet

Four weeks

Renna is four weeks old today!

We went on a walk to the park and the sun was out it was lovely and pretty warm, but the pictures are a little washed out because it was so bright. She wasn't in the sun either! It was just really bright. :)

Lily had lunch in the stroller on the walk and then when she was playing...I handed her pretzels and grapes through the bars and so forth on the playground..
Lily is getting so good at climbing.

I hold her legs and she can do the monkey bars!

She's really good at it and traiding off hands to do it too!

The birthday girl!

Evelyn Minnich turned 1 year old April 1st!!!

"HAAAAppy birthday to you!!"
All the kids playing!

The ball popper!