Easton "painting" the driveway with water.



Sweet baby


Daddy and his babies


Audrey smiling at Daddy


Smiley girl

I keep getting weird comments so I'm turning comment moderation back on. That just means if you leave a comment I will get it in an email it will take a while to show up here. Feel free to leave comments just like usual though. I love seeing them! :)

Audrey,
My little sunshine, you are changing right before my eyes. You are staying awake for longer periods of time (usually at NIGHT! Quit that!) and are smiling more and more. I love to see your gorgeous little smile. And laughing. Oh, how you surprise me when you laugh!

Right now you are asleep in your bouncy seat. I had to put it in your pack and play so your brother would leave you alone and let you sleep. He wants so much to play with you and doesn't understand that you're still a bit too little for that. I can't wait for the day when you can play with him.

But for right now I am enjoying you being so little. You're a great snuggler and usually don't want to sleep unless someone is holding you. Daddy and I might let that slide for a while longer just because we're so sleep-deprived but soon you're going to have to learn to sleep in your bed by yourself.

I love you, my little munchkin!

Love,
Mama

I was washing dishes today and happened to glance up and look outside my kitchen window. There on the railing of my front porch was a gorgeous cardinal. What a nice surprise! I loved seeing his little red mohawk and am glad I stopped to watch him for a few minutes. Today is grey and cloudy so this was a beautiful sight to see on this otherwise gloomy day. Thanks, Lord for bringing me a little spot of sunshine today.

Easton,
Little monkey, you continue to amaze me! Just recently you started saying "book" instead of your usual "boop". I am so happy that you are learning to say things correctly but it sure makes me sad to realize just how quickly you are growing up. You can say well over 100 words. I know because I counted. When I got up to 125, I lost count.

Right now you are fascinated with the concept of "in" and "out". You love taking things out but not so much the putting them in. The past two days you've taken all of the dirty clothes out of your sister's hamper and brought them to me in the living room. You understand when I ask you to put them back in but aren't about to do it.

You can recognize circle, square, triangle, rectangle, diamond, star, heart, and oval. You can ralso ecognize several letters...A, E, O, and the number 8. You love when we count for you. When I say "one" you say "two." We count to ten and when we're finished you clap and say "Yay!" You cannot get enough of books. You even love to pretend to read my cookbooks. You call them bookcooks. One of your favorite new words is "koo-ie" (koozie). Daddy put your sippy cup in a koozie once and now every time you get a drink you want it in a koozie.

You are still my sunny, funny boy and I am so grateful to be home with you to see you grow and change and learn every day.

Love,
Mama

Pictures of Easton's first s'mores. Do you think he liked it?




Audrey


This next one is for Aunt Leslie


Easton loves to carry as much stuff with him to bed as possible. Here he's got his bear, his dog from Great, his Goodnight Moon bunny and his sippy cup.

Walked/jogged a mile today and didn't eat birthday cake. Hey, it's a start! :)

Audrey,
You are six weeks old today. You got off to a little bit of a rough start. First being in the NICU, then feeding problems and learning to share me with your brother. You are doing amazingly well now though. You are strong and healthy and definitely let your wishes be known to everyone around. You go from sleeping to supremely pissed off in a matter of seconds. You grab onto my finger so hard that at times your knuckles are white. You are a very determined little girl and I love seeing when you get that serious look on your face sometimes. You know what you want and seem to get almost annoyed that you can't speak to tell us exactly what it is.

You have a head full of dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. You are starting to smile more and those smiles are like a sweet little gift to me each time I see one. You seem to tolerate your brother pretty well. He gets a little rambunctious sometimes and gives you "pats" just a little too hard. You fuss a little but seem to know somehow that he doesn't mean to hurt you. I hope one day you two are good friends.

You are amazing, my little girl and I can't wait to see who you will become one day. But don't get in too big of a hurry, OK? Feel free to stay little just as long as you want.

Love,
Mama

Audrey is SIX WEEKS OLD today! It doesn't seem possible but she is.
A quick update on our last six weeks:

After we came home from the hospital, I had quite a bit of trouble breastfeeding. She was losing weight quickly and I was very worried. The doctor recommended that we start her on formula. I did and she had a really hard time with that too. She could not keep it down at all. We're talking projectile vomiting ALL. THE. TIME. It was awful. I called the doctor and he said to switch her to soy.

We switched her to soy. She still was throwing up a lot but not nearly as much as with the cow's milk formula. Over the next few weeks, she quickly put the weight back on. YAY! It was a rough few weeks but finally she got over the throwing up. During that time I don't think I have EVER done more laundry in my life!

At her last checkup, she weighed 9 pounds 3 ounces. Finally! Back to her birth weight! I'm sure she weighs more than that now that she's eating and keeping it all down. Can't wait to see what she weighs at her next checkup.

So far, she seems to only want to sleep when someone is holding her. Not possible, little one! I've started rolling up two receiving blankets and putting them around her to make her feel like I'm holding her. It works. Sometimes. When it doesn't, we're ALL stressed out! Audrey can't understand why no one will pick her up, Easton gets upset because his "sissy" is crying and I feel bad because I want to hold her but can't just sit around and hold her all day no matter how much I'd like to. That is getting better but S-L-O-W-L-Y.

Everything is going wonderfully here. It's crazy, messy, busy, chaos at our house but it sure is fun.

There are just not enough hours in the day to get done all of the things I want to do. I've "written" about a dozen blog posts in my head but haven't had time to post them here. As of right now, it's 4:05 pm and I'm still in my pajamas. The dryer just buzzed (again!) and I really should be thinking about what to fix for dinner. But the kids are both asleep (it's a miracle!) and I wanted to take a quick minute to post an update on the last few days.

4th of July - what a great day! I convinced Jason to put off mowing the yard for one more day and we just hung out with the kids all day. Jason put the car seats in the Camaro and we took the kids for a ride to Sonic. THAT was funny! Honey, I bet you never thought you'd be buckling car seats into the 'maro, did you?!

I think Easton liked going for a ride in Daddy's cool car.

The boys in the 'maro Easton and the Camaro


After the trip to Sonic, we came home and put the kids down for a nap. Then we did a few things around the house (finally hung some pictures on the walls, picked up the clutter, etc). After E woke up from his nap, we all went out on the deck and watched Easton play in his pool.

All of those toys in the pool and look what he wants to play with. He had fun seeing how big of a splash he could make every time he dropped in a bottle of water.

At dinner time, we fired up the grill and cooked some "burburs" as Easton calls them. We had burgers, potato salad and baked beans. After dinner, we made s'mores. (I have a pic of Easton and his first s'mores mess but my camera is on the charger. I'll put it up next time I get a chance.) After we cleaned up from the messy s'mores, we got both of the kids into their pajamas and bundled them up. It was COOL outside! I was wearing long pants, socks and shoes instead f flipflops and a jacket. In JULY!!! We sat outside at the end of our driveway and watched the neighborhood fireworks. Our neighbors from two houses across the street from us were out and they all came over and sat with us and visited in our driveway for a couple of hours. It was really nice. Easton LOVED the fireworks. He kept saying "Wowee!" and "Cool!" Thankfully he had a long, late nap earlier in the day because he really enjoyed the fireworks and wasn't scared a bit.

My birthday - I took the kids to Walmart to buy a few groceries. While I was there, an older man came up to admire the kids. He said "Wow! Two beautiful babies and one more on the way! Aren't you lucky?!" I didn't correct him and tell him I'm not pregnant. Ugh! That was NOT fun! As if taking two kids under two to Walmart isn't hard enough on its own, now I have people telling me I'm fat too. Thanks, Mister! I know you were just trying to be nice but it really wasn't.

That not-so-fun experience aside, it really was a nice day. I got lots of calls, texts, emails and cards and that really made me feel good. (Thank you!) I asked for an ice cream maker and Jason got it for me. One of my favorite 4th of July memories from when I was little was eating homemade strawberry (or banana) ice cream. Now I can share that with my kids. I also got a new coffee mug (I asked for that too), and a new purse.

For dinner, Jason brought home crab legs, salad and wine. (SIX bottles! Good thing I know there's a discount when you buy 6 bottles or I'd think he had an ulterior motive.) We had a really nice, relaxing evening and went to bed early. Wow! Can we do this every year?! It was great!

That's about it for us. The rest of the time, we've been hanging out around the house. I've just been doing housework and taking care of babies. It's fun and wonderful and exhausting and stressful and amazing and beautiful. I wouldn't trade this job for anything.