Monday, December 31, 2012

3 months!

Our sweet Evie is now 3 months old! (or was last Thursday...)
Hard to believe she is already 3 months.  So here are some things about our little girl at this stage...

*She is not the best sleeper...well--I take that back.  She is a great sleeper when she gets held.  When she is put down, not so much.  She will occasionally take a good nap during the day in her swing or even her bed, but most days she cat naps or mommy snuggles on the couch with her to get a good nap in.
And at night...oh my.  She likes to snack we shall say.  We still get up multiple times during the night, with an occasionally night she sleeps well (meaning she wakes maybe just 1 time or so), but most nights she is up more.  She will sleep eventually...right??? :)

*She is starting to bat at toys. It is super cute.   She stares at the toys hanging above her on her little play mat and has started to bat her hands at them.

*We won't go to the doc for a check up this month, but according to our scale she is about 10 pounds or so.  Woohoo for double digits! :)

*Evie loves her big sister.  She smiles so much at her and will just sit and watch her play.  It so fun to see them loving each other so much!

We love our little one so much and are soaking up this precious time with her!


Saturday, December 29, 2012

Pictures...

I am getting around to uploading pictures from the last few weeks!  Here is a sampling:

 SK dressing herself for church on her own...ain't she cute :)
 Making salt dough ornaments with Molly!
 She got a nerf gun for Christmas :)
 Gingerbread houses with friends
 Sitting with Uncle Michael and Ali at Haven's school program in Alabama
 Me and my hubby!
 Cousin Kenzie with "her baby"
 Mimi with her 4 granddaughters!
 Crafting it up at Mimi's!
 Evie's baptism
 Cheese! with Nana and Papa!
 Baking gingerbread cookies with Nana!
 Gosh she sure is a beautiful baby :)
 Family photo on Christmas Eve
 Christmas Eve with Nana and Papa
 Snuggles with Uncle Jeremiah!
Painting in Nana's studio!

So there ya go!  An overload of pictures! 

Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas in Alabama!

We got back to St. Louis yesterday after a whirlwind trip to Alabama.  We were able to spend a week in Alabama seeing family and friends and it was so nice!  I wish it could have been longer, but we enjoyed what we got :)
We were very thankful that we were able to fly instead of driving to Alabama.  The girls did great on the airplane!  It is a bit more stressful to fly with little ones, but at least it is quick (only a 1 hour flight!). The flight going down was a bit rough with wind and took off late (they had to de-ice the plane before we took off).  SK said her tummy felt "Flipsy flopsy!" but she did great.  Evie nursed more most of the flight so no one barely knew she was even on the plane :)  The flight back was about the same but no winds. so much more smooth of a flight.  It was a bit early though...we had to get the girls up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to the airport, and even then we were close to missing our flight!
Back to the time in Alabama...
We started out the first part of the trip at my mom's house.  It was fun to get to introduce Evelyn to the family that hadn't met her yet.  I think one of the cutest things was how my niece, MacKenzie, was so fascinated with her.  She kept calling Evie, "my baby".  She would say "I wanna hold my baby!"  She would sit there and hold Evie for a long time while the other girls ran around and played.  She chose to hold Evie as long as we would let her instead of playing.  And she asked me, "Can I pet her?".  It was precious!  We loved seeing our girls loved on so much!
Then on Sunday we went to our home church and Evie was baptized.  I love that we were able to have her baptized while we were in town.  It was so very special to us.  Evie wore the same dress that SK wore, which was my gown when I was a baby.  Evie slept through most of the baptism.
It was great to see our friends at church and we got to spend a little more time at lunch afterwards too, but we wish we would have had more time to see them more.
We then spend the second half of our time seeing MIchael's family.  It was fun to see Lauren and Jeremiah and introduce them to Evie as well!  SK had fun making a birthday cake for Jesus (though the cake did end up falling apart and we had to remake one...) and gingerbread cookies!
We went to our church's Christmas Eve service.  What an awesome time it was to spend celebrating Jesus coming to this earth to save his children.
We had so much fun in Alabama and miss everyone there greatly...
I haven't uploaded pics, so they will come later today or tomorrow!

Monday, December 17, 2012

10...

1--We leave in T-minus 3 days for Alabama!  Have I started to pack yet??? nope.  I shall blog instead and make lists of things to do before leaving and things that I need to pack...

2--We are now officially cloth diapering Evie!  Woop whoop :)

3--We have been up to some fun pinterest projects.  I would show you, but then Grandparents would see what they were getting for Christmas before we get there...

4--I am making "refried" beans in my crockpot today.  I will let you know how they turn out, but I am crossing my fingers that they are good, cause there are tons of them in there!

5--SK is such the little actress.  As I type, she is back in my room pretending that she is the momma with her animals.  Always playing a role around here.

6--Michael and I recently got into Downton Abby.  We got season 1 from the library and watched it in 2 days.  Now we are waiting to get season 2 (we are on the waiting list at the library for it...) and I am dying to see it!

7--I have recently discovered Trader Joe's salted caramel Chai Latte.  Amazing.  Truly Amazing.

8--It's rainy and wet outside today.  And cold.  Makes me want to drink a warm drink (#7) and watch something on the tube (#6)...

9--I am running my dishwasher for the second time today.  And we haven't even made it to dinner time yet.

10--DId I mention that we go to Alabama in 3 days!!  Must. Go. Pack....

right after that warm drink and cuddles with the napping baby :)

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Ballet Christmas Party

Haven't blogged any this week...sorry.  We have been too busy being sick I guess to do anything else :(
Last week it was the coughs and sniffles, now we are getting past a stomach bug.
Let's see if I can catch up a little now.

Tuesday was SK's last ballet class for the semester so they had a little Christmas party and showed us a cute dance too!  She was a cutie of course!  Evie was a good little sister too and watched very sweetly :)

On to the pics...



SK's outfit is cute right?!?  It was actually mine from when I was about her age!  Isn't that fun :)  She wears it all the time these days dressing up around the house and I love it!
Evie is looking like a "polar bear" according to SK in her warm outfit.  That outfit we have found is also so cozy for Evie that it puts her right to sleep.

Alright...hopefully more blogging to come soon!

Monday, December 3, 2012

1 more thing...

I promise I won't keep rambling about this subject, really...
But, Michael is currently taking a CS Lewis class here at Covenant.  Last week in class his professor talked about a couple essays that Lewis had done regarding Christmas.  Michael got the book today and we just read them.  They are short little essays, but say much :)
If you have a few minutes read them.  I found them quite interesting and thought provoking...
I would love to hear what you think too!
Here are the 2 essays:
XMas and Chrismas

and

What Christmas means to me

okay...maybe I will move on to something else for the next blog...:)

Fighting a battle...

I feel as though this year we are fighting an uphill battle.  Every year seems this way to a degree, but for some reason, it feels even more this year.   This year, I am just fed up with how we have mutilated what Christmas is supposed to be.  We have warped Christ's birthday (not that his birthday is even on Dec. 25th...) into this crazy frenzy of buying the perfect present for so in so and running around like crazy doing so many things.  It honestly has just really ticked me this year.
It's a fight to try to go against the norm.  Some days I truly feel like it is a battle we will never win.  If I am being honest.
I just have to keep trying though, because I know the truth.  I know that what we as a nation and as the world have turned Christmas into is completely jacked up and wrong.
Christmas isn't about the gifts or the festivities.  It's supposed to be about Christ and Christ alone.
Does that mean we don't do fun things...no.  We do.  We choose though to make it about Christ.  The fact that HE came down from heaven to save a wretched sinner like me is something to celebrate and be thankful for.
I am not meaning to get on a soap box, and I know that there are those of you who might disagree with me.  And that's ok.  We are just doing what we feel is important for our family to be able to focus on Christ and not ourselves.  Are we doing it perfectly...nope, far from it actually.  We are failing daily, but we keep on striving for Christ to be the center of our home.
We want SK and EJ to know that Christmas is about Christ and not about us.  It isn't about presents or Santa or the lights or the movies...
I wish I could write more eloquently about my heart behind this.  I hope I don't come across as arrogant and a know it all or a goody-two-shoes.  That isn't my heart.  I know we aren't perfect and are jacked up people.
I do love what a friend recently posted on facebook regarding her family's thoughts on Christmas (esp. talking about Santa).  I wanted to post it here, not only to share, but also to have it to look back on for myself.  She writes so beautifully as I wish I could :)  and I am so glad she shared.

There is a secret to Christmas. And, dare I say it, the secret doesn’t involve Santa. The secret takes you to a place deeper, supremely magical and delightful. It is midnight blue, it is glorious, it is still and quiet; and it profoundly changes you. Are Evan and I the scrooges of Christ
mas? Our children know that Santa isn’t real! But, you know what? So did I. And it was beautiful. The beauty lasted until...today. It didn’t end when I became a certain age. The intimacy of a baby Savior born, the beauty of angels, the quiet of the deep starlit night never seemed so poignant - so mysterious and magical - as Christmas. As a little girl I put on play clothes and imagined angels appearing to Mary and the shepherds; I imagined a baby in a manger; I imagined what it was like to be wrapped in the lowing of cattle in the still, night air. I also pretended to BE Mary and an angel. I adored the melodies. And now I see it. Was it not a child’s meditation on the birth of our Savior?
Our mythological Santa Claus has warped Christmas into some kind of horrible orgy of presents, and traffic jams and harried mothers. He has stolen away the deep, deep magic of Aslan, (excuse me), God. So don’t lament my children their absence of belief in Santa. They’ll take their childhood play, music and imagination with them into adolescence and adulthood. They’ll learn that it is not pretend, but that it is True. It will remain after they put aside childish things. It will remain after doubting and testing. They’ll come full circle into the wonder of Christmas. They’ll look back to their childhood and reflect that their play was deeper, the arts deeper and the traditions deeper than cultural whims; that it is steeped in something solid and beyond the imagination. It will whisper to them in the wintry sky as they wonder as they wander out under the sky. Because it does to me. And it did to my dad. And it has done that to generations.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that we have a tendency to idealize Christ’s birth. I understand that Mary was probably shunned, the animals probably stunk and the Magi weren’t present on Christmas day. But what is all of that from Heaven’s perspective? I bet Mary considers all of that nothing compared to the unimaginable goings-on in Heaven at that time. So I figure, we will learn just how profound and beautiful and tantamount that event really was. And it will blow anything I imagined as a child out of the water.




Well said, my friend, well said.  

Saturday, December 1, 2012

EJ's 2 month stats

Our sweet Evie Joy is 2 months old and I can hardly believe it!  I love this precious newborn stage (though the lack of sleep is not necessarily fun...).  I am so thankful for these precious moments with her and am trying to soak in every moment with her.
I remember this time last year....unsure that we would ever be able to have any more biological children.  That was hard.  It was a time that the Lord definitely used to grow my faith and push me to put my faith in him more than ever before.
This time last year we were on our second round of clomid and it hadn't worked.  I was devastated.  Truly devastated.  Yet I knew in my heart that God was and is still good and loved me.  I knew that HE had good plans for me and for our family.  We prayed so long and hard to be able to have more children and here I sit...holding this precious life.
I am so thankful to our heavenly father that He would give us so a beautiful precious little girl.

Moving on to her stats...
We went to the doctor yesterday for her 2 month check up and we are at a whopping 8 lb. 6 oz!!!  I know for many, that still is very small, but she is growing so well :)  She might be in the 3rd or less percentile for her weight, but she is growing at a good pace and is doing great!  I am so thankful that we were able to figure out this whole nursing thing and get to a place where she is able to just nurse and not need supplements any longer :)
She was 22.5 inches long putting her in the 35%!  What can I say...I guess Michael and I produce tall skinny kiddos ;)
She is really starting to smile lots and cooing.  She especially loves when her sister lays with her and they get to "talking".  She is such a happy baby :)
She, like her sister, spits up plenty...boo.  We were hoping she wouldn't, but oh well.  She doesn't do it enough to be a problem and it doesn't bother her which is nice, but man...we can go through so many outfits each day.  Not just hers, but mommy's too.  It's like she knows how to aim over a burp cloth and get it all over my clothes instead.
She loves to be held...and we don't mind that right now at all.  I am sure one day we will want to be to able to take a nap in her bed, but for now it is alright.  She sleeps best during the day if I put on my moby wrap and let her sleep in there.  We call it her "happy place".  Guaranteed sleep when she goes in it :)
For fun, let's compare the girls:


First pic is SK at about 2 months and second pic is EJ at 2 months :)  What do you think?  Not the best pics to compare, but it will have to do...
For fun...here is one more smiling picture I captured recently!

Off to snuggle with EJ for a little Sat. afternoon nap before the SEC championship game later!