Family visits

Emily and Kinley had lots of family visits this past week. She got a visit from Grandma JoJo, Auntie Alyse and Grandma Wolf. Emily loved having someone else besides me in the house. I think the names "auntie lease" and "mommy" might be tied for the number of times used while Auntie was here.

Grandma JoJo, Emily and Kinley

Gma JoJo bought this book for Emily and they read it immediately

Grandma Wolf holding Kinley for the first time

Auntie Alyse brought a book with her too and of course, they read it right away as well

PB and J moustache...

Grandma Wolf and Emily making lizard faces

Book time before naptime...Grandma Wolf bought a book for every week that I was pregnant with Emily. This book was from that collection...

Perfectly imperfect, but Emily doesn't care...

I have a desire to be the perfect, creative mother, but I tend to fall short a lot on that. The good news is, Emily doesn't know any different. I knew St. Patrick's Day was coming up and I thought about it quite a bit before hand; however, when March 17th arrived I had completely forgotten about it. So, what's a mom to do? Make some sugar cookies and pull out the green icing (meant for Christmas with tree sprinkles and all) and go to town. Yes, she is in her pjs...

The other day I was getting ready and I heard a clicking sound. I looked behind me and Emily had a pair of my heels on. Sometimes when I show excitement toward her, I cover my mouth....looks like she picked up on that behavior.

Hopeful

God is faithful. I know this.

On Saturday my family decided to head to church in Huntington Beach so we could be "lazy" on Sunday if we wanted to be. Emily went to "sunday school" while Brian, Kinley and I sat in church with my mom/dad/sister. You have to understand that growing up in my family meant many hours spent at the church. In fact when my dad first started working at FCCHB Kristi and I would take sleeping bags to take naps at the church in his office....that's how long our day would be there. I can count on one maybe two hands how many times my nuclear family have sat in church together. It was special for me.

Two of the songs we sang that night in worship were two of the songs I kept singing to myself when I thought I wasn't pregnant. I prayed a lot for this little being that didn't yet exist....per a false negative pregnancy test. When I found out I was pregnant a couple days later these songs were sung out of praise. Anyway, I of course teared up a lot.

I love my little family. I want more than anything to stay home with my girls. I'm DESPERATE to find work from home or even part-time work outside the home. I'm grateful for my job in the midst of the recession, so I'm trying to be content, but I am also praying for an opportunity to be here for my kids....

God is faithful. I know this.

Spills

Emily is so interested in Kinley. If Kinley is crying Emily tells us she's crying. If she cries when we are in Emily's room tucking her in, she kindly asks us to go check on her. Literally uses the word "check." She's funny. I think the phrase that makes me smile the most is when Kinley spits up after eating, Emily will yell, "Mommy! She spilled again!"

Love my stripes, but not as much as I love my girls

I have always liked striped shirts, I have no idea why. In fact, I had quite a few horizontal striped sweaters and shirts in maternity clothes and people would make remarks about how the horizontal stripes certainly didn't help my pregnant stomach situation. wow. thanks. Anywho....On Sunday, I got Kinley dressed and then I got dressed and realized it was going to be a picture day because without thinking about it I dressed us both in stripes.

Emily got jealous of Kinley and me in our photo shoot so I wanted to get her in the pictures as well, but as you can see by the look on her face, she wasn't as interested as she was acting. (Please note the stripes on her sleeves!)

Sister time

I decided I wanted to start pumping to give Brian a chance to feed Kinley, but when Emily figured out what was going on she begged to be in on the action. It's not like I could say no to that. It was just too cute. So here are some pictures of the big event.

Breastfeeding Sucks

Literally...

Okay, so I am a huge fan of nursing. In fact, I nursed for the first year of my first child's life. I think the benefits to nursing far outweigh all of the things I don't enjoy about it, but for therapeutic purposes, I felt I needed to write out my thoughts on the subject.

I have a couple of friends that formula feed their child full-time and I gotta tell you, it looks pretty amazing. I mean, the moms can get out of the house easily to get their hair done or plan dates for themselves to get some adult time. The dads can help out in the middle of the night or help when you are sick. When you are nursing, there is no rest for the weary. (I'm sick and weary as I write this, so I apologize now for that kind of tone.)

Here are some common questions that I have spinning in my head:

1.) If breastfeeding is "best" for the baby---providing the essential nutrients etc.. why is it so hard for mom/baby to get established?

2.) Why does breast milk not stay in the baby's system as long as formula does? (I know the answer to this, I just wish it stayed in their system better.)

3.) Why is it different at every feeding? One breast, both breasts etc.

4.) Pumping is not fun. I'm pumping in the evenings so Brian can feed her once. Last night I got 4 oz, tonight I got 2 oz. I'm assuming the big difference is because I am sick, but seriously, why does there have to be that added stress on the mom?

5.) Latching---sometimes it's perfect and sometimes she takes a good 5 minutes to latch (doesn't have that problem with the bottle)

6.) With Emily it took about 3 months before I felt like we had a great rhythm going, why so long?

I'm sure I have more, but right now I'm just thinking about not getting enough milk and having to supplement with formula. ugh.

Pictures of Kinley

Doesn't use this kind of pacifier anymore, but I loved how she would try to hold it.

Do you think Haley likes her?

Lexi wanted to hold her, but once she did, she wasn't too sure of it all

Emily loves her little sister so much

A little Valentine's Day photo shoot

First family of four photo

I'm quite embarrassed to admit that we didn't take a family of four photo until ONE MONTH after Kinley was born. Truth be told, I wasn't thinking of taking a photo on this day either....and I didn't! We were at a birthday party for our friend who turned one and his mom was taking pictures---I asked her to forward the picture because along with diapers, I forgot my camera at home! So, it isn't the best picture of any of us (especially since you can't see Kinley at all---and don't even get me started on how I feel like I look in it), but it's our first picture as the four of us and because of that, I love it.

P.S. Emily's shirt says "smile" so I guess she figured she would let the shirt do the hard work. She obviously didn't think she needed to do it.

One Month

My little girl is already five weeks old. I feel like she's been here a lot longer than that....probably because I am getting such little sleep. We're up a lot so it gives us more time to enjoy the 24 hours in a day--haha. There isn't too much to report since she pretty much just eats, stares, sleeps, cries, grunts and poops.

At her one month appointment she weighed 9 pounds 2 oz. She gained 50% of her birth weight. I was really glad to hear that since it's all momma's milk! Her length and head circumference have gained proportional to her weight so it was a good report. She has an umbilical hernia. We hope to see that clear before her first birthday, but we don't know for sure if it will happen that "quickly."

Emily is really handling this all in stride. She seems to be disappointed when I say, "not right now" if she wants to do something while I am nursing Kinley. That makes me sad too. She's a great big sister and loves to kiss her on her forehead. She seems to constantly be doing some sort of roll call because she asks where Kinley is even if she's sitting right next to her. It's funny.

I love my girls...