Category: baby

Lil Baby 4

So here’s our little secret that we’ve waited to share until we graced out of the first trimester. This is healthy, happy and squirmy Lil Baby 4 who is due to join our company mid-July 2014. We’re excited and thankful for this new delight and look forward to sharing baby’s kicks and movements together until we get to meet him or her on the outside. I am currently in my first week of my second trimester and am thankful for the hope and privilege of soon parenting another precious one.

P.S. Now you know one of the reasons behind my quiet blogging lately. I’ve been SLEEEEEEEEPING. This whole participating in building a human is exhausting work! 😉

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For those of you who know me personally and have noticed the “Christmas weight” I was putting on (man how my body was starting to give it away), I appreciate you allowing us the privacy of telling you when the time was best. We have chosen this privacy since Matt, being an assistant pastor, tends to put us more in the spotlight than others. Miscarriage is always a possibility, but some parts of pregnancy hold a higher chance of miscarriage than others. So we have made it our goal to wait out the largest miscarriage window (12+ weeks) in order not only to allow for grieving, should it need to occur, to begin as a private affair, but also since we don’t want to make the decision for your family on whether or not you need to discuss miscarriage with your children. See, if we shared early on in the pregnancy and happened to miscarry, it’d force you to have to explain miscarriage to your own little ones who may not be ready or mature enough to understand that reality yet. So thank you again for making the excuses to your kids, for those that needed to, and diverting the questions to allow us the privacy and the respect of your own household in sharing our joyous news at the best time. This time around, due to when the boys left our home, we chose to wait a bit longer than usual to have our second dr. appt. Therefore, my baby bump was growing and more and more difficult to mask. Thank you again for working with us in awaiting the announcement. Funny how 2 weeks of difference can start to give it all away after you’ve been pregnancy 4 times already. 😉

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For those of you curious at what the breakdown of  our family will be come this new one’s arrival: Rachael will be 5.5 years old, Abi will have weeks prior celebrated her 4th birthday and our dear Hannah will be 2 months shy of 2 years old when we hope to get the privilege of meeting our newest family member.

Thanks in advance for your joyful prayers.

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Baby Goop Cheers!

So with “twins” and especially “twins who eat” we could easily be drowning in a baby food bill. So instead of starving our children 😉 I decided to be a bit financially savvy and make a boatload of baby food. I could have been more financially savvy by actually buying stuff on sale or better yet… having children who will reach baby food eating age when fruit is in season. But since I’m not that good (or whatever). I spend $35 on fresh fruit/veggies and cooked/pureed those boogers. We’ve been eating baby food for weeks (well, the babes, not me) and I don’t even think we’ve made a dent into the overloaded basket of food in the freezer. I don’t think I’ll need to make any more baby food until they hit “table scraps” age.

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Various apple kinds

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Thanks again Mommy for the awesome handmixer thingy!

(Yay for awesome Christmas presents!!!)

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A “family size” jar.

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Sweet taters!

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Babyfied! (Hannah’s favorite)

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Mmm, pea glop!

I also made carrots, bought and fed Hannah avocados (fork squished), some green beans (ran out of freezer space to do them all) and accidentally forgot about a bag of pears in the bottom of the fridge that’s now living in Mr. Trashcan (can’t expect perfection here people. HA!).

I froze them in breastmilk storage bags by type so I knew how many ounces were in each bag (4 oz and 6 oz quantities). I just grab a baggie out and serve it straight or mix it with other stuff for variety.

The twins? Oh they give it two “helping, I promise” spoon-grabbing thumbs up! =D

– Baby goop cheers!

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Our Little Joy

Our little Hannah Joy is now 2 weeks old as of yesterday. She is a wonderful nurser, good sleeper, and kind little thing that has fit right in amongst the joy of her sisters. Funny to admit, but our lifestyle is really quite conducive for the addition of a newborn and thanks to the grace of God that Hannah’s so mild-tempered and such a good nurser, it’s been less of an overwhelming transition than I expected in moving from a household of two dependents to three.There are certainly moments of “Mommy only has two hands, my dear children” that creep into our world, but I have found life to be quite kinder on me and the girls than I had anticipated.

Abi has also done very well with the transition despite my previous concern regarding Abi’s “Mommy only” moments. We have done our best to ease the transition by not making our family “all about the baby”. We don’t constantly emphasize Rachael and Abi in the context of their relationship to their newest sister. We’re not constantly asking them for help with Hannah or trying to push a relationship that has yet to form with Hannah. Their sisterhood will grow on it’s own and we take delight in Rachael and Abi’s initiative in their relationship with Hannah, like when they ask to hold her or help pick out her clothes, but really are working hard to carry on life as “usual”. And due to Hannah’s “sleeping around the clock” habits, it has been a gentler transition of shared time as moments of needing balance come and go.

I am not anticipating Hannah’s addition to our family to be easy and carefree, but as has been the case with Rachael and Abi’s various life stages, we are all adjusting to each other in an effort to learn how to love. Sometimes the adjustment feels one-sided: just ask Hannah when she has to wait to be fed because Abi needs a new diaper, or ask Abi when she needs to settle for Mommy reading her a book on the couch because it’s time for Hannah to eat, or ask Rachael when Abi needs a Mommy-snuggle time and Rachael has to wait to show me her new baby doll set-up in the playroom. But I am thankful that the efforts to teach Rachael and Abi to love each other through serving each other and taking care of each other (which means sharing Mommy and Daddy too) has naturally and comfortably transitioned into a new normal with Hannah as well. They all have their moments of not wanting to share (so do I, I must confess), but it’s nothing that Matt and I feel incapable or unequipped to parent through. It’s a life lesson we all learn together.

So I’ll share some Hannah pictures for those that we are not blessed to live close enough to and for those that are enjoying soaking up our Hannah too. =)

 Those studying eyes. – Love ’em.
 A little personality, no? 😉
 I never want to forget these moments…
 First experience in her crib (and the subsequent short nap).
 Meeting Aunt Sarah for the first time at her soccer game.
[Hannah’s first date-night with Mommy/Daddy at 8 days old.]
2 weeks old

Thank you all for your prayers, encouragement and support as our family moves into our new world of three, age three and under. =)

– We’re adoring it.

– Thank you, Jesus.
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For Newbee

I made two newborn prefold diapers today thanks to some old towel pieces and flannel sheets (thanks again, Rachel). It’s nice to use things here, donating about an hour to figuring out what I was doing (woot!) and about a half hour to forty minutes (if I had to change to bobbin) a piece to each diaper following. Planning on just adding about 6-12 newbee diapers to the stash with maybe only the cost of thread (if I run out). From what I’ve researched it’s helpful to have a few tiny diapers for the freshie stage up until about 2-3 months when they can go into more “normal” sizes. Abi was gracious to play nicely on the floor to the hum of the sewing machine (after waking up early from nap). 

 One is layered 2x4x2 (I) and the other is 4x6x4 (II). 

My old doll from childhood modeling. 

With the assistance of Abi. =) 


I’ll probably make more of the 4x6x4 or a 2x6x2 combo since the middle thickness is the real hero in the pottying story.

 

– Kind of exciting to slowly start the “get ready for baby” preparations. 

 – If we find out on Friday that we’re having a boy, he’ll be relieving himself in flower-print prefolds. hehe. I don’t think he’ll care and it’s what I have to work with. Eh! Baby’ll just be sleeping through newbee life anyway. And we could find some cute neutral covers to help him out if he’s a he. 😉

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The Cute Newbee

I’m posting this for my friend, Jess. … Because I know that it will give her a delight in cloth diapering cuteness.

This is our cute newbee to the stash.

For a whoppin’ $5 (and free shipping) from Alvababy.

To get my stash to about 30 (maybe a few less) in prep for the new baby, I am just adding in one of these per month (or every other) from my allowance money til I hit “about” 30. I like the “snapping over” feature for itty bitty and the versatility of the one-sized, pocket diaper. And the print….. =D

– Thanks for sharing this moment with me. =)

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Our First "Significant" Snow

We took the opportunity today, in March, to celebrate our first “significant” snow by playing outside for a handful of minutes.

To keep with the norm, we over-bundled our children producing this:

Abi couldn’t get back up when she fell over. No crying, just called for Mommy ’til I could rescue her. =)

Then outside we headed for robotic-movement-like snow walking. Since all our outside toys were happily stored away for the “winter” we’ve been having, walking and snow inspection were the favored sports.

Movement frequently produced “I’m stuck” moments for the youngest.

Until eventually she stopped dead in her tracks (refusing to move), put her hand straight out and announced, “Walk, Mommy. Walk!” Clearly assistance was not an option. =)

Then there was the three-year-old idea of going down the slide which resulted in Mommy picking her up because the ladder was slippery and “eww, dirt” felt the need to dust all the snow off each step of the ladder, thus revealing a mild layer of slippery ice. Then came for the top of the slide dusting – necessary, especially once your pants are already soaked through.

And at last… the slide. 

Promptly followed by the fall-off at the end. 

Abi was less brave, allowing for this “look away from the sun” picture

before demanding Mommy’s hand of assistance. She had no desire to repeat Rachael’s tumbling dismount.

Daddy joined in the fun too, swinging our little frozen robots to their squealing delights. 

And then with a short bout of swinging, we decided inside was a great place to shed our dirty “snow” layers and enjoy a nice warm bath.

Here lies the product of three people playing in the snow (Daddy had already left for work and taken care of his things by then) – Nevermind the Feline Investigation Service on the left.

Straight into the tub went the girls and straight into the wash went the layers.
And our “significant” winter snow had all melted in the sunny places by 10am.

Great snow morning indeed!

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