Wisconsin Trip

I debated whether I wanted to even do a post about our trip to Wisconsin, there were many parts of this trip I'd like to forget.....but for the sake of being able to look back I decided to write our memories down of the trip. 

I will start by saying we should not have gone that weekend, we should have rescheduled......however hindsight is 20/20, we really thought we were in the clear regarding health!  Brie was throwing up all Monday night; I could tell even on Wednesday she wasn't feeling 100%, but she was eating a little and seemed to be improving.  We decided to continue with the trip as normally scheduled assuming Brie was going to continue to get better and we would be ok!  We left Thursday afternoon and stayed in a hotel Thursday night to buy us another day of recovery. 

Friday we woke up, got ready, and headed to Brad and Jessie's house.  We were SOOOO excited about this trip and being able to stay with them!!  They knew Brie was still recovering, but we all decided to go for it.  Well like an hour after we got to their house Brie threw up again!  After we got it all cleaned up we all just looked at each other like 'now what!?'  We decided to stay and see how she did.  Well no more puking and she actually continued to want food and did well in the stomach department.  However her behavior was HORRIBLE!!!

Here is what my dear friend said about Brie in her blog post about our visit: 

Unfortunately their two year old Briana, was just over being sick and she was a little crabby and tired a majority of their trip.  It made us all pretty tired and so we mostly just relaxed, but you can't do much more with four kids anyway! :)

 

Bless her heart for being kind.....but Brie was just awful.  I have never seen her behave that poorly.  At one point she was screaming so much I put her in the car in her seat (with no coat and no shoes/socks!) and drove around for 20min with her screaming bloody murder until she calmed down.  She didn't sleep well at all, which was a huge part of the problem.  She does NOT do well with change of environment.  Oh my little difficult two year old, she's lucky she is so cute and I love her to pieces!  It was exhausting on everyone in the house.  We definitely need to do a re-do at some point.....we will probably stay in the hotel next time the entire time!  

It was so good to see Brad and Jessie and their two kids though.  Eleanor and Leah are less than a month apart!  Ben is 6mon younger than Brie, so also close in age!  

On Saturday night a couple other couples came over for pizza dinner.  So good to catch up with Preston & Jennifer and Dan & Melanie!  We got to meet Preston and Jennifer's new daughter, Ivy!  She just had major surgery, a double below the knee amputation.  She is doing so great despite having to be in almost a full body cast!  Ivy and Brie are also very close in age.  

 

It was hard spending time with our good friends in Wisconsin, it just made me miss everyone we were so close with while living there.  I miss living in WI often times; it was so hard leaving our friends, church, youth group, and jobs there.  But we are loving living near our family, it is amazing to have our girls know all their Aunts and Uncles and grandparents so well :)

 

The ride both to and from went really well, both kids did great in the car!

The only hiccup was we hit a MASSIVE snow storm in southern Michigan, that added an hour onto our trip there.....

Brie loved the hotel life, watching TV in bed....a dream come true!!

Leah in her adorable bathing suit ready to go swimming!

Happy Valentines Day!

Alec and all the babies!!

Such a good sleeper!

Leah is seriously such a good baby.  At night we lay her down around 9:30pm, she is awake but sleepy when we lay her down.  She goes to sleep on her own.  I miss having to rock her to sleep a little, but she wasn't falling asleep well when we would rock her.  She does much better this way, all wrapped up tight! 

She gets up once during the night around 4am to eat, and goes right back down.  And then she is up for the morning around 7am, which is usually right when Brie is getting up too! 

Helping in the kitchen

Brie has been 'helping' me in the kitchen recently!  She says 'I help make!'.  She likes to put things in pots and stir.  It sure beats her whining and wanting my attention while I am in the kitchen :)  I like having her be busy with this type of thing, even though it makes things take 2x as long, its fun to have her be interested in what I am doing. 

2 Months Old!

Leah is 2 months old!

I love seeing her start to develop a little personality and transition out of the infant stage!  She is starting to do longer awake periods, she has been staying awake between 2 feedings sometimes.  At night she usually goes down anywhere between 7:30 and 9:30pm, she gets up to eat around 2:30 and 3:30am, and then up for the morning around 7am.  Obviously this varies night to night, but I think she is doing great for only being 9 weeks old!  The last couple nights I have transitioned her out of the infant bassinet attached to the pack n play, so she just now lays flat  in the pack n play.  And she has been in our bed a lot less recently!  Someday she will sleep in her crib and share a room with Briana!  I love having her in our room though, it is going so well.  It is so easy to get up and quick feed her, and Alec and I sleep no problem.  We got many warnings from people that it can be very hard to have a baby sleep in your room, but it has been great.

She eats roughly every 2 hours during the day.  Sometimes she takes long naps during the day, but I never let her go longer than 3hrs between feedings.  I don't want her to think that it is night time in the middle of the day!

Leah loves when people talk to her, she just smiles and makes her little noises back at you.  Brie is starting to sit and talk to her and make her smile.  It is SO cute seeing the two of them interact.  It is very hard to catch her cute little smiles on camera, they come and go so fast!  She has been sucking on her hands more and more, I really wonder if she is going to be a thumb sucker like Brie.  She really likes the pacifier (plug), she has that thing in all the time!

I've been trying to do more tummy time with her, she doesn't love it (what baby does?!).  She lifts her head up great and looks around.  She does best when she does her tummy time on my chest, she likes to look at her mama :)  I brought the baby toys up from the basement and we have been starting to dangle those in front of her face....mostly Brie just likes to play with them though.

The doctor said she is looking great; he had no concerns whatsoever.  Leah weighs 12lb 5oz (95th percentile) and 23in long (99th percentile).  She got all her vaccines, thankfully the nurse was very quick with the entire ordeal!  Leah cried, but I nursed her right after the nurse finished and that calmed her down right away.  I gave her a little Tylenol when we got home so that her poor thunder thighs weren't too sore later.  I told Brie that Leah had to get shots today, she kept saying "oooooooh, poor Leah!"

As another month has passed Alec and I continue to feel so blessed that Leah is a part of our family.  Two months ago I had no idea what it would be like to have 2 kids, and now I can't imagine our lives without this precious little girl.  Leah brings us so much joy!

Puking Toddler

Well, Alec and I had a parenting first last night.  Brie went to bed no problem normal time, then around 9:30pm we heard her crying and screaming.  She had thrown up EVERYWHERE in her bed.  It was on the wall, pillows, blankets, and her. 

We got her in the bathroom while she was still throwing up.  We took off her pajamas and got her in the tub; she really like that, probably felt good sitting in the warm water. I got some laundry going and put the really nasty linens on the deck....one pillow is getting thrown away!  We got her all cleaned up and back into bed, she was so tired.  As soon as we went back upstairs she started throwing up again.  After another change of pajamas....I had the idea to put the crib mattress up in our room and just set her up there.  That was the best idea, she ended up getting up about once an hour through the night until 5am......  I ended up spending the majority of the night just sitting on the floor by her.  She would get really restless about 15min before she threw up.  She was just dry-heaving and throwing up some stomach acid, it was awful!  I felt so bad for her I just couldn't bring myself to leave her side.  Finally around 5am I got into bed and fell asleep; everyone (even Leah!) slept until 8am. 

Alec went off to work later in the morning.  I just put Brie on the couch to watch TV.  She was acting like she was feeling a little better, I figured the puking was done with.  Around 10:30am I put her to bed in her bed, she slept until 3:30pm!  Granted, she basically was up all night.  Leah was super fussy today (maybe not feeling great?!), so I never got a chance to nap.  But I just relaxed and held Leah all day, so that was kind of nice.  Brie went to bed no problem by 8pm.  She did end up having some dry cereal and Gatorade today; not much, but at least it stayed down no problem! 

Tomorrow is a new day.....hopefully a HEALTHY day! 

Sick Days

It started with Brie, she had runny nose and low grade fever.  It wasn't clearing up, and a couple days later I noticed some green drainage from her eyes and they were looking pink.  So I quick called the doctors office at 4:55pm (close at 5pm!) and had them call in antibiotic drops.  She got really good at letting us put the drops in, thank goodness!

Then the next day I woke up feeling awful.  Throwing up, very weak, fever, and had ZERO energy for a few days. Alec was supposed to be gone traveling for work, he ended up cutting his trip a little short so he could help out since I was so sick.  Leah had a runny nose and cough too through all this.

We spent a lot of time snuggling and watching TV.  Thank goodness Brie loves TV! 

No complaints from the toddler, she got to watch Frozen :)

Thankfully we have all recovered, and Alec never got it!  No more sickness this winter please!!!

Story Time at the library

 Every Friday morning we go to story time at the library.  Brie is really liking it!  At first she was a little quiet and just sat there, but now she actually participates.  It is so cute!

Leah likes it too :)

Her favorite part is the hand stamp they get every week!

We joined this program at the library.  It is to promote early literacy, they are encouraging every young kid to read 1,000 books before they start kindergarten.  Great idea, and should be NO problem for our little book lover!

January Pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures from January.  It has been so nice being off work this winter, my first day back is coming up already on February 28! 

This is what Leah's hair does right after you wash it, doesn't last very long though before it gets all greasy :)

Playing on the playmat:

 Reading books with Bumma, so precious!

Sisters!

My birthday picture with my girls:

I just love snuggling Leah every chance I get:

Playing in the snow, Brie LOVES it!

 

Leah has been sucking on her hands all the time, I really wonder if she is going to be a thumb sucker like Briana is.

I took an infant massage class with Emily (my sister in law).  Philip and Leah had a very relaxing massage, and Em and I had fun learning how to give a massage! 

Anybody that knows how picky Brie is with eating should be SHOCKED that she is eating spinach artichoke dip! And she was gobbling up the salsa!

Silly toddler wanted to ride in the baby carrier! 

I just can't get enough of Leah's smiles, her tongue always is hanging out when she smiles :)

On a warmer day I strapped Leah to me and we all went outside for a little bit.  I pulled Brie around in the sled and pushed her down our hill a few times.  She loved it! And Leah was fast asleep in the carrier.  

Leah loves when people talk to her, she is having a little conversation with Grandma here!

My adorable nephew Philip on his baptism day.  He is so precious!

Recently we have been taking a ton of baths.  And Brie loves to take a bath in the big tub with the jets.  I usually am in the tub with her, and before we do the bubbles Leah is in with us.  Not much of a relaxing bath....but always lots of fun with the bubbles! 

This is what our mornings usually look like.  Alec gets up and starts getting ready for work, Brie comes upstairs and climbs in our bed, and Leah has usually been in our bed for a little while already.