A Day at the Discovery and 1 Month Old

Today I summoned up my courage and took Lilybelle and Claire to the Discovery Museum. It went better than I expected. We might even do it again.

This week is bubble week at the museum and since Lilybelle is obsessed with bubbles right now I figured we had to go. It was pretty cool. We made a bubble snake and watched ivory soap turn into foam in the microwave. We also played in the river exhibit, went down the slide, played with the foam coal, and generally ran amok (and by we I mean Lilybelle, Claire and I just followed her). Claire was a perfect angel who slept in her baby bjorn the whole time. 

Today also marks Claire turning one month old. Below is her one month photo. I can't believe it has already been one month. Time flew. So I guess that means I must be having fun. :)

Aunt Shana comes to visit

My sister Shana just spent a week out with us. It was a fun week. We hung out, visited with family, and did some shopping. While she was out here we also blessed Claire. She looked so precious in her blessing gown. Originally she was going to wear the same gown as Lilybelle but at the eleventh hour I found my blessing gown. I had been looking for it off and on for the past few years with no luck. But the night before I decided to look in a container I thought I had looked in before. I must not have been very thorough because I found it!

But let me back up. A few days after Shana arrived, we drove down to our parents' house and spent the day with our Mom and little sister. Lilybelle even tried out Minden's sunglasses. 

She looks so good in the sunglasses but I can't get her to wear sunglasses her size. Ugh. 

On Shana's last day we went out to Legends for a little shopping, water, and lunch. I wanted to buy the girls matching dresses but Carter's was having a good sale so we went a little crazy. Let's just say that there is more than one matching outfit. 

While I fed Claire, Shana and Lilybelle played in the water. It was so cute. 

4th of July

Yesterday we had a good Independence Day. The day started by dressing the girls in matching outfits (I've always wanted to do that).


My parents came up for the day and after nap time we went to the River School Farm to look at artwork and flowers. I've never been out there and I wasn't disappointed.



After our little outing we came home and had dinner complete with a patriotic desert - vanilla ice cream on top of a blueberry raspberry crisp.

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A Long Time Coming

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I'm lazy and this last pregnancy totally took all my energy (my almost two year old probably didn't help any, she has limitless energy). But I felt the need to introduce our newest member of the family.

Claire was born on June 25, 2014 at 5:42 am. She weighed in at 8 pounds 10 ounces. She is the spitting image of her big sister when she was born. The good news with Claire is that she was only three days late versus her sister who was eleven days late and had to be forced out via an induction.

Funny story on her birth. I was originally scheduled for an induction on June 26, 2014. My doctor took pity on me and went ahead and scheduled it when I asked for one. I went and saw him on Tuesday (June 24) and he told me I was dilated to a 2. He went ahead and massaged my cervix and I went home fully prepared to check into the hospital on Thursday evening. I got home, put Lilybelle down to bed and took a nap myself. When I woke up, I felt some cramping but I didn't think anything about it. Tim got home later than normal that day and I told him that he was in charge of dinner because I thought I was having contractions. He wanted to know why I hadn't texted him when I my response was "I think I'm in labor." I told him I didn't think it was a big deal. I continued to be in denial that I was in labor until about 8 that night when Tim insisted that we start timing my contractions. Sure enough they were 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute. I labored at home until a little before midnight when we called my mother-in-law who came over to watch Lilybelle and Tim took me to the hospital. My sister-in-law, who is a labor and delivery nurse, just happened to be working that night. She checked me out and sure enough I was far enough along to stay in the hospital. Which was good because I didn't think I was up to laboring at home anymore. A little less than 6 hours of labor (soo much less than Lilybelle) Claire was born. It was an amazing experience! It was so different than my labor with Lilybelle that I felt like having a kid before this didn't really give me any insider knowledge. My sister-in-law was my nurse and she did an awesome job. It was such a special experience. But without further ado please meet Claire Yvaine.

Lilybelle seems to really like Claire. She keeps calling her "my baby." I'm glad that she loves her little sister. Lilybelle has also taken to water. That's all she talks about. So on Saturday she went swimming in her cousin's pool and had a blast.

I'll try to be better about the updates in the future.

Catch up

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. It seems we have been busy with one thing or another, so I decided that I would do a catch up post.

In the past two months Lilybelle has accomplished so much. In a matter of two weeks she got four new teeth and about a month later she got one more, so in total she has eight teeth now and I think she is teething again.

Around the middle of October Lilybelle started walking. In the beginning she was still more prone to walk around on her knees, but lately she's taken to walking much more, but she still looks like a little drunken sailor. Tim says that her lack of coordination must be hereditary and that she gets it from me (sigh).

For Halloween she was a little flower. She went to my friend's Halloween party and kept her costume on the whole time and didn't fidget with it. I was extremely pleased. She also went over to her aun and uncle's for Halloween, but didn't go trick or treating with her cousins because she just wasn't feeling it. We had to leave early because she was tired and cranky.

Her hair is finally growing and it is getting long enough to put in a little ponytail. She won't leave it in yet, but at some point I think she will (or at least I hope because her hair is starting to get in her eyes).

We took her to the Discovery Museum for the first time yesterday. It was a lot of fun. They have a lot more going on then I realized. She had a blast walking around the place and even wanted to walk down the stairs by herself. She went down the slide, played with blocks, and played in the water. I didn't get any good pictures because she wanted to be on the move.

A One Year Old

I officially have a one year old; as of four minutes ago, Lilybelle became a one year old.  As I look back over the past year, I can't believe all that has happened. I can't believe that she has gone from a small infant to a talking standing baby.

To celebrate this happy occasion, we had a joint birthday party with her cousin (who also turned one) last Saturday. It was a circus themed party. It was a lot a work and some stress, but it was really fun. We had lawn games, bubbles, a cotton candy machine, and dinner. Lilybelle was funny with her cake. She was trying to be super dainty about eating the frosting, but I helped her out by putting both of her hands in the cake. She then licked the frosting off her hands and grimaced. I don't think she cared for how sweet frosting is. Definitely not her mother's child.  She liked opening her presents though. She enjoyed getting to pull things out of bags without me telling her no.

I bought a super cute dress for her birthday when we were in Solvang, CA in April. She wore it for about a half hour until she dumped that water bottle all over herself and Nana.

 So after the water accident, she was put in a boring onesie. But She got some cool sunglasses out of it, and cheerios.

For her actual birthday we took her 12 month photo (the last one), gave her some cake, and let her play with all her new toys. Basically just a low key night. She didn't grimace at her cake tonight though, she laughed when she got it. Her aunts and grandparents all wished her happy birthday and then she took a bath and went to bed.

 

11 months

Sorry, I know it's been a month since I posted anything to my blog, but I'll make up for it by posting lots of pictures today.

Last month Tim and I went on a hike. I've gotten on this kick lately about wanting to hike and so we decided to hike up to a waterfall with Lilybelle in a stroller. Yes a stroller, not a backpack which would have been much smarter. You see, I figured her stroller was rugged enough (which it was) and I was feeling too cheap to go buy a backpack. She. Hated. It. The stroller ride was a little too bumpy for her and so we carried her and pushed an empty stroller. Luckily we were with Tim's mom, brother, his wife, and their baby (who was in a backpack) and so everyone helped carry her. She loved it after that. The hike to the waterfall was a nice two mile walk, and the view was worth it. On the way home we put Lilybelle in the backpack and her cousin in her stroller which he didn't mind at all. Even though she was unhappy for the first little bit we enjoyed the hike and I learned two things, one buy a backpack and two I really miss hiking.

This weekend Lilybelle and I went for a walk and went to my new favorite kid's store and bought her a new tutu. She needed a new one. The old one was too small, and I figured every little girl needs a tutu in every size. The only downsize to our little outing was the stroller got a flat tire. So until Tim can fix it we can't go on any more walks. Sad.

Last night we took her 11 month photo. Boy was it hard. She really doesn't like things on her head anymore and so she will tear them off pretty fast. So this means no more hats, bows, or headbands. We put the headband in and was NOT and I repeat NOT happy about the fact that Tim wanted her to keep it on her head. This the best picture we got. The rest of them are of her crying. Even after we took the headband off she didn't want to cooperate for her picture, no sir. She didn't even have it on her head that long, but she wanted to make sure that we knew that it was unacceptable to do that.