a little insanity, but other than that, all good.

I've missed keeping up on all your blogs and I sure could share plenty of stories EVERY night!

But nope, 5 minutes a day online doesn't leave much time for that.

Overall, we are doing great. We are definitely settling into a routine and so blessed by our sweet, amazing children and thankful to God for adding them to our lives.

But it still feels like I get through most days accomplishing very little. :)

This weekend Mama & Papa Hughes came for a visit. Graham just adores them and it was much too short of a visit. Eden was excited (in her own way!) to meet them for the first time.

Our baby girl is 7 weeks today!

I am so sad that she's outgrown her newborn clothes. :( But as you can see, those cheeks and belly are definitely doubling in size. :)

There is something about the 2nd child that they seem to grow twice as fast.

I seriously could smell her soft head and kiss her chubber cheeks all day. She's so sweet! She's such a good baby. She only cries when she's hungry and has taken to a good routine so much more quickly than Graham did. (Though I think I am much better at directing her routine this time around!) Our rough time is still 8pm-midnight. We have not had good success with getting her down for the night before that. AGH. I am looking forward to an earlier bedtime any time now. :) But once she is down, she has gone 7 hours several times, so for that I am very thankful!

oh yes, and we're going for round #2 in the potty training! fyi, nursing & potty training at the same time is not awesome. Poor Eden......guess who gets the shaft? :) I think the first time was difficult for G because we were in and out of the house so much. So he would simply hold it until he was wearing a diaper again. :) I figure we're staying home right now more than we ever will, so it's a good time to try!

We just started this chart today and as you can see, had quite a few successes! Though he sometimes whimpers and cries when he's actually going. He does not like that part! But we'll see. I am not going to force him if I feel like he's not ready. But he definitely can hold it, tells me (as soon as he starts going!) and then can stop and start, so I think those are all positive signs. So we'll see how it goes, wish us luck. :-)

hello spring

Enjoyed our free Italian Ice from Rita's for the first day of Spring! If you haven't been to Rita's - it is delicious!! We enjoyed Cappachino Cream, S'mores, & Cheesecake. Graham was pretty excited about his "treat"!  

why use one straw, when you can have two?

spotted on our way home.  

now Spring, we'd like to request more of the 60+ degree days and less of the 45 ones. :) We have sure loved the few 60 ones you've given us! We welcome you VERY happily. Here's to more walks and city exploring, and GOODBYE to coats, hats, boots, scarves, mittens....and fights over keeping them on. :)

turning the corner.....

As Eden hit the 5 week mark this week, I definitely felt the relief that brought! I don't know if it's that way for you other moms, but I remember 5 weeks being a good turning point for us with Graham as well.
She has always done pretty great during the day, but we would hit about 5pm and she would want to eat about every 1.5-2 hours until 11. Exhausting! and then we could rarely get her to settle in for the night before midnight or 1am. So after going to bed at 1am and then up at 5am for a feeding and then Graham suddenly started waking up at 6:30 for some reason! (thankfully that seems to have passed). I was pretty much running on fumes by the end of that first month! And I found the biggest change about child #2 is that you don't so much have the option of "sleeping when baby sleeps". Every day one child would go down to nap just as the other was waking up. But here at week 5 everything seems to be settling into a good routine. Eden has settled into a more consistent time routine and we've even had several coordinated naptimes. YAY for that!
Overall she has been a way more laid back and easy-going baby than G was that first month, I am so thankful for that. Graham is just loving on her all the time. He wants to kiss her and poke her and help with her. He's so excited when she's awake and just stands there and says "hi baby" over and over! We had about a week where he seemingly "forgot" how to obey, but after a couple of reminders he seems to be back to his sweet self. I will say that either he suddenly has twice the energy or else I just might has half the energy. :)
The Sickies:
Graham picked up a cold earlier this week and I was just praying that baby E would escape, but (probably because her brother enjoys breathing in her face!), she got a terrible stuffy nose. It's so sad. Graham didn't get his first cold until he was 11 months old, but I guess that's what happens with following children!
And then friday night I suddenly got terrible chills and a fever and I am guessing what was some form of the flu. YUCK-E. We somehow made it thru friday morning, mostly because I turned on PBS kids and let G watch to his hearts content while I napped beside him. Desperate measures!! Andrew was able to come home at noon and what a relief it was to have him take over and be home for the weekend. Hoping for a quick recovery!
Overall, we are so much enjoying our little family of 4!

Spring!

for some reason G's eyelashes have recently gotten longer & thicker. Hope E is so lucky!

typical :)

sister, sister

My sweet sister, Katie, was here for 4 (way tooooo short!) days. I called her my genie because every time I would think something needed to be done....dishes, cleaning up, anything....miraculously it would just get done! She's the best.
Graham absolutely loves her and had so much fun. She is a great photographer and here are a few snapshots from the days......

Look who's smiling!! melt......

We miss you already!!

one month

baby E is one month old!
I can't lie. I don't know that I remember a lot of what has happened this month. :)
Except that we have been blessed! Having my mom here for 2 weeks was wonderful and between our church and the Momtourage we had meals that covered almost 2 weeks. That was awesome. SO thankful for all those who cooked for us!
And I also know this: our baby girl is so sweet and I love having a girl more than I could have imagined!
We're slowly getting in a pretty good routine. I even had one day that both kids napped at the same time. THAT was a really good day! It's ironic that in the first month when you need sleep the MOST, it's the most elusive. Oh well, we all survive! and on way less sleep than we think. Eden is getting on a good schedule and doing pretty well with a good eat, wake, sleep routine. She goes around 4-5 hours at night so we're definitely looking forward to that going into a longer stretch. But I still keep reminding myself she's only a couple of weeks old! Overall, baby is the easy one of the fam right now. The two year old tornado is our current challenge.
Our friend who did some family pictures for us last spring, called us this weekend and offered to come take some pictures of baby E! We were thrilled and SO thankful for his kindness! It was a rainy day so we were stuck inside and Eden slept thru the whole thing, but it was fun!

And then Graham thought surely it was his turn to pose in the basket. :)

Almost impossible to get a decent family shot with a 2 year old that only has one mode - GO!

I love that Michel thought to do some shots on this rug.

If you're looking for a great photographer, be sure to check out One Way Street Production!

daddy & me

So I'm amazed at how many outfits little E has that say "I love daddy", "daddy's angel", "daddy's princess"..........................how about a little love for the one who is giving her 24/7 care? hehe. :)

She is quickly working on wrapping daddy around her little finger.

Love that sweet face!

And look at that porky little belly that starting to show!

Weighing in at 9.8 lbs as of last week!

Eden's birth

What a strange and surprisingly calm day it was! Literally, until about 30 minutes before she made an appearance, I wasn't convinced she was coming.
Around 9 am I called my dr's office. They were closed. That was really weird. Usually they're open by 8. I think I waited another hour and called again, I had to leave a message for the paging system. Turns out, they were in meetings which is why the phones were off. Anyways, I had some bleeding the night before and that morning and so I just wanted to chat with them and make sure it was ok. The nurse told me I needed to head to the hospital to Labor & Delivery to determine if I was in labor.
 I am thinking, no, I'm not in labor, if I was I think I would know! So I argued with her a bit, saying my husband was at work and I had my 2 year old son at home.
Bottom line: not convenient to go to the hospital right then. But she kept insisting. So I called Andrew and thankfully he was able to come home to be with Graham.
I thought maybe I was having an occasional contraction, but nothing more than I'd been having for the last 2 weeks or so. So, since the hospital is only 4 blocks from our house and parking is more trouble than it's worth, I decided to walk over. The worst part is that it was 8 degrees - brrrrrrrr!!
They hooked me up to a machine to monitor contractions for about an hour.
*Side note - the nurse on the phone had actually told me to just go ahead and bring Graham with me. This had to be the worst advice of the day! What did she possibly think he was going to do during the 2 hours I was being monitored - sit quietly in a chair?!!! Thankful I did not take that advice. *
So after an hour they came back in and determined that I was having occasional contrax, about every 10 minutes. The dr. then checked me and determined I was 5+ cm dialated and it was at that point that they told me, yeah, you're not going home. Really? I still wasn't convinced this was happening! They said they would take me to a labor room and the dr. would break my water and hopefully things would pick up. So suddenly I was thinking, ummm, I need to call my husband and get him here! We were able to contact Becky Valentine who quickly came to watch G - bless her! And then Andrew arrived. I knew I was having contrax now, but it was so strange because they honestly weren't that painful. Everyone kept saying that I must have a very high pain tolerance, but I am telling you - I don't. :)
Another hour or so and I was dialated 7-8 cm. They asked me if I wanted an epidural because this was my only chance. That was a dilemma I didn't anticipate. Since I didn't feel that much pain I felt like maybe I shouldn't, but because you never know how these things will play out, I didn't want to risk a horrible ending. So I ended up getting one. About an hour later is when I finally felt like contrax. were 5 minutes or less apart. I finally started to think that yes, this baby was going to come! Thank the Lord I wasn't at home waiting for them to be 5 minutes apart, because by the time I felt this, she arrived less than 30 minutes later!!
The dr. asked if I wanted to push. I said I didn't really feel like I needed to, but she said we could do a practice push at least. So as we did, they suddenly all sprang into action and said this baby is coming! And a few pushes later she arrived in all her beautiful perfect babyness.
The differences in the 2 births was just crazy. Graham's was just such a difficult experience and this was so calm and pleasant. I just could not be more thankful! I think I mentioned before that I was most dreading the recovery period more than anything. With Graham it was literally 4-6 months before I was pain-free. With Eden I pretty much felt recovered in about 2 weeks. I honestly didn't even know this possible!
I said all along that after a 10 lb'er, other babies should basically walk out on their own....and well, she practically did. :)

Happy 3 weeks to our sweet, sweet girl!