Blessed

Sugar and spice and everything nice...

that's what little girls are made of.

 

Well, very true in this house!

 

 

 

I just can't begin to tell you how much I love to see their relationship blossom.  Lucy and Annie are starting to really bond in a sweet way.  It's taken some time, I think Lucy really wanted (or thought she would have) a sister to play with from the time Annie was born.  Well, it didn't work out that way - Annie was a bit too tiny.  Now that she's a lot more mobile, they are starting to actually do things together and play.  But as a mom, I can surely see their different personalities coming out.  They are both so sweet and dear to my heart. I love them both in such an amazing way and unique way. 

 

 But, of course, nothing is perfect!  Lucy loves to claim what is hers and likes to tell Annie no often while taking things from her.  To which, Annie strongly will share her opinion.  But Lucy is a very good big sister.  Lucy is just such a lovey girl in general.  She loves everyone!  She is so full of life.  Right now she is very into anything to do with art.  She is always crafting, drawing, and painting.  She loves playing Daddy's itouch and playing video games with Daddy on Fridays.  She is in her 2nd year of preschool and really enjoys it.  We cannot believe that she is already 5!  I'm not looking forward to all-day Kindergarten next year!  Lucy is always dressing up in costumes and will definitely expect you to play the part as well.  She is a TALKER!  There is never a quiet ride in the car anywhere!  She talks about and questions everything - she loves anything to the do with the weather.  She loves to read and is an amazing reader.  There are those quiet moments when I will find her in her room with a stack of books.  Lucy is also in her second year of ballet and she loves it.   

We are super proud of this sweet gal!

 Oh Miss Annabelle Kate!  This girl is such a cuddler and a sweetheart.  She loves to give kisses.  Annie is constantly on the move now.  She has been in PT for about 2 months for not pulling up.  She is crawling all over the place now.  She is also pulling up on furniture but only up on her knees.  She is bouncing up and down and reaching for things up high.  She loves baby dolls and takes very good care of them - she will give them kisses and a blanket and put them "night night."  She loves anything that is sissy's!  Forget about baby toys for her - she wants the big girl stuff.  Just like her big sister, she has her favorite Gicker (blanket).  But she has started to call hers "Guck Guck."  Annie is a good, little sleeper, but those naps!  Not as long as Lucy's were - we used to get a good 2-3 hours out of her.  Annie will occasionlly make it to 2 hours!  That's a good day!  :)  But thankfully she is a good night sleeper.  I can't say enough of how amazing it is to have these gals go to bed by 7:30 and have time for just us.  Annie had some rough times - then we discovered a molar coming in - she has so many teeth already.  Annie just has this sweetness about her - she will just look over at us and just smile.  Such a way to brighten the day!

 

 

You'd think Lucy dressed up Annabelle, but she didn't!  Annie grabbed all the stuff nearby and just started putting it on!

 

Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from Him.

Sugar & Spice Birthday!

 

Annabelle's birthday was so much fun to plan!  I love planning parties for little kids - it's so much fun for me.  I love making my girls' invitations and cakes/cupcakes, however simple things are!  I was so happy to have my sister and niece to help me out.  I made these cute little cookies - and then my sister glazed and decorated them - they were lovely.  But then completely forgot to get a picture.  I'm going to depend on my sister and hope she has some pictures.  For now, this is what fun things we did for Annie's party day.

 

Cute, simple invitations.  I used pink card stock that had raised polka-dots on it and made two invites per page.  Then cut down the middle and added a sparkly cupcake to the top.  Easy peasy.

Party bags - to fill with candy.  All the little girls received a hair barrette that I made and our one little prince @ the party received funny glasses and harmonica.  Party bags were from a party store - then I printed out labels.  Added a lollipop sticker and wa-la!  Cuteness!

Sweet central!  Candy bar!

A variety of candy - plus cinnamon/sugar mixture for the Mommas

Banner idea came from Martha Stewart online - tissue pom poms also came from Martha - however, I learned of them second hand from a friend.  All super easy!

MMMMM!  Cake!  I love making my girl's cakes.  I know my sister got a shot of it - but the inside was a zebra pattern.

 

Cousins!

 

crazy fam picture

Cake banner with Annie's name

 

 

I made a little smash cake for the birthday girl

 

Sissy stepped in to help a little bit.

 

Then Eloise jumped in!  Then Karah - which I didn't have a shot of....but I know my sister does!

Love my sis - here she is with Annie-banannie

Opening presents - look at that red face!  Gotta' use natural red dye next time!

More presents and party girls in the back! 

 

What a fun time!  I'm so excited and already planning Lucy's birthday. 

 

All in all - we were thrilled to just enjoy celebrating our sweet little girl with beautiful friends.  Once I have pics uploaded we'll show the birthday girl on her TRUE first birthday!

We love you,  Annabelle Kate!

Sum, Sum, Summertime!

Oh wow!  It's been so hot here!  Our van registered 111 degrees today - not all that accurate, but close!  Hopefully my east coast and MI friends are staying a little cooler. 

We've been busy here with playdates and a little traveling.  We're about to get a bunch of visitors for the rest of July, so that is a ton of fun.  June was so much fun as well as my friend Kathy came with her kids - more on that later.  So this month we are looking forward to Grandma & Grandpa visiting from Panama, Nanny and Pappy coming from PA, and Cousin Olivia coming in from MD.  The rest of our month is jam packed with visitors and we are so excited!!!

Here are some pictures of our sweet girls:

 Annie's first bath in the sink.  We never did this with Lucy - and Annie just had so much fun!

 Someone's tired!!!  Yes, she has found her thumb and that makes this Mommy so happy!  So adorable!

 These sisters have fun together.  Look @ Annabelle pushing up like that - but don't let her fool you!  This girl is still not interested in crawling at all!  Lucy is such a smiler!

Just getting cool in the back yard

Fun in the Sun

Annie is loving spending time in her new swing.
Lucy loves every part of this new swing set!

Thanks Nanny and Pappy for the swing set! We've been outside now every nice day that we have. I love that the girls have this outside now - it reminds me so much of my own childhood. I've been showing Lucy all the different things I used to do when I was a child - flipping over the bars, swinging on my belly. It took Lu just 2 days to learn how to pump her legs and swing like a champ!

And you know Lucy has to swing while fancy as well!

Sweet Girls

Lucy, 4, is such a performer. She loves to sing, dance, and perform for anyone. She's so into princesses and dresses - anything that sparkles and is frilly. But she does love to run around and play baseball with Daddy. She's excited about getting back into ballet again. Lucy loves preschool and is doing so well. Her personality is definitely coming through - as well as some spunkiness. But she is a huge joy and definitely keeps me going all day long.
Annabelle, now 7months, is such a sweetie. This pic shows her first time in a restaurant high chair. She is rolling over and sitting up on her own. Still hates her belly though, but tolerates it a lot more now. Annie is hardly ever fussy unless she is very tired - very go-with-the-flow. She is a watcher - she loves to watch us do things and definitely is a great audience for Lucy!

Thank you, Lord, for these two sweet, amazing gifts that we have been given on this side of heaven.

Enjoying one of my all-time favorite treat as a kid - strawberries dipped in powdered sugar.
This is what happens when you accidentally sneeze into a bowl of powdered sugar!

Showing off her new hair band

Annabelle adores this Rapunzle doll

I came downstairs to see this! Annie was "looking" at her book while Lucy was reading her sister "Brown Bear, Brown Bear."

I'm 6 Months!!

Ok - a little early - on the 23rd Annie will be 6 months but we had her 6 month checkup today!


Stats
Weight - 16 lbs
Head Circumference - 16 3/4
and......
tada!
Length - 27 in. - 90-95th %tile
She is going to be a tall lady!

Still on reflux meds - and we'll try to wean her in 3 months. She also rolled over just once this week from belly to back, big accomplishment! She loves all her veggies so far - I made her some butternut squash that she devours each time we give it to her. Surprisingly she is not a huge fan of fruits just yet. She's so silly and loves games of peek-a-boo. She gets giggly and jumpy when we sing "If You're Happy and You Know It." Annie adores big sister Lucy - and will watch her dance and laugh each time she spins.
We love our sweet Annabelle!

here we go again! Croup - round 3! Poor kid - we just don't know why she keeps ending up with this. Thankfully our pediatrician called in some steroids a few hours after she woke up coughing. She had stridor at rest - so we needed the steroids. At first she wanted us to go to the ER, but we wanted to try the meds first. Today she is fever free and still has a rough cough. But she wanted to go to preschool. She's a trooper and on the mend!
Miss Annabelle allowed me to keep her on her belly for some time this day. About 2 min. before she started freaking out. :)

Check out this hair! It looks like this every single day. We cannot get the little tuft of hair to stay down. I don't know what we'll do when it actually does stay down -she won't look like herself!

Annie and Iris

How cute are these two? Annie and Iris had their first "playdate" today. Well, Annie woke up just in time before Iris left, so they hung out long enough for us to take a picture. Amazing to see the difference in size - Lucy is 5 months and Iris is 1 month. She is also wearing a cute sleeper that both Lucy and Annabelle wore. (it's been great 'cleansing' out all the baby clothes - and the maternity clothes!) Time goes by way too fast!

Just because she is soooo darn cute!!

The last few weeks have been pretty amazing here at the house. Right after we returned from Disney, Annie just became a different baby. The fussiness began to go away and she became this smiling, cooing baby. We figured she was hit by a little bit of the Disney magic, some pixie dust, or maybe even the magical kiss she received from Belle in the castle?

Probably not.....

At her 4 month appointment, I shared how she had started to decline in her eating (actually she's never been a big eater). There were times it was so hard to get 2 oz in her. Our ped asked us how the zantac was going to which I told her that we had stopped because when we came in once for a weight check "Dr. X" told us to stop using it because she "didn't have reflux if she was sleeping at night in her flat crib." Upon hearing this, my ped rolled her eyes and said, "This is probably why she isn't eating well." She checked the dosing and since Annie had gained so much weight, the dose we had been giving her weeks earlier was so small it was doing nothing for her. So she upped her dose - and we started giving her the zantac again the day before we left for Disney.

By the time we came home - one week - she was seriously a different baby. We just never really thought of reflux because most of the time when babies have reflux they are vomiting or spitting up. So, most likely, she has what is called silent reflux. Babies bring up the stomach acids, but swallow them back down - so really, it's been called worse than just reflux because it burns on the way up and on the way down.

We can't give her the zantac just by itself. It takes awful, and she vomits it (and the rest of her stomach contents) up every time we try. So we have to put it in her bottle - and lately have been making smaller bottles so that she takes all the meds.

All this makes sense. We had an extremely fussy, crying baby for the first 4 months of her life. She has this cough we hear esp. when she is sleeping at night, she arches her back when feeding, fusses during feedings, has 'wet burps', gets hiccups almost after every feed, and her breath can smell awful. (the latter has gotten much better once on the meds). Also I've heard that babies with silent reflux also have low muscle tone/control in their upper bodies, which we've noticed with her as well.

I'm definitely in the camp that believes that reflux is HIGHLY overdiagnosed. Lucy was on reflux meds, and I definitely do not believe that she had reflux. So when our ped first suggested the zantac for Annie, I was very skeptical - and that's also why we didn't really give it to her as often as we should have. We changed her formula like 3 times, thinking that she was allergic to milk protein. Poor thing was just in pain the whole time.

Annabelle is still having some trouble with it for sure. We're going to keep an eye on her and make sure that the medication is working well for her. But if you remember, please pray that she hasn't had any damage to her esophogus the past few months and that it resolves itself soon. (most babies get better after they can sit up - around 6ish months).

For the first time - last night she slept from 7pm - 6:50 am!

Big Girl!

Happy 4 Months!

Miss Annie is growing! At her 4 month appointment she weighed in @ 13.7 lbs and is in the 80th %tile for length! Girlie is going to be tall! I was wondering why all her 3 month clothes were so loose around the top, but noticed that she was busting out of the bottom.

She is doing well and growing. She is much different from her sister. At this age Lucy was pushing up on her arms and playing with all her toys on the exersaucer. Annabelle absolutely hates tummy time (she face plants and even though we put her arms under her, she won't use them) and when we put her in the exersaucer she slumps over to one site and will either start to scream or begin to suck on the fabric. So we have to work on her upper body strength - and sadly that means we have to endure her screaming through all these activities. She's the happiest baby on her back. She giggles, coos and babbles - but since our ped said she is getting a flat spot on the back of her head - we need to get her off her back, other than sleeping.

She tried her first cereal today (barley, yum!). She didn't like it so much and was gagging a bit - because her silly Mommy didn't mix it properly and made it too thick. No wonder the poor thing was gagging. Tomorrow we'll be sure to give her the right consistency.

Annie is quite the fireball. She definitely has a temper to match her crazy hair. We love her to pieces, but wow does that crying and fussing get to us! We are definitely praying that she outgrows it and soon! Still trying to get her to learn to nap - we'll get there! (please say we'll get there!) and she is still waking up in the night for us. She was doing great for a while and getting up only once, but now she is getting up twice and then starting her day way too early for our liking. She is so exhausted from not napping, that she tries to turn her late nap @ 5:00 pm into her bedtime. We hate doing it - but we wake her up around 6-6:30 just so we can get her cleaned up and get another feeding in for the day.

We love this little girl! She's throwing us for a loop and she is one tough cookie - but we treasure her!