Carly, Ryleigh and Kate

Here are some recent pictures of Carly. She is starting to have more wake times so you can see some pictures of her eyes. Overall, I feel like she is pretty laid back baby. I know they say that is typical of the second baby, but I don't think that is always true. Her reflux doesn't seem to make her too upset, which is nice. We tried bottles this week, but she still would prefer to nurse instead. She will drink an ounce or two and then get frustrated and want to nurse instead. We are going to continue to work on it, though. Also, a week and a half ago I got to hold Ryleigh for the first time! What a blessing. I just looked at her amazed at how far she has come! She could be going home as early as a month-WOW!
I have also really been enjoying Kate's age. However, I have to really watch her because she comes up with ideas that can be quite messy at times. For example, this past week I went to get something out of the freezer and she grabbed the bag of decaf. coffee without me seeing her. Then went and poured it in her bowl in the living room. I walked in and saw her sticking her fingers in it. I am sure she just thought it was dirt since she loves to play with dirt outside, but I am still glad that I didn't see her eating coffee. At least it was decaf! I also walked in this morning to find Kate dipping my hairbrushes in the toilet bowl. I have let her help me clean the toilets before with the cleaning brush, so I think she thought she was being helpful. However, that does not explain why she was dipping my old teeth retainers in the toilet. Don't worry I have not worn my retainers in years! Those things would definitely not fit in my mouth! I am posting a picture of Kate at around Carly's age. We think there are some similarities between them, but mostly we think they look different from each other. Let me know what you think!

Sweet Carly

Here is Ryleigh

Carly again with her eyes open

Here is the coffee incident

What did I do?

Daddy giving Carly a bottle for the first time

Carly's gangster sign

You will have to excuse Kate without her pants on. She is really into taking off her clothes right now! Yeah for us!

I love this cherry outfit!

Here is Kate at Carly's age. What do you think?

Recent pictures and percentages

We went to the doctor last Friday for Carly's checkup. I was amazed to find out that Carly is already weighing 9 pounds and 5 ounces! This puts her at 75 percent for her weight. That is two pounds more than her birth weight! I don't remember what her length and head width was, but they both were considered 50 percent. I can't believe she is already a little over 3 weeks old! In some ways it has gone fast and in some ways slow! Overall, she is doing great! She is on Prevacid now for her acid reflux, which has helped. The doctor advised us to keep letting her sleep in her carseat. This is where she is most comfortable and it helps with her acid reflux. I don't know if any of you have heard of the Nap Nanny? This is something that you can purchase to keep babies elevated when they are sleeping. I thought this was a good option, but it is over 100 dollars! Good grief! We will have to wait and see if we want to spend the money on that. Let me know if any of you have used it and have had good results. You can buy them at baby stores. Kate has still been doing a really good job with Carly. She has also gotten more interested in her babies since we have had Carly, which is so sweet. Last Saturday was the March for Babies Race at Dallas White Rock and Kamara's small group along with family, friends, and some other people from church joined a team called Race For Ryleigh Grace. I was so disappointed that I could not be there. We did not feel that it was a good idea to be in that setting with Carly just being three weeks old. However, Zack did go with Kate. I enjoyed looking over the footage and pictures of this great event. It really meant a lot to the family that so many people came to support Ryleigh Grace and the March of Dimes. The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. They have blessed many lives with all of their research.
Enjoy the pictures! I also am posting some pictures of Carly's room.

Kate being sweet to her little sister. At first I wasn't going to post the second picture due to Kate's drooling, but I thought oh well! They are still cute pictures. One day Kate will stop drooling!

One of the activities that I do with Kate to keep her entertained at home. We just put a bucket of soapy water outside with some different measuring cups and spoons and she has a blast! However, she also likes to dump out the water!

This is what happens when Daddy plays with Kate outside. He put some nice stripes of dirt on her face!

A couple of pictures from the Race! These shirts won the shirt contest! Robbie from their church did a great job putting this all together and making these shirts with his wife Kristen.
Some of Ryleigh's cousins: The Thompson kids: Cale, Will and Jaydan

Daddy and Kate

The next two pictures are the new canvas frames with verses in the girl's rooms. If you are interested in getting something similar you can go to this website. I love them! http://woyheart.blogspot.com/

More pictures from Carly's room. We only made a couple of changes from Kate's old room to make it Carly's room.

Kate's putting her baby in the stroller. So cute!

I wanted all of you to see how long and curly Kate's hair has gotten!

Family of Four

I am sorry that I am just now updating my blog, but it has been a little crazy around here. It seems like Carly is older than two weeks since our nights have been longer with feedings etc...

So far, Carly and Kate are doing really well with each other. Carly is only going to know a home where there is frequent noise around her. This is why the second child is usually more laid back. With Kate, I always wanted to nurse in a quieter place, but that is not the case with Carly. Kate is really good when I am feeding her. She isn't trying to climb up on me or getting upset that I am spending time with Carly. However, she is usually playing around us and it is definitely not quiet. I have tried to feed Carly in the playroom instead of always in the living room in front of the TV. Kate has never been a huge TV watcher, and I don't want to start that now. Kate has been so sweet to get things for us for Carly or to go put a blanket on Carly. I have tried to make Kate feel a part of everything by talking about Carly and having her help me when she can. Many of you told me that Kate would seem so big to us when we had Carly, and that is so true! It is especially true when I go from changing Carly's diaper to Kate's diaper. Kate does all of a sudden seem like a big sister and not our little Baby Kate that we have called her since she was born. Carly sleeps a lot at this point. We are hoping this lasts since Kate was not much of a sleeper as a newborn. I read all the books and tried all the tricks with Kate and it just wasn't working. Eventually, we figured it out and now Kate is a great sleeper, so no matter what, this too shall pass. We are adjusting to the very limited sleep that we get a night. It is amazing that your body is some how able to function with only 4-5 hours of sleep at night, and that is in 1-2 hour increments! The main issue that we are having with Carly is that she has a little bit of acid reflux, so she spits up after a lot of the feedings. We have to make sure that she is burped after nursing on each side. Sometimes this takes awhile. We also have to keep her elevated when she is laying down, so she has been sleeping in her car seat, not to mention she is constantly falling asleep while nursing! Kate was also this way. It doesn't matter what I do-cold rag, take off her clothes, change her diaper, etc.. she will not wake up! She is getting better at this as she is starting to wake up more now that she is two weeks old. However, it can still take quite awhile between the diaper change, waking her up and nursing. We can usually expect an hour per feeding, especially at night. She will wake up on her own anywhere from 2-4 hours between feedings at night. During the day it is usually 2-3 hours. She likes the swing, which is a huge blessing! So overall, we are doing great! Zack's mom stayed with us the whole first week, which was a huge blessing! It was so nice to have her here for Kate, to do household chores, and to spend time with Zack. Zack would take Kate and her on what he called "field trips." I have missed having both of them here this week. Zack and I both feel like this week has been especially long. Carly is waking up a little more frequently this week than she did last week, and she is taking longer to fall back asleep. We have had some time periods where I just let her sleep on my chest. I am not a big fan of this for long term, but we are in survival mode right now! We have enjoyed watching both of our girls these past two weeks. I have tried to be creative with activities to do with Kate since we are not getting out much yet with Carly. The nicer weather really helps, too! We felt very blessed to have a very smooth delivery with Carly and so far a pretty easy recovery. As you may have remembered it was not so easy with Kate. After everything that has happened the past couple of months we are very grateful! Thank you so much for all of your prayers for us, too. Continue to pray for us as we are adjusting to our family of four, also pray for Carly's acid reflux. It can be pretty scary at times. Last night she was spitting up a lot through her nose and mouth. She looks so miserable when it happens, too. We have already realized how fast the time goes with children and how fast Kate seems to be growing up. It is important that we relish this time with both of our little girls, because they won't be little for long. We go to the doctor this week for a check-up. I will give you her stats then. Enjoy our pictures!

Here are some Easter pictures. Kate really picked up on the whole Easter Egg Hunt idea. We had our own Easter Egg hunt here are our house with Mom Mom and Dad Dad, and then another one at my parent's house with all the grandchildren.
At my parent's house, we did one hunt for the toddlers and one for the older kids. Kate loved picking up the eggs. She filled her whole basket!

Doesn't Carly look so cute after her bath?
Kamara got lots of things monogrammed for me, this burp cloth is one of my favorites in the bottom picture! I love it that it says Kate's little sis on it. I also love the last picture of Carly with her little smile! So precious!