Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!  Here are some pictures from our day...

They got to pick out their pumpkins.

The look of complete awe tells us she found the right one!

Elli began her day as a pumpkin but finished as a ghost.

Adorable.



Livi the giraffe was ready to go.

But Addi the tiger thought tigers needed a snack first.

This is as good as it gets trying to photograph all three.

Elli thought the whole holiday was a hoot!

Too dang cute to be a scary ghost.

Rawr!!!

Do giraffes gallop?  Well, she thinks so.



Good night.

I better write now...

...because I think our computer is petering out on us.  So this may or may not be the last post for a while.  In fact, I just realized that I can't post pictures because of what's currently going on with the computer.  Hmmm.

But speaking of pictures, I finally transferred all of them from the last 2+ years to a flash drive as well as an external hard drive.  I've printed very few pictures dating all the way back to the big girls' birth.  And wouldn't that be devastating if the computer crashed and I lost all of those?!  Ugh, I can't even imagine!  So it's taken a computer scare to get my butt in gear and back up all of those pictures.

Anyway, Elli started smiling a little over a week ago.  She's been a little bugger though and wouldn't let me catch it with the camera!  Of course, until today...when I can't share it anyway!  There's nothing like a huge gummy baby smile!  I love it!!

She continues to be a very good baby.  She wakes up about 3-4 times a night, but she's strictly business most of the time.  She generally just wants to be fed and she goes right back to sleep.  Of course, she does have her nights where she decides she wants to play when she wakes up.  But thankfully, it doesn't happen very often.  I'm actually kind of surprised because if you can remember, she NEVER slept while in the womb.  She was on the go constantly.  I thought for sure she was going to be a lot like her biggest sister in that regard and I'm so thankful that she's not!!  Addi rarely slept.  And in fact, she's still not a great sleeper.  But Elli takes good naps and sleeps quite well at night.  So different than her antics in the middle of the night while I was pregnant with her!!

The only complaint I have about Elliana is that she doesn't reliably take a bottle.  It's been tough on me because I don't get much of a break.  Not that I need much of a break, but I would sometimes just like to run a few errands without worrying about whether or not she's screaming her little head off because she's hungry (but refusing the bottle).  We've tried 2 different nipples for the same bottle and we're now on a different bottle to see if she likes them better.

I have a dentist appointment on Friday and will have a sitter here to watch all three girls.  My anxiety has been sky high for over a week now even thinking about it!  At least if I'm running errands, I can quickly make it home if I receive a phone call.  But I can't just up and leave the dental office.  I mean, I could.  But I really shouldn't.  So please keep your fingers crossed that she either doesn't get hungry while I'm gone or she decides that she's okay with the bottle that day.  She doesn't refuse all the time, but she's definitely hit or miss.

In other news, Adalyn recently cut three of her two year molars!  It absolutely shocked me for a couple reasons.  1) The bottom molars are "supposed" to come in first.  But leave it to Addi...her first two were the top ones!  And 2) Livi has *always* held the tooth count lead.  So I was watching her more carefully than Addi, especially because her fingers are constantly in her mouth and have been for a couple months now.  However, it was Addi who cut the first molar (and second, and third).  Just when you think you have them figured out - you don't.

We've been sick

We've had a sick household over the past week.  Elli seems to be the only one who has managed to avoid the sick bug (knock on wood).  So here are just a few pictures for now.  Hopefully I'll feel up to writing sometime very soon.

Bad day revisited...

So back to the big girls' 2 year appointment.  It was downright awful.  Miserable.  Terrible.  Sad.  Once we were called back to the room, we made the journey down the long hallways.  We didn't even get halfway to the room and Adalyn started saying "no, no, no" and ran the other way.  Then we get in the room, both of them are crying already.  We stripped Addi down first for her temperature, weight, height and head circumference.  You would've thought that we were breaking her arm!  She cried SO hard.  When they put the thermometer under her arm, she started yelling "owie, owie!!"  When they put her on the scale, she dang near jumped from it back into Nate's arms.  So they had to weigh Nate on a traditional scale while holding her and then weigh him alone.

Meanwhile, Alivia took off down the hallway, navigating her twists and turns almost all the way out to the waiting room.  How she remembered the maze of halls to get back to Point A is amazing.  I get her back to where we need to be and strip her down.  The chaos continues.  She cries, but not quite as hard.  But she's definitely ticked off and/or scared as well.

Did I mention that Elli is joining in on the fun and screaming her little head off?  So while Nate is trying to control Addi and I'm trying to control Livi, a poor nurse had to try to console the wee one.  I'm glad we had late appointments (on Tuesdays, the peds clinic does after hours appts) so that we weren't entirely disruptive to the entire clinic!

Okay.  So we're back in the room.  All 3 calmed down and the big girls were playing.  Dr K comes in and they're both still doing great.  We talked about our questions/concerns, etc.  The doc took a look at Livi first.  She did pretty well - she just didn't want her ears looked at!  Then the doc looked at Addi.  Yeah, she wasn't happy.  Dr K knew right off the bat that she wouldn't be sitting Addi on the end of the exam table to test her reflexes!!  The child was NOT going to sit still.

So both girls got a clean bill of health.  BUT, they still had to have their shots.  Three of them a piece.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  I thought the shots were bad when they were little.  I was wrong.  When they actually know what pain is and somewhat understand what's going on...then it's bad!  It took forever to calm them down.  To rip my heart out even more, little Addi is screaming "all done, all done, buh-bye? buh-bye? buh-bye, please?!"  Heart-wrenching.  Anyway, so they calmed down.  But you know what?  We weren't done yet.  They still had to have a finger poke to check their hemoglobin levels (I guess it's somewhat common for kids this age to be anemic?).  So in walks the lab tech and we start the screaming, crying, pleading all over again.

Whew.  Done.  We took the girls through Hardee's on our way home and bribed them with some french fries.  They deserved it.  It was a rough hour for all of us!

Anyway.  Both of the girls are 35 inches tall putting them right at about the 85th percentile.  Adalyn weighed 26 pounds even (45%) and Alivia was 27lbs 4oz (60%).  And while we were there, we had Elli weighed simply because I'm concerned about how frequently she vomits.  I swear that I am constantly feeding and refeeding her.  I feed her, burp her, she throws up, so I refeed her (because she acts super hungry), burp her, she throws up...rinse and repeat.  Luckily, my refeeding efforts are paying off.  At one month old she weighed in at 9lbs 12oz.  What's kinda weird to me is that my little Adalyn only weighed 9lbs 10oz at TWO months old!  Of course, Elli got a nice little jump start with her birth weight!

So yeah.  It was a long, tiring, painful day.  I've decided that from here on out, Elli will NOT be going with us to the big girls' appts.  And I'm actually going to schedule the girls at different times and only take one at a time.  I'll take one before nap and then one after.  I think they played into each other too much and therefore, cried even harder, louder, and longer.  Granted, the shots hurt, but there wasn't a huge need to be crying while getting weighed or even getting undressed for that matter!

Pictures to come.  And more about little Elliana...oh, and teeth, too!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Adalyn and Alivia!

I don't even have the words. Where have the last two years gone?! Just like last year, I sang Happy Birthday to the girls at 7:05 and 7:33 this morning. Oh, and I threw in a Happy 1 month Birthday song to Elli at 7:25 while I was at it!! The big girls actually weren't even awake yet, so I essentially sang it to myself. Elli was laying next to me, but she was still sleeping too. Yeah, I'm crazy. But I remember singing to the big girls last year at the time that they were born...so I figured I'd keep the very short tradition going!!

And of course, I cried. I really would've hated to see how much I would've cried if I was just one or two weeks post partum. I generally don't cry a lot. Never really have. But wow, the couple weeks after having a baby are rough! The simplest little things had me melting into a puddle of tears. So let's just be thankful that Elli was a month old today and most of those hormones have exited my body. Otherwise I'd probably still be crying!!

Because Elli is being baptized next month, we decided to do a joint Baptism and birthday party all at once so that our out of town family (which is everyone!) doesn't have to make the trip twice. Turns out that most of them made the trip anyway! Nate's mom, sister, and our niece came over the weekend. So we had a little party in honor of their birthday...complete with gift opening and yummy cupcakes. Then today my mom, dad, and both of my grandmas came to visit. We had another mini celebration with ice cream cups.  Enjoy the pictures.

Hmmm.  Interesting.

Would somebody PUH-LEASE help me get this thing started?!

Modeling their cheerleading outfits and pom-poms.

Adalyn had the right idea.

And did quite well!

Alivia HAD the right idea.

And then decided to say screw it...I'm drinking it!

They had their 2 year appointment yesterday.  It was far too traumatic to write about in their birthday blog.  So that's a different post for a different day.  Happy Birthday my sweet little "babies" - mommy loves you so much!!  Good night.

My little monkeys

The big girls go through phases where they hate bananas and want absolutely nothing to do with them.  And then they have their days where they simply can't get enough!  We recently found out that if we leave the peels on the bananas, they suddenly become more interesting!  They each downed about a banana and a half when we left the peels on for them.  So...out of a desperate desire to get the big girls to eat better, I kept this tactic in mind.  I went to the store and tried buying some Go-Gurt yogurt thinking that it would be more "fun" for them to eat it out of a tube than with a bowl and spoon.  Yeah, epic fail.  Still can't get them to touch yogurt with a 10 foot pole.  Ugh.  So the food battle continues.

Elli is fantastic.  She's pretty much a complete 180 from what the girls were.  Knock on wood, but she continues to sleep pretty well.  Last night she had an almost 5 hour stretch of sleep!  To put that into perspective, I have an almost two year old who still struggles to sleep for 5 hours straight!  As with any baby, she does have some fussy moments during the day, but overall, she's such a great baby.

However, because she doesn't cry that often, little Adalyn tends to get freaked out by it.  If the big girls are taking a nap or are in bed for the night and Elli has "a moment," Addi tends to wake up absolutely screaming.  So we usually have to get her in order to calm her down.  We have a white noise machine running in their room, but she's hearing Elli over that.  On the other hand, Livi sleeps right through it (thank God).  The odd thing is that Adalyn will sleep through Alivia's little whimpers and random musings in the middle of the night (the girl sometimes likes to carry on conversations at 2am), but she can't sleep through Elliana's cries.  I think it's simply because she's used to Livi's voice and cries, but she hasn't heard Elli cry enough quite yet...which I guess is kind of a good thing?!

In a complete change of subject, I'm stressing over 2 year pictures.  The girls are turning two in just a few days and I want to get our usual pictures taken of them together as well as them individually.  But I also want to get pictures taken of all three together and a nice family picture.  Trying to coordinate outfits is NOT easy!!  Ugh.  I was hoping to get all three girls into matching outfits, but I don't think it's going to happen.  So I'm still trying to throw something together in the next couple of weeks for them to wear...then comes the challenge of dressing Nate and myself as well!

Snoozin' in her swing.

Getting ready for a bath.



Elli vs Addi and Livi

So I know I mentioned before that there were striking similarities between Elli's birth and the girls' birth.  In fact, the similarities are actually kinda scary.

With the "big girls" I went into labor on a Sunday the 12th, during a Packer game, and they were born on Monday morning the 13th.  And with Elli (yep, you guessed it!), I went into labor on Sunday the 12th, during the Packer game, and she was born on Monday morning the 13th!  The girls were born at 7:05 and 7:33am.  Miss Elliana arrived right in the middle at 7:25am!!  How crazy is that?

Those were the biggest similarities.  But there were plenty of smaller similarities as well.

1) Both of the deliveries took place in room 348. 

2) When I was admitted in labor with the big girls, Tess and Lynsey had to stay late in order to "tag team" my admission.  When I was admitted in labor with Elli, the first person I saw when I got off the elevator was Tess.  And Lynsey ended up being my labor nurse!!

3) All of the girls scored a 9 and then a 10 on their Apgars.  And in both instances, the nurses said that they rarely give a score of a 10.  But all three of my girls were able to score tens!

4) Oh yes, I checked into the hospital between 10:30 and 11:00pm with both deliveries.

5) The day after the big girls were born, Nate's best friend, Bill, came to visit us.  And while he was there, the priest from our parish came to visit.  Well wouldn't ya know it - the day after Elli was born, our priest came to visit.  He wasn't in the room longer than 3 minutes and in walks Bill!!

I remember there being a couple other things that were the same as well.  But of course I can't remember them right now!  Oh well.

Elli's stretching out trying to be as big as the girls!

Adalyn's the winner

The winner of what you may ask?  Well, she was the first one to make Elli cry. We knew it would happen some time.  We just didn't know when or who would be the culprit.  Thankfully, it wasn't anything malicious and it was a pure accident. 

Elli was actually laying in my lap on Monday night when Addi went running past me with a soccer ball.  It simply fell out of her hands and bopped Elli on the head from about 3-4 inches away.  I think it scared her more than anything else because she was just starting to drift off to sleep.  Poor Addi felt so bad.  Her demeanor changed and she became very, very sad.  We just explained to her that accidents happen and that we just need to be careful around the baby.  But for the rest of the night, she really wasn't in a playful mood. 

Miss Elliana had her two week appointment on Monday as well.  She has officially surpassed her birth weight.  She was 8lbs 8oz two days ago and they measured her to be 22 inches!!  Hmmm.  She was measured at 20 1/2 inches at birth.  Something tells me that she didn't grow an inch and a half in two weeks!  I actually think she's somewhere in between simply based on how her sleepers fit.  Oh well, measuring an infant is such an inexact science - lay them on a table and try to force their leg straight.  Not easy to do.

We're still here, I promise

We're still doing well.  The girls have adjusted quite nicely to having Elli around.  I'm hoping we might bypass any jealousy issues because the big girls are used to sharing time with us.  They've never had us all to themselves...all they've ever known is that there was another diaper to change, another mouth to feed, another child to play with, etc.  So hopefully they'll continue to be very understanding that Elli has needs that need to be met as well.

Today was my due date.  I can say with 100% certainty that the past two weeks flew by.  Now on the other hand, if I would've still been pregnant, they would've dragged by at snail's pace.  My back was quickly failing me and I had such a hard time even doing the simple things for the girls...changing their diapers, feeding them, etc.  Nevermind actually trying to play with them!  And I'm so incredibly glad that Elliana decided not to "bake" much longer.  They say that babies gain about 1/2 a pound a week in the last few weeks.  So if she had stayed put, she definitely would've been well over 9 pounds!  No thanks.

The big girls make me laugh so much.  They absolutely love watching themselves on video.  I think they would do it for hours if we let them!  Anytime I take out the video camera to catch them doing something or to videotape Elli, they have to immediately see what was filmed.  Then I have to go back to previous videos so that they can watch more.  And boy do they laugh!  It's honestly so cute!

Addi just got done giving me "the look"

Livi was running from daddy when it was time for a diaper change!

Elli doesn't exactly like to be burped.

Mommy spiked my hair after my bath!

Elli's foot next to Addi's.

And Elli's next to Livi's.

 

Has it been a week already?!

At this pace, Elli is going to be as big as the girls in no time at all!  I can't believe my newest baby is a week old already.  I say "newest baby" because I have a hard time letting go of the fact that the older girls are no longer babies...they're toddlers.  They still seemed pretty small to me until I brought Elli home from the hospital.  All of a sudden, I realized just how BIG their hands and feet are.  They're definitely not babies anymore. 

Miss Elliana had her follow-up weight check today.  She gained 3 ounces in the last 3 days.  So she's back to 8 pounds even, which was the weight she was discharged from the hospital at.  The nurse said that she's still looking a bit yellow.  But since she's now gaining weight, they decided not to redraw her bilirubin levels.  And I was so thankful!  Who wants to see their newborn get poked in the heel with a needle?  I'm still waiting on some sun in this neck of the woods.  I think her jaundice would probably be gone by now if we hadn't had a week straight of clouds and rain.  All she needs is a little sun!!!

We go back to the doctor in 1 week for her first official well baby visit.

Sleeping in her carseat.  It's a safe place to put her so she doesn't get stepped on!

With Uncle Jason.

And with Aunt Chelsea.

What a precious little girl.  So peaceful.

Elli's first bath.  She wasn't exactly fond of it!

We got a brand new washer and dryer.  The girls like the box!



I'm realizing that it's much easier to take pictures of a sleeping newborn than two active toddlers!  I feel bad posting so many pictures of Elli and not a whole lot of Addi and Livi.  But if they would sit still for just two minutes, I could snap a few pictures of their lovely faces!  I simply don't have the energy to chase them down right now.