Birthday Cake Disasters and Sleeping Babies

Last weekend, Kurt and I celebrated our birthdays. For those of you who don't know, our birthdays are one day apart. (I had to jump back on and edit this post to let you all know that our birthdays are one day apart, but we are NOT the same age!! Kurt turned 29 and I turned 28. Only one of us is almost in our 30s!!) Anyway, Kurt had requested his mom make a chocolate cake with seven minute icing. You also may not know that Ava LOVES birthday cake!! She gets so excited when someone is having a birthday and tells them she is going to eat their cake. Well, Kurt's sister, Kirby, had decorated the birthday cake and Ava was helping her put the candles on top when Ava slipped off the chair she was standing on and her entire forearm fell straight into the cake. It was so funny! Here is the demolished cake...


Don't worry...Ava made sure to lick all the icing off her hand and arm. :) Ava loves blowing out the candles almost as much as she loves cake!


Maybe I should also mention that Kurt and Ava had gone swimming and Ava already had her bath which is why she is wearing Kurt's old Dallas Cowboys shirt in these pictures. She loves wearing Daddy and Uncle Kolton's old t-shirts to bed!!

I'm sure Kirby is going to kill me for this picture, but she is always complaining that she doesn't have any pictures with Audrey, so I'm making sure to put one on my blog.

Yesterday, Ava didn't take a nap and then we went to the playground after dinner. After her bath, she asked if she could watch a cartoon before bed. We turned one on for her in her playroom and went into the living room. Apparently, she was very tired because this is what we found when we went in there to put her to bed.

Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever seen?? Another disclaimer...Kurt let Ava pick out her own pajamas before bed. This post is filled with awesome outfits for Ava!

Rain...finally

Along with everyone else in Texas, it hasn't rained here in months. Today, I decided to take Ava and Audrey to the store by myself for the first time. We got everyone dressed and into the car and it started pouring down rain! Unbelievable!! We still survived the trip, and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. We went into a little store where I couldn't take my stroller, so Ava was on the loose. Luckily, she was so busy showing off her "new baby sister" that she didn't get into too much. :)

By the end of the trip, Audrey thought she was starving. So, she was screaming in the backseat while Ava was singing Baa Baa Black Sheep at the top of her lungs. Since I knew there was no time to make Ava lunch when we got home before Audrey needed to eat, we stopped at McDonalds because, in her words, Ava's tummy was very hungry. Yes, I know I'm going to win Mother of the Year since I talked about Chick-fil-a in my last post and McDonalds in this one, but you have to do what you have to do, right? Anyway, Ava decided that store was fun because she got McDonalds after and asked when we'll go back. Now she is sitting here telling me that McDonalds in "yummy in her tummy". Oh my...we need to get back to eating better before she thinks she gets to eat like this all the time!!

P.S. I at least got her apple slices instead of fries! :)

Things to remember...

I need to write down a few things I want to remember about these early days as a mother of 2. They will eventually go in the baby book, but I don't have time for that right now. :)

Ava is definitely a great big sister. She does not like it when Audrey cries and runs around frantically looking for her "fier". For some reason, she started calling her pacifier "fier" and it is so adorable. We call it a "paci", so I'm not sure where she got this. She'll run around the house, "where is Audrey's fier???" :)

Audrey spits up just as much as Ava did, if not more! I was hoping I would only have one child that spit up constantly, but that didn't happen. When Audrey spits up, Ava likes to inform us that Audrey just "spilled". I can't tell you how many times a day Ava is yelling, "Audrey spilled...Audrey spilled again!"

Today, I officially felt like a mother of two when I had to take Ava to the potty while nursing Audrey. Of course, Ava wanted to sit on the big potty instead of her little potty. So, I pulled down Ava's pants, lifted her onto the potty, lifted her back off, and pulled up her pants all while feeding a baby. Now, that is challenging! At least she went on the potty!!

Okay, now I have a hungry baby and another child who wants to go to Chicken-Fla for lunch. For those of you who don't know Ava well, that's what she calls Chick-Fil-A. She likes to go there and get "baby chickens". Yes, this disturbs us too, but she just wants chicken nuggets and not chicken strips. It is a little embarrasing when you're sitting in Chick-fil-a and your child is talking loudly about how she loves eating baby chickens! I'm thinking life will never be dull with my two sweet girls.

Pictures

Tuesday, I took both of the girls to get their pictures taken. Actually, they were Audrey's newborn pictures and we wanted some of Ava and Audrey together. They did so good!! Luckily, Audrey slept through most of her pictures (which we wanted) and Ava was really excited to get pictures taken with her little sister. We haven't seen her smile that big for pictures since she was 6 months old! I can't wait to see them, but the proofs won't be ready for 2 weeks!

Now, here are a few pictures of our little Audrey. It is so difficult to take pictures of them at this age. They always looked all scrunched up. Oh well...

Audrey did not want her picture taken :)




Whenever we take pictures, Ava has to pull her camera out too


Not a great picture of Audrey, but I thought she looked so cute in her little outfit!


These pictures are for Kurt. I got Audrey all dressed up in her Aggie gear today, but I waited too long to take the pictures. By the time I got around to it, it was time to eat and she was not excited about me being in her face with the camera. Oh well, screaming pictures are cute too, right?

First Day Home Alone...

Today is my first full day home alone with my two girls. It's only 10am, but things are going well so far. I may be checking back in this afternoon saying something completely different. :)

I've been getting nasty emails about not updating :), so I'll try to let you all know what we've been up to for the last two weeks. Things have actually been going pretty well. The first week was a little crazy because we were in the hospital for two days and then had to go to the doctor three times by the time she was a week old. Audrey lost about 12% if her body weight in the first 4 days. It took us a couple of days to get nursing down well and then my milk didn't come in until Thursday (she was born Monday). I really wasn't too concerned because I thought she would do fine once my milk came in. I had enough with Ava to feed 3 babies! We went to the doctor on Thursday and she weighed 5 lbs. 9 oz. By Saturday morning, she weighed 5 lbs. 11.5 oz.. On Monday morning, she was already up to 5 lbs. 15.6 oz. Needless to say, she was thriving once she actually had something to eat. The other concern was her biliruben level. It was rising while we were in the hospital, so the doctor wanted us to be checked by our pediatrician the next day. She was looking a little yellow, but he didn't check her level on Thursday. On Saturday, he checked her blood again and her level was 14.4. He had us put her in the sun a couple of times a day over the weekend. By Monday, she looked a lot better and we could tell her levels were on their way down. He said her face and eyes would be the last thing to clear up and her eyes could take 2 weeks to look completely normal.

She has done great her second week! She is actually two weeks old today. It's already gone by too fast. Audrey is eating every 2-3 hours during the day and cluster feeding just like Ava at night before bed which means she may eat every 1-2 hours for about 3 sessions before she goes to bed around 11:00-11:30pm. Of course, we've had our rough nights like every new parents, but for the most part she is sleeping 6-8 hours. She was very sweet to me last night and slept 8 hours (well, actually 7 since it took her about an hour to eat and get back to bed). She woke up about an hour before Ava, so by the time I got done feeding and changing her, Ava was up for the day. It still was a really good night.

Ava is doing absolutely great!!! She is such a good little helper. Of course, she is needing a little extra attention, but she has adjusted really well to Audrey. She is really excited to have Audrey at home with us and loves telling people she is a big sister! She is so good with her and gives her the softest kisses. I really need to get it on video. I want her to be able to see how sweet she was to her sister when she is older.

I think I have a few people who read my blog who are pregnant right now, so I have to share one of my favorite baby products. Actually, it is a life saver when you are completely sleep deprived. I bought mine off of a website called Mom 4 Life. Here is the link: http://www.mom4life.com/catalog.php?item=20
I have the midnight blue bracelet which actually looks black. You can track what time your baby last ate by moving the charm around on the bracelet. It is also super easy to move back and forth on each wrist so you know which side you started nursing on last time. I bought it when Ava was a newborn and it still looks great! I took it off to go to church yesterday and I was completely lost. I literally can't remember anything these days. Anyway, just thought I would share. :)

Pictures

Okay, I know I'm about a week and a half late, but I'm finally getting around to updating with pictures. I'll try to do better, but it's been a little crazy around here. We keep getting pictures of people with Audrey, but I keep forgetting to get some cute pictures of just her. I'll update what has been going on later, but I have just a few mintues before Audrey needs to eat again!

The night before Audrey arrived


Right after she was born


Proud Daddy (I wish I had video of the first time he held her...so sweet!!!!)


First picture as a family of four (of course, we couldn't get everyone looking and smiling at the same time)


Our sweet Audrey right after she was born




The day after she was born (so glad to actually get to have her with us!)


Ava "holding" Audrey for the first time




Ava, Audrey, and Boompa (Kurt's grandpa)


Daddy kissing those cute baby feet


Her "preemie" coming home outfit (it was still huge!!)






You don't know how happy we were to be leaving the hospital WITH our baby this time!!


Nana M. (my grandma) with Audrey


Kurt's grandpa with Audrey


Kurt's grandma with Audrey and Ava


Kurt's dad with Audrey


Audrey had a little bit of jaundice, so this is her getting some sun


Daddy and his two girls




Boompa and Audrey


Nana G. (my grandma) with Audrey


The next few are a little out of order, but I don't have time to fix it right now

Daddy and Ava in the hospital (she is wearing her big sister shirt)


Grandparents meeting Audrey for the first time


Audrey got Ava a digital camera (you can see her taking pictures)


Daddy and Uncle Kolton


Audrey and her two grandmas


Her first bath in the hospital