2 months old!

It's hard to believe Phoebe is 2 months old! She must be going through a growth spurt because she has slept a ton the last couple of days. She is smiling quite a bit now and loving her toy dragonfly. She is also sleeping 7-9 hours just about every night, which is great for us!! She is cooing quite a bit, but still doesn't like laying on her own (to play) so she has spent a lot of time in her bouncy seat the last week or so. She has rolled a couple more times, but only when propped on a pillow, so she needs a bit of gravity to help her, which is age appropriate. :)

It has been fun trying some of her little dresses on her now that she is fitting into more of her 3 month clothes. She has a doctor's appointment this week, so we will have an update of her stats soon.

Just the girls!

summer times

So while Phoebe has been sitting around growing (she's 8 weeks already!), the boys have been out playing quite a bit around town at the various parks Bowling Green has to offer. Aunt Beth took a two week trip to Chicago which gave Justin and I a chance to get out with the kids in the evenings to insure their extreme tiredness at bedtime. It's been working pretty well. Owen even opted to push Lewis on the swings some on this trip.





They are so happy there that the pictures turn out better than usual! It was hard to pick which ones to post, but you can stare longer at the ones you like best. :)

in the zone

So going from 2 to 3 kids has been quite an adjustment. I've always heard that going from 1 to 2 kids is the hardest. In our case, that didn't seem to be the case. When Owen was born, Lewis was still non-verbal, and it seemed like when he got some new toys a week later on his birthday, he was content to "play" while I had long feedings and I could easily manage the two of them on walks and that kind of thing.

Now with 3, it is virtually impossible for me to get anywhere on our own. Lewis has therapy at the hospital twice a week, and I went once with all three and it about killed me. Just getting in and out and through the parking lot about put me over the edge. Our boys do not have a concept of safety and while I try to instill that in them, they find it hilarious to run off into the danger zone and my nerves cannot handle it. We have set up a schedule now that allows for someone to be home with Owen while I go back and forth for these appointments, and I'm so grateful for the resources to do this.

The boys also like to fight with each other while I'm stuck nursing Phoebe. It is hard to get up and discipline them each time, so they are taking advantage of the situation. Now that Phoebe is sleeping a bit longer (5-7 hours depending on the night) I am functioning better and able to deal better with them when they need extra attention.

Still, it has been a big adjustment for all of us. We are enjoying Phoebe, and she is starting to coo, and even rolled over twice today (from belly to back) which surprised me at 6 weeks because the boys were both fairly behind developmentally. She is pretty active already and seems eager to move around.

All of this to say....I won't be going anywhere with the three of them by myself unless I am super desperate. We are so thankful for our providers (Aunt Beth, Mandy Guss, Krista Posey, Katrina Giannini and Aunt Ellen) who give us a break to blog and take great care of the kids so that we don't lose our minds. Lewis has had a rough adjustment to school being out, being a big brother and getting ready for kindergarten. He's been pretty clingy and keeps saying, "Mama is NOT gonna feed baby Phoebe" and things like that because he wants my attention. I welcome it because during the school year my time with him seems so limited. Still, it is hard to balance quality time with each of them. Thank God for the grace he gives and that it is not all up to me to raise these kids. In our case, in definitely takes a village!! :)

A few pics from the last week or so. We went to cousin Ryan's graduation party in Nashville and the boys got to swing with Aunt Monica.

goodbye holly

About a month ago, another one of our caregivers for the boys moved away. We have a trend of running people off/losing people to other great opportunities far away. Holly has worked with Lewis and Owen for about a year and a half. We had a mutual friend (Priscilla Baker) who first introduced us because of her interest in autism therapies. Then she was a student teacher for Krista Posey, our developmental interventionist the next semester and started working with Lewis in her spare time.

Since then she's become a good friend, and the boys have loved her! She's the one who encouraged us to go to camp at the Center for Courageous Kids where she was working at the time. The boys had a blast mostly because she made it so fun for us. We will miss her, but hope she will be coming back to the area to help more kids struggling with disabilities. She's got the perfect personality for it. :)

Here are some pics of her and the boys before she left.

preschool graduation

Thursday, Lewis wrapped up his preschool career at Parker Bennett Curry. The week before, they had a graduation ceremony where they handed out diplomas and acknowledged all the kids moving on to kindergarten. Lewis has had a great two years in Mrs. Brandy's class. It's hard to believe he'll be in a new class next year.

I think this is Lewis getting his diploma.

Aunt Beth and Lewis with his diploma.


Lewis and Mrs. Brandy. She will be Owen's teacher next year!

Lewis and Miss Brittani, the assistant who helped him this year. She'll be moving to Florida soon, and we are sad to see her go! She has done a great job preparing him to move on to kindergarten next year.


Lewis will be in Mrs. Lee's class next year. He's gotten to visit several times. Our friend, Ben, works at the school and took this picture of Lewis observing the class. He seems very excited about Mrs. Lee and what goes on in kindergarten and actually got upset when he had to leave on a couple of different occasions.

the early days from Justin's perspective

Grandma with Phoebe.

Leaving the hospital.


Resting.
One of her first baths.

Owen hoping someone comes to see him soon.

Her first month!

Phoebe survived her first month! She actually went to the doctor for a weight check last week to make she is gaining at a good enough pace. At 1 month she was 8 lbs. 15.3 oz. and since the doctor didn't call us back we are assuming he was happy with it. She was 7 lbs. 11 oz. at her 2 week check up, so she had gained more than a pound in about 2 1/2 weeks. We are not going to worry about too much and see how we are doing at 2 months.

The above picture came from an idea we got from our friend, Whitney Winkler. She has been taken monthly photos of her baby, Ellie, with a stuffed bear each month, and it is really evident how much she has grown over the months! We decided to give it a try with our stuffed lion. Hopefully she will grow and have more happy expressions in the months to come.

Phoebe has gotten into a pretty regular routine of going to sleep between 10:30-11 p.m. and sleeping until 4:30 or 5 a.m. She has slept seven straight hours a couple of times which was great! We took the above pictures after one of those long nights and she was so alert and almost smiling! Since then she has actually given some big smiles a couple of times. Those are hard to capture.

Getting a kiss from Owen (daddy's shot).

Cuddling with daddy in one of her little dresses.

Her big eyed look.
Phoebe has had a lot of visitors in the last few weeks. She got to meet lots of friends we don't see very often, including Corrie Powell (pictured above). We were so happy to see Carrie and Mary Powell too. Corrie was one of Lewis' first friends and he still speaks fondly of all the Powells. He was especially chatty about Brian Powell, but we didn't get to see him this visit, unfortunately!

We also had a visit from my friends and former roommates, Tasha Caruthers and Heather Morozov (and her daughter, Annabella). We somehow made it through the visit with no pictures!! Kinda sad about that one, but it was really nice to see them even in the fog of sleep deprivation at 2 1/2 weeks post delivery.

phoebe's first couple of weeks

Phoebe's first couple of weeks have been rather uneventful. She's been eating a lot, sleeping and staying awake for brief periods here and there. This was Phoebe at a week old with our stuffed lion.


On Tuesday, Phoebe had her two week check-up, though she was a day short of two weeks. She had not quite gained as much weight as Dr. Kniery would've liked, so we have increased the length of her feedings and frequency when demanded. She weighed in at 7 lbs., 11 oz., 3 oz. shy of her birth weight. We are supposed to go back in a couple weeks to check her weight and not see the doctor unless her weight is too low.

We actually weighed her today at our friends' (the Winklers) house on their postal scale. She was up to 8 lbs., which is great! We will keep an eye on things and she should gain without any trouble. Honestly, with 2 other small kids, I have lost track fairly often of when to feed her and not paid nearly enough attention unless she is really mad & hungry.

We have asked Lewis multiple times if he'd like to hold his baby sister, and he has always said 'no' until the other day when he agreed to hold her. Once Justin put her close to him, he kind of changed his mind, but sort of got to hold her.

On Wednesday, when she was exactly 2 weeks old, her cord fell off. Dr. Kniery had cleaned her cord area thoroughly with silver nitrate, and that seemed to help things along. Our infant tub needed a good cleaning before we could use it, so she got her first bath today! She's fresh and clean now.

She's sleeping in good chunks once we get past midnight, but she fights it until then. We are still pretty sleepy during the day, as a result because I end up with just 5-6 hours before the boys need to get up, which isn't enough. Over all, things are going pretty well. We're really glad she's ours! We'll leave you with her angry/mad/hungry face.

Easter fun

Just after Phoebe was born, we had a small Easter celebration at our house. Thanks to Grandpa Norm, and Grandma Martha, they actually had candy and some other random things for their Easter "buckets." They enjoyed looking through their loot and have been eating it on slowly ever since.

Their cute shirts were courtesy of Grandpa Billy and Grandma Linda.

The guys went to church, while Phoebe and I stayed home for a nap.

Lewis was really excited about the jelly bellies (aka "candy beans").

Owen was ready to eat everything in sight, but we slowed him down somehow.