Halloween and Houses!

OMG!! Life is crazy busy, and I'm SO sorry for not posting something sooner!!! We have had a VERY busy month! I know I said I was gonna write an Ava update- but things just got too busy! So, to catch you up to speed... we bought a house(!!), we went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch, we carved pumpkins at Michee and Pop's house, we Trick-or-Treated in our new neighborhood, Ava is still a super great girl but sometimes really makes me want to pull my hair out (I'm talkin' bald, people!), Bella is smiling and cooing, sleeping through the night(!!!!!) for the past few nights, and otherwise doing wonderfully (although, she's still my "cry-baby" and totally wants to be held all the time...facing out....while you walk...just a few specifics). :)

I will have to go into more details about all of these things another time- but I wanted to share some Halloween and house pictures for now. We moved in to our new house 5 days before Halloween. We had a great time trick-or-treating and have already met many of the neighbors (all of whom have been so friendly and welcoming)! We actually went around with a pretty big group- a total of 4 families. One of the dad's pulled a little red wagon that provided extra room for the kids to put their candy when it got too heavy and, naturally, a place for a cooler so the dads could enjoy a beverage....or several. :) It really was great. We made it to all the houses in the neighborhood (a big change from last year when Ava visited 4 houses and then wanted to go home so she could eat her candy!) and had a great time!

Here are a few pics from Halloween!

This was my favorite Halloween outfit that Ava had- so I HAD to find it for Bella, too! Bella's not quite as big as Ava was at this point, but it's close. :)

Here are my sweet girls just before Trick-or-Treating! Ava thinks this is great, but Bella seems less than thrilled. :) (For those of you who are freaking out about the fact that Ava is holding Bella (Ashley), I was just out of sight of the camera. It was only a matter of seconds that Ava had her)!!! None of the cute Halloween things fit Bella, so I was a little lame and didn't really get her a costume. Next year, though!
Sweet Ava. She dressed up as Tinkerbell!
The fam at the new digs. This was the best family pic we could get!
Ava waiting for her neighbor friend to come trick-or-treat with her!
Waiting for candy....

For the first 7 or 8 houses, she RAN from one to the next!But, by the end of the night, she had my sweatshirt on and was hitching a ride with the beer!
She was so proud of all her candy! She ate 2 and a half pieces and said she was full and ready for bed. Gotta love her. :)

Okay, so to make a VERY long story short, we closed on our house on October 26th! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!! I have been WAITING for this day for what seems like forever! We started looking at this neighborhood about a year ago and started serious negotiations with the builder in May. And, now, here we are! Here's the transformation!

Beginning of July:
End of July:
Beginning of August:

End of August:
September:Finally done in October!!
Here's some inside pics just before we moved in...this is the family room (what I call the living room).

The kitchen...More kitchen!
The formal dining room and across the hall is the formal living room...
The master bathroom...
One of my favorite parts of the entire house...the master closet!! (I've been scared by 2 closets for an entire HOUSE for the past year and a half...so this is Heaven)!
The backyard...

So, there's a quick update of what's been going on. Since we've moved in, I have been running around like a crazy lady doing all that new house stuff! It's super fun, but also very exhausting. But I'm so happy to be in our own space with our own stuff- I'll take the exhaustion any day!

A special thanks to my parents who, for the last year and a half, have let me and my family invade their lake house and make it our temporary home. Although it's nice to finally be in our own space, the lake wasn't so bad. ;)

I've got some great pics of Ava and Bella on my camera, so I'll try to get those up soon....ish. ;) I'll also have an Ava update...and a Bella one too...as soon as I can.

Lastly, good luck to Patrick this week! He's got finals! He doesn't need luck since he's a total smarty pants, but a little luck never hurt!

Here's two more pics- just for fun. :)

Bella-boo looking funny at 14 weeks... (she's 16 weeks now....can you believe it?!?!) A-bay getting ready to carve pumpkins at Michee's...
That's all for now!!! I promise to update sooner than last time!! Thanks for reading!

A growin' girl! 11 weeks!

So, I've been meaning to update for several days now....but I keep having to decide: 1) Blog update or 2) Sleep for a little while. Sleep is TOTALLY winning these days. I really am very tired...much more so than with Ava. It's just been a really long time since I've had good, uninterrupted sleep. We're going on week 12 of waking every 3-4 hours to eat (or pump, for those early days)...and it's totally catching up to me. Ava slept through the night by week 7.....so, this is killer!

Sometimes I really see a bit of Ava in Bella (though, usually I just see Patrick). But, here's a pic of Ava when she was about 3 weeks or so that the above pic reminded me of!

But, overall, Bella is doing really well. I have to remember that her adjusted age is really only 3 weeks. So, with that in mind, she's right on target for everything. She's begun to smile...although, it's not super consistent yet. She'll usually smile once or twice a day, and I LOVE it when she does. She just looks like such a pretty baby when she smiles! Here's a pic of a litter teaser grin. :) And, by the way...that shirt says "Sassy," and ain't that the truth!!! Bella is not gonna be one of those quiet little babies! She knows what she wants...and it's being held. 24 hours a day. Awake or sleeping. Otherwise, she lets you know all about it! I call her my cry-baby. :) She's just so content being held and is a super great sleeper in your arms...but, let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with this babies lungs! They work just fine!! But, really, she's a sweet baby- as they all are- and I just totally adore her.

Her health is great. She's 11 weeks old now (how did that happen?!?!) and has more than doubled her lowest weight (3lbs, 15oz) and almost doubled her birth weight (4lbs, 1oz)! She's right at 8lbs now!!! She's growing so well! She's been exclusively breastfeeding for 3 weeks now...no pumping and no bottles!!! (A special thanks to Patrick's cousin, Megan, for really supporting me through the transition to breast feeding, as she had personal experience with a preemie of her own)! She's obviously getting what she needs, and her docs are very happy with her weight gain....and chubby cheeks!!! Check them out!!

I think this picture is hilarious, and she actually makes this deer-in-a-headlight-look all the time, so I had to include it! She's always so wide-eyed...taking it all in!

This picture reminds me of a picture of Ava (at 3 weeks of age, which is just about Bella's adjusted age).

Ava's a great big sister to Bella...but sometimes Bella has had enough!

Ave looking through her "spotting scope" for birds! (Just like Diego)!
Sweet sisters. :)

The little nugget sleeping. (Probably for only like 5 seconds since she's not being held)!!
All decked out for the UGA game!
Pretty sure she's watching Dora here...she's in her trance!
Thank goodness Ava is really good at entertaining herself since I have to spend quite a bit of time tending to Bella's needs. We got the play-doh out the other day!
It's a family affair on the play mat!
Hanging with Daddy watching the game! This is the outfit that Ava came home from the hospital in (remember, she was born at the University of Florida)!
It got pretty chilly here a for a few days and I had to quickly go out and get the girls some warmer clothes. Of course, not it's back up to the mid-80's. Good ole' Georgia weather!
My little bear. :)
I think her face is so sweet here...just had to share!

So, that's about it for the Bella update. I PROMISE I will do an Ava update soon...hopefully in the next few days...we've done some fun stuff the past few days....and she is really giving me a run for my money these days....the threes are NOT for wussies!! So, I'll have updates and more pictures!

I hear Bella-boo now....off to feed her...then to bed! Wooohooo! :)


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Bella's due date has finally arrived!

Yep, you heard me. Today is Bella's due date! And she is NINE WEEKS OLD!!! That is still totally crazy to me! This is one of Ava's (semi-creepy!) looking dolls dressed up in Bella's preemie onesies that were TOO BIG when she was born! (For some reason, my pictures are looking blurry on the blog, which is really irritating. I'm not sure why, but you should be able to click on the picture and see it non-blurry if you want).


She is doing SO well- I couldn't ask for anything more from her. It was a week ago today that we started the transition to breast feeding, and I'm happy to say that she hasn't had to supplement with milk from a bottle since this past weekend!! She did (and is still doing) really well with the transition. There's really only 2 issues- one is that she's been eating a little more often with the nursing cause she wants to sleep instead of eat (flash backs to Ava are coming back), so she sometimes doesn't get a full feeding. And because of that, I have to nurse more often and I am T-I-R-E-D!! Nine weeks of waking ever 3 hours is really starting to catch up to me...my eyes are burning as I type! .....I should totally be sleeping now...

Here's some pics of a tired Bella- I hear ya, girl!
The other issue we have is that she doesn't like to OPEN her mouth enough quite yet...she was used to those little bottle nipples. And, not to talk too much about my boobs- but, HELLO!, there ain't nothin' little about these things! So, we're still working on that whole open-wide thing!

She had her 2 month checkup and got her first round of immunizations. Five shots and an oral vaccine. (Sniff). She cried. LOUD! But, thankfully, she is a seriously tough cookie and it was pretty short lived. At her appt, she weighed 6lbs 6oz, but I weighed her again yesterday and she was 6lbs, 10.5oz!! She's gaining weight, nice and steady! Her doctor is happy with her weight gain (it has been a gain of about 0.5 oz/day since birth, on average). We just gotta keep those ounces coming! :) But, check out her cheeks!! They're getting so chubby! ...Okay, maybe not quite chubby, but they're getting there!
Ava is still pretty wonderful with her! She's constantly wanting to touch and love on her. (Although, outside of big sister duty, Ava has apparently hit the TERRIBLE THREES....but that's for another post)!!!
But, let me tell you, the girl can entertain herself! Which is totally AWESOME!!! Here she is immersed in one of her many books!
Oh, I remember the hold-the-baby-while-you-study days!
A sweet little pucker. This reminded me of Ava's "monkey face" when she was little! Well, it's bedtime, folks! I should be able to sleep for at least another hour before she wakes again....ugh. I think I can, I think I can...

Leave me a comment and say hello!! :)

Got Milk?

So, as most of you know, I've been pumping breast milk since Bella was born because she has been unable to nurse efficiently due to her prematurity. And you probably also know that we had to buy a new deep freezer to store all the milk because it was taking over the regular freezer!

Weeeeelllll..............we have a little problem. Now the deep freezer is full. Kinda crazy, huh? And maybe a little disturbing. ;) Although, I think it's a great problem to have...it's kinda like having too much gold! Not really possible. :) We had to reorganize it in order to get it all to fit! These pictures are from 2 weeks ago, so now I've filled more than 2 more crates...ridiculous. :) Yet awesome.


Now, the regular freezer is filling up once more...but hopefully I'll be pumping much less in the next 1-2 weeks. I've had a plan in place (thank you SO much for the experienced advice of my cousin, Megan, who went through something very similar with her little girl 8 years ago!) to slowly transition Bella to nursing from me instead of drinking from the bottle.

To make a long story short, I've been using different types of nipples on the bottle- different levels of flow- to wean her from something very high flow and easy to drink to something very low flow in which case she has to work a little harder to get the milk (more like nursing). So, we're in the last week of almost all bottle feeds and will (hopefully!!) be transitioning to almost all nursing in the next 1-2 weeks. She's 7 weeks old today, and my due date is still 2 weeks away. Hopefully, by around her due date, we'll be just about transitioned to nursing- at which point I can cut WAY down on the pumping...hopefully to none at all until I go back to work in December! Hence, my freezer problem solution! :) We'll see if it works!

At 7 weeks old, Bella has broken the SIX POUND mark! She was 6 lbs-even when we weighed her yesterday! YAY!! She's doing great! Here she is hanging out with Michee.
And chillin' with Daddy. She looks JUST like Patrick, but hopefully, her head wont be as big as his! ;) No offense, honey. :)
Here's Ava waiting to "pet" Bella. For the most part, Ava does a GREAT job keeping herself entertained while I tend to Bella. She still absolutely loves playing with her dollhouse. Notice the exact lining up of the family members....can anyone say OCD?!
Well, that's it for now! I'll keep you posted on any changes! Otherwise, we're doing great!

6 Weeks Today!!

Can you even believe that Bella is SIX WEEKS OLD?!?! Today is also exactly 2 weeks that she's been home with us! And the really amazing thing is that she's still not supposed to be here for 3 more weeks!!! That is completely insane to me. And she's just so perfect. And everything works. And we are incredibly blessed. :)

She's really doing great- the monitor hasn't gone off for the past few days. She's had 4 "episodes" of bradycardia since she's been home, but none since Monday. We'll go back to the doctor tomorrow for another check just to make sure things are still good. We have a scale here at home, and when I weighed her today, she was 5lbs 9oz! She's almost gained 2 pounds from her lowest weight (which was 3lbs 12oz)! Most 6 week old babies are WELL over 5 lbs, but not my munchkin. :) She's getting there, though! She's doing great with eating, and I have a plan of action already in place to get her to transition from the bottle to 100% nursing. I'll keep you posted on that one...but still need lots of prayers for help with that. :)

Ava still is very good with her...and very gentle. She's still totally obsessed with hand sanitizer and uses Bella as an excuse to get her hands on the stuff all the time!Other than that, things have stayed about the same. I'm a bit tired, but Ava goes to school Wednesday through Friday, so on those days, I can usually squeeze nap in. Which is total heaven! Last Friday night, I was already looking forward to my Wednesday nap. (Which didn't actually happen since I had a doc appt that day....oh well. I got one today, though, and it was all I thought it would be and more! :)

Catching a snooze on Mommy.

Does she look like her Daddy or WHAT?!?!?

A little less like Daddy, and a little more like Bella with that big ol' bow!
So, that's the update for now! Hope all is well out there!!

Ava-isms

So, Ava is crackin' me up these days! She sometimes says the funniest, cutest things. There are some things that she says ALL THE TIME and I just had to start jotting them down so I wouldn't forget! Other times, there are just little stories, conversations, or comments that she says that are hilarious...or cute..and sometimes oh-so-deep for a a barely 3 year old! :) Here are some of them...

While pretending to talk on her play phone.

Ava: Can you please stop talking cause I'm talking on the phone!

Gee, I wonder where she's heard that! :)
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Ava: You feed Catcher and I'll feed Salsa.

Patrick: Why do I have to feed Catcher?

Ava: Cause you're a boy, and Catcher's a boy. And I'm a girl, and Salsa's a girl.

Duh.
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A conversation I had with Ava one night after prayers:

Ava: Can God come to our house?

Me: Well....God doesn't really come to our house, but God is always with you, right?

Ava: Right. But maybe we can go to God's house?

Me: Well....God lives in Heaven, and Heaven is very far away.

Ava: Can we go to Heaven?

Me: Yeah, one day we'll go to Heaven.

Ava: Can the doggies go to Heaven, too?

Me: Yes, doggies go to Heaven, too.

Ava: And then we'll just come back to the lakehouse.

And that's that! :)
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Showing a bit of her bossy personality...we're not exactly sure what she means by this, but she usually says it in response to us telling her not to do or say something. We think it's her way of trying to be in charge. She says it a lot! :)

Ava: You don't say what I say.
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Before Bella was born:
Ava: Mommy, when the baby comes, your stomach will be flat again.

After Bella was born:
Ava: Your stomach isn't straight, it still has a bump.

Oh, the honesty.
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Ava: Where are you going?

Patrick: I'm gonna go to the bathroom.

Ava: I'll just come watch you.

Patrick: No, I think I'll go by myself.

Ava: Why?

Patrick: Well, sometimes Daddy's want some privacy when they go to the bathroom.
Ava: Oh.

Later...
Ava: I'm gonna go potty. (Holding her hand up as if saying "STOP!"). Don't come in, I need some propicy.

Privacy. Propicy. Whatever. :)
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Ava has a blanket that she sleeps with and she sucks on the tag. She/we call it her "taggie," and it is really nasty! For the longest time, she said she was going to stop sucking her taggie when she turned three. I think her birthday snuck up on her because when we were talking about how she was almost three and how she was going to stop sucking her taggie...she said...

Ava: I switched my mind. I'm not gonna stop sucking my taggie when I'm 3. I'm gonna stop sucking it when I'm 10 or 20 years old.
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Patrick was around a lot this summer while he was on his one and only summer break from school, and Ava got used to having him around. Two weeks ago, he started school again and she noticed that he was away a lot. There were two things I've heard her say something to Patrick, and I thought they were very sweet. I've heard her say the second comment several times. :)

Ava to Daddy (hugging): I miss you when you're away.

Ava to Daddy (usually at bed time talking about the next day): I'll miss you, Daddy.

I'm glad she didn't say that to me when I was in residency. I probably would have quit!
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FYI: We have a random (ugly) black toilet in our house.

Ava: Mommy, I can't see my poop in the black toilet, but I can see it in the white toilet.

I guess there are few things that 3 year olds notice that they don't tell you. :)
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Speaking of poop...a recent conversation...I was in the living room and Ava was going to the bathroom. She was in the hall bathroom and she yelled to me...

Ava: I pooped on the floor, but it was an accident.

Me to Patrick: Did she just say she pooped on the floor?

Patrick: I think so.

Me to Ava: (walking to the bathroom) You pooped on the floor?

Ava: (very mater-of-factly) Yes, it was an accident. It landed on my fancy pants (...which apparently she had taken off and put on the floor so she could go potty).

Me: (looking for the poop...) Well, where is it?

Ava: I picked it up and threw it in the potty.

Oh, dear Lord. Well, at least she knows where it belongs, right?!
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