Adventures in La La Land

1. We have now lived here for 4 weeks, and our naughty cat, Lola, still hates my parents and Luke. She is absolutely psychotic. Anytime one of them gets even close to her, she starts hissing and growling and swiping at them. She has all her claws, so she's actually kind of scary. Haha. Stupid cat. 2. Lucy and I took a break from our "Letter a Week" project to focus on Easter this week. I saw a book in the Family Christian ad called " The Story of Easter " written by the same author who wrote the Christmas book we have. I decided I would go down to Alpine on Tuesday to buy it. On Monday, I happened to stop at Goodwill to look for Psalty tapes. I didn't find any tapes, but I did find the Easter book - for 80 cents! Woohoo! So we've been reading that, and talking about Jesus's death and resurrection. I really don't think Lucy understands. She just kind of stares at me blankly. Haha. But here are some of the Easter crafts we did this week: It...

I shouldn't even be writing this because I'm feeling super emotional and dramatic, but this is how I roll. Lena had a doctor's appointment yesterday. She measured 22 inches and weighed in at 10 lbs, 1 oz - up only 15 oz from her 1 month appointment exactly a month ago. Our regular doctor is on maternity leave, so we saw the PA. I could tell he was concerned when I told him she only nurses 5-10 minutes on one side every 2-3 hours. Then when he plotted her stats on the growth chart, he declared her "borderline failure to thrive." Sigh. A large part of me expected it - I know she's small and not gaining tons of weight. But it was still kind of devastating to hear. The thing is, almost everyone has scoffed at his "diagnosis." I had so many friends on facebook share stories about their small, healthy babies. And I was never on the charts as a kid because I was so small. But I still feel terrible. The PA encouraged me to really try and get Lena to nu...

Miss Lena is 2 months old today! We're getting into somewhat of a routine. She usually wakes up between 7:30 and 8 every morning and is back to sleep by 9 (in the swing - I've given up fighting it). Some days she sleeps for 4 hours, some days she sleeps for half an hour. She's generally up for about an hour at a time before she's ready for another nap. And she usually  takes a good afternoon nap.  Breastfeeding is going better since my last update. I haven't had to give her formula yet. Just this week she's finally started to go 2.5 or 3 hours between feedings (with a little encouragement from me). She still only nurses on one side. I wish she'd do both because I think she'd get fuller and not get hungry so fast, but she must have a small stomach. Most times she absolutely refuses to nurse on both sides. She's still pretty colicky. For the most part, if she's not eating or sleeping she's crying. Some days are worse than others. Onc...

1. Lucy got to go to the circus with Aunt Niki and the boys on Sunday. Thank goodness for Aunts. I won't take my kids to the circus because I'm scared of the animals. Haha. I know. I have problems. Anyway, Lucy didn't like the loud noises: But she had fun! The thing she can't stop talking about from the circus is the elephant pooping. Haha. It made quite an impression on her. She puked in the car on the way home, but Niki and Tristan worked together and caught it all in a cup. That girl . . . 2. I've been getting in a good groove with this stay-at-home-mom thing. My goal is to do a craft/activity with Lucy in the morning during Lena's nap, and then at least one chore in the afternoon while both girls are sleeping. I'm also trying to read a little bit during the afternoon nap, too, but that didn't happen very much this week. I decided to start doing alphabet crafts with Lucy. This week, we did A: Fingerprint ants. My dad wanted to make one too ...

1. Now that I have fast Internet, I'm really trying to get in a routine so I don't spend all day sitting online. One of my goals every day is to do some kind of activity with Lucy. Here are a couple of the crafts we did: Pop bottle painting After she was done painting, I threw her in the bath with the pop bottles, which she thought was awesome! And then yesterday, we got a package in the mail from my friend Emily. It had this craft in it: How cute is that?! Thanks, Emily! Sorry - bad lighting. How do you like that outfit Lucy picked out for herself? Haha. 2. Another one of my goals is to start reading again. When we moved in here, and I started unpacking, I was amazed at how many children's books we have. We could seriously start a library. Then I started looking around my parents' house and noticing the astounding amount of books my dad has. They are everywhere. Apparently that's where I get it from! Anyway, I used to be such a voracious reader...

1. Since I didn't do a Saturday 7 last week, I neglected to write about my brother-in-law deploying with the navy. My little sister got married in August, and a few months later, they found out her husband (who is in the Navy Reserves) has to deploy to the middle east for 9 months this year! We saw him off at the airport on Sunday. Prayers appreciated! 2. It's now been a week since we moved in with my parents. Things are going very well. We're finally all unpacked and settling in. Lucy loves it and hasn't said one word about missing our house. And I love having a TV in my room. Haha. The girls and I spend most mornings cuddling in bed watching cartoons. *Love* Here are some pictures of our rooms upstairs: The girls' room. View from the stairs. Packed-full closet! That's just Lucy's clothes. Lena has the entire dresser. Haha. Our room. Don't worry - Justin's only hit his head on the ceiling about 35 times. Haha.  Lovely closet...

Thanks to an email from babycenter.com, I remembered today is Lena's 6 week birthday. Time is flying! She had a doctor's appointment last Tuesday where she weighed in at 9 lbs, 2 oz. and measured 21". She grew an inch, but hasn't really gained that much weight. I went back to look at Lucy's 6 week update. She was over 10 lbs by 6 weeks, and started out smaller! I really need to stop comparing the girls to each other because it just makes me worry. I just told Justin I'm about ready to be done breastfeeding. :-( It's so sad because it came so much more naturally to Lena from the beginning that I thought it'd be a breeze! But I feel like she's never content. I don't know if I'm not making enough or if something I'm eating is bothering her, but I'm about ready to give formula a try just to see if it makes her feel better!  It's still so sporadic, though. I've started keeping a "food journal" on the days ...

Wow - I think that's the longest I've ever gone without updating my blog! Haha. I've obviously been busy. We're all moved in at my parents' now! It was quite honestly a grueling week. Justin used all his PTO when I had Lena, so he couldn't take any more time off. Therefore, I packed the entire house by myself (with the exception of his clothes and the garage). In one week. With a 2 year old and a newborn. Oy. I never  want to do that again. Haha.  Fortunately, we are blessed with a community of people who were so willing to help. On Monday, the ladies from my Bible Study came over to help pack. I spent all day putting stuff into piles, then they packed it all up. It was an immense  help! It would've taken me days to pack what they did in a couple hours. I snapped this picture of some of the piles I had for them to pack just before they came: On Wednesday, we had a big snowstorm. My nephews came over and snowblowed my entire driveway, then to...