Charlie 1 Month

Our little Charlie boy is ONE MONTH OLD! So crazy. I remember when Jack was 1 month old, I didn't even have the energy to stand up and take one single picture of him... luckily Gordy was around and he did it for me that month.

Anyway, I'm just amazed at how differently I feel this go round. Most days I have so much more energy than I ever expected I would have. Blessings from above, I'm sure.

Charlie is doing great. He still has a little bit of jaundice, which the pediatrician seems to think is just from nursing. It should go away on its own, but there is really no time frame for when it should disappear. So for now, we watch his little yellow eyes and skin and wait.

He is a world class champion eater. Yesterday, we weighed in at 9lbs 4 oz. When we left the hospital after he was born he weighed only 6 lbs 11oz, so I'd say he's doing pretty well in the weight gaining department. Plus he's still eating about every two hours, so I'd say that helps a lot.

I think our Charlie boy is going to be very advanced. He has already smiled at me a few times and he likes to try to hold his head up by himself when I put him on my shoulder.

Charlie has the sweetest personality. He is a very good baby, and he rarely ever cries. When he is awake, he just calmly looks around and observes everything. He's very observant.

Charlie is a grunter. Man, oh, man does this kid like to grunt... He especially likes to grunt when we are trying to sleep. Silly boy.

He is a pretty good sleeper. In fact, I would say that so far, we've only had probably two nights that weren't so great, and even those weren't that bad... This is where I knock on wood, because I know as soon as I say that he is going to start being awake at night... haha.

He's also a spit-upper. This has probably been the thing that has surprised me most about him. The entire time Jack was an infant, I can remember using a burp cloth like 10 times maybe, and after the first few weeks, I never even bothered to burp him because he never would... Charlie on the other hand, has to burp like every 5 seconds it seems, and we go through all of our burp cloths every other day. It's a pretty stark contrast to his older brother. You could say that both Charlie and I get to go through many a wardrobe change in one day...

Charlie has already had an eye infection (either strepp or staph the doctor wasn't sure). He said it was probably something on someone's hands when they touched Charlie's face. One of the many perks of having a two year old brother in your face all of the time... Anyway, it caused this weird nodule bump thing to form on the side of his nose by his tear duct and his eye to get all crusty and gross. It was probably just the tear duct being clogged up that caused the bump. The doctor prescribed some ointment and his eye cleared up right away. Now we can say that we have already over come his first ailment.

Charlie's skin is peeling and he is just now starting in on the baby acne stage... So long beautiful new born skin, hope to see you again soon.

He also has really long toes. Like really long. We have no idea where he inherited this trait since both of his parents have short, stubby toes. It's a mystery. He also has skinny little legs. He is just the cutest ever.

I think his eyes are going to be the same blue-ish color as Gordy and Jack's eyes. They are starting to transition from that steel grey looking color to more of a blue. Lucky boys with gorgeous eyes.

Charlie loves to be outside.

... and this is when he decided to punch his monkey in the face. Sorry, monkey. 

This past month as a family of four has been challenging and rewarding. We all love Charlie so, so much. It is already hard to remember a time when we didn't have him in our family. What a blessed month we have had with the newest member of our family. 

Baby Palooza

Last night, we did our first round of mass babysitting. Hopefully, it works out... The idea is that one couple stays with all the kids, while the other couples go out on a date/ run errands/ do whatever they want. That way, each couple can go out three times and only have to babysit one night. Perfect, huh?

We volunteered to launch it off, since it was Gordy's brilliant idea. The kids were all so well behaved and we had such a good time playing with them, and of course they loved playing with each other. We had balls, and toys, and snacks, and watched the Lion King, and played with home made GAK (courtesy of yours truly). 

Can't wait until next week rolls around so we can go out on our date!

Charlie's First Real Bath

I know, it's super corny, but its tradition in our house to take pictures of new baby's first bath... So here they are...

...and let's not forget our other boy who loves bath time... What a silly goose he is.

Lake Ginny (Sort of)

We drove out to Lake Ginny for an afternoon when Gord didn't have school... It's just that when we got there, there wasn't a lake at all... Don't get me wrong, the last time I went out there (two years ago when we first moved to Bloomington) there was most definitely a lake there. That was actually where we went on our first date in Bloomington.

It was kind of funny going back- this time with two kids AND the lake being completely drained... I guess the old saying is true, "things change".

Anyway, I ended up staying in the car and nursing Charlie the entire time we were there (not that I minded because it was super hot and muggy that day). Meanwhile, Gord and Jack had a really fun time exploring the dry lake bed and chasing/honking at the geese. Can you tell he was having a good time? Look at all of these faces he was making... silly boy.

Backyard Surprise

One night, we decided to go outside after dinner and enjoy the cool weather and we were greeted by the COOLEST surprise- HOT AIR BALLOONS!!!

For some reason, they were randomly taking off right beside our apartment. It was the coolest thing ever. I have this weird fascination with hot air balloons... and this just made me so much more excited to cash in on the Valentine's Day present Gord got me this year (a hot air balloon ride that we haven't been able to go on yet because I was deathly ill with morning sickness, we were gone for the summer, and then I was way too pregnant). Hopefully, we'll be able to go in the next few weeks.

Can you see Jack in the pictures trying to "touch de bahloons" (as he would say)?

We thought that first one was close, until we saw the second one...

...and Charlie just slept contently through it all...

Adam is ENGAGED!!

Biggest news ever, people! My brother is engaged! And not only is he engaged, but look how absolutely GORGEOUS his fiance is....

She is such a doll and don't they look so happy together?

Congratulations Adam and Amanda! I am so excited for you to start your forever together. Welcome to the family Amanda, I'm so so excited to have a new sister!

Bad Day, Good Friends

So, the other day I was having a horrendous day. Ever have one of those days where if feels like everything goes wrong and stuff is just piling on top of you? Well, that was my day. I feel like I've made the transition to having two kids pretty easily. I've been feeling pretty good, and have been able to keep the house in relatively good condition these past couple of weeks... but last week, my clean house, as well as my sense of "I can do this two kid thing" all went down the drain.

I think my iron was low, because the night before my bad day, everything suddenly got very spin-y. Every time I would move the entire room would swirl. It made me feel totally nauseous and gave me a head ache. After attempting to remedy the problem with a snack and an iron pill, and finding that nothing was curing me, I decided to go to bed to see if I could sleep it off. Didn't work. And let me tell you that it is no fun getting up five or six times a night with a new born when you feel like you are on a merry-go-round that won't stop.

The next morning, I woke up still feeling like shizz. It was all I could do to keep the boys fed and in clean diapers. I didn't want to move any more than absolutely necessary. My house was a disaster. A legitimate disaster. I guess that's what happens when you aren't CONSTANTLY picking up after a very active little boy. To top it all off, Charlie had this mysterious bump by his eye, and the pediatrician wasn't sure what it was, and so she referred us to a pediatric optometrist and the appointment was that afternoon. I had no idea how I was going to handle a spinning room, a infant, and a wild child in a room full of expensive eye glasses.  I was pretty much on the verge of tears.

If you're reading this, and thinking, "Man, oh man, this is depressing", hang on, because this is when the story gets SO much better.

My amazing friend, Erin, texted me with an offer to bring by a dinner she had made for our family. Yep, offer accepted. I was so relieved to have help that I didn't even care that she saw my house look like it just survived a tornado. When she got here, she didn't judge me for having a messy a sink full of dishes, she just listened to me complain about my day for like a half hour, gave me chocolate, and offered to watch Jack while I took Charlie to the doctor. And all of this after working a 12 hour night shift at the hospital the night before.

I hope everyone has a friend like Erin in their lives. She was a total life saver that day.

At the doctor's office we found out that Charlie had a staph infection in his eye. Wonderful. Cherry on top of my day... but ya know what? I was totally calm at that point because I had so much help from Erin, I was able to sit quietly and listen to all of the doctor's instructions without having to worry about Jack. Such a huge help.

After returning home from the doctor and the pharmacy, Erin confessed that Gordy texted her and asked her to come and help me because he knew I never would ask for help on my own. Guess, I'm a little too prideful or embarrassed to ask or something. He knows me too well.

So, that day I was grateful for a thoughtful husband who takes care of his wife (even when he is working an hour away from home) and saintly friends who take time out of their busy lives to help. Thanks guys. You are awesome.

Oh! and don't worry about Charlie's eye. It's already cleared up.

Four Year Anniversary

On August 29th we celebrated our FOUR year anniversary! Crazy, eh? It's hard to believe that in four short years we've gone from this...

... to this

I mean, we've literally doubled the size of our family in four years. Dear readers, this does not mean that by the time we celebrate our 8th anniversary we will be a family of 8. Aside from that being like physically impossible, it would just be crazy insane. 

Since we had a two week old, and Gordy was getting back to school (yay for starting the LAST YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL), we had a really chill anniversary. We started the day off with a nice walk as a family. Later, the boys and I met up with Gordy for lunch at Feast Cafe. Lunch was delish and I wish that I would have taken the time to take the camera out of the diaper bag. 

Later that night, we watched part of the Hunger Games movie. Notice that I said "part"? That's really how you know you have a newborn in your house, when you can't even stay awake for an entire movie. Sleep becomes more important than almost anything else in the world. Such is life right now.

It was a wonderful, low key anniversary. I was so glad that I got to spend the day with my three best guys and celebrate the wonderful life we have together. 

I'm so lucky that four years ago, Gordy saw something (who knows what that something even was) in me that made him think he could spend forever with me. I would be untruthful if I said every minute of our marriage has been wedded bliss, we've definitely seen our fair share of hard times, but I can not imagine a better person to hold my hand through it all. 

Four years. It's a drop in the bucket to all of the years we have left to spend together, but yet so much has happened in that time frame, it's difficult to remember what life was like before Gordy. 

Here's to more years of laughter, watching our kids grow, morning walks, crossing items off of our bucket lists, you trying to convince me to clean out my dresser drawers and actually stick to a budget, and me going behind you and shutting all of the cabinets every time you go in the kitchen. Here's to facing our scariest and saddest moments together. Here's to forever with my best friend, the smartest, funniest, hardest working, best looking, most helpful man I have ever met. 

Thanks for the happiest four years of my life. I love you, Gord. 

Jack and Charlie's Nursery

I finally finished up the boy's nursery... and if any of you (assuming I have any followers) were wondering why I didn't keep up with my blog this summer, it's because I was busy sewing. 

I sewed like a crazy lady this summer, and it about drove Gordy crazy. I don't know, I just caught a sewing bug I guess... or I was nesting. I ended up sewing two (have to do multiples so no one felt left out) of the big quilts that are on the foot of the bed, two smaller crib sized quilts (one of them is on the crib and the other is draped over the glider), the curtains, four toss pillows, the bed skirt, a crib skirt, recovered a bumper pad, and sewed a blanket cover for the car seat to keep the wind out. Not to mention I made the art work over the crib, the alphabet wall over the bed, and the ruler for measuring our boys' growth. See, I told you, crazy lady status. 

Anyway, I wanted the boy's room to be black and white with blue and apple green accents. I was thinking bold, people. Lots of bold colors and graphic prints. I was a little nervous because I was making all of the stuff in Fort Wayne, so I couldn't see how it all looked together until it was all finished and we moved back to our apartment in Bloomington. I just had to take lots of deep breaths and cross my fingers that it would all look okay together, and I think it came out pretty great (not to toot my own horn or anything). 

Without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, here it is... 

My dad's childhood sock monkey that Jack absolutely ADORES. He has a special, up high place to reside because I want him to last...

The crib... To all of you interior decorator types out there, I know that these are hung too high... I'm just paranoid about Jack pulling stuff into his crib, so up high they went. And just looking at the picture, they don't look it, but they actually are centered above the crib. Don't you worry about that.

.. and here is my biggest little guy playing hide and go seek with the camera, because let's face it, to have the room clean enough to take pictures of AND not have a child playing at my feet while trying to take pictures would be wishful thinking.