Hey Little Sister

We've had a heartbreaking couple of days. Some very dear friends are living through a horrible tragedy at the very young ages of 25 and 27, and although we've tried to be there for them everyday, the truth is there's nothing we can do to comfort them right now. There are no words to bring them peace...and so we pray continuously. Everytime I look at my children I think of our friends and the loss they have had to suffer, and my heart breaks a little more.

I don't know if it's the emotions of the last several days or my hormones (am I still aloud to use that as an excuse?) or having a newborn who hasn't quite developed a personality or what, but I've been so appreciative of and intrigued by Hunter's developing little personality lately. Since James has been with our friends the last 3 nights, I've been home alone with the kids, and tonight as H and I were hanging out, I thought about how much I genuinely enjoy spending time with him - not just caring for him, but interacting with him and talking to him. It's an honor to watch him grow into himself. I so want to cherish and hold close the time I have when he actually wants to hang out with me, because as much as I want to be the cool mom, I have a feeling he's not going to run over to me and say, "I wanna cuddle," once the pre-teen years hit.

There have been a couple of stressful moments when I've been home alone (wearing your infant in a sling while bathing and drying off your toddler is kind of hard, huh?), but mostly it's just been awesome to get to watch Hunter's love for Char start to grow. He often abruptly stops what he's doing, runs over to her and says, "hug her!" or "I wanna hold her hand," and he'll do just that.

But as sweet as he is to her in the house, once we get in the car she becomes the most frustrating and annoying thing in all of the world to him. Char hates the car and screams her head off nearly the entire way everytime we go somewhere. Hunter can only tolerate this for about 1.3 seconds after which he balls his fists up, throws his body into full on tantrum mode, and screams (and I mean screams), "NO BABY CHARLOTTE!" over and over. We've learned it's a difficult thing to teach your toddler that babies cry, and you can't get mad about it...especially while we're in the car. Providing quality parenting while driving is not a skill we've mastered at this point.

Thankfully Hunter doesn't hold grudges yet, and quickly forgets about Char's screaming once we get in the house...


I know. So sweet:)

Wordless Wednesday

Some of the pictures in this post are rotated, and it's COMPLETELY frustrating to me.

I knew after Hunter was no longer in school that things would get a lot harder at home...mostly because sleep is pretty much my favorite hobby, and the whole sleeping while the baby sleeps theory doesn't work well with a toddler in the house. So we've been trying to have as much fun as possible to keep our eyelids from forcing themselves shut!

Here's what we've been up to during our waking hours...

*Lots of TV. I know. You don't have to lecture me. I have a goal everyday of 1 show in the morning and 1 show in the afternoon, but sometimes my fatigue is stronger than my fear of the television ripping away my child's creativity...or ability to attend well later in life...or continued good vision. We do watch lots of educational shows though. Hunter never tires of Barney, Sesame Street, or the Imagination Movers. Oh how we love the Imagination Movers. Is it a bad thing that he can recite parts of their DVD?

It could be because sometimes we force him to watch his shows while buckled in his car seat. That way we can keep him contained;)

*The beloved sponge bath. No, the dreaded umbilical stump hasn't fallen off yet, so we're still having to do the sponge baths. Luckily we don't have to deal with this nuisance too often, because to be honest, I'm too tired to make bathing my infant a priority most days. Yes. You read that correctly. Queen of all germaphobs just wrote that she doesn't bathe her child...even when she throws up from the HORRIBLE reflux. I love cleanliness, but this time in my life has proven that I love sleep more. It's not like my 2 1/2 week old is rolling in the dirt, right?

The crazy thing is, Charlotte actually really enjoys her bath. No crying or even whimpering, until this point...when she starts screaming with the loudest shriek of discomfort you've ever heard. It's really sad, but mama's pretty good at warming her up quickly:)

*Playing dress up. I totally love my children equally, but I have to admit it is so much more fun getting Charlotte dressed. I love all of the cute bows and dresses...

...but this outfit is really perplexing to me...No that is not a pant suit. Those are her bloomers that come down to her ankles. And just in case you can't quite grasp their enormity...Yes. They are longer than half of her body.

*Our first family outing. We went to Cheesecake Factory for Aunt Katie's birthday on Sunday. I was really nervous about how Charlotte would do considering the screaming that we've been enduring at home from the beast that is reflux, but she was an angel. So I actually have no excuse for not getting a photo of all 4 of us, but who needs a pic of us girls when you have the 2 cutest boys EVER...And the fact hat I was trying to survive feeding my daughter without flashing the entire restaurant was kind of distracting me from my picture taking focus.

*More tummy time. Remember when my first born tormented me with his carefree attitude toward displayng any sort of mobility? I'm afraid this one might be paying us back for all of that unnecessary complaining. She rolled over at 2 days old y'all, and although I keep telling my husband that its accidental, I'm beginning to lose all crediblity since she does it during nearly all of her tummy times.

*More fun with the pots and pans. Hunter decided to step up his cooking a bit and has started using the stovetop for our play picnics...

We are soooo fancy now.

That sweet boy makes my heart so happy:)

Hard To Say Goodbye

Today was Hunter's last day at LHCCEC. I never thought I'd feel this way, but we are so sad that he'll no longer be going there every morning. He has learned a tremendous amount from the caring people at his school. I am so thankful to have found a place where there are so many sweet ladies who loved and nurtured and taught him everyday. I couldn't have dreamed up a better place for him to be while I was at work.

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I don't think Hunter understands that he's not going back, so hopefully we won't have too many meltdowns once he starts asking for Ms. Sesi and Ms. Gina and his friends.

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Here's Hunter with his sweet teachers Ms. Sesi and Ms. Gina.

And here he is with Ms. Hadzira...

Ms. Hadzira was Hunter's first teacher when he started at LHCCEC and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her! She is the sweetest lady ever, and I was so thankful for how she cared for him and always gave me detailed feedback everyday. She made the transition to school much easier for me...oh and I guess for Hunter too:)

Here's Hunter with Ms. Ashley...

Ms. Ashley helps in the office and often fills in in the classrooms when they need help. Hunter would smile and happily shout, "Bye Ms. Ashley!" on the way out of school most days.

And this is Ms. Sandy...

Ms. Sandy is the curriculum director and Chapel teacher and Hunter is in love with her. He would light up and shriek, "Ms. Sandyyyyyy!" while doing his happy dance whenever we saw her in the mornings.

Of course I cried today as we said our goodbyes because these people have loved my child better than I thought possible. If we ever have to re-enroll Hunter or Charlotte in a child care facility, we will happily go back to LHCCEC!

Welcome Home Party

Hunter loves birthday parties. He gets really excited anytime we get to go to one and often wants to sing the Happy Birthday song randomly throughout the day. Just last night at the dinner table we sang it to Baby Charlotte...even though she was asleep in the other room...oh, and it wasn't her birthday, but those are just unimportant details, right?

So we had this idea to have a birthday party for Charlotte the day we came home from the hospital to get Hunter excited about his little sister. Aunt Courtney made a cake so we could eat cake and ice cream...

We had some presents for Hunter to open...

Daddy and Mommy got him some toy pots and pans...

They go great with this microwave that baby Charlotte brought to Hunter in the hospital...

Both have fast become his new favorite toys. He plays with them everyday after school and loves cooking up snacks for us to eat.

Grandee and Poppy brought Hunter and Charlotte gifts...

Although he looks really intrigued, the Princess panties are not actually for him. Grandee accidentally grabbed the wrong bag after church as they were heading out the door to rush to our party.:) His real gift is a much cooler Aquadoodle that he also loves to play with. His favorite thing to draw is an "H for Hunter", which actually doesn't resemble and H at all, but he gets an A for effort!

Hunter also opened Charlotte's gift, a Baby Einstein music toy...

He goes in her room at least every other day to play with it.

After all the cake eating and present opening, Hunter held his sister for the first time...

He was really excited about it and was really sweet with her:)

Then he just had fun hanging out with family...

And helping Charlotte with her very first tummy time...Little sister was waaaay more tolerant and relaxed for her first tummy time than her big brother was during his...It was a perfect day for Hunter! He can't wait for his next birthday party!

A GREAT Cause

For those of you who don't know, my sister is on a mission team planning to go to the Czech Republic for a long term mission (10 years). Her major in college was missions, and she really feels like this is her calling. Because of the economic state of our country, she's having a difficult time raising funds and finding a sponsoring church (to be in charge of handling all of her supporters). She needs supporters that can commit to support her on a monthly basis, but she also embraces one time donations.

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So she's come up with this great idea to raise money. She is offering her services of making cakes or taking pictures for your family, and in return all she asks is a donation to her mission team. She's taken a cake decorating class and does a GREAT job! She made Hunter's elmo cake for his 2nd birthday as well as Charlotte's welcome home cake. She also has one of those fancy professional (I guess professional...at least it looks professional compared to my Nikon) cameras and loves taking pictures. She took all of those awesome pictures in the delivery room as well as several others for us. She takes A LOT so you have a huge variety to choose from. Here are two of my favorites that she's taken...

She also has some examples of pictures and her cakes on her blog as well as details of how things would work. Please, please go look at this post to see if you're interested! Then you can email her to order your cake or set up a time to do pictures.

Thanks friends!

Meeting Charlotte

We feel so blessed to have so many people supporting us and celebrating our sweet new addition! We had many people come by to meet her while we were at the hospital.

Of course more family came by...

(Those first two were actually there for the entire process. They're really devoted:).)

(Aunt Court was there for the entire process too, but since she was the photographer, she didn't get in too many of the pictures.)

And friends from high school...

(So technically Marcy didn't make it to the hospital, but since she had so far to travel, we'll cut her some slack. Virginia is really far, ya know.)

And friends from college...

And church...

But the most anticipated visitor of all, was this sweet little guy...He had no idea what was in store for him...but was happy to see mommy and daddy (initially at least:))...And we were soooo happy to see him...He wasn't sure what to think of Charlotte at first...but eventually decided to hold her...or at least place his hands on her:)

And when he visited the next day, he even kissed her...Since then, he's been struggling with self-control a little more...everything is a huge deal. Overreaction is common around our house these days...it's actually kind of strange when a tantrum isn't occurring.

And although he has his moments where he can't wrap his brain - or heart - around what he's feeling, like when cousin Zack and Vanesa were here holding Charlotte and he loudly proclaimed, "No like baby Charlotte!" or when daddy was getting ready to take him to school and because he has had minimal one on one time with mommy, he sternly pouted, "Mommy get in car! No like Daddy!", there are moments like these...

and in them, I am overwhelmed with love.