End of maternity leave...

Happy 12 weeks old Brooklynn!!! I can't believe my baby is 12 weeks old. Sniff...she is getting big too fast, plus it means that I have to head back to work tomorrow. It has been so much fun being home the past 12 weeks. I definitely think that it was easier going from 1 to 2 kids than from 0 to 1. Maybe it was because Brooklynn is a pretty easy baby and Kenzie took to being a big sis pretty well, maybe it was because I wasn't so nervous, who knows....but it was a lot more fun this time around :) So, I turn in my stay at home mom towel tomorrow, and Jason begins his daddy daycare again. I will surly miss my sweet little baby tomorrow.

Piggy tails :) Her hair is

getting so long. She got a hair cut this morning, just her bangs. She told me she wouldn't get the rest cut because princesses have long hair :)

Santa...

Brooklynn met Santa tonight at our friends Christmas party. Even though the picture doesn't show it, I think she was intrigued by him. Santa was more afraid of Brooklynn than she of him :) At least one kiddo would sit on his lap.

Mackenzie would not go near Santa tonight. She kept her ears plugged while Santa was in the house....I think the bells and his loud voice scared her. But, she was absolutely amazed that Santa really knew what she wanted for Christmas. She got a Vet Barbie with a little kitty and horse. She jumped up and down and repeated over and over "Santa brought me a present!!!" Christmas morning is going to be SO much fun. I love this little girl :)

Christmas fun :)

I love this time of year. It has to be one of my favorite times of every year. I am finding that Christmas is just as fun as it was when I was a little kid now that we have kids. I love watching Mackenzie's entire face light up when we are doing our Christmas crafts. She has decorated our entire apartment with her little crafts...paper chains on every door, cards hung on the door way, a small sparkly angel on her door, garland on her bed and around her door frame, an angle nightlight in her room, and a Christmas count down ginger bread house. She asks to decorate nearly every day. She is also fascinated with Santa this year. She asks us daily if she is good if she will get a present. Maybe I am a bad mommy, but I am loving the ability to use her fascination with Santa bringing her a gift to my advantage to stop tantrums :) She helped me make the gingerbread ornaments for the tree and then had a blast decorating one single branch at the bottom of the tree. We have also make hand print ornaments of Mackenzie and foot print ornaments of Brooklynn to hang on the tree. I can't wait until Christmas morning :)

Happy baby :)

My sweet happy little girl! Brooklynn is just the most pleasant little baby I have ever met...yea I know I'm a bit biased, but she truly is just a happy kiddo. Tonight as I was trying to convince her that it was bed time she was smiling and chatting up a storm. She has found her voice!!! She is making what sounds like little baby sentences. Her entire body smiles when she figures out how to make a new sound. She is amazed when we make goofy sounds at her or if we laugh. She giggles all the time. I can not wait until she breaks out a full out belly laugh. I just love her. Tonight she did have her very first protest...so far she has just gone with whatever we were doing. I swaddled her in her blanket as usual and tried to feed her but she was fighting and fussing with all her might. So, I unswaddled her, changed her diaper, checked her over, gave her Mylicon, and burped her...all that did was piss her off and make her spit up. So, I unswaddled her again and reswaddled her leaving her arms out...she promptly went to sleep. I have a feeling we will have another strong willed little girl on our hands...lord help us now! I think she is in the midst of her first big developmental milestones...in the past week she has started tracking all the time, smiling, cooing, laughing and really responding to her surroundings. She is attempting to mimic our facial expression and copying the sounds we make. She also rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time yesterday....she is only 11 weeks old!!! This seems so early to me b/c Kenzie was just so content to just be still :) I have a feeling she won't be immobile for very long. Ah, she's up...

Life as a mom...

If you would have asked me 5 years ago if I would be living the life I am living now, I would probably have laughed. Five years ago I wasn't sure I wanted kids, was very happy as a career person, wanted to have something to do every weekend, pretty much just loved being able to pick up and go as I pleased. Fast forward to today...I am so glad that I changed my mind about having kiddos, wish that the work day was shorter and the weekends longer, am quite happy to spend my weekends holed up in our home, and don't mind that it now takes upward of an hour to get the whole bunch ready to leave the house :) This is the hardest job I have ever had, but hands down the best and most rewarding job. When Mackenzie was a baby I feel like I wished the days away wishing she would fast forward to the next big milestone...when she rolled I wanted her to sit, when she sat I wanted her to crawl, and when she crawled I wanted her to walk...etc, etc, etc! With Brooklynn I feel more like I just want to freeze time right now and have her be little for a few weeks/months longer. I am enjoying have a newborn so much this time. Maybe because she is a such a pleasant easy going baby, maybe because I am so much more relaxed this time, who knows....all I know is I don't want my girls to hurry up and grow up anymore. Everyone said I would want my second to stay little longer :) Guess they were right. I love being a mom more than I can even explain. Sometime I feel like I love them so much it hurts...I know that doesn't make sence but I can't explain it any other way. Even on those days when I am ready to ripe my hair out and feel like I am going to loose my mind I wouldn't trade a single second of my day to day life for anything. Having the girls has made me a better person and made life so much fun. Everyday is like a new adventure that I get to experience through kids eyes. Watching Mackenzie get sooooo excited about Christmas and Santa has completely put the magic back in Christmas. It is awsome to watch her eyes light up when we talk about Christmas. She picked a gift out for Jason while we were shopping yesterday. She saw "the gift" she ran over picked it up and exclaimed "It's my daddy's!!!" So, we bought the "gift" she came home wrapped it and hid it in the closet, she promptly told Jason where it was hidden, but she has yet to tell him what she picked. I can't wait until he opens it, she will be so excited. I love that she is so into the whole decorating and wrapping and such this year. It makes me feel like a kid all over again.

What have we been up to...

Where to start? These past few months have been some of the busiest months of my life, but at the same time the most exciting. In the past 6 months we have sold our first home, moved to an apartment, had a baby, and started building our new home. Talk about hectic and stressful times. I am truly looking forward to a few years of "boring", well as boring as you can get with 2 small kiddos.

The old house: After a year on the market we finally sold our first home. It was exciting and sad all at the same time. That was our first home as a married couple and where we brought Mackenzie home to. We had so many good times and made so many memories in that house it was sad to leave. But, it was exciting because we knew it meant we were able to move on to making the home we had been talking about since before we were married. We moved out over July 4th weekend. I had no idea how much crap we had accumulated in the nearly 5 years we lived there. We tossed a lot of things we had not used in years, I'm sure we could toss much more!!! We filled a storage unit with nearly everything except for daily living essentials and Kenzie's favorite things. It will be like Christmas when we get it all back out of storage. I though that I had carefully planned how we packed the storage unit, but there are a few things I wish we would have done differently. Mainly...packing ALL of my non maternity clothing in the way back. Thankfully I do not need dress clothes very often. The new owners have done so much work to the house. It looks wonderful from the outside and we hear it looks just as nice on the inside. It is nice to see all the work being done...I hope that they have as many wonderful times in the house as we did.

The apartment: Moving to an apartment has been difficult to say the least. It is not a bad place, it is clean and has a decent amount of storage for an apartment. But, after living in my own home for nearly 5 years, having to live in an apartment has been tough. I think that mainly I miss the ability to have my own space. 700 feet of living space(2 bedrooms a living room and kitchen) does not allow much room for personal space. I am thankful the girls are still small! We had been spoiled...you don't realize how much you take everyday things for granted until they are not available to you, ie washer/dryer and a dish washer. We made it about 3 months without a washer and dryer before we broke down and got our new ones early...dragging laundry to the laundry mat got old very very quickly, though it does make for some good people watching. I will also be so happy to have a dishwasher again!!! We've been here nearly 5 months now. I am looking forward to having our own space again!

The baby: By far the most exciting new news is the birth of our second daughter Brooklynn Danielle on Sept. 28th 2009. She was scheduled to come via c-section on Oct. 1st, but she had her own plan and decided to be a Sept. baby :) I woke up at 3am to contractions and knew that would be her birth day. I had been in labor and delivery on Sept. 26th with labor concerns, but was sent home when they subsided. We arrived at the hospital around 5:30am and she was born at 12:32pm that afternoon. C-section was uneventful, longer than with Kenzie. Recovery was so much easier the second time around! She weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 inches long. She has been a very pleasant little girl from day one. We are so blessed. She only cries or fusses when she is hungry. She is a little wiggle worm though...I think she will be an early mover. She wants to chase after her big sis I guess! She started smiling at 6 1/2 weeks and she has not stopped since. At 8 weeks she is sleeping between 6-7 hours straight at night and then up 3 hours later before getting up for the day. She has even put herself on a schedule for her naps for the most part...down by 10am, sleeps till 1pm...up for a few hours and back down for about an hour and a half. She is very much a night owl. She will not go down for the night before 10pm!!! That is an hour past my bedtime on work nights...we will be working on this. I didn't think it was possible to have anymore love in my heart until this little girl came into our lives. Everyday I wake up I am amazed at how much I love being a mom. Mackenzie and Brooklynn have made me such a happy woman, I could not imagine life without them. 5 years ago I would never have guessed how much I would enjoy my place in life right now. Life is good :)

Brand new Brooklynn :)

Brooklynn at 8wks

The new house: We broke ground about a month ago. In that month we went from a corn field to a completely framed house. The roof it on and completed, the concrete in the basement/garage/porch is poured, the electric/heating/plumbing is ruffed in; the cable and phone lines are in; and the insulation is in. It has been amazing and oh so exciting to watch it come to life. Even though we can walk around and see how the house will look, it still does not feel real. It is like we are walking around in someone elses house. Maybe when we move in and all are belongings are in place it will finally feel real :) I can not wait.

The new house!!!

Pictures...

We've been busy!

I will update on all our goings on this evening. I have a ton of pics and info. to update :)

36 weeks 3 days!

Where has the time gone? I can't believe that by tomorrow I will have less than 3 weeks before this baby is here. My c-section is scheduled for Oct. 1st at 8:30 am. I am so so glad that there is an end it sight. I know you can't be pregnant forever, but at this point one day feels like forever to me. I love having kid(s), but I really really don't like being pregnant. I think for the most part I actually feel better this go around. The sciatic is much more controlled and mainly bothers me when I try and sleep...makes sleeping difficult/impossible, but I'd be there anyways...at least I was last time. I'm still working full time and though I'm super tired by the end of the day, I'm able to make it with no troubles. I am noticing that I am really starting to swell again. I have really tried to limit the salt in my diet, but I'm still swelling. I hope that I can some how keep it to a minimum. I am trying to drink a ton of water to help flush it out, but that is only working a little. Other than that things are going well. Baby is super active and moves around constantly. That is so much different than my pregnancy with Kenzie. Kenzie rarely moved even when I was this far along. It will be very interesting to see how their personalities differ once "baby Seester" gets here. I have also only gained about 21lbs this time so far...praying I can keep it under or right at 25...it's going to be a stretch!!! At my 34-35wk ultrasound baby was measuring 5lbs 5oz!!! She's going to be a big one, just like Kenzie :) We've got the clothing washed and the bottles washed, now we just need to set up the swing/bouncy seat/pack n play. I doubt much of that will be done before baby gets here. We just don't have the room in the apartment for everything, plus Kenzie will want to play in all of it and she is MUCH to big. I have a few things that I want to get before baby comes, I guess I should get moving on that :) I have not gotten much at all for this baby. We have her coming home outfit and a few new things, but really most of Kenzie's clothing will fit her and be season appropriate. We are very excited for her to get here. Poor kid still has no first name. We can't seem to come up with anything. We don't even have a list of favorites. It makes me laugh how frustrated everyone around us gets when we can't tell them a name. At work today one of the housekeepers was talking to me about the baby and when I didn't agree with the 3 names she liked, she threw her hands up and said "Now I know why you guys don't have a name!" Picking a name is HARD. So, maybe she will have a name maybe she won't...Kenzie was nameless for 24 hours and she's okay :) We actually don't plan on telling the final name until baby gets here anyways, but we will at least let people know when we have the real one picked out. Well, got to convince the toddler to go to bed.

Pics from packing...

The only thing left is the stuff in the garage. I can't believe that we are all moved out of the house. It is very very strange to go somewhere else to sleep. Hope that the next 5 months go quickly.

Bittersweet night..

Tonight is bittersweet. This will most likely be our last night in this house. I expected to be excited, but I feel more sad than excited. The house doesn't even look like ours anymore. There are boxes all over, emptyish rooms, bare walls, and just a plain old mess. Taking the pictures off the walls really made it feel real. It looks awful strange with bare walls. This is new for me. I know I have moved a ton of times during/since college, but I've never really moved from a home. The places I stayed during college were just a roof over my head. I never moved as a child, at least not that I can remember. Heck, my mom still lives in my childhood home. Other than moving from my childhood home, this will be the first time I have packed up my home. This was our first home together, the place we have spent nearly 5 years together, our whole married life in fact. Plus this is the place we brought Mackenzie home to, where she has grown into the wild toddler she is today. She has handled this packing so much better than I expected. I only got upset when she came home after we moved the furniture out of the family room...but quickly realized that it was fun to scream and listen to her loud voice in the empty room. She has helped me pack up all her worldly belongings without a fuss. I think this would be easier and more exciting if we were actually moving into our new home, but we are heading to a TINY apartment while the house is being built. I am anxious about all the changes that are going to happen in the next 6 months. In 6 months we will have moved out of this house, built a new house, had a baby, and moved into the new house. I hope the next 6 months go quickly...not that I want to wish my life away, I just want some normalcy back. I don't like living in limbo especially knowing we will be doing this with a toddler and a newborn. If I don't end up on the psyc ward it will be a miracle. I like my schedule and structure!!! I hope that the apartment is quiet. I don't do well with living in those types of environments. I will be an evil evil neighbor if we live next to rude/loud people. I hope that once we get started on the new house I will get more excited. We have so much to pick out and decide on before we can start the new house though. But, I think that will be fun...Jason is dreading it :) I am nervous about building and having a bigger home and all that goes along with it. I have this terrible fear of loosing my job all of the sudden. Hearing how the hospital is suffering financially and the possibilities of further budget cuts scares the crap out of me. Sigh...I wish I could just let it be and not always find something to worry about. I have pictures that I will try and post once Kenzie is asleep!

Just some pics from some fun in the sun so far this summer. Kenzie has taken to swimming in her clothing in our little back yard pool :) The other little blonde girl is our neighbors daughter...Kenzie and the neighbor girl have become quite good friends. Though they have been "interesting" neighbors, I will feel bad once we move and Kenzie does not have a little playmate.

This is what happens after a busy day playing in the pool!!!