Congrats Natalie and Bryan!

We had a shower for a couple in our small group Superbowl weekend. They are moving this week to Georgia and are having a baby girl in May! Our group decided to buy and refinish an old changing table, which turned out beautifully! We (the girls) also made a diaper cake that was quite cute. Here are some pictures to share:

The group (we are missing a few couples)

The table and awesome cake

The gift
Diaper changing race (Zach won for the boys, Natalie won for the girls)
Teamwork game

We had a lot of fun, but are sad to see our friends go. We will miss you Bryan and Natalie! Hope baby Claire is a healthy little girl, can't wait to meet her when you visit!

Portraits

We got our pictures from the photo shoot we did with Abigail Seymour on February 4. It definitely was a lot more difficult having a toddler and 1 month old... she didn't have much to work with, but she got some awesome pictures! Thanks Nana, Papa, Aunt Coco, and Uncle Chucko for our awesome Christmas present! Enjoy :)

Click here to view pictures

Museum of Life and Sciences

A week ago, the girls and I went to the Museum of Life and Sciences with my friend Nikii and her son Declan. We had so much fun and barely got to see half of it! I didn't take many pictures, but here is a few:

Declan, Nikii, and Ellie

Ellie measuring

Ellie sorting

Beautiful butterfly at the butterfly house

Thanks for letting us join you Herendeen's! We had a lot of fun.

Family of Thumb-suckers

Looks like Ainsley is going to be a thumb-sucker:


That makes 3 out of 4. It took me awhile to make me stop sucking my thumb, my parents finally broke the habit by drawing a frowning face on my thumb (weird huh?). We'll just wait and see if or how we'll have to encourage them to stop.

2 months and sickness...

Ainsley went in for her 2 month check up yesterday. She weighed in at 13 lbs. 7 oz (97%), measured in the 50% for height, and 75% for head circumference. The height is questionable, I think she is taller, just hard to measure her as she squirms and kicks. She looked very healthy and is doing just wonderfully! I just absolutely love my chubby cheeks baby girl.

Ainsley is just a perfect little baby. She barely ever cries, loves to be held, loves to watch her big sister, has the most precious smile ever, tracks objects with her eyes and head, loves to stare at objects (especially the ceiling fan) and faces, and best of all sleeps 8 hours most nights (this started at 7 weeks!!). She is on a schedule (started around 6 weeks) where she feeds every 3 hours: 8:30a, 11:30a, 2:30p, 5:30p, 8:30p, and then one early morning/late night feeding. She does great on this schedule and it really helps so that we can plan our day with it. I thought a baby couldn't get any better than Ellie, but I was wrong... Ainsley is so easy.

So on to the sickness... I got sick this past Friday. I had a sore throat, body aches, runny nose, and now have no voice. However, not only am I sick, but yesterday as I went to get Ellie after she had woken up from her nap, I found that she had thrown up on the floor. I initially thought it was just from all the pizza explosion goldfish she had eaten at the doctor (those things are disgusting), but she continued to throw up everything she ate or drank the rest of the day. It was so pitiful watching her throw up and not being able to do anything about it. I felt so bad for her and had no clue what I was supposed to do! Yet again, this is not the only thing that happened...

Ainsley got her immunizations yesterday and had a small reaction. She developed a fever (100.8) yesterday afternoon, and continued to have one overnight. This is stressful for me since at any moment if she shows any other symptom or her temperature rises above 102, then we would need to go straight to the ER. Not an easy task with a toddler and husband who is out of town. I took her back in this morning since she still had a small fever, and she checked out okay. We think it's just from the shots, but I'm keeping a close eye on her. The doctor also checked Ellie out and said she has some virus going around (vomiting followed by diarrhea). I asked her to look at me as well, and she diagnosed me with a different virus going around (cold plus laryngitis symptoms).

It seems all the girls are not feeling so great in our household... this seems to happen when our man leaves. However, we are so thankful and blessed to have friends and family praying for us and also very willing to help out! THANK YOU, we love you!! Keep praying for us...

Training Her Right

We are trying to read the Bible with Ellie and not just her Storybook Bible. We give her a Bible and let her "read" it with us. She surprised us by actually flipping through Bible the whole time and not ripping it up! One day as we were getting ready for church, Zach was reading the Bible on the bed. She joined in and I ran to get the camera to video:



She also likes to just carry her Bible around, which is just too cute. She seems to have learned that this book is extra special, it also seems to be her favorite book (we hope it'll stay that way, that would be awesome). Although she is doing this things, we still know and can daily see her sinful heart. We're on our knees praying that one day she'll have a personal relationship with God and find true joy.

Family Photos

We finally took some pictures of all four of us! Of course this is a self shoot and not with our nice camera. Surprisingly we got some decent pictures:

It started with me trying to get Ellie to pose with me, didn't work:

Then we got daddy, which helped:

And we couldn't forget Ainsley:

Happy Valentine's Day

Ainsley wanted to wish you a happy Valentine's Day:

Two Sisters

It is just too much fun to see how much Ellie loves Ainsley and being with her. Ellie got this chair for Christmas (thanks Nana) and always wants Ainsley to sit with her. One day I let them sit together, didn't last very long, Ellie doesn't sit still but for 2 seconds:
I leave Ainsley propped up on her bobby a lot after I feed her and I have to get up to do something. Ellie on multiple occasions has gotten up and laid beside Ainsley. I used to get very worried about Ellie getting on the couch with Ainsley, but she has been so good with Ainsley, I now let her do it (under much supervision). Here are some shots:

And then the other day while I was getting ready and Zach was watching the girls on our bed, Ellie climbed up in the bed next to Ainsley. It was just too cute:

Beautiful Ainsley

Ainsley is growing so fast! I realized the other day that I hadn't taken many pictures and needed to do so asap since she is growing so quickly. Here are some of my favorite shots:



You gotta love her big cheeks. She definitely has a lot of chub, and I think that it's just too cute! Here is a chair picture, it amazes me how fast she has changed since 2 weeks:
Here she is in the chair at 2 weeks:

Tummy Time

It is just so cute to watch the two girls together. Ellie is a really good sister and loves to love on her. She only gets jealous of daddy holding Ainsley, and maybe a few of our friends. It really just melts my heart seeing them "play" together and Ellie loving on Ainsley. Every time Ainsley does tummy time, Ellie has to join in. Here's a little video of them:



I love how Ellie has to see Ainsley's face, too cute. I try to remember to put Ainsley on tummy time everyday, but I'm terrible at it. I think it happens about every other day. She usually is pretty good about it unlike Ellie who would scream every minute of it. We'll see if she crawls before Ellie did...

Grunting Baby Syndrome

Ainsley is a grunter. I think it started around 1 week and has slowly gotten better. It's mostly when she is pooping and sleeping. I get worried sometimes because I feel like grunting can't be a good thing, so I googled it. I found that she has Grunting Baby Syndrome. I tried to get a video of her grunting at her best, but she never will do it on video (I got a little grunt):


Here is a youtube video of a baby that sounds exactly like her:

Snow Day

We finally got some snow here in Holly Springs! Ellie had already seen snow at Nana and Papa's house, and she did somewhat fine. Of course they had a sled to entertain her for the few minutes every lasted outside, no one had snow gear on so it only lasted about 10 minutes. We thought she would like the snow if we got all geared up and mommy and daddy were playing with her, well that wasn't the case. Here is how it went:

Geared up, without a fuss, somewhat excited to get out in the snow:
Went outside with daddy and Kayla, fell down as soon as she stepped foot on the snow, and hated it:
Came inside, I warmed up her hands, then back out to get a shot of Ainsley with the snow:
Ellie would not step off the porch, so we decided to go inside and eat lunch, watch a movie, then take a nap. After Ellie woke up from her nap, she kept asking to go outside in the snow. We decided to try it again. Geared everyone up (except Ainsley), then out we went. Once again, she refused to go off the porch, so we decided to carry her and get a few shots of her happy:

I forced her to walk in the snow, she would only holding on to both my hands. Then I forced her to do it walking holding on to only one hand, she did it with lots of fussing:
After this she had a melt down, we decided we were done for the day. Poor daddy, he loves the snow. However, the snow definitely wasn't very "playable". We couldn't make snowballs or build a snowman. It was good to sled on, just need a sled...

Hope you had fun in the snow :)

Working Out

Zach works out at home a lot, so Ellie is learning a few moves. Take a look:

Last week

So let me tell you why there was no new posts this past week. Last week Zach went out of town to Orlando (yea, he went to Disney World without us). I decided to go visit my parents to get some extra help. Thank goodness I did because I think that was the hardest week yet with the two girls! Zach left early Sunday morning, but I didn't go to Winston-Salem until Monday afternoon due to Ainsley's one month check up. Well on Tuesday Ellie was acting very fussy and tired, so I decided to take her temperature and found that it was 104.3! I started to freak out and called her doctor. They said not to worry since toddlers get high fevers all the time, but to watch her and the fever. I kept watch and put some motrin in her, which lowered the temperature, but every time the motrin started to wear off, she would spike a fever above 104. I called the doctor again, and they said as long as I could get it back down, to not worry if she was still acting ok. I tried to keep telling myself that I shouldn't worry, but on Wednesday when I checked her temp and it was 105.4, I had to call the doctor! Luckily we knew a doctor in Winston personally (Zach's high school best friend's dad), and we called him to ask what we should do. He told us to bring her in to make sure she's ok. We took her in and he checked her out. Everything looked ok, just a little fluid in her ear. He didn't think that was the cause of the temperature and that most likely she had some virus (maybe RSV). He put her on an antibiotic to make sure.

Let me tell you what my sleep looked like last week. On Monday night, I got my normal amount of sleep (about two 3 hours stretches= 6 hours). On Tuesday night Ainsley woke up and would not go back to sleep at 1am, so I slept a total of about 4 hours that night. I tried to take a nap on Tuesday, but as soon as I laid down, Ellie would wake up. On Wednesday, I put Ainsley down at 9:30p and went straight to bed. Ainsley lasted until 2am (so I would've had 4.5 hours straight sleep), but Ellie woke up screaming at 12am and wouldn't go back to sleep unless I laid with her. I ended up asking my mom to come sleep with her, which provided me a lot more rest! So Wednesday night I totaled about 5 hours broken up three times. Luckily (with my mom's help), I was able to nap on Wednesday. Thursday night Zach came home at midnight and both girls slept decently.

I just had to complain on here and give you a little bit of what life has been like... The adrenaline from welcoming a new baby has worn off and now Zach and I are just sleep deprived. We're hoping just a few more weeks or less before Ainsley sleeps through the night. Ellie slept through at 8 weeks, praying the same for Ainsley. She sure doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night, she's got enough fat on her to last her awhile :) She sure is a cute chubby cheeks baby though!

Here is a video of me trying to get her to smile:

1 month

Ainsley was a month old two Saturdays ago (yea, I've been a little slack on here... we'll get to that later). We went to the doctor last Monday for her check up. She weighed in at 11 lbs (90%), measured 21.75 inches tall (75%), and measured 37.8cm around the head (70%). She is definitely a healthy baby who is growing fast! Here's a new picture of our sweet girl. I absolutely adore her hair! I can't believe how big she is, those cheeks sure do show it though :)

Ainsley is still doing pretty well at night by going 4-5 hours between a feeding. We absolutely cannot wait until she decides to sleep through the night. It definitely is becoming harder and harder as our patience is very thin due to so many sleepless nights (well I guess not technically sleepless, but definitely sleep deprived). Ainsley has started smiling and cooing, which melts my heart. One characteristic Ainsley has is her grunting. She grunts when she's hungry, gassy, or pooping. She is one vocal girl, but not due to crying (which we do hear occasionally). She loves being on her belly, being held in your arms, and looking around (she seems to be very alert). She'll have days where she is awake almost the whole day, and others when we can't get her to do anything but sleep!

Ellie still loves her little sister a bunch. She gives her kisses, holds her hand, gets concerned when she's crying, always wants to know where she is (wakes up and asks for her everyday), prays for her, and tries to play with her. Ellie is actually doing great with Ainsley, just not great with her attitude with mommy and daddy (i.e. she's going through the "terrible two's"). Here's a shot I got of them this morning, Ellie wanted "Annie" to sit beside her:

(holding hands)

Zebra

If you never have heard of the "I Spy" books, they are great! Ellie loves 'spying' different objects on the page. One object that we 'spy' is a zebra. This is a new word for Ellie, and it sound nothing like how she is supposed to say it. There are quite a few words that Ellie says that sound nothing like it should. We took a video to show you:



A few more:
Memaw- sounds like elmo
Nemo- sounds like elmo
Milk- sounds like melp
Natalie- sounds like maci

Firsts

We've had a lot of firsts this past week!

Ainsley:
1/7- first real bath! No more screaming during the bath, now only if they ever stopped screaming when putting on the lotion. (You would think they would like that since it's almost like a massage, oh well...)
1/8- first bottle (I ended up giving it to her and she did excellent, she gulps it down.)
1/10- first time sleeping 6 hours (she went from 10p-4a), hasn't happened again but is doing 4-5 hours most nights!

First Bath:


Ellie:
1/7- first hair cut! Ellie's hair was just getting to nappy, so I knew I finally needed to give in and give her a hair cut. We sat her in her booster seat with a snack and a movie, and I attempted to cut her hair. She did great and although I wasn't sure how her hair turned out, I think it looks much better now that I'm used to it! I'm still not going to touch her bangs, I want those to grow out! (So Nana, don't say anything about them needing a cut too!)

Before:
After:
What do you think? Do I have a future in cutting hair? haha, only our daughters and Zach's :)

It's already started...

Ellie's favorite friend that is a boy is Carson, a friend from church. Ellie is a very particular person, and has her specific friends that she likes to play with. Well she never chooses boys to play with, but somehow she is very fond of this cute little boy, Carson. Zach and I were able to watch Carson in the church nursery when we served in the 1 year old class. He is very sweet and we adore his parents, whom we also have gotten to know a lot more over the past 6 months.

One story I love about Carson is from a few months ago, when he welcomed his new sister into this world. We brought them dinner one night, grilled chicken and some sides. Well, Carson doesn't like grilled chicken. So to try to get him to eat it, Catherine and Matt (his mom and dad) hyped up the chicken calling it Ellie's chicken. Surprisingly he ate it and loved it, and even asked for more! They continued to use this on other grilled chicken, and he would always eat 'Ellie's chicken'. (I'm not sure if he still falls for this now, he's probably figured it out).

Now here comes the cutest...

Carson is turning 2 on Saturday and we are invited over to celebrate! Here is an interview Catherine gave him that I just had to share with you on our blog. Just click on the link and watch the video: Interview with Carson

So it's already started, boys are in love with our sweet Ellie. We're gonna be in trouble... (although if all the boys that liked Ellie were like Carson and came from a family like the Allison's, it might make it a lot easier... well, probably not for Zach)

Fun in the Tent

Christmas present from Gigi and Memaw T, Kayla has fun with it too!