She LOVES to read!

This girl loves her books, now when going to bed, she will look at her books before going to sleep. And it takes her a while to get to sleep during naptime, because she is reading her books in her bed and then on the chair, and this is usually how I find her when I go check on her. We leave her door open and it is just fun to watch her loving those books or just chatting away to her animals and toys.

 

 I was going to zoom in on this one but she is laying in her bed and she has her baby up in the air.

 She really likes sleeping in the recliner.

-Snuck a picture of her on the couch one morning and then she saw me and stopped and went back to watching her movie that she had on.(Next photo)

So many good books to read!

27 Months

-I think she might be phasing out her naps, because during nap timeshe plays and plays, and reads and reads. So I tell her she needs to stay in her room for quiet time or nap time. I know she still needs a nap, because she will crash before bedtime if she doesn't get one. Oh boy!

-She has the cutest smile, and I just love it.

-She has a fake laugh, and it is so funny.

-She loves her babies, and pats them on the back to burp them and mimics what I do. Love this!

-She has finally started to call Melanie by her name, and not just saying baby. I will be holding Melanie and if Julie wants me to hold her or do something, she will say,"Put Melanie down".

-On the days when it is not quite warm enough to take Melanie out, or if Melanie is fussy, my mom has been taking Julie on a walk, and she loves her walks with grandma. It is also nice to get a little time with just Melanie and me.

-Rob got a bike trailer for his bike to stroll Julie around in. Rob is now getting into biking and Julie loves to ride in the bike trailer, she calls it the "bike stroller" or the "big stroller". The first time we put her in, she was tired and really did NOT want to get in it. But, when Rob came back, she did NOT want to get out. She had so much fun, we just need to get her a helmet. It is a walking stroller as well that I can take both girls for walks with. We got a canopy that attaches inside for Melanie, and she seems to like it.
-Julie will clap her hands and say, "Good Job", does this with everything. Or she will just clap her hands and get all excited.
-She is still very clean, doesn't like to get dirty. If she gets anything on her fingers while she is eating, she basically stops and wants it wiped off before she can continue. We try to get her to wipe it on her bib or wipe her hands on a napkin herself, but she won't. And if there is something that should not be on a particular piece of food, she won't eat it until it is gone. Like, if she has a grape, and there is a spec of sauce on one of them, she will want it wiped off before she will eat it. The only thing she eats together are Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, mac and cheese, cheese melted in a tortilla. I guess she will eat pizza also, but most of the time her food is all separated, she has noodles plain usually. Just little piles of food on her plate.
-Loves to read before bed, and again I just love that she loves to read.
-talks so grown up sometimes, so matter of fact.
-I had bought a Utah Truffle and I only nibble away at it, so it was about 1/4 gone, when I was getting ready one morning, Julie brings me the EMPTY wrapper wanting me to throw it away for her. She had gotten it and ate the whole thing. She obviously enjoyed it, she is a clean eater so there was nothing on her face. I just had to laugh.
-Loves to be lightly tickled on her legs, arms, back, and belly. If I even start to tickle her legs she will lift up her shirt and say "again", for me to tickle her belly and her back.

2 Months

We had Melanie's 2 Month check up on Monday and here are her measurements

Weight: 9lb 13.5oz     (25%)

Height: 23 3/4in.     (95%)

Head: 14 3/4in     (20%)

Not so good with the weight area, but in the last two weeks she has gained almost a pound, since being on the medicine, it has helped and she eats a lot better. So from birth to now, it is not the kind of weight gain they like to see, but from two weeks ago, she is doing good. The doctor told us to add a little formula to my pumped breast milk before feeding her, and so tonight I opened up the can that the hospital gave us.

 Bam, those cans are pressurized, I barely opened it and powder shot straight up at me, needless to say, Rob thought it was pretty funny.
-When they gave her her shots, she did not like the oral vaccine, and she screamed when they gave her the shots but calmed down pretty quick after. We gave her one dose of tylenol and she seemed pretty good after that since it was night time. No fever!

-This kid is definitely not sleeping through the night, not even 3 hour stretches(she might have one close to 3 hour stretch, but I will feed her and then lay her down and she is awake wanting to eat again in an hour and a half. I try to hold her off with the binkie but that doesn't always work. Julie was sleeping through the night by 2 months and hopefully the added formula will help.
Update: The first time adding formula to her bottle, and she slept from 12:00 to 5:00, but then during the day she was starting to not drink her milk very well, might be that the milk is milk-based, so we have stopped with the formula and she is drinking her milk better again.
-She loves to sleep on her belly, so when we lay her down for tummy time, she falls asleep and she loves to lay on our chest and she will rub her face back and forth on our shirt when she is tired.
-Two weeks ago, she would have to be really relaxed to be able to drink her milk, and we would sometimes get halfway through and she would act like she was in pain and stop drinking. I would usually have to hold her laying on my legs while feeding her. Now, she is a lot better at drinking her bottle, and I can cradle her in my arms.
-We are now starting to lay her down in her porta crib in our room for part of the night, I get to a point closer to the morning that after feeding her and she is just content and asleep on my pillow, that I just leave her there so I can get my rest.
-We also have been putting her in her crib for nap times instead of just holding her.
-Not too fond of binkie, but will take it. Uses it more than Julie did, but not much.
-Smacks her lips after eating, like she is chewing the last bit of milk still in her mouth and makes little cooing noises.
-poops every few days, after being on the reflux medicine she went like two days without pooping, then she went on a stretch of 7 days, so I called and talked to a nurse at her pediatricians office and they gave me some tips to try and get her to poop, and that they should probably see her to listen to her bowels. So if she still hadn't pooped by the next morning I was going to take her in. After the phone call, I fed her and went into Julie's room and sat on the recliner. I have been reading about Elimination Communication and thought I would talk to her and tell her to go poop(it worked when she was just born, right before a diaper change I would tell her I was going to change her diaper and asked if she needed to poop, and she would go), so I talked to her and made grunting noises for about 20 minutes, and guess what, she went. After I would do a grunting noise, she would do it and I was holding her under her arms and had her legs in a squatting position and her face was real close to mine as I was talking to her and it was just awesome. And after going another couple days without pooping I did the same thing again today to get her to poop and she went.
-Doesn't always scream when changing her diaper any more
-When she is really mad, she has a scream to her cry, she has a pretty loud cry, and the scream is pretty loud. Hurts my ears!
-Pretty much exclusively bottle feeding and pumping. I will occasionally try to nurse her because it is nice having her close, but she still doesn't get very much out. And that is all right, this is what works for her right now, and maybe in a month or so she will be able to get more out. She has been eating 2 1/2-3oz. at each feeding every 2.5 to 3 hours.
-She is giving us more smiles and also talking a lot more frequently now.
-She has my eyes, she doesn't have an eye crease, except for a little one on her left eye. My eyes have since changed, but only since a few years ago. Chinese eyes.

As I was typing this post I realized I didn't have any recent pictures of Melanie(just herself), besides the ones where she is smiling. So I got one when Rob came home. So fun to see the clothes on her that Julie wore when she was little, she doesn't fill them in like Julie, but the length is what fit her right now. 

 -She will try to stick her whole fist in her mouth.

 She looks like she is trying so hard to get her whole entire fist into her mouth, and she gets pretty close to.

 I just can't get enough of her cute smile!

Survival

I got my new baby carrier in the mail the other day, and am loving it. It is a Baby Hawk MeiTei. Some days this is how I make it through, or I don't get anything done. I hold her a lot it seems and this truly has saved me, also my back. Holding a baby all day long is killer on the back.

She seems to like it!

Smiles

Got some smile on camera from Melanie, she is smiling a lot more lately and it is so fun! So many pictures that I just had to post them all since I couldn't choose.

 Love it!

 I just like this one of her!

 Smiles are truly the best!

Taken Over

We have been taken over by our kids, good thing we have a King size bed.

Julie doesn't actually sleep with us, but when she wakes up in the morning she comes in and Rob picks her up and plops her next to him, and then she will sometimes fall back asleep in the few minutes that she is there and so when Rob gets out to get ready for work, he just leaves her there.

And Melanie, well, I am not proud of this, and I never planned on doing this, but she sleeps in our bed. For my sanity of getting some sleep and because she sleeps better propped up. I have since started putting her down in the porta crib that has been in our room since she was born, and she sleeps okay in it, maybe for stretches of an hour and a half. It helps me sleep to just have her on the pillow next to me. But, now that she is a little more wiggly I have mostly moved her over to the crib, and lets just say, last night I had shorter intervals of sleep.

 Also, my pump is in my bedroom and so when I pump and Julie is not asleep, she is in our room. She gets into everything and drives me crazy, because I can't just grab her because she is on the opposite side of the bed. Here she is putting on Robs pajamas and walking around the bed. Anytime we leave the door ajar, she senses it and goes in and slams the door behind her(something she has been doing a LOT of lately).

 Being funny!

 Crazy kid!

Easter

Our first time back to church, and it was fabulous. Sacrament meeting was awesome, the Sunday School lesson was great, and Rob took Melanie to Priesthood and I enjoyed Relief Society. It was a great day. I was even ready for church super early and we made it on time and even earlier than usual. 

Did some pig tails in Julie's hair and they were super cute, with her cute new dress. And Melanie did pretty well, Rob did take her out during Sunday School and he said he left Priesthood after 10 minutes, but she did awesome in Sacrament meeting(must be because I held her, ha). We almost had to take Julie out during Sacrament meeting though, because she was throwing a fit.

After church we decided to forgo Julie's nap and head over to Robs parents house. She fell asleep as we were getting ready to get in the car. Took a little cat nap, loaded her in the car and thought she would fall asleep but didn't, just took a power nap and she was good.

We visited and then had a wonderful dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, salad, corn, and rolls. It was wonderful, the only potatoes Julie will eat is Robs moms cheesy potatoes.

After dinner, we had a small Easter egg hunt for the little kiddos, Julie sure had fun, although she was walking really weird. We finally figured it out and realized that her shoes were too small, she wore them all during church and all afternoon. Sorry babe, time to get some new shoes.

Some family pictures, this one is an outtake.

God Julie this cute dress from Old Navy the day before, all her dresses are getting really short. And Melanie's is one of the only outfits I bought while I was pregnant after finding out we were having another girl.

After a fun Easter egg hunt, we headed to my parents for my family's Easter egg hunt. I think Julie had a great time spending so much time outside today, she is going to love summer. 

We got to my parents house, and fed Melanie while my mom went out to hide the eggs. I always love the egg hunt, and by the end there is always a couple eggs that we have a hard time finding. We all have a list with the colors of eggs that we need to find. I couldn't find my peach egg, and Julie was missing one of her small eggs. We all went inside to check and make sure we had all the eggs we were supposed to have, and we did. So, out we went to keep looking. My dad found the peach and my sister found the last small egg.

Yes, the youngest sibling is 18, but that doesn't mean we can't still hunt for Easter eggs. We always have fun finding all our eggs. My mom is the official egg hider. She does a great job too.

Julie really wanted to ride the tricycle.

I gave the camera to Rob so that I could be in some of the photos, he was chuckling after taking a few and as I was looking over the photos when we got home, I just started laughing when I got to these, he thought it would be nice to get bum shots of me. And this is the only one I am posting of those, sheesh, what a guy! At least he did get one of my whole self.

Julie had fun just running around the yard over and over.

Oh, and I just love her pigtails, parted her hair down the middle and we can make two pigtails. I have to bribe her with swedish fish, but she looks so cute and makes her look older. Have to pin those bangs back also, can't get myself to cut her hair yet.

My mom held Melanie, it was a bit chilly!

Chopping away on some of her goodies! She was loving it.

And Julie was sure on one today and tonight, she was going crazy. What a silly girl she can be.

We had some Razelberry Pie with Ice Cream and then we packed up the kiddos and headed home. What a great day.