My boy lately...

Oh how I love this kid.  Here are some things about my boy at 27 months that I want to remember.

He loves to dance and has some pretty awesome moves.

He is very particular about how we play and if I don't do something exactly how he wants it done he screams, "NO MOMMY PLAAAAAY!" (He also says, "No Mommy help!"and "No Mommy sing!")

He says "woa!" and "cool".  Um, what?!

He is such a happy boy and has the best laugh!

He loves tunnels and bridges.  He loves building them and also going under and over them in real life.

He also loves construction vehicles.  Lucky for him, we live in a new neighborhood so they are everywhere!

He is really into getting "big muscles like Poppies", so we use that to get him to eat certain things.

He is very sensitive and concerned with others.  If he sees someone get hurt or sad, he worries about them and talks about it for days.

He uses a really high pitched voice when he is talking about Georgia.  It's the funniest thing!

He always says, "That's sad" when he breaks something on purpose.

At least once a day he says, "Georgia Kate bye bye!" and I say, "No, she's going to live at our house forever!"  Then he says, "YAAAY!" in his high pitched voice.

He tells himself "Good job!" all the time.  At least he's not lacking confidence?

He is so sweet and says sorry to everyone and everything.  He says sorry to the table if he bumps into it, Georgia Kate's pacifier if he drops it, anything.  It's so funny!  He also said "sorry baby" to me the other day because I say that to him.  Haha!

He is sooo independent, which is fun to see but can also be extremely frustrating.  He is also quite the negotiator these days.

He can make such a huge mess in such a short amount of time.  I know it's probably very typical of this age, but my goodness.  I can't keep up, especially with a baby!

He's starting to say prayers on his own.  Mostly he tells God thank you for people and things (last night he thanked God for hot dogs).

He's started saying "big ole" for everything!  "Reid has big ole feet!  Reid saw a big ole frog!"

One of my very favorite things is that he kisses by making the "ch" sound!

I feel like he seems more and more grown up every single day!  I am amazed at what he's saying and learning.  This age is so much fun!  

Brother and Sister

When I saw Georgia Kate for the first time right after she was born and she was crying, she looked SO much like Reid to me.  It was that sweet bottom lip sticking out!  Then once I started studying her, I felt like she didn't really look like him at all.  Now that she's getting a little bit older, I feel like they are starting to have more similarities again!  They definitely look like siblings to me.  What do you think?

I love these babies so much!

vintage and mumsie clothes

What our days are looking like...

Disclaimer:

This will be super boring to anyone except me and I'm going to scribble it down in about 5 minutes so it may not make sense. ;)

I feel like in the last week or so we've settled into our own little semi-predictable routine.  I like that.  I know that with babies routines are very loose and change every couple of weeks it seems, but for now, this is what our days are looking like!

Georgia Kate wakes up for the day between 7 and 7:30.  I feed her, change her diaper, etc. before going upstairs to get Reid.  Reid starts waking up anywhere between 7:15 and 8:00 but I'm thankful that he stays in bed happily until I'm done with Georgia Kate.  Our mornings seem to start off better if I can take care of her before getting him up.

The three of us play upstairs for a little while and then come down for breakfast.  Georgia Kate goes into her "pocket" at this point and sleeps for a while.  Sometimes we will eat breakfast while watching Thomas and Friends and sometimes we will take it out on the back porch.  After Reid eats we just hang around downstairs.  We play on the porch for a while or play in the living room... He loves to do stickers (his new obsession) and play with play-dough.  At some point we change him into his clothes for the day.  

Georgia Kate eats again around 10.  One of the trickier things about two kids is keeping the toddler entertained while feeding the baby.  We are working on patience. :) After I feed GK, I change her out of her pajamas and it's time for me to "get ready" (this term is used loosely).  Georgia Kate lays in the Boppy lounger or under her playmat while I get ready and Reid is usually playing with the water faucet on the bathtub resulting in soaking wet clothes.  Once we are all ready, we try to go on some kind of outing.  A couple of times we've gone to Target, today we went to the park, but usually we just drive around or drive through Chick-fil-a for lunch.  I'm ashamed to admit how many times we've had Chick-fil-a for lunch over the last few weeks.

After our morning outing, we come home to eat lunch and play.  Georgia Kate usually falls asleep in the car, so she sometimes finishes her nap in her carseat in the house or gets back in the pocket if she's fussing.   She wakes up and is ready to eat between 12:30 and 1:00.

Reid goes down for his nap around 1:30 and then I get some one on one time with Georgia.  It's fun getting to focus on just her for a little while.  I've starting putting her in the rock n play at this time of the day to try to let her get in an actual nap.  Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she doesn't.  If she does, I have been trying to squeeze in a little cat nap for myself!

Reid wakes up about 3:00 and we go up to get him.  It's usually time for Georgia to eat again so I feed her while Reid plays.  We spend the next few hours before Chris gets home playing and trying not to destroy the whole house. ;)  This is usually the most challenging time of the day.

Chris gets home around 6:00 (today he got home at 5:30 - YAY!).  We have been so blessed not have have to cook yet.  So many wonderful friends and family members have been bringing meals and now we are eating frozen meals that we prepared before GK was born.  Before we ate dinner tonight, I fed Georgia Kate at 5:45 while Reid and Chris played for a few minutes.  Usually Chris and Reid eat and I walk around with Georgia and then I eat later that night, but tonight she let us put her down in her Boppy pillow for a few minutes on the table, so we all sat down together!  

The rest of the evening has been really up in the air and Georgia Kate was having a very hard time going to bed.  It was taking close to two hours to get her to sleep...poor baby just couldn't settle down.  Tonight we tweaked things a little bit.  So far, so good!   We tried really hard and kept her awake from 5:45 to about 7:15.  At 7:15 I gave her a bath, which calmed her down and relaxed her.  We have been doing a bottle in the evening so that Chris can spend that time with her.  Chris gave her the bottle at 7:30 and she fell straight to sleep by 7:45.  She has been getting up to eat around 1:30 and 4:30, but that may change with the new evening routine.  

Now I am off to help with Reid's bath and bedtime!  Well, that's what life is looking like right now and I wouldn't change a thing!  This is such a special time as we settle into life as a family of four and I want to remember what it was like. :)

Just a couple of random pictures from the park today...

30 things

In honor of turning the big 3-0 last week, I decided to list 30 things that I've learned in the last 30 years.     Here it goes (in no particular order)...

1.  Marrying your first and only boyfriend is a gift and a blessing.

2.  It's actually fun to like football.  It only took Chris about 12 years, but I can actually say I enjoy watching it now.
3.  Stop putting so much pressure on yourself and let go of trying to achieve perfection.  It's never going to happen.

4.  All food tastes better with Diet Coke.
5.  Read for fun.
6.  Don't be a picky eater. I am still relatively picky, but I've come a long way with this one.
7.  Being a people pleaser is exhausting.  Apologizing for no reason and when you don't really mean it and over-explaining yourself is silly.
8.  Don't obsess about what others think of you.  They think about you a lot less than you realize.
9.  Don't let your weight determine how happy you are.
10.  Don't rush to decorate a home just because you want to fill it up.  Take your time and wait until you can find and get what you really want.
11.  Be kind.  You never know what someone is going through.
12.  You might miss out on knowing some great people if you are too busy judging them just because they are different than you.
13.  Be thankful for everything you have and don't take anything for granted.
14.  Find a job that you love and fulfills you.  I am so proud of my 6 years as a teacher and now my job as a stay-at-home mom.
15.  Not all trends are a good idea.  I owned way too many pairs of Doc Martins.  Ew.
16.  Always send a thank you note.
17.  Learn to say NO.
18.  I'm much more of an introvert than I thought.
19.  There is no place in the world like Texas A&M.
20.  Compliment someone whenever you can.  You never know the difference it might make to them.
21.  Be in pictures with your children, even if you don't like the way you look at that time.
22.  Don't blink.  Times flies.
23.  Accept help.  If someone offers to help you it's because they want to.
24.  Make new friends, but keep the old.  You will have friends from different phases of life, but there's nothing like old friends that share a history with you.
25.  Comparison is the thief of joy.  Don't compare your behind the scenes to someone else's highlight reel.
26.  The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.
27.  The to-do list will never be done.
28.  Give more than you receive.
29.  You will never regret spending time with your kids.
30.  Never underestimate the power of a good pedicure and an eyebrow wax.

We celebrated my birthday with my family on Friday at my parents' house.  It was easier than trying to bring both kids to a restaurant and having to rush.  We had a great night!  

At 30, my life is sweeter than I could have ever imagined!

One month of Georgia Kate!

Our beautiful baby girl has been in our lives for a month now and we couldn't imagine life without her! She is truly the perfect addition to our family and we love everything about her.  I love the way she puckers her little lips out like Reid used to do, the way she raises her eyebrows and wrinkles her forehead when I pick her up, her long skinny feet and toes, and the way she holds her hand out in front of her face when she's being bothered.  We've gotten a few real smiles (we think)!  She smiled at me for the first time on Sunday.  There's just nothing like your baby smiling at you.

One thing (among many) that I have learned is that every baby is different.  Overall, Georgia Kate is a pretty calm baby, but this girl definitely has her own set of preferences!  Our Princess Peach (other nicknames include Peachy and GK) LOVES to be held and snuggled and usually only by Mommy.  She is the BEST cuddler!  I got an Ergo Carrier (Reid calls it her "pocket") and it has been an awesome and completely necessary purchase!  She loves it and it allows me to play and take care of Reid while still feeling close to her.  She's not impressed with the play mat, swing, or bouncer.  Sometimes I can put her down in one of those for a couple of minutes, but she gets over it really fast. Georgia Kate's eating and sleeping are pretty typical of any one month old.  Right now I just feed her when she's hungry, which is usually every 2 hours, and she sleeps whenever she's tired.  She's definitely a sleepy eater, so she's eating more frequently right now.  At night Georgia Kate sleeps swaddled in her swaddle pod in the rock 'n play next to our bed.  This was something I had heard a lot about and when she wouldn't sleep in the pack 'n play, we decided to try it out.  We are having a hard time getting her to settle into bed at night, but she's usually pretty good about going back to sleep after middle of the night feedings.  She really just started having a little more "awake time" the last few days.  This girl loves her beauty rest.  We finally get to see her eyes sometimes!  She has beautiful eyes, just like her brother and daddy!  I can't wait to see if they will stay blue or turn brown like mine.  Georgia Kate loves bath time and it really seems to relax her.  Nothing compares to a clean, snuggly baby!  We are not on any kind of predictable routine whatsoever yet, but I'm okay with that.  It's a lot more challenging to get on a schedule when there is a toddler involved too and honestly, it's just not that important to me like it was the first time around.  I know now that we will settle into a routine eventually. 

Georgia Kate is wearing mostly newborn and 0-3 month gowns and pajamas and size 1 diapers.  We've had so much fun playing dress up!  My mom kept a lot of mine and my sister's dresses and bubbles from when we were babies.  The one in these pictures was mine!  

It's been a month of lots of visitors and time with family, lots of learning, lots of loving, and lots of memories.

Georgia Kate, we absolutely adore you and are so thankful that God gave us YOU one month ago!

Sidenote: I turned 30 today!  It's fun to get to share the 22nd of the month with GK! :)  

Life with two...

We are only about a month into life with 2 children, but I thought I would share about how things are going so far.  I have to say, the transition has been so much smoother than I thought it would be.  I'm not saying it's been easy and there have definitely been many challenging moments, but overall, it hasn't been near as hard as I was anticipating it would be.  Here's a list of random thoughts about life with two (because I don't feel like figuring out how to make it flow into paragraphs)...

• My c-section recovery was much quicker the second time.  I felt almost back to normal after about a week and had to remind myself that I just had major surgery and still needed to take it easy.  
• Something that has surprised me is how much less tired I feel this time than I did with Reid.  I think it's because you are forced to get up and go when you have another child to take care of.  With your first, your body is just in shock over all of the changes.   I was really worried about having the energy to take care of a toddler and newborn after sleepless nights and while I definitely feel tired, I'm not dragging.  
• The days seem to go by so quickly right now because I am ALWAYS doing something.   
• In some ways I feel much more confident this time, but in other ways I feel just as clueless!  Every baby is different, so I can't just always do what worked with Reid.  It's been fun figuring out a new baby!
• "Getting ready" (brushing teeth and putting in contacts) takes forever, leaving the house takes forever, and going to the bathroom and eating really doesn't happen for Mommy.  
• I have learned to let a lot of things go.  Reid is wearing things that I probably wouldn't normally let him wear and eating things that I probably wouldn't let him eat.  He's loving that of course!  
• I  feel like our washing machine and dryer are running constantly.  
• The house is usually a mess, but I really don't care.  These truly are the best times of my life and I am not going to let them pass me by because I am too worried about things that don't matter.
• Reid has been so helpful and seems so much older all of a sudden.  I have to remind myself that he is still only 2.  I try to involve him in almost everything I do with Georgia Kate.  I am so proud of him for how well he's done!  
• It's so important to give yourself grace as a mom and not put too much pressure on yourself.
• Second children are put through a lot.  Georgia Kate has gotten a book thrown at her head and a toy truck rolled over her (by her brother, not me) :).  Bless her heart.  We are working on being gentle.  
• Flexibility is the name of the game.  
• I might have a slight problem with searching for coordinating outfits for Reid and Georgia Kate.  
• One thing that has really helped (this tip came from Courtney!) is that I loaded up on random toys from the dollar store and a few other fun things to pull out during these first few weeks of being inside the house a lot.  This (and the fact that we've had tons of friends and family in and out) has really helped keep Reid from getting bored.
• The three of us ran our first errand today!! Woohoo!  I had to really gear myself up for this.  We went to Target of course!  I realized that I hadn't been to Target in over 4 weeks.  That has to be a record for me.  Overall, it went very smoothly and I left feeling very impressed with myself! :)
• A selfless husband, loving and involved grandparents, and friends that bring you meals are invaluable.  We have been so blessed! 

 I am in love with this picture...

I am so beyond grateful for our babies.  We are LOVING life with two!