Double bath

Katie and Ellie took their first bath together a few nights ago! Katie loved being in the water, as usual, and Ellie loved having her sister in there (even if it did cut into her splashing radius and other mayhem). As long as Ellie can remember to be careful around Katie, I'm looking forward to letting them take baths together more often so that we can get it all done at once and start feeding into a nighttime routine for Katie. Both our girls are such fish-babies :)

Camping "trip"

 Brian and Ellie went camping one night this past weekend... all the way out in the back yard. It was a trial run since we're hoping to camp later this summer when we drive out to North Carolina on a family vacation. Ellie did pretty good -- much better than when we tried to camp with her last summer and had to abandon the venture close to midnight because she refused to sleep. She still stayed up later than normal, but did get some rest in the tent and had a lot of fun!

 Marshmallows may have been her favorite part. They're mom's favorite part of camping, too!

 And Katie enjoyed hanging out on the camping trip until it was time for bed. Then she and I went back inside to let the adventurers have their daddy-daughter time :)

Exersaucing

 Katie recently tried out a new 'do (the itty-bitty pony tail).... and she took a spin in the exersaucer. She's a bit too small for it still, as you can see by the foot picture below, but she loves to be upright these days and see what's going on. We let her use it in small bursts, and when she's not in it Ellie makes sure one (or 10) of her stuffed animals are giving it some use.

Random cuteness

Katie taking her first (short) ride on daddy's shoulders :)
And, below, I discovered Ellie sitting in Katie's bumbo seat the other morning and keeping her company while she napped in the swing. As you can see, Ellie also tossed some of Katie's toys into the swing in case she needed some entertainment when she woke up from napping. So sweet.

 

And here's Ellie reading to Katie. I adore this one. 

Big box

Brian's new chair at work was Ellie's gain, since he brought home the HUGE box to become her first backyard fort. She invited Katie in all on her own. I forsee many more years of being banned from the kids' clubhouses :)

She did let me get the paints out so she could decorate the box. It turned out pretty awesome.

Train ride

In the middle of an impromptu rain shower last week, we hit the park and went on our first (of many, I'm sure) train ride of the summer. Katie's first!

Choo-choo!

Smile, laugh, hiccup

Finally got some smiles and sounds catalogued from Katie... She is SO happy first thing in the morning. I love it! Though her excitement brought on a bout of hiccups at the end. Oops.

Splasha splash

Here's some documentation of (one of) Ellie's first major splash sessions at the zoo fountains by our house. She's still our fish-baby!

Woah, colder than I thought it was going to be...

Well, maybe I'll just stick my whole head in.

Mother's Day

We had a great mother's day and I was spoiled rotten by my lot! We were thinking of our moms and grandmas and wishing that we could be with them for the holiday. But we had a pretty low-key day spent at church and then out to Kickapoo State Park for a picnic.

 We met our friends Mary (Nutter) and Rob, along with their two girls (Eloise above with Katie is four months old and Rosalie turned 2 in January), at the park. Can't believe we have four girls between the two families now. We met for a Mother's Day picnic at this park 3 years ago when Mary and I were both pregnant, but neither of us knew what we were having yet. Didn't know about our first daughters then, nor did we imagine that we'd both have another by now. We're looking forward to watching the kids grow up together.

Happy mother's day to all and much love to our mommas! Hope it was a great one.

Bus trip

Ellie and I recently took Katie on her first bus trip. Of course we went across the river to visit daddy at work :) We all had so much fun and even had time to stop at the library on the way home. Best of all, we made it back to the house just before the skies opened up and it poured. A total success.

In the driver's seat

Just a quick jaunt around the neighborhood with Katie, Tigger and a plastic orange. That's how Ellie rolls.

Bumbo babes

I'm so happy that Katie is big and strong enough to sit in the Bumbo chair, at least for short amounts of time! It's fun having her be more actively engaged in whatever Ellie and I are doing, or as part of the family crowd during mealtimes.

Of course Ellie thinks the chair is still the right size for her, too...

But it's Katie's seat now! And she's really loving it :)

Girls having fun

Here's a self-portrait of me and the gals hanging out around the house last week. Not the best picture, but at least we're all in it! For as much as I may be stressing and missing sleep these days, I do love my quality time with Ellie and Katie. There are so many sweet moments and hilarious moments that help counter the frustrations we encounter on a daily basis.

And it's great that the warm weather is seemingly here to stay and is giving us plenty of chances to visit the park. I predict a lot more pics like these from our summer months ahead!

Sleepy and cute

On this sleep, rainy Monday I thought I'd share some napping (and being cute) pics of our Katie.

Feeling better

It's been a pretty good week! And I love these girls!!
We packed a lot of fun into the past few days, with a couple trips to the zoo and a picnic in the park and a bus trip over to visit Brian at work. Lots of fun and less time spent in the office adds up to a much less frenzied mom.
I'm feeling much more positive -- and even a little better rested -- than I did a few days back when I sent out a rambling "what is going on?!" post into the blogosphere. I really appreciate the feedback I got from friends and family, especially hearing from moms who are also juggling multiple kids and feeling the same frustrations and growing pains.
I got a special treat last night, too... a nearly full night of uninterrupted sleep! For the first time in three months I didn't get up in the middle of the night with Katie. Brian flew solo with her all night so I could sleep. And even though I woke up a bit disoriented in the middle of the night (Where's the baby?) and then started to feel uncomfortably full (need to nurse Katie!) by early morning... it was SO nice to get some extra, irresponsible sleep :) Hey, there's got to be some silver lining to the whole need to supplement Katie with some formula anyway! I'm not passing off nighttime duties to Brian or anything, but I appreciate so much that he can fill in every once in a while on the PM shift. Everything seems better when you get some extra sleep.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Three months

Can't believe it's been three months since our second angel daughter joined the family!

Katie continues to amaze us every day and bring so many smiles to the family. Here eyes are so expressive and I love trying to figure out what she's thinking... it's usually pretty tough, except when I can see the surprise/terror in them when Ellie or one of the dogs makes a loud noise right by her head. Poor Katie ;)

I looked back and realized I did a top 10 for each month of the first year for Ellie, so I'm going to try that for Katie, too.
Here's what she's up to at the ripe age of three months:
1) Loves baths! I think she'd stay in there for an hour if I'd let her. Only time she fusses about it is when I take her out.
2) Sleeping like a champ, for a 3-month-old. (Knock on wood). She usually gives us a 5-6 hour stretch after we give her a final feeding of the day around 10 p.m., and then I nurse her once in the middle of the night and she makes it through until morning — usually being woken up by big sister around 6:30 or 7 a.m.
3) Smiles! She gives them out freely, especially right after eating or first thing in the morning. Love, love, love seeing them!
4) Does great with tummy time. She is so strong with her head and does awesome when propped up partially on the boppy pillow.
5) Sits in the bumbo chair, which makes her happy to be part of the table group with Ellie, Brian and I.
6) Survives Ellie :) Big sister loves Katie a bit too much sometimes. Katie has gotten through numerous eye-poking incidents and plenty of rough kisses or hugs. Can't wait to see what happens when she's old enough to start giving it back, god help us.
7) A big fan of the swing. It's where she takes her longest naps most days. Yay for the swing.
8) Kicks those legs. I recall more kicking and thrusting during my pregnancy with Katie, as compared to Ellie's, and I've noticed she rarely stops moving her legs even now. Wonder if we have a future runner or soccer player on our hands?
9) Her belches and toots would put Homer Simpson to shame.
10) That hair! What can I say? It's the first thing people notice. What a beautiful head of hair for a breathtaking baby.

(Oh, and here's a fun series of shots from when we were all playing in Ellie's room the other day and Katie feel asleep while doing some tummy time. Love the little frog legs!)

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