One month old!

Claire is already four weeks old! I can't believe it!

Yesterday Claire had her best day ever, she was so happy and slept so much. So I took these pictures of her while she was in such a good mood. Sorry for the overload - you know how it is, so hard to choose!

How to nap like Parker B.

Step 1) Wait until your mom tucks you into bed.
Step 2) Choose your 50 favorite cars.
Step 3) Lovingly arrange them all around you so that they can go "nigh-nigh."
Step 4) Quietly play with them so that your mommy thinks you are sleeping.

Hanging in the Yard

These are just some cute pictures we took out in the front yard a few nights ago.

The Weight of the World

Poor Claire. She knows what a crazy world she's been born into, so she has resorted to spending her nap times dreaming up solutions to all the world's problems. She always looks so deep in thought...

I have a theory

So I have this little sister Andrea who, if she could, would have someone with her to keep her company every single second of her life. I've come to realize the past few weeks that this may inadvertently be my own fault. Perhaps Scott and I acted like my kids do with Claire, and poor Andrea just got used to having someone in her face at all times!




Just a few random cute ones...


Claire is a sweet little addition to our family. She has her crabby moments, but overall she's doing great. Very good-natured, doing great with her eating, and sleeps a lot. Nothing lulls her to sleep better than being shoved into my sling and being right in the middle of the noise and chaos of our family, which I guess is a good thing. She's pretty portable, and we've taken her out somewhere pretty much every day since she was born. Except my pediatrician had the nerve to tell me (in front of James!) that I should avoid taking her out to TARGET, grocery stores, or RESTAURANTS for six weeks! Uh, no problem with the grocery store there, but I think I will politely disregard the rest. No Target for six weeks. Please. Clearly he doesn't know who he's dealing with. :)

Officially a Party of Five

Whew! Well, I thought I'd hop on and add a few more pictures and fill in some information from my sister's post. Tuesday I had a great day in San Diego with family and friends, and left the kids with my mom that night since we were supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30 the next morning for my c-section. James and I went home, finished packing up, and I headed to bed. Before getting into bed I made a comment to James to the effect of, "That would be funny if this baby decided to come tonight, huh? We wouldn't call anyone, right? If there's any baby that would do that, it'd be this little bugger." So of course... just before midnight, my water broke, which of course (being me), I had to get online and research. Yup, sure enough. We headed to the hospital and had my c-section a few hours early, snagging the last private post-partum room in the process!

The c-section went smoothly, although I'll spare you all those pictures. They let James peek over and tell me what we were having, since we had chosen to be surprised this time. He told me it was a girl, and I was so excited for Kenley to have a little sister! Baby was born at 2:20am. She was our smallest baby at 6 lbs., 13 oz. and 18 inches long. I headed into recovery, where I promptly fell asleep. James and I both slept kind of off and on until the morning, when we got to call our families and tell them about our exciting night!

We finally decided to name her Claire Helene. We chose Claire because we both like it, and Helene is my grandma's name. I love my grandma so much - she is a great example to me of love, kindness, and optimism, and I hope that little Claire grows into her sweet name.

She looks a little bit like both our kids, and so far in personality she takes mostly after me - she likes to eat and sleep.




We are now home from the hospital. My house somehow got much smaller and my kids got much louder while I was gone, so I'm getting a bit of cabin fever having to stay cooped up in here. Hopefully my recovery will go quickly and we can get out and around pretty soon. In the meantime, we're doing a lot of this:


And today we went to the park, where Claire enjoyed a snuggle in the sling:


Here's a cute picture from today. It's torturing me by showing up sideways no matter what I do. Whatever. Just turn your neck.

SHE'S HERE! SHE'S HERE!

So here's a temporary post from the non-parent that Katie and James can replace at their leisure. (They've got way better pics too. I've noticed you can't really see the baby in any of mine). Katie was scheduled for a c-section this AM but the baby has a mind of her own so last night, after a full day with the fam at the beach, Katie went home to get a good night's rest and instead went into labor. The baby was born around 2AM and the fam (including the kids) finally came up to see her when visiting hours started at noon. She's teeny, tiny and beatiful. And still unnamed. We'll keep you posted. (Wow, such a pun in the blogging world. I'm sure someone besides me has already figured that out...) Here's some pics:

The video cut off, which makes me sad. What Kenley says to her is: "I'm your big sister, and this is your big brother."

The Last Morning Like This

Tomorrow when I wake up it will be the last time I wake up the same way I have grown accustomed to this summer. Kenley always wakes up first and comes into bed with me. I don't know what time she comes in - maybe 7ish? Then she either curls her little body up next to mine and goes back to sleep, or lays there just hanging out while I keep sleeping, since I'm essentially incapable of waking up before 8am nowadays. I love it when she's awake, and every so often I open my eyes and look at her, and she gives me her sweet little smile and pats my cheek. I love her so much.

More and more now that the kids share a room, Parker comes in with her, but those mornings aren't as peaceful since they fight over who cuddles on a certain side of the bed, and who gets the mysteriously less favorable side. Other mornings it is Parker who finally wakes me up closer to eight, as he moseys in bleating, "Food. Food." He likes to eat breakfast first thing. Kenley and I watch cartoons on the couch (Total honesty? I sleep some more) and eat later in the morning. Still other mornings Parker just sleeps and sleeps until closer to 9:00. He used to be my early riser, always up by 6:30. Thank goodness for playing hard in the sunshine, it is wearing this little boy out. I love him so much too.

I get really panicked before I have a new baby, thinking how much I like my life the way it is, and wondering how all the changes will change us. We'll see. But I know one way life will for sure change, and that is no more sleeping until 8:00 every morning. But it's been such a blessing to have while it lasted.

PS: Dear New Baby, The kicking all night, sleeping all day thing won't work once you're born. Get that AM/PM thing figured out stat. I don't do up-all-night dance parties.

Dino Mountain = Not For Toddlers

Okay, so we didn't know. We took (PAID for!!!!) the kids to see the Dino Mountain exhibit at the Wild Animal Park. Um, I'll let the pictures mainly speak for themselves, but I will just say they did not particularly enjoy it, and that Parker was crying actual tears begging to leave by the end. I will say the Wild Animal Park did a great job making the dinosaurs seem authentic with their movements and noises, prompting Kenley to sob accusingly, "Mommy, you SAID they were going to be like STATUES!" before freezing, mid-cry, to demonstrate the menacing jazz-hands she had expected the dinos to have.

Big Changes

Parenting is so funny. There are things you think are no big deal that end up being HUGE drama, and then things you think will be so difficult that just end up being easy. Luckily, lately, we have been experiencing the latter.

The last big thing before having this new baby has been to get Kenley and Parker into the same bedroom. I was going to just keep Parker in the crib because he's such a good sleeper, but we decided to just give the toddler bed a try. Our plan was to first get him used to sleeping in the toddler bed, then to move it into Kenley's room and have the kids get used to sleeping in the same room. I thought it would be a little bit tricky to convince Parker to stay in bed because he's such an active little guy, but it was a total breeze. I literally only had to go in there twice at naptime over the course of the whole transition. He was so excited about his bed and so content just to be in there. Sometimes he would wake up with different cars than he went to bed with, so I knew he had been up and rummaging in his toybox at some point, but it was not nearly the difficult production I had been anticipating. Here are some cute pics of the kids helping James to set up the bed, and cute little Parker sleeping in it. My only regret is that he has pink flowery sheets on his mattress in all these pics. :)







Funny story. One night right after he'd started sleeping in his toddler bed, I heard his doorknob rattle and then nothing after that. I went in to check on him after a few minutes and found him sleeping in a chair by the door. I guess he had tried to open it, couldn't, and just gave up and slept there. Being the loving mom that I am, I went for my camera, took some pictures, and then left him there for James to see. By the time James came home, he had slumped half onto the ground. Still awesome, so I took more pictures!



So about a week ago we moved the kids into the same room. The first night we put Parker to bed first, and Kenley was all devastated because she envisioned them lying in bed saying good-night to each other. So the next night I put them to bed at the same time, and it went just fine, and has every night after that. They are so happy to be together, and so very precious. Here's a picture I just took of them all snuggled in and sleeping.

4th of July

I love 4th of July. Well, all holidays really. But we had an awesome 4th this year. We started out at Old Poway Park, riding the train, doing some crafts, and climbing trees.





Then we went to a BBQ over to the Bayne's, where they had a bounce house with a slide that the kids loved, an Escalade for them to drive, and a putting green for them to practice on. It was such a fun way to spend the afternoon!





Then after naps and a block party, it was off to see fireworks. Parker was scared at first, but Kenley loved them all! It was a busy day and night for James at work, so the only lame part of the day is that we didn't get to spend it with him, but maybe next year!