G Daddy's Visit

It was so nice to have my dad in town for a couple of days, though it was way too short! This little guy gave us a little scare yesterday:

His little belly button stump hadn't fallen out, which wasn't all that concerning, but it started looking a little off to me. We called the nurse's line and explained what was going on and they had us bring him in. As it turns out, he's got an umbilical granuloma (you can read more about that here). In a nutshell, the underside of the stump never hardened and so skin cells couldn't form over top of it, leaving it exposed once the stump started coming off. If not treated it could cause infection, but we caught it early and the Dr. was able to put the silver nitrate on it and we'll go back in a few weeks for his well checkup and if needed they'll do another treatment of it. It was nice to have someone here to leave Logan with so she could get a complete nap and not have to go sit in the Dr.'s office. (did I mention the sweet little chub gained 6oz in 3 days?)

When we got home we went out to dinner to celebrate daddy's commissioning! All Logan wanted was "fro fries" and "chechup" and I think she told our poor waiter that about 50 times. Her plate did come with a whopping side of fries, though, so I guess he listened.

She's a crazy warm blooded woman and refuses to wear a jacket most of the time--until she gets outside and realizes mommy wasn't lying about the temperature (though, I do force one on her if it gets below about 50) and last night she decided it was "TOOOOOOOOLD!"

But still didn't want to put her jacket on.

She sure does love to snuggle her little brother, though. Thankfully, he's got a lot of Mike's personality and is super laid back about this and just allows her to do what she wants--though you'll notice he has a, "is this ever going to end?" face on. I think if he asks Uncle John he'll realize that, no, it doesn't really ever end when you've got an older sister.

He loved the attention he got from g dad, though.

Here he is sporting his crimson and white for the Churchill side of the family:

Logan found Brody's hat on the floor this morning and decided it suited her more than it suits him and sported it around for quite a while.

She eventually found her own hat and was content with it, though.

We'll sure miss g daddy! (Logan has dubbed him g daddy...she can't quite get the whole word grandaddy out--though we'll keep working on it until she does)

I know this post was all over the place, the visit was so quick and we had so much going on the last couple of days that my head is still spinning a bit!

It's Official!

It's official! We're an Army family, now.

As of this afternoon, Mike took the oath of office and is now 2LT. Kayle. He had to be sworn in by a higher ranking officer so my dad flew in to do the honor (and to meet his new grandson). It'll be nice to have him around for a couple of days.

We headed over to the seminary and did it in front of the chapel. The pictures would have been better but off to the right was a parked maintenance truck and it made things hard to work around.

The advisor who helped Mike through the chaplaincy process came and watched Mike take the oath. He also took the stroller and walked Brody around in circles to keep him happy. Thank goodness, or we'd be without pictures as I would have had L wrapped around my leg and had Brody in my arms. As evidenced in the next picture, he was quite content being pushed around.

Logan, however, was quite skeptical of the strange man who seemingly took her Brody. She gave him quite the stare down when he walked away with the stroller.

Side note: where did our spring weather go? I was so sad we all had to wear thick jackets for these pictures!

Logan is so happy to have her "g daddy" here in town. She's sucking up the attention!

We are so proud of Mike and can't wait to see where this new adventure takes us! Here's the video of him taking his oath (pardon the cinematography, I was trying to take video and take pictures AND had a little one wrapped around my leg!):

2 Weeks!

I know, not much to report about when a baby is two weeks old, but we did have our 2 week Dr.'s appointment today so I thought I'd throw it out there. Brody is weighing in at 8 lbs 6oz so he's over his birthweight by over a pound, which is fantastic! He definitely eats enough! Other than that, he's hitting the milestones (moving his head, awake more often, starting to show patterns of behavior) so we're doing well.

This was the first outing that I took the kids out alone. Usually when we go out it's to Starbucks so I get them in the car on my own but Mike can help get them out and help supervise the toddler. Logan and I had a big pep talk before we went (she was going to get her flu booster) and she seemed ready to take the lead as big sister. She impressed the nurses by answering most of the questions about the baby. Their conversation (which was originally directed at me) went as such:

Nurse: "Ok mom, where does Brody sleep? Is he in your room?"

L: "No, ma room...in Brody's tib (crib)" (he does nap in there)

Nurse: "Oh...ok then. Is he breastfed or formula?"

L: "Brody boy eat nah-nahs (what she called nursing). Mommy mok (mommy's milk)."

Nurse: "Well let's get him undressed and get his weight."

L: "Brody boy no like may-may (naked)."

Mind you, I was throwing in translations and answers in between but I couldn't help laughing at how she felt the need to take charge of the appointment. She also became very protective of him when he started screaming as they took his weight and softly whispered that she wanted them to stop to me. When the Dr. came in and asked which child she was seeing Logan smiled and said "Brody, but I get shot today, too." To which the Dr. replied that children do not readily admit that they're getting shots. (Yes, she knew what a shot was...she had been telling Mike and I all morning she was going to get a boo boo on her leg but that she'd get a bandaid and chick-fil-a after)

Anyway, here's the only new picture I have of the boy:

Thank goodness for my moby wrap! This sweet boy has decided as of late that he wants to be held when he's awake- and who can blame him? :) Anyway, as soon as I slip him into this bad boy, he calms down immediately and I'm able to get some house work done. Thankfully, we've been really good about putting him down when he's sleeping so he's been very good about sleeping on his own. That's about it!

Updates

Two weeks ago right about this time (it's 3:45pm) I was being handed my baby boy! It's amazing how much your life changes but how you really can't imagine it any different when you add a new child to the family. We love being a family of four.

Logan is still so in love with her little brother. Today I put him down for their nap and she stood up on her chair, looked into the crib and said, "mom, I yuv (love) him." It just melted my heart to hear her say that out of the blue!

Brody is starting to have longer awake periods. He takes about three 2 1/2-3 hr naps a day and is up usually for about 2 hours in between. This has been nice because we've been able to interact with him a little more. He's also on a nice schedule and is napping/waking around the same time every day. I even have both kids taking a nap together in the afternoon in the same room! Logan loves this because she feels like she gets to watch him and make sure he's ok...even though she's usually fast asleep within minutes.

He's waking up every 3-3 1/2 hours at night but goes right back down so I can get a solid 2 1/2-3 hours in between feedings. Though, I am more tired this go around; but I'm sure it's because I can't just lie around all day with my newborn like I did with Logan. It's been a lot of fun and as nervous as I was when all of our help left, it's really been quite easy to manage two (I have to remind myself I did babysit a newborn a little over a year ago and Brody is a MUCH easier baby to manage).

This is how we spend a lot of our time...Logan is playing somewhere in the background and Brody is sleeping on the shaggy carpet in their room.

We had planned on using disposable diapers with Brody until he was out of the newborn size because newborns use so many of them I was afraid I'd be doing a TON of laundry. However, we have a little magician on our hands, and for some reason he has the uncanny ability to pee out of any disposable diaper we put him in. I'm not saying he's soaking disposable diapers and they're leaking--he literally is able to shoot pee out of diapers. Consequently he soaks himself and the person or object he is on...so I've been doing --on average-- 3 loads of laundry a day since we brought him home and we're paying $7 every 2-3 days for diapers that don't work. So, I threw on his cloth diapers a few days ago to just see if they made a difference, and sure enough they contain it...even though they're about two sizes too big right now. I ordered a couple in the smaller size to see if they'll fit for a little while and will order a few more if they do. Even though it's big, I still love the way cloth looks on a little baby booty!

(thank you for the beautiful blanket, Tita, he loves it!)

Conversations With My 2 Year old: Part II

Logan sneezes and when my response isn't immediate, she frustratedly exclaims, "Mom, bless me!"

Logan gets in her toy car, looks up at me and says, "Ok, mom, she ya later, I'm going on a day (date)!" Um....can we wait a few more years, please?

As we pull up to Starbucks, I always have Logan look for Mike's car to make sure he's not out on a store errand. A few days ago, we pulled in, she looked and said, "Daddy's tar is here! We go in and she (see) my dad!"

Speaking of cars, Logan likes to point out the cars in our parking lot. The other day she pointed to Mike's car and said, "Dat's daddy's tar." And then pointed to my car, "Dat's mom's tar......................" (long pause) "and my tar too."

Yesterday I asked Logan to sit with Brody while I took a shower (you know, the showers you have to take when you have a newborn who pees all over you twenty times a day). Everything was fine until Logan came into the bathroom whimpering, "mom! mom! tum (come) here, Brody boy is tying (crying)...I no know what to do."

When I change Brody's clothes and he's just sitting in his diaper Logan will say, "oh, mom, Brody is may-may (naked...not sure where that came from), put clothes on peas (please)." Which is funny considering that if I let her, she'd run around may-may every day.

Four

Here's our first picture(s) as a family of four! We had a couple done in the hospital but the camera was on the wrong setting so you can see four blurry light figures but not much else. Before Carolyn left, we had her snag a couple. Unfortunately, we were quite tired so our little ones look like fresh spring chickens -- because for whatever reason they both seem to bounce back very nicely after nights of not much sleep -- but Mike and I were pretty exhausted...hence the sunglasses. :)

Logan Picks Brackets

Here's Logan helping Mike pick his brackets the other night:

Push Present

I have to take a minute to brag on my husband. He told me that this go around he wanted to get me a push present but wasn't sure what to get. I'm not a big jewelry person, I like the stuff I have and never switch it out so I know it's not easy to shop for me... but he outdid himself this time. I've been hinting that I wanted a new shower head for a while and so yesterday when we were at Target he ran off and picked one up for me. He came home, installed it and then let me go revel in it's glory for quite a long time. Let me tell you, nothing says I love you like a gift that makes you feel like a human again. It is absolutely the best push present I could have asked for.

Anyway, what's been going on at our house? Well, Logan has decided she needs a pacifier now just like her brother:

(not really, she just throws one in her mouth every once and a while and parades around so that everyone can see what she's doing)

Brody has been sleeping...

Watching basketball with daddy:

And sleeping some more.

And both kids are loving their last few days with Aunt "tare." I'm not sure I'm ready for all of my help to leave! It's been so nice to have so many extra hands to help.

Today we left Brody sitting in his chair while both Carolyn and I ran out of the room to do random things (literally for a minute) and before I knew it Logan was running down the hall to ask me if she could hold Brody. I told her she had to wait for one of us to come into the room so she ran back in and held his little hand until we were ready. She is such a sweet big sister, it's so much fun to watch her in this new role.

Meeting Brody

Here are a couple of videos of Logan meeting Brody. In the first one I don't think she quite understands what's going on--she had been away from Mike and I all day long and was tired and seemed more excited about seeing the two of us than figuring out what the little creature in the basket was. After a little while we tried to re-introduce them and that's when she got really excited. She does think for a minute that he's Benjamin (her cousin) because he's the only "baby" she had been around (for an extended period of time) and because he's the only baby boy we have pictures of.

Girls Morning Out

Yesterday we headed out to the mall so we could do a little window shopping and have lunch. I've been really wanting the BBQ Ranch Chicken salad from Cheesecake Factory so that's where we headed for lunch. Logan has really stepped up the last few days and has been behaving SO WELL wherever we go. It's been a huge blessing and I'm hoping it keeps up after our help is gone.

She had some mini hamburgers and french fries for lunch. The fries kept her good and occupied for quite a while.

My two kiddos:

These two have been such a huge help to us this week! We are so thankful that they were able to take some time off to come help out.

Logan has loved all of the extra attention she's been getting. She just adores Carolyn and follows her around the apartment. She wants to do everything she does!

And we got to use the double stroller for the first time (with my own two kids, that is)! The carseat, thankfully, pops right onto the front bar of the stroller so we won't need to get another double stroller. The best part? Logan LOVES being right next to her brother in there so she doesn't fuss about wanting to get out at all! We just kept telling her to watch Brody and make sure he was happy and she was very content to just sit with him. At this point she was done shopping, though, she was ready for bed.

(I should also mention that the angle the picture is taken from makes it look like she doesn't fit very well, but she really does fit just fine.)