Who Do I Look Like?

I have had a lot of people comment on how much Logan and Brody look alike. I see different bits and pieces of family members in him, but I do tend to agree that he looks quite a bit like his sister. Here are some comparison pictures of them:

I think the most noticeable difference is that Brody has darker coloring than she ever did. Maybe he got some of that from his Cuban roots (you'd never know with our blond haired, blue eyed beauty that she's got some latin in her).

I do love that I don't have to label which baby is which because Logan was so pink and frilly and Brody is quite the opposite!

Blessed.

I am blessed to have birthed this beautiful baby boy. I'm blessed that the labor and delivery was smooth, quick and relatively easy. I'm blessed that the recovery has been SO MUCH better than it was with Logan (I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, but the Dr. came in and saw me the day after I had Brody and told me that she was very surprised that I had willingly chosen to have more children after seeing the extent of my epis. with L).

We are blessed that while we've seen some traces of regression with Logan, the crazy pacifier seems to be the worst of it, and even that is only an issue every so often.

I am blessed that Logan loves her little brother to pieces. While I have to constantly watch her to make sure she's not smothering him with her affection, it melts my heart when she does things like lie down next to him and start singing Jesus Loves Me.

I was blessed yesterday when we received a letter from our hospital letting us know we qualified for one of their programs and that it covered my labor and delivery and Brody's hospital stay 100%. We don't owe a dime. (Yes, I cried. God is SO faithful)

I am so blessed that while this guy does eat every 2 1/2-3 hours at night, he goes right back to sleep and sleeps all the way until his next feeding. Logan liked to get up and party at night and I felt a LOT more sleep deprived that go around.

I am beyond blessed that I get to spend my days and my nights with my two kids. So many moms, especially in this economy, have no choice but to work to help provide for their families. It would break my heart every single day if I had to leave them and go into a classroom. God has been so faithful and we never fall short with our bills...even though sometimes it takes until what seems like the very last second of the very last day before one is due, He always comes through.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful family on both sides. We constantly get phone calls or emails of encouragement that mean the world to us. It was such a blessing to have so much help after coming home from the hospital, too. You'll never know how much each of you means to us.

Not only do we have wonderful family, but we've got wonderful friends, too. They've been such a support since we've been home with Brody. I didn't have to cook one meal from the time we got home from the hospital until a couple of nights ago. This not only meant that I didn't have to think about dinners or lunches (the leftovers were amazing), it also meant I didn't have to do a major grocery trip with two kids until this week!

I am so blessed that while I said many a time that I wouldn't marry a pastor or a man in the military (not because my dad isn't wonderful, because he's quite the opposite...it's just not the life I wanted), God knew better and placed an amazing man in my life who now has made me both a pastor's wife and an Army wife. I'm sure God's looking down from heaven saying, "Who's laughing now, Christy?"

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.