Gaining Weight!

Praise the Lord, Audrey's gained 11 ounces in 8 days! Most newborns gain 1/2 an ounce to 1 ounce a day so she's gone above and beyond that in the past week. Our prayers have been answered and we are so relieved. She loves to lay on the changing pad and look around, listen to us talk and sing, and gives us a few smiles every now and then. We'll try to catch one soon!

The past 2 weeks...

Here are some sweet moments from the past two weeks since Audrey has arrived. It's amazing how quickly life changes with the birth of another child. We are so blessed to have two healthy, beautiful girls!

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Anna loves to help care for Audrey. She doesn't like it when we put Audrey in her room to sleep as she thinks she should be downstairs with us all the time. The first thing she asks in the morning or when getting up from a nap is if Audrey is awake. She's often telling us what Audrey wants or needs and thinks she needs toys to play with. :0)

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Happy Easter

Yes, we're a week late in posting this but better late than never. Just Anna and Daddy went to church on Easter as we don't feel it's time yet to take Audrey out and about. Anna was too cute in her Easter dress and hat. She enjoyed the Easter egg hunt at church and was so excited to show mommy her candy when she got home. Mommy was excited to see the candy as well. :0) We praise the Lord for the gift of His son and the hope that we have in Him!

2 weeks old

This is one of my favorite pictures. Can't believe our baby is 2 weeks old already although we've had some struggles so I'm glad time is moving on. Dr. Miller decided today at her 2 week check-up that she has reflux and has put her on Zantac. We're hoping it works quickly. She's been spitting up more often, been crying lots and arching her back in pain, had trouble latching on to nurse, and isn't gaining weight. We've had some really stressful moments but also some very sweet times when she just looks around and takes it all in. Anna's been a great help, is adjusting well to having a little sister and we're so proud of her. She's "reading" to Audrey in the picture below. I'm hoping to post more this weekend when I have more time. There's lots of pictures and a few cute videos I'd love to share.

Audrey Elizabeth

She is here! Audrey Elizabeth was born on Thursday, March 13th at 12:43 pm. She weighed 7 lbs and 1 oz and was 20-1/2" inches long. No c-section was needed and we were blessed to experience a natural birth! We will be leaving the hospital later today (Saturday) to take her home. Anna is so excited to be the big sister and already talks about baby Audrey!

Grandma Smith

Grandma Smith came to visit last weekend. Anna loves having company! Grandma brought her some goodies which Anna had to dig into right away of course. She also bought her a new purse and hat for Easter and Anna asks to wear them with her new Easter dress every day. She would wear a dress every day if mommy let her. Definitely a girly-girl! :-)

No baby yet...

I've not added anything new this week but it's not because the little one has arrived. Mommy's just tired and ready to be done. I've been fighting a cold and that combined with low platelets and the 25 extra pounds is wearing on me. My face, hands, and legs are swollen but not too awful. Nothing like when I carried Anna thankfully. My feet were huge when I was pregnant with her. We have a week to go until my c-section unless I go on my own before then. I've been dilated 2 cent. and almost fully effaced for a week now. I'm hoping I make more progress over the weekend. I go back to the dr. on Monday and then again on Thursday before my c-section on Friday at 9 a.m. So, by this time next week our second little lady will be here. We don't have a name picked out but do have a list to choose from once we see her and decide what fits. I'm treasuring these last few days with just Anna and I. She's such a blessing and will make a great big sister. She's mommy's big helper already and LOVES babies in case you couldn't tell from previous posts. I praise the Lord for my sweet little girl who's getting so big! She'll really seem big once the baby arrives. :0)

Dress up fun

Anna loves to play dress-up whether it be wearing her dress-up clothes, wearing mommy's clothes or shoes, or daddy's shoes and hats...you never know what she's going to pick. This was her choice today - the pink sunglasses complete the outfit nicely! :0) Of course Elmo loves her outfit. Off to the "grocery"...she'd turn lots of heads in this outfit!! :0)

Sledding

We took Anna sledding yesterday for the first time and she did pretty good until she got tired of climbing back up the hill. It's a hard task with short legs when you're all bundled up in snow gear! Too bad the sled kept dumping them at the end. It was nice to be outside...although we think daddy had the most fun going down on his belly all by himself numerous times. :0)

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Recovering

Friday found Anna glued to our sides after her surgery and not wanting to do a whole lot but cuddle and watch BOZ or Elmo. This was our typical smiley girl today, feeling much better, Praise the Lord! She's definitely back to her old self being able to play well and make a huge mess. :0)

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A Quick Praise... A couple started coming to our church a few weeks ago and I believe their steps were lead there by the Lord. She is a surgery tech where Anna had her surgery done and their daughter just had the same surgery done 3 months ago. She was able to walk us through step by step what the entire surgery process would be like, provided us with hats and booties and a great Curious George book to role play with, as well as overall encouragment. What a blessing! Their coming to our church at this perfect time was no coincidence but one of the major ways the Lord confirmed for us that we were following His plan and doing what was best for Anna.

Bye Bye Adenoids

Here's the little trooper right before she left for the OR with the nurse. She did great! It helped immensely having Mr.Cow with her as he got to do everything Anna did. He even had a name tag too. :0) She was quite fussy when we got back to her in recovery but soon calmed down once we could hold her and sing to her. Praise the Lord for answered prayer as she did really well with the entire procedure and is now content to just rest and watch BOZ. Thank you to all who prayed for us - you are each a blessing! Hopefully we'll see some improvement over the next few weeks in her breathing and just overall health as the Dr. explained that her adnoids were blocking 75-80% of her airway.

Baby's Room

Here's the baby's room. It's a bit crowded right now with the daybed in there but once the baby is sleeping through the night or at least in 4-5 hour stretches, we'll take the daybed out to make more room. Yes, we love bows! This is where mommy will be spending many nights. :0) Actually Daddy spent many nights on this bed when Anna was a newborn while mommy snoozed in the rocking chair. Who needs a king size bed when you have a newborn?! Any place to collapse works!

Role Playing

We've been role playing lots lately. Anna is having srugery to remove her adenoids this coming Friday so we've been trying to prepare her. A nurse friend of our's from church got us some hats and booties and we've been reading all about Curious George going to the hospital. Hopefully she tolerates everything ok. Please pray for her safety and peace for mommy and daddy. Although it's a very common, short surgery, it's still nerve-wracking putting your child to sleep especially when her mommy takes hours to wake up from anesthetic. We've shared the family history with her doctor and will do the same with the anesthesiologist on Friday morning as well. We have to be there at 6:30 and her surgery is at 7:30 so it'll be an early morning, which is good as she can't eat or drink anything after midnight Thursday night, but she also doesn't typically wake up happy either. We know that she's in God's hands and that He loves her and cares for her more than we ever could.

4 weeks to go...

Yes, 4 weeks from Friday, if not sooner, our 2nd little lady should be here. Mommy is very ready as you can see from her large shape in the picture. At this size, getting comfortable isn't even an option. I'm measuring right on track although my platelet level is continuing to drop. It's called gestational thrombocytopaenia and something that you can't do anything for until delivery so we're just waiting it out. It's very wearing on your body (like pregnancy isn't enough!) as you're extra tired and your immunity is low but thankfully Anna still takes good afternoon naps so mommy gets to rest then too. Most of the time it's just a condition during pregnancy although some women continue to struggle after pregnancy. We'll hope this is just related to being pregnant and once the baby arrives, my levels will get back to normal.

The bus

Here it is...the bus! It sure feels like a bus compared to a single stroller but something you need when you've got two little ones. Anna loves it of course, thinks it's hers to put her babies in. It will take some getting used to but it steers pretty easy and it's great being able to switch the front seat to either back facing or forward facing. Either seat will hold the infant car seat so that's nice too. We knew we'd need something that would allow mommy to take walks with both girls so that she doesn't lose her sanity. :0)

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you so very much!

Anna's Big Girl Room

This past weekend we converted Anna's crib/toddler bed into the full size bed. She LOVES her new bed. We weren't sure how she'd do going from a crib mattress to a full size mattress but she's done really well thankfully. The convertible cribs are such a deal! 3 beds for the price of one-can't beat that! We needed the crib mattress for the baby's crib so we went ahead and switched her bed and it's worked out really well. Mommy's had a good time making many of the decorations for her walls to save money and Grandma Kathy helped make her curtains. Thank you Mom, they turned out great! I'll post pictures of the baby's room soon...almost done with it.

A fun new/old toy

I'm amazed at how toy manufacturers are bringing back the "classics" like this Fisher Price cash register. They were all sold out at Christmas, one of those high demand toys, but now they're available again. Anna loves playing with money and shopping so this has been a hit. Thank you Aunt Jen for the new toy! It brings back lots of memories for mommy as we had one very similar to this growing up.

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Fun with Cousins

Anna was all about playing Barbies at Grandpa and Grandma's house. She has 1 Barbie at home but not tubs full of them like at G & G's. She loved having Grace and Eli play Barbies with her. Anna also had a great time with Kenley. They have so much fun together being just a year apart.

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Unfortunately we didn't get to see Wes and Drew as Wes had wrestling practice and the Sectional championship and Drew has been sick. We missed them and hope we get to see them soon.

Book Worm

This past week we visited my family while Michael was traveling and Anna had tons of fun soaking up attention from her grandparents. I was especially thrilled that we were able to see my Grandma Murphy. She was sick at Christmas so we didn't get to spend any time with her. Anna has talked about her all week, wanting to know where Grandma Murphy is.

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Grandma Kathy, Kenley, and Anna enjoying a story Anna has always been a book-lover. She'll sit by/with anyone and listen to them read or have them listen to her. As you can see, her love of books started early. :0) Reading with Daddy at 3 months Enjoying a book at 5 months