Meg's week at POH

I just wanted to let you know that it was my week to post on the Prayer of Hannah blog. (Usually all the authors try to post once a week, but during the summer we are each taking a full week to give each other a little break.) Here are the links in case you are interested in hearing what I have to say about the following subjects:

Baby Steps for Eating Healthy

Baby Carrier Reviews

Our Schooling Plan

Life with 3 Littles (already posted on here a month ago)

The Story of Mark and Meg (posted on this blog over a year ago)

Our little family of five (the last of the Easter pics :)

The girls were sooooo excited that they got to spend Easter with both sets of grandparents!

These Sweet Sisters...

These sweet sisters are best friends...

...They love to to dance together in pouffy dresses...

... They were partners in crime as they enjoyed about 50 different Easter egg hunts...
... they both love to steal Daddy's lap...
...They can both look quite adorable when they act silly...

... They both love to smell flowers...

... They would both love to play in a pouffy dress every single day, no matter what the activity...

These sweet sisters are so lucky to have each other for a best friend!

This Sweet Baby... amazing!

This sweet baby never ceases to amaze me...
This sweet baby rode in the car for 4 hours without making a peep. AMAZING! I have NEVER had a car ride with a baby where I did not have to break my back by turning around to soothe for at least half the trip! But Abbi is quite content to watch the big girls sing and chat for a while, sleep a bunch, and then watch some more. She didn't even ask to be fed, even though I usually feed her every 3 hours during the day! AMAZING!
This sweet baby did not care at all that she was sleeping in random places for naps and night-time during our busy trip. AMAZING! She fell asleep without a fuss no matter where she was. She doesn't even require rocking, (although I still do it some because I love it so much :) but will fall asleep anywhere, as long as she is either swaddled, in a sling, or in her carseat with a paci. She usually falls asleep for the night around 7pm and will sleep until I wake her to feed her around 11pm before I go to bed. I have never had a baby whose sleep didn't get messed up by traveling and I've never had a baby who would go peacefully to sleep without any bouncing at all! AMAZING!

I'm not sure how long this amazingly easy stage will last, so I am trying to enjoy it while I can! Oh, how I love her and just want to kiss those sweet cheeks all day long!

A walk at the park...

Easter "ball" hunt!

The girls wanted to do an Easter egg hunt last Sunday, but we couldn't find enough eggs. (They had been playing with them all week and evidently were scattered throughout the house, sand box, water table, etc.) So we just used balls. And they loved it!

Abbi Grace at 10 weeks

I had to do a ten week update because Abbi's 2-month check-up was a little late and quite... interesting....

First of all, she is still a lovely chunk of a baby! 12 pounds, 2 ounces, which places her in the 80th percentile for weight! (Is it a bad thing that I was so excited about her great weight gain that I completely forgot her height? But it followed her growth pattern completely... I think 50%).

Secondly, that "tooth" that I thought was really weird was not a tooth at all -- it is a cyst -- uncommon, but completely harmless and will just go away when her real baby teeth actually come in. Whew!

And thirdly the pediatrician gave us a little scare about Abbi's hips and foot...

... evidently they check a baby's leg rolls under her diaper to make sure they are symmetrical to see if her hips are balanced... isn't that so odd? Third baby and I'm just finding that out, ha, ha! Well, this adorable chunky monkey has some pretty impressive rolls down there, let me tell you! Oh, they are so cute! But the doc was a little concerned that one of them was fatter than the other. And then one of Abbi's feet was not as flexible as the other and turned in slightly. Now the foot thing was not noticeable at all to the untrained eye... I couldn't see what my pedi. saw no matter how hard I looked. But I could kind of tell that one fat roll was bigger than the other.

Now, I have to say that I LOVE my pedi. because she is usually awesome about my "natural" tendencies and refusal of lots of normal medical procedures and medicines... but she is known to be overly cautious... but I appreciate that... so I tried not to worry too much. But it was hard... thinking about a possible boot on her foot or a harness to fix her hips. That would just make her miserable.

Her orthopedic apt. wasn't for another week so I decided to take her to my chiropractor first just to see what she thought about the hip. I wouldn't take an infant to just anyone; it is quite controversial, but I love my chiropractor and trust her completely. She said that Abbi was definitely off and the first adjustment was a BIG one. And it worked! We went to the orthopedist today and he said her hip was absolutely perfect! Praise the Lord! He also said that the foot thing was barely noticeable and would resolve itself.. no need to worry about that, either! Yay!

So sweet...

Karlie was so excited to be able to have her Daddy all to herself to cuddle with. She woke up from naptime first and was still a little sleepy herself. I truly wish you could have seen her face light up when she saw him laying there and realized she could climb up and snuggle :)

Those Spring nights...

Karis: Mama, it might not get dark tonight!
Me: Oh, it always gets dark at night.
Karis: No, Mama in the springtime it is still bright at bedtime!
(Can you tell my girls have early bedtimes? :)

playtime and swim lessons

My big girls sure do love their little sister... it always makes me smile to see them playing with her!

We decided to give Karis swim lessons this year at a really nice new swimming complex that opened nearby. She was REALLY excited about them, and still is, but as you can tell in the pictures, she was quite serious when she was in the water :) But she talks about it all the time and is really looking forward to going back this week. She will go once a week for 6 weeks.

Thankfulness...

We had quite a scare yesterday...

Mark went on to work bright and early. I had heard that there were storms a coming, so we decided not to make our normal Saturday run to the Farmer's market. (Plus my house was a wreck since last week was crazy and I had just not been home to clean it!) So the girls and I stayed home and worked hard. They were playing outside right before naps when the wind started blowing and the rain began to come. I hurriedly got the girls and the dog back inside and rushed around the house, trying to secure all our outside toys and furniture. I put the girls down for naps and started to do my overflowing pile of dishes, skipping my normal "check-my-e-mail and blogs and fb" time in order to get a little more done. We hardly ever turn on the TV during the day, so I had no clue that they had changed the forecast from bad storms to tornadoes!! I noticed the wind was absolutely ridiculous, but figured Mark would call if I needed to be worried about anything. ( I forgot that Saturday is his craziest day at the Sports Center and he wouldn't have time to be on the computer either!)

The storms kind of came and went all afternoon and around 4:00 the lights started flickering so I texted Mark to tell him we might lose our power. He called me back and told me to take the girls in the bathroom if we heard a train sound. "Seriously?" I couldn't imagine that a tornado would ever be coming to MY neighborhood! We got cut off because I had no signal. Not a good sign! Right then my phone beeped to tell me it was losing power. Also not what I wanted to hear! I mean, if you are going to be caught in a tornado, at least you want to be able to call for help, right? I jumped up to plug it in and just then, the storm got crazy.

I watched it for a few minutes and really couldn't decide what to do. Who would want to take 3 littles into the bathroom to hide unless it was absolutely necessary? But noise was so loud that I was afraid I would miss the whole "train sound" so we piled into the bathroom. The cat ran in with us, but got scared off by our big dog, who also wanted to hide in the bathroom!

We started to read books together, but only seconds later (4:13 to be exact), the power went out completely and it was pitch black inside the bathroom. (Why didn't I think to find the flashlights first?) So I told the girls to stay put and ran to the bedroom to grab some. Whew! The girls did amazingly well. We only stayed in there about 15 minutes until the storm had quieted down a little and I figured the worst was over. We sang songs and they danced in the bathtub. Luckily Abbi slept through it all in my sling.

Our power stayed off for about 11 hours, came back on in the middle of the night, and then went off again about 7:15am. Around 10am, it finally came back on to stay (we hope!).

In the end, the whole bathroom escapade was unnecessary because the tornado didn't hit our house. But it was close... way closer than I would have guessed. There were actually trees uprooted in my own neighborhood! (For the first time since moving here almost 5 years ago, I was thankful that we don't have any big trees in our yard.) And I must say that it was such a relief to finally have my husband home with us and my phone completely charged again! I am so thankful that my girls are safe and sound and will never again be lazy enough to think that we are safe from natural disasters!

"Where's Karlie?"

Abbi Grace at 2 months

Oh, Abbi, you are such a sweetie! You grin and coo at me and kick your legs and get so excited when you see me! You are definitely a Mama's girl at this stage, but you enjoy the attention of others as well and will grace them with a smile if they talk to you sweetly.

You are absolutely obsessed with watching your sisters and get so excited when they come to play with you. You might be a little frightened of Karlie, because she unintentionally hurts you at least once a week, but you still cannot take your eyes off her if she is nearby and you get excited when she comes to bring you people to "play" with. Karis understands how to play with you nicely and enjoys showing you things to look at.
You found your fingers this month and are always trying to chew on them. You shocked Mama the other day when she was looking at your sweet smile because, low and behold, you already have a tooth! None of your sisters even started teething until at least 4 months old, so Mama thinks you are a little odd, especially because it is not one of the "normal" front 4 teeth.

You seem to be very strong and can already sit in the Bumbo for just a little while before you get tired.

You don't like to take long naps (stuck in that 45 minute rut) but will usually go about 3 hours at a time during the night and sometimes 4. Your best sleep time is from about 8pm to 2 am and you would probably not wake up at all of Mama didn't feel the need to feed you one more time before she goes to bed at 11.

You still spit up a lot, more than your sisters did, but it no longer keeps you from falling back to sleep at night (for which Mama is ever so thankful!) In fact, you have gotten to be a very easy baby and don't even need rocking or bouncing in the evenings. You just lay on the couch beside Mama and fall right asleep looking at her :)

You are such a sweet baby and your smile just makes my day every time!

Us lately

We've been having a quiet time the past few weeks... just enjoying our girls and trying to get onto our "new normal" routine. I try to only have one errand/ outing day a week and to stay home the rest of the week. My girls do so much better on a routine and it definitely helps me to stay less exhausted and get more done. Abbi is almost two months old, but I still find it hard to squeeze everything into my day that I want to get done!

But we haven't been bored in the least!

We have had a lot of dressing up going on...

Although they are very cute, seeing my girls in wedding-like dresses is a little disconcerting... but paired with the fuzzy crocs, I can't help but smile!
And Karlie's hat fetish adds a lot to her dress as well :)
Abbi has not been immune to the "people" invasion that has taken over our house... She doesn't even notice when she is sleeping, but when she is laying on her back, she loves for Karis to show her the different people --- she will track them with her eyes and smile at them.

Notice the way she is asleep in my lap -- that is how she falls asleep most of the time. She is not one that normally needs to be heartily rocked and bounced -- she just likes to see that I am right there and she will usually fall asleep easily. Usually in the evenings, I just swaddle her and set her on the couch beside me and she conks out while I relax. Such a difference from Karlie, who needed to be bounced pretty much continually in the evenings during her 2nd and 3rd month!

And she never tires of watching her big sisters!
She normally does not like it when I put her on her belly and will flip right over... but if the big girls are nearby, she forgets to flip and watches them in amazement until her head gets too tired.
Such a contented baby!