Life in 5-D

Chick-Fil-A Daddy Daughter Date Night!

2012-02-06T21:49:00.003-05:00

About 2 weeks ago, Mark got an e-mail from Chick-Fil-A offering a fun Daddy-daughter date night for only $20. Our girls love Chick-Fil-A and a princess cow was promised, so there was no way we would pass up such a special memory maker. But we had no idea just how exciting this night would be!

Giving Daddy kisses before heading off on their date:

They were surprised with a special stuffed animal waiting at their seats, along with special flowers, M&M's, and whatever they wanted off the menu. Daddy received a copy of the movie "Courageous."
Karlie got a little shy when she saw the princess cow, but she was super excited about it -- I really wish you could have all heard her telling me about it afterwards :)

Karis was ever so excited to give the princess cow a hug!

And the big surprise was that they got to ride in a limo!!
So cool!
They ended the night with snuggles in the rocking chair
and lots of tickles!

A double birthday party!!!

2012-02-05T19:24:00.009-05:00

We decided to combine the birthday parties for Karlie and Abbi to make it easier on me and so that the grandparents would only have to travel down once. Karlie loved the idea, because she ended up celebrating her birthday at least 4 times while waiting for her "real" party :) We started out the celebration weekend by meeting friends and grandparents at Kidventures, an awesome discovery/imaginative/play place for kids near Mark's work. They had a blast!!! Unfortunately, I had taken the battery out of my camera to charge it and forgot to put it back in, so we don't have any pictures. (Every now and then I wish that we had fit smartphones with good cameras into our budget!).

We had planned our party for this Saturday, but unfortunately, Nina and Papa had to stay in VA at the last minute for a funeral :( And all of our local cousins ended up being sick :( But as you can tell in the next picture, Karlie didn't let any of that get her down! (Plus, she knew that meant yet another mini-celebration the next time they visit :) So we partied hard with just Grandma and Papa and had a great time!

Yay! It's party time! I will confess that there are about 4 times as many pictures of Abbi in this post than Karlie. However, it is not for lack of trying... it appears that 3 years is quite the age for scowling at cameras (especially if those cameras are causing her to have to wait to open another present or eat a cupcake!)

Abbi was quite enamored with the pretty packages...
Karlie had fun trying out the party favors...
Abbi liked to pull the shiny circles off the garland...
Isn't she so cute? I have to remind you that this is the same birthday outfit each girl has worn... and I must admit that I've never had such trouble putting it on! I could barely get it over her head and had to stretch it to get just one button of the onesie snapped... my sweet chunky monkey was bursting at the seams!
She liked sitting on the box of Karlie's magneatos the best :)
Can you tell that she enjoyed her 1st taste of Japanese food?
Oh, the cupcakes! Karlie was utterly determined to have chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. I can't say that I blamed her but I was worried that the whole "brown on brown" colorscheme would be blah and she wouldn't be as excited about it. So we added the purple fondant star and lots of sprinkles and oh, she was so excited! She ate the purple star off her cupcake before I could even snap a picture so we had to get a new one to have a picture of it :)
My sweet 3 year old!
Can you tell that she was thrilled about having to wait to eat that cupcake? HA!
Finally!
Abbi had a slightly healthier homemade cupcake and didn't have a clue what to do with it at first :)
But she figured it out soon enough and was even kind enough to show me how old she was!
All cleaned up and pushing her new walker:
What a sweet face:

My big one year old!
And she even enjoyed the squishing kiss!
And Karis was there as well, having fun enjoying the yummy cupcakes and attention of the grandparents
No night would be complete without a Papa tickle-fest!
What a fun day!

And off she goes!

2012-02-01T15:15:00.002-05:00

Abbi has been taking a handful of steps here and there, but today is the first time she totally turned loose and walked across the kitchen!

I love these girls!

2012-01-31T20:57:00.004-05:00

So many moments I do not want to forget:

... My big girls randomly choosing to snuggle in the rocking chair and "read" books together (as they do several times a week):

... Karis asking every night to read "just one more Bible story"

...My picky Karlie claiming that she doesn't want quinoa pancakes for breakfast and then eating 6 of them...

...My big girls pretending to go to bed so Abbi won't be mad that she has to go before them... giggling the whole time they dive under the covers and say night-night to Abbi...

...teaching them to play dominos and watching them excitedly learn and want to show Daddy...

...Karis asking to do another page in her reading lesson because she was excited and surprised that she could do it so easily

... a 60 degree day in January when I watched all three of my girls excitedly play water table for the 1st time together:
My crazy Abbi throwing tupperware across the kitchen floor as hard as she could and then racing to pick it up while laughing

Our updated natural medicine cabinet

2012-01-31T20:46:00.003-05:00

Last year, I shared my top 25 favorite natural remedies for fighting off sickness. I still use them regularly and prefer them over anything store-bought. But I recently posted this update on POH and wanted to blog it here where I keep all of my natural remedies on file. A lot of these are homeopathic remedies that are completely safe and usually effective as long as you choose the correct remedy. If you don't know much about homeopathic remedies, this post is a great one to start with and then read this this article. My girls take them as well and like them. (And honestly, they work as a fabulous placebo even if I don't choose the correct one right away! LIke I said, completely safe and they taste good as well.) If you are interested in starting to use some, then this kit by Hylands contains most of the basics. I also greatly recommend Naturo Kits. We have the mini first aid kit and it has really been helpful! (And once again, I am not a doctor so do your own research before buying any of this :)

Sabadil -- by Boiron for allergies

Chestal -- a homeopathic cough syrup by Boiron

Arnica Montana - any time someone falls or goes through something traumatic --we use it all the time!

Arnica gel -- for bumps and bruises

Oscillococcinum -- for flu-like symptoms

Belladonna for fevers and inflammations

Nux Vomica for nausea and upset stomach

Chamomilla for teething and irritability -- I give this to Abbi any night when she has a hard time getting to sleep or wakes up more than usual.

Calms Forte by Hylands -- to calm down kiddos when they are up past their bedtime and to sometimes help my husband sleep when he is stressed about work

Elderberry syrup -- easy to make by just boiling elderberries in water, simmering for 30 minutes, then smashing through a strainer and adding honey. It will store in the fridge for up to 3 months. Or you can buy something like Sambucus elderberry syrup on Amazon or vitacost.

Papaya Enzymes -- these are amazing for heartburn, nausea, and acid reflux -- I used them when I was pregnant instead of Tums and use them now if I eat a lot of processed foods or just too much for dinner (HA!)

Activated Charcoal -- for food poisoning or other poisoning, stomach bug, bad bites, or stings

Netti Pot with salt water -- to relieve sinus symptoms

Be Kool soft cool gel sheets to place on forehead to help cool down a fever (Thanks, Hollie, for the great idea!) My kids have never been that cooperative with a cold washcloth, but they were excited to see these "cold bandaids" to put on their foreheads.

Little Noses Saline drops -- for stopped up nose

Wild Weed Salve (from the mini first aid naturokit) -- for bug bites, itchy, dry skin, etc -- it works really well and is the only thing to keep my girls from complaining about a bad bug bite!

How to get something small out of a kid's nose....

2012-01-31T20:18:00.003-05:00

I know you are wondering which one of my girls gave me reason to find this useful tidbit. I hate to disappoint you, but thankfully I have not had reason to use this trick yet. It simply sounds like something that will probably happen at some point so I wanted to blog this tip so I'll be able to find it someday when I need it :) I try to avoid the ER at all costs.

If your child pushes something in his nose so far that is seems impossible to get it out, have the child lie down, pinch the opposite nostril, and blow into his mouth. The object will immediately fly out.

Many thanks to A Well-Feathered Nest for posting this tip!

2012-01-30T14:41:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, we made a quick trip home to go to Mark's Granny's memorial service. It was a sweet time with family.

Our attempt at a picture of all the kiddos who made the trip:

But Abbi was happy to pose with her Nina:

And her sweet Lily:
Karlie was having a blast with her cousins!
Abbi had fun in the laundry basket that Nina would spin for her:

2 in the bed and 4 by the door :)

2012-01-23T14:25:00.001-05:00

(this post is a continuation of "favorite Mommy moments" that I want to always remember)

When we made a quick trip back home this weekend, we let the big girls sleep in Nina's basement. In the same bed. Not the most brilliant of plans, but the girls were ever so excited and it was really fun to listen to them. I'm not sure why sleeping in the same bed is so much more exciting than sleeping in the same room, but it undoubtedly was. It took them about 2.5 hours to fall asleep each night because they were having so much fun together. Lots of giggles, tickling, and secrets. I snuck in to check on them when they were finally quiet and found this: So precious!

It was freezing cold outside, but since I had planned for Mark to grill, he was nice enough do it for me. As soon as he went out the door, everyone crowded around the door to watch him. Four Daddy's girls, no doubt about it!

This post is a part of Momentous Monday!

My Big Three Year Old!

2012-01-17T20:19:00.004-05:00

It is very hard to believe that 3 years ago I thought I was coming down with the flu, only to be surprised to find out that my sweet baby girl was stubbornly coming into the world a bit early! Karlie turned 3 years old today and I must say that she has continued to surprise me for 3 years with her incredibly sweet but stubborn personality :) Karlie is a very tiny thing -- built very different from her long-legged big sister and chunky little sister. But don't let her tiny frame fool you -- this girl knows what she wants at all times and nothing will dissuade her!

Karlie is super affectionate and always wanting snuggles. Oh, how I love it! She would read in my arms all day long if Abbi would allow it. It is a good thing she is so tiny because she loves to be carried around by her Daddy every chance she gets! She likes to do stickers more than pretty much anything (other than perhaps hopping or flying around pretending to be an angel.) She loves to eat raisins, home-made tortillas with butter, chicken apple sausage, milk, almonds, granola, cereal, and hotdogs, but please don't try to make her eat anything else because it is a battle you cannot win. (Believe me, I've tried!!! I'm so thankful she likes her raw milk or I would really worry about her eating habits!)

Karlie loves doing schoolwork with her older sister and has picked up on how to sound out words and can actually spell or read the short ones if she decides that she wants to try. If you ask her to come and she begins to run the other way, please don't think she is being disobedient; she is merely giving herself more room to hop to you, as it is her favorite mode of transportation. Karlie has boundless energy coupled with great joy of life and spends much of her day flying around as an angel and singing with Karis. The rest of the day is spent taking care of her many baby dolls and telling me all about them or playing dollhouse. Karlie is very excited about turning 3 but really believes that she can do anything that Karis can do and most of the time she is correct!

Karlie takes great joy in being a big sister and is so proud of everything that Abbi does. She currently tells everyone she sees, "Oh I'm so proud of Abbi for walking!" with a great big sigh of pride. Every time I get Abbi up from a nap, she shouts with joy, "Yay, it's my Abbi-girl!!!" And she wants to give food to Abbi at every meal. But just because she loves Abbi so much does not mean that Abbi can get away with taking her toys! She will yank that toy back not matter how much Abbi screams. But she usually remembers to try to find something else that Abbi can enjoy.

When Karlie got up today, I asked her what she wanted for her birthday breakfast. She said that she wanted cake with balloon icing! That was a surprise, but luckily I had some pancakes frozen and mixed up some quick "cream cheese-butter-maple syrup-vanilla-blueberry icing" so she had purple balloons on her pancakes. She was quite pleased!

We planned to meet Daddy for a birthday lunch so I asked her where she liked to eat out the most. Her response? "The grocery store!" Apparently she loves the random samples. But she finally said that we could go to Mellow Mushroom instead. On the way, we stopped by a bakery and she picked out a chocolate cupcake to eat after her pizza (we are having her cake at her party in two weeks with Abbi's.) Unfortunately, I forgot to take the camera so I don't have pictures of her excitement.

I decided to do a quick interview with Karlie to remember all her favorites when she turned 3. Here are her responses:

Favorite thing to do outside: RUN!

Favorite thing to do in soccer class: run like a bird!

Favorite thing to do in basketball class: Pass to the rhino!

Favorite CD: Music Machine (One that she got for Christmas that I actually listened to growing up! Oh, the memories!)

Favorite Game: Hi Ho Cherry-O

Favorite Dinner: Raisins. So then I made her tell me her favorite meat dish: hotdogs

Favorite Snack: raisins

Favorite thing to play with Karis: dollhouse and people

Favorite thing to play with Abbi: ball

Favorite place to go shopping: grocery store

Favorite breakfast: pancakes

Favorite book: The Color Kittens and The Richard Scary Storybook Dictionary

Favorite exercise: zig-zags

Favorite place to go in car: Virginia!!! (grandparents' house)

Favorite clothes: Anything purple

Favorite Song: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Favorite Schoolwork: Doing our letters (phonics)

Favorite shoes: my pretty red ones

What she says most often: "I'm Gabriel!!!" or "Can I have some granola and raisins?" or "But I like to be cold!" or "Pick-a-me-up!" or "Can I do some stickers?"
Oh, how I love my little big girl!

Many thanks to Miranda Knox for the pictures of Karlie in her pretty purple dress!

A little natural relief for babies with GERD

2012-01-14T14:35:00.003-05:00

I met my cousin's sis-in-law at her wedding over a year ago and we quickly became fast friends because of our common interests in children and natural tendencies. Around six months ago, she had a beautiful baby girl. Unfortunately, the baby had horrible reflux and was diagnosed with GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). The baby would be up all night with screaming, throwing up, etc., and it was truly miserable for them. My sweet friend did much research and found some natural ways to help her baby and I thought I would share them on the blog because GERD is becoming more and more common and I thought these tips might help someone else. My friend said that it did not completely "cure" GERD and they still struggle with it, but these techniques have given them about 60% improvement and have been enough to keep the baby off medication. Here is her advice; I hope it will be helpful to others:

1. I stopped feeding on demand. I had done this with my twins for 22 months. But with this baby, at least a night, I changed it to every three hours. This allowed her ample time to digest better.

2. We stopped rocking her to sleep in cradle position. We only do it with her upright.

3. I increased the amount of time I massage her. I have always massaged my babies after bath. With her, I am focusing on her stomach and lower back as well as accupoints (I have a this book that has accupoint information for babies).

4. I began to take her to the chiropractor twice a week, once a week, and now every other week.

5. I try to have chamomile and licorice root (very small amount) tea available (homebrewed) to give her a small amount when she is throwing up or crying a lot. This helps calm her and also pushes her to swallow which helps with the reflux. Sugar water is supposed to have the same effect but I really hate to use sugar on my baby!

6. She sleeps with the mattress tilted and she is sideways, not on her back. Also, she takes naps on her stomach (when I am awake and able to watch her.) I only do this when I am readily available to her since it is risky.

Abbi Grace at 11 months!

2012-01-12T13:19:00.006-05:00

This month I have finally allowed myself to believe that my baby is growing up. She forced me to, because she started standing up on her own and taking a few steps at a time. And she is so stinkin' cute about it that I just cannot be sad. This is truly one of my favorite stages and I enjoy every minute of it!!!

Abbi Grace just loves to walk. She cannot do more than a few steps on her own, but she will grab ahold of anyone nearby and try to force them to walk so she can use their legs to move along. It is hilarious! She will walk all over the house holding onto my legs if I let her. She also loves for you to offer your fingers for balance and she can do fine just holding onto one hand.

Abbi is ever so excited that she can now play dollhouse and people with the big girls and this is how I usually find her. She will play here even by herself for the longest time:

Another favorite spot is looking out the kitchen door:
Abbi loves to push her music table around the kitchen at breakneck speed. I am always on edge, thinking it will go faster than her feet and she will smash her face on our hard tile floor, but she always manages to keep up somehow.
I was ever so excited when I realized that I could put her hair in a "Bam-bam" pony tail on top of her head! Between that and her shoes, my baby simply does not look like a baby any longer!
She loves to read books and if I'm not there to look at them with her, she will pull them all out on her own :)
She has continued to be a good eater and has never refused anything I put on her plate. We had hamburgers last week and she ate more than the big girls combined! But nothing gets her excited as much as her fermented cod liver/butter oil combo. Seriously. If she sees Karis getting some and I don't offer any to her, she starts screaming like crazy! And when she sees the bottle, she starts kicking and squealing. It amazes me because I don't even like to smell the stuff. Give me the peppermint flavor to cover up the fish, please!!! Thankfully, she is back to nursing like a pro as long as we are at home. I've started giving her our fresh cow's milk in a sippy at every meal to get her used to it since she is almost a year, but I plan to nurse as long as she wants it.
Abbi is such a joy and I can't wait to watch her grow into a toddler!

Happy Birthday Papa Eric!!!! We love you!!!!

2012-01-11T14:17:00.003-05:00

My unbelievably wonderful Daddy is turning 60 years old today!! We love him so much and are very excited for him and really wish we could be there with him to celebrate. But since we cannot, the girls wanted to make a few short videos to share with him:

and then Karlie seemed to wake up and she wanted to sing Christmas carols for her dear Papa:

Being thankful for the little moments...

2012-01-09T19:23:00.001-05:00

I love being a Mom! There are, of course, moments I do not enjoy (such as when Karlie doesn't stop asking the same question for the 100th time or when Abbi wakes me up at night over and over again or when Karis insists on driving her sister crazy with her singing), but I accept those moments as part of my job and usually can manage to laugh at them later. Most days, I also have moments of bliss (I call them Mommy moments) when I manage to step back out of the craziness and my heart swells with joy and thankfulness. I decided that I really wanted to remember those precious moments so beginning with the new year, I started writing down my favorite memory of the day right before bed each night. It is usually not anything spectacular... just something simple that made me smile. I'm not sure how often I will blog them, but I thought I would start off this week by sharing a few of my favorite moments with some pictures we took yesterday:

1. Watching Karis help Abbi walk -- Karis loves to hold Abbi's hands and help her walk. She isn't very good at it and often pulls her down, but she is so sweet in her excitement about Abbi walking and Abbi just loves the attention and usually just laughs hysterically when they fall down together.
2. Karlie getting excited about feeding Abbi -- I usually just put all of Abbi's food on her tray and let her feed herself, but Karlie seems to get the biggest kick out of helping Abbi. I cannot tell you how excited she gets when I let her give Abbi food and it is so cute!
3. Karis holding her pencil correctly -- We haven't done a lot of handwriting in our homeschool yet because Karis was stubbornly uninterested. She loved dot-to-dots and mazes, but the minute I tried to teach her how to write letters and help her fix her fingers for handwriting, she would get irritated. I decided to wait until she was more interested and we tried again after Christmas. She is now very proud of herself and allowing me to help her hold her pencil correctly!
4. Doing "alphabet movement" with my girls whenever the weather isn't fit for outside time -- I printed out the fun cards and my girls have to choose the next one in alphabetical order. They think the exercises are hilarious and we laugh the entire time. So much fun!

5. In basketball class on Saturday, I suddenly realized that Karis had her arm around Karlie while they waited in line for their turn to pass the ball to the rhino. It was ever so sweet and also a bit funny to watch them try to move up in line together. I love seeing them be affectionate with each other :)

6. Smores in the backyard with my Mark and my girls. The girls LOVE it when we build a fire and were just ever so excited and happy.

7. Listening to Karis and Karlie make up songs about Mary and baby Jesus in the backseat of the van.

This post is linked with A Moment Cherished Momentous Monday

cute conversations

2012-01-06T13:57:00.003-05:00

Karlie: I'm flapping my wings, so I'm Gabriel!"

(to Karis): You are gonna have a baby boy and you will call him Jesus and he will be God's son!

Karis: Mama, if we have another girl baby, can we call her Adora? (they have a Dora the Explorer dollhouse and people and always call her "Adora" for some reason)

Me: Umm...I don't think so. But Abbi still needs Mama's milk so we probably won't have another baby anytime soon anyways. We would have plenty of time to think of a good name.

Karlie: Maybe we could call her Hello Kitty?

Karis: How about Cinderella?

Karis: All our baby dolls are girls, but we pretend they are Jesus when we play Mary and Joseph

(At Grandma and Papa's house the day before Christmas)

Karis: I think we need to open a few presents because we can't even walk through here!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T15:30:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd celebrate the new year by listing out some of our favorite memories from 2011. I plan to do this every year and put it in our yearly scrapbook. So here they are in no particular oder: Here's to 2011!

1. Abbi's birth

2. Swimming lessons

3. DeLong Lake Day

4. Gatlinburg trip

5. NC Zoo

6. Basketball Class

7. Swimming in Grandma and Papa's pool

8. Karis' first haircut

9. Church beach day

10. First day of school

A Year in Review:

2011-12-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd do a quick year in review of our favorite monthly pictures. It is so fun to see how the girls have changed over the past year!

January at Karlie's 2nd birthday party:

February when Abbi was born:

March cuteness:

April on Easter Sunday:
May at the NC zoo for Karis' 4th birthday:

June fun with Daddy:
July fun at Nina's house:
(I had to include another July pic because this is my absolute favorite of the 2 big sisters together :)
August on the 1st day of school:

And I had to include another August pic because I just love this one so much:
September at Great-Grandma Connie's house
October at my parents' house:
November after church Thanksgiving weekend:
December at the Aquarium in Gatlinburg:

I am so very thankful for all the fun memories we shared last year!

Christmas pics

2011-12-29T14:31:00.000-05:00

I think this post is the last of my "catch-up" posts :) We had a fabulous Christmas with lots of family time and special memories! Here are the ones we caught on camera:

Karis was excited about her new pajamas:

I think Abbi loved the inflatable globe more than anyone :)
Grandma has about 25 or more stuffed Christmas toys and the girls are utterly obsessed with them. The minute we walked in the door they ran around the house gathering them up and they continued doing it all weekend. We had only been there five minutes and I heard Karis pointing to a huge stuffed gingerbread family saying, "this is Mary and this is Joseph and this is baby Jesus!" A gingerbread baby Jesus seemed almost sacrilegious to me, but they were so excited about it that it was just incredibly sweet and hilarious. I wish I had taken a picture at that moment, but we hadn't found the camera yet. Here they are snuggled with a few of them:
Abbi had so much fun with all of the toys because she could finally pull up and grab whatever she wanted:
Still enjoying that backwards paci :)
Christmas Eve -- waiting to open few presents (we like to spread it out :) and Abbi was tickling Karis:
I wish her eyes had been open so you could see how incredibly excited she was a bout her new doll!

I think she looks a little too grown-up in this picture:
Grandma and her big girls:
We have a tradition of putting fruit in the bottom of the stocking. Abbi was too little for one, but she kept stealing it from Karis and was utterly obsessed with it! She chewed a big chunk out of it and was simply enraged when I took it from her!
Sweet baby girl on Christmas day:
Daddy stealing a kiss
Hugs for Great-grandma Connie

So sweet!

Karlie loved her new dolphin stuffed animal:
Papa managed to get Abbi to sit still for just a second:

Merry Christmas Eve!

2011-12-24T14:10:00.003-05:00

Dear Jon,

2011-12-22T13:33:00.003-05:00

We are excited for your new adventure, but we are sure going to miss you!

Beach trips and other outings will not be the same without your fun help...
My babies will not be carried around by fierce giants...

and who will make serious (silly) faces with Karis?

and give my girls piggy back rides and spin them around every week?

Thank you for being willing to share your life with my family and for joining us most weeks for dinner and fellowship. You have become part of our family and my girls think the world of you. We will be praying for you and hope you enjoy your adventure! Know that you will be missed!

Abbi Grace at 10 months

2011-12-21T14:33:00.000-05:00

Oh, this sweet baby has had quite the month! She is obsessed with her Mama and managed to sleep with Mama for probably half the month due to sickness and teething and traveling! Mama is glad to be back in her own bed, but Abbi is still waking up trying to talk Mama into sleeping with her again. Mama is looking forward to getting back on a normal schedule in January and teaching her to sleep through the night again!

Abbi is cruising all over the place and actually letting go and standing on her own two feet for a second or two! (Can she really be big enough to do that? I want her to walk, but my heart is just not ready to let her be a toddler already...) She loves music and it is so absolutely adorable to watch her dance if she hears the slightest beat.

Abbi has gone back and forth with nursing. She always wants to nurse when she wakes up at night (of course :), but during the day it is hit or miss. If she doesn't want to nurse, I just pump and she is good about taking a sippy. It actually made it easier on our 7-hour car ride to Gatlinburg because I could pump in the car and hand her the bottle without having to stop and get out and feed her.

Abbi loves to eat! Her current favorites are sweet potato fries and peas, but she will eat most anything I put on her plate (unless she gets in a playful mood and wants to throw things :) I give her everything we eat unless it contains grain, sugar, or processed foods.

Abbi loves to talk and usually just chatters all day long. She finally started saying "Mama" to go with "Da-da" and "bye-bye." She also tries to copy a lot of sounds that we make, especially when we are reading to her. The one she copies most frequently is "baa" for sheep. I have started doing a few signs with her and she just grins when I do them. I think the other girls started signing back around a year so we will see if she does as well.

Abbi understands so much and loves making up games. Her favorite (of course) is throwing things: Her paci, softy, toys, food, etc. If you fall prey to her charms and actually pick it up for her, she will grin really big and then immediately throw it again as hard as she can! Karis taught her how to play fetch and it is really funny to watch how much fun they have together. Karis will toss her softy or stuffed animal and Abbi will excitedly get it and hand it to Karis to toss again. There is much laughing and squealing involved :)

Abi loves to play with Daddy and gets severely insulted if he does not pick her up the minute he walks in the door. She loves it when he carries her around the house as he plays hide and seek with the big girls and squeals with excitement when the girls find them :) She loves to read books and gets excited when I head toward the bookshelf.

Following in her sisters' footsteps, Abbi is obsessed with the cat. If she hears him talking, she comes crawling as fast as her little hands and knees can go, making the same purring sound that Karlie used to make. She gets really excited if she even hears me say the word "kitty." She has already gotten her first cat scratch, as she doesn't know when he is too playful to chase. For the most part, though, kitty has been very nice to Abbi and rubs up against her and lets her pat (beat) him on the back.

Abbi is equally obsessed with outside and the bathroom and gets very upset when the big girls are in either place without her. She wants to be in the bath tub at all times and if I need to clean the bathroom, I just put her in the tub (without water) with a few toys and she is quite happy.

Abbi is a really good car rider and I am so thankful for it! On the trip to Gatlinburg, se would sleep for two hours and then play about 45 minute before fussing. We always stop at Cracker Barrel on long trips to give the girls a good break and let them run around the rocking chairs and play with the toys. After our break, she always fell fast asleep for another two hours. The trip was MUCH easier than I expected!

Abbi love, loves, loves her paci and especially likes it upside-down! More often than not she turns it over as soon as we give it to her. I usually only let her have her paci for naps and right before if she is getting tired/ fussy but it is not quite time to lie down yet.

We just love this little girl so much!

Another rambling update...

2011-12-20T13:21:00.005-05:00

Whew! I feel like this Christmas season is passing by all too quickly! I haven't even had time to blog about all the wonderful fun holiday things we have been doing. I'm going to try to play catch-up this week, but until then:

-- The natural remedies that I wrote about worked perfectly for Abbi. We started them Monday around 3pm and her fever was gone by that evening. I decided to take her to our pediatrician on Wednesday to be certain all was well because we were going to the mountains for several days and I just wanted to be sure. The pediatrician (not our fav), said that she wasn't into natural stuff and doesn't know much about it, but to keep doing whatever I was doing because her ear was only slightly red, not even bulging anymore! Yay! And Abbi is perfectly fine now, other than that 5th tooth that she is cutting :)

--- the Calcium Citrate seems to be working for Karlie!

--- We spent a wonderful long weekend with Mark's family at Gatlinburg! I took tons of pictures and I have no idea when I will have the time to go through them, but I will share when I can. But we had a blast and I am once again thankful for the fabulous family that I married into.

--- I pretty much did every single bit of my Christmas shopping online and most of it on Cyber Monday. I seriously cannot think of a single present I bought in a store.

--- We also need to redo our budget since we kind of ignored it the last few months. I think I'm going to have to stop reading my deal blogs because they make me want to buy things that they girls would love but we don't "need" just because of the awesome deal. I'm pretty sure I've saved a ton of money but then spent it right away when the next deal came along and I'm not sure that I'm coming out on the side of actually saving money :)

If you want to see what Christmas traditions we started this year, click HERE to see my POH post on the topic.

--- Abbi has been 10 months for 12 days now and I have yet to take her monthly picture or write a post. I hope I get it done before she is 11 months!

--- We haven't done any school since Thanksgiving and I am really trying to get organized for starting again in January.

More Gatlinburg pics

2011-12-19T21:38:00.000-05:00

We had so much fun at Gatlinburg!

Most of the cousins squished on a couch :)

Karis was super excited about her new camera!

Bedtime hugs:

They all thought it was hilarious that I received the hat and fishing knife in our gift exchange :) Thankfully Papa traded me for some sweet Monogrammed coasters.
Sleepy girl

I love this guy!

"On your mark, get set, and go!"

Sam doesn't really care to race, but nothing can keep Abbi away from those stairs!
The Daddies and their babies:
Can you tell that my sis-in-law and I hit up the outlet mall together? :)
Sweet tired baby :)
Trying to get a picture of 7 cousins looking at the camera is not easy!

The Aquarium!

2011-12-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

One of the most exciting parts of our Gatlinburg trip was our trip to the aquarium. We had last gone when Karis was 9 months old and then again when she was two and let me tell you, a four year old really appreciates it more :) Her excitement knew no bounds. Karlie had a blast as well. The greatest addition was an awesome penguin exhibit! It was filled with clear tunnels the kids could climb in so that the penguin swam all around them. The kids were so excited!!!

The rest of the aquarium was quite exciting as well!

We tried to get a picture of all the cousins together, but it was impossible to get them to stop looking at all the fish and they were not happy with the attempt -- HA!
But Abbi was as happy as could be because I let her out of the carrier to crawl around and look at the fish :)
That grin on Karis' face stayed pretty much the entire time we were there...
Abbi loved the fish!
Every time I've been to an aquarium, the saw fish does this exact thing:
The girls were especially excited about the shark and the turtle
Peek-a-boo!

Pretending that they were eating the fish...
Amazed at the beautiful jellyfish...
Karis had to get a closer look at the spider crab...

waiting for the shark to swim over her head...

So tired by the end of the day... :)
She had to give the penguin one last hug...

Lily and Karis

Holistic tips for an ear infection and constipation

2011-12-13T14:32:00.006-05:00

While Abbi was fighting off her random virus, it appears that an infection snuck in her weary body. Her temp sky-rocketed and she started screaming all the time and it was obviously something new. So I took her to my favorite holistic doctor on yesterday and she confirmed what I suspected -- she had a virus that was pretty much gone, but now had a really bad infection in her ear. You might think an ear infection is no big deal since kids get them all the time, but let me tell you -- it must straight out hurt because it makes for a completely miserable baby! I honestly have not been able to set Abbi down (other than a quick trip to the bathroom) since Saturday afternoon. This afternoon is the first time she has slept on her own (much thanks to my holistic dr. and chiropractor!) since the infection hit. She still screams when anyone even so much as touches the right side of her head (and you really don't want to be in the same house when I give her drops in her ear!) but her fever went down and she actually allowed me to lay her in the crib this afternoon so I do believe that she is improving. I'm desperately hoping to sleep in my own bed tonight!

I thought I'd write out the recommendations from my holistic dr. so that I would remember them next time and in case they might be helpful to you. We are also having trouble with Karlie getting constipated (she got dehydrated when she had the fever and it hurt to have a BM and now my stubborn 2-year old is refusing to go! So my holistic dr. gave me some tips for that as well.

For ear infection:

1. Drop hydrogen peroxide in her ear canal 4-6 times/day. (She recommended doing it while nursing because Abbi would be opening and closing her mouth and it would help, but after I saw how much she hated the drops, I decided I didn't want nursing associated with pain.)

2. Hydrogen Peroxide in vaporizer at night and during naps

3. Ear oil 2 times/day made of olive oil, mullein, garlic, St. John's, and MSM

4. Immune Support:

Probiotics

no sugars/ friuts

Collodial Silver 3 times a day

elderberry syrup

zinc 15 mg

Garlic on feet

oregano oil on feet and rubbed on skin behind infected ear

For Constipation: Magnesium Citrate with potassium -- helps relaxes muscles and go more easily

...it also helps with sleep, restless leg, focus, emotions, muscle cramps, etc

Quick Update:

2011-12-10T13:21:00.004-05:00

Daddy: HOME! YAY! Still recovering from a lack of sleep and catching up on missed work but happy to be with his girls again.

Karlie: Only seemed sick that one day and is fine other than occasional complaints about her neck hurting (sore throat?) and typical 2-year old meltdowns. Very excited about Christmas music and books.

Karis: Boundless energy, imagination, and joyfulness. She makes me both tired and happy just watching her. She has been such a happy helper these last few days and Mama really appreciates it.

Abbi: Spots are gone and she seems fine and happy during the day. Low-grade fever at night. Cannot seem to sleep more than an hour at a time at night unless curled up in Mama's arms... (I think her nose gets stopped up when she assumes her favorite face down, bum in the air sleeping position and it just makes her mad.)

Mama: Loving Abbi's snuggles but wanting her own bed. Trying to figure out if Abbi really needs to sleep inclined or just got addicted to sleeping with Mama. Tired but ever so happy to have Daddy home!

While you were away...

2011-12-06T20:00:00.006-05:00

Whew! Daddy has been away at a fancy-shmancy GM get-away business trip with his up and ups for the past 3 days and I cannot tell you how much we've missed him! I am so very thankful that he is on his way home this very moment! I usually chicken out and run to the grandparents in times like these but since we had just come back from a trip (and Abbi desperately needed some consistency in her schedule) and none of the grandparents could get off work due to the holiday season, I figured I could hold my own for a few days. And I did. But I can't say that I liked it. I hold a new respect for single moms and military moms... I sure wouldn't like to be on my own on a regular basis!

So Daddy, this is what happened while you were away:

... I made poor Pup-pup stay inside every night to guard our door when she would have much rather been galavanting around the country-side. But she makes me feel safe. (When she is guarding my door... not when she is growling at and herding our neighbors to protect her girls.)

.... And Pup-pup was really jealous when I threw out the cat each night (I'd let him sleep on the bed with me but he inevitably wakes up at 2am every night and insists on hollering) who now probably hates me because I am the cuddler and you are the "throw-the-cat-out-every-night-er."

... you will be happy to know that I actually remembered to lock all the doors each night and my Mom will be happy to know that I kept my car clicker by my bed so if I heard a noise I could sound the car alarm and scare the living daylights out of everyone in my neighborhood. And you will be even more happy to know that I never had to use said clicker.

... I have never been so thankful for early bedtimes in my life. And that I haven't thought to teach Karis to tell time yet. Pretty sure I put them down between 6 and 6:30 every night instead of 7:00 so I could focus on the tired but sick baby struggling to sleep.

... Pretty sure I used up all our texting minutes for the month in the last three days but I don't regret it.

... Pretty sure I never changed out of my pajamas in 3 days. We were supposed to have a play-date and go out once or twice, but since Abbi got sick we just stayed home and didn't even worry about getting dressed. But I did brush my teeth every morning :)

... we tried out a new recipe that you would have hated so it is a good thing you were gone :)

... I was incredibly blessed by our loving church family with several calls and texts to check on me. I was very grateful for the support, especially since Abbi was sick and I didn't know if she might get worse.

... After you called the 1st time from the restaurant, Karlie demanded over and over in her broken record kind of way that we go meet you at said restaurant in TX. The whole days of driving or "we don't have a plane ticket" problem did not phase her in the least.

... the girls played with their nativity sets 70% of the time. The other 30% of the time we read books, took walks, and did Christmas crafts. I have never been so grateful for said nativity sets.

... Abbi started cruising like a madwoman, even though she was sick and fussy.

...The bottom 4th of the Christmas tree is now completely empty because I gave up on telling Abbi no and flicking her sweet hand because she was sick and it just wasn't the time to train for obedience. So every-time she grabbed an ornament, one of the girls moved it up to the middle of the tree.

... I won't tell you how much sleep I got because it was too little to mention. I let Abbi sleep in my bed a bunch because it helped her agitated self to sleep better and I liked the company. But apparently I don't actually sleep well with a baby so it didn't achieve my overall goal. Don't worry, she is back in her bed tonight.

...I got over my little cold shortly after you left but my sore throat has returned with a vengeance today, probably due to my lack of sleep and the overwhelming number of books the girls wanted me to read to them....

... we listened to a ridiculous amount of Christmas carols and read our Christmas books over and over.

... Karlie utterly refused to try the cheese she picked out at the store. But Karis made up for it.

...We are now out of granola because the girls wanted it for every meal and I didn't care. Except now I care that it is gone because now I don't have any and I'm too tired to make more.

...The laundry that you folded before you left is still sitting in the basket waiting to be delivered to its proper home and I haven't done any more.

(Did I mention that I gave up on trying to be productive?)

...I did the dishes the first day but only the first day and now I have to finish up this post so that I can do the other 100 of them before you walk in the door...

... I learned that although your time away was really difficult because of the sickness and fussy baby, it was easier than I thought it would be on other accounts. Mainly because we have such sweet girls. They really played nicely together, tried to be helpful (for the most part), and got excited about everything I wanted to do with them. I just decided to forget about getting stuff done and enjoyed hanging out with them. I love my girls so much!

... we missed you a bunch!!!!

And another one bites the dust....

2011-12-06T13:55:00.004-05:00

She was very fussy this morning and about an hour before naps, I found her like this with a hot forehead :( I'm curious to see if she will break out in spots over the next few days as well.

Abbi has pretty much stayed the same, other than a rough night last night because her spots were itching her and she couldn't get comfy. I finally thought to smother her in coconut oil and then she was able to sleep. But she has only had a low-grade fever. It stumps me. I keep waiting for the spots to spread or crust up or get bright red but they just stay the same. Let me know if you have any ideas of what it might be...

She is quite fussy but always rewards me with a smile as long as I am near :) I'm just not trying to get anything accomplished this week!

Oh, how we love our Daddy!

2011-12-05T22:07:00.003-05:00

A day in the life...

2011-12-04T19:32:00.005-05:00

Today started out nice, a fun morning with the grandparents playing outside...

and doing lots of stickers (Karlie's absolute favorite thing to do in the world!)

Karis has been begging to wrap some presents so I let them go at it tonight (Note: if you get a present from us that is a little wrinkled or disheveled, know that it was done in love!) Also, I left the room for a moment and Karlie and Abbi had almost completely unrolled a roll of wrapping paper and were enjoying themselves thoroughly. I really should have taken a picture of the mess, but I was too amazed to think of it :)
My sweet baby girl...
...who came down with some sort of rash and low grade fever today. Teeny tiny little red dots all over her diaper area, back, legs, tummy, etc. I'm thinking it will get worse and show itself tomorrow so I will know what we are dealing with.
She has been extremely clingy for the last 3 days (I thought she was teething again), but now I know there was more going on. But as long as I am right beside her, she will warm my heart with her pretty blue eyes and big grin!

the girls wanted to end their night with a Christmas carol:

I love the way they think....

2011-12-04T14:00:00.002-05:00

Karis: *dramatic sigh* I'd love to help a bird build a bird nest! But only angels can help birds... *another dramatic sigh* Oh, I'd love to be an angel!

Me: Karis, you are really good with that soccer ball.

Karis: Oh, it's not a soccer ball; it's an angel ball! Sometimes I flap my wings!

Karis: Mama, I'll let you pick something from the treasure chest!

Me: Where is it?

Karis: Under the couch cushion!

(That should tell you how often I clean under the couch cushion :)

When Abbi first learned how to pull up, she would use anything she could get her hands on. I was in the kitchen and all of a sudden heard Karlie wailing, "Mama! She's pulling my undies off!"

We put up our tree on Wednesday and the girls were ever so excited. Apparently Karis thought it was actually Christmas because when Karlie got in trouble that night and we picked her up to discipline her, Karis yelled, "No!!!! You can't spank on Christmas!!!"

My thoughts on making it through labor naturally...

2011-12-02T13:16:00.003-05:00

I have a friend who recently asked for recommendations for scriptures to meditate on during labor to help get her mind off the pain. I honestly had never thought of such a thing (sad, huh?), but I wrote to her what did help me the most and what scripture I thought would have helped me the most. I thought I'd post my response in case it might be helpful to anyone else hoping to get through childbirth naturally. Having a baby is the most awesome and thrilling (although also the most painful) experience ever and is more than worth the pain!

There were three things that helped me the most when I was in the most pain:

1. Just reminding myself that my body was created to do this! I seriously said over and over in my head to myself, "This is what I was made to do!" Reading the book Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth was the best thing I did to prepare for the pain. It is very hippy-ish, but after reading all the birth stories you will be totally convinced that you can do it and also have an idea of what to expect so that you won't think that your labor is unusual or more painful than it ought to be and give up.

2. Reminding myself that there will be an end to the pain -- somehow knowing that the pain was only for a short time was a huge help to me. Relief will come! Also, except for during transition, God gives us a break between contractions that helps tremendously. A contraction is utterly miserable, but usually only lasts about a minute and you often get a two minute break. Two minutes may not sound like long, but it is a huge relief when you are in such pain!! Breath a huge sigh of relief and thank God in between contractions for the break and the chance to re-group.

3. Focusing on the baby... imagine snuggling him in your arms! Be thankful for each contraction because it brings you that much closer to holding him! Try not to think in terms of just "enduring" each contraction, because they serve a great purpose and you will end up tensing up and fighting them, rendering them less useful. Use them and help them by swaying your hips slightly. Picture the baby coming further down the birth canal with each contraction. A lot of times I would chant in my head, "she's coming, she's coming!" Each contraction brings you that much closer to your precious little one! So exciting!

So although I didn't really have a scripture, I guess I just focused on being thankful -- thankful that God had created me to do this, that there was relief from the pain, and that I would be holding my baby soon. So I would recommend 1 Thess. 5:18 to meditate on:

"in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus"

Thanksgiving fun...

2011-12-01T20:18:00.007-05:00

Lots of fun times and memories made this Thanksgiving!

This is Abbi's "who, me?" look. She discovered stairs for the first time (we don't have any at our house) and was utterly obsessed with them. She would sneak over to them every chance she got!

So excited about riding the zebra! I could tell she felt like such a big girl. Last time we were there she could only watch her big sisters do it :)
We had Thanksgiving lunch at Great-Grandma Connie's house, but she wasn't feeling the best and the girls ended up playing together in the sitting room for a while. Karis loves all her great-grandmother's pill boxes and wants to open each one!
Grandma and Papa ended up with three horses and they are the perfect sizes for my girls. The big girls were so excited that Abbi could finally ride with them! And Abbi was simply incredulous! The big one in front that Karis was riding was my very own horse growing up and I still remember how much I loved it :)
They rode them together several times a day
Painting rocks that Karlie collected on our walk... you should have seen her overflowing pockets!
waiting for the big picture with lots of friends...
We try to get together with some of our friends each time we visit VA. There are 7 little girls (one was only a few weeks old and too little to entrust to the kiddos to hold) and one brave little boy. He is the only one not wearing pink in the picture! Thankfully he is too little to know he is outnumbered and there will be another boy joining our group when he is born in January.
The traditional "Day-After-Thanksgiving Cookie-Making!" As always, the girls are much too serious about their work to smile for the camera
Daddy was blowing leaves for Papa and Abbi stood there and laughed at him for the longest time. Mark would randomly look at her and play peek-a-boo as he worked and she squealed and yelled and laughed and tried to get his attention the whole time.
"Daddy is so funny!"
The big girls went out to help but didn't like the noise so they lined their chairs up by the glass door to watch Daddy.
"Just because I have a paci doesn't mean I can't be a big girl!!!!"
Abbi loved the swing at Grandma and Papa's church
The girls were ever so excited to be able to wear their "wedding dresses" again and I was ever so excited to actually be able to get a good picture of them in their fancy dresses :)
My handsome fella and me

Oh Christmas tree!!!

2011-11-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

We got our Christmas tree and had the great idea to eat at Mellow Mushroom beforehand... we all enjoyed it so much that I'm pretty sure it is our new Christmas tree tradition!

The Christmas tree group moved outside the place Mark works and blessed all the GM's with a $20 off voucher! We definitely couldn't waste that much money, so we didn't go to the farm we usually go to. But the girls had a blast anyways!

They loved the Merry-go-round...

... and quickly remembered their tradition of running through the trees and playing peek-a-boo!

The girls were ever so excited about this snowman... but Karis said it couldn't be called Frosty because it was missing a corncob pipe. So I told them it's name was Parker. They were very happy with that and Karlie started calling all snowmen from then on "Parker." She was a little confused a few weeks later when her cousin was talking about Peter Parker (Spiderman) and would not agree with her that Parker was a snowman :) She has no idea who spiderman is and was vehement that Parker was a snowman!

We got home and the girls took a nap while Mark and I set up the tree. We surprised them with this Little People Nativity set that I bought on sale this summer. It has been the favorite toy of the season! Abbi especially loves the angel on top that lights us and plays "Away in a Manger" when you press it down.
The girls loved getting out the ornaments!

My attempt at a picture of them all under the tree :)

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours...

2011-11-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

and a special thanks to Miranda for the pictures :)

Daddy's Little Dunkaroos!

2011-11-22T14:51:00.004-05:00

About a year ago, we let Karis try out a Dunkaroos class with her Daddy. She was excited about it, but all she wanted to do was kick the ball (like she had been doing in soccer class for two years :) We decided not to fool with it since I would have to entertain Karlie because she was too young to do basketball.

Two Saturdays ago, Mark was given the opportunity to go to a Duke game with one of his best friend from high school. It was an awesome opportunity, but it meant that he would not be able to see the girls at all because he would have to go straight from work to the game and would be home long after they went to bed. We brainstormed about how to give him some time with them and realized the only chance we would have was for the girls to take his basketball class.

They had a blast! We found out to our surprise that Karis can actually dribble the ball about 10 bounces and she made her first swish (the goals are lowered)!! She was so excited! Karlie had a blast as well, but she is so tiny that she never comes near the goal, ha, ha. But she loves all the exercises and just bounces all over the place :)

The next Saturday, Mark had someone else coach the class so he could focus on his girls a little more. So I put Abbi in the carrier and took some pictures:

Warm-up stretching: Blast off is their favorite stretch and is a great way to teach them to bend their legs while shooting:

Fun runs! These are Karlie's favorite part about both soccer and basketball class. They hop or run or skip with their knees high down the court. Karlie is hilariously meticulous in her hopping -- she does it just right with 2 feet and barely moves down the field at all. She is usually only half-way down the field by the time everyone else is done. But she loves it and they all cheer her on :) Forgive the shaky camera -- Abbi grabbed at it while I was taping.

In this picture, they were just running (sorry that it is blurry; it is hard to be a photographer with a baby strapped to your chest and moving subjects!)
Getting ready to shoot some baskets!
"How can I get it there?" (With an alley-oop from Daddy, of course!)
Karis can actually make it if she aims correctly.
So proud of herself!
I didn't get a video of her actually making the shot, but I love this quick one of her excitement when Coach Conrad helps her get it in!

Thankful Tree Week 3

2011-11-21T14:49:00.002-05:00

This week, Karis an Karlie are thankful for:

Karis:

...for my own pink Bible that Laurel gave me!

... for our milk farmer who gives us milk!

...for my doll bed!

... for my fish and horse, Cocoa (imaginary)

... for my music machine (a kid's mp3 player that I found at the consignment sale)

... for my brothers and sisters: Julia, Cowgirl Kate, Cindy, James (imaginary)

.. for the sandbox, the swings, and the fire pit!

Karlie:

... for the library!

... for my "I spy" book!

... for my frozen banana!

for the tiger (Abbi's basketball goal)

... for prunes

... that I hopped in soccer!

Abbi Grace at 9 months!

2011-11-18T13:40:00.009-05:00

Oh, this girl just keeps getting better and better! She is just so much fun! From the moment Abbi wakes up, she is a bundle of smiles an waves and claps and ENERGY! She is ever so tickled that she can crawl super duper fast and especially over her newfound ability to pull up on everything. And I mean EVERYTHING! The girls are constantly calling me in the room to see what new thing she is doing. This sweet babe even believes that she can stand up on her own two feet and cruise, but thankfully she never fusses when she inevitably plops down.
We have discovered that sweet Abbi has a temper this month because she is learning the word "no" and it just makes her so mad! Crawling opens up a world of possibilities and it is so frustrating when Mama makes her stop :) One day she sat in front of the open dishwasher and just stared and it and fussed and fussed because she knew I wouldn't let her climb on it. She also has a difficult time resisting temptation. Karis and I got the biggest kick out of her this week because she kept paying with my canning pot and scaring herself over and over. She would play with it until the lid fell off with a loud clang on our tile floor and then scream in fright at the loud noise until I moved it back to its place. then she would do it again and again. I finally had to move her away from the pot because she couldn't stop doing it no matter how much it scared her!
Last month I could keep her from eating every little speck on the floor by giving her the paci, but this month she quickly learned to pull it out so she can eat what she wants. It is a constant battle to keep my floor clean enough for her. Somehow she manages to find little pieces of trash or lint or bark or grass to put in her mouth even right after I vacuum. And she also throws her paci when I pick her up to nurse her. She yanks it out of her mouth and throws it across the room. I'm always amazed at the places I find it.
Abbi had a two or three week spell this month where she was just too busy to nurse! I finally had to break down and buy a nice pump and try to teach her how to drink out of a sippy cup because she would go 6 or 7 hours without eating! Thankfully, she has calmed down a bit now and I only end up pumping once or twice a week. And she hadn't lost any weight at her 9-month checkup -- she was almost 20 pounds! Thats a big 9-monther for me! My other two girls were down between the 5-15 percent in weight by this time, but Miss Abbi is holding steady at 75%.
Abbi has gotten quite talkative this month and loves to say Da-da! I still haven't heard her say Ma-ma, but she grins and laughs at me every time I try to get her to say it :) She loves to play with Daddy, especially peek-a-boo and hide and seek, but if she is tired and fussy or in a new situation, only Mama will do. I am ever so thankful for my Ergo and Beco because she is perfectly content to snuggle with me in them when we are out and about. But if I happen to forget my carrier, she wears.me.out! She wants to be down crawling everywhere every second! The only way to keep her in my arms is with the baby carrier.

Abbi loves to read now, especially books with flaps or different textures. Her favorite book is Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? We read it almost every day when she wakes up from her nap and she just laughs and laughs at all the different sounds. I love it!

Our awesome friend, Miranda, took some great pictures of my sweet Abbi this month and I am just so excited about them:

October Medal Day at Turf Tikes

2011-11-15T14:08:00.008-05:00

I have to start this post by saying that I came across these pictures when I was uploading the new ones to my facebook page and I just can't believe that my big girls were ever that little!

Karis at 18 months

Karlie Sue: I must point out that she is wearing the same shirt now that she did at 18 months!
Now that I have shed my tears, lets move on to the recent pics:

Our girls look forward to Fridays every week because they get to go to soccer with Daddy! Karlie is actually in Daddy's class and Karis has coach Deanna, whom she absolutely loves. Deanna loves to make her laugh by tickling her :)

One of Karlie's favorite things to do in soccer class is to build cone towers and kick them down!

Yay!
Karis is excitedly listening to coach Deanna's instructions:
So much fun!
Score!

With the rest of her little class, receiving their medals:
Karlie showing off her medal:
But Daddy is still the best coach ever and Karis says she wants to be a soccer coach just like him when she grows up (so she can be with him all day long :)

Our Thankful Tree Week 2

2011-11-12T12:18:00.002-05:00

I was going to take a picture of our tree each week to show how it is filling up, but Mark took the camera to work today so I'll have to wait til next week. Regardless, we have really had fun with our tree!

This week, we are thankful for:

Karis

...for picking the watermelon and planting the flowers!

... for my (imaginary) friends: Alysa, Maria, Jack, Her Baby's sister...

...for my purple bandage because it helps me get better!

...for my couch because it is my fire truck!

... for Abbi's new doll that she loves so much! (we had to buy Abbi one because she kept trying to take the big girls' dollbabies and it was quite traumatic :)

... that Abbi Grace can drink out of a sippy cup now

Karlie

... for petting the bunny at the Farmer's Market!

...for hopping outside!

... for my frozen banana!

... for myself!

... for quinoa pancakes and syrup!

... for my dollhouse!

.... because I like sausage the best and yogurt the most!

All about babies....

2011-11-09T19:34:00.003-05:00

Karis is obsessed with babies. She talks about them all the time and spends her days playing with her baby dolls and her imaginary friends and their baby brothers and sisters. Here are some conversations recently:

Karis: Mama, I'm ready for a brother now. Can we have a baby brother?

Me: Well, Karis, we still have a baby. Abbi is our baby and she still needs Mama a lot. She still needs Mama's milk so God probably will wait to give us another baby.

Karis: Maybe when she is 1 year God can give us a baby brother.

Karis, to Karlie, petitioning her to marry her again:

"Last time I didn't get married and I need to because I want to have babies. My Baby and Violet (her other babydoll) want brothers and sisters and I'm really trying. That's why I need to get married. Whatever God gives me I will take!"

(And this one isn't about babies but I wanted to go ahead and post it before I forget it)

Daddy, before bed: Who should we pray for?

Karis: Laura and Mary

(Daddy looks very confused)

Mama: Like from Little House on the Prairie?

Karis: YES!

Our Thankful Tree: Week 1

2011-11-04T14:15:00.006-04:00

Last year I tried to get Karis to tell me things she was thankful for in November, but she wasn't interested. So this year, I let them make a tree (I drew an outline in pencil and let them go crazy with the crayons). Then I cut out leaves for writing our thankful thoughts. I cannot tell you how incredibly excited they are about it! I had planned to just get one leaf from each of them every morning, but they pretty much beg to "do our thankful tree" each time we are in the kitchen. So I decided to give a weekly update on what they are thankful for. This has really only been 4 days worth of thankfulness, but I decided Friday would be my day to post it each week.

"I am thankful for..."

(Karis)

...our magic eraser because I like cleaning the table!

...our decorations and thankful tree!

... my socks that Kirstie made because I like playing with the beads!

..my own pizza and the songs on the computer! (Pandora)

...our calendar, my kitchen set, Abbi's exersaucer, and my snowman cup!

... my Karlie!

...Pup-pup, Blackie, and Abbi Grace

...my babies -- My Baby and Violet

(Karlie)

...for Abbi's pumpkin because we painted it silver!

...my Karis!

...Myna Baby, Pink Baby, and Pup-pup

... our Thankful Tree!

...Abbi!

... my Daddy!

Better than Pinterest :)

2011-11-03T20:13:00.006-04:00

Y'all -- I love Pinterest! If you haven't joined yet, please leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I'll be glad to send you an invite. It is an awesome way to find and store recipes, educational activities, decorating ideas, craft ideas, do-it-yourself projects, sweet organizational tips, and much more. It can be a huge time waster, though, (kind of addicting) so I usually only allow myself to browse when we are relaxing in the evening, I'm too tired to read and think deeply about all my favorite nutritional and educational blogs, and Mark is watching something on TV that doesn't interest me. (Like sports -- I LOVE to play most anything, but watching sports on TV bores me to tears :)

Anyways, When I informed Karis at the end of September that it was officially fall, she wanted to make fall decorations! But Karis did not just want to make one decoration -- she asked every single day what fall decoration we were going to make!!! (Just so you know -- I would like to be the super crafty Mama who plans out amazing crafts every day for her kids to enjoy.... but I'm not. If we have time for a project, we usually cook. But that's just me. I like crafts, but don't usually think about them until I'm asked:)

So I jumped on Pinterest and found some good ideas of fun things to do with my girls. The funny thing is, our projects never turn out exactly like the picture on the blog. (Note: the smaller pic is the Pinterest one; the large is our own creation :) Take Pumpkin glittering, for example:

Who cares if we made a humongous mess and actually only covered the tops? My girls' pumpkins have a style of their own!

And actually making a print of the leaf is totally over-rated -- a leaf is much more fun as a paint brush!

A handprint tree is a great idea until a 2-year old freaks out about the paint on her hands and doesn't want to finish :) HA!

Our fall banner might not be as stately as Pinterest one, but I'd bet money that no one ever appreciated it as much as my girls love theirs and I'm certain no one ever danced around in circles singing about how much they loved their banner like this one (And in case you were wondering, they each made one letter out of dots and one letter out of sequins.)

And who cares that Mama decided on a whim to make these and forgot about the importance of pressing the leaves... my girls sure thought it was the most fun project ever!

All this to say that I absolutely love Pinterest for its ideas... but I love my own girls' creations so much more! They are definitely not as perfect as the ones in the pictures, but oh, how they make me smile! Such memories we have making our decorations! Mark told me that I need to make a photo book of all our school projects and artwork because we won't be able to keep them all and we don't want to forget such memories! So I've started taking pictures of everything we do together. I don't plan to blog them all, but maybe every now and then I'll post a few of them :)

A fun wedding weekend!

2011-10-31T13:52:00.005-04:00

My cousin got married this weekend and we had so much fun! Unfortunately, we were too busy to take many pictures, but I'll share what I have.

On Friday night, some friends from church watched the girls for us so that we could go to a wonderful rehearsal dinner. Such delicious food!!!! I ate an unbelievable amount, even for me! And the girls had a blast with Mr. Alan, Miranda, and Jared. They told us all about it the next day :)

On Saturday, we took the girls and their cousins to a family lunch. I forgot my camera, so you won't see any pics til I get a few from my dad. But we had a lot of fun seeing everyone and once again, eating a ridiculous amount of utterly delicious food! Karis was utterly obsessed with seeing the bride and bridesmaids. She talked about them all weekend, pretended she and Karlie were going over to their houses to play, and now has imaginary friends named Whitney, Lindsey, and Natalie :)

After naps, the girls wanted me to curl their hair (They had seen the fancy hair-do's of they bridal party at the luncheon). They were so excited about the curlers -- Karis said that she wanted to wear them to the wedding and Karlie wanted me to take a picture of her with them on:

We had a crazy time getting to the wedding (one of those "lock-yourself-out-of-the-car-when-you-need-to-go-home-and-change" kind of adventures) so we didn't get a single family picture of us all together dressed up fancy. I was pretty sad about that because my parents had gotten the girls some adorable fancy dresses that matched but we will just have to wear them again another time for a family photo. That shouldn't be too hard because Karis wants to wear her dress every waking moment. She begged to wear it to church the next day, would not take it off for naptime, and cried big tears when we made her take it off before going to an outdoors fall party that evening. And then she wanted to wear it again this morning!!

We were pretty disappointed that we rushed to the wedding a little late, but it was ok because we watched from right outside the doors and Karis got her own special preview of the wedding party as they walked out. They all smiled and said hi to her as they walked by and she felt so special and proud!

The reception was at a really cool science museum downtown and the girls had a blast looking at everything! Their favorite sightings included dinosaur bones and live snakes, turtles, and frogs. I was too busy trying to get Abbi to sleep to a take any pics, but Mark snagged just a few as he walked around with the big girls. We had to leave early because it was well past the girls' bedtime and I was hoping that the big girls wouldn't realize that they were missing the cake. But sure enough, as soon as we got in the car, Karis said, "Mama! No one cut the wedding cake!!! I think it was because it was just too pretty to eat!"

Karlie walking with Papa, looking at the exhibits:
Excited about a big dinosaur skeleton!
Watching some dancing going on behind a huge dinosaur replica:
This picture is of me trying to get Abbi to sleep (pretty much what I did the entire reception :) And I was totally unsuccessful. It was all so bright and loud and exciting and she just couldn't shut down. I normally have her in bed between 5:30 and 6:00 and my crazy baby stayed awake until 9:30!!! I was amazed and incredibly thankful, however, that she stayed happy pretty much the entire time.
My dad with his siblings: They were all so excited to be together!

more fun from our VA weekend!

2011-10-28T14:01:00.001-04:00

We squeezed in lots of fun on our quick trip back home....

We were planning to meet some friends at a park about 30 min away but Abbi desperately needed a longer nap. So we drove the beautiful parkway for a while and then ended up at the "star" for which our city is so famous.

Enjoying the view of the city (I'm glad I stayed in the car with Abbi because my heart would have stopped if I had seen the girls so close to the edge! You can't tell from the pic, but it is a LONG way down!)

The girls were so excited to finally be able to see the star up close because they had seen it many times in the distance driving around the city. It looks really cool at night when it is lit up.

But I think they were most excited about the leaves! We regretfully don't have any big trees in our yard so whenever we go to VA they go crazy playing with all the leaves!

Then we met up with our friends at the park:
The girls loved the different kind of see-saw!
And the swing that they could ride together
The BIG kids had fun on the see-saw also -- HA!
Gavin is Mark's best friend from high school. Isn't his daughter a cutie?
Then we went to Grandma and Papa's house for the night
I love seeing Abbi grin at her Papa!
The girls were so excited about their little pumpkins!
What a fun trip!

Pregnancy books and tips

2011-10-26T20:57:00.002-04:00

A dear friend of mine recently found out she was pregnant and e-mailed me with some questions about books to read, natural remedies, stretch marks, and maternity clothes. I thought I'd share my response in case it would be helpful to anyone...

I unfortunately didn't find out about this until after the 1st trimester (because I'm sure it would have helped with my horrible morning sickness), but Papaya enzymes are an awesome natural way to settle an upset stomach or to help with heartburn and acid reflux.

My holistic doctor told me that colic in babies is caused by yeast overgrowth and digestive issues in the Mama, so I took tons of probiotics and cut out most all sugar and white flour the last trimester, especially that last month. I don't know if it worked or if I just have a very easy baby, but Abbi had the least tummy trouble of the three :) And Karlie had the most, which makes complete sense because I had the antibiotic during labor with her and that would definitely cause digestive issues. So I'm a believer. I recently read this article that confirmed her advice and gave tips for preventing colic in babies.

I've also read that GER (bad reflux in babies) is caused by a deficiency in B12 so I made sure I ate lots of beef, cheese, and eggs so I would get plenty of that vitamin.

I've read that olive oil can help colicky babies -- I had a friend who let her baby suck on her finger dipped in olive oil after each feeding and it helped.

I recently read that you get morning sickness because increased hormone production uses up cholesterol and the body is unable to produce sufficient bile. One researcher suggested that you eat as many good quality cholesterol rich foods as you can (and it is even better to prepare before conception if possible with at least 3 months of a traditional diet rich in high quality animal fats!) Sip whole raw milk throughout the day to ward off sickness and acupuncture can help a lot as well! Another blogger said that eating legumes helps because the bile binds to soluble fiber and cannot pass pass the intestinal barrier and make you sick. She suggests eating 1/4 cup of beans any time you feel nauseous. I'm thinking that I will be eating a whole lot of hummus next pregnancy! And it is a good thing that I love my raw milk and cheese!

I did all my normal natural solutions when pregnant, but I saved oregano oil as a last resort because it is so strong and I could never find any info that definitively said it was ok during pregnancy. I think I only used it for a day if if I got really sick and stopped when I felt better. It is probably fine, but I always err on the side of caution. Plus, oregano oil kills the good bacteria as well and I didn't want to do that unless absolutely necessary. Garlic and Apple Cider Vinegar are perfectly fine and ever so good for you, so they were my stand-by pregnancy remedies :) I don't know as much about Grapefruit Seed Extract, so I saved it for when I was really sick as well. It is probably fine, but I just didn't know for sure.

I've never gotten stretch marks (but don't think I've gotten off easy; varicose veins are much worse because they are very painful!); I think whether or not you get stretch marks depends a lot on how you carry your baby and I have a long torso so my babies don't stick out that far. But I have been pretty careful to put lotion on my belly throughout my pregnancies regardless. I used Palmer's Cocoa Butter stretch mark cream with my first two pregnancies and made my own belly butter with my last pregnancy. I don't have a real recipe... I just melted coconut oil, shea butter, and almond oil on low on the stove and mixed them up and poured it in a jar. If I had to guess, I'd say that I used them respectively in a 3:2:1 ratio. And you really don't have to have the almond oil; the main thing is that you need shea butter to make it more like lotion than just oil. I added some cocoa butter to one batch and it was great, even more thick, but it was a horrible pain to scrape off into the pan and to melt because it was so hard.

Target has absolutely the best nursing tanks ever! And their nursing bras are pretty reasonably priced as well. My favorite place to buy maternity clothes was Old Navy -- they always had stuff in the clearance section. And I got some stuff at Kohl's and Target. Maternity is very expensive, so the best thing is to buy it off season.

My top 5 fav pregnancy/baby books are:

Real Food For Mother and Baby by Nina Planck

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg -- I don't agree with everything she says, but she does have good ideas for soothing baby and getting baby on a good sleep/wake/eat schedule, etc. I'm more of a "feed on demand" kind of Mama, but a loose schedule is very helpful in knowing whether a baby is fussing because she is hungry or simply tired. Some good nursing tips are found HERE.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth -- very "crunchy," but a must-read during your last month of pregnancy if you decide to give birth without meds :) I re-read it with every baby during that last month to inspire me to know that I can do it!

Mothering Magazine's Having a Baby Naturally

Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding

A quick trip back home!

2011-10-26T13:24:00.004-04:00

Last weekend, we made a super-quick trip back home for a very important reason:

My grandmother turned 85 years old! how special! I am very close to my grandmother because I actually lived with her for a while before meeting and marrying Mark (and it was because of her that I got the job that led me to Mark!)

My Mom made an awesome pumpkin cake and my dad made the most amazing maple icing that was just perfect (I will be getting the recipe from him this weekend!). And my girls had a blast decorating it :)

My Dad created an awesome slideshow with pictures from her entire life and everyone really enjoyed watching it.
Karlie and Grandma Connie were both really excited about the cake :)
4 generations of girls!

After the cake, we went outside to run off some energy :)

A daddy's girl through and through :)

Daddy love and other funny conversations :)

2011-10-25T19:45:00.004-04:00

Karis: Mama, I'm tired of seeing you all the time... I want you to work and Daddy to stay at home with us! (Sorry, hon, I'm pretty sure neither Mama nor Daddy would be happy with that arrangement - ha! :)

Karis, happily painting away: "I'm going to be an artist when I grow up.... no, actually, I am going to be a coach because I want to see Daddy a lot when I grow up!"

Karis: Karlie, I want you to obey me like you obey Mama! (Good luck with that one, missy :)

Karis: Karlie if you poop in the potty tomorrow we can have banilla ice cream again!

Karlie: Oh, yes! I have lots of poops!

Me: Karlie! You have scratches on your arm! Why did kitty scratch you?

Karlie: Because I was trying to put a pony tail on his tail!

Karis, talking about a house on our road: "Oh, Nina, I LOVE that house! It means we are almost home!"

Random things I love about my husband... (7 Years Today!!)

2011-10-16T11:12:00.002-04:00

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary! So hard to believe! I still sometimes think back to my wedding day and can hardly believe such a magical day occurred and all my dreams came true :) They have undoubtedly been the best 7 years of my life. Our marriage has definitely not been perfect, containing many ups and and some downs as well, but there has never been a single moment when I questioned marrying my man. There is no doubt in my mind that God brought us together! Since I already wrote this post about why I initially married my awesome fella, I thought today I would share why I am still ever so thankful that God brought us together. This list is completely random, in no particular order, and definitely not conclusive. It is simply what is popping into my head at this very moment:

If he mistakenly offends me, all I have to do is tell him what he did and he apologizes. He is never defensive and doesn't try to justify his words/ actions. He simply admits if he is wrong and apologizes. (I'm trying to learn that from him; my tendency is to get defensive.)

He rolls his eyes and teases me about my health-nuttiness, but does listen and try crazy things that I cook and is even willing to give up some favorites for healthier options. (ex. giving up sodas for water keifer lemonade)

He can still make me melt when he holds my hand or puts his arm around me in public (and believe me, it is hard to get that chance when you have 3 little ones to hold onto when you go out!)

He has a hard time stopping work and coming home at night because he wants to do his best at his job. But he knows that tendency and really, really tries to get home at a decent time. He even tells me to call and remind him if he gets late. (An excuse to nag.... what more could a wife want? HA!)

He takes out the trash for me and is usually the one to mop the kitchen floor.

He uses his day off to take the big girls out to do my errands (grocery store, library, post office, etc) because he knows I like to stay home with the girls during the week to do school and keep Abbi on a decent schedule. (And the girls look forward to their "Daddy-date" all week long!)

He can usually somehow get my 2-year old to get past her stubbornness better than me.

He is well-respected by everyone who knows him and I am always proud to be his wife.

He believes that it is important for me to be at home with our girls and is willing to go without my paycheck and live very simply/frugally to enable me to stay at home. (ex. he has never had internet on his phone or cable and we have an old 19-inch 11-year old TV that he has to stand in front of to be able to see his sports :)

By God's grace, he really tries to life a life that brings glory to God. He is a good example to my girls!

He is really hot, especially when playing sports :)

He loves and enjoys children, even after being exhausted by his own for the past 4.5 years.

My family and his are both important to him and he understands my need to be with them for every single holiday.

He does not spend money foolishly and totally researches and thinks out every large purchase that we make.

He allows me to spend a large portion of our budget on "real" food.

When I am consumed with morning sickness, a newborn, or a sick child, he completely picks up the slack and runs the house.

He makes breakfast like a pro!

He loves me even when I am too tired to shower or forget to put on make-up (Sorry honey -- that happens more often than I care to admit!)

He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me! I am so thankful for his sacrifices and love!

...And if you want to read any of my other anniversary posts, here they are:

Random Mark and Meg Facts

Why I Married My Guy

The Best Thing My Husband Ever Said To Me

Then and Now

Our Story

Happy Anniversary!

2011-10-15T22:55:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow marks our 7th anniversary! We totally forgot to take any pictures on our date so when we got home, Mark asked Papa to take a few. Don't you like this first one? HA!

It wasn't a problem with Papa's picture taking as much as a problem with my husband -- in 7 years, he still hasn't gotten over the perverse joy of tickling me!

"Now you better behave!"

And he responds by kissing me :) Gotta love him!

And gotta love this little sweetie... she woke up just before we got home to snuggle with Nina and watch baseball with Papa. I was so glad that she had been a happy baby while we were gone!

A grown-up conversation

2011-10-14T22:58:00.004-04:00

Meg: I'm really, really excited about our date tomorrow night

Mark: Why?

Meg: Well, I'm excited to see our friends and I'm excited about eating good food, but I'm really excited about being able to take a bite right away (while it is still hot) and then take another one and then another one and eat my whole meal and not have to get up to get someone something (or fight a squirmy baby for my spoon)... please don't ask me to pass you anything because I'm not going to. I just want to eat my whole dinner without being interrupted.

Mark: I think I'm going to take someone else.

Fun at Kid Fest

2011-10-13T19:42:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday, Mark did a promo for his work at a local kidsfest. He got everything set up and then was free to play with the girls. They had a blast and did not want to leave even though we were utterly exhausted. The best thing about this festival was that everything was free! The girls were able to pick out pumpkins and decorate them with stickers and feathers and markers. Other favorites included the the blow-up jumping boat, playing with yellow duckies in a stream and getting prizes, and getting a tatoo. Karis chose a princess tatoo and Karlie chose a green dog (He looked like Blues Clues, but was green.. must have been a cousin or something?). We didn't take a lot of pictures, though, because there was so much going on.

When we later asked the girls what they liked the most, Karlie answered, "decorating pumpkins" and Karis simply said, "EVERYTHING!" But if you were watching their faces, you would have easily seen that meeting "Clifford" was the most absolutely amazing part of the day! I wish I had gotten a picture of Karlie's face when she saw him... it was priceless. She couldn't even speak -- she just pointed with her mouth wide open. And Karis kept giving him fives over and over. They love getting Clifford books from the library and never dreamed of meeting him in person :)

Abbi Grace at 8 months!

2011-10-10T20:49:00.000-04:00

My sweet girl is 8 months old now! She is a bundle of energy and always on the go! She is a pro at army crawling -- I don't really remember my others doing it so well or for so long. She is getting up on her hands and knees regularly, and crawling just one or two steps at a time before resuming army crawling.
Abbi loves:

...putting anything and everything in her mouth (I may or may not often resort to giving her the paci when she is awake just so that she can play on the floor with her sisters without me having to worry about her putting little toys in her mouth :)

... her little lovey blanket -- if she is tired and fussy you can give her the paci and blankie and she will just snuggle up to you -- bliss!

... Food! She eats many things now, but apparently nothing is as exciting as avocado with chicken stock (cold), yogurt with probiotics, and cod liver oil.

... the cat -- he drives her absolutely crazy! If she so much as catches a glimpse of him, she starts hollering like crazy and army-crawling wildly in his direction. Even when she gets close enough to touch him, she is so excited that she can hardly sit up straight. She literally shakes and yells with excitement, trying to eat him and grab him at the same time. Blackie will generally let her attack him as long as I am petting him at the same time.

... paper, shoes, grass, bark, stickers -- they are like magnets to her and I will inevitably have to fish them out of her mouth :)

... Pup-pup -- she still likes to play with her whenever she sees her. But Pup-pup is not nearly as exciting as the cat since she is always around

Abbi does not love:

... her exersaucer -- she much prefers to be able to crawl around and does not want to be confined. Plus, if she is in the kitchen (where we keep it), she wants to be eating :)

... when I am reading to the big girls -- she wants our attention so badly and always comes over and fusses at us and tries to eat our books...

... to hear her sisters upset -- she will start crying as well

Abbi has finally resumed her nightly schedule of going to bed around 6pm and staying asleep through the evening until about 10:00! (most of the time :) Now Mama and Daddy can go on dates again! YAY! On a good night, she will only wake up once more during the night around 2:30 and then get up around 8am. I've decided that that extra feeding is a good thing and am not going to try to make her cry it out and get over it. She is the only baby I've had who wasn't sleeping 12 hours straight by this time, but she is also the chunkiest baby I have ever had and I like that. I think the extra feeding is really helping my milk supply and helping her make up for any feedings that she was too distracted to finish during the day.

I tried on a pair of 12 months jeans because I knew she would never fit into her 9-month ones. But I couldn't even get the 12 months ones past her adorably chunky thighs! These were the jeans that Karlie probably wore until she was 18 months! HA!

The big girls were ever so excited to find this pink bear jacket in our fall clothes bin and demanded that she wear it... so cute :)

Abbi Grace, we love you so much and just can't believe you are getting so big!

1 Corinthians 13 by Karis ( and a little help from Karlie)

2011-10-07T13:58:00.003-04:00

We decided to learn 1 Corinthians 13 next because it would help the girls remember how to be loving to each other. They both know it, but because it is so long Karlie often gets distracted and forgets to finish saying it :)

A joyful noise :)

2011-10-06T09:46:00.003-04:00

My girls love to play and sing together. I thought I'd share a couple quick clips I took of them singing together this week. They will probably never win any awards for the their amazing voices, but it still brings me a smile and a chuckle every time I see this. And Karis has some interesting instructions for Karlie as well :) We have a Wee-Sing Bible Songs CD and songbook and they know which pictures go with which song so they are "reading" the music.

Pumpkin Patch!

2011-10-05T14:55:00.006-04:00

Mark was off from work today so we took our traditional trip to the pumpkin patch! The girls were all so very excited!

Most of the pumpkins had been picked and taken to the fun pumpkin playground, but Karlie was determined to get hers from the patch:

So tickled that she picked her own!

Abbi was really excited to be out in the bright sunshine

Karlie loved the horsey tire swing:
Abbi just wanted to eat her pumpkin... I fished a big piece of pumpkin stalk out of her mouth a little bit later on :)

She took a break in the shade with her Daddy while the big girls played on the playground

Karis was utterly determined to carry her big pumpkin all the way to the wagon!

She dropped it once, but picked it up and got it into the wagon!

So proud of herself for carrying that heavy pumpkin!

Our attempt at a picture of the three of them -- HA!

Sweet Abbi
Karis loved the playground
Pumpkin peek-a-boo!

pout-pout faces

2011-09-28T14:41:00.003-04:00

The girls were playing dress-up the other day and when I tried to take a picture, Karlie gave me this face:

Karis quickly tried to follow suit:
But she couldn't hold the pout for long :)

Our crazy pets

2011-09-27T13:35:00.003-04:00

I've mentioned before that our dog is crazy obsessed with our sweet baby. Here is yet another picture of Pup-pup plopping down in Abbi's lap... much to her delight!

And on Monday Abbi slept in later than usual. I finally heard her waking up and went in to get her and found this:
Oh, she was so excited that kitty had pushed opened her door and jumped in her bed! Abbi's door does not close tightly unless you pull it really hard and make a loud click sound. Kitty knows this and often pushes it open to go sleep in her closet. Monday was the first day that he actually jumped in bed with her and he has done it ever since -- I cannot tell you how many times he has recently woken her up from a nap! You better believe that I am now being quite careful about the door :)
Abbi is always wanting to touch the kitty, but usually the big girls get all his attention. She decided to take her big opportunity to see how he tasted...
And to grab his tail...
So excited to have him to herself!

Finding time to potty train the second child :)

2011-09-26T13:23:00.004-04:00

A month before Abbi was due, I thought I'd see if Karlie would learn to use the potty... so I wouldn't have 2 in diapers at the same time. She did great (way better than I expected), but my horrible pregnancy back could not handle running her to the potty every time she realized she had to go and I gave it up after a day. I could hardly move that night. Call me a quitter if you want, but the girl wasn't even two yet and bending over was not my forte with a humongous belly!

A month after Abbi was born, Karlie decided she wanted to go potty. For two weeks straight, she used the potty every time Karis did. (Karis only goes 3 times a day: when she wakes up, before naps at 1:00, and before bed at 7:00) That would obviously have been the perfect time to officially bare her bum and get rid of diapers, but with a one month old who was nursing constantly and not sleeping much at night, I just didn't have the energy to fool with it. And I had the bizarre idea that Karis might potty train her sister all by herself so why interfere? Unfortunately, Karlie got bored with the whole thing after 2 weeks of being a potty pro and I was too tired to force the issue. I decided to wait for warmer weather.

When summertime hit, Karlie was staying dry in between diaper changes, usually filling it up only at naptime and bedtime. I knew she was ready but was amazed at the stubbornness of my two year old. She loved her new undies and kept them dry, would sit on the potty as often as I asked, but simply refused to fill it up. Treats did not matter. Food was obviously not the way to her heart as it was for Karis :) We had much traveling planned for the summer and I didn't want to fool with potential accidents on our trips so I decided to give her until our last trip was completed and then give all her diapers to Abbi, come what may :)

We came home from our last trip Tuesday night and Wednesday morning Karlie gave all the diapers to Abbi. We had been talking about this exciting day that Karlie would finally be a big girl and she was ready and so excited. I had also thought really hard about what Karlie likes to do more than anything and had a major breakthrough: STICKERS! My girl will do stickers all day long if the stickers don't run out! So I ordered an awesome sticker book for her and informed her that every time she put something in her potty, she could do a whole page. After that first page, she got excited and was a pro from then on. She only had one accident the entire time and that was really my fault for forgetting to remind her to go because she had been doing so well. She is even staying dry at nap time!

So on the one hand, I feel a little guilty for making her wait so long to learn how to use the potty because the delay was really my fault each time. I just didn't have the time/ energy to persevere. But on the other hand, waiting so long made it really easy when I was finally ready to go for it! Yay for Karlie!

cute conversations

2011-09-25T15:21:00.008-04:00

Karis: I like to help Karis pee and poop

Mama: Yes, thank you for being such a big helper to Karlie and teaching her to go potty!

Karis: Karlie, do you like me to help you go potty?

Karlie: Oh, yes, because you are my special!

Karis: Well, I'm not special but I am helpful!

Abbi is grunting like crazy in her highchair, telling me she wants more avocado...

Me, joking: Well, what does that mean?

Karlie: Abbi needs to poop!

Karlie: Mama, I'm going to be Abbi's Teacher... I'm going to teach her how to do everything!

Karis: When I grow up, I'm going to work at Daddy's work... or teach kids how to swim.

Words of wisdom from Mama: It's hard to go potty with a dinosaur on!

Mama: Karlie, you need to clean up your papers before you do anything else

Karlie: I go get My-na baby!

Mama: No Karlie. You have to clean up first.

Karlie: But Mama, My-na baby LOVES me!

(To my girls, getting married means holding hands, singing, and dancing around in a circle)

Karis: Please marry me, Karlie!

Karlie: Ok, but just for a minute

Karis: And then we can have babies!

Lunch with lots of littles!

2011-09-21T13:11:00.002-04:00

We just got back from a fast and fabulous trip back home. It was amazing all that we packed in just a few short days, but one of the highlights was grabbing lunch with some of my favorite people! Between us, there was a 4-year old, a 3-year old, a 2-year old, a 16-month old, a 13-month old, a 7-month old, a 2.5 week-old, and two pregnant mamas. Here are all the happy Mamas... oh, I am just so thankful for their friendship!

The husbands came, too, but we didn't get a picture of all of them together :)
Here are a few of the munchkins playing together after they ate. We finally got them all out of their chairs and they played stickers in a circle on the floor while we chatted a bit longer. So fun! I hope we get to visit them often so they will grow up to be good friends!

Abbi on the move... her primary victim...

2011-09-15T14:37:00.003-04:00

Abbi finally realized this week that she is capable of army-crawling across the room at will. Her primary victim (other than the big girls' little people, of course) is her ever constant companion...

It's a good thing that dog loves her so much!
And every now and then, Pup-pup will totally make Abbi's day by just sitting right down in her lap!

I just love these girls!

2011-09-12T14:42:00.004-04:00

Abbi and her constant companion -- I tell ya, I have never seen a dog more protective over a baby. Pup-pup LOVES my Dad and begs for him to rub her and he gives her bones all the time, but she wouldn't even let him sit on the floor and play with Abbi. It was hilarious! Pup-pup kept laying down in between them. Perfectly happy and nice, but insistent. And don't even try to to come near Abbi if you are a stranger! This dog will growl at you like she is going to eat you up! She really thinks that Abbi is her own baby, I think.

My nosy girls... if the neighbors are out, they love to climb on the fence and watch them, ha!
Abbi kept trying to get My-na baby or Karlie's hair and Karlie thought it was hilarious.
My crazy Karlie!
Abbi blows bubbles non-stop and she gets such a big kick if you blow them back :)
My 3 favorite girls ever!
"just like Papa!" -- my dad always buys a paper and reads it every day so Karis decided she would, too!

Fun at Daddy's ball game!

2011-09-10T15:02:00.002-04:00

Mark plays in a basketball tournament each Thursday night at his work. His game is usually too late for the girls, but this week it was at 7:00 and I had the grandparents' help, so we let them stay up to see some of it. I forgot to take my camera so I don't have any cute pictures, but let me tell you, they were so excited! It was the first time they had seen any real basketball in person and they thought it was hilarious to see those big guys chasing the ball up and down the court. They laughed hysterically for most of the game and said some really funny things. I wish I had written them down because I can't remember most of it, but here are two funny conversations:

After the first scramble after the ball, Karis exclaimed, "Mama! they aren't sharing the ball!"

After about 2 minutes of watching, Karlie decided that she wanted to play with them...

Karlie: Mama, I want to go play ball with Daddy!

Me: But Karlie, don't you see how big those guys are?

Karlie: Well, I'm a big girl!

Me, laughing: But Karlie, look at them. You aren't quite that big yet.

Karlie: Well, Daddy can pick me up and give me the ball and then I'll be really big!"

Abbi Grace at 7 months!

2011-09-09T13:52:00.004-04:00

Oh, what a delightful age for a delightful baby! 7 months is just so much fun! Abbi is ever so interactive now -- she loves nothing better than for us to blow bubbles back and forth with her or trade squeals. She really tries to have conversations with us through her squeals. It is so cute!

She has been a pro at sitting up and having fun with her toys on a blanket for the last month, but that is apparently no longer exciting. The whole sitting up thing only lasts about a minute now because this big girl believes that she can crawl! She doesn't get anywhere very fast, but boy is she determined! I'm thinking that my easy days are over and she will be moving pretty fast in the next week or two. Time to re-organize and get all the big-girl little things put away somewhere safe! And soon I will have to start vacuuming daily, I'm afraid, because she wants to put every speck of dirt or tiny bit of fuzz in her mouth. But it is exciting because it will make her so happy to be able to crawl. I'm still not ready for it, though :)

Abbi loves her Pup-pup and kitty and oh, she will just fuss and grunt and push until she gets close enough to touch them! Thankfully, they seem to know that she is a baby and are quite tolerant. Pup-pup is especially protective over Abbi and does not like for guests to play with her!

Karis and Karlie are Abbi's best distractions and they take quite good care of her. They always tell me if she has gotten ahold of something that she is not supposed to eat and are ever so happy to entertain her. Karis has really enjoyed Abbi's new eating habits and loves to give her food. Abbi loves to eat her daily plain yogurt with probiotics, avocado, and fermented cod liver oil. She has also really enojyed the occasional diced bananas, soft boiled egg yolks with olive oil, chicken with stock, applesauce, squash with butter, and peaches. She is currently quite excited about diced soft carrots with cinnamon, sea salt, and coconut oil!

Nina and Papa brought down a new swing for Abbi and she just thinks it is so much fun! It has been perfect for this fall weather and now I can swing all 3 of my girls at the same time!

Other random things about Abbi at 7 months:

-- Abbi absolutely LOVES my Ergo and Beco carriers and will start kicking and squealing at the mere sight of them.

-- Abbi has decided that the carseat is the perfect place to poop and pretty much always makes a big mess whenever we go out. She has done it so often that I should not be surprised, yet I always am.

-- Abbi is a fabulous car rider and is just about aways happy in the car. She will just talk and play and have the best time. What a blessing!

-- Abbi really needs to be in bed by 6:30 every night. If she stays up later, she believes that she is up for the night and has a really hard time settling down to go to sleep.

Abbi LOVES to play with hair -- whenever she goes to bed too late because we are out of the house, the only way to get her to settle down is to lay on the bed beside her and let her play with my hair. Then she will fall asleep while playing with it. It is so sweet (except that she can pull pretty hard before she winds down :)

Oh, I love my little sweetie so much!

Fun conversations

2011-09-08T14:09:00.003-04:00

Karlie: may I please have some more toast?

Mama: After you finish your eggs

Karlie: But God made all things!

(to which I unfortunately burst out laughing, because it was great logic for a 2-year old... but now she says it in response to EVERYTHING!)

Karis: "No, Karlie, we don't put wild turkeys in your mouth... they might bite you!"

(I have absolutely no idea what spurred on that response!)

Karis, after doing her 1st day of school handprint and I had talked about how we would do one each year to see how big her hand grew: "Mama, can I watch my handprint grow?"

"If you don't like it, then just don't eat it!" (Karis, admonishing her Daddy not to complain when he said he wasn't fond of something I made ... she has often heard me telling her not to complain about food she doesn't like :)

Karis: After the 5th day of school, I'll be grown up!"

Karis, getting possessive over her Papa: "But Papa can't go to soccer class with Benjamin (her cousin) because the kids won't know that he is staying at my house!"

My little Pirates

2011-09-02T21:06:00.003-04:00

My girls know absolutely nothing about pirates, but they had the pleasure of attending two fun pirate birthday parties two weekends in a row. They still know nothing about pirates, but they sure do love the dress-up and whistles and swords they brought home!

Dressed in their Sunday best... with eye patches :)
They wanted so badly to blow their whistles but Abbi was napping. So I told them they could blow on the front porch. They stayed out there happily blowing for at least 20 minutes!

The 2nd party was pool pirate party with blow-up swords!

Ummm... never really thought I'd be seeing tattoos on my sweet girls... let alone skulls! But at least there is pink to balance out the evilness, ha, ha! And hopefully they will wash off in a few days :)

Crazy hair and an update

2011-09-01T20:47:00.003-04:00

Sweet Abbi Grace appears to be completely healthy now and I am soooo thankful! She is still struggling emotionally somewhat and is having a hard time letting me put her down for naps and still waking up a lot at night. I haven't been able to get her back to her normal schedule at all. (Interpretation: for the life of me, I can't get her to nap at the same time as her big sisters! UGH!) And she doesn't fuss any more -- she just flat out goes straight to hysterical when she gets upset. But I'm thinking that is still part of the trauma of her crazy weekend and will hopefully pass soon. She is healthy and mostly happy when awake and I sure don't mind snuggling with her to help comfort her when she gets upset. So I am just thankful and trying very hard not to dwell on what happened.

So I thought I'd share these pictures because they straight out make me laugh :) I had no idea the girl had so much hair until I washed it and put her down for a nap and she woke up like this:

I decided that it was undoubtedly time to beak out the bows (YAY!) but Abbi was just not so sure about it :)

Oh, she is just such a sweetie!

God's grace through Abbi's battle

2011-08-29T20:22:00.001-04:00

(Warning -- LONG post :)

Many of you have been asking about what has been going on with my sweet baby so I am going to try to write it all out for you and also for my memory. I'm sorry that I could not give updates at the time; we had no idea we would be going to the ER and did not take our computer. And once we were home, it was too confusing and I was too sleep deprived to try to figure out how to explain it. Plus, Abbi was pretty inconsolable after all she had been through and only wanted Mama so if I had a rare moment to put her down, I tried to catch a minute of sleep. And please bear in mind that I have not had a normal night's sleep in 6 days so my mind is incredibly foggy and I am likely to ramble and write many run-on sentences and will undoubtedly be long-winded :)

A mother's worst nightmare is to see her child in pain or fear and not be able to comfort her and take it away. I have a few friends who have spent much time in the hospital with their little ones, watching them suffer and be hooked up to machines, and I always wonder how in the world they do it. I look at their pictures and tear up just thinking about it. But now I have a taste of how it feels. It simply hurts. A lot. Our frightening time was thankfully short in comparison to most and I praise the Lord that my baby came out completely healthy, because I know that we are very lucky. But I will never forget it. And oh, how I pray that Abbi will not remember any of it. My heart just aches thinking of all she went through and please don't ask me to talk about it because I will be too overcome to do anything but weep. But I am getting ahead of myself...

Tuesday (Aug 23) Abbi took amazingly long naps. She even slept though the earthquake without stirring a bit. That night when I went to feed her before I went to bed, she was alarmingly hot. I knew she had a fever, but I don't usually get scared by a fever. God gave it to us to fight whatever sickness is attacking our body. So I simply set my alarm to check on her regularly throughout the night and nurse her even if she didn't wake up, because dehydration is the biggest concern of a fever.

Abbi continued to have the fever Wednesday through Thursday, but she showed no other symptoms which is typical of many viruses that just have to run their course. Abbi was eating well and waking up every hour to nurse at night, so I wasn't worried about dehydration. She actually had short, happy play times in between naps and wasn't tremendously fussy or lethargic. I was thinking that it was probably Roseola or Hand, Foot, and Mouth, which are both viruses that run high fevers for a few days before the rash develops.

Thursday night, however, her temperature spiked and it seemed like something had changed for the worse. She was very fussy and not eating so well. She was up about every 30 minutes fussing but nursing didn't seem to help. And her fever never broke. Most fevers rise, break when they get too high, fall, and then rise again and continue the pattern until it has fought the virus. But this one was not following a normal pattern and my mother's intuition was alarmed. Something had changed from the simple virus we had been fighting. I no longer felt comfortable battling this one alone so we were at our pediatrician's office before the doors opened to beat the crowd and get home quickly. I fully expected to be home in an hour with just a prescription from the doctor. I had simply thrown on a shirt, brushed my teeth, and rushed out the door in the comfy lounge pants I had been in all night as I tended to Abbi. Mark threw me a banana as I rushed by him. I hadn't even washed my face or had anything to drink.

When my pediatrician (whom I love!) saw Abbi, she was immediately concerned about the high fever + lack of symptoms. She agreed with my conjecture that it probably started out as a normal virus, but the change indicated that a bad infection had "jumped in the back door" while Abbi's body was busy fighting the virus. Since there was no sore throat (Strep) or stuffy nose (sinus infection) or ear ache (ear infection) or other symptoms to point to a small infection, my doctor worried that the bacteria had gone somewhere worse -- to her chest (pneumonia), brain (meningitis), or urinary tract (uti). When is the last time that you hoped you had a urinary tract infection? Because we were sure praying that was the only problem!

My doctor immediately recommended that we go to the ER to take blood, do a catheter, and a spinal tap. As you can imagine, I was utterly shocked and just stared at her in horror at first. Then came denial and I begged her to do the catheter there because if it was just a UTI, we could avoid the ER. And with that, my nightmare truly began. My poor sweet 6 month old baby, (who has until now never had to cry more than a couple of minutes before Mama came to her rescue) had to be held down hysterically screaming, her eyes just pleading with me to help her. I know that sentence sounds overly dramatic because many children have to endure such things and it was for her own good, but believe me that it is different when it is your own child. This was my baby and it was just such torture because she just couldn't understand why I wasn't helping her. And then it didn't work. She had evidently just filled her diaper because they couldn't get any urine out of her. All that torture for nothing. And it was just the beginning.

I still desperately wanted to avoid the ER if at all possible because I knew I would lose all control over my baby and that they would do so many horrible tests on her. So did something that I thought would make my doctor think I was crazy and tried to explain about my holistic doctor and how she can diagnose without all the horrible invasive tests. I begged her to let me try to see her first, before going to the ER. To my surprise, my pediatrician asked me her name and to my even greater surprise, then said that she knew her and had even shadowed her a bit to learn about what she does! She said that if I wanted to call her first and see if she could see Abbi, that would be fine, but she really wanted me to get a blood culture for Abbi ASAP. So I called my holistic doctor and tried to explain on her answering machine, but found that I was too emotional to even be able to say the words spinal tap. I erupted into a blubbering mess on her answering machine but figured she would just call me back and hopefully I could get myself together by then. I then called Mark and told him that I needed him because my lack of sleep the past 2 nights coupled with my emotional breakdown had thoroughly rendered me unsafe for driving in busy traffic to a hospital I had never visited. Plus, I really just needed his support and wanted him to be there to hear what the doctors were saying because I was so sleep deprived and emotional.

While waiting for him, I had to drive in circles in the near-by Food Lion parking lot because the air conditioning in our old Camry does not work unless we are moving. And I sure didn't want Abbi's fever to get any higher! I would stop every few minutes to text family and friends to pray for Abbi and for wisdom for us. I was so upset but quickly began to feel God's love shown to us through our friends. So many people texted me back, said they were praying, and offered to help in any way possible -- notify others, bring us food, watch our big girls, etc. I began to feel more of a peace about the situation because I was reminded that my God was in control. I began thanking God for our good friends and for giving me such a great pediatrician who understands where I am coming from. I got ahold of myself emotionally and did not shed any more tears until several hours later when watching Abbi's spinal tap.

Mark finally got there and one of our other friends notified us that my holistic doctor was out of town for the weekend. I knew then that I had no choice but to take Abbi to the ER and do the tests to find out what was wrong and make sure that she did not have meningitis.

We are blessed to have one of the few children's ER facilities only about 35 minutes away. The nurses and doctors were ever so nice to us. They got me some water and a turkey sandwich because by that time it was noon and I was shaking and feeling weak because I was sleep-deprived and had eaten nothing but a banana all day. They quickly admitted Abbi and took blood and did another catheter on her (also miserable, but so thankful that it worked!) And then the waiting game began. It seemed to take forever for the initial results to come back. I was so thankful that I took my Ergo carrier because Abbi was so exhausted but is used to sleeping in her crib and would not fall asleep unless I put her in the carrier and pulled the hood up so it was dark. I spent most of the day in between tests walking and bouncing her with the carrier to comfort her and get her a little sleep before they came in to do something else to her. (My legs were ever so sore the next day but it was totally worth it to be able to calm her down so easily after she would get so distraught during procedures.)

We finally got the news, but it was not what we had hoped. Abbi's white blood cell count was very high, much higher than normal, and it was split. If the increase had been only in her lymph nodes, we would have known it was just a virus and would not have to continue torturing her. But an equally high number were found in places that indicated bacterial infection, so now antibiotics were needed. And if the urine came back clear, we would have to do the chest x-ray and spinal tap. Oh, how we hoped for bacteria in that urine!

I usually try to avoid antibiotics if at all possible because they greatly damage the gut and make it more easy for other infections to attack, as well as reducing the effectiveness for future use of antibiotics. So I usually try to save antibiotics for emergencies only. Both Karis and Karlie have made it thus far without needing any antibiotics at all. We have successfully fought ear infections, sinus infections, and even strep throat with only natural remedies. But the possibility of meningitis is obviously a scary one that qualifies as one of the emergencies that warrants an antibiotic!

Unfortunately, the urine came back clear so a spinal tap was needed. This is what had scared me the most and was utterly heart-wrenching. The hardest part is that it takes a long time! They said that most parents leave the room, but when I asked if I would be able to hold Abbi immediately after the procedure, they said yes. I wanted to be as close as possible so that I could grab her the second they were finished. It took about 12 minutes of listening to my baby scream hysterically because they drew blood at first and had to keep going until it was all clear spinal fluid. I am now convinced that watching your baby have a spinal tap is probably the worst form of torture a mother could ever endure. Thankfully, God had it planned out so that my Mom was eating lunch with a friend whose son had endured a spinal tap at the same time I called to tell her that we needed to do the spinal tap. Mom gave the phone to her friend and I really needed to hear her encouraging words. She told me that I would probably never forget this but that Abbi would not remember it at all. And I kept telling myself that over and over again as she screamed through the procedure. When it was all done, Abbi just collapsed into my arms and fell asleep. We had much longer to wait for results, so just bounced her and kissed her head and thanked God that the part I had feared most was over.

Before those results came through, we had to get the antibiotics shots and do the x-ray. The shots were in her legs and extremely painful. They were especially difficult because the pain lingered after they were done and then she was very sore for some time. She was quite inconsolable for a while after and that was so hard to watch. It was the first time in her little life that my snuggles or milk could not calm her down. Just heart-wrenching.

The x-ray wasn't so bad because it was very quick and painless. But it was still scary for her because they put her in a little contraption -- sort of like a bicycle seat surrounded by plastic walls and squished her in with her arms raised up. I had to hold her arms up while they took the x-rays. Scary for her, but thankfully very quick and painless.

All that was left now was to wait and wait and wait. Finally, the initial results came back clear (praise the Lord!) and they said we could go home. We finally left around 5pm. What a day!

I was so glad to in my own home again and thought that things would get better quickly. But our trial was not over yet. Abbi had a rough night, waking every 30-45 minutes and crying but refusing to eat and screaming for long periods of time before being able to go back to sleep, even when I was trying to comfort her. I think she was still in a lot of pain from all the tests and shots and severely sleep deprived which made her a little crazy. She finally started doing better around 6am, eating well and sleeping soundly until I woke her up at 8 to feed her and put her back down for a nap. Then she slept soundly until 11pm when I had to wake her to feed her and take her back to the ER for her next round of shots. Her fever was down to 101 and I was so thankful to see her smile again! She played happily with the girls while we got ready and it seemed like I had my happy baby back again!

But when we got to the ER, we found that her blood culture had grown bacteria, which was uncommon. They wanted to take more blood from her to do another culture to make sure the first one was not contaminated. They tried to do it with an IV so that she could get the antibiotic without the painful shots, but could not get it to work (just like the 1st time they took blood... my doctor later told me that the more chubby the baby, the harder it is to find a vein and Abbi sure is a chunky one.) So I had about 10 minutes to comfort Abbi from the blood transaction and then they came in with the shots. They did it right next to the spot they had given her the shots in the day before and I think those spots were still sore because she screamed harder than in any of the other procedures and nothing could settle her down for a really long time afterwards. We tried everything, but she was just inconsolable.

Once we got home, we realized that the trip to the ER had really traumatized her. Before leaving, she had been taking good naps and playing happily on her blanket. But now she would not go down for a nap for anything and we ended up having the worst night yet. She was just so traumatized that anytime I tried to put her down she would scream hysterically. And she wouldn't sleep on me, either. She desperately wanted to look around. After all she had been through, I was not about to put her down to scream in her crib so I pretty much walked her around all night. We tried everything. I could no longer use the Ergo because her legs were so sore from the shots and it hurt her to use it. We tried just driving around because she normally LOVES the car and falls asleep easily. But she screamed the whole time. The storm from the hurricane finally stopped so we tried walking around the house in the dark, which she liked but would not lay her head down on my shoulder to rest.

She had been refusing to nurse the last few hours so I finally decided to try to give her something else so she wouldn't get dehydrated. She eagerly gulped down coconut water and home-made chicken broth. And then she finally went to sleep in her crib for an hour. The next hour she was up and mad again and it took me forever to settle her. That cycle continued all night and it was just so heart-breaking and scary. I desperately wanted to avoid going to the ER again because I really thought that the experience had traumatized her and caused her screaming, but how could I be sure that it wasn't something else that was wrong? And why was she refusing to nurse? Every time she woke up screaming and refusing to be comforted I faced the dilemma of whether to go back to the ER. But the Lord helped me through each spell and we finally made it through the night. By 6am she was doing better, still waking up every hour but eating and going right back to sleep instead of screaming.

Abbi did great all Sunday morning and was happy during her brief awake times, and we (my parents and Mark and I) were all convinced that her horrible night was simply a result of sleep deprivation, dehydration, and a terrorizing ER visit. However, we were supposed to go back to the ER for the 3rd antibiotic shot that afternoon. And oh, how I wanted to avoid that! I just couldn't put my baby through that again, especially knowing how it would affect her all night long. We finally decided to try to get ahold of my pediatrician and see if we could just wait til morning to get it at her office instead of going back to the ER that afternoon. I love my pediatrician! She totally understood what I was thinking and agreed with me that another trip to the ER might do more harm than good. Since Abbi's fever had gone down, she called in a prescription for a high-power oral antibiotic that I could give Abbi myself. We were able to stay home and Abbi improved drastically!

Last night Abbi still woke up every other hour, but she wanted to nurse and then went right back to sleep each time. I was just so happy that she was eating well and not fussing! This morning I took her back to my pediatrician and she checked out well -- no fever and nothing to be concerned about! She had only lost a few ounces throughout the ordeal, which is really good. Today she has done extremely well and it seems like my happy baby is back to stay! Oh, I am so relieved! We found out that her blood, urine, and spinal fluid cultures came back completely clear so I am now able to take her off the antibiotics! Praise the Lord! I am just so thankful to see that precious smile back on my baby again! I pray to never have to watch her go through something like that again!

Thank you for all of your e-mails, texts, and facebook messages to let us know that you were praying for us. They were such an encouraging reminder to us to trust God in such a scary situation. It was truly one of my worst nightmares come to life, to see my baby suffering so much and not be able to help her, but it also made me rely on God. My faith has been strengthened through this and I praise God for it.

And here is my happy baby today:

Our First Day of Pre-school!

2011-08-18T19:32:00.007-04:00

Monday was officially our "first day of school" and I had several fun things planned for the girls. (Click HERE if you want to see our detailed "schedule" (that I follow very loosely) and my LIST of things to do with them this fall. I didn't take pictures of everything, but tried to get the highlights :)

The girls woke up to new world map placemats and fingerpaints at the breakfast table! We have had so much fun with the placemats -- the girls love pointing to places and asking about everything on the map. It kind of drives Mark crazy because we have a hard time having a conversation in between questions but I love that they are learning geography without even trying!

The girls had helped me make special cinnamon rolls for the first day of school and had been eagerly waiting to eat them :)
Of course Karis ate all the icing off first!
And my butter-lovin, change hatin, Karlie Sue wouldn't touch the icing but demanded butter on her cinnamon roll and ate every bite (but only after she ate the raisins first!)
We used our new chore cards to get ready for our day and then headed outside for our morning walk. And of course I just had to get our first traditional "first day of school pictures!"

Do you know what the best part about pre-school at home is? That you can have your babydolls do absolutely everything with you!!
And yes, "My-na baby" did indeed get a little bit of fingerpaint on her. I bet you cannot imagine how that happened :) (And I have to now confess what a horrible mother I am -- my eldest is 4 years old and had not touched fingerpaint until her first day of pre-school!) They had a blast painting with their fingers and have since begged to do it every single day!
We had a very special "healthy" fudgesicle snack after naps! Although usually I let the girls help me make everything, I made these while they were sleeping because if they had seen the green avocado going in the blender, no one would have touched them :)
But as you can tell, every drop was devoured with pleasure!
Even Abbi enjoyed a cold treat of frozen banana to help with her poor, aching gums. (To make the first week of school even more exciting, Abbi decided to wake up several times a night screaming in pain because her bottom two teeth were coming! So glad that is over with for a little while!)
The girls had fun with a new animal stencil set
They had a lot of fun stuffing shells for dinner and sprinkling on the cheese!
Speaking of cheese... yes, they are quite the hams when they want to be!
The played together in the living room while waiting for dinner to cook... still so excited about their day!
This is probably my favorite picture of all time (except that I can't see their faces very well... but I just love to see them reading together so sweetly!)
Karis regularly builds a book house for Abbi :)
Daddy gave them a manicure before bed :)
And our fun day ended with tickle time!

Don't you just wish you could go back to preschool?

This post is part of KK's SUYL back to school traditions link-up

Psalm 23 (by the girls)

2011-08-16T14:10:00.001-04:00

2nd Taste of food: fried egg yolks

2011-08-15T19:58:00.002-04:00

Ok, I promise I won't do a running commentary on each food that Abbi tries, but it just always cracks me up how delightfully messy she gets :) Just allow me to show you how much fun she had with her eggs yesterday morning, ok? I made fried eggs for us to eat with our toast and gave her the yolks that were nice and soft.

I gave her the first bite in a spoon because she just loves to chew on a spoon...

THen she started shoveling it in and trying to eat up her fingers again...
The happy smile of a messy baby...
but once you whet the appetite....

...that mouth never stops opening for MORE!

Awesome Giveaway at Prayer of Hannah!

2011-08-15T13:32:00.006-04:00

Most of you know that I have been writing for Prayer of Hannah, an encouraging blog for mothers, for over a year now. My awesome friend, Leah, just redesigned our look so please check it out and let us know what you think!

The best part is that Leah also made 15 amazing "busy bags" for little ones that she is willing to share with you! (Click HERE for a great description of what is included!)These would be fabulous for Mamas, teachers, babysitters, Grandma's, and anyone who spends time with little ones. (Seriously, folks, I wish I could win! I'm going to have to make some of the them myself!) She even put them in a cute tote, all ready to go:

So head over to POH and let us know that you want to win!

Because I want to remember...

2011-08-12T14:22:00.004-04:00

Karis: "Abbi, did you know that you are so precious to us?" (melt my heart!)

Karis and Karlie were playing dress-up. Karis was wearing a fancy white dress and Karlie a pale pink tutu dress...

Karis: "We need to go to Mama and Daddy's room to get married! ... I think we need to hold hands!"

(when I went in a minute later to check on them, they were holding hands, dancing in a circle, singing, "hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, PRAISE YE THE LORD" very loudly, over and over again)

Me: Karis, please go pick up your clothes off the bathroom floor

Karis: Well, I don't want to leave My Baby because she might cry

Me: I'll listen and tell you if she cries

Karis: ok (and she goes to obey)

Karis (coming back) Did My Baby cry?

Me: no, she was sound asleep

Karis, suspiciously: How do you know if she was crying because she cries very softly!

Me; I'm a Mama and I know how to listen for a baby's cries

Karis: How can you tell if she is crying when she is just pretend?

Me: I can pretend, too!

Karis just smiles :)

Abbi's first taste of food!

2011-08-11T14:34:00.003-04:00

I was not in any hurry to introduce Abbi to the world of table food... the third time around I fully understand that it just means more mess to clean up! Abbi has been having fun just chewing on a spoon filled with cod liver oil, coconut oil, or butter and that was fine with me. But her big sister Karis has been eagerly awaiting the day when Abbi is big enough to eat. She has been extremely disappointed that I haven't done any bottles with Abbi and bursting at the seams to help feed her. So when Karis went with Daddy to the store today and saw him getting avocados, (which were actually for some yummy, healthy fudgesicles that I wanted to try) she was so excited and very determined that Abbi try them just as soon as they walked in the door! So I gave in:

"you want me to eat this green stuff?"

"well, at least it is fun to play with!"
"Hmmm... one finger is not too bad!"
"wow!"
"I might just suck on this finger all day!"

My sweet roly-poly at 6 months!

2011-08-10T13:33:00.006-04:00

Happy 1/2 year birthday sweet Abbi Grace! What a roly-poly you are! You can get to anything (given enough time) by twisting and turning and grunting and complaining and rolling, rolling, rolling! You are one determined little girl and rarely stay on your blanket to play anymore! Your sisters are always calling me in the room to flip you back on your blanket as they play with you. You are the happiest little thing unless there is a toy out of reach and then you will let the world know you want it!

Abbi has enjoyed sleeping without her swaddle for the most part (although a few times I have had to use again it if we are out and she misses her nap and is too overstimulated to put herself to sleep). She plays with her toes and little soft toys until she falls asleep and almost always ends up on her belly. She randomly started waking up more at night this week and I was afraid I was going to have to let her cry it out, but today I noticed her first little tooth popping through and I'm sure that was the problem. Hopefully she'll go back to being a good sleeper again soon and until then, I don't mind giving her a few extra feedings to help soothe the pain.
She is such a busy baby! Going out to dinner or sitting at church is quite the workout because she wants to stand up most of the time and grab EVERYTHING! Whew! This Mama gets worn out anytime we go anywhere. Now that she is not swaddled, Abbi does not like to have her feet restrained so she gets mad if I put her in the sling to go to sleep. She still loves the Beco and Ergo (thanks goodness!). However, it is still a battle to get her to go to sleep when we are out because this alert little baby does not want to miss a thing!
Abbi has also reached the point where she will not nurse if there is anything distracting around (like her sisters!) so now I always have to take her in her room to nurse and tell the girls to stay out. She no longer nurses well in the car or with a nursing sling so I just have to plan to be at home when it is time to nurse. She just doesn't want to miss a thing! I still haven't really started her on table food, yet, although I often give her a spoonful of cod liver oil, coconut oil, or grass-fed butter to chew on while we eat. I'll probably start giving her tastes of whatever we are eating this week. She was 17 pounds, 8 ounces (80%) at the doctor's office today, so she is obviously getting all she needs from my milk. Can I just say that I love our pediatrician? We switched before Karlie was born and it was the best decision ever. She doesn't mind when we decline shots, she loves that I give my girls cod-liver oil, and she keeps telling me I need to teach a class on feeding babies since I only give mine breast-milk and "real" food rather than the canned stuff :). My pediatrician is a winner!
Abbi is definitely a Mama's girl right now and although she will smile at everyone, she doesn't last long when others take her away from Mama. Other than Daddy, that is. She thinks he is just the greatest and will fuss like crazy if the other girls hog his attention when he comes home from work.

Karlie and Karis have both been tremendous helpers with Abbi and they love to play with her and pile on the toys! Karlie is in these pictures because she wanted her "My-na baby" to have a 6-month photo shoot like Abbi :)
Abbi can kind of sit up by herself for a minute or two and she loves it, so we often put her in the boppy to protect her when she topples over :)

Oh, she is such a sweet little baby and I am just not ready for her to grow up!

Fun at Marbles!

2011-08-08T20:14:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday, we wanted to escape the heat and do something fun. So we went to the Marbles Museum in downtown Raleigh. The girls had so much fun! But don't expect any great pictures... they were so excited and way too busy to look at the camera even once!

Picking from the garden...

At the "grocery store!" This was probably their favorite place. They would have stayed there all day long had we not made them go check out the other areas :) Both of them were quite excited about the "lobsters." We always stop and look at the lobsters at our grocery store when we go, so they had fun inspecting these.
Poor Abbi was in desperate need of a nap but couldn't stop looking at all the excitement around her. I had forgotten the hood that straps to my Beco carrier, so I finally went to the dress-up area and put a shirt over her head and she conked out :)
Karlie was so excited about the check-out line and cash register!
And Karis thought it was so much fun to buy food just like Daddy does :)
And her purchases grew and grew and grew.... and she would never have stopped piling on the goods if we hadn't made her! Definitely going to have to do some Dave Ramsey training eventually...
Karlie loved the "barn..." she kept piling all the animals in just that one stall
The vet was probably Karis' second favorite place. She kept going back to it to play with the animals
Karlie enjoyed giving the dogs a bath
Listening to the doggy's heartbeat...

Pretty fish!

(And I'm getting tired of writing captions... you can see what they are doing, right? :)