First Home Quilt

A couple weeks ago two of our best friends came to visit from Pittsburgh and it was lovely. We don't get to see them nearly as often as we'd like, but we had a fantastic day with them nevertheless. They recently moved into a place of their own (yay!) and to celebrate I made them a quilt. It was my first project in months (aside from a T-shirt dress I made Charlotte, which really only involved sewing a gathered strip of fabric to a store bought tank top). It felt good to make something again, though it was a little bit of a task to take on with only 9 days to make it before they arrived! I like a challenge though, so it was good.

This quilt went together really quickly and is made up of 8" blocks, 5x8, plus a border. All the fabrics are from JoAnn's.

Welcome to my "studio" where I have two supervisors. One sleeps a lot and the other enjoys playing with plastic Easter eggs in August. 

I admit, I had a hard time parting with this one. I love the yellow/gray combo and it looked so fresh and bright on my porch and the living room! But I managed to let it go and I hope its new owners love it as well :)

Happy Sewing.

~Stacy

First Day of Pre-K

Monday was Charlotte's first day of school. It's her second year of preschool--same school, same teacher, but this year she's in Pre-K. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. She'll technically be old enough to start Kindergarten next August, but we're leaning heavily toward having her start at age six instead of five. That makes me feel a little bit better about this whole Pre-K business, knowing that I still have two years before I need to face the music and send her off to school. On a bus. Without me.

Cue this face:

But whether she goes to "big girl school" in one year or two, the fact remains: my sweet baby girl is growing up. She has friends and teachers that she interacts with when I'm not there. She has favorite toys there, and her own supply box, and an assigned seat at her classroom table. She has her own coat hook and someone else helps her hang it up. She sings songs there that I haven't taught her and learns rhymes I don't know and comes home with new and interesting things to tell me that she heard about in a book read by someone who isn't me. She has this whole little world that's hers and hers alone. I'm excited for her future and watching that little world of hers grow and grow into a big, wonderful world that she will take by storm. But still. It's bittersweet.

She was excited to go back to school. I think it helped that her teacher is the same--and one she adores--as last year. It's one less big change for this girl who has had a summer of big changes. As with most four year olds, change is not typically a welcome thing. Especially when it involves losing your "only child" status in the blink of an eye and having your world rocked more than a few times over that. I can't personally relate to what it feels like to get a new sibling since I was the youngest. I can imagine how tough it would be but without any memories to pull from I can't truly understand exactly what she's been dealing with. Nevertheless, I'm very proud of her. We have had our fair share of challenging moments and difficult days but she has never been anything but kind and loving toward her baby sister, always. 

For now, I'm happy to see her back at school and having her own world to enjoy for awhile each week. Until it's time to start Kindergarten. Then you can find me at her bus stop. I'll be the one in a heap in the grass, sobbing and making people wonder if I need a hug or an ambulance. 

~Stacy

One Month

Well hello. Somehow the past three weeks since my last post have flown by. Somehow ;)

It could be because of this:

She's had her big blue eyes open a lot more lately--sometimes at appropriate times, like when the sun is out, and sometimes not, like at 3AM. Thankfully she's pretty easy to please, so long as she's being held when she's awake. Thanks to the magic of the Baby Bjorn, this is doable.

She turned a month old last Monday. One month! She's definitely growing; she's exactly nine whole pounds now and she grew 1.25" since birth. Her little thighs and cheeks are filling out and she's all sorts of delicious.

I love this baby. She started smiling over the weekend (real smiles, not just accidental ones) and I forgot how incredibly cute it is when a tiny baby smiles at you. I could have a terrible day and one little smile and coo from that baby is like magic medicine. She is spectacular :)

~Stacy

Official Photos

Last week and the week before Elise had her first "real" photo shoot, taken by my very talented friend Rachael of Blue Teapot Photography. All photos are by her--check out her website at www.blueteapotphotography.com. If you need photos done and you live in the area, this is the person to choose. She has the patience of a saint and her photos are all beautiful and as simple and natural as possible.

I'm in love with all of these photos! They turned out perfectly--and Elise is sleeping in 99% of them. If they'd been taken this week she'd be sleeping in maybe 10% of them ;)

I can't choose a favorite...I love them all. But if I had to pick, I'd pick the one of her sleeping in a basket in the woods. And the one of Charlotte giving her a kiss. But let's be honest, the real showstopper here is the very last photo in the bunch. An instant classic if I ever saw one, and the result of what a real photo shoot looks like with two kids at the end of a long session after one has recently tripped and skinned both knees and hands and the other has decided she needs to drink a bottle RIGHT NOW OR SHE WILL DIE.

And now for the best...

~Stacy

Side by Side

When Elise was first born I didn't think she looked too much like Charlotte as a newborn, but I quickly changed my mind. After a few days it became pretty obvious that the two of them are sisters. Just for fun, I went through some of Charlotte's newborn pictures from her first week of life to compare and I was pretty surprised just how much they look alike (in each of these, Charlotte is on the left and Elise on the right):

I think the one that strikes me most is the one with my Grandma holding them (and that was a total accident that I ended up taking pretty much the same photo four years apart). In that photo I think they look identical. Also my grandma doesn't age, ever.

And from today, another adorable side by side:

:) They're my best.

~Stacy

Introducing...

This little beauty came into the world earlier this week and we could not be more in love! I ended up getting induced early Monday morning and, overall, had a very smooth and quick delivery (let's not discuss the seven failed attempts at finding a vein to start the process, which thankfully proved to be the worst part of the entire birthing experience).

I'd like to give a special shout out to my epidural and the anesthesiologist who administered it. That thing was the medication of dreams and there should be a song written about it. Seriously.

Sweet baby Elise came into the world guns blazing, majorly ticked off that she was rudely taken from her dark, warm home and thrust into a cold, bright room. She remained ticked off for about an hour, but honestly, that's the most we've heard in cry so far. This baby is so laid back and content--a good eater (eventually, that took a few days) and a great sleeper. I'm crossing everything I can in hopes that these traits last :)

I am totally and completely in love with her. I'm obsessed (and so is her Daddy and big sister). Charlotte is head over heels but unfortunately she also brought a cold home with her from the hospital (not to be left out...) so she hasn't been allowed to hold the baby for a couple days. It's killing her; she is so sweet and gentle with her baby sister and loves to sing her songs, read her books, and bring her toys to "play" with. It hasn't all been roses--there's definitely been a great deal of adjusting going on, and has been for over a month now. It's taken a lot of patience, and many times of lost patience, but I know we will all get there eventually...

We came home on Wednesday and had a couple days of just the four of us until we had any visitors over, so today was the first day that anyone has come to the house. It was nice having that break, especially since a lot of the aches and pains that come with having a baby can hit like a ton of bricks a few days after, once the major high of everything starts to come down. I'm over the hump now, and feeling good.

I remember wondering at various points of the "should we have another child?" discussions whether I could ever love another one the way I love Charlotte. I don't really have anything wise to say about this, other than once Elise was here I just did. There was no question, no comparing, no "I grew another heart" business; I just loved her as intensely as I love Charlotte without any effort. So now I get what people meant when they answered that question with "I don't know, I can't explain it, you just do."

My pregnancy with Elise oftentimes felt much longer than mine with Charlotte. Looking back, I feel like it went by very quickly, but then again everything feels like it went by quickly when you reflect. I heard a lot of people remark that they were so much more laid back about their second pregnancies because they'd been through the drill before so they didn't worry as much about everything. For me this was oftentimes the opposite.

When I was pregnant with Charlotte I had my fair share of worries--but I also had the benefit of ignorance. Ignorance over the whole thing; aches, pains, what was normal and what wasn't. But mostly, I had the ignorance of not knowing the stakes--of knowing that the baby that comes at the end of that pregnancy would become the most special thing in this world to me. This time around, I knew the stakes. And also, this time felt too good to be true because it was so easy. I tend to associate the whole process of having a baby with difficulty since having Charlotte was difficult. It was two years of trying, and failing, and not knowing why. After she was here, it took me a long time to even think about possibly going through that again to have a second child. A huge part of us wondered if the right decision was to just be thankful and leave well enough alone--and for a long time that was how we left it. I didn't want to think about trying again because I didn't think I had it in me to walk down the same road as I did with Charlotte to try for another. Once we finally decided that we did want to have one more, I took a deep breath and said that I'd e-mail my doctor that Monday to see if any testing could be done to rule out roadblocks sooner rather than later. I found out I was pregnant the day before I sent that e-mail; I still can't really explain that one.

In an instant, I became the person I couldn't stand when I was trying to have Charlotte. The one who blinked and ended up pregnant. It was all too easy and for the first trimester I kept expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me--I know that sounds morbid, but that's what constant sickness and crazy hormones will do to a person. Even once I was feeling good and it was clear that the baby was healthy, I worried more about things like how much the baby was kicking, moving, etc. than I did the first time. I would get nervous before ultrasounds, which I didn't with Charlotte, always leaving them so relieved that everything was okay. I definitely cared less about cute baby clothes and room decor this time around and lived by the "as long as the baby is healthy" mantra.

And she is. She's healthy, she's beautiful, and she's here. And we couldn't be happier.

~Stacy

The Fourth

Happy belated Fourth of July! I hope your holiday weekend was as beautiful as ours--the weather was absolutely perfect. This was even more appreciated after the terrible weather month that was June.

We both had Friday off, so we took Charlotte to the carnival down the street. Unfortunately, due to the 10" of rain we'd gotten in the previous two weeks, they couldn't set the rides up in the grassy park area where they usually do and instead had to take over the entire parking lot. Normally this would be fine, since we'd be riding bikes up there. This year it was a little tricky given my inability to ride a bike at this point (Chad offered to let me ride in the bike cart with Charlotte but I declined). It's not a super far walk--just about a mile or so--but I didn't want to walk all the way there and then end up being too tired to walk all the way back. So we compromised, parked at the beach about 1/4 of a mile away, and walked from there. Win win.

The highlight of the carnival was seeing the princesses:

I thought that was a cute idea and the girls who dressed up were so nice. They stopped and took time to talk to and take pictures with every kid who wanted to see them.

The next day Charlotte got to go to a different carnival with my parents, and that evening we had a small cookout. We let her stay up to watch fireworks, so around 9:45 we walked up to the lake to see what we could see. We ended up walking all the way up to the beach (after my insistence that we not do that since it was too far, but then we just sort of ended up there. Which I suppose is for the best, since maybe all this walking will get this baby out). She made it through almost all of the show, until the finale when she announced it was time to go home.

It was one of those weekends we didn't want to end--it was quiet, we didn't have a bunch of places to go, and we were able to be outside almost the whole time. And pie. We had lots of really good pie.

Each weekend spent as a family of three at this point could easily be our last, so that makes it even more special that we were able to enjoy this one as much as we did. We are all very much ready to be a family of four--Charlotte asks multiple times a day where her baby sister is and why she's still hanging out in Mommy's belly. Good question my dear, I often find myself wondering the same thing. Patience...

~Stacy