Chaotic, But Fun.

It's been a few months since we last met up with our friends the McCrays and Sotos. Life's been busy and coordinating schedules between the three of us and our eight kids is sometimes tricky. Luckily we were all able to get together at Carrie's last week for a fun, and slighty chaotic, day! You can see more pics of our day and read Carrie's version of events here. I'll just show you what we were up to and let you imagine for yourself what it was like!

 

 

 

   

 

And of course we had to attempt our group shot now that the littlest member had arrived:

Thanks girls for a fun day!! Can't wait to do it again soon!

Happy Anniversary/Birthday!

This year we combined our April celebrations since they're so close together plus the whole "having a new baby and can't go out for more than a couple hours plus we're too tired anyway" situation.

Our anniversary was on the 5th...5 years this year. Again with the time flying analogy. I know, I know. I need new material. Anyway, Brian ended up having to go back to work that Friday so it was kind of a bittersweet day. I ended up taking my first solo trip with the girls and met up with Mandy and Jack at Chuck E Cheese's. It was actually quite a successful trip as Samara slept the entire time in the carrier so I just had to chase after Anayah. She and Jack kept each other company though so really I just walked around and carried tokens and tickets.

The drive home however was a different story! We stayed longer than I had intended due to said great behavior. The problem with that was it was too close to A's nap time and it was past S's feeding time. That pretty much equaled chaos in the car on the way home. Both of them screaming crying the whole way. I thought I might get lucky and they'd sleep but they had other plans in mind. Rookie mistake. Overall it was a good day, just not how I thought I'd be spending my 5th anniversary :) 

Five days later we "celebrated" my birthday. We didn't do much...just lunch out together as a family. Anayah loved the birthday sundae I got for free and Samara just hung out and was her usual happy self. Perhaps next year will be a bigger celebration since we won't just have had a baby. Or maybe I'll just start planning now for my 40th! Hehe.

*All these pictures are from my phone so don't mind the quality. Carrying a big 'ol camera in addition to all of this is sometimes too much! :) 

2 Months

I think once you have a second child all sense of time goes out the window. I know with Anayah it seemed like time moved too quickly and she was growing at such a rapid pace. Now with Samara time literally moves at warp speed!! I honestly cannot comprehend the fact that my baby is TWO months old! It doesn't seem real...or possible that that much time has passed. I feel like I haven't done enough to document her milestones or captured enough memories with the camera but then I look through my phone and computer and the thousands hundreds of pictures I've taken reassures me that I have. I guess I just haven't done so great a job of sharing them here. Oops. I'm gonna blame that on the whole "having more than one child and no more time" issue rather than the "I'm too lazy to go upstairs and blog" issue. So in order to make myself feel better and to give you a glimpse of what's been going on this last month, here are a TON of pictures of baby girl. And if you choose to just scroll down to see her stats, I won't be offended. Just don't expect an invite to her first birthday party hehe.

Some of my faves:

I love that she has so many different "looks"!

At two months:
- you are a whopping 9lbs, 11oz and are 22 in long!
- you are still wearing newborn diapers and clothing but are creeping into your 0-3month stuff
- you LOVE to laugh...and you laugh quite loudly which makes you laugh even more
- you recognize our faces and usually greet us with a smile (or laugh)
- you are still a very good eater....about 6-8 feelings between 7am - 9pm BUT
- you only get up once at night to eat! (yay for some sleep)

And your "official" monthly photo on your rug.

Oh man, that reminds me I still need to blog about your nursery. I'll add it to the list of things to do.

Our New Normal

Getting used to being a family of four has been an interesting challenge. I didn't really think it would be a big deal, but adding a new member has been rewarding and trying at the same time. Obviously we absolutely adore the new baby and are so grateful and blessed to have her, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, so don't take it as complaining. All I'm saying is the adjustment has been a bit more difficult than I imagined it to be. The great news is, it hasn't lasted very long, and things have settled down to what we now know as "normal" around here. It's a good thing too because Brian had to go back to work last Friday! It's hard to believe six weeks has gone by already!

In just a few short weeks, she's gone from this:

To this:

Crazy how much they change in such a short amount of time!! Now that B is back to work, we've been working on establishing a schedule and routine around here. I didn't realize how much time flies between feedings with an infant and keeping a toddler busy! Oh and did I mention we tackled the task of potty training A a couple of weeks ago?! I must say it was a surprising success! She had two accidents the first day and that's it! She's been asking to go to school for some time now and the only thing we were waiting for was her to be potty trained. Guess it's now time to seriously start looking at preschools for her. Talk about growing up too fast! Geez. I'll try to blog more now that things have started to be "normal" again but I can't promise anything! I might be too busy with these two adorable kiddos to be bothered by the computer. :)