Welcome to the World Baby Girl!

She's here!  At 12:26 pm on February 28, 3012, we welcomed Jeanie Elaine into the world.  She weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs, 3 oz and 20.5 inches.

The process was much easier for mom this time around, however the transition to this big world was a little difficult for Miss Jeanie.  The NICU nurses had to be called in, however after getting some fluids (which the nurse compared to having a Gatorade after a marathon), she perked right up.  Not to be outdone by her big sister, Miss Jeanie has also come down with quite the case of jaundice.  After 3 days of rising bilirubin levels (and daily trips to the hospital for blood draws), she's turned the corner and her levels are coming down.

So far, she's been a great baby, sleeping most of the day and night, barely waking up to eat.  Her pediatrician says her increased bilirubin is to blame and that we should enjoy this while we can.  She's sleeping about 4 hours at a time over night, and, during the day, needs to be awakened to eat.

Big sister Evelyn is handling this big change quite well.  It helps having Bama and Papa here to give her all the love and attention she needs.  She loves her "Baby Jeanie" and really only struggles when it's time for Jeanie to eat.  Of course, that's when she wants all of mommy's attention.

So far, this family of four thing is going well.  It'll get interesting when our help leaves, however.  More posts and pictures to come!

"Playing Popcorns"

Given that I am 3 days away from my due date, I feel like I have been a real lazy mommy lately.  I let Evelyn watch more cartoons in the morning than I should, and she does a lot of playing by herself while mommy watches.  So, this morning, I decided to do a better job and we've had a great time!

First, we started out by making some yummy banana bread (I was too busy supervising to take a picture.)  Evelyn helped dump in the flour, mash up the bananas and dump those in too.  She wanted to help with the eggs, but mommy's not quite ready to let her do that yet.

While the bread was baking, we turned on some Hawaiian music, put on her grass skirt and lei, and did the hula!  I took a picture, but for some reason, it hasn't shown up in my inbox yet, so it's out there in cyberspace somewhere.  The hula was good for about 5 minutes and then Evelyn was over it.

Finally, I decided to be brave.  On trips to children's museums, Evelyn LOVES water tables and bean/corn tables - any table where she can scoop and dump anything from one container to another container.  After making bags for "bean bag" toss, I had lots of popcorn kernels left over.  So, here is Evelyn having a great time "playing popcorns."  She sat and scooped, and poured and dumped for over 30 minutes!  For those of you that know Evelyn, you know how much she loves to eat - mac 'n cheese is her favorite.  I couldn't even pull her away from the popcorn for her favorite food!  She became hysterical when she was told it was time for lunch, but the promise of more "popcorns" after nap time finally did the trick.  Guess what we'll be doing from now on!

Mommy's Little Helper

A few weeks ago, in preparation to have our carpets cleaned, we took down the baby gate.  At 2, Evelyn has mastered the stairs, so we don't really need the gate, per se, but with the layout of our house, we were able to use the gate to confine her to the family room.  This came in real handy when showering, cleaning, cooking dinner, etc.  Once we realized how much easier it is to go up/down the stairs without that dang baby gate, we decided not to put it back up.

So, one morning, while Evelyn appeared to be completely occupied by her cartoon, I thought I would just run upstairs real quickly and take a quick little shower.  I snuck upstairs without her noticing, got the water turned on, and as soon as I stepped in "Mommy!  Evelyn shower!"  So, the next 5 minutes consisted of the shower curtain being opened, closed, opened, closed... you get the picture.  I finally convinced Evelyn to sit on the floor and play with her bath toys (or so I thought.)  Then, a strange silence fell over the bathroom.  I opened the curtain, and this is what I saw:

Picture Dump!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted and I have some fun pictures to share.  So rather that devoting a single blog entry to each picture, I will just give the quick run-down.  I know I have time on my hands, but not that much time.

Feb. 2 - Ethan decided to go out with some friends after work, foiling my plans for dinner.  So, my best girl and I went on a date.  I know these opportunities will be coming to an end shortly, so I am trying to make the best of it.  Given lots and lots of choices, Evelyn decided on pizza for dinner.  She and I headed out to our favorite pizza restaurant (not Ethan's favorite, however!)  We shared a yummy Mediterranean salad (this girl LOVES Kalamata olives and Feta cheese!) and Margherita pizza.  Afterwards, she let me have a few bites of her gelato.  Such a fun date night for the two of us.  I can't wait for the next one.

Feb. 4 - Just days after our beautiful 60 degree weather and afternoons at the park, we were hit with a winter storm.  Evelyn and Daddy braved the elements until Evelyn decided she no longer wanted to wear her mittens but wanted to dig in the snow.  Needless to say, snow time was cut a little short by a little girl with cold hands.

Feb. 5, Super Bowl Sunday - We made the trek out to Ethan's sister's house to watch the big game (although, I can honestly say, I didn't catch much of the game - I was too busy eating and just watching these two!)  Cousin Addie got a whole set of Disney Princess dresses for Christmas, so the entire evening, the girls were all decked out.  I just happened to catch Snow White and "Sleepy the Booty" standing still.

Feb. 6 - Getting dressed in the morning has become somewhat of a battle of wills at our house.  Evelyn is OBSESSED with dresses these days, but most of her's are summer dresses.  This is what happens when you give her the choice of dress, tights and shoes to wear.  Future fashionista?

Feb. 11 - Little by little, we're getting ready for #2 to arrive.  We've got the car seat out and the bases in the cars.  Evelyn was quite excited to see her old car seat.  After convincing her that she no longer fit in her seat, she decided it would be better if her baby sat in it.  What you can't see is that she's got her baby all buckled in too!  She's going to be such a good big sister.

A Day at the Park

Who would have thought, that on February 1st, in Iowa, Evelyn and I would be spending the afternoon at the park?  We've had some crazy weather lately (60 degrees, 3 days in a row!) but I'm not complaining.  It sure is nice to get outside and get some fresh air.

 Since our neighborhood park is only about 3 blocks away, Evelyn much prefers walking over the stroller these days.

Evelyn wanted to climb the stairs, but wanted nothing to do with the slide - at least until we went to the bigger play structure and she saw the "big kids" playing on one.

 

Just a fun shot of Evelyn as she was sitting on my shoulder, walking to get a "drink a water."  Never mind the chocolate around her mouth - it's how we got her dressed to go outside.

 

Playing on the See-Saw... of course, Mommy was at the other end pushing her up and down.  Where's Daddy when you need him?

 

She was so proud of herself when she went down the slide without any help from Mommy!  Such a big girl!

Unfortunately, there's a winter storm moving in over the weekend, so this may be our last trip to the park for a while.  Now back to the search for more indoor fun ideas.

Snow Day!

We may have a couple inches of snow on the ground, but the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day.  So, this morning, Evelyn and I decided to head outside to enjoy the snow!  We only lasted about 10 minutes before the struggle began.  Lately, Miss Evelyn is not too fond of her gloves.  A few times, she would take them off, but would easily let me put them back on.  After a few rounds of this, she'd had enough and refused to put them back on.  So, after chasing and looking for the bunny that hopped across the yard during our ordeal, we headed back inside.

Evelyn is not as eager to have her picture taken these days - she'd much rather look at "picture Kenna," or a picture of her cousin McKenna, on the camera.  I was able to catch a smile though - as she was taking off her gloves. :)

A Week of Firsts

Last week was a BIG week for Miss Evelyn!  Once we got past all of the "major milestones" (you know, walking, talking, etc.), I didn't think there were many "firsts" left.  Boy was I wrong!  And we knocked out three in one week!

Last Monday, Evelyn went to her first tumbling class.  Given that she's only 2, she was a little bit of a handful for the coaches, but she did a really good job!  The best part, they were able to hold her attention for the better part of an hour... I wish I could do that!  Her good friends Gretchen and Maggie (aka "Maggie and Chicken") are in the class, so any time she got distracted by me, I just had to tell her to go play with Maggie and Gretchen, and she did!

Here, Evelyn works on her backward roll with Coach Katie... 

And tries her hand at the balance beam with help from Coach Katie.

 I've also been saying for weeks now that Evelyn needed a hair cut.  Nothing drastic, just a little trim to help with the tangles.  Afterall, it has been 2 years without a cut.  So, finally on Tuesday, Evelyn got her first haircut!  She was such a trooper!  The place we went, which caters to children, really knows what they're doing: cartoons, stuffed animals, bubbles, candy... whatever it takes to get the little ones to sit still.   Not a single fuss from our big girl!

 This is serious business!  Playing with Elmo and sitting on the froggy chair.

Helping Miss Nancy squirt the water.

And finally, our biggest first of the week.  I've been readying Evelyn's big girl room in preparation for #2's arrival.  This last week, it was finally in good enough shape to make the transition.  So, Sunday night, with rails in place, bunnies, blankies, owl pillow, and everything a big girl needs to go to bed, Evelyn slept in her big girl bed!  Again, this girl was such a trooper!  At 8:00, we read books as usual, sang a song or two, then it was "night-night" time.  When I left the room, we got about 30 seconds of cries, then not another peep until 6:30 am!  Wow!  Ethan and I both thought we'd see her in our room a few times throughout the night, but no such luck!  Even at 6:30, she stayed in bed, yelled out "Mommy!  Mommy, where are you?"  I went to get her up and she looked up, smiled and said "Come here Mommy.  Lay down Mommy.  Mommy, lay down."

We tried again last night with the same results.  This time, to bed quite a bit earlier (she was WIPED after tumbling), yelled "Mommy!" at about 5:45, but I left her and she didn't make another sound until 7:00.  Again, from her bed, it was "Mommy!  Mommy, where are you?"  And "Lay down Mommy."  Man I love this girl!