Ezra Paul at 31 months

This month has shown lots of change in our little Ezra. He is a mess. He cracks us up, makes us smile, and every once in a while causes us to want to pull our hair out. This month he has really started talking in complete sentences with pronouns and articles more and more. He is a daredevil. Last week I had to chase him down in the front yard as he got out and ran toward the street. Also last week he fell out of a chair in the kitchen and hit his head on the floor which gave him a huge knot on his forehead. He continues to enjoy school but has gotten "mischievous" marks a couple of times and also a note that he had a hard time following directions. We can really tell that he is taking some time to adjust to having a new sibling and the loss of some attention that comes with that. He is still a really sweet boy who gives us so much joy every day. We continue to work on different methods of discipline to see what is effective for him. We have been working on learning bible verses and so far Ezra has memorized Proverbs 17:17 ("A friend loves at all times") and Psalm 119:11 ("I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you," paraphrased for a 2-year-old). It is amazing what a little sponge he is. Just like last month, he loves dinosaurs, Little Einsteins, and we pulled out a Thomas the Train lego set that used to belong to my nephew Kellen and he has really enjoyed playing with that. He continues to enjoy doing puzzles and playing games on the iphone. Here is a picture that they sent home at superkids. Ezra has enjoyed learning about different children's stories. The video is of Ezra being the big bad wolf telling Ivy he is going to blow her house down. She is very impressed. 

Over the river and through the woods

Last week marked the end of grandparents coming to visit us to meet Ivy. So sad. I took the opportunity during one of Chad's long stretches of working to go visit my mom with the kids. I was a little nervous about how the road trip would go, because we had not taken Ivy for a long trip in the car yet. Well, the kids could not have done any better! It took us about 5 hours to get there and 5 hours back, stopping to feed her. But Ivy literally slept the entire way both there and back, and Ezra did great too. It was so fun to get to be at mom's for a few days. I love hanging out with my mom and hope that Ivy and I have the same kind of relationship someday that my mom and I have. I also got to spend time with my sister and her kids which is always fun. 

Ivy loved sitting with granny and fell asleep soon after this. She is such a sweet baby. 

Ezra loved looking at the cows in mom's backyard and also loved getting peeks at her two guinea hens.

Cousin Kellen holding Ivy. He was concentrating very hard on holding her the right way. Her hair looks so dark and thick here!

Off I go to clear out all of Ivy's newborn clothes in the closet. Yes, it is already that time...she weighs over 10 pounds and fits into most 0-3 month clothes just fine. And even some of those are too small.

Ezra lately

This month has been a challenging one for Ezra. Lots of changes going on in his little life. He has started to test his boundaries more, and I'm sure it's a combination of being 2 and a half and adjusting to not being the center of attention all the time. Plus, he is used to having his friend Trevyn over a couple times a week, going to playgroup, etc., and we haven't been able to get out as much so I think he gets bored. Anyway, we are surviving and I know that things will get easier in a couple months. 

One night we took Chad supper and I stopped to get a milkshake at sonic. By the time we got home he had taken over for me with the shake and my kindle.

 We went to see "Flying Monsters" at the omni theatre in the science spectrum. Ezra enjoyed it and wouldn't leave when the credits were running at the end. He kept saying "No! Want to finish it!"

 Paul and Carolyn are visiting right now and brought moon dough. Ezra is having a blast!

 Looks messy, but this is one of my favorite activities for Ezra right now. He is contained, he has fun, and it is really a pretty easy cleanup.

 My dad came to visit last week too. Ezra loved having granddad here!

 We got a lot of good snow at the beginning of this week and Chad and Ezra built a snowman and had a snowball fight.

Ivy is one month old!

Ivy is a month old! She is such a fun baby and pretty easy so far. What's not easy is transitioning from one child to two. I have had lots of help in the last month and that has made it so much easier. In fact, I am able to catch up on my blogging right now because Chad's dad is holding Ivy and Chad and Ezra are playing legos in the playroom. So I thought I'd better take advantage. 

 

She started smiling right around three weeks and will smile at you when you talk to her. I love it!

 No, this is not a pregnancy picture. It's Ivy and me in the evening when I am trying to get ready for church and she is having her fussy time during the day. She does pretty well in the sling, so I imagine I'll be using that quite a bit for the next few weeks until I can put her in a bigger carrier.

 This picture looks really sweet, but when Ezra stopped "kissing" her, she had tooth marks on her head. Nice.

At one month, Ivy is...
-Eating every 2.5-3 hours during the day, but at night, she eats at around 9:30, 2, and 5:30, so I am able to get a couple good stretches of sleep. She is pretty good at the moment at going back to sleep after she eats. A week or so ago, not so much. She is a good nurser.
-Taking about 5 naps during the day. She sleeps a lot in the morning but is more alert (and fussy) in the afternoons.
-Getting more alert and smiling more by the day. She already seems very interested in everything going on around her, including watching her crazy big brother.

That's it for now...I will be posting her two month post before I know it! Actually, this one is already a day late. Oops. Not a good start.

Valentine's day at superkids

On Valentine's Day Ezra's school had a little program for chapel where the parents could come. Each class got up on the stage and sang a song. I was so proud of Ezra...he got up there and had a blast! They sang "If you love Jesus," the perfect song for Ezra. He loves the "Ooh Ah, sock it to the devil." part.

If you love Jesus, clap your hands...

Stomp your feet...

 

Ooh ah! Sock it to the devil!

This was him by the end...he had turned around with such gusto that he was off by himself finishing the song.

Then we went back to his classroom for a little party. When it was clear that Ezra was going to have more fun without us, we went home. :)

 

Announcing...

I wanted to post Ivy's birth announcement. I love how it turned out! The photo was taken by Lynette Reeves of Only Imagine Photography (see the rest of the photos here) and I had a designer on etsy do the announcement design using the same color scheme and theme as the fabric from Ivy's nursery.

Ivy at 2 weeks

Tonight is my first night since Chad went back to work that I am on my own without any help. The kids are being especially good tonight so I am getting all caught up on blogging. I imagine the blog updates will be less frequent but I will probably do 3 or 4 updates at a time like tonight. So this post is all about Ivy. I haven't posted since we were in the hospital. She was born on a Tuesday and was not discharged until Friday evening because of her jaundice. Since then she has had no problems, and gained about a half pound above her birth weight when we went to the doctor for her two week checkup. So she is eating well and gaining weight just like she is supposed to. She is a little more particular than I remember Ezra being. She wants to be held a lot, which we usually oblige. :) She sleeps pretty well, but she is alert and awake a lot...this might have something to do with the fact that her big brother is always playing with loud toys or messing with her. She eats well, about every 2.5-3 hours. We started putting her in her own room last night because she might be the loudest baby ever when she sleeps. She was keeping us awake with all her squeaks and grunts. Last night she did great, waking up at 1:30ish and 5:30ish. Anything is better than what Ezra did which was wake up every 2 hours or less around the clock for the first three months and want to eat. I have enjoyed these early days a lot. I don't even really mind the sleep deprivation, because I now know how quickly this phase passes and how soon she will not be this tiny little baby anymore. I have learned to relax and enjoy the parenting thing a lot more...not that I didn't enjoy it with Ezra, but I definitely had a lot more stress and anxiety about every little thing, especially when it had to do with his eating and sleeping. 

 Chad's mom came to visit for a few days and was a great extra set of hands. I think this is a really good picture of the two of them. We have had lots of help so far...my mom came the day Ivy was born and stayed for the rest of the week. She took care of Ezra that week and kept my house in working order. Sadly Ivy and I did not get to spend much time with her because we were in the hospital most of the week, but I am looking forward to another visit from mom next month. We are still looking forward to visits from my dad and Chad's dad. We are excited for everyone to meet the newest grandbaby.

 I love this sweet expression. She spends much of the day with her eyes open just observing the world around her.

 This is how we feel pretty much all the time these days...and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Ezra--30 months

With all the changes/excitement going on around here lately, I can't forget about this guy...

 

He would never let me. :) By the way, Ezra saw me with the camera in my hand and actually stopped and POSED for the picture above. It's like I don't even know him anymore. Anyway, his big thing lately is building forts. We do this multiple times a day.

He also acts like he's an old pro at holding his little sis. He does pretty well until 5.5 seconds later when he gets tired of holding her and moves on to the next thing. Old news, you know. 

 Ezra is doing great at 30 months old. He is taking the whole having a new baby around in stride. I could not have asked for him to react better. Yes, he acts out some, and he quickly figured out that when I am feeding Ivy there is absolutely nothing I can do to discipline him if he disobeys. If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears. The main concern is that most of the time when he disobeys it's something that could hurt him, like standing on a piece of furniture, jumping off the furniture, etc. We are talking more about potty training though he is not ready yet. Overall though, he is a very good little boy that obeys us most of the time and is not near as ornery as he could be. He is still very much into doing puzzles and reading about dinosaurs, playing with dinosaurs, and watching dinosaur movies. He can tell you what a velociraptor, t-rex, stegosaurus, hadrosaur, pterodactyl, triceratops, gallimimus, spinosaurus, troodon, etc. etc. is. Therefore, so can Chad and I. Oh, how we love our little boy, who is all of a sudden not as little as we thought anymore!

The many faces of Ivy Noelle

"I love you, baby Ivy"

I just wanted to write down a couple things about our first few days home and how Ezra is adjusting to his new sister. That is probably the number one question we get about how we are doing--what does Ezra think about all this? Well, so far, he LOVES his little sister. He wants to hold her, show her all his toys, and hold her some more. He has been going up to her throughout the day and saying, "I love you baby Ivy," without being prompted by us. He will hold her and look at us and say, "MY baby Ivy." When she cries, he gets very concerned and says, "Don't cry baby Ivy. Poor baby."

Right before Ivy was born, Ezra and I had a talk. I told him that when Ivy comes, I would really need his help. He was being silly as usual when we were having this talk, but Ezra hears what we tell him (whether he chooses to do it is another thing), and I know that he took this talk to heart because he is already being such a helper...going to get a pacifier, or a burp rag, or just trying to figure out why Ivy is sad. This morning as I was dressing Ivy for church, she started crying. The next thing I know, I hear a little boy's steps running into the hallway, I see him pass Ivy's room running, and realizing we're in there, stop in his tracks and back up. Her crying had awoken him and reminded him that he had a new baby to tend to. 

Tonight as Ivy was hanging out in her swing, Ezra was bringing up his little dinosaurs and setting them on the tray of her swing, one by one, explaining that this one is a stegosaurus and this one is a brachiosaurus and this one is a t-rex. It seems he is already taking the responsibility of being a big brother very seriously. She needs to know what kinds of dinosaurs these are! She does not sleep as much when he is around. She watches him. And I watch both of them already interacting. I hope I never forget Ezra telling her "I love you baby Ivy." It's amazing how quickly she has just become a part of our family.

A few more pictures of Ivy

We've got a little extra time to post pictures, on account of this:

 I'm not sure if there is anything cuter than a newborn baby with little sunglasses on under a bili light, but obviously the circumstances aren't what we would like. Yesterday they told us that Ivy is "Coombs positive," which made it sound like a good thing, but it basically means that her blood type is different from mine so her little body was having to fight off all of the blood that wasn't her type. Basically it makes her jaundiced and so here we are still in the hospital, letting her hang out under the light. We'll find out in a few hours if we can go this evening or if she'll need to stay longer to get her bilirubin levels down. She is being a trooper! And we are watching lots of food network.

So! Time for a few more pictures.

Ivy "facetiming" gramme

 I like to call this one "the smirk"

 Engrossed in Goodnight Moon

 Talking to daddy. I have a picture of Chad and Ezra very similar to this. We are in the same recovery room that we were after Ezra was born so a lot of these pictures look alike to me.

 Love this one...it almost looks like she is smiling at me.

Ivy's birth day

It has been quite the 24 hours! Ivy decided to surprise us yesterday and we are so glad she did. Monday night the 16th I started feeling bad and having a few uncomfortable contractions, but nothing major. I put Ezra to bed, took a shower and was still able to sleep. The moment I woke up Tuesday morning I thought it could be the day that Ivy would come. Chad was getting off work and I texted him and told him that if he was going to the gym before he came home he better make it quick because I needed help getting Ezra ready for Superkids. Soon after Chad came home I started timing my contractions. From 7 a.m. to about 11 they were about 5-6 minutes apart. My doctor had told me that once my contractions were about 4 minutes apart I needed to head to the hospital. Well, they weren't yet obviously, but I still felt the urge to call the doctor's office. Oh, before I did that, I went and got my hair cut. I had an appointment and I knew they were just going to tell me to hold off on going in to the hospital, so I just went and got my hair cut, timing my contractions through the entire thing. My hair stylist said that was a first for her, but she is also a mom of three so I'm sure she wasn't too weirded out. Anyway, so I called the doctor on my way home at about 10:45, and sure enough they didn't think the contractions were close enough together or long enough to warrant going in, but the nurse said that if they did get stronger or longer then I needed to go in. So I went home. And called Emma, probably just to make sure I wasn't making a big deal out of nothing. Meanwhile I needed to hang up the phone because the contractions were hurting bad enough that I couldn't talk. I called mom too, to let her know that she might need to come, but not to get on the road yet. Then, I woke up Chad who had just gone to bed after working a 12 hour shift and being up all day the day before. I think I was kind of hoping that I was not in labor because I was going to feel really bad about waking up Chad. I waited until I really couldn't wait anymore...contractions were about 3 minutes apart, lasting about a minute each. So I woke him up and said "I think we need to go." We made arrangements for Ezra to be picked up from Superkids and where he would go afterwards, and off we went. By this time I started to be in a lot of pain. We got to L&D triage and I was so afraid the nurse was going to check me and say I was not in labor, just a few contractions, and to go back home. Luckily my doctor told me a little later that he would not have made me go home. Anyway, the nurse told me that I was dilated between a 5-6! I was so excited. I knew this meant we were going to get to meet our baby girl today. So they admitted me right away (but not before I informed my nurse in my triage room to go ahead and call the anesthesiologist for my epidural). I think I was admitted around 2. I'm not sure when the anesthesiologist got there but I think it was probably about an hour later. It was too long, whatever the amount of time was! Anyway, he finally showed up, got that big ol' wonderful needle in, and things went pretty quickly from there. My doctor showed up right after the epidural was placed to break my water and I was at about a 9. He went back over to his office for a few minutes, and then it was time to have a baby. I delivered Ivy after pushing for maybe about 7-10 minutes. It was the most perfect labor and delivery I could have asked for...and I even got to have her a few days early, something I never thought would happen. We are so thankful to God our Father who gave us a perfect, beautiful healthy baby and protected me and kept me safe through her delivery as well.

So now, what y'all are really waiting for...pictures! We had a good nurse photographer this time who knew how to use an SLR camera and get the pictures in focus so Chad and I weren't having to be the photographers. 

Check out that hair!

 Here she is! And there is my wonderful doctor, whom I will miss...he is quitting private practice in about two months.

 Daddy counting fingers...he said after she was born that he saw her hands at first and thought a finger was missing. I guess he is just triple-checking.

 Ezra meeting Ivy for the first time. He still doesn't know what hit him! He was looking over at the Parrishes, like "Who is this supposed to be?" It will be hard for him to share them with her.

 Not impressed, dad.

 This picture looks a lot like Ezra to me.

Taste and see that the LORD is good! blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8