6 1 month old!

1 No sleep, who cares?

I'm still getting hardly any sleep. Thankfully we have Angela here during the day helping so I've been able to take naps every day. I have NEVER been much of a napper at all. I am so not a night person so daytime has always been my most productive. It is hard for me to stop DOING and just sleep, but Georgia has left me no choice! I know this won't last forever (hopefully Georgia will be like Leighton and sleep through the night soon and never look back).

My friend Maureen gave me some advice that has been awesome. She said to let Leighton hold Georgia whenever she wanted. Basically, to involve Leighton as a big sister and not pull Georgia away and make Leighton feel left out. Now Leighton wants to snuggle with Georgia all the time, which is sweet. (Although hard when I'm feeding Georgia.)
I didn't see that Georgia had milk coming out of her mouth until I saw this picture. Oops. Mother of the year award headed my way.
We thought Leighton was so sweet tonight because Georgia was crying and Leighton went over and put a pacifier in her mouth. We praised Leighton and she was so proud of herself she wanted to do it again. So then she started taking the pacifier out of Georgia's mouth, only to put it back in when Georgia cried. Poor Georgia!
I had a little photo session with Georgia earlier this week. Babies don't really follow instructions, so I had a tough time getting her to smile for the camera. But she had a pleasant expression in a few pictures. Our photo session ended when she vomited all over the blanket.
Leighton is really adorable these days. Now she's carrying around this purse everywhere and wearing sunglasses. She's a girly girl already. We've been painting her fingers and toes and she loves mani/pedi time. I've been having a lot of fun with her because while I was pregnant, I couldn't really play with her properly because I couldn't pick her up or get on the floor. So it's nice to give her 100% again.
One other cute thing Leighton is saying. She likes to put her hand on Georgia's head and she'll say "It's sops." Sops, for soft. Love it!

3 Fun with the grandparents

Nonny and Granddaddy came to visit this weekend. Leighton could not have had more fun playing with Nonny (and it was nice for us to have a break from entertaining Leighton). Nonny and Leighton went on walks, sang songs, danced, read books...what a fun weekend! Of course, there was also lots of holding Georgia too!



Ok, Georgia. When you are older I will need to remind you how difficult you were as a baby! This kid has GOT to have her days and nights mixed up. We are having really rough nights with her. Specifically, she does not go to bed! Night after night I'm up with her until 4 in the morning, when I give up and hand her off to Chad. I hope this doesn't last much longer. We are doing everything the books say to help her sort it out. Every night I cross my fingers that she'll sleep a few hours in the night. Stay tuned...
Leighton loves playing with my makeup. She LOVES lip balm and lipstick. But she's never put THIS much on before. We were all cracking up! She would not put the lipstick down. And it was almost impossible to take it away from her when it clearly made her so happy.

There are days like yesterday when I'm so happy to have a little girl so I can doll her up in cute outfits like this one. We went to breakfast with Nonny and Granddaddy and Leighton could not have been more adorable.
Later that afternoon we were out on a walk when we ran into Tasia. Look at this! Pretty good advertisement for the dress, huh?!


Nonny and Granddaddy gave us the wonderful gift of sleep Saturday night. Nonny stayed up with Georgia halfway through the night, and then Granddaddy stayed up with her. Thank you, thank you! It was so lovely for both of us to get some uninterrupted sleep!

0 Leche, por favor

I took Georgia to the doctor yesterday for one final check of her bilirubin level just to make sure it had gone down. It had! So we are done with that business. What was REALLY exciting to me was to find out Georgia weighs 6 pounds, 4 ounces! She's gaining a little over an ounce a day, which is perfect. This makes me happy because I'm 100% breastfeeding and it's so comforting to know she's getting enough to eat. My biggest disappointment with Leighton was that breastfeeding didn't really work out for us. I had to put a lot of effort into it and I did lots of pumping and visits to a lactation consultant. So I'm super pleased this time around that it's so easy. (Ok, easy in that she is eating and gaining weight. Not easy in that she's attached to my chest much of the day and night.)

Thank goodness for my iPhone Chad got me for Christmas because in the middle of the night when I'm feeding Georgia, that's my main entertainment because I don't want to turn on the tv and make a lot of noise.

Here's Georgia earlier getting tummy time. She doesn't look happy because, guess what? She wanted back on the boob.
These might look like odd angles. I flipped the pictures to vertical from horizontal so you could get a better look at her face.

It still amazes me how HUGE these pacifiers look on her face (Leighton's did too). She doesn't really love the pacifier as far as I can tell. The only time I can get it to soothe her is in the middle of the night when I'm trying to hold her off on eating (because I'm so tired I'm trying to get minutes more of sleep).
Leighton. What can I say about this kid? She seems to have grown a ton since Georgia was born. She loves wearing sunglasses, talking on her pretend phone, and wearing my shoes around the house. So much so that we got her a pair of princess shoes for Valentine's Day.

She is talking up a storm and there are a few words we particularly LOVE to hear her say: Sun-chine (for sunshine), stroll-it (for stroller), and band-ann (band-aid). Leighton loves to give Georgia kisses on her head. And she loves to direct us to give Georgia kisses as well. Leighton loves for us to kiss her boo-boos, and she is always asking us where our boo-boos are. And then she'll kiss ours! Such a sweet thing.

A funny story: I see moms walking in the neighborhood with their kids all the time and it always seems so all American and fun, so yesterday I decided to take Leighton AND Georgia out on a walk to give it a try. I swaddled up Georgia and stuff her into the Baby Bjorn (where she proceeded to spit up down my cleavage). Once I cleaned that up, I got Leighton out the door (once we located her sunglasses and phone) and we started walking. Leighton looks out for all the things on the sidewalk: acorns, flowers, leaves...but yesterday she spotted something in the grass and picked it up. DOG POOP! A big old dog poop. She said "Mommy, what's this?" I was totally horrified and told her to put it down. But then I couldn't get her to turn around and go back home to wash her hand. That was when Leighton decided to show she could make her own decisions and didn't need to do what I told her, so I spent the next 20 minutes running after her while she ran into everyone's yards and played. Thankfully she didn't get her hand in her mouth. When we got home, she had a total meltdown while I washed her hands off. So yeah, looks can be very deceiving I have learned. I wonder what kind of crazy things are happening to other moms while they are walking their kids!

1 Three Kings

Chad's Uncle Walter and cousins Lance and Leighton came by the other night. Walter and Leighton both live in Midland but were in town for business, so we were so excited to see them. I think our Leighton gets a little confused when we talk to cousin Leighton and say his name (which I can understand. Leighton could NOT stop talking about Uncle Walter. She loves to take people to Georgia's room (sister room, she calls it) and she kept making me go in there with her and once we were in there she'd ask where Uncle Walter was. She also asked "What's Uncle Walter's name?" about 10 times. I don't think she's quite caught on to what a name is yet. Check out these good lookin boys!
Leighton suddenly has developed a fascination with sunglasses. She puts them on all the time. I even watched her when she was taking a nap the other day...she was sitting in her crib half asleep sitting up with her sunglasses on. She has this pair and she has a pair of Dora sunglasses, and she's very specific about which ones she wants to wear when. (Notice her ADORABLE pajamas...courtesy of Uncle Matt!)
Leighton is getting more friendly with the camera. Yesterday I was taking pictures and she wanted me to get HER camera. So we took pictures of each other taking pictures.
Pictures like this shock me. She's NOT A BABY ANYMORE! How did this happen? She's getting so big so fast. I want to slow down time.
We gave Georgia her first bath tonight (her umbilical cord FINALLY fell off on Thursday). She didn't cry...just sucked on her fingers. Leighton had fun assisting me.Well, she looks unhappy but she wasn't at all. I remember when we gave Leighton her first bath and how overwhelming and nervous I was. This time around, it was easy!
I wasn't kidding when I said she likes to put on sunglasses all the time! She is so darn cute in them.

I'm officially exhausted. Georgia is keeping me up at night. I think she definitely has her days and nights mixed up because she sleeps REALLY long stretches during the day and not so much at night. We're working on turning that around, but it's tough in the meantime. Chad let me have a 4-hour nap this afternoon--possibly the longest nap I've ever had! But much needed, clearly.

4 2 weeks old

I can't believe Georgia is already 2 weeks old! It seems like we've had her forever and at the same time it feels like we had her just yesterday. She is doing wonderful! We had her two-week checkup yesterday and her bilirubin is down so we don't have to do the bili blanket anymore. She's up to 5 pounds, 12 ounces and is 18 inches. So she's growing right on target (which is comforting to me because I'm breastfeeding and it's always nice to know she's getting enough to eat).

Georgia appears to be a good sleeper like Leighton. We've had a couple of rough nights where she just wanted to eat and eat (for 2.5 hours straight), but now it looks like those were just growth spurts. Whew!

Georgia is a noisy baby: she grunts a lot. I don't recall Leighton making this noise, but it's possible she did. It's so loud it's woken Leighton up in the night.

We are loving all the cute baby things she's doing, like when she raises her arms up and they barely pass the top of her head.
Leighton is adjusting to Georgia. Now that things have settled down and all the visitors have gone home, she is starting to be a little more feisty and cranky at times. We are showering her with love and attention and are trying to be patient with her. (Which isn't too hard when she looks so cute!)
It rained all last week, but we did get a small break when I ran out to get some pictures with Georgia's stork sign. I tried so hard to get her fingers out of her mouth, but she is a strong one and kept them in. She is totally a thumb sucker! I can't believe she can aim and get her thumb in her mouth, but she can and she does.

Chad's aunt Shannah and cousins Jessica and Nicole came by Friday to meet Leighton and they brought us some DELICIOUS spaghetti and meatballs to eat. We have been eating it around the clock. Leighton was SO excited to play with Jessica and Nicole and was running around the house showing of all her toys. I have to say, watching Shannah and her girls makes me so excited to have two girls myself. They are so close and have so much fun together; I can't wait for all the adventures I'm going to have with my girls.
If you look closely, you can see Georgia's mouth. LOVE THIS! She makes a tiny little O with her mouth and opens her eyes really wide. Leighton made this face too. I can't get enough of it.
Uncle Matt came Saturday. He was in Florida when Georgia was born so he hadn't met her yet. Of course, he was a big hit with Leighton. Matt gives 100% when he plays. He seems willing to do anything to entertain. He and Leighton were painting and he decided it would be fun to paint their faces. He ended up painting my face too and Chad cracked up when he got home and saw all three of us painted like little Indians.




I have a picture of Matt when Leighton was a baby and he had Leighton, a beer, and a computer all on his lap at the same time. You can't see it, but he's got his computer to his right. What a multitasker!
It has been really cold this week and we busted out this beautiful cashmere blanket we got as a gift when Leighton was born. It's so soft and warm and Georgia seems very much at peace snuggling in it.
These baby hats are tough. They often fall down over Georgia's eyes or they come off her head. It's almost like she's wearing a sleep mask.
Matt is awesome! He made a huge spread of food for the Superbowl Sunday night: chili, cornbread, guacamole, dessert. It was SO good and I couldn't believe Leighton ate the guacamole. She ate it UP! I have given her avocado so many times and she has never liked it. Guess I need to add a little spice to it from now on.
We are really doing ok. Having two kids is overwhelming. Everyone has told us that it's tough because no one gets a break. And it's true, Chad and I are both with one of the kids in the evenings so by the time we got them all down for bed, we are ready to pass out ourselves. But I can't imagine any other way I'd like to spend my nights.

Oh-we're not really doing anything with potty training Leighton right now, but this past week she has pooped and then immediately said "Daddy-poo poo!" Nice to know she recognizes when she does that. But we'll just leave it at that for now.

1 Settling in

Leighton loves to look at Georgia when she's sleeping. Here's my dad picking her up so she can say goodnight to her. We haven't had any problems with Leighton adjusting to Georgia just yet. I hope it stays that way!
This was hilarious! Before my dad went back to San Antonio, he had one simple request: a photo of him with both his granddaughters. Not so easy to deliver! Leighton would not cooperate!
I'm glad my dad has a sense of humor and thought this was funny. It does make for a pretty funny picture!

Leighton got this adorable skirt for Christmas. It plays the Hokey Pokey and she has been hamming it up for us since we got Georgia home. It is interesting: Since we brought the baby home, Leighton has been really into singing and dancing and performing for us. My mom even taught her how to take a bow. Leighton will tell us all to clap for her and she says "Bravo!"



I am pretty sure we have pictures of Leighton doing this exact same thing. I guess this is what Georgia thinks about the Hokey Pokey. She's so over it!
There's nothing better than snuggling with both my girls! I have been so happy this past week because I can FINALLY play with Leighton and pick her up and sit down and do all the things I haven't been able to do since I have been pregnant. (Yes...that also includes cleaning dishes, doing laundry, and picking up things off the floor. I don't mind!)
Lance came by to meet Georgia and Leighton just goes wild when he comes. She calls him Yance. Chad's cousin Jessica told us she used to call him Yance too. So cute!