Here's to 2018

What a year!

We waited and waited and then finally had our second baby girl!
We went to so so many doctors appointments for baby feet.
We packed and moved to a different country.
We went home for the first time in over three  years.
We stayed in hotels.
We moved in to a townhouse.
We went to more doctors appointments and were relieved!
The girls and I went to Myrtle Beach.
We went swimming, a lot.
Jay passed his board.
Gemma started crawling.
We vacationed in Pigeon Forge/ Gatlinburg, TN.
Elsie started 2 day 2's preschool.
We enjoyed Oktoberfest, on base in Virginia this time
The girls and I dressed up as cats for Halloween with our soldier.
Jay applied for a special work opportunity. TBD
We hosted Thanksgiving at our place with Jay's parents.
We finally found a church we love!
We had my mom here before Christmas.
And had Christmas at home before we headed off to Ohio to freeze and see more family before the new year!

What a year! (And those are just the big things)

Excited to see what 2018 holds for us!

Gemma's 9 Month Update

The past month has been BIG for little miss Gemma!

She got 4 more teeth, so now she has 6! It's making her look so much less like a baby. :(

She started wanting to eat regular food instead of baby food. She will legit get mad at me if I'm trying to feed her baby food but eating something else. She wants it!

She was pretty much sleeping through the night but for about two weeks now has been getting up at least twice. I'm thinking it's teething related.

She can drink from a straw/sippy!

She learned how to clap and does it all the time now.

Not walking yet but she crawls super fast. Everywhere. All.the.time. Haha and stands up next to
everything.

2 naps a day.

Her favorite things are : Bubble Guppies, trying to get in to the dog food/water, anything Elsie has, a very specific pacifier that has little bumps on it for teething, shoes of all sizes, and food.

Elsie Lately

"Da, da, da, da Binch!" (From The Grinch which we've watched a million times in a row)

Me: Elsie it's time to go night night
Elsie: In a minute

"Mom? Mommy? What are you doing?" X100000

"No baby! You can't hab it!"

"Darbie" for Barbie

"pood" for food

Anytime she gets a boo-boo is a Big. Deal. She repeatedly says "my boo-boo owie"

Her favorite movies lately: The Grinch, Mulan, Pocahontas

She won't wear any pants. No leggings. No shorts. Only skirts and dresses. (Insert eye roll here)

Gemma's 7 Month Update

Baby girl is growing so fast! This past month she has reached so many milestones!

This past month Gemma:

-learned to crawl properly

-got her first tooth (and second, the bottom middle teeth)

-starting eating more solid foods, moved on to stage 2 baby foods, and learned how to pick up and chew baby puffs (She eats solids at breakfast about an hour after she wakes up and at dinner when we eat)

-had to have her crib lowered

-started pulling herself up to her knees and now pulls herself up all the way to stand

-got a new convertible car seat and stopped using the infant car seat

-and she got her bangs trimmed for the first time

Phew! Slow down kiddo.

Photo dump below

Gemma's 6 Months

What?! How in the world has it been six months since my littlest baby was brought in to this world?

Time. Just. Slow. Down.



Weight: 18.5 lbs (92%)

Height: 25.9 inches (60%)

Foods: She has tried all the "first" baby foods and loved most of them. Carrots were iffy. She also has had avocado and watermelon. This kid loves to eat. She wants to be eating when we are eating. She also sat in a highchair at a restaurant for the first time last weekend! SO crazy. She also eats puffs.

Still breastfeeding and loving it; no bottles. It's the easiest thing ever now that we are to this point and I hope to continue until she's at least a year. Fingers crossed we don't have any issues when she gets teeth haha.

Still sleeping with me but she takes pretty good naps in her crib during the day and even goes to sleep in her crib for an hour or two most nights before I bring her in bed with me. Some nights I get super lucky and she'll sleep in there until around 12:30. I have high hopes for getting her in her own bed full time. eventually. ha.

She isn't really crawling yet. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks and rocks then flops forward, scotches forward, rolls over and over, and on and on until she gets where she wants hahaha. She's definitely mobile but I'm sure she'll figure out proper crawling any day now.

She loves her jumper and her walker. She will actually walk forward in it already. Trying to keep up with her sister.

Gemma absolutely loves her sister! She is always watching her and laughing at her. She loves when Elsie pays any sort of attention to her, at all. It's THE cutest! I can't wait for them to play together in the coming years. I hope they are the best of friends.

Baby girl is getting so big! It's equal parts exciting and sad how fast it's going by. I love seeing her little personality starting to shine through. Gemma is the happiest, smiliest baby ever! People even make a point of telling us how happy of a baby she is anywhere we go. We are blessed.

Myrtle Beach 2017

In June we went to Myrtle Beach with my mom, her boyfriend, and my grandma. The girls and I had a really great time! (Jay didn't get to go this year.)

We stayed in a two bedroom condo/apartment. Elsie had her own room which was really nice!

Every day when Gemma and I woke up and went to the apartment next door and had coffee with everyone while Elsie was still sleeping. By the time she got up and ate breakfast it was time to get down to the beach. We tried to go down there around9am everyday so we could get a few hours in before lunch and naptime. We went back up to the rooms to have lunch (hotdogs, sandwiches, etc) and put Elsie down for a nap. Most days my grandma would listen on the baby monitor for Elsie while the rest of us went back down to the beach or pool for awhile. By the time Elsie woke up we were pretty much done with the beach for the day. We'd either go back to the pool or do something else.

Elsie warmed up to the beach by the end of the week but definitely preferred the pool. 

For dinner we went out to eat. Grandma only went with us once. One day we fed Elsie then went out to a nice Italian place after Elsie went to bed while grandma watched her. She did okay at the restaurants when we took her with us though, thank god for netflix! Gemma usually slept in her carseat through dinner.

Overall it was a really nice time! I wasn't sure how much I'd get to relax without Jay there to help but it turned out okay. Hopefully we can all go again next year!

Here's some pictures:

Elsie Lately

Things Elsie says:

"peas" and "tank you"- anytime she wants or is given something, not sure how but she's super polite

"boom"- for a fist bump haha. She has to have a hug, kiss, high five, and a boom before nap and bedtime, and she tries to do it several times if it keeps me from leaving.

"No! I not!"- so sassy

She still calls Gemma "baby" but does it in the cutest high pitched little mama voice

"da-yee"- for daddy

One time she came up to me outside yelling "Mom! Dog ship" I'm sure you can figure that out  haha oops. But she always had to point out when the dog has pooped by telling "Poop!"

We recently went to the beach and when she says beach it sounds an awful lot like another certain B word

"nolk" milk

"coy"-car (most of her Rs are said as Ys)

She still sleeps with "Momo" (Elmo) but  also likes to take "Nana" (Anna from Frozen) and "Tata" (Elsa) to sleep with her

Which brings me to how she says her name...she doesn't really often, but when I get her to say it, it sounds like "Ta-tee"

That's all I can think of for now. This will be fun to read through someday. 

Gemma's 5 Month Update

Baby girl is growing so fast!

Thus month she's really started getting around. She figured out how to roll from back to front awhile ago but this month she really mastered going from front to back as well. Within the past week she's been  rolling all over the place.  She also tries to get on her hands and knees already and sticks her butt up in the air. I'm betting she'll be crawling next month. When she tries going forward now she scoots backwards.

She got hold of a piece of watermelon on vacation and loved it! She was so sad when I took it away. So I started giving her some solid foods. I know it's not really recommended until 6 months but, just like Elsie was, this girl is ready. She's tried banana, pear, apple, and squash. Loves it all! She doesn't have much of the tongue thrust reflex left either so she isn't really spitting it back out. She's still breastfeeding too, no bottles or anything. I'll be starting a sippy cup in a month or two.

She absolutely loves watching Elsie and is always smiling at her. It's so cute!

We just moved up to size 3 diapers and she's wearing 3-6 month clothes primarily.

Hmm what else...

Oh she also started liking  being in the jumper. I don't leave her in for long but she likes playing with all the toys in it.

Working on sitting up alone. She can for about 30 seconds at a time. She'd much rather be moving than sitting.

Also, still no teeth but lots and lots of drool.

And still cosleeping although she does sometimes nap in her crib if we are home.

It's so much fun watching her grow. Time needs to slow down!

Gemma's Feet

This post has been a long time coming. This will be a lengthy post.

Gemma saw a new orthopedic doctor shortly after we got to Virginia. At this point she was still in boots and bar that the German doctor had her wear after casting. First we saw the physicians assistant and she said that her feet were really flexible and looked great. I showed her pictures of her feet before and throughout the casting process. She doubted that we needed to even wear the boots and bar during the day anymore maybe just at night.

Then she brought the doctor in and he was even further impressed with her flexibility even to the point of doubting that she ever had true clubfoot. He thinks she might have just had a positional thing from running out of room in the womb. He said he knew it was almost heretical (is that a word?) in the clubfoot community to not wear the boot and bar but that he really thought we should just leave them off for a month and see what happened. Since he never got to see Gemma before she went through casting, he couldn't tell for sure what her feet were like but he also knew that the clubfoot treatment is very long (like 4 or 5 years of nighttime wear) and it was either continue with treatment as is for that long or see what happens. I left it up to him to decide. Since when she was born two pediatricians said it wasn't clubfoot, I had always been skeptical.

SO we decided to leave the boots off and come back in about five weeks to see.

Today was the day!

The P.A. said her feet look great! If it had been clubfoot they would have almost immediately started turning inwards and she would have lost a lot of flexibility. She is still very flexible and her feet haven't turned in. Such good news! She said we don't even need to go back to follow up, we have their information in case we ever have anything come up but they are confident that it was just a positional issue that was corrected faster with casting but that she probably didn't even need casting to correct it. But obviously the casting didn't hurt her at all since the German doctor did a good job.

So that's that! Our prayers were answered and Gemma's feet are perfect!

Gemma's 4 Months

Gemma is four months old! 

At her doctor appointment today, she weighed 15.3 pounds (84%) and was 24.9 inches (77%) long. Her head is 39.7 cm (18%). And she got her shots.

She rolls from back to front but hasn't really figured out rolling from front to back as she's only done it once. Her new favorite thing is when she's laying on her back to push down with her legs and lift her butt up. She's scooted several feet by doing that.

She is still exclusively breastfed. And she still won't really take a bottle but honestly I don't really need her to so I haven't worked on it much. I don't really ever pump, but I have a few bags in the freezer just in case.

Gemma naps in her crib, carseat, or carrier depending where we are. We co-sleep at night. She eats once or twice during the night.

She loves chewing on her hands or a toy (and she drools a lot), sitting in her bouncer seat (but shes almost too big), and watching her sister. She doesn't like riding in the car too much but doesn't hate it all the time.

She's really a very happy baby always smiling at everyone. We get a lot of compliments on her smile and big blue eyes.

We love her so much!