Counting down the days

We made plans to go home to Tennessee for thanksgiving and I can not wait.

I love Thanksgiving, I think it's my favorite holiday. I love being with family (and friends), I love the turkey, stuffing (or in the south cornbread dressing), olives, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie!

I am excited to see all the friends we haven't seen since Easter, I can't wit for them to meet Caylee and see Lexi again. I can't wait for it to be like old times, sitting on Jim and Kathy's couch, petting the crazy dogs, watching the food network channel. :) I miss Tennessee so bad.

We had so many friends there. Friends that were close enough to call family. I don't know why God sometimes calls us to unfamiliar places, places where we don't know anyone. We've been living here for a year and haven't really made any good friends. We're just now trying to settle down in a Church which will hopefully lead to the fellowship we had in TN- or at least some fellowship.

We know God brought us here for a reason, despite missing home. But we're still excited for the chances we get to go to Tennessee and see our friends.

fashion

I know I'm getting old.

I see teens in church and stores and I say "oh my.... that's an interesting style..." I see clothes in the mall and think there is no way anyone could possibly think it looks good, then I look around and see all the teens wearing them.

I just don't understand today's styles. Short skirts and leggins? UGG Boots? belts OVER shirts? Some things just scream 80's to me and I don't understand why anyone would want to go back to those styles.

I am thankful that while I was in high school the style was so simple and made sense. Jeans and a t-shirt, or a fitted baby t. Not skinny jeans, not peg legged jeans, just regular relaxed jeans. Sure, some guys wore them too low and pretty baggy, but I'd rather see guys in baggy jeans than in girls jeans! (seriously, how is that comfortable? not only do guys wear girl's jeans, they wear TIGHT girls jeans!)

I don't claim to be a fashion expert, in fact I'm quit comfortable in my boot cut, or regular jeans and whatever shirt I choose to put on. I just know that I'm getting old when I don't even see a way that the latest teen fashions could be considered "cool".

random thoughts

I'm so glad that while you're dealing with all the fun postpartum things like acne, flabby bellies, sleepless nights and nursing issues that you have an adorable, wonderful baby to look at. It makes it all worth it.

Seriously, without the baby I'd just be a slob!

On a different note, it's fall here in North Carolina. I'm loving the cooler weather, the chance to wear jeans and long sleeves. It makes me want to go to a high school football game. If we were still in Tennessee I would go, we don't know anyone here that plays football so it would be kinda weird.

Fall is just a great time of the year. It's tied as my favorite season with Spring. For some reason this year I am really loving fall decorations. I've never been into the pumpkins and corn stalks, or autumn colors. But this year every time I see a fall decoration I want to buy it! I want to make outside decorations out of dried corn stalks and pumpkins and guards. I want to put a weird wreath of colored leaves and sticks on my door.

Wonder if this means I'm getting old or if I'm just appreciating things more this year?

I have a strong desire to go outside with the girls, and yet I never do. Mostly because there's nothing to do outside here. Lexi has a tricycle but doesn't know how to use it, I'm sure she'd appreciate just being outside. She'll find something to do. Maybe we'll go out this afternoon, it's a little chilly right now.

I still love the fall weather!

Lexi's birthday money

A month later we finally decided on something to use Lexi's birthday money on.

See, she's been watching The Incredibles over and over and one of the previews before it starts is for the movie Cars. Eugene and I both LOVE the movie, so when we saw her so interested in the preview we thought it would be a good investment. You can only watch The Incredibles so many times before getting annoyed.

So we bought it today. After the big race in the beginning she lost interested and wouldn't even watch it. Of course Eugene and I still did, but Lexi was not amused. Maybe she'll want to watch it some other time, but not tonight! It was like there was a big exit sign on the door, all she wanted to do was leave the room! How could you NOT like cars?!

Adjusting is hard

Lexi is proving to us that adjusting to a new baby in the house is extremely hard for her. She's very whiny, especially if her daddy is home. All she wants to do during the day is watch movies. One of her favorites right now is The Incredibles. I think she'd watch it all day every day.

The rest of us are adjusting pretty well, We're dealing with having less and less time for things for us like sitting on the internet or for Eugene-playing his games. He still gets some time after bed or during nap time to play his xbox or playstation (nothing fancy like a PS3, just the normal old fashioned play station.) I'm sure he'd like more time on them though.

Caylee is doing pretty good, she's adjusting to just nursing- no bottles anymore which makes life a little bit easier on me. I'm slowly figuring out how to balance kids, husband and housework. The house isn't as clean as I'd like, but it's acceptable I guess!

Speaking of housework, the diapers need washed!

Life is crazy!

Well, almost two weeks have gone by since Caylee was born. A lot has happened. We've been through jaundice and now we're dealing with a cold. We got a simple cool mist humidifier It's not fancy like an Ebac dehumidifiers, but it seems to be helping. Luckily Caylee didn't get a fever and the cold hasn't affected her eating or sleeping so the doctors are just having us keep our eye on her.

I'm still having a hard time getting her to nurse. She wont nurse at all on one side, and sometimes she'll nurse on the other side. Yesterday was a good nursing day and I got my hopes up thinking we'd be able to take the bottle away soon then today she barely nursed at all. I'm getting sick of pumping and bottle feeding AFTER trying to get her to nurse. It's really quite frustrating. Not to mention I'm pumping about 6 oz every time I pump and Caylee only drinks 2 sometimes 3. So I have an over abundance of milk in the freezer. I don't even know what to do with it, there is no way we'll use it all. Anyone have any ideas? I think it's too late to try to donate it to a milk bank because I'd have to go through the screening process before they'd accept my milk. I think that's how it works anyway. I know it's good for 6 months but with the amount I have already plus each day I put more in there I don't know what to do.

Lexi is VERY whiny and tests us constantly. She's not adjusting very smoothly. Any time one of us is holding the baby she seems to disobey. Especially if I'm feeding Caylee. Other than that she's doing good, her cold seems to be going away, she still has a bit of a runny nose, but nothing bad. Her and Eugene got to go to church today, I was so jealous. Caylee and I are gonna stay home from church for another week then go when she's about 4 weeks old. It will be tough, but best for her.

On an exciting note, I tried on all my pre pregnancy clothes and I fit in about 75% of them. My stomach is still nasty looking and some of my shirts look really bad. I've lost all my weight from Caylee, but I still have about 10-15lbs to lose from my two previous pregnancies. Hopefully I'll be able to work on that over the next few months.

Well, I guess I'll turn in for the night, I've got about an hour before Caylee will want to eat. Did I mention that her eating every 2.5 hours really makes the night interesting. Trying to get her to nurse, then feeding her a bottle then pumping takes about an hour to an hour and a half which leaves me an hour to sleep before the next feeding. Eugene gets up to do one feeding a night which really helps, but since he has to get up and work I hate to ask him to do more.

Anyway, Have a great night!

Craziness!!

Well, Caylee was born last Tuesday morning. It's a crazy story really, she came quite quickly. Life has been completely crazy since then with nursing, bili lights, a toddler who isn't adjusting very well and sleep exhaustion that taking over my body! Did I mention my husband hasn't even gone back to work yet? That happens tomorrow, I'm pretty nervous about him going to work and not being here to help me take care of Lexi. We chose to not have anyone here because I'd rather just have to adjust once instead of twice.

I spend a lot of time on the couch nursing and pumping, I wish we had nice, comfortable, modern furniture instead of our couch which is kinda hard and hard to get out of! Hopefully soon things will get a little easier as Lexi gets used to having to share her mommy and Caylee gets used to nursing and I get used to having two girls! For now I'll just push through, I know it wont be like this forever.

just waiting

We're in the last few weeks of having one child and that's exciting. In fact, it's very exciting. The way things have been going the past few days I think we're just days away from meeting Caylee. I'm actually quite nervous that it will go so quickly and I will be unaware of what is going on that we'll barely make it to the hospital or we wont have enough time to get Eugene's sister down here to watch Lexi and I'll end up delivering the baby alone because he'll be busy watching Lexi.

I'm enjoying this long weekend, one extra day with my husband at home is a great treat. I'm sure Lexi will be very interesting tomorrow, she's whiny today! Sure long weekends are not as nice as Orlando vacations, but they are still nice!