Family Thanksgiving Week

This year we hosted the "Cousins Thanksgiving", which included our family, my brother's family, and my cousin Stephanie's family.  (It typically includes my cousin Daniel's family as well, but they were unable to make it this year.)  The fun started the Sunday before Thanksgiving when Stephanie, Grant, and their daughter Addison came to town.  Addison and Alli are about 10 months apart, so they had a lot of fun together.  They painted, played games, got every toy imaginable out on Alli's floor (daily), and even went "jeeping" with the dads.  On Wednesday they checked into a hotel and we had a quick family switch as my brother and his family arrived to stay at our house.

The cousins had a great time playing with each other, the adults had a great time watching the kids and catching up.

We watched a lot of things in our house break:  the refrigerator (had the repair guy out twice!), the toilet (that was quite a mess cleaning up an inch of water!), and the hot tub heater.  Glad we don't host for another 4 years!


Thanksgiving day was a full day, starting with Alli and I walking in the Thanksgiving Day parade with her dance class.

We then rushed home to get the turkey started.  The little girls helped me prepare the pumpkin pie!  And the men were ordered out of the kitchen, but eventually were let into the kitchen to help prepare the feast, but were given girl names while in the kitchen area.  :)  Andy=Angelina.  Grant=Grace.  Kim=Kim.  hmmm...

The feast:

The Amstutz/Guerrette cousins:

The Perkins:

The adults:

Smiles and Coos

Natalie is starting to smile (without being gas induced).  She has the cutest little look when she smiles at you.  :)  I'm all warm and fuzzy seeing it.  She also started playing with different sounds and now has some very cute coos coming out of her.  What's funny, is every now and then she'll be making some noises and I'll say "let mommy hear one of your cute little coos", and then she does!  Good girl!  ;)

Just last night we had a record sleep - with 6 hours between feedings.  To bad the feeding was at 8pm and I didn't get to bed til 9:30, but whatever.  It still gave me til 2am to sleep!

We continue logging food to see what makes Natalie tick.  I have cut out dairy, nuts, and most of the wheat.  That pretty much is a minimal diet!  I am experimenting with the nuts though, cause they are one of my staples for snack food.  So soon I will try a coconut / pecan bar and see if we both do okay on it.  It's got all natural ingredients (and names that I can read/recognize), so hopefully this will be a great snack for us if there are no puking issues.

One Month Checkup

Natalie's one month well-child checkup was yesterday.  She passed with flying colors.  Here are her stats:

Height:  22 inches (about 75th percentile from what I can tell on the CDC charts)
Weight:  9.88 lbs (again about 75th percentile)


Yes, she is quite a big baby!  Must take after Kim and not me!!  :D


He skin is beautiful, eyes are focusing farther away than they were expecting, and doctor was impressed that we put her on the activity mat and she could actually hit some of the animals (although it might be just a fluke as she swings her arms around!)

I also mentioned that I am keeping a food log to try to figure out what I'm eating that makes her projectile puke, or gives her such cramps when bowel movements move.  I hate when she wakes up from a dead sleep just because she has to poop!  So far, I've eliminated the coffee theory - THANK GOD!  So, coffee is still in my diet.  But it does look like nut-butters are out.  Potentially nuts, but she doesn't seem to react as much from a handful of nuts as she does from a sandwich with peanut butter or almond butter.  Figure *that* one out!

There are other foods as well that are bothering her, but I haven't figured them out.  Dairy for sure, and while I tend not to eat much dairy, it does seem that the little I do might affect her.  And maybe beans, but I'm still exploring that theory.


Natalie is a really good baby.  She doesn't really cry much.  I'm getting to know her squeaks and grunts and can usually give her what she wants before she resorts to the all-out cry.   Yay!  And she's getting used to me as well.  She also knows that when I'm holding her, she does *not* prefer the pacifier - she would rather have the good stuff!!!!  (But sometimes she relents and takes the pacifier from me.)

Cluster Feeding

Ah cluster feeding.  I had totally forgotten about cluster feeding until I went back and looked at some of my blog posts from Alli.  Cluster feeding is going less then three hours, usually right before the long night time sleep (or early in the morning right after to catch up).  Natalie is a sleeper!  In fact, it seems like she would rather sleep than eat, but I knew that going down to 7 feedings a day wasn't what I was supposed to do.  And then I read my post from Alli about how she was sleeping longer and cluster feeding in the morning.  Ah ha!

So last night, Natalie stayed awake after her feeding at 6:30pm.  By 8:00, she was beside herself - crying because she couldn't quite get to sleep, but was exhausted.  So, I fed her.  And guess what!!  She slept from about 8pm to 1am!!  Yes, 5 hours!  Woo hoo!  And then after a 4am feeding, she woke up 2 hours later, and then 2 hours after that - more cluster feeding.  So after her 8am feeding, we are back to every 3 hours through the day.  Magic!  We are finally developing a system that keeps her from crying for food and me from running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make 2 girls happy!

We now feed right before drop-off of school, and right before pick-up of school (if I can help it), and it makes the car travel less, well, stressful.  No newborn crying hysterically anymore!


But yes, she still will cry trying to fall asleep in her carseat.  But Alli has taken on her big sister responsibilities to heart.  If Natalie cries, Alli will say "quick Mom - ABCs!"  I put on the song in the car and Alli sings (only Alli - I get in trouble if I sing) and Natalie quickly calms down.  It's pretty cute. And Alli will sing while buckling herself in her carseat, arranging her animals...  Whatever it takes.  She's on it!  But I must say, Natalie calms down much quicker with a full belly.  :)

4 Weeks Old!

I'm not sure how to explain the fact that I've given birth to a tall daughter.  And she's still growing!  The newborn onesies my mom brought don't fit anymore.  They are fine in width, just not in length.  All the nice sleepers that people got for us are now too short from shoulders to butt, and definitely have too small of footy for the long feet that Natalie is sporting.  And I just bought size 1 diapers cause I think she is pretty much outgrowing the NB size.  I'm completely amazed.

On a different note, Natalie and I are starting to get used to each other. She definitely recognizes my voice, my touch, my smell. And together we are getting into more routines. She fusses quite a bit when she has a soiled diaper, so we are going through them like water, but whatever.  When we are in the car and she is crying, the ABCs song calms her down, and definitely calms her much quicker if Alli sings the song!  She is definitely an outdoor girl. She loves looking out the window and today I found she just loves hanging out outside.  Good thing Mom cleaned the outdoor sofa for us - we are spending way more time out there just hangin', looking at all our cool plants that now adorn the patio, and telling stories.

She's doing a great job sleeping at night, going for 4 hours at a time. I'm pretty sure we are down to only 7 feedings a day instead of 8.  I do wake her up every 2-1/2 to 3 hours during the day so she eats, but I'm growing more and more tired as the weeks roll on, so I'm not as rigorous with the schedule at night.

I can't believe how quickly the time is passing!

Not My Morning Cup of Joe!!

I've always been pretty good at picking up on cause and effect
patterns, and now this week that I don't have help, I'm able to see
some patterns in Natalie. The most noticeable one is her spitting up.
In general, she doesn't spit up much, or, at least she doesn't as long
as I eat my normal diet. But there is one feeding where she spits up
WAY more than any other feedings, and that one is the one that occurs
a few hours after I've had my morning coffee.

So now I need to test this theory, but when! That cup of joe keeps me
awake and happy til about 2:00, and then most of the time, I can take
a nap, and that gets me thru the rest of the day. Ugh. Do I have
to?!?! I mean, what's a little exorcist spit up among family?!?! Ok,
ok. I'll start by going to 1/2 cup and then take it from there.

Man, the sacrifices!

Sent from my iPhone

Guard Dog

When Alli was first born, it seemed like Bagheera did everything to ignore her, until I started noticing the subtle things that he did.  Bagheera is once again showing me that he is the family protector.  Instead of begging/insisting/bugging us until he gets fed, he quietly waits knowing that we are busy trying to get 2 kids satisfied.  When Natalie cries, Bagheera, who is a little hard of hearing, comes into the room to see what he can do to help.  And today, Natalie and I came home from dropping Alli off at school and I set her down, only to come back to see that Bagheera moved from one of his typical napping spots, to this spot right by her (which is someplace I've never seen him nap before).

Thanks my wonderful guard dog!  You are awesome!!

An Early Birthday Surprise

My mom has come out to Arizona to help out while I'm recovering from childbirth.  She is here for almost 2 weeks - the first week staying with some friends and the second week staying with us.  Well, the first week came to an end over this past weekend and the ladies decided that an early birthday present was in order.  So, we spruced up the back yard with some pots and plants.  Mind you, this took days of work, many trips to stores, emails/pictures/text messages, and a whole lot of planting.

Here are some pics of my "early birthday presents".  Thank you so much ladies!!  The patios look amazing and I can't stop looking out my windows!  And thanks to mom for cleaning the patio sofa - now Natalie and I can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful patio as well!

The Perfect Child

When I was pregnant with Natalie, I was worried that baby #2 could never compete with my perfect baby #1.  Alli is beautiful, and smart, with a great sense of humor, and very kind.  I mean, how can anyone measure up to that?  No I know most moms are worried that they will love the baby more than the older child, but I'm the opposite.  I have such a good relationship with Alli, and let's face it, babies just sleep, eat, and go potty.  There's no real "relationship".  So, I was worried.

And then Natalie was born.  She's almost 2 weeks old now and what I've noticed is that she is beautiful (but beautiful in different ways than Alli), and she is funny (she squeaks and grunts and snorts and just makes us laugh all the time with her funny facial expressions).  Of course, we will have to wait to see about the rest of her personality.

But the one thing that I've learned is that there is not one formula for the perfect child - cause I have two, and they are different.  :D

Multi-Tasking at It's Best

Today we had a follow-up appointment for Natalie, to make sure her she was gaining weight appropriately, and to make sure the jaundice was clearing.  I figured 1/2 hour visit, plus whatever time waiting in the waiting room - piece of cake.  So, we were in the waiting room for about 15 minutes max, then we went to the room, got weighed, took temp, etc.  Now just had to wait for the doc for the jaundice check.  Her weight gain is great - she's at 6 lbs 15 oz, so past her birth weight before the required 2 week period.

Waiting for the doctor took longer than expected.  After 30 minutes of waiting, I finally went out of the room to see if someone could watch the girls so I could go to the bathroom.  Dr.  Patel saw me and said "oh, you're still here!"  What??  They misplaced us??  Grrrr....  We have been saying for 2 years now we are going to find another pediatric doctor, but we never have.  This just added to the list of reasons to do so.  Apparently, they never marked our room for the doctor to come in, so she just kept skipping us!  Ugh.  But, she came in right away when she saw me and started looking over Natalie.  She also said I could run to the bathroom and she would watch the girls.  That was very nice.

Dr. Patel mentioned she wasn't worried about the jaundice at all because the test we took Friday came back as a 10, which is not a worrisome number.  That would have been good information to know 30 minutes ago.

So, an hour and a half after getting there, we finally were able to leave.  We went through Burger King drive through (not my favorite getting fast food, but we were all starved!)  We got home and since Natalie didn't get a good sleep for that 3 hour period, she was fussy.  Damn!  Not going to get to eat my burger cause I'm going to have to feed her first.  So I hooked her up and just couldn't stand it anymore.  So Alli, Natalie, *and* I were eating - all at the same time.  Nice, huh?  :)  When it was time to switch sides, I decided I needed to wash my hands first.  So I washed one hand while Natalie was still attached and feeding.  Cool!  Then Alli wanted more water, with ice.  Really child?  Get it yourself!  No...this is one of the outcries of being a new sister - she wants to know that she still matters to us and so doing things for her is the way she knows she still matters.  Ugh.  Once again, Natalie nursing still, I'm up getting Alli a new cup of water with ice.  I like this multi-tasking!  :)  haha

On the downside, Natalie was so exhausted from the morning, that after nursing the one side, I could not wake her up to nurse on the other.  Ugh.  Now I'm lopsided and going to be in pain in about 2 hours.  Oh well.  It won't be the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.