Let the Fun Begin

July 12 These kids love, love, love holding their baby sister! They come up when I'm nursing her and hug her. They hug her in her bouncy seat. They talk to her when she's being changed. Tonight Julia said Caroline was crying because she wanted Julia to hold her. If one of them gets a turn holding her, the other two want a turn as well.




Lauren changing Baby Emily. She did this several times this day. Until Daddy got after her for using real baby wipes that is. Then we had many tears, and Lauren would not be persuaded to use anything else to change Baby Emily.



All the kids got a face painting at the VBS carnival. Julia's flower lasted the longest.


Brian gave Julia money to bid on a cake at the cake auction at the carnival. People donate cakes and the money goes to the VBS missionary for the week. Julia came home with 24 of these animal cupcakes, 8 of each. We thought they were so cute! I might have to make them someday. They tasted good too. ;)


July 13: Caroline so peaceful after her bath. It is so cute how it takes such effort for her to open her eyes. Every day she opens them a little more it seems, for a little longer time.


Brian took the big kids to church, and Baby and I fell asleep in the recliner. I woke up, but she was still asleep, so took these few pictures. She has a lot of hair, but I think Julia and Lauren had more. Caroline's was sticking up in the hospital, but I think that is how the nurse styled it. Julia and Lauren had spiky hair that I couldn't get to lay flat even if I combed it flat after a bath. Caroline's hair is dark, almost black, like Julia's was. Lauren's newborn hair was a little lighter. Of course everyone's has fallen out and blonde came in. Austin had some hair too, though less than the girls, and it was brown.



Love, love how squishy these newborns are! That doesn't last long!


July 14: Brian took these



Poor Lauren. She was quite irritable the first few days Caroline was home. I don't know if she's feeling displaced, or tired or what. She has taken loooong 3-3 1/2 hour naps each day, and they seem to help. She tries to help with the baby, but mostly is unhelpful. Though we try to not let her know that too obviously, as she is trying so hard. And she loves the baby so much. Today was better, so hopefully things are looking up.


Trying to wake Little Missy up to eat. Got to get those daytime feedings in so she'll sleep more at night! Which, so far (and I don't want to jinx anything by saying this....), she has done the best at night of any of our newborns! She wakes up to nurse and then goes right back to sleep, giving me 2-3 hour or so stretches of sleep. I can live with that. Also, I have taken at least one nap every day which is nice! Brian is taking really good care of us all. He's been off from work since Caroline was born, though he went in for a few hours Tuesday afternoon when the younger three and I were sleeping. And he's going in tomorrow, then will stay home Friday.

Anyway, I was tickling her to get her to wake up. The other three thought this was most entertaining and had to help some with that too. Caroline was making the cutest little faces: a yawn...


And a couple sleepy smiles.... :)

Welcome, Caroline!

Caroline Grace was born July 10 at 4:47 am. Most of you reading this have heard her birth story, so I won't repeat that. Here are a bunch of pictures from her first couple of days. I hope to post more soon, maybe tomorrow (no promises though, sleep is a higher priority right now ;) ). Here she is, brand new!

Weighing in at 9 lbs., 10 oz.! The nurse handed her to me a short while later and said, "Here's the little peanut." I told her/Brian, "More like a Brazil nut!" Her pediatrician said her sugar levels were all fine, which they had to check since she was over 4000 grams/9 lbs. He said she is the size of a 2-month-old! My nurse said she was the biggest baby they had (while we were there). Today we took Caroline to her doctor and she weighed 9 lbs. even. She was 9 lbs. 2 oz. when she left the hospital. The doctor said she is fine, she should be gaining now about an ounce a day, but to not worry if she isn't up to her birthweight by 2 weeks, which they do like to see. Since she was big to begin with he just wants to see that she is gaining appropriately.

The newborn beanie barely fit her 14" head. LOL The nurses said she had about outgrown their hospital t-shirt too. :D

Brian brought the older kids by that afternoon. They all love their baby sister soooo much! Austin wasn't happy at bedtime tonight that Julia got more turns holding Caroline than he had today!

Lauren stomped her feet and protested when it was time to leave Mommy and Caroline, for the rest of them to go home. She wanted us to come home with them. A nursery lady at church called me today (she is setting up meals for us) and said she'd asked Lauren on Sunday about being a big sister, and if she had a baby sister. Lauren replied, "She's cute!"


Julia's ribbon says "It's a Girl!" Brian's coworkers gave it to him when Julia was born, and has since given it to her. She decided to wear it to the hospital.

The next morning, July 11. My due date for Caroline, the doctor figured July 12. So I guess technically she was two days early. Brian dropped the big kids off at Vacation Bible School at church and then came to the hospital. He brought two hairbands for Lauren and asked her VBS Jr. High age helper to do her hair! There were two of them who were more than happy to work on Lauren's hair. :)


He brought them by after VBS, and they all ate sandwiches, pudding and juice from the hospital's family pantry. How are we ever going to take pictures with four kids behaving nicely?!

Little Sweetie, view through her bassinet side.

Baby rolls. I tell Brian when she wants to nurse, and wants it now, that she has to maintain her figure. And not only maintain, she has to grow! ;)

All my girls have worn this little outfit home from the hospital. Austin wore an identical blue one home. I'd bought both blue and pink when I was pregnant with Julia, since we didn't know if she was going to be a boy or girl. Then I lost the receipt to return the blue one and just ended up keeping it. Good thing. :) I was planning to go home Saturday morning, but I got a roommate Friday evening so decided to leave then. They'd told me this might be a possibility since they were busy in Labor & Delivery. So both my doctor and Caroline's ok'd our discharge if we wanted to leave early. When it came time to leave, Caroline was very fussy. So I nursed her. And she was still fussy. We ended up leaving later than planned! We got home at 9 pm, just in time to meet my friend Marsha who was dropping off our other kids. She'd taken them to the VBS program and carnival at church that night.

Low Key Fourth

This has been a veeeery quiet July 4th this year! We all slept in, then I made pancake batter and Brian cooked them up. Julia wanted red, white, and blue pancakes, so we did that! Brian bought half a flat of strawberries yesterday and we had those with the pancakes. Yummy! Yesterday Austin went to play at his friend, Carter's house, and the girls and I made a cake. I spread Cool Whip on it this morning and let them decorate it like a flag (this was also Julia's plan for our holiday). This was quite the project for them. Of course Julia knows what the American flag looks like and tried her best to make the cake look like that. Then there were the other two. When Austin realized it should look like a flag, he tried to make stripes and a blue area. But Lauren....she was dropping berries all over the cake, no matter where they would fall... A few had to be picked off and eaten. ;) Of course none of them minded that part. We told Lauren it looked like she was wearing fireworks in her hair today. Julia chose her own outfit, complete with socks that are red, white, and blue.





For lunch we picked up two $5 Footlong subs from Subway and brought them to Strother Park along with some chips and fruit from home. Julia was not overly cheerful at the park. We made her have a nap this afternoon, along with the other two, as they are going to stay up late for fireworks tonight (just a few sparklers and flowers, etc. Brian bought).


Austin and Julia took turns riding his bike around the path. Her bike is too small for her, and his actually fits her better (she needs a new one!!) Lauren played in the sand and rode her little scooter around the same path. It was a really nice day at the park, warm, not hot, and we found a nice shady table to eat. It wasn't crowded at all, either, which we were a little surprised about.


Now, Brian is out with Austin and Julia playing in the little wading pool. Lauren is still sleeping. Soon Brian will BBQ hamburgers for supper and I'll have to fix the rest. We'll enjoy the yummy flag cake for dessert and do the fireworks later on.

Also, I'm 39 weeks today! I went to the doctor Wednesday, and have progressed a little more (yay!): dilated 3-4, 75% effaced, and Baby is at -1 station. My dr. said baby won't go any lower until I'm in labor. Lest we get too excited, thinking Baby is coming any day, hour, minute (LOL, and I suppose it could...), I have progressed in this same pattern with all my babies, in fact I was exactly the same with Lauren at this time (well, at 38.5 weeks like I was on Weds., anyway).

Bathroom Redo

Here are the "before" pictures of our main bathroom. I never really liked the color, even when it was newly painted. It was too much of a non-color for me, Behr Cozy Cottage, kind of a cream.

And here are the "after" pictures. Brian really did not want to repaint this room, especially as it didn't need it, as the family room and Austin's room did. And he had just finished painting those. But he nicely agreed, and painted Mother's Day weekend. I did all the taping, which helped a lot, as there wasn't much surface area to paint, and the trim didn't need to be done either, since we did that three years ago and it still looks nice. I think this color is Glidden Seafoam. These pictures do not do it justice, it is soo pretty in real life! Brian likes it better too. :)

I decided to take down the towel bar and put up hooks instead, because no one (except me, *ahem*) could seem to manage to hang up the towels nicely after baths. This would drive me nuts, seeing them in our main bathroom hanging all rumpled and piled on that little bar. Now everyone is able to neatly hang up their towel! Austin and Lauren need a little help sometimes, but at least it is easy just to drape the towels on the hooks. The towels are from JCPenney, the shower curtain from Sears, the valance from WalMart, the soap dispenser and tumblers from Bed Bath & Beyond, the picture frames from Michael's.

I am very happy with how things turned out! I had considered an aqua and brown color scheme months and months ago, but then thought I might get sick of it, especially of brown walls, which I was planning then. I thought about doing super bright citrusy colors, which I think would be pretty and fun too, but then just went with the aqua and brown. Love, love the aqua walls! :)