Makin's First Week Home

Well we have had quite the week around our house! Bringing Makin home has been quite and event and going very well overall.

A few (ok maybe more than a few) highlights are:

Lots of meals from MOMS Group - we can't thank them enough for making it so much easier and not having to cook the first week! Not to mention I need to get a few more recipes to add to my collection! :)

Pediatrician appt Sat morning - he weighed about 7 lbs 14 oz I believe but still 95% of birth weight so not too bad. They told us to feed 1-2 oz every 3-4 hrs...this will change after Tuesday. :)

Appointment at CHKD - Tuesday we found out the surgery date will be the second week in Oct. Also encouraged that Makin is feeding very well. We are not sure if the surgery will involve the palate as well but will just have to wait and see during the surgery. If he is not able to close the palate another surgery will be a month and a half after the lip surgery. Will have to feed Makin with a syringe for several weeks after surgery...hope that will go well, although they say it will be very easy. :) Lets hope! Also found out we are supposed to feed him 2+ oz every 2 hours...basically feed him as much as possible to get him healthy for surgery. This has been going ok. He seems to have gone down on the oz he will eat most of the time, and we are mostly doing every 3 hrs at night for a little more sanity, especially since he didn't want to eat as much when waking him every 2 hours.

Paci - we got a special pacifier from the speech pathologist that we use some of the time. Mostly when he cries at this point we just feed him since they want us to fatten him up as much as possible! He does seem to like the paci though, so glad we have an option that works for him. It has a duck attached so that it will help hold it in his mouth. Great idea!

1st bath - the first bath was a normal newborn's first bath...screaming the entire time! :) We got the bathroom nice and warm, running the shower (at least there are a few things you remember from your first baby!) but he still was not a fan. This became our first major family of four event, as Lorelei was very concerned for her little brother closed up screaming in the bathroom! Thankfully his second bath went much better with no crying! :)

Adventures in diaper changing - well we are certainly learning one major difference with a boy in this department! We have already gotten some artwork on the wall and realized that we needed more sleepers as he is going through about 5 a day after managing to pee on them every chance he gets! I have gotten the diaper cover asap down pretty well, but still manage to end up with a few incidents. We also have the fun "wee wee tee pee" we got from Amanda that is a big help as well! We will get it down pat soon enough I'm sure. :)

Sleep - Makin is still enjoying sleeping much of the day of course. I am soaking up as much cuddle time as possible while Grandma is here to entertain Lorelei as I know soon enough he will be plopped into bouncers and swings as much as possible while I play with her. Its amazing how much more I love just cuddling now that I realize how soon that time will be gone and he will be running around with his sister. :)
Brad and I were taking turns on the recliner sleeping with him as he did not like sleeping on his own, but after a few days of that we tried the bouncer again and he is doing well with that overall. Jeanette (aka Grandma) suggested the bouncy seat IN the bassinet so that Makin is propped up for spit up purposes which was a WONDERFUL idea. As you can see in the picture he has his "room" set up with the changing table, bouncer and hamper. Poor guy! Thankfully he doesn't care at this point. :) As I mentioned earlier we are getting up around every 3 hrs to feed him and sometimes it takes a bit for him to get back to sleep. Sometimes he wakes us up every two and of course we change and feed him then. Definitely have taken up drinking coffee and come up with a home-made mocha concoction for now. :)

Boppy and Swing - he sleeps very well in his swing when we need to put him down somewhere which is great. He loves time on his boppy pillow (got again for the reflux tendency so don't want to lay him flat very often) and loves to look around at all the action from his soft pillow.

We are so blessed to have our little boy home with us. :)

Makin Bradley Is Here!

Okay not enough energy to write a blog entry right now...but wanted to at least get some pics up for family...esp the grandparents who can't be here with us!

Enjoying Grandma Time

Brad's mom arrived Sunday afternoon and Lorelei has been enjoying having lots of Grandma time. We made a trip to the Botanical Gardens Monday which was a lot of fun. The rest of the time she has just enjoyed having someone new to play with around the house. She has lots of fun so I'm sure she will enjoy her time while we are at the hospital.



We also got to enjoy a yummy supper at Red Lobster for my "last meal" before the big day. Right now I will finish getting packed up and somehow sneak in a snack around 11:30 before our 7:30 AM c section in the morning. And the next blog will have our newest addition. :) Looking forward to sharing it. :)

2 Year Professional Pics

We decided to make sure and get some studio pics for Lorelei's 2 year pictures. It went amazingly well this morning. Lorelei was great and as a result we got some awesome pictures! Yay! :) The photographers were so quick and get all the credit for these natural smiles. Mom and Dad were definitely not considered the funny ones this morning!

We got the prints 20 minutes after picking them out and were on our way to enjoy Zpizza for lunch. Was an overall fun morning and I realized at some point today that more than likely a week from today we will have our new little family all home together! Amazing what will change in one week!

Here are just a few or our favs...not all of them got printed. We ended up picking 6 of them to print in various sizes. Let me know if you have any requests before we mail them out to you or give you them for your frig. :)

Lorelei Turns Two

Birthdays are always big celebrations around here, and I can't really believe we are already celebrating spending two wonderful years with Lorelei! We had a great day today and just wanted to share.

First things first of course - presents! :) We were very excited to see her reaction because we ended up finding a tricycle for her! We realized after her obsession with Kira's bike, it would be a huge hit, but weren't sure it was worth getting...I just happened to take a quick look at craiglist (of course, right?) and found one that normally sells for $120 for...get this $10!!! Couldn't miss that chance, and its actually the perfect trike because it has a long handle for the grown ups to push so I don't have to hunch over! It is also removable for when she learns to do it on her own. :) Thought you might enjoy the early morning reaction. :) She was very excited. And in case any of you know me very well...yes it is driving me nuts to have a primary colored bike with an Abby pink and purple helmet and horn, but it makes her happy! :)



Mickey Mouse pancakes! This is a tradition from my family that we enjoy doing for our birthdays as well. She was very excited and ate her whole pancake along with lots of strawberries. Brad went into work a bit late so that he could enjoy the morning with us. It was especially important since she even slept in this morning!







And this is how we pretty much spent the rest of our day! Lorelei wanted to go ride her bike immediately after breakfast and made sure to let me know she was not happy I was making her wait while I got dressed to take her out...this is why she is riding in her pjs! There was no way I would get her to wait to get dressed. She rode for about 45 minutes first thing this morning. We did enjoy some indoor play time with her other new toys. Then we went to McDonalds for a treat for lunch, and as soon as we got back we rode for 30 more minutes, only because I made her go take a nap...and as soon as she was up from nap instead of the usual "Mom! Mom!" I heard "Bike! Bike!" and walked into her room with her jumping up and down ready to head out again. This lasted at least another hour or so. She loves honking the horn and I have to remind her to steer quite often. Thankfully there is a lock for when you are pushing the handle so she can only slightly steer, but she is still getting the hang of it. I think Grandma and Nana will get a good work out while they are here...hopefully the weather will cool off for them!




















We had a fun lunch at McDonald's and even topped it off with her first (as far as I remember anyway) official ice cream cone! She even got sung to from Nana while she was there. Then that evening she was serenaded from Grandma, Hannah and Karter and of course Brad and I with her birthday cupcake! :) What a lucky birthday girl!

TWO!!!

We have been practicing and she definitely has it down pat now. :) She has been able to tell people for a few days so that has been a lot of fun. She holds up the two pointer fingers because the normal way of holding up two is just too tricky! :)

Water Fun

I have been very sad thinking about the fact that this is Lorelei and My's last week together just the two of us. This meant I was determined to make sure and do plenty of fun stuff and very few errands, despite the heat. Tuesday we decided to try out the pool at the YMCA very close to our house. The first try is free and we had heard it was a fun place to go. As you can see it is full of potential, but this girl was not really ready for it yet. She still does not like water getting in her face with all the fun splash things. After trying out the turtle slide and mushroom in the kiddie pool, she decided she would rather just sit on the edge and put her feet in the water. Thank goodness it was free! :) Since I was already in my swimming suit I told her we could go swimming in our big pool at the apt, so we headed home and spent about 30 minutes swimming before calling it a day and having some lunch.

No pictures to speak of but we then went to Botanical Gardens on Wednesday for playgroup. She did a bit of splashing in the fountains but had a lot of fun exploring the children's garden instead. We even saw a lizard! :) Of course she tried to catch it. :) I was trying to give myself a break so we at least took the tram, but I was beyond exhausted on the way home and decided we had better make sure the rest of our week is fun INSIDE because this heat being 9 months pregnant just isn't the greatest idea! :)