4 months!

Our wireless is still not working, so I’m still a blog slacker. :)

Last week we took Kendall to her 4 month checkup with Dr. Bindner. I can’t believe 4 months has gone by since our second little blessing arrived! Her checkup went great. She is still our chunky monkey…though she is no longer “off the charts.” She weighs 15 lbs 5 oz (90th percentile) and is 26 inches long (97th percentile). The rest of her checkup went great and it ended with 3 vaccinations – 2 injections and one given orally. Ella was pretty excited about Kendall’s shots (go figure). When the nurse walked in to measure Kendall she immediately asked where the shot was, and when Dr. Bindner came in she asked her the same thing. We’ll see how excited she is when it’s her turn to get a flu shot in the next couple of months!

Dr. Bindner encouraged us to go on and try rice cereal. We didn’t start Ella on rice cereal until she was 6 months old, but circumstances are different this time. Ella’s weight gain drastically slowed down when she was this age so we wanted to keep her solely on breastmilk until she was 6 months old to make sure she was getting enough fat and nourishment as possible. Kendall, however, has had NO problems gaining weight and Dr. Bindner thought it would help with her reflux. In the last week we have tried both rice cereal and oatmeal cereal but she hasn’t taken an interest in either so we aren’t pushing it. She still seems to have her tongue-thrust reflex so until that is gone we won’t expect results. Oh well…she’s getting what she needs!

Kendall is rolling all over the place now. She rolls all over the living room and in her crib. She also laughs all the time, especially when we make her dance. The first time she laughed was a few weeks when we were watching Glee and I started spinning her arms and singing “Rollin’ on the River.” :) The other day we had a little scare when she popped herself out of her Bumbo chair. She was sitting in the Bumbo with me in the kitchen while I was cooking and all of the sudden I heard a “plop” and she started crying. I turned to find her lying face down next to the Bumbo. Thank goodness it was on the floor! Needless to say she now only sits in the Bumbo when we are within arm’s reach! Kendall is a fantastic baby. The only “issue” we are having is that she is very, very Mommy-attached. Especially when we go to the YMCA. Some days (like today) the nursery workers have to come get me because she gets so upset. But they are great and have really been working well with her to help her get used to them. I didn’t expect separation to be an issue until later on and was very surprised when she started having trouble there. As long as Mommy is in view she is fine, but if I go away, watch out!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kendall's 3 month pictures

A couple of weeks ago we had Kendall’s 3 month pictures made with Hollie Colwick. She took Ella’s 2 year pictures back in March and we loved her so she has become our family photographer. Kendall (who weighed a whopping 15 lbs at 3 months) was NOT happy during the photo shoot. Her reflux problems had been worse and since then she has been put on Zantac and is much better. We’re not sure which is helping more, the medicine or the fact that I’ve been trying to pay more attention to how much milk she is taking in. Since I’m breastfeeding it’s hard to know exactly how much she is taking in, but with her doctor we determined that reflux is partly the problem, but overeating is too. She was extremely fussy for about a week and a half and the pictures fell right in the middle of that time so unfortunately we didn’t get as many smiles as we normally would. When she was posing with Ella she was actually screaming the entire time. Hollie did awesome and I guess these shots were taken when she was catching her breath because it looks like she is sleeping! Anyway, here are some of our favorites…

Our Week Away

You can always tell when our wireless connection isn’t working because my blog posts decrease tremendously. When the wireless isn’t working I have to go downstairs to work on the computer and I find that incredibly annoying. Anyway, our wireless STILL isn’t working. We know what the problem is – it’s not our wireless connection, it’s the way our computer is set up, but Dell wants us to pay like $90 to fix the problem. We’ve had this problem since we’ve had this computer and we are too cheap and annoyed by it to pay to have it fixed. I guess eventually we will give in…

In the meantime, I am ashamed to have no blog posts up this month so I will probably post several in the next couple of days to try and catch up. We’ve had a lot going on. I’ll start with the first week in July…our week away…

July 3-10 Ronnie traveled with the youth group at our church to Falmouth, KY for a mission trip called Kentucky Changers. They spent a week working very hard repairing homes, attending worship services and making new friends. Ronnie had a fantastic experience. They slept in the floor of a classroom at a local school, worked from sun up to sun down, and ruined a lot of clothing, but he had a blast. He said that if he was forced to wake up by 5 a.m. every day while on “vacation” for anything else he would have been miserable, but he loved every minute of this. He enjoyed getting to know the great kids in the youth group a little better, meeting fantastic people from other parts of Kentucky and Ohio, and most of all getting to share his testimony with many Christians and non-Christians. He said the trip was a big awakening and motivator for him. He’s stayed so busy with work the last few years that hasn’t felt like he’s devoted enough time to doing things for God so this was a great chance for him to do just that.

While Ronnie was on his trip, the girls and I decided to go to Scottsville for the week. Mom and dad were super excited and both took off work for the week to spend time with us. Our big dilemma for the week was what to do about Ella’s sleeping arrangements. In the past Ella had slept in a crib and Kendall in a pack n play. But a few weeks before we had moved her into her twin bed, so I wanted her to stay in a “big bed” to not throw her off. Kendall and I were going to sleep in the basement where the crib is set up, and I knew she didn’t need to be down there with us since Kendall was still getting up once at night for a diaper change and to eat. So we decided to put her in Travis’s bed. His was the easiest to push against a wall and I (against Ronnie’s advice) took her bed rail to set up on his bed. Ronnie was right – the rail was a pain to set up. After about 5 minutes of Travis and I reading the directions over and over and turning the rail in circles I was afraid I might throw it out a window so we called in for back up. Mom, with the patience of Job, figured it out. It worked out great. She slept really well and even had company two nights. Laura, Charlie & Peyton came down for a few days and Andrea was also there so one night Andrea slept with Ella and one night Travis slept with her. Ronnie and I have never slept with her (we definitely didn’t want to start that habit) so we didn’t know what kind of sleeper she was. Apparently she kicks and turns all night long!

We had a lot of fun in Scottsville. Ella was very excited to pick green beans in the garden with Grandpa. We went to James’s house for a big fish fry and fireworks for the 4th of July. Ella had a blast but actually fell asleep during the fireworks show. That was the same day we drove to Scottsville and she didn’t get a nap, so she was exhausted! We met Tara at the waterpark in Bowling Green one day and had a great time playing and then eating at Chick-Fil-A (Ella’s favorite place to eat). Travis, Andrea, Ella & I also spent one afternoon at the pool at the Scottsville YMCA. I was excited to take her to the Y. I worked there for 5 years…my last year of high school and all through college, and Ronnie was a lifeguard there when he was on breaks from school. It is where we met and also where Ronnie asked me out on our first date!

The only negative part of our week was that Mema had to spend a few days in the hospital. She ended up having a urinary tract infection and pneumonia. Since she is 90 years young they admitted her to Greenview to be safe. She is so tough and was out in just a few days. We were able to go visit her one day and the nurse allowed the girls to go up and see her. Ella loves being at the hospital and enjoyed checking out everything in her hospital room. My good friend Brittany works at Greenview so we were excited to see her too!

We all had a great time but were very happy to be reunited on the 10th! Though Ronnie works a lot we have never gone a week without seeing each other since we've been marrired and he definitely missed the girls and they missed him! Ella was SOOO excited to see Daddy...and so was I!

Ella wanted to carry the green beans by herself

Picking more beans!

Kendall & Aunt Laura

Happy girl!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Corn on the cob makes Ella a happy girl!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fun in the bumbo!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cute Video of Kendall

Today I got a super cute video of Kendall "talking" to me and Ella. Enjoy!

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! The girls and I had a great day today...unfortunately poor Ronnie spent the majority of Father's Day either sleeping or working. He's working night shifts in the ER this weekend which are two very long, very busy shifts. This morning he got home around 10:30 a.m. and was back at work at 8 p.m. tonight. But we still tried to make the most of the few hours we were all able to spend together! Ella was very excited to tell Daddy "Happy Father's Day!" and give him his presents. As soon as he was at the door Ella was pounding on it yelling "Happy Father's Day, Daddy!! You want to open your presents??" 
Ella picked out Daddy's card - it has Cinderella on it and inside she was able to record a message. That was an experience that took longer than I expected. I was helping her remember what to say by whispering it to her and she kept whispering when she said it but it wasn't loud enough to hear. I finally got through to her that I was whispering but she needed to talk loud. It ended up being super cute and Ronnie nearly cried when he opened it.
Ronnie had been wanting a new watch to wear at work so the girls gave him one and he also received The Last Samurai on Blu-ray. A few weeks ago Ronnie purchased a Playstation 3 (no comment) which is also a Blu-ray player. He had been wanting to buy a Blu-ray to play on it so I picked this one out because it is the movie we watched on our first date - December 27, 2003. :)
I am so thankful for the fathers in my life. I am blessed with an amazing father and am so happy that my girls have Ronnie has a father. He works so hard and is usually exhausted when he's not working but he always makes time for the girls and always shows them so much love.
Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Ronnie with both girls - I'll try to get one tomorrow. We're going to go out to eat for Father's Day since we didn't get a chance to today.

Ella helping Daddy open his card

Big Girl Beds & Big Girl Panties!

Ella is officially a “big girl.”

Around her birthday we tried unsuccessfully to potty train her. Mentally she was ready, she completely understood what was going on and how to go to the potty, but physically her body wasn’t quite there. About a month ago we decided to try again and she responded much better. Instead of going 30 minutes in between bathroom trips like her little bladder forced her to before she was now able go about 2 hours or more in between, which was much less frustrating for her! Though something strange happened. Ella has been going to the potty off and on since she was about 18 months old, but for the first time ever she developed a fear of going #2 on the potty. We aren’t sure what triggered this. After about a week of her saying she had to go #2, sitting on the potty, then saying she didn’t have to go #2, then running behind the blue recliner to do it and leaving me with a mess to clean up I finally got sick of it. One morning we woke up and I put a diaper on her and told her that if she couldn’t be a big girl and poop on the potty then she had to wear diapers. Then later I told her that she couldn’t get her big girl bed (something she has been VERY excited about) until she learned to poop on the potty. That day her fear disappeared!! She sat on the potty, did her business, then said “I want my big girl bed!” I admit that I will bribe my child when the situation calls for it. :)

Ever since then she has had no problems and is now potty trained. She’s been in panties for the last few weeks but on Monday she passed our "test". The only place that I was still making her wear diapers (aside from nap time and bed time) was the YMCA because she had been getting upset when we would go there. She has gotten over her separation anxiety so on Monday I took her in panties. I expected to pick her up and find her wearing the spare shorts that I put in her bag. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was still wearing her original shorts, and was very excited when the worker told me that she had just gone to the bathroom about 10 minutes before and had told them that she needed to go…she didn’t even wait to be asked!! We are so excited and proud of her!

A few months ago we purchased a new bedroom suite with a twin bed for Ella, but we have been waiting until we felt like she was ready for the new bed, and waiting for her to be potty trained. Last Friday we decided to set it up. Ronnie had 5 days off in a row so we thought this was the time to do it. I definitely didn’t want to go through those first few nap and bed times by myself with a 2 month old! She was soooo excited as we were setting everything up. Then came nap time and everything changed. We didn’t have the problem of her running out of her room with newfound freedom, she was just absolutely freaked out and scared to sleep in the bed by herself. The first couple of days we had to lay down with her or stay in the room until she fell asleep, but ever since then she has done great and sleeps in her bed just fine! The funny part is that she still hasn’t realized that it’s ok for her to come out of her room AFTER she wakes up. This afternoon I was downstairs feeding Kendall when I heard Ella jabbering to her baby dolls. Then she started yelling for me to come get her like she would in her crib. I yelled back that she could come downstairs and it took about 5 minutes of us yelling back and forth to convince her that she could come out of her room!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Celebration Time!

On June 10, Ronnie and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. Ronnie had to work that day but he picked up our favorite Mexican food on the way home for us to enjoy. My parents came up to visit over the weekend and we got to go out on our first post-Kendall date on Saturday. We had a blast. We went to the movies and saw Ironman 2 (fun fact – we saw Ironman on our first post-Ella date) and then ate at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Then we walked around the mall for awhile. We have had a wonderful first 4 years of marriage. At dinner we talked about some of the things we’ve experienced in the last 4 years – we have 2 beautiful, healthy daughters, Ronnie has finished up medical school and is one year away from completing his residency, we bought our first house, bought the first car we’ve purchased together, found a church in Louisville to call home, and we went on a fun vacation to Hilton Head, SC last summer. God has truly blessed us.

On Sunday I celebrated my 26th birthday. Ronnie gave me a fantastic gift – tickets to HullabaLou – a music festival held at Churchill Downs in Louisville next month. Our tickets are for the first day, when Bon Jovi will be performing. YAY!!!! That afternoon we went to a new ice cream shop that opened near our house – The Comfy Cow. It was delicious!

Next up - Father's Day!

Ronnie & I about to go on our date

Me & my girls on my birthday

Silly girl...