12 week photos

Here are some 12 week photos we took of Sarabeth this afternoon! She is very much an average size baby and so far is wearing the exact size of her age at each stage. She is giving lots of smiles these days (although not to the camera, she looks at it seriously trying to figure out what the heck it is) and she still has her crazy dark spikey hair...still not sure what is going to happen with that. Her favorite things these days are her hands that she has discovered. She has recently discovered that she can put them in her mouth...the whole fist and often I've heard her gagging on a few fingers this weekend, eek. Hopefully she figures out that her fingers are not really fun to chew on and the gagging stops soon!! Her eyes are still pretty blue, definitely NOT a light clear blue like Cousin Lucy, but they may go Hazel/blue/green like mine...I'm still holding out hope! In looking back at the photos of Jack, his were not brown at this point but they appear to have been much darker so we'll see. Have a great Sunday everyone!!!

grateful for days like today!!

I am so grateful for Saturdays with NO plans or obligations when I can just stay home in my comfy shorts and a nursing tank and not care that my hair is a mess, I have little to no make-up on, and the only thing that touch my feet all day may be a pair of flip flps if I go out into the Africa heat outside!! I LOVE SATURDAYS when I can just relax at home with my babies. Jack has watched his latest Netflix movie, Pinnochio twice now today (he is tired too by Saturday so I let him just veg if he wants to after a busy week at school) and it is just so hot out, other than an hour at the beach with daddy this afternoon, and then an hour in the pool playing with me, we've been indoors. I even got to take a snuggly nap in my bed with Sarabeth, my favorite thing of all on a Saturday. We had a fun night with friends last night for Friday family night at the Moorings Club and today and tonight, wer're just relaxing at home. We dodged a major bullet with Hurricane Irene, and ended up with a great breezy night riverside last night as a result. The best weather we've had all summer!! Today, however it is STILL, no wind and heat index was 110 behind the storm. The thermometer on our porch bobbed between 100 and 120 at about 2 pm today so I would say they got that forecast right. Our beach took a major whack earlier in the week with major beach erosion from the tropical storm that plowed through Wednesday night and Thursday but that's really the worst of what we have had here. We took a family walk around the neighborhood and checked out the waves at the beach from our beach access and saw our neighbor's kids surfing. Scary...I don't care how old Jack is, I won't let him do that!! They were fine, but the surf was so rough and seas were so high, 13 ft they said...just too scary. The golf courses are a mess too with palms down all over the place from the tropical storm force winds but again, we were majorly spared so if that is the worst of it, we can take that.

I will post some weekend pics and 12 week shots soon...and I'm still working on the side by side shots of SB and J. at this age, it is uncanny how much they look alike!! Tomorrow we start to get ready for our Labor Day weekend Disney trip..Sb's first visit, yeah!!! Jackson is SO excited:)

oh so different, but very much alike!!

Lately, everywhere I go people tell me Sarabeth looks EXACTLY like Jackson. I see some similarities, especially in their profile and when she is sleeping, but with eyes open, I see a totally different little person. So, I decided to look back at Jackson's blog photos from about 12 weeks or so. I have to figure out how to post the pics side by side on the blog, but they really do look VERY VERY much alike at the same age...scroll down on the right hand side of the blog, clock on "2008", then click on the month of "August" and find a few posts right around this same time of the month........it's pretty scary how similar they look actually! I think we are going to have a brother and a sister that look very much like sibilings which I think is ADORABLE:)

Look for a post later on with some side by side comparison shots:)

p.s. Irene is NOT hitting us, just a tropical storm...around this same time three years ago with Jackson we had tropical storm Fay...I saw those pics when I went back in time on the blog to compare the kids photos!! We have lots of wind, rain, beach erosion and high surf today, but thankfully, NO hurricane, now lets hope NC does not take too hard of a whack.

movin on up!!

Today was the start of the three year old program for Jackson at his school. Our local school system started school today and in keeping with the theme, our "school" also follows the school year for the older pre-schoolers and they all shuffle classrooms on this day! Jackson's bag came home on Friday with someone else's pillow pet, and a pair of girls spare underwear so I knew it must have been a bit of pandemonium on Friday getting the kids prepared to shuffle on up, ha!!

Prior to today Jack was in the Young 3's program but today he moved to the full year of the 3 year old pre-school program and what is different about this move is that his ENTIRE class moves with him now for the rest of the time he is at this school prior to going to kindergarten at our local Catholic school. As the Director has told me, he is with his "kindergarten class" now and will be in this classroom until this time next year when he moves to the 4 year old program. He is one of the youngest in his class due to his birthday, but honestly, he is so outgoing and such a born leader, it actually keeps him out of trouble to be one of the younger ones, a little intimidation does him good!! He is now in Miss Meredith's classroom and I will post his "curriculum" when I get it (Jon dropped the kids today and of course does not get the papers from Jack's folder, so we'll have to wait for that)!! Schools here don't have 3 and 4 year old programs, they start at Kindergarten so parents are on their own to enroll a child in a separate pre-school or pre-k...not a problem for us though since he has been in "school" since he was 8 weeks old and I knew when I put him at the First United Methodist Church's Early Education Center that he could stay in this same safe haven that has become a home away from home for him until he was ready to go to Kindergarten, good thing this plan has worked out so well!! Here are some pictures of our big boy and his little sissy (who of course is still in the baby room, no moving up for this one yet thank goodness) as they get ready to go to school and he starts his day in the 3 year old program!!

In other news...I am watching Hurricane Irene brewing out there and this one is REALLY making me nervous. We have been in the "cone of error" or as I see it "cone of TERROR" for days now and it is looking more and more favorable based on the spaghetti models the computers are projecting that it is going to kick east and stay off the coast of Florida but there is still about a 40% chance it may NOT do that and if that is the case, we are in for a bad hurricane. I DO not have a hurricane written into my calendar for Thursday/Friday of this week and I do not want to have to evacuate our home, and worry that our belongings are being trashed. Yes, we did check and update all insurance on our home and also our renter's policy, but still, don't want to have to use it!! This one is a bit close for my comfort. Pray that Irene goes East. Just in case, I did charge our blackout buddy this weekend and got a bin together with matches, flashlights, batteries, candles, lighters, my office's hurricane plan and we put a list together of last minute things we would have to do mid week in case. One thing Jon learned when he first moved here when Frances and Jeanne hit was what he needed in a hurricane including: gas for the grill in case there is no way to use a stove, gas in both cars and extra gas in cans, cash from the atm, dry goods to eat, extra dog food, LOTS of water, coolers for ice and a hotel reservation just in case in Orlando.......doesn't this sound fun??!!

sweet cheeks & beachside bonfire

Last night we had a little bonfire on the beach to roast marshmallows and make smores treats and unwind after a busy week. Jack with Jon's assistance had fun roasting his marshmallows, but he had even more fun just running in the sand and in and out of the surf. He is a fish and LOVES the beach!

When the bugs began to bite we walked back home and I snapped a few quick pictures of Sarabeth. She is just about 11 weeks now and growing so fast! She is starting to get some serious little cheeks, don't you just want to squeeze her??!!

Today I have a baby shower to go to so Sarabeth will go with me and Jon is taking Jackson to a birthday party this afternoon. Both things are at the same time so we divide and conquer to attend both!! Other than that, no plans this weekend, just resting up after a busy week and spending time together at home. Happy weekend everyone!!

aware of her surroundings!!

Day by day Sarabeth is becoming less of a newborn, and more of a growing busy, active baby! She is definitely aware of her surroundings, and VERY aware of who has her, and especially aware when that person is not ME!! She loves to lay on her back under a play mat and kick "bicycle" her legs and swing her arms, she is also very happy just to lay on a blanket on the floor where she can kick her legs and swing her arms freely. She's never been a baby that enjoys the swaddle, don't dare try to wrap her hands up, even as a newborn she would wiggle them free and much prefers them at her side, touching her face, or to sleep with her arms extended over her head! Funny how so many babies assume that sleeping position.

Now a days she also likes the swing when she is overly tired and just needs to conk out fast, she likes to play and bat at her toys in the bouncy seat, and she LOVES to lay on the changing table, whether at home or at school and make faces with whoever is with her and coo and talk. She is a VERY talkative baby and very smily.

I can tell that she is becoming more and more aware of her surroundings and of who has her at a given time because last night I took her with me to a friend's house for a girls night dinner with a small group of girls. When we got there it had been raining and I was a bit wet (can't carry a baby carrier, diaper bag and still use an umbrella) so my friend took SB so I could dry off. You should have seen teh look on her face...she did not outright cry, but it was like WHAT THE HECK, MOM, WHO IS THIS AND WHERE ARE WE??!! Gone are those early newborn days when I could pass her to anyone for a quick second to run to the bathroom or just to let someone else enjoy her. She very much knows her mommy and prefers me over anyone else right now. Poor Jon tries to help out but often she won't let him have her for long if I am around. If I am home and he has her, often we have to do some sad version of sign language to communicate as if she hears my voice, it is ALL over and she's back with me. My friend Melissa was at the dinner last night too with her daughter Hope who is SB's little friend, only three weeks older than SB and it was much of the same with them, poor Melissa could not even get to and from the bathroom without Hope melting down while in someone else's arms. I guess this is just the stage we are in for now!!!

Major Progress!!!

We had some major progress today on the poop-front with Jackson and on the bottle-front with Sarabeth!! Sarabeth took two of her Playtex nurser bottles at school today with minimal fussing and when we got home from school, Jackson with some prodding from Jon, FINALLY sat on the actual toilet AND POOPED, thank you God!!! We have REALLY struggled with this with him, he has had some odd fear of falling into the toilet when he poops and has refused to do it for months and months. Finally, tonight we had success and the reward was a giant blinking, talking real life Buzz Lightyear (that we have had in our closet since March)!!!

Here are some pictures of Jack with his new toy! He is in his room now with his "movie theater" set up watching toy story with his Buzz, Woody, and Bullseye toys. It's a Toy Story kind of night!!

weekend pictures

Here are some 10 week photos of Sarabeth that I took and some nice shots of Jackson too while he was at the beach this afternoon. Our house is so busy right now, it is hard to make time for the blog, and to take photos, but they are growing so fast, I want to make sure I at least capture it so I can look back someday! We've had a pretty quiet relaxing Sunday, still very very hot here, our porch thermometer read over 100 today and I'm pretty sure it was accurate, the weather person told us the heat index would be about 105 today, yuck. We spent most of the day inside and only went to the beach briefly to get some fresh air and get out of the house!! We are preparing to embark on yet another week......here goes nothing!!

TGIF, another week goes by!!

While I am trying to live each day and not let the time just fly past me, during the work week, with two working parents and shuttling two small children to and from daycare, it is hard not to let that happen!! I am SO thankful it is Friday and we have the weekend on the horizon to spend together as a family:)

Sarabeth is over her cold, I have a bit of a hacking cough left, but the worst cold symptoms are thankfully long gone so we are looking forward to a fun weekend together. She regressed a bit this week at school and started refusing the bottles again so that has been hard, I'm going to hit target this weekend to buy a few different kinds of bottles/nipples to see if something else will work better for her. I have the ENTIRE avent system so I was hoping she would get the hang of it but if I have to try something else, I will at this point because it is too stressful hearing that she won't eat all day and then dealing with a baby that only wants to nurse ALL EVENING. I only have so much milk and she does not give me time to let it build back up so the whole process has been a bit difficult this week. One day at a time, do any working moms have suggestions on how to deal with this, special nipples/bottles, that your kids liked...Julia, I'm thinking you might be able to help best with this as you also pumped and left very young babies for lenghts of time, do tell, and anyone else that has input too, we need suggestions!! I do not want to be forced to wean her as she and I both enjoy the whole nursing experience so much. I also need suggestions on how to increase milk production. It may be due to my cold, but I have noticed that I seem to get less this week when I pump. I've been trying to pump twice at work and then of course I nurse a lot when I am with Sarabeth. I've also been drinking lots of fluids and I take fenugreek, this is an herbal supplement that is supposed to help with milk production. Any other ideas, I want to continue to make enough so we have to supplement as little as possible.

I am hoping to have a relaxed weekend with lots of down time. Jon and I are going out Saturday night for the first time since before SB was born. Brandee who is SB's teacher at school will babysit Saturday night so that should be fun. We are going to dinner with another couple, a lawyer friend of mine that we see from time to time. Other than that, we'll be hanging around the house, hitting the beach/pool to stay cool!! Happy almost weekend everyone, I will post updated pics this weekend.

bath and playtime pictures

We had a pretty rough weekend with the worst head cold ever hanging around all weekend making SB and me pretty miserable, we never left the house all weekend except to go for a stroller walk Saturday morning but by this afternoon the fevers seemed to be gone and she seemed to be feeling a bit better. She was more active, playful and started flashing her smiles and "talking" with us again which is a good sign. I feel ok as long as the decongestant does not wear off...if this hangs around a few more days I am going to the doctor for some real drugs, my ears are plugged off and on, etc. so it is pretty bad and I have no time for this. I don't normally say this, but I'm glad this weekend is nearly over, it was NOT fun.

Here are some pictures of Sarabeth during her bath tonight when she was starting to feel a bit better, she loves bath time, although she would not really give me smiles unless I took the camera away from my face...as soon as the big scary black camera came back up, it was the old deer in the headlights look, ha!! After her bath she was very active swinging her arms, kicking her legs, so I let her relax for a while on her changing table and then she and Jack played a bit in her room together. Any time he sees her playing he always wants to join in, so as long as he is gentle, I let him although I tried my best to keep him AWAY from her and myself this weekend, I DON'T need him getting this mid-week and we get another round of fun next weekend.

Jack has really taken to his sister and our new family dynamic with Sarabeth here. Lately he has been enjoying watching various old Disney movies that we order for him through our netflix subscription. Last week he was obsessed with Beauty and the Beast and watched it over and over and over again! I can remember when my sisters and I used to do that with moves too. We would get hooked on one and that was ALL we would watch for days/weeks/months. Sound of Music, The Little Mermaid...Troop Beverly Hills, to name a few!!! Anyways...back to Jack...this week Peter Pan AND Mary Poppins arrived. Since it has been so hot outside, we've been spending a lot of time inside and with the baby here, we also are spending a bit more time at home. Last night Jon put his projector in Jack's room and hung bit sheets over his main wall with his closets and made a movie theater for him in his room, he LOVED it, Jack sat in his pbarn "JACKSON" chair alongside Jon on the floor and they had popcorn and the whole nine yards. This morning when he got up the first thing he asked was if today was a "stay at home day". When I said yes, he was so excited, he said "yeah, I can watch movies in my room movie theater", haha!! He is so funny these days the things he says and how excited he gets over things. That is one of my favorite things about him, his excitement for life over the littlest things. He's a busy guy but if you keep up with him and keep him on track, he is a really good boy. Last week he and Jon were swimmining at the beach along with our friend Clint and they found some live Sand dollars..they brought them home in a bucket and Jon bleached them and set them out to dry and explained to Jack that they were sand dollars. Then the other night we were walking the beach one night after dinner and Jack found some other flat rock/shell/like things and told Jon he had found some "ship dollars".......who knows where that exactly came from but he knew they were different than the sand dollars so "ship dollars" they were.

On that thought, it's time for me to get to bed so I can face another week, I hope I wake up feeling lots better, this is one doozy of a cold!!

no storm, but sickness hits instead!

Well, the hurricane dissipated out over the waters of the Atlantic (Thank you God) and we don't even have a drop of rain today, it all stayed off shore over the Bahamas...it is HOT, high 90's and we are inside escaping the intense heat. We are also holed up inside because not ONE week into daycare, both SB and I are sick with a nasty summer cold, ugh. I am beside myself that I have a baby that is barely 9 weeks old with a stuffy runny yucky nose and a low grade fever, and once again, as with Jackson...I also share in the fun and catch it. I napped this afternoon when the kids did and I woke up burning up with fever, so did SB. This is ridiculous. After one of the hardest work weeks of my life trying to put my practice back together after two months out, and the trauma of leaving my baby, we spend the first weekend really sick, ugh. I am glad it is a weekend so I did not have to call off work but still, this is ridiculous. I pray that she will bounce back fast as will I and that we won't go down the same road we did with Jack that first year which was being sick ALL the time. Say a little prayer for our sweet girl to bounce back soon, if this continues I may re-think childcare for this year!!

hurricanes a comin!!!

There is a HURRICANE off the coast with ALL of the spaghetti models putting it brushing the east coast of Florida and I am officially FREAKING OUT....our house is three lots from the ocean!!!!! Jon loves weather and I swear in his next life he will be a weather man so he has been watching the radar online, and watching all of the forecasts, I'm not so excited. Of course the darn thing is set to hit our area on Saturday too so that means we don't even get a work day off, darn!! This is the equivalent to a snow day up north!! It may end up being a tropical storm (which can still be VERY nasty I might add, our pool flooded last time we had one when Jackson had just been born) adn it was crazy winds and rain, but at least no shuttering of houses was required. With a category one hurricane we would not have to shutter the house we own (or the one we live in now) but just the IDEA of the power likely going out (and yes, that includes the AC) and the cable for sure going out and being home with a three year old and a newborn is NOT apealling. I've only been through one wimpy hurricane since I've lived in Florida, Wilma in 2005, interestingly enough that was also when Jon and I lived right near the ocean when we rented a condo here when we were first married!! Why do the hurricanes always come when I live near the ocean..ahhh!! Thankfully I missed out on Frances and Jeanne which pretty much leveled where we live in 2004, and threw the entire community for a loop for years...my office is still settling out insurance claims for condo associations related to those hurricanes, ahhh, so these storms are no joke. We have a mass assortment of batteries, flash lights, candles, and a "blackout buddy" from grandma and grandpa in our hurricane preparedness kit, oh, and a sh** ton of light gatorade we got at Sam's but that is really it. I told Jon if this thing is coming this way based on the updated forcast tomorrow morning, he needs to get out and get some dry goods, dog food, water, and a fan that takes batteries (or as many as he can find) so we can make it. Of course if we buy all of this stuff that likely means that hte storm will turn into nothing, but at least we'll be ready then if there is another one. Hurricane season here runs through October!!

In other news we are surviving the first week of my return to work. Sarabeth has begun to reluctantly take the bottle fairly decently from her teachers and she continues to sleep very well at school for them, and we are still only up once in the night around 3:30 and then up quick at about 6 and back down until I wake her around 8 for a quick feeding and to get dressed and go to school. This schedule works pretty good for me as I get a decent night of sleep (not perfect but this is ridiculously good for an 8 week old so I'll take it) and it also allows me time to get dressed and ready for work while she sleeps!! The other crazy thing about her sleeping is that both times when she gets up at 3:00 and 6:00, I am able to put her back to bed AWAKE, eyes open, kicking legs and arms and I put her blanket over her, give her her paci and she puts herself back to sleep after a few minutes of quiet kicking and arm throwing!! She used to do this when she was in the co-sleeper next to me and it would keep me awake and I would pick her up not realizing that she was putting herself back to sleep. Now, I just watch her on the monitor to make sure she is settling down and then I go back to sleep and so does she:) What an angel she really is!! She is such a sweet little presence in our home. Happy mid-week everyone.

first day of school!

Today was a rough day...rougher for me than for Sarabeth I think but we all made it and lived to tell about it!!! I was pretty much a wreck this morning before I left for work and did not sleep a wink last night, I think I saw every hour of the night and early morning and not because of Sarabeth waking me, up she was a good sleeper, because of my paranoid heart and soul that was breaking over leaving my baby, but alas, I survived. She fought the bottle again today but eventually they got her to take two ounces two separate times and she took about an ounce from Jon again this evening before I was home...that is really only about ONE whole feeding spread out over the entire day but at least she got something. All she has wanted to do tonight is to nurse so she is making up for it now, poor thing. This will be a hard year and while I am happy that I have a career and am able to help clients work out their problems and business matters, it is SO HARD to throw myself into that when I have a sweet newborn at home that gives me gummie smiles at the sound of my voice and wants nothing more than to nurse all evening when I am home!! They should have a class about working motherhood in law school, maybe they would be afraid half the girls would drop out though!! Seriously though, nothing anyone could have said to me would have made me understand that I would feel this way, nothing other than to actually have my own babies.......Jon and I have both said that having our own babies has made us understand, appreciate and respect our own parents SO Much...you just cannot understand the unconditional love that a parent feels for a child until you are one, phew, the emotional and mental stress of it all about wore me out today!!

Jack did very well today as well and was SUCH a proud big brother helping to walk his sister into her classroom, Jon said it was so cute how proud he was!! Here are some pictures of them today for Sarabeth's big first day, and some pictures from our two month photo shoot in her crib as well:) We did these yesterday when we had plenty of relaxed time together.