A week of firsts

First bath, first smile, first shoes and first time in the ring sling.

The smile was such a fluke really. I was taking some Christmas photos and Isla came over and started pulling on her feet and Zoey simled right into the camera. So adorable isn't it?

I missed breastfeeding

As much as those first few weeks hurt (even after baby #3) I love the nursing bond and it's just so precious when they start holding on to your shirt. I can't wait until she starts giving me those sweet smiles with a mouth full of milk :)

3 weeks old

Long gone is that first week when I wondered if she would be the opposite of her sisters... a big pooper and a poor sleeper. I'm happy to report that she is neither :). Looks like we got ourselves another once-a-week poop baby and sleeping is going great too. Now that my milk is fully in, as long she gets to eat when she needs it she goes right back to sleep at night. During the day she tends to be awake more often and doesn't sleep nearly as deep and long but I'll take it as long as nights keep getting better and better

2 weeks old

Some newborn pictures

Of course being a photographer I didn't waste time in taking her pictures. I started when she was two days old and have been taking a few every couple of days. Here are some of the favorites:

First road trip

Just barely a week old and we are already geting her used to travelling. Zoey and I travelled to Portland to meet with Erin (our birth photographer) for some newborn photos and later on headed Grandma's house since Grandpa still hasn't had a chance to meet Zoey.

She slept all the way through to Portland and only woke up/made me pull over a couple of times on the way back. During one of those stops I noticed her eyes are turning bluer

and when I got back, the big girls were so happy to see me I was actually able to get them all in one shot together :)

I don't blame her

Zoey hates diaper changes... and can I blame her?? I wouldn't want to be wiped with a wet cloth while I'm naked. It's really the only time she ever cries and Maja is such a sweet big sister because when Zoey cries she goes "ohhh, it's all right little buggy"
And everytime Zoey does get upset, both big sisters rush to tell me "mommy she is crying", "she needs her mommy, let's help her" and they fight over who gets to give her the paci

I love my girls!

This is Zoey's diaper changing face

Baby Zoey is here!

Zoey Evangeline joined our family on 11/12/11 at 6:12 am

She was 8lbs 15oz and 21" 3/4'

Birth story to follow but I did have a birth photographer present at her birth and you can see those photos here: http://erintolephotography.com/2011/11/28/the-birth-of-zoey-birth-photographers-portland-or/ (don't worry, nothing graphic is showing)

Some cell phone photos:

Happy 2nd birthday Isla-Bear!!

Happy birthday to my smart, loving, energetic, cuddly and stubborn as all heck little big girl.

Seems like just yesterday we were in the hospital eagerly awaiting her arrival and finding out if she was a boy or girl.

Today she is quite the chatterbox and much of a daredevil. Some of her favorite pass times are sliding down the stairs on the baby changing pad or climbing up and jumping off just about anything she can get away with. "By myself" is her motto and while I tend to get frustrated more often then not, I have to agree that it's pretty adorable seeing her with her shoes on the wrong feet and her hat on backwards.

She loves to sing and "Ba Ba Black Sheep" seems to be her favorite song right now
She loves being a princess like her sister and dancing around
Mickey Mouse and Curious George are her favorite shows
She lives for bacon which is funny considering she made me quit eating it for weeks when she was a newborn and breastfeeding
Just like Maja used to, her counting starts at 5 and goes all the way through 10 before it starts back up at 1. It's super cute!
She is very polite. She will always say "Bless you" and "thank you", she doesn't even need a reminder
She is great at sharing and always thinks about her big sister. If she gets something, she'll make sure you give her something for Maja too

Just like old times

Maja used to do this all the time... fall asleep on her bedroom floor once she moved to a toddler bed.

She hasn't for a while until I recently found her like this:

How can she possibly find this comfortable? I have to give it to her though.. she stays in her room with the door open cause she knows she isn't supposed to get out.
She also leaves it open and crawls under her bed and waits until someone comes and get her. Since she is so quiet she has fallen asleep under there a few times as well :)

Isla's birthday pictures

It's not quite her birthday yet but given baby Z could show up any minute now I had to jump on the opportunity this somewhat decent weather presented

She was a bit cold and not in the right mood but I still got plenty adorable ones

Maja the goofball humored me too :)

Waiting on Zoey

At this point it seems to be some sort of a tradition around her to reach and pass a due date with nothing exciting to report. Miss Zoey is in no rush.

Here's the last of my bathroom-cellphone-self portraits at 40 weeks. I like that I'm wearing the same shirt in all of them. Some day I'll get to making a fun collage of them all :)

This was my attempt at a cute picture but they had a completely different understanding of "cute". Oh well... adorable non the less

Big milestone for Isla

My thoughts on potty training has always been that there shouldn't be any "training". It's too time consuming and stressful for both parent and child, not to mention the gross factor that comes with public restrooms so I am perfectly ok with my children being in diapers longer than the average kid. It should be a simple experience... as in "you're old enough now, you get it, here's the toilet"
So I never bothered with either of the girls until preschool came into the picture. Maja had to be potty trained so we had no choice. I knew she had been ready for a while but again, without an actual "push" I never bothered. Then one day, I realized we were just 3 short weeks away from the first day of school and I went for it. I put her in undies, explained what was going to happen and made sure I took her to the bathroom often enough. The first day was a bit of a challenge only because she seemed to be just a few seconds behind. She'd tell me she needed to go but by the time we got to the toilet, she'd go in her pants. No biggie. The next way she was perfect and with the exception for a minor regression after school started she has been day potty trained since (she still uses a diaper to sleep)

Well, when Isla saw all this she decided she wanted to use the potty too. I resisted at first but one day I gave in just because she was really excited. As I expected, she wasn't quite there yet so back to diapers we went.
Recently she started asking to go on the potty again (she sees Maja do it all the time and she knows there is candy to be had afterwords!) and tonight I let her sit on it and she peed!! and it was definitely a deliberate action on her part so who knows... maybe she is ready now? we will see

Random goofiness

The girls are such fun little things to be around lately. Here's a little recap of their silliness

Dress up is their favorite activity so I just stocked up on post-Halloween sales and the girls will be getting that as their "big" Christmas present this year complete with Daddy-made storage trunk. They will love it so much I bet! Here're some examples:

Maja came into the kitchen dressed like this and said "trick or treat" :)

Isla caught the princess bug from her sister and loves her crown too

Stickers are still pretty darn entertaining around here:

I'm going through some major coffee cravings so everytime we stop by the drive through, the girls there give Maja and Isla whippy sticks so they get very excited every time we pull up, I don't blame them :)

Their nightly ritual

This is a daily scene in Maja's room at bedtime, and actually it includes the same books too. Maja has a slight obsession with Skippy Jonjones and maker her Daddy read her those books every day. He doesn't look like he minds though, doesn't he?

Halloween recap

It so fun to go through Holidays with the girls now that they are getting older. They don't normally get candy so Halloween this year was a very special treat and they were looking forward to it. Maja of course wanted to be a princes so I managed a "fairy" outfit for her to wear for her school party and a Queen costume for the rest of the festivities. Isla was a spider... she was really into it given The Itsy Bitsy Spider is one of her favorite songs right now

here a picture of Maja's class with everyone dressed up. Aren't they all adorable?

In the afternoon we had a party with our playgroup friends at a local party and the girls bags got filled with lots of goodies. These aren't my pictures and I haven't gotten to mine yet but here's they are borrowed from a friend:

Here's Maja thinking hard about what her next treat will be

On Saturday we went to a costume birthday party at the gym.

The actual Halloween day was pretty busy. We started out with trick or treating at a local outdoor mall, had a little donut break and moved on to a walk through our neighborhood. After Isla got majorly freaked out by a neighbor's house, we came back and waited for Daddy to join us for the rest of the evening.

Nesting big time

As usual, pregnancy gives me the urge to redecorate my house. I've been meaning to do something to our master bedroom for a while and after spending a few weeks gathering ideas I set of to find all the little pieces and put them together. I think it turned out pretty well and here is the progress:

here's what we started with:

this is what it became after I got the bedding and curtains but it took forever to find the right wall color:

11 samples later the right color went on the walls... I painted it all by myself at 39 weeks pregnant and it still didn't send me into labor :)

And she is back...

Sometimes life gets a little spooky. For weeks now I have been randomly remembering our kitty Rigby who we gave away to friends 2.5 years ago. I kept thinking about how the girls love cats and how they would love having her around. We had no interest in getting another cat but both Jeff and I wished she was still here.

Well, what do you know, I get a random call from a vet in Atlanta out of all places saying they've been contacted by the Humane Society in Green Bay where a cat had been found and her microchip had their info. They got my number and called me (thank goodness I haven't changed my number in all the years we've lived in different places). Obviously it was "our" cat and when we contacted the people who had her, they said she had gotten out month earlier and never came back. They since replaced her and didn't want her back.
We felt so bad for Rigby and I felt guilty as well so we took the leap and decided to bring her back home. The problem was that we were now 2000 miles away from her so that proved to be quite the challenge. I've hit several road blocks through out the process and we only had a few days that the Humane Society was willing to give us but with the help of two wonderful friends we made it work.
One picked her up in Green Bay and put her on a plane to Portland Oregon where another friend picked her up and kept her overnight before I could drive out and get her. I did it the next day (3.5 hrs each way... yikes for an overly pregnant gal!) and finally got her home.

Rigby totally remembers us and even the Kosmo knows who she is. It's amazing to see how quickly she realized she was "home". The girls are beyond excited to have her and so are we. Definitely worth the $450 expense in the process

Early Birthday party

Baby Zoey is set to arrive right around Isla's actual birthday so we decided to have her party a few weeks early. It was a great time and she loved her cake and opening presents :)

Her birthday outfit... Octopus #2

Yummy cake: