Friday, November 28, 2008

Sibling Love





Tell me this isn't the sweetest thing ever? John was holding Jeanine's paci in her mouth during a fussy time this evening so she wouldn't drop it and scream. (He told me that's why he was doing it, lol!)

Happy Thanksgiving!











Tuesday, November 25, 2008

I guess it's been a while...

Well I've been busy lately getting everything just right and perfect in the house and kinda forgot to take pictures! We've been doing pretty well, other than the fact that I'm still going CRAZY without any dairy. When I do have dairy, it turns poor Jeanine into a spitty gross mess and the whole family is worse off because of it! Let's just say yuck! when it comes to the amount she's spitting up lately, and I'm slowly and sadly becoming more okay with the idea of switching to formula instead of continuing breastfeeding. I don't know how long it'll take me to accept it fully and make the switch, but I think it'll happen eventually because I just cannot be happy and healthy without dairy in my diet. So I guess over the next few weeks I'll either get over the 'no dairy' rule or we'll make the costly switch to formula. Either way she's getting fed (thanks Lauren!) which is more than some moms do, so I guess I'm still a good mom lol! I'm just trying to figure out my reasons for being so upset about possibly having to make this switch. It's an emotional process for me.
Sunday at church:Jeanine is sick today, her eyes are all poofy and red and she's a snotty spitty mess, ick! I feel terrible for her but it's still gross taking care of a sick baby, lol! We're praying she gets well soon so she's not miserable anymore. Here's some pictures of the last couple days. We just put her in the exersaucer Sunday night for the first time and she loved it! I had to take most of the toys off it though because she was overstimulated.
Jeanine, 3 months old, exersaucer:

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

New House Video

3 Months Old!

One Week Old...3 Months Old...


So last Friday Jeanine was 3 months old and I took these pictures to see how much she's grown, wow do they grow up fast! She's now over 13 lbs, that's a 6 lb increase in 13 weeks, lol!

Fall Tasting

YUMMY! We went to our friends Tom and Jennifer's house Sunday night for a 5 course "Taste of Fall." It was such a great time of fellowship and food, so click the link and see the great food courses! Here's some pictures too:

Monday, November 17, 2008

Busy Little Bees

We're home! During only one hectic week, I managed to pack up the old house, move, and completely unpack the new house! We absolutely love our new place and have no intentions of going anywhere any time soon. We've even got all our pictures hung on the walls, it couldn't be any more like home than it is now. The move went very smoothely, with (I think) about 17 people there to move us from the apartment to the new house. We all managed to get the truck loaded and apartment clean in under an hour and a half, then unload the truck at the new house in about 45 minutes. It was so efficient that I even put some of the ladies to work unpacking my kitchen and getting the kids' room put together! Here's just a few pictures from the packing process on the day of the move, in no particular order. I'll post a video of the new house in a while.
Old House:


New House:


More to follow!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

What Am I Thinking?

Why am I blogging? I don't know. I should be packing but I've been doing that alllll morning so I need a little break. Now I'm sitting here eating chips and salsa (really good black bean and corn salsa!) and trying to think if there are any updates in our family. Well, we're moving on Saturday and I just started packing yesterday. Yes, it's crazy, but I'd rather hurry and be frazzled for 5 days than have a chaotic messy house for 2 weeks or more, so that's why I started so late...and PetsMart, which has the best boxes, didn't have any until Monday morning, but that's beside the point.
I miss cheese. Yes, cheese. And milk. And chocolate. And __(insert dairy product here)__. Why? Jeanine is sensitive to dairy in my milk in that it causes her to spit up to no end, makes her poop the consistency of slime, gives her gas, flares up her eczema so that she has open sores on her face, etc. I have officially been 100% off all dairy for 5 or 6 days now just as an experiment (before that I'd just cut back quite a bit), and Jeanine is an entirely different baby! We thought she was a happy baby before I quit eating that stuff, but now it's amazing how fun she is to be around. She's all grins and giggles all the time now! Her face has cleared up, she no longer squirms in pain from gas and upset tummy when she's eating or trying to sleep, and her poop (yep, I'm a mom and talk about these things) is finally looking like it should, instead of like one big snot rocket in her diaper. She's also sleeping through the night now, which was off and on (more off) before this point. I feel bad for not catching it a lot earlier, but overall she was growing well and acting pretty normal so it didn't seem like that big of a deal. She also hasn't spit up in over 24 hours which is such a blessing for my laundry loads!
I guess that's it. Sorry no pictures lately, we've been too busy with organizing and packing for that stuff, but I'll be sure to add a video of the new house as soon as it's looking decent. Love you all!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I Should've Known...

...that if I put Jeanine in a shirt that said iPoo to expect something BIG. Not 2 hours after I put her in that shirt she exploded and there was poo coming out the leg holes, front, and back of her diaper all the way up to her neck! Isn't motherhood fun? (The answer is yes, and as gross as poo is, I would rather clean up 10 of those a day than hand my kids over to someone else to care for them and raise them). I LOVE my job!

Cutie Pie

Just took these pictures of my little poo-er (see shirt), she's so adorable!

"Help me mom, I'm falling over!!"

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Pictures from my Parents' Visit

We had a lot of fun last weekend when my parents came to visit, here's some pictures from the trip!Jeanine and Miss Bessie the CowMike with his head in a bag! (No Mike, you won't fit your GINORMOUS body in that TINY bag!)

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Laughter is the Best Medicine

These are Jeanine's first belly laughs from this morning. She discovered that laughing is so so fun and just couldn't stop herself! Towards the end, I wasn't even doing anything, she was just giggling non-stop!

Jeanine's Dedication

This morning we dedicated Jeanine at church. I technically like to call it a parent dedication since it's the parents who are dedicating themselves to "bring [the child] up in the training and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4b) The reason for the dedication is for the parents to stand in front of the congregation and pledge to raise their child for the Lord. We don't baptise babies because it's not Biblical to do so. Baptism is reserved for those who have been saved, as an outward symbol of their inward heart change by faith and commitment to Jesus Christ; since babies aren't yet saved by grace through faith, there should be no infant baptism until after conversion. Anyway, it was a very nice service even though Jeanine cried (she was a wreck...she pooped right before we had to go up front, she hadn't eaten, and she had a tummy ache...and she probably hated the bonnet too!), and I was so happy my parents were able to be there for it. Here's some pictures of the dedication.