7 Weeks

Here is our beautiful daughter at 7 weeks old. So sweet.

Only, it's not our daughter who is currently 7 weeks old! This is big sister Hope on her baptism day. I am just in shock how much she and Emmy look alike!

Now, if you were on Team (she looks like) Noah (I was!) here are a couple of him at 7 weeks...

And, because you asked so nicely, here are pictures of Emmy Love at 7 weeks...

Which team are you on? Are you still confused? Emmy looks a little confused as well...

Let's take one more look:

Emmy:

Hope:

And, as an added bonus, here is a picture of one super adorable baby sneeze!

Fashion Statement

Emmy is pretty happy about the new socks Mimi made for her. It's never too early to make a fashion statement!

(Thank you, Palmer, for your inspiration!)

Emmy's Newborn Photoshoot with Kristin Hollensworth

I realized I never linked Emmy's newborn pictures here on the blog! Kristin Hollensworth did an amazing job! Click Here to see pictures of 11 day old Emmy Love.

Noah vs. Sharpie

The only morning person in this family

Picture Perfect

Our life is not always picture perfect around here. Actually, life looks a lot like this around here.

But, man, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So, I still don't have a great picture of all 3 of the babies just yet! I had high hopes for a Sunday evening photo shoot. Emmy was not on board. This is the best I got.

If you had asked me before hand which child I thought would be the most likely to throw a fit during pictures, Emmy would have been last on the list. But the big ones were pretty good. Especially Hope who withstood several screaming baby pictures. Probably because Hope has been waiting to get her picture made with baby sister in these dresses since we got them several months ago! We will definitely attempt again soon.

As usual, Noah was non stop on the move, but I did get a couple of him looking and smiling. Score!

Emmy's Room

Emmy's room is finally coming together. She still needs a dresser, and we need to hang the pictures, but yay! She has a room! My mom brought me this amazing monkey painting when she came to visit! It's a Brittany Skarda Lord original! Thank you so much, Brittany and mom! It is so perfect! I love all the details from the bedding she added, like the polka dots and the flower and branch! So fun!


And this was my "nesting project" that my mom took on for me! I found this mirror for $10 and had big plans for painting it, but life was just a tad too crazy! Mimi did a much better job than I could have, plus it is more special since Mimi did as well. Thanks Meems!


Love it, love it. I will post some final pictures when it is finished!

My Kindergarten Girl

I could not be more proud of this girl! We have completely turned her world upside down these last few weeks, and she has adjusted so so well. And she was so ready to start Kindergarten! She did have a few nervous moments in the days before, but when she woke up Monday morning, she said, "I was nervous last night, but now I'm just excited!"

Mimi found her the perfect back to school outfit. While Mommy found her the perfect backpack lunchbox combo. You know, before she starts to want to pick them out herself!

Our goal when John started his crazy traveling job when Hope was two was that I wanted him to be done traveling before she started kindergarten. Funny how things happen! He's here to see her every morning and night now!

Mimi stayed with us for 10 nights! She was here to see Hope off for her first day, and stayed with the babies so John and I could both take in the moment of our oldest starting school. I took Mimi to the airport after I took Hope to school. Thanks for everything, Mimi!

Our little Wolverine!

Walking down the ramp to the Kindergarten pod. Yes, I was that crazy mom with the camera.
Finding her name on her class frog pond.
Her new teacher, Miss B! Love her. Really, I could not pick a better fit for Hope this year.
She went right to work at her table. She gave me the, "ok, go now" look, so I kissed her and drug her daddy out of there.

She had a great first day! She ended up with blisters on her hands from the monkey bars, but that hasn't stopped her from still playing on them every day! And she now has two more blisters to show for it. She has read both books that she was sent home with completely on her own with out any help. There are not many girls in her class, and three of them have said she can't be their friend because she doesn't have "Twinkle Toe" shoes like they do. Man, it starts early, doesn't it? She has seemed okay with that and hasn't asked for the shoes. Truthfully, if she asked for them, I would buy them for her, but not before we had a little talk about not buying them just to be friends with the twinkle toe group.

We are all trying to adjust to the new routine. Hope and her daddy still read Junie B. every night, but story time has been moved up quite a bit. Which the daddy struggles with. He and Hope have been living it up this summer with nightly battles of Wii Speed Slice and bowling, movies, dessert and Junie B. I think they are both looking forward to this weekend when the Mommy doesn't say she has to be in bed by 8:00!

Little Bitty Zitty Baby

My baby has some bad bad baby acne right now. It is all over her face, and it covers her whole head. And really, you can't 100% convince me that it's not related to her formula. It seems to have popped up right as we gave in and switched her to soy milk. She also has had thrush for 3 weeks now and a yucky diaper rash. Boo. I took her into the pediatrician. We saw Dr. K who is the pediatrician we have been wanting to see. He was so perfect. He held her and fed her a bottle while we talked. Seriously? Loooove him. He sent us on our way with some different meds to clear up everything. I haven't seen much improvement just yet, which also feeds into my reaction to formula theory. We were told to keep her on the soy until every thing cleared up, and then try a lactose free milk based formula (that they gave us a case of free samples of! Looove.) to see how her tummy reacts to that. Here's hoping that the acne, thrush and diaper rash clear up soon, or her Mommy is going to break the rules and switch to the lactose free before...

I took these pictures on Tuesday. It is worse today. Her right cheek is just solid red. I don't know what to do!

Play room

This is the little play area upstairs in our new house. It is still a work in progress. John has since mounted the projector in here for the kids to watch movies. They are constantly playing in (and destroying) this room.

Guess Who

Guess who weighs 8 pounds 5 ounces now!!

Emmy 1 month

Emmy 1 month, originally uploaded by dyer622.

Emmy is One Month Old! I decided to do her month to month pictures a little differently from Noah's. I am so excited to use this sweet bunny from my dear friend Deni. It is so perfect. I am also going to try sitting/ proping her up in her bed. We'll see! She looks a bit unhappy here, but this is the best I grabbed! I will add her to the sidebar soon! Let's watch her grow!

Mommy, I'm sorry to tell you

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Noah, My mom and I have a running dialogue. It starts with one of us, for example, saying "Noah, say Mommy, I'm sorry to tell you, I'm Mimi's Buddy." And Noah will repeat it. Then I would say "No, no, no. Say Mimi, I regret to inform you, I am Mommy's Baby." And he repeats. He eats it up. Here he is telling me that he is indeed Mimi's Buddy.

Big Helper

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We're here, Y'all

Our first night in our new house. Emmy was amazed.

We had a visit with some of our favorite people, sweet Sophie and April.

Noah has been aggravating Hope to no end. Here he is laying on the coffee table just to make her crazy. It worked.

We have been working on getting this girl enrolled in Kindergarten, school supplies purchased, and of course, finding the perfect back to school outfit. Can't wait to show pictures!

And this little girl has decided that being held is the way to go. Luckily Mimi has been happy to oblige. wish me luck when Mimi is not here next week to pick her up every time she cries!

Some Noah and "Sissy Baby" bonding taking place.

Oh My. We really did it. We moved back to Texas. Away from our family. With three kids. One only 3 weeks old. And one who is fully in his terrible twos. And one who is days away from starting Kindergarten. To a house we had never stepped foot into. What were we thinking? This is where I would like to say, "Oh things went off without a hitch!" Ha. Not quite! We have hit a few minor bumps in the road, but we are all fine in the end. We can almost even see the humor in them already. Almost!

John, Emmy and I arrived late Thursday night, dropped the dog off at Petsm@rt , and picked up the keys to the house. We drove over to the house and looked around for the first time. Luckily, after a few, um, housekeeping issues, we love it. It will be a great house for us. The movers unloaded us Friday morning. They were super fast. My sister, mom and Clara brought Hope and Noah to Texas Friday night. This is where the fun started! We made it all of 13 hours before our first Emergency Room visit! Noah fell while climbing on the bathtub (after John had JUST gotten on to him and taken him off of it) and bit all the way through his little lip. We found the hospital and it was the fastest ER visit you have ever hear of. They put a little glue on it, got us some antibiotics to keep it from becoming infected and sent us on our way. Noah kept saying, "I gotta boo boo." It was really pitiful. Later that night, John ran to Kroger and his battery died in the parking lot. Awesome.

Monday, I went to register Hope for Kindergarten and then Noah had to have a follow up with a pediatrician. Which was great since we didn't have a pediatrician! Luckily we had been given the names of two that are in the same practice before we moved and I had already scheduled a well child visit for Emmy, so they agreed to let him be seen that day after asking approval from approximately 37 different people in the practice. I headed out the door with Noah to the appointment, I realized John still had the insurance card in his wallet from the ER so he texted me the info. I was looking at the text while walking in the building, putting my keys in my purse and carrying Noah. I didn't notice the curb. I fell harder than I have fallen in my adult life. I scraped up my knees ankles and one hand. Obviously, this is not a big deal, but still soooo embarrassing. So I go in to the building dripping with blood. The nurse was very sweet and cleaned me up. They made a great first impression... me, not so much. Anyway, the doctor was great and said his mouth was healing just fine.

Tuesday, I got a call from the school nurse saying that Hope was missing a shot. WHAT? Apparently it is not a shot she had to have in Arkansas since I knew she was good to go there. Panic set in quickly as the nurse said Hope could not be enrolled until she was vaccinated. Great. More begging and pleading with the pediatricians office. Only this time I needed approval from 57 different authorities in the practice to vaccinate a child that was not an established patient. They told me not to expect to hear from them that day. ( Side note. I had to run into their office to sign a release form to be faxed from our peds office in AR. I walked in (didn't fall!) and there was the one person I actually know in McKinney! Kristin was leaving with her two beautiful kiddos. So funny! What are the odds?) I thought I would be super smart and just go to the health department for the shot. Ha. There were 50. Not exaggerating. FIFTY people in front of us. They were on # 34 and we were #84. I decided it was okay to wait one more day to hear from the pediatricians office. :) I called the next day, we got in, got vaccinated, got enrolled and met all the Kindergarten teachers all within a couple hours. So glad it worked out.

So, as you can tell, we have had a few hiccups! I am so happy my sister and mom were here last weekend helping us unpack or it would have been so much more stressful getting Noah to the ER. And my mom is here all week with us making life a lot easier.

On and Emmy note, she has been having some tummy issues. Not sure if it was the nasty Texas water or what. Today I have put her back on the ready to feed formula and she has done much better. I guess when she gets a few days under her belt we will try the powder with purified water? I don't know. Ugh. I hope she is not showing signs of being lactose intolerant like her siblings.

But really, all those things are just minor. We are so excited about Hope's new school and teacher. Our little Emmy is one month old. And Noah is doing much much better with his baby sister. Hope and Noah love the house, especially having a playroom. We are thrilled to be closer to Grandma Sharon and the Walkers again. And although I am a tad overwhelmed by it right now, I am so excited about staying at home with the babies. This is my first time to be a stay at home mom full time. I have always at least worked part time since Hope was born. I keep saying that I am going to learn to be a domestic diva. No one seems to believe me. Must be because I don't know how to cook. Or because I didn't know how to turn the vacuum on one year after we got it. Or because I just learned how to use the self clean feature on an oven. Oh well, just you wait. :)

And I would like to say RIP dear Cupcake the fish. I am sorry you didn't survive the move. Was it just too rough for you? You were one cool beta fish. The only white one I had ever seen. Until John found another one to replace you before Hope made it to the house to ask where you were.

First Bath

07 27 10_7471, originally uploaded by dyer622.

I wouldn't really say she was a fan...

Doctor Laura

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The goodbyes started last week when we had to say goodbye to our kids' pediatrician. I started taking Hope to Dr. Laura Sanders when she was about 2 months old. I met her while taking Clay to preschool and I instantly liked her. She is a mom and she is real. And she puts up with all my crazy questions. When John and I were taking Emmy to her check up, I got a little teary thinking about this being our last appointment with her. I cannot tell you how much I have trusted her opinion when it comes to my children. I was never afraid to ask "What would you do for your child?" And she always gave me her honest opinion. I am sad that we won't know our new pediatrician at all, and that they might see my kids as just another patient, whereas Dr. Laura always knew that they were special.

Brother loves her

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Noah seems to have come around to precious sister. He has on several occasions gone and grabbed the boppy pillow (my kids call it the baby holder! And sometimes Noah says "Give me the birthday" because it has cupcakes all over it.) and said "I hold Emmy!" He usually just wants her for a second, unless big sister is waiting to hold her as well, and then he objects to us taking her away from him. The sibling rivalry starts early, my friends.

Big Girl

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Big Girl has grown! She had a second weight check this week. She needed to be back to her birthweight. She was an overachiever! She was already up to 7 pounds 5 ounces! She has definitely figured out the eating part. She is eating 3 ounces every 3-4 hours. I think she would take even more than 3, so we might try that soon. Oh, and she burps like a college frat boy. We're so proud.

Smile

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Warms my heart. Love this girl.