A Weekend of Firsts

This was a big weekend in our house...well, not really, but it was special. Saturday night we decided to give Charlotte her first real bath. I have been giving her sponge baths and her cord stump fell off a while ago, but there was still a little piece left in there so I was waiting for that to dry up so we delayed the first real bath until now. She did really well for most of it, she just laid there and stared at Timothy. He was "helping" daddy...it was so cute, everything Brandon would say to her, Timothy would repeat it, so we heard a lot of, "it's ok sweetie", "here comes the water", "time for soap"...things like that. She got fussy toward the end but once I got her out and in her warm towel she was good. It was a little strange last night, both kids were in their own beds in their own rooms by 8pm...we didn't know what to do!!

The other first of the weekend happened this afternoon...we took the kids to their first Mariner's game! Charlotte didn't really seem to notice or care, but Timothy had a blast! He was so excited, all we heard about all day was the "baseball game"!! He wore his Mariner's gear and Grammy got him a foam finger...he was so funny. He got to go down by home plate and have his baseball signed by Brad Ziegler who pitches for the Oakland A's. He is the sister of Darin Brazile's wife and he just got signed to the major's this year. He is the nicest guy, he signed stuff for all the kids there and let us take pictures. It was fun...anyway, here's pictures from the weekend.

One Month Old

Charlotte turned one month old last Wednesday (I'm a little late posting about it) and to celebrate we took her picture in her chair. She's already grown so much, it's crazy...so here's what the little princess has been up to lately!

I love to look at my mommy and daddy and my big brother. I am starting to smile and my whole face lights up!

I have three chins and it takes mommy a while to clean them all, my hair is starting to fall out on top so mommy says I will wear lots of hats.

I love my mommy's milk, but I'm not so crazy about my bottle or my pacifier.

I don't know how much I weigh, but I'm definitely getting bigger...I fill out my 3 month size clothes now and mommy can't wait for me to move up to the next size because I have so many cute things!

I am a good sleeper, I get up one time at night and I go back to sleep pretty quickly. I take two big naps a day and I cat nap a lot.

I get fussy at night time and I don't let mommy watch her TV shows...no fun for mommy!

I love to look out the windows and I love to look at lights, I can hold my head up really well when someone holds me.

I love to cuddle and I love to be held, I love for daddy to rock me at night.

Isn't she a sweet little girl? We've enjoyed the first month so much, I can't wait to see how much she's grown next month! She goes back for her two month check up on October 15 so stay tuned!

The Cookie Dough Kid

Timothy "helped" me make cookies last night...it was interesting, and messy, and tons of fun!

Bummer

So this morning on my way to register Charlotte for her new daycare, I turned on my phone and saw I had a voicemail so I checked it and it was my manager asking me to call her later this afternoon...so I did...and found out that my job with Weyerhaeuser has been eliminated due to the restructuring that the company is going through right now...so as of October 3, I am officially unemployed. It's actually a lot more scary than I thought it would be, I knew they were going to make changes, I guess I just thought I would be safe...oh well. I know this means that there is something better for me out there, just the thought of starting a new job though is so stressful. I had been with Weyerhaeuser for almost 6 years and thinking about starting over with a new company again is scary...that means starting over with vacation time, learning computer systems, learning new business terms and a whole new business/industry...not what I really wanted to do at this point in my career, but I guess God has different plans!

Anyway, needless to say, our family needs prayers right now. I will get paid through sometime in December, I meet with HR tomorrow so I'll find out exactly when that last paycheck will come...by my calculations, I need to have a new job by Christmas...what a crappy time to start a new job...oh well. Maybe we can save up and hold out until January, or maybe something will come along before then. Like I said though, we need prayers.

So to make this seem a little less depressing, I added some new pictures! And just as a reminder that God will take care of us - when I found out I was pregnant with Timothy, Brandon had just left a really bad retail job and had interviewed with Weyerhaeuser and with the Army. The Weyerhaeuser job paid great and the Army job, not so great...he ended up not getting the job with Weyerhaeuser and started working for the Army in August 2005. If he had gone to work for Weyerhaeuser, he would have probably lost his job too with all these changes, but instead, the poorly paying Army job has turned into a great job, not only in what it pays, but the people he works with are so nice and it's such a family environment and we were able to find such a great daycare...looking back, it's so easy to see how God had a hand in what happened and I know He's working through this for our good also.

Answer to Prayers

Yesterday Brandon called to tell me that Charlotte had gotten into the same daycare as Timothy!! She's been on the waiting list since February and I know you're probably thinking...hello, she was just born last month, but since it's a military facility they give preference to military families first and since Brandon is only a civilian employee we're at the bottom of the priority list so I was a little worried they might not have an opening, but they do!! She can start on October 6, but I don't have to go back to work until the 14th so she'll start full time then. I'm going to take her for a few hours on the 7th and the 9th so that we can both get used to her being there and I can get some things done around here before I have to go back to work (can we say MAJOR house cleaning!) so hopefully she'll like it! We haven't tried a bottle yet, but we're going to try that this weekend, I'm a little nervous because she really doesn't like her pacifier (I've tried three different kinds), it takes a while for her to agree that it's ok and she can use it to calm down! Anyway, that's my news and definitely an answer to prayers! We're hoping she'll be in the same class that Timothy was when he first started there, we really like those teachers.

Not much else going on, Brandon has to work a full day today and then only one more week of mandatory overtime!! I only have three more weeks at home before I go back to work, Charlotte has a cold and can't breathe very well, Timothy is having a great week, I just want to sit and hug him all day, he's just been so sweet and nice. I don't have any new pictures though, sorry...maybe later.

Sad but True

I always hate organizing the kid's closets because it means I have to box up the clothes that are too small and I always hate doing that because it's just another reminder that they're not going to be little forever. Timothy's closet is practically empty now, poor kid. He has one drawer that has pajamas and socks in it, and a shelf with some jeans and shorts and then he has probably half of his closet rack full of t-shirts and some fall shirts and that's about it! I can't believe he's getting so big, he's definitely in a 3T now and I think his shoes are a size 9 now, but I haven't had them measured in a while...he needs new tennis shoes for this fall though so I bet we'll find out soon enough how much he's grown!

Even Charlotte has a little pile of clothes that she's outgrown in one month already. I think it's because she's just so long! She doesn't fit in her newborn stuff anymore, she's moved up to the 3 month size and her ankles finally have enough fat on them to hold socks on!! So she officially has like seven pairs of socks she can wear now instead of the three that were the only ones she could keep on before! Anyway, it's just sad to see them growing up, but I'm very thankful to have such happy healthy children and to see each day how they grow and learn.

Here are a couple pictures of Charlotte in an outfit I got her from Threads (the Potterybarn Kids clothing store) that has her monogram embroidered on it...it's so cute, but unfortunately, too short now! Oh well!

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, not actually, but close...when we were pregnant with Timothy, our old computer crashed and we had to buy a completely new one. Now, days away from Charlotte's first month birthday, this computer is slowly starting to die as well. Something happened to it over the weekend and it stopped working, Brandon got it to work tonight (finally) and I'm going to list it on Craigslist and see if we get any bites and then hopefully use the money we get to buy a new laptop. We've wanted a laptop for a while so I'm pretty excited about that (really, I'm just excited because it means we can move the desk into our bedroom and turn the "office" into a play room for the kids).

Not much else going on here, Charlotte is growing like crazy, every day she seems like she's getting bigger and filling out more, especially her face, she officially has three chins now. She doesn't even eat that much and it seems like she spits it all back up, but I guess she's keeping some of it in! She is such a different baby from Timothy. He was so easy going and content and hardly ever cried and she is much more high maintenance. She is also much more easily affected by things that I eat that don't agree with her. My diet right now consists of mainly turkey sandwiches, Special K cereal, cheeseburgers, chicken, animal crackers and not much else. It's a little annoying, but I'm sure she'll grow out of it once her stomach matures a little more. She's sleeping great though, I usually put her down around 8 or 9 and she wakes up around 2 or 3 and then goes back down again (some nights are better than others) and wakes up around 6 or so. She's starting to coo a little and I swear she smiled at me today, but no one was around to see it...oh well.

Timothy is growing like crazy as well...he's really starting to copy Brandon and I a lot. The other day I was sitting on the couch feeding Charlotte and he was watching Lion King (his new favorite) and he turned around and said, "you ok back there?", it was funny. His other favorites when he's upset now are "that's enough", "there we go", "look at me", "you hear me?", and I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting...bottom line - we really have to watch what we say around him! He has also become very polite though, he'll say please and thank you and yes sir and no sir...we're still working on ma'am, but it's the thought that counts!

Anyway, here are some new pictures, we went to Tyler's soccer game this past weekend so Timothy had a blast playing on the field and it's been warm so I'm trying to dress Charlotte in all her "warm weather clothes" before she outgrows them and it gets too cold to wear them. Hopefully our computer will hang in there long enough for me to keep posting until we can sell it! If you know anyone that needs a computer, tell them to get in touch with us!

New Pictures

She's going to wake up any minute now and need to eat so here's some new pictures and I'll write more later...

Two Weeks Down...Lifetime to Go...

I can't believe it's already been over two weeks since Charlotte came into our family. Really, we've adjusted pretty well...even Timothy, he's really done well with his new little sister. He still ignores her most of the time, but when he does pay her any attention, it's always to hug her or kiss her or pat her cheek. Thankfully, she's sleeping really well at night and eating really well so we haven't had any problems to stress us out!

We had her two week check up this afternoon. I know I've mentioned it before, but our pediatrician's office does a parenting class with all the well child check ups so we were there for two hours, but it was great. The main doctor teaches the two week class and he's such a nice guy. I went to all the classes when Timothy was a baby, so it's not like it's new information, but it's been two and a half years almost since we had a two week old baby in our house, so it's a nice refresher! Anyway, she has been growing like crazy...she checked in today at 8 pounds, 15 ounces and 21 1/2 inches!!! She beat Timothy's two week growth by quite a bit! Other than growing like a weed, the doc said everything looked great and she seems to be doing really well. Thank the Lord for healthy babies!

Not much else going on here, last Friday we took Timothy to get a hair cut and then (finally) to have his two year pictures made. He was so funny during the hair cut, every time she would snip his hair he would say, "there we go"...he did not really want to cooperate for his pictures, but we got a couple cute ones. We attempted grocery shopping as a family of four and quickly decided that in the future I'll take Charlotte and we'll go by ourselves :)

So here are some of the newest pictures of our kiddos...Charlotte meeting her cousin Tyler and pictures of life around our house...enjoy!