June and July Mashup

               Wow! I don’t even really know where to begin.  June and July are getting lumped together because if I don’t lump them I may never catch up on monthly updates, lol.  They have been a whirlwind and our life is completely different now, but we wouldn’t change a thing.  June and July have both been marked by waiting, first for Declan and now for a job/place to live, and they have been filled with adjusting to a new life as a family of four.

                I guess a good place to start would be our last few weeks before Declan arrived.  We tried to treat each day, especially our weekends as the last day we would be a family of four.  One weekend we had fun going to the Children’s Museum downtown because of a groupon I had purchased.  Boy how I wish we had discovered that place sooner because it is awesome!  Alethea had a blast and we enjoyed watching her have fun.  We also enjoyed one last trip to the beach with our good friends the Smiths and my mom (40 weeks and two days pregnant, lol).  The girls had fun playing in and out of the water and the parents had fun chatting. For our last fun outing as a family of three we took was on a trip to go visit waterfront park in Mt Pleasant.  We brought Chipotle to enjoy at the picnic tables on the pier and then took a nice walk before playing on the playground.  Lots of fun times. J

Playing in the surf with Mamaw

:-)

Love her!

We are so going to miss this family!

Best buds!

Last bedtime story reading before Declan's arrival

Walking the pier

Looking at the harbor

Helping Mommy time contractions

Painting nails to distract from contractions

Children's museum fun

My sleeping beauty

                After that, things become a bit more of a blur.  My mom came into town to be with us starting on June 13ths (Declan’s due date), then my dad came the day he was born and both able to stay until July 3^rd to help with the transition.  They were a huge blessing!  They helped us take care of Alethea while we were in the hospital (and out, lol), stayed here with me while Ben went on interviews, and played chauffer/weight bearer for me since I couldn’t drive or lift more than Declan’s weight during that time.  We also had a week- long visit from Ben’s mom as well as a day visit from his sister.  Basically we spent the rest of June enjoying our new little bundle and having fun with visitors in town…..and not really sleeping a whole lot, lol.

Big sister!

Welcoming Declan home

Reading with Grandma

The Mamaw-Grandma hand off

First family photo

Proud grandparents a such a huge blessing to us in the first two weeks!

                July was a month of adjusting to life as a family of four without any outside help.  Surprisingly, the adjustment time was not nearly as long as expected.  My parents left the day before 4^th of July, so Ben had a four day weekend for us to figure how we would tag team to parent 2 kiddos.  We were even able to go for a walk downtown and eat at Tommy Condon’s on their outdoor patio. This was our very first outing as a family and both kiddos did great.  It was a much needed outing for all of us!

Out to lunch for the first time in a while

Maxin' and relaxin' in the stroller while the rest of us eat.

                The following week marked my first week solo parenting while Ben was at work.  Monday went super smooth because Declan slept awesome throughout the day and Alethea was on good behavior for the most part.  However that didn’t stay the same the rest of the week.  Running on not a lot of sleep (since the doc still mandated waking Declan up every 4 hours at night), having an newborn that was still trying to figure out his schedule, having a toddler who was trying to see what she could get away with when I was preoccupied with her brother, and only having a 30minute period of time where their naps overlapped was really wearing me out.  I felt like a walking zombie for sure.  Then Ben came home Thursday informing me that he needed to go to Louisville for interviews the following week and invited us to come with.  Of course I chose to go with because I didn’t want to stay home by myself with the kiddos, but I was pretty much at a breaking point with stress having to pack for our first family of four trip in 2 days.

Day One home alone...

...was a success!

                Thankfully we made it safe and sound to KY with lots of family to welcome us.  Everything ran smoothly and the only thing we forgot was the laptop.  Forgetting that spoiled my plans of catching up on blog updates and posting photos as well as making Ben have to get creative to get his contacts for jobs, but in the grand scheme it was a small thing to have forgotten. J  Ben had a few interviews while we were there (one looking very promising for a job) and after being there we made the decision to turn down an offer he had received in a podunk town for not enough money.  We also had fun introducing Alethea to her Uncle Camden, Uncle Cody, Aunt Justine, Granpeg, Grandaddy, and Uncle Lee’s family.  We even got to spend an afternoon at the waterfront park where we had a picnic and Alethea got to play in the splash pad they have there.

Granpeg!

Camden

Sisters-in-love (a.k.a. law)

Picnic in the park

Alethea loves these ladies

Splash pad fun with Aunt Justine

Maxin' and Relaxin'

Grandaddy

She loves tending the garden with Papaw

Kaylee and Debbie...love his face

Lee

                Our travels didn’t end there because we had already planned to head to Ben’s sister’s wedding in Gatlinburg the following weekend.  Thankfully my parents were amazing and offered to join us for the trek so that they could help watch the kiddos while we participated in the wedding festivities.  I am pretty sure I would have lost my mind if it wasn’t for their help.  We rented a cabin up in the mountains and we were able to attend all of the festivities (with the exception of me not going to the rehearsal dinner).  My parents even brought the kiddos out to the wedding site (a waterfall) so that they could be there for pictures, meeting Ben’s family, and so Declan could eat.  My dad even chauffeured me to the reception at Melting Pot so that I could feed Declan before and then return back to the cabin and feed him again.  That way we could minimize the car trauma for the little boy since he had already driven from KY to TN the day before and would be driving from TN to SC the following day. Thankfully throughout all of our travels both kiddos slept great, but we were all exhausted and glad to be home by the end!

Meeting Grandpa and Aunt Vonnie for the first time

Story time

Three generations

Post-bathtime fun

Cuddles with Grandpa

All dressed for the wedding

Driving to the wedding during naptime

Alethea and the beautiful bride

Wedding site

Watching the wedding from afar 

All dressed up for the wedding

Evening snuggles in our cabin

Glad to be home and out of the car!

                That pretty much marks all the big events in June and July.  The only other big deal is that we finally got to return to church as a family on July 28^th.  Declan was just shy of 6 weeks but we felt he would still be okay to go.  We know our time is limited with our church family and we didn’t want to miss another week!

Going to church is tiring, lol

Can't get enough sleepy baby pics :-)

This was his first Sunday get-up

Kiddos after we got home from church

Having just a little fun. :-)

                Now for a small update on each of us, with the exception of Declan since he gets his own monthly blog for now. J Ben has been working hard on trying to find a job for post Navy.  He could probably have had a job in other places already, but we trust the Lord to provide a job in Louisville since that is where we feel the Lord wants us to live.  It has been a roller coaster, but he has been very determined and persistent in his efforts.  He has handed over all of his responsibilities as work, except teaching, so that has provided more time for his job search and for helping out at home.  He has also really been getting into lifting weights and working out.  Much of his free time (though there isn’t much right now) is spent working out or researching ways to eat healthier/to build muscle as well as the best ways to accomplish his fitness goals.  It has been pretty neat to see his excitement/changes and learn along with him.

                I enjoyed continuing to cook some of our favorites for the first few weeks of June, but since then I have had to keep things pretty low key on the cooking front.  In the last week of July, I was able to branch out a bit more, but it is still pretty basic.  It’s a season of life for sure, but I will be excited to cook more goodies as I figure out how to be more efficient at it with two kiddos at home.  The past two months of adjusting have opened my eyes to how much running is a huge sanity keeper for me.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by that since I ran 3 miles basically the same day I had Declan.  However, it has become even more obvious since I wasn’t able to run until the last week of July since I wanted to make sure my body had a chance to recover from my c-section.  It is a huge mood booster, and that as well as healthy food choices (and sleep which I am finally getting more of since Declan is now going 6-8.5hours at night) make me a much better mommy.  I am slowly relearning just how important it is to not completely ignore my needs.  Taking care of myself ends up making it so I can take care of my kiddos better.

So this wasn't for my first run, but it was the first time we took both out in the stroller :-)

I have also had to adjust to the fact that my baby weight is not going to come off as quickly this time around.  Running through pregnancy definitely helped with my pregnancy and made the recovery quicker, but I also think not running (as well as too many sweets consumed in stress eating) during the initial weeks of recovery sent my body into shock making it so I haven’t lost the weight as quickly.  I am still 4lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight now and I was already 10lbs below at this point post Alethea.  It probably sounds a bit silly, but I haven’t had to deal with not fitting into most of my clothes like this before so it’s an adjustment.

Last but not least, it’s time for a little Alethea update.  Unfortunately I have not been as good the past few months at writing down her achievements, but I will do my best to see what I remember.  She is still continuing sprout up.  I didn’t do stats in June, but in July I measured her and she was 39inches and 32lbs at 29 months old!  She is even getting so big that she is able to stand on the scale all by herself to weigh in.  She is not my little baby anymore for sure, but I love seeing what a beautiful little girl she is becoming.

Having a party with her friends

Maxin' and relaxin' in the carseat

She is almost to big for it!

First thing to note is that she is talking like crazy.  There is very little that we don’t understand and even others are able to understand her well.  It is pretty funny to hear all the things she says, especially those things that she repeats verbatim from hearing us say things, lol.  She loves to sing songs, read, and point out the few letters that she knows (O, T, and S) and I think all of these things are helping her language skills a ton.  She has even started praying on her own.  It has been so fun to see her excitement over praying and to see her actually be able to say prayers herself with very little coaching.  She also has begun drawing Os and Ts as well as people with eyes, mouth, arms, and legs (and sometimes a nose).

These past two months have shown great leaps in her conceptual understanding.  She is aware of tons of opposites and is very clearly able to recognize and articulate the differences.  One cute example is her ability to notice the difference between hot and cold.  When walking outside Granpeg told her to be careful on the hot driveway and Alethea said she was going to go where it was cold (in the shade).  She also asks for the cold air when we get in the car.  The other concept that is fun to see is her grasp of big and little.  She gets that people/things start little and get big, but hasn’t quite grasped the concept that they can’t go back to being little once they are big.  She will say “I can do….when I get big” when we tell her she is too little to do something, but then when we tell her that she is too big for diapers, bouncys, Mommy’s milk etc. she says “I can….when I get little”.  We are working on clearing up that misconception, but aren’t quite there yet, lol.

Future pianist?

She would rather pull than be pulled, lol

and push rather than be pushed

Never too big for the baby tub, lol

We have also definitely hit the twos with regards to behavior.  I would not say they are terrible because she is far from that, but they can be a bit frustrating at times.  She had already begun to test her boundaries before Declan, but she has stepped it up a notch since his arrival to see just want she can get away with while we are preoccupied caring for him.  Thankfully she is getting better each day, but it was a big challenge for the first few days.  She is also in the phase of wanting to do things by herself which is helpful and challenging all at the same time.  We are working on choosing our battles and helping her to foster her independence.  Much of it comes from her desire to control and so we have been working on letting her have the control as long as she is polite is how she goes about it.  Otherwise we end up with miss bossy-pants and that is no fun for anyone involved, lol.

"Let me do it by myselse (myself)" and she can...but of course I spot her

She still is an outdoors loving kiddo.  We have been doing lots of park play-dates and trips to our neighboring playground since those were place Declan could come too.  She always has a blast.  The pool at our complex has been frequented many evenings each week as well and she absolutely loves swimming.  We have even been surprised with how we she is swimming and her comfort level with going under the water when she jumps off our knees or is tossed into the water.  Alethea and I have also been having a lot of fun with sidewalk chalk many afternoons after Declan goes down for his nap, but before it’s time for hers.  We can’t go anywhere, but we still get to go outside for fresh and many times some great learning opportunities with chalk.  Another favorite activity of late is doing jigsaw puzzles and playing her new memory game.  I have been surprised especially with how well she is able to put her puzzles together.

See-sawing with Declan and Mommy

She loves to swim

Having fun with Mamaw at the pool

Rarrrr!

My little artist

She loves swinging on the big swing now

Goggle faces!

These are huge on her but she loves them!

Playing in the rain is fun...especially when you have a "pool" in your backyard, lol

"Look at my hands Mommy"

My little climber

Proof that Declan and I go to the pool too

The last thing I want to note is just how much she has loved being a big sister.  She absolutely loves him to pieces and the feeling is mutual.  Many times a day we here “I love him”, “He’s sweet”, “I love my brother”, “Where’s ‘Decken’”, “Can I hold him?”, etc.  She is also quite the little mommy.  When we are taking care of Declan, she is always trying to mimic the same things with her baby dolls.  She is even already a great “babysitter” so I can walk into the kitchen and she makes sure he is okay.  I can still see/hear them the whole time, but she loves this responsibility to feel like she is taking care of him.  I love how she is also my verbal mimic with him so whenever I am talking to Declan, it’s almost guaranteed that she is going to say the same thing to him, lol. It is so special to see their relationship developing already and to see how much she truly cares for him.  She will pretty much do anything for him or me (if it is going to help with him).  I know it won’t always be this way, but I am cherishing this season when it is so precious.

Patting his back

My loves

Her baby is swaddled in there somewhere

kisses

Bouncing her baby like Daddy bounces Declan on the big ball

Lotioning her brother with Mommy

Sometimes she forgets he isn't just another doll, lol

Sibling love

:-)

That was super long and I still probably missed something, but I wanted to make sure to get as much as I could remember written down about the past two months.  We are really enjoying this new adventure God has us on and we are looking forward to what the future has in store for us.