Busy, Busy

It seems that we go weeks between posts these days...

What have we been up to?

Watching Lizzie grow (and make her mad face)... she now weighs just over 10 lbs and is 23 inches long. She is tiny compared to Henry. She is still in her tiny clothes- NB and some 0-3 months...

Golfin'- Henry and Daddy have gone 3 or 4 times in the last couple weeks. Daddy has taught Henry how to tee the ball up, how to putt and how to "put the ball in the hole!"
Playing with our trucks....

Watching Henry and Daddy play golf. She was as excited as her momma...

More to come soon, this time we promise!

Where are all the pictures?

Good question.

I think they are hidding with Lizzie's birth announcements and all of the thank you notes I have yet to write.

I am a bad mom.

All of those things will be coming before the end of the week though! I am in the process of ordering the birth announcement and I just dug out all my stationary to write thank you notes- FINALLY!

Stay tuned.

Selling our House!

So last week our house officially went on the market. Crazy times here at Casa George.

We have always known that the house we are in was a "starter home" (well a starter home with plantation shutters, granite and other lovely finishes!). There are only three bedrooms here, and now that they are all full it makes the house seem very small. We really want to be able to add one more child to our family in the future and so we need at least one more bedroom, we would really like an office and we would also love a guest room (in case someone wants to actually stay with us, especially with the kids living in our house!), a basement for the kids to play and a back yard big enough for running and jumping!

We are also thinking it is time to move given the current school district we are in. We knew from the day we signed our closing papers that our kids wouldn't be going to school in this district, and although we could chose to open enroll or send them to private, neither of those were ever really in our long term plans.

So the house hunt is on. We have no idea how long it will take to sell the house, and we are prepared to have the house listed through the summer and possibly through the very early fall months, but if we don't have anything by September we will take it off the market and try again in the spring- we just don't want to have to be on guard through the entire holiday season!

We have had one showing that has proven to be rather good- we are at the top of the list for the buyers, so only time will tell what they decide! In terms of finding a new house, that has proven to be more difficult. There have been a couple of homes we have liked, but neither of us can seem so agree on what we want and what is most important! We know that in the end it will all work out and that we will find a house that we love as much as we love this house.

My mom is actually our listing agent and she will be the one to sell us a new house too... bless her heart for working with us at all! Hopefully we will have good news sooner rather than later, but we will be sad to leave this house. We got married and had photos taken here at the house, we brought both our kids home to this house and this is the only home Henry has ever known. We also know that a new house will bring lots of new memories!

We will keep you posted!

Cloth Diaper Update

So, back when I was pregnant with Lizzie, I decided that we would give cloth diapering a try.

The response from our family, friends and if truth be told, my husband? Not good. Everyone thought we were crazy, the older family members assumed we were talking prefolds (which people still use, just not these people!) and my husband thought it sounded disgusting.

Well, we purchased our diapers- and we actually had a pretty good stash. We knew the diapers that we would use in the long run would be too big from the get go, but I didn't want to do disposables for 2 months (or longer depending on her weight and build) and then start the cloth process. My thoughts were two-fold: first, why put her super sensitive skin through 2+ months of chemicals (we had the most diaper rash in the first 12 weeks with Henry) and two, I knew if we got hooked on the disposables again we would stay with them because, well, they are easy.

So after we got home from the hospital and got through the "tar" phase we started the cloth diapers.

The diapers we thought we would love the most, Lil Joeys Rumparooz (the small version of the diaper we love) are actually the hardest to use. They are tiny (which is great fit wise) but they don't last longer than about 2 hours (less if she pees a ton or has a mini blow out) and they leak around the legs in that amount of time. But I will say they are ADORABLE and they are easy.

The diapers that I have really grown to love are actually the fitted diapers. We have a number of fitteds- including kissaluvs, thirsties and Bumbees. I like them all, but I love the kissas the best. They are super absorbant, easy to put on and really soft. These diapers do require a cover and we have three kinds- wool, fleece and thirsties adjustable. I love that the fleece and wool are so absorbent (she can go 8+ hours and the inside diaper is soaked, but not even a trace of moisture from the outside) but they are HOT and come summer, she will hate them. The thirsties are cute and easy. They come in all colors, are fitted through 9 months and have a velcro closure, which bryan likes.

Now, lets talk about washing the diapers. This was one of the things that I was the most concerned with, I mean, poopy diapers are not ideal to deal with, and diaper pails stink like crazy, so won't a pile of un-washed diapers? The short answer is, yes, they do stink, but with specially made wet bags, the smell is contained and special stain remover and detergent makes the stains disappear and makes the whole house smell good (our favorite is a handmade soap called Monkey Farts- it smells tropical, I love it!)

So washing, we wash the diapers every day, if not two times a day (depending on number of diapers changed) and it is easy, we make it work as a part of our schedule. The diapers don't get washed with other clothing, so it generally amounts to one full load on hot/cold, double rinse. EASY!

So, here is my final thought on cloth- if you can, cloth is the way to go. It is so much better for the baby, the environment, your pocketbook (ok, well in the long run. Happy B?) and lets face it, the diapers are cute!

Drive-Thru Life

With two kids, I now realize the importance of "drive-thru" businesses.

Sure, there are some drive-thru options that I have always taken advantage of, for example, banking. No joke, when Bryan and I got married and opened a joint checking account, it was the first time I had been in a bank in YEARS. I hate going into the bank. With kids, drive-thru ATM is the only option.

But there are some new ones that I just don't think I could survive without- the first is Sonic (or really anywhere with sweat-tea!). When I am craving a caffeine boost, I love that I can drive through and get a sweet tea (the biggest one they have of course, so it lasts all day!) The second is Starbucks. Get out of the car with two kids to pay for my $4 latte? No thanks. Drive through for my $4 latte- I would do that 2 times a day!

Now if I could only find a drive thru Chipotle, dry cleaners (I know some places have these, none around us though!), liquor store (again, I know they are out there, but to find one around here you need to drive to the ghetto! And sometimes I need a bottle of wine!) and most importantly, a drive thru grocery store- it always happens that at 4:30 in the afternoon with a VERY cranky 2 year old that I will run out of Very Vanilla Soy milk (and of course he won't touch anything else with a 10 foot pole). With two kids I can't imagine having to run to the store at that time of the night. So Super Target, please listen up and put in a drive-thru lane. I will be a long time shopper if you do!

Speaking of babies...

So with two kids, one boy, one girl, everyone seems to want to know, "Are you done now?"

The simple answer is no- we decided a long time ago that we would have at least 3 kids (I wanted four, Bryan was more on the three kid train) We love that our kids are almost exactly 2 years apart, and we hope to put the same amount of time in between Elizabeth and baby George number 3.

And although 2 years seems like a long time from now, in terms of giving birth two years from now, it means that we would have to start trying sometime next spring. And that seems close. Really close. I mean, a year flys by in the blink of an eye, especially with a toddler and a newborn.

It means a lot of other things for our family too- we need to move to have a third baby (we only have three bedrooms here), we would like to plan a babymoon with baby number 3, which means saving for a trip and trying to figure out who will watch our TWO kids, it means getting my body back in shape for pregnancy and learning how to deal with the two kids we already have!

The thought of being pregnant again is also overwhelming, I am not in love with the process, I never feel very attractive and if the next time is anything like this pregnancy I will feel icky for a couple months, and a 3 and 1 year old won't allow for much down time.

So there are my thoughts on more babies... and hopefully I am not alone in the feelings I have about our growing family!

Elizabeth Ruby George

Well, this time around we never made it to our official due date- April 9th. But we couldn't be happier!

At our 38.5 week appointment we talked with the Dr about the lack of Elizabeth's movement- we had spent the last week monitoring how much she was moving (or really how little she was moving) and the Dr decided that in the last week of pregnancy we might as well get Lizzie out! We started with the stripping of the membranes on Tuesday morning. The Dr told us we had about a 50% chance that it would kick labor off in 24-48 hours. In case that didn't work we were scheduled for an induction on Friday the 2nd.

Henry and I spent Tuesday with Nana and Papa- the weather was so beautiful and we needed to run a couple of last minute errands for the week. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to get out and get our errands done before the end of the week, and boy am I glad we were able to be out on Tuesday! My contractions started about 12- but they were very irregular and they didn't hurt much more than a braxton hicks contractions, by 4:00 they were a little more regular and painful, by 6:30 when Bryan got home from work I was sure that I was in full blown labor- but I didn't want to jump the gun.

I spent the next couple hours picking up the house, making dinner and playing with Henry while Bryan made hamburgers. By the time we put baby boy down for bed I was having contractions every 2-4 minutes, and Bryan decided it was time to call my parents to have them watch Henry. I was STILL not convinced that labor was actually real, so I took a shower and got pretty for the trip to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital at 9:00 pm, got checked in and up to L&D by about 9:30. At first check I was almost 5cm- I guess I was in labor after all! I waited a couple hours and a couple more cms to get an epidural- I decided that it was worth it to just be in less pain! After the epidural I was dialated to a 7 and 100% effaced. And then we WAITED. And waited a little more. We spent the entire night without much advancement, it was frustrating and exciting all at the same time. About 4:30 am they decided they would start pitocin, which did nothing! At 6:15 they broke my water, and about 6:53 I started pushing- two contractions and very minimal pushing and she was born at 6:57. It was so easy compared to my labor and delivery with Henry (where I pushed for 3.5 hours!)

She was a teeny tiny thing, weighing in at 7lbs and 20.5 inches (her brother was 8.1 and 21 inches).

So far she has been a much calmer baby than Henry was, her cry is quiet, she sleeps like a champ and eats even better. She has a little bit of jaundice but she is doing well. We are getting settled in to our new routine and Henry is starting to adjust to having the baby here. More updates to come soon!