This-n-That

So, I am a little behind in posting pics.  I had planned on posting pics of the new Rath baby - Miss Ellie Jo, and pics from Kara's baptism, and some of Allie and Kara, but it hasn't happened.  Don't know why, but I find it such a task to actually download the pics to the computer.  I prefer to keep them on our desktop so they aren't taking up space on the laptop...however I don't remember the last time I turned on the desktop computer.  Anyway... besides being behind in picture postings, here is what we have been up to...

I know I have said it before, but I LONG for routine.  That is the hardest part of having a newborn for me.  I like when they get to the point of sleeping 10-12 hours at night, nap from 9-11 and 1-3.  (At least that is the routine we had for Allison).  But it didn't start until 3-4 months or so.  Right now, is one day and night she sleeps good, eats good, and we are all happy.  Next day I can't hardly put her down, she cries and cries and I cry then.  It has been a rough week in that she was really colicky Tues. night and yesterday continued to be a really rough day.  We struggle with getting her to stay asleep when we put her in her bed.  It is so frustrating to have a sleeping baby and try laying her down and 10-15 min. later... WHAAAAAA.  I think we repeated this routine 100x yesterday!  I didn't think she was EVER going to sleep in her bed!  THEN luckily we had a good night when she finally went to sleep in her bed and now she has been napping there for 2+ hours!  (Actually I think it is almost 3 hours...I should probably get her up...but it is soooo hard to wake a sleeping baby!!).  I know it gets better, but for now, it is  hard.  Also hard to have a new baby in the summer.  She doesn't particularly like to be outside, so it is hard to do much of anything.  People say, oh, you are so lucky to have all summer off...I actually preferred Allison's birthday of being end of Sept. and having holidays off and then by summer she was old enough to take to the pool, and the lake, and I felt comfortable leaving her with a babysitter - AND I was done nursing.  But, Oh, well.  Christmas will be really fun this year and next summer will be great.  And I love her to pieces, the good days and the bad!

Congratulations Tom and Holli!

A quick Congrats to Tom and Holli and Big sister, Audrey!  Ellie Jo was born this morning.  Weighing in at 7lbs 9oz and 20 inches long.  Sounds like everyone is doing good and hopefully I will be able to post some pics later in the weekend!  I can't wait to meet her later today and I hear she looks an awful lot like her big sister too!  All these girls! 

1 Month

Miss Kara Marie is 1 month old today.  The month has passed in a blur of sleeplessness... I know it only lasts a short time in their life, but it doesn't make it any easier when you are going through it.  And I have "nightmares" (or I should probably call them "daymares") that it doesn't end with Kara and she won't sleep through the night and how will I ever go back to work like this.  But I know it will get better.  (PLEASE GOD!) 

But I should not complain.  Otherwise things have gone good.  And I have heard of much worse sleepers, at least she goes 4 and SOMETIMES 5 hours between feedings.  (Meaning I get 3-4 hours of sleep USUALLY, between feedings - sometimes she doesn't want to go back to sleep right away and that is hard too).  Life this summer is much different with a newborn.  I am looking forward to a few outings scheduled for July and Aug. before I go back to work.  Anyway, with all this eating she does, Kara has been gaining weight VERY well.  I am not sure, but if I had to guess, I would say she is close to 9lbs now.  We started doing a bottle of milk in the evenings now, which she takes 4-5oz of and this is only about 1-2 hours after nursing!!!!  Holy cow! 

Allie is doing great.  Today she asked me if she could change Kara's diaper though...I let her get me a diaper and wipes and she "helped" me wipe her.  She loves Kara and continues to want to constantly be in her face, touching her and kissing her.  Which I feel bad for Allison then because this usually results in Kara crying!  Poor kid.  She doesn't seem very offended by this though.  Anyway, better go.  Time to myself is short and a nap sounds sooo nice!

Sweet Baby!

Here are some more of the pics from Kara's newborn session.  I don't know how I am EVER going to decide what to order!!!  And Miss Kara is 4 weeks today!  She will be 1 month on Friday.  Sooo hard to believe.  I can't wait to see how big she is now, but we will have to wait until she is 2 months, at her 2 mo. appt.  (I sure hope we don't have to take her in for anything before that!). 

A Little Late...

Here are the rest of the maternity pics Steff did.  It seems like this was AGES ago...in reality it was only probably 2 months ago!  Oh, how life has changed since then!

Testing...

I am just testing to see if I am able to post these pics ok...  Here are a couple pics that were taken by Steff Jansen @ Photography By Steffanie.  The newborn pics were taken about 2 weeks ago.  Steff is a very talented photographer who also works with me as an RN on WCC at Rice.  She is wonderfully sweet and patient.  I couldn't believe how patient she was...we had a somewhat uncooperative newborn!  In fact we had to go back another day to try to get more pics.  Steff was wonderful!  I highly recommend her!  (FYI if you are interested, here is her website: http://www.photographybysteffanie.com/ I will post more pics later.

Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday for Father's Day we went to our annual Father's Day celebration with Jesse's family.  We were at Mark and Carrie's in Olivia this year.  Allison had a blast playing in the pool and Kara slept and was passed around to everyone, which she loved...I think we are paying for it today!  She was awake all morning.  (She did have a relatively good night...except for the fact she got up to eat every 3-4 hours after 2 nights of sleeping 5-6 hours it was kind of hard on me!  I was really hoping the 5-6 hour night stretches would continue!!).  Jesse had his first father's day as a father of 2 girls!  We feel very lucky and blessed to have 2 beautiful and healthy girls!! 

Jesse spent the day before Father's Day with my dad putting together a new swing set for Allison (and Kara too when she gets older).  Allison was sooo excited!!  Thank you, Dad, for all your help!!!!  Love you!

2 Week Check-Up

Kara had her 2 week check up on Friday.  She is getting big so fast!  She was 7lbs 5oz.  She has gained over an once a day - 15oz in 10 days!  So, I guess I must be doing something right!  Otherwise she is doing great.  Next appointment for her is at 2 months!  And then she gets her first set of shots...poor baby! 

We had pictures done last week.  Kara was one unhappy camper during our first attempt on Monday afternoon/evening, so she and I went back Fri. morning to finish up her pics (we just had to get a few more of just Kara, got done with family pics and pics of Allison and Kara).  Went MUCH better Fri. morning!  I can't wait to see them and I will share the link and pics when I can!!

2 Weeks and Home Alone!

Kara is 2 weeks old today!  In some ways it seems like it should be way MORE than 2 weeks and in some ways it seems like the past 2 weeks have flown by.  Those first weeks are so tough.  Kara is a good baby really.  But I long for the 3-4 month age when they are sleeping through the night (hopefully - we are all for sleep training then though!).  And life is back to more normal pace.  It is nice having the summer off, but I have a feeling it is going to be a pretty quiet summer.  Hard to do much of anything with a newborn!  Especially with nursing (but that is another blog...my love/hate relationship with it!).  Like I said she is a good baby for us.  Eats, sleeps and has some awake periods in the morning and evening mostly.  We tried to do newborn pics last night though...she cried for most of the entire session!!!  I wanted to cry.  We did get family pics and pics of Allie and Kara done though.  I am taking Kara back on Friday morning to try to get some of just the newborn...hopefully she is more cooperative! 

Also, today was my first day home alone with the girls.  Last week I was lucky enough to have my mom stay with us and then it was the weekend and Jesse has Monday's off.  So, today was it.  I begged and pleaded with someone to stay with me (just kidding - sort of!).  It went pretty well.  With all the crying Kara did at her photo session yesterday evening, she actually had a VERY good night!  So that was nice since I didn't get a nap today (should be doing that now, but felt bad about my neglected blog!).  Allie and I had a few episodes...to be expected.  She doesn't want to leave Kara alone when she is sleeping, luckily right now the kid can sleep through anything!  And nap time was a battle.  Allison is (hopefully) going to learn a lot of patience this summer.  She goes to daycare tomorrow...to be honest, I am looking forward to having the day with just Kara.  Well, maybe I can shut my eyes for a few minutes now before Miss Kara has to eat...we'll see!

Tubes and Adenoids...Done!

Last Friday Allison had her surgery again to have her second set of ear tubes placed.  On Wed. last week I called Dr. Pesola (the ENT) to see if she thought we should maybe take out her adnoids too.  Her pediatrician had asked me if they were going to do that too and Jesse had to have his out when he had tubes placed so, I figured it was worth looking into anyway.  Dr. Pesola agreed that since it was her second time and since we had a family history of adnoids we should do those too. 

Grandma and Allie waiting to go in.  (I was VERY thankful to have my mom's help!)

Allie with Ross the CRNA.  He is a big guy, surprisingly she went right with him.  Along with Kitty and Blankee.

We got to the surgery center at 7:30 a.m. Friday and she was in surgery right around 8.  Everything went quickly except her recovery period.  That took the longest the first time too.  Other families are coming and going and we are still waiting for her to drink something and wake up enough to go home.  But this time we also had another problem.  Dr. Pesola said that she was sooo full of mucous in her ears, throat, chest that they had to suction some out and irrigate it to intubate her for surgery and to do what they had to do.  Poor kid.  I had no idea.  She didn't even hardly have a runny nose and she had been in for her pre-op physical on Tues. that week and everything checked out fine.  Anyway, because of all the mucous, she was nauseated after surgery and so she wouldn't drink anything.  Finally I talked the nurse into just letting us leave and she would drink or I would call.  By noon she was drinking and done throwing up.  Poor kiddo.  One more round of antibiotics though, because she was so full of mucous Dr. Pesola prescribed an oral antibiotic and ear drops.  She is doing great now.  And hopefully this is it and Kara doesn't have ear troubles!!

Proud Big Sister!

Allie thought she needed her paci.  Kara grabbed Allison's hand.  Sooo sweet!

Allison is such a proud big sister!  She loves to hold, kiss and help with Kara in any way possible.  She is the designated burper!  She also loves to help with diaper changes and baths!  She has been so good.  We are proud of her too!  Poor kiddo has her surgery all set to go on Friday for ear tubes placed and they are going to remove her adenoids too - I just called today about that.  Jesse had to have his adenoids out and I figured if they were doing a second set of tubes we might as well do adenoids too.  I had asked about tonsils but Dr. Pesola didn't want to do those right now.  She said she usually waits until they are at least 3 unless there are major problems, which as far as I know it is just her ears. 

Delivery Day!

One last pregnancy pic!!  Just 1 hour before my c-section!

Here we go!  My doctor, Dr. Antkowiak is on the bottom of the pic - if that makes sense!

Brand spankin' new!!  Kara Marie - she cried and cried and cried...I think for the first 2 hours of her life!

Weight - 6lbs, 11oz

Length - 20.5 inches!  Wowza!  No wonder those knees, toes and elbows were constantly jabbing me!

Close up!  Crying away!!

Back in the room - all cleaned up.

Oops, little out of order, but first pic of the 3 of us in OR.  Hmmm, this must have been right before Jesse had to leave because he almost passed out!!  ;)