Target run P.S.

So Miss Raya  is officially a sticky fingered thief!! Yesterday at Target Raya was playing with a little bouncey ball in the  toy aisle. When it  was time to move on I told her to put it back, and she DID go back and *appear* to put it back on the shelf. Fast forward to Mama at home unpacking the diaper bag and there I find that bouncey ball!!!! I  had put the  diaper bag on the bottom of the cart b/c that was the only spot for it, and apparently Miss  Raya thought she'd sneak  the bouncey ball home :-o I wasn't a bout to drive back  to Target to return a $1.99 ball, and clearly Miss Raya had no idea what she did, so she's now the proud new  owner of a bouncey ball to call her  very own lol.

Here she is hugging the ball this morning :-P

Oh, and that  shirt she's wearing? Well in Target she spotted this shirt way across the way and started shouting "Mick Mick! Mick Mick!"  ...that's what  she calls Mickey Mouse :-) She was so darn cute and does love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so I decided she could have the shirt as her valentine's day present  haha.

She's wearing it proudly today!

I"m normally not  a fan of characters on clothing, shoes, etc....but I didn't think this shirt w as too bad....and Raya keeps pointing at her shirt  saying "Mick Mick!" so that's pretty stinkin' cute :-)

...her cuteness was cut short when she decided to throw a giant tantrum for something in the fridge--I never did figure out what the heck she wanted

She was not  happy with me!

She  tried giving me her  pouty "please" face, but despite the adorable  factor I did not give in!

So then to further illustrate her dismay she started taking off everything from the fridge and throwing it on the floor. .....and yes, she knew EXACTLY what she was doing!!!!

The destruction....

At which point I  decided to focus my attention on my sweet daughter instead :-P 

And to everyone who says oh, you can't spoil a newborn I say just take a look at Brielle's face...she's spoiled! :-)

And yes, she's hugging my boob, which looks ungodly huge at this angle LOL



Later today Aunt Megan and Uncle Shawn arrive, and Lee finally comes home too....yay for all of the  above! I probably won't update the blog again until everyone leaves after  this weekend, so just an FYI :-P

I'm outnumbered.

So today I wanted to attempt going somewhere by myself with both kids. I've been intimidated by the idea of taking them out alone, so I decided a quick Target run would be a good goal...baby steps people :-P Well, Raya woke up at the buttcrack of dawn this morning, which then made it impossible for me to get a shower this morning (I can't  shower when that kid is awake....she gets into EVERYTHING!) ....so then I had to wait until Raya took her afternoon nap to try and squeeze in a shower. Of course Brielle had a shit fit about 2 minutes into my shower so I  had to quick  rinse my hair and hop out to shut  her  up before she woke up Raya! haha. Well finally  by like 3pm I had showered and we were ready to go. It took a good 15-20 minutes to get out the door (packing the diaper bag for 2 kids, getting Raya  in her hat, coat, boots, loaded into the car....then getting Brielle all bundled in her carseat and loaded into the car). By the time I left my driveway I was already exhausted! haha. The kids were (thankfully) good in the car and then once I got to Target I had to grab a cart in the parking lot and try to figure out how I was getting them both inside ! Well Brielle's carseat had to go in the main part of the cart, and then with her seat in there I had no place to set our  diaper bag or coats, so those had to pile underneath the cart....and then the seat in front wouldn't pull  out all  the  way b/c Brielle's carseat was blocking  it, so Raya had to walk next to the cart for most of the trip, which was of so fun and made it take about 2 hours to go down one aisle (not counting the time I lost her and then found her playing with bottles of wine in the alcohol aisle!). Brielle was decent, except for the 5 minute screaming fit--and in case you don't  know, newborns have a wail that will pierce your eardrums.

I was  never so happy to get back home in my life :-P

Final score= Mama 0, Girls 1

And on that note, here's a couple quick pictures of those darling daughters this morning (Brielle was still in her  pjs :-)

If Brielle had  a "thought bubble" in this picture I can only imagine what it  would say!!! :-P

Lastly, it's getting really hard to do comparisons of Raya and Brielle's baby pictures now, b/c all the clothes Brielle is wearing (or is waiting to grow in to!) are clothes that chunk butt Raya wore in her first week! Here is an outfit that Raya wore at about 4 days old, and Brielle just wore it yesterday (it's still too big!) at 15 days old haha.

They really  aren't looking much alike here at all! Of course Raya has a paci in which makes it hard to tell. But Brielle is still so tiny compared to Raya! I'm also noticing that Raya had more noticeable eyebrows than Brielle  does, and Raya's eyelids are "droopier" or something.

One more for the road...

Gettin' in to the swing of things

I think I might  finally be  settling in to my new role as mom of 2 :-) Raya went to daycare for a bit  this morning while I cleaned up the house, took a shower and got ready, fed Brielle, etc...then I picked Raya up (she had another  good day over there!) and fed her lunch. Then she went down for a nap and  I baked cupcakes (yum!) and now I'm waiting for Raya to wake up and I'm wearing a sleepy Brielle in my wrap carrier. Tomorrow I'm even contemplating t aking both kids  with me on a Target run! We'll  see. Raya is  done with daycare until maybe a day next week, and I'm dying to get out of the house for awhile. Then on Friday Aunt  Megan and Uncle Shawn arrive, and on Saturday Grandma and Grandpa H. come up, so we should have  a fun weekend!

Tonight we have  movers coming  to get an estimate for our relo company of how much it's  going to cost to haul all  of our crap haha. We still haven't officially  chosen our realtor, but the one we're leaning towards seems to think he could have our house under contract  within 60 days of listing it...so we'll see! I think  we're going to start looking at new houses once ours gets listed...so that we can be looking for new places at the same time as we're marketing our house...and then pray that things come together and we find a house we like just at the perfect moment when  our house sells :-) The realtor thinks that  the 3 "challenges" to selling our house is that there is no separate master bath, no completed family room, and the driveway is somewhat steep.  However he said that he thinks people will  overlook the lack  of master bath since the main bath has direct access to the  master and is totally updated, and he  thinks that  people will recognize that  our downstairs family room could easily be finished more "professionally"...and the driveway he thinks people  will overlook in order to get into this  highly desirable area. SO, let's hope he's right! Lee's goal  is to have our house listed by mid  February.

Ok, now for some pictures. Miss Brielle has  been  such a cuddler lately, and  last night the  little stinker slept snuggled on my chest for  a chunk of time in the wee hours of the morning lol. She's happy as can be as long as she's eating or snuggled by you :-)

This was us just  kickin' back  this morning in our pjs.

Cutie pie :-)

She's getting a little "chunk" on those cheeks!

As much as she likes to sleep and cuddle though, she's also spent more time awake the last  couple days! She sometimes will stay up for 30 minutes or more just  looking around!

I  love see more of those pretty eyes!! (Oh, and I've had many people comment on Brielle's pretty eyes in her sneak peek photos...yes, her eyes ARE a dark  blue right now! In the pictures I take her eyes tend to look really black, but  much of that is b/c she has "red eye" in most of her photos,  and the photo editing software I use gets rid of red eye by making them black. But when you see her eyes in person they are a deep dark  blue. It'll  be interesting to see if they stay blue or eventually turn brown like big sister's! )

And speaking of big  sister, she ate lunch at home today rather than at daycare---since he  picky eating habits didn't mesh with daycare lunch so well yesterday haha. What did the diva eat today? A peanut butter sandwich, applesauce, and grapes :-P

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Speaking of eyes, Miss Raya's big brown eyes are just gorgeous...check out those eyelashes!!!! She'll never need mascara :-P

Time now to go frost my cupcakes! :-)

Sneak Peek

Brielle's "sneak peek" photos from her photoshoot last week are up. Unfortunately none of the pics are of any of the props I brought along...so we'll have to wait until the rest of the photos are ready to see those. The 3 photos she posted are of her new wrap/ hat she had made and so I'm sure she wanted to show that on her blog. Hopefully it doesn't mean that none of the pics using my props turned out though!

I do like the 2nd photo in the sneak peek though. This one here

 I like the 3rd one too, but wish she had a headband or something on to girlie it up a little. ....but my photographer likes to do some photos of just the baby, without all the accessories :-P

Here's the link to the 3 sneak peek pics: http://atplayphoto.com/blog/?p=2147  I'll let you know when the rest are ready!

Sisterly Love

I took  these pictures yesterday...Brielle was wearing a onesie from our friend Bridgett that said "world's cutest little sister" ...so  of course I had to try to take some sister pictures :-) Neither child was being too cooperative though! haha

Sorry Brielle, you will learn that sometimes unflattering pictures will be posted of you, if Raya is actually looking at the camera. Her attention to the camera is so rare now that it trumps you :-P

Raya was being a pill  yesterday and didn't want me to help her hold Brielle, but she was being pretty rough....so I ended up having to take Brielle away from her, at which point Raya  had a shit fit :-P

Today Miss Brielle is 2 weeks old! She had her 2 week doctor's appt. today and the doctor said she looks just  perfect. He thought the jaundice was looking totally fine and under control, her weight is now 6lbs 8 oz (one ounce above her birth weight, which is great...the general rule is that they want babies to be at least back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks old)...Brielle was 19 inches long, which is 1/4 inch longer than birth, but that could just be b/c  she's less curled up now than she was at birth. Length is a hard thing to measure on newborns. Oh, and her  cord stump fell off today at the doctors! haha...so glad that's when it happened to, b/c the actual moment of the stump falling off grosses me out :-P  ...the funny part is that Raya w as 8lbs 12oz and 20 inches at birth, and by 2 weeks was up to 9lbs 4oz! haha. She grew fast--so it's somewhat refreshing to have Brielle take things a little slower this time :-)

Raya went to daycare this morning, but  is  home now (everyone's napping!). She cried a lot when I dropped her off today, but Erin said she had a good day overall. They  played outside  in the snow :-) Erin did say that Raya didn't really eat much lunch....but  I told her that  unless she was serving peanut butter sandwiches and cookies or something that didn't really surprise me lol. When Raya got home she was starving and threw a giant tantrum for food, so since I just needed her  to eat and go to bed I let her pick  out what she wanted to eat. She looked through the cupboard and carefully chose a container of baby food prunes and a pudding cup hahaha. She happily ate those things up and went to bed :-P

She's trouble!

To end, here are a few more random pics  of Brielle from yesterday

Since Bridgett gave her the onesie and we know she likes hats, not headbands, we put on a hat for a picture :-P

....however Brielle didn't have  rave reviews for the hat lol

That's all  for today!

Visit from Grandma F.

Today Grandma F. came up to visit--worried that Brielle had started walking and talking in the week since she'd seen her  last :-P

Brielle was happy to get extra cuddles!

Raya was the biggest  cuddle bug though!

She just LOVES giving hugs and  kisses!

While  Raya  and Grandma were looking outside  for squirrels, birds, and Raya's "elephants", Griffin became very interested in checking things out as well!!

It  worked out well  that Grandma was here today, b/c the second realtor showed up this afternoon. Lee and I  aren't sure what to do now though, b/c we liked the first realtor better on a personal level, but the realtor tonight is from a bigger realty company and from a sales standpoint might be  a better choice. We'll have to think about it a little more! The good news is that is sounds  like both realtors are pretty close in what they think we should list the house for, and it's a price we're pretty happy with...

Tomorrow I have  both girls all day by myself again...depending on how brave I'm feeling I've contemplated taking them to the library in town. I figured Brielle can stay in her carseat and relatively germ free while Raya plays and picks  out some books. Then Tuesday Raya is going to the babysitter in the morning while Brielle has her 2 week  checkup!

Ok, a few more pictures to end...

Tonight I had Lee take care of Raya after dinner  b/c Brielle was sleeping on my shoulder and I just  could not force myself to stop cuddling my little peanut! :-)

She is such a precious little thing...I can't  stand it!

Goodnight!

It's 5am, and I'm feeding a very hungry baby AGAIN!

Doesn't everyone update their blog at 5am? haha  Brielle is a hungry girl and I figured if I have to be up for this long I might as well be productive and do a quick blog update! :-)

Yesterday we went into town to celebrate my birthday. It wasn't as disasterous as I expected lol. We went out to eat and Brielle slept the whole time in her carseat, until the very last 10 minutes when I had to hold her. Raya was good, but only would eat bread, french fries, and teddy grahmns (which our waiter gave her haha)....all three things she insisted on dipping in ranch dressing---yes, the teddy grahmns too! Whatever :-P  Then after dinner Lee let me order dessery since it was my birthday. I got strawberry cheescake and it was HUGE...they brought it out on this giant platter with 3 forks. And oh my, missy moe about blew a gasket over this unexpected treat! She took her giant fork and started shoveling cheesecake into her mouth! Even after I was full and stopped eating she was still going strong....so we just pushed the plate over to her and let her go at it lol. Finally she did decide she was full too :-P She may look like her daddy, but she eats like her mama!!

Then we went to the mall b/c I wanted to check Maurices and try to get a couple new shirts--yay for no more maternity stuff! :-P Unfortunately I had to go FAST---Lee was pushing around both girls and I knew Brielle's countdown had begun...she was going to need to eat! I quick found one shirt and got it in 2 colors before making a quick getaway haha. I still ended up having to carry Brielle out of the mall (trying to keep the germ-infested air off of her!) and then had to feed her in the car before we could leave...but all in all it was a pretty successful trip out with 2 kids under 2.

Today my mom is coming to visit, and apparently that other realtor *might* be coming today too, so we'll see.

Ok, now for a few quick pictures. Nothing to exciting since we were gone during the day and Brielle wore a repeat outfit (gasp!)...that's what happens when only a handful of things actually fit her right now!

Brielle always "poses" in her sleep....it's too cute

Pose #2...

...and #3 (and yes, she often sleeps with her eyes half open!! It's creepy!!! I am constantly pushing her eyelids down for her so that I'm not creeped out :-P)

Miss Raya threw a bit of a tantrum this afternoon...mad about not being able to hold Brielle, not being able to eat more cereal, etc. etc.

Daddy dressed her today and did her hair....if you're wondering why she looks a hot mess lol. I've learned that when daddy takes initiative to do something you don't say a word!! Otherwise he won't offer ever again haha

....begging to get Brielle out and hold her....

another epic tantrum when told the baby was sleeping....

Daddy and Brielle! He's definitely not a baby person, but I sure hear him telling her "you're such a sweetie" an awful lot! :-)

That's it for today....I'll try to get together some more exciting pictures next time !!