Busy week!!

Well, it has been a busy week around our house! Michael has been on night shift and I went back to work on a night shift as well. So needless to say I have been having to adjust our schedules and do a lot of juggling this past week. But I think we have figured out how to trade off on sleeping during the day and not disturb the girl's routine. Luckily, I am only picking up about one shift a week so I really can't complain too much! I get to be with the kids 95% of the time and also get to get out and have a little me time. (You know you have a house full of children when going to work is "me" time!). I am very blessed to be able to basically be a stay at home mom and thank the Lord that he has arranged things to work out that way. He knows whats best for our family!

So once I got my sleep on Friday the girls and I went and picked up Disney's Beauty and the Beast movie and a pizza. We had a great time snuggling and enjoying our movie night! Here is a picture of Hailey and Mary Kathryn watching the movie. They LOVED it and have watched it a couple more times since!



And here are a few pictures and a video the girls and I took of Bella over the weekend....

Chatting with Bella Part II...








Tummy Time on her surfboard with the swimming fishies!





Sitting in her bumbo chair....



And just being a Happy Girl!!!

Congrats to the Tarboro Police Department K9 officers!

I just wanted to take a minute to congratulate the four dedicated and hard working K-9 officers of the Tarboro Police Department; Keith and Santos, Jesse and Bullitt, Mike and Keno, and Michael and Tazer. What a wonderful accomplishment to recieve 1st place K-9 team at the USPCA PD1 K-9 trials! It is such a joy to see their commitment and training pay off in the ultimate way. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful group of officers and K9's serving our community!
I wish I had a picture of the team trophy to post, but they will be recieving them at a later date. Until then I have posted a picture of the 5th place overall trophy Michael and Tazer recieved this week. I have to say it took a bit of persuading to get Michael to let me mention and post the picture but I reminded him that this is my way of scrapbooking and documenting our lives and I don't want to leave out such a great accomplishment. (And congrats to Mike and Keno for getting 2nd place overall!)





On a side note, I also want to acknowledge the sacrifice of their wives who keep things running and care for children not only during the 4 days they were out of town for trials but also all the nights and days they are out working, training and protecting and serving! And thank you to Trina for being there for me and the girls in case I needed a hand. Luckily we stuck to our routine and did just fine but it was still nice to know she was there if I needed her! Plus, I had such great little helpers at home as evidenced by the picture below!:)

Prowlers in the house?!

One thing that I have learned from having children is that they never cease to amaze you in so many different ways. They most certaintly amazed us in a most comical way this weekend!
Saturday night we put Hailey and Mary Kathryn to bed at around 9:00pm. Since it was a weekend night we let Mary Kathryn sleep with Hailey in her bed. When we went to bed later that night the girls were both sleeping soundly. At around 2:30am Michael woke after hearing several bumping noises coming from somewhere in the house. He said he listened and became sure that he could hear someone moving around and just knew someone was in the house. He started to head downstairs to check things out and noticed that Hailey's bedroom door was shut and he could see light coming out from under the door. He opened the door and looked in only to see Hailey standing at her dresser brushing and arranging her hair and Mary Kathryn sitting on the floor writing on a dry erase board and surrounded by stuffed animals and dolls pretending to teach them! He said the scene looked just like something that would go on during the middle of the day! Michael, who cycles through night and day shifts at work, said that for a moment he wondered if it was he that was confused whether it was night or day. After glancing over at Hailey's princess clock and seeing that it indeed was 2:30am he asked the girls "WHAT are you girls doing? It is 2:30 in the morning!". He said that Hailey and Mary Kathryn both looked shocked and said "We thought it was morning!". Apparently, the moon was so bright coming through the closed blinds in Hailey's room that Hailey had woke Mary Kathryn up to play! And play they were! There is no telling how long they were up playing dress up and school. Lucky for me and Bella, we slept right through their middle of the night playfest. This is sure to be one of those funny stories we talk about for years to come.

Little Miss Bella is 2 months! Here's what she's been up to....

Believe it or not, Bella turned 2 months old on the 17th of this month. Where in the world does time go?! It truly seemed like the longest 9 months ever leading up to her birth and now it seems I can't hold on to the days tight enough! Yesterday I took Bella for her 2 month checkup with Dr. Alligood.
Here is a picture of Bella with Dr.Alligood at her 2 month visit.


She is doing great and now weighs in at 11 pounds 6.5 ounces and is 23 inches long! She is wearing 0-3 month and some 3-6 month clothing, size 1 diapers and drinking anywhere from 3 to 4 ounces of breastmilk (when measured in a bottle). She is on a 3 hour schedule with her feedings around 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm, and 2:30am. During the day she feeds, has 1-1 1/2hrs of wake time and sleeps the rest of the 3 hour cycle. She has bath time at around 9:15pm every night and starts smiling as soon as she hears the water running! Her hair has grown little curls on top of her head and she is still donning her itty bitty bows stuck to the top of her head with a dot of KY jelly ( Thank you Heather for making her those and filling me in on the trick!)



She loves her swing, bouncy seat, and her playmat.



She can follow an object with her eyes, turn towards voices she recognizes, and can lift her head up for short periods of time. Bella loves watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse, smiling and cooing at her sisters, talking to Mommy and Daddy, and her Wubbanubs (Thank you Tara for your post on that. I never would have known about them!).


Of course it was not all fun at this appointment. She recieved her 2 month immunizations and I'm not sure if it hurt her or me worse! Poor thing was feeling under the weather all day and still a little this morning. Overall, she is growing like a weed, chubby, happy, and in the words of her pediatrician "she has the sweetest disposition". And I have to agree with that of course!:)

....Talking with Bella.....

Each morning after taking the girls to school, Bella and I come home to play and talk before she lays down for her nap. During her waketime Bella has tummytime, lays on her playmat, sits in her bouncy chair, or more recently, swings in her swing. (Thank you to Nikki and Steven for passing this down to us!) This morning she was swinging, talking and watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse. Of course I know she is just looking at the pretty colors but she seems to enjoy it so much! Here is a video of Bella swinging, talking, and watching Mickey Mouse.

Kicks, Jumps, and LONG strides towards sleep!

This past week the girls got started on all of their extra activities. This year those activities include soccer and cheerleading for Mary Kathryn and tumbling and cheerleading for Hailey. Of course, we always remind them that school and grades are ALWAYS first and have to be the BEST that they can be! Hailey has always done great in school even while participating in cheerleading in the past, so I hope Mary Kathryn is also able to do this. If not, then no extra activities! Bella, of course, is not quite ready for those things, but she is working very hard on cooing and smiling and heading towards a full night of sleep!



Kicks



Michael, with his full house of girls, has been waiting for one of them to play a ball sport. Lucky for him, Mary Kathryn has been begging to try soccer and after her first couple of practices, she is very much into it. She listens very carefully and really concentrates on trying to kick the ball just like the coach tells her. She did complain after the first practice that she was kicking the ball and a boy kicked it away from her. It took us a little while to help her to understand that he was just doing what he was suppose to do. That the other team is supposed to try to get the ball from her and she is supposed to try and get the ball from the other team. After the explanation I think her feelings were not hurt quite as much!



Here is a cute picture of Mary Kathryn at soccer practice.







And here is what Bella does for most of the practice....


And here is what Hailey does....

Jumps



Hailey also started on a semi traveling cheerleading squad this past week at ECCATS in Greenville. Needless to say, she LOVED it! Just in the first 2 hour practice she learned SO much. Her coaches are great and she went on and on about how nice everyone was. What I love about ECCATS is the room overlooking the gym especially for parents. It runs the full length of the gym with huge windows so you can see everything going on below. Mary Kathryn stood at the window watching and once she saw that there was a squad of 5 year olds just her size, she was beside herself for us to sign her up. After finding out that they practice at the same time as Hailey's squad we agreed and she will start next week. Since then that is all we have heard about. Everyday she wants to know how many more days till cheerleading! Next week Hailey will also start tumbling for an hour before her squad practices. So, if you have been adding up how many hours we will be spending there, it is 3 hours total. But the great thing about it is that it will be only 1 night a week. Once soccer is over next month we will only have that one night of cheerleading and nothing the rest of the week! I was very thankful that there was a room off to the side upstairs that other nursing moms were using to feed their babies. I am so glad I will not have to go to the car every time I need to feed Bella! Also, there is a Fresh Market grocery store ( love it!) right down the road from the gym, so I may use that night for me and Bella to get our grocery shopping done for the week. Unfortunately, I was so busy filling out paperwork, tending to Bella, and attending a parents meeting, that I wasn't able to get any pictures of Hailey's first practice. But, I am sure there will be plenty of cute cheerleading pictures and videos to come! Until then, I have put a link to a video on ECCATS website. To see the video of some of the fun things Hailey and Mary Kathryn will be doing, click here.



LONG strides towards sleep!



The past week or so Bella has only been waking up ONCE throughout the night. We give her a bath (Oh my goodness, that child adores a bath) at about 9:30pm after putting the older girls down. I feed her and put her down for the last time at about 10:30pm. After that she only wakes at 2:30am to eat and goes back to sleep until 6am. Yay! Hope it lasts!:)

6 week old + stomach virus + cold = 1 pitiful Bella

This past weekend was not a fun one to say the least! Last Friday morning Bella began vomiting every time she ate and was gagging and coughing even between feedings. Needless to say, after almost 6 weeks of eating well with minimal spitting up, I was one concerned Mama! After a trip to her pediatrician she was sent to the hospital for a barium swallow. Thank goodness, the test showed no signs of pyloric stenosis or any other problems and it was determined that she had a stomach virus. Her doctor advised having her drink pedialite only for 6 hours to give her stomach a rest. Luckily, it seemed to help and Bella was vomiting a lot less over the next day. Unfortunately, she had also picked up a cold and was very congested. So in addition to a pedialite regimen I was also suctioning her nose constantly so she could breathe easier. Poor Bella! I felt so bad for her! She was absolutely miserable and there wasn't really much I could do but let it run its course and cuddle her as much as possible. Mary Kathryn had gotten a "runny nose" the day before and I probably should have seen it coming. With two older children in school I figured they would bring home some colds and such, but the very first week, REALLY! I am so glad the stomach vomiting is well in the past and besides a little bit of nasal congestion, the cold is better as well. There will be a WHOLE LOT of hand washing and hand sanitizing going on in our house. I have always stressed this to the girls but after this I'm sure I'll be chasing them around with a bottle of hand sanitizer. Right before she got sick, Bella had begun to smile and coo at us but I was unable to get a good picture of it. As she was recovering from her bout of illness we didn't see much smiling going on but finally she is feeling better and here is my happy baby again!!!

And still just as pudgy as ever!