Three Week Pics, Take 2

Since Sarah's still at the "I'm a newborn (a.k.a. blob) stage", I was totally underwhelmed by the picture I posted of her on Friday night.  You couldn't see her very well and she just looked so scrunched up since I propped her up in the sitting position... so I decided to take a few more pictures on Saturday and was definitely more pleased with the results!

 

I LOVE this adorable embroidered blanket that Kristin, Aaron and the girls gave us as a baby present for Sarah!!

After I had taken about the first two pictures of Sarah (the two above are the best out of about 40 I took!), doesn't-miss-anything Nathan came running into the room with his arms full of stuffed animals to get in on the fun.  He was NOT happy when I told him that I was just taking pictures of Sarah and that I needed him to wait.  In fact, there were quite a few tears even as Gran tried to distract him with offers of playing blocks.  So after I was pretty sure I had gotten some good expressions from Sarah, Nathan hopped up on the chair to share the limelight with his sister (after I dried his eyes, of course).

And before it was all over, we got Daddy in on the picture-taking action!

Three Weeks Sibling Pic

During most of Nathan's first year, I tried to do monthly photo shoots with him to document his growth over that period of time. This time around, I was hoping to do the weekly photos with Sarah, mainly because I know that as the second child I'll probably be taking significantly fewer pictures of her then I did of Nathan as an infant. But as you saw last week, and as you can see from the picture above, Nathan is not about to let his little sister get a photo op without him involved! In fact, because I had her pink bear sitting with her, he had to run and grab Ra-ra, Kitty Cat and (this week) Bear out of his crib.  But at least I can prop Sarah up against Nathan!

Over the past week, Sarah has definitely been less sleepy then during the first weeks.  Overall, this is a fun development... except when it comes to putting her down for naps... or, even worse, for the hours between 6ish and 10ish at night.  Although most of my ideals for her sleep have come crashing down around me, I am still committed to TRYING to put her down for naps and bed awake but drowsy so that she can learn to fall asleep by herself (trying to avoid some of the worst sleep issues we had with Nathan during those first months).  But the evening hours have been pretty difficult for the past few days, as Brian, Gran and I have been passing her around, holding her and trying to keep her from fussing but never really getting her into a deep sleep and certainly not getting her to sleep in the crib.  Tonight (so far) has been a much better success with her sleeping in her crib, for which I am so thankful!  Especially since Brian works nights next week and I've decided that after my Mom goes home it's time for me to sink or swim as a mom of two (though help has assured me it's only a phone call and a few hours' drive away)!

Sarah keeps smiling more (involuntarily I'm sure), but it is so adorable and I can't wait until she starts smiling on purpose!  She also has this sound effect that she makes, probably a grunt, but Brian calls it her "machine gun sound."  Unfortunately she was doing it a lot last night when I was nursing her in bed, which made it much harder for Mommy and Daddy to doze during the feeding.  She also continues to surprise me how contented she is, right after a nap and feeding, to sit in her  little chair or to lie on her back while life goes on around her.  She also loves looking at the Christmas tree lights!

Nathan's Hopped Up Power Wheels

Brian decided it was time for some modifications to Nathan's power wheels.  Granted, Nathan was sometimes having trouble driving up the little hill in our backyard and the additional tread that Granddad, Daddy and Nathan applied to the back wheels didn't completely solve the problem.  So there was legitimate reason for Brian to add some power to Nathan's car.  It turned out that the modifications happened the night before I went into labor, so the next morning before heading to the hospital, Brian took Nathan out back (still in his pajamas) to test out his hopped up ride.  Those Kornrumpf men and their cars!  (Just kidding!  I told Brian to go ahead while I timed my contractions.  We both wanted to make sure it wouldn't pop a wheelie with Nathan on it before we left for a few days.)  Gran and Pawpaw later reported that Nathan spent a lot of that day outside riding his power wheels, grinning from ear to ear!

Here's a video of Nathan riding and showing off some of the tricks he likes to do, including:

• Pulling his "trailer"
• Running into trees
• Man-handling his power wheels out of tough situations
• Riding with his legs propped up on the front fenders
• Playing bumper cars with a big ball
• Leaning into those sharp corners
• Steering with his "trick" grip
• Imitating Evil Knievel

Other amusing snippets include him adjusting his "cool headband" and performing tree inspections.  Enjoy!

Two Weeks Old and Sibling Pics

I'm still SO THANKFUL for how much Nathan seems to adore his little sister. Not that he hasn't had any adjustment issues, but none of them have affected his fascination and excitement about Sarah. As I mentioned before, he loves to sit down next to her in their respective chairs...

...and was also excited to have his picture taken with her (though he didn't want to put his arm around her).

And here's Sarah at two weeks old with her pink bear.

Thankful for Our First Bath!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Nana and Granddad! Carroll did almost all the cooking, the food was wonderful, and the timing for Sarah's feedings and naps worked out beautifully with dinner! Here we are before devouring our Thanksgiving feast:

And after being fed right before dinner, Sarah sat contentedly in her chair through THE WHOLE MEAL! Though she doesn't look thrilled about it here...

Later that day, we gave Sarah her first bath.  Yeah, it took us almost two weeks to give Sarah her first bath.  Some things just don't seem so important the second time around... it's not like she was playing in the dirt all day like Nathan does now!

Since her umbilical cord had fallen off a while before (day eight I think), we went straight to using our baby bath tub.  I think Brian made the call to put it over the kitchen sink, which made Sarah super happy as she stared out the kitchen window during most of the bath!

Scrub-a-dub-dub on her little head!  Daddy handled the whole bath by himself.  What a pro!

Sarah was super content through the whole thing...

...but once we got her out of the water, the crying commenced.

Here we are with our sweet, clean girl!

And that picture (intentionally) is reminiscent of one about two years ago with a different little bundle of joy!

A Trip to Lowe's and A Growing Girl!

Carroll kept Sarah the other night while Brian, Nathan and I headed to Lowe's to pick up some supplies for a little home project. Nathan had a blast "driving" the racecar cart he picked out (too bad it wasn't as easy for Brian and I to steer that gargantuan cart!) And one of Nathan's new favorite things to do is to direct us with his declarations of "This way! That way!"



I also was pretty amused as I followed Brian and Nathan down the aisle, watching Nathan mimic Brian's hands-behind-the-back posture.  He is so observant and loves to copy EXACTLY what the adults around him are doing!

And for a Sarah update: her right eye started looking gunky yesterday (and I think it had been more watery then the other since she was born), so I called for an appointment with the pediatrician just in case it was an eye infection like Nathan had two weeks ago. When we went in, Dr. Becky said it was most likely a blocked tear duct but gave us some medicine since we were going into the holiday weekend. The good news was that when they weighed Sarah, she was 8lb 5oz. So she gained 13 oz in the past week, almost 2oz a day! She'll be out of her newborn clothes soon if she keeps going at this rate! And because she was growing so well, Dr. Becky told me that I didn't need to come back until she was 1 month old, so I got to cancel the check up we had scheduled for next week and we'll see the doctor again in December.

Ra-ra's Minor Surgery

Ra-ra is Nathan's special stuffed animal. Although he was able to go to sleep without it earlier this week when it got lost in the house, Nathan really does have a special attachment to him. Especially his tag. Nathan really likes to rub the tag between his fingers - I'm pretty sure he does it unconsciously.  You can kind of see him doing it in the picture below...

But from from all that handling, Ra-ra's tag was looking like this back in September...

...and since then was reduced to just a dozen little strings where the full tag once was.

But Nana came to the rescue!  She told Nathan that she would give Ra-ra a new tag!  So she removed a tag from another (less loved) stuffed animal and stitched it onto Ra-ra. That night as I put Nathan to bed, he kept telling me "Ra-ra new tag!"

 

Thanks Nana!