What we've been doing...

Ivy at the park...

Ivy on top of the washing machine - she loves to help me start a load of laundry. She knows which buttons to push to get it going and then loves to lay on top of the machine and watch it spin around (hopefully she'll be this enthusiastic about laundry in 10 years!).

Out on the boat...

Tea party!! There are LOTS of tea parties going on around here...

Happy Baby!!

Playing in leaves...

Decorating the Christmas tree...

A quick back story - when I was growing up, my Mom started the tradition of buying a Hallmark ornament for us each year. She did it until we turned 21 - then it was time for our own tree and all of our ornaments helped us get started.

My Mom is continuing this tradition with my girls...

Here is Emily's first ornament...

Here is Ivy's ornament for this year. She was old enough to pick it out this year. Can you tell what she's really into right now?

Playtime while Mommy cooks...

Here's why I didn't take our Christmas pictures this year...

Ivy with Santa...

(Emily was asleep and I wasn't going to wake her up and then sit her on some stranger's lap - that would have been a disaster!).

More play time..

Catching up...

Wow! It's been like 3 weeks since I posted. Time is just flying by these days.

Here are a few of the pictures we had taken for our Christmas cards.

Ivy LOVES being in front of the camera - at least if we are at a photography place. Why won't she cooperate this much at home? And obviously, most of Emily's pictures look the same. She just can't do more than lay there. And since she can't see very far yet by the time the photographer got her to smile and he backed up to take the picture, she wasn't smiling any more. Anyway, here they are...

Not enough hands...

Well, if you are a frequent visitor to my little blog, you'll notice that I did not post a family picture. It is now the end of the week and I have not taken a family picture. I was going to do it over the weekend and I want you to know I didn't pick up my camera at all!! I just can't hold Emily in one arm, hold Ivy's hand with another and still take pictures. I just don't have enough hands!!

So here are some things that Ivy says that I think are cute...

She says "miskers" for whiskers on a cat.

Our favorite Mexican restaurant is called the Mexaraunt.

When she puts her dirty clothes in the basket she jumps and says, "Be Scores!!". I have no idea where she got that or what it means. I wonder if it is "She scores!!". We've asked her about it and she just says, "it's be scores!". So who knows...

She has these star antenna things that are on a headband. She calls them her "bunnets". Again, I have no idea where she got that. We've tried to call them something else, something real, but she continues to call them what she wants.

And now for something on Emily... This past week she's had two nights of sleeping 7 hours!! They weren't two nights in a row but that's okay. I'll take what I can get. She usually sleeps 4-5 hours before she wakes up hungry. We had to go back to the pediatrician to get a prescription refill for her thrush medicine. It's this very sticky yellow liquid that supposedly tastes like tutti-frutti or something. I am supposed to give her 1ml in each cheek 4 times a day!! 4 times!! She ends up spitting half of it out but whatever, I'm doing my best. But they did check her weight and she was 12 pounds, 10.5 ounces. We go back for her official 2 month checkup December 1st.

Adding Emily...

Richard sent me an email today asking if I could be sure to add Emily's name on our blog where it shows our name (before it said Richard, Jamie & Ivy). He also wanted to know about changing our family picture to one that included Emily. We don't have one!! She is 6 weeks old and we haven't taken one picture together as a whole family. That is on my to-do list for this weekend. Hopefully we can get a good one - and that means no kids crying (sleeping is fine) and everyone at least facing the camera. Wish me luck on that one!! :)

Playground Fun

We went to a playground yesterday and met up with some of the other Moms and kids from Ivy's preschool class...

Demolition Derby and Halloween

Sorry it has been so long since my last post... If Emily is awake, she wants to be held or fed. If she's awake and not doing either of those things, she's crying...LOUDLY!!! I've found that it's very hard to get much done with a baby in one arm.

Ivy loving on her baby sister.

Ivy loves to give Emily "hugs" (really they are squeezes).

Emily at the fair

Going down the slide with Grandpa

Pony ride

Ivy playing in the dirt at the Demolition Derby (Richard's 4x4 Club does the towing so we were there a lot over the weekend of the fair).

Eating chocolate ice cream

Ivy's preschool had a little Halloween celebration. The kids were allowed to wear costumes to school and they had a little parade in the hallway.

Here's a group picture

We went out on our boat this past weekend with Richard's parents (Grandma Pat and Grandpa Dick)

Ivy loves Emily's toys...

On Halloween our church had a Trunk-or-Treat. They had some other things for the kids to do - face painting, making cookies, etc. Ivy dressed up as a ballerina/princess (she wanted to wear princess accessories with her tutu).

Ivy with her BFF, Colton.

Ivy and her pumpkin...

And here are a couple of pictures of Emily...

Naptime, 2 week checkup, & The Pumpkin Patch...

Last week was our second week as a family of 4... Things have been going pretty well. Ivy is a great big sister and tries to "help" in any way that she can (and sometimes in ways that she can't!). Monday through Friday of last week both girls took naps at the same time - which gave me time to grab a little sleep too! Things aren't really happening like that this week.

Ivy and Emily napping on my bed

(Julie B. - you'll notice that Ivy "stole" Emily's blanket!!)

Emily turned 2 weeks old last Friday. She didn't have her 2 week checkup until Tuesday of this week. As of Tuesday she was 9 pounds, 10 ounces (90th %), 22 1/4 inches long (above 97th %). She also lost her belly button stump too!

The strawberry patch that is just 3 houses down from us has pumpkins this time of year. They just have them sitting out on pallets but then they also have lots of fun things to look at - old trucks and farm equipment, blow up Halloween things, etc. I decided to try a few Big Sister/Little Sister pics - you'll see how they turned out...

Here's Ivy during her nap after the fun at the pumpkin patch...