One Week with the New Babe

I come to you feeling rested and insanely, over the top in love. I’ve spent the last week staring at my new little girl for hours, marveling at how suddenly grown-up my oldest daughter seems next to her, and using the phrase “our children” gratuitously.

I have so much I want to write about - our incredible birth experience, Aliyah's interactions with Everly, the way it has felt for my heart to quadruple in size and scope in the past six and half days - but I am feeling a bit tongue tied by the greatness of it all.

Physically and mentally, I’m feeling really good. My recovery has been drastically easier than it was with Aliyah and I have so much more confidence in my abilities to care for this tiny little being this go round. I feel like the first month of Aliyah's life was a blurry haze as I cautiously navigated my first lessons in mothering. But with Everly, everything has come more naturally and I am enjoying experiencing all of the tiny little newborn things that I had somehow forgotten (despite my efforts to soak up every moment).

I love the puppy noises Everly makes when she wakes up and stretches her tiny arms over her head. I love the little wrinkles she gets in the corners of her eyes when they blink and try to adjust to the daylight pouring in through the windows. I love the frantic, open mouth, back and forth motion Everly does when she’s hungry and knows she’s close to my breast. I love how impressively strong the grip of those tiny little fingers can be.

I know just how quickly this stage will pass us by and I am promising myself that I won’t forget these little newborn gestures again.

I’ll be posting sporatically over the next few weeks as I want to squeeze every last ounce out of this uninterrupted, completely devoted time I have with my family to do whatever my heart desires with my husband and children. Responsibilities and the real world will come calling again soon and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to make the most of the time we have.

And with that, I’m off to nurse my golden haired girl - I can hear puppy noises coming from my lap as I type this!

Aliyah Says...

We watch Aliyah pretend to pick up something and sprinkle it over Everly multiple times.

Me: What are you putting on your sister, Aliyah? Is it pixie dust? (She loves Peter Pan)
Aliyah: No. It's cookies and sprinkles

Hello Baby

Everly Jean Inzer
9lbs 15oz and 20.5in long
born at 11:30pm on Monday, August 13, 2012

Our divine little lady decided to join us late on Monday night. She came fast (I was only in labor for 2 hours) and on a beautiful cool night.

We’re so in love with her we hardly know what to do with ourselves. Sorry the blog has been so quiet - we have really been soaking up our time as a family of four before daddy goes back to work. More details and photos to come but I just wanted to share our beautiful girl with you!

Entertaining Ourselves

Silly Girls...

Another Beautiful Day

I gave birth to Aliyah 1 day shy of 42 weeks. I am exactly 1 day away from that today. Well, today actually would be the day that I started labor with Aliyah at 5am and then just under 24 hours later, she arrived! While I continue to make every effort not to compare my pregnancies (how could I anyway - they've been so different!) the time that I carry babies seem to be similar with these two.

Even though there was no baby today, Tyler and Aliyah made it a special one! We went to a world breastfeeding celebration at Loose Park in the morning. We really had a blast watching Aliyah play with bubbles, color with friends and run through the park. The swings and slides are always her favorite. The weather was gorgeous and it was great to run into a few familiar faces.

One of our favorite restaurants is Europa Cafe but we just don't get to eat there very often as it is a little ways away from our house. Since we were in the area, we decided to grab lunch there (they have the BEST pastries!) as a special treat. Tyler stopped in the flower shop next door and surprised me with a beautiful rose. Aliyah and I shared a spinach & garlic pizza while Tyler enjoyed a spinach & feta quiche and a cup of tomato, basil soup... yummm!!

We headed home with Aliyah singing in the back seat until she fell asleep. We all took a nap and then woke up to eat our pastries that we saved from Europa Cafe - the best afternoon snack ever! We then decided to drive by the Midwest Balloon Fest and watch the hot air balloons take off before dinner. The excitement that poured out of Aliyah as we watched and counted the balloons was priceless.

Dinner was pretty low key, then a walk around Target finished our day. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday!

What NOT to Wear When You're Pregnant

A Little Weekend Fun... and to let you all know that I am still here!! (from Adored Austin)

Rompers -- don't tell me to move up a size... this IS a large!

Beer t-Shirts -- classy - real classy... makes people wonder, "Is that how she got pregnant?!?"

Suspenders -- I know those pregnancy pants are hard to keep up around that belly bump, but nothing looks like an old man's beer gut like suspenders do!

Non-Maternity Button Up Shirts -- They may seem harmless at first, until a family member looses an eye due to a projectile button off your shirt!

Body Suits -- Just because you can squeeze into it, doesn't mean you should wear it!

A Little Nesting

I already posted pictures of the girls' shared bedroom - that was one of my first projects and I should really take pictures of the playroom we have been working on, but there are a few more things I want to do first. So for now I will share some of the projects I have done (with Tyler's help) the past few weeks to transform our living room and add a little more color.

A serving tray that I made from an old cabinet door. A little crackle paint and two teal door knobs I found on sale at Hobby Lobby on each end. I really loved how this turned out!

I found the teal and black box from Target to hold Aliyah's Disney DVDs. I found these old fashion swing doors from ReStore that I painted teal for a little extra color in that corner of the living room. Large shutters would probably look very similar to this.

For the mantel I put up some of our music records and found a few unique vases from Good Will. We bought two different colors of teal paint and painted the inside of the bottles by spooning the paint inside and swirling it around until the walls were fully covered. We poured the extra back in the paint can and let them dry - easy! I found the birdcage at Home Depot on sale in their summer section... I made the "i love us" sign and found the wooden figures for cheep on etsy.

We also added a beautiful throw to the couches and painted some candle sticks that I didn't get a picture of. I made this ruler using a 2x4, stain and a paint pen. Some of the lines are a little crooked but I think it turned out great! We are going to use it as a growth chart to track our kids heights! The teal banner under the old window that we turned into a picture frame is from Aliyah's 2nd birthday - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!