Reunited...and it feels so good!

We are having so much fun this week with Adam's family visiting! Adam's younger sister Holly came with her little girl Sydney. Sydney is just 5 weeks younger than Cameron and they are great friends, even being so far apart. They were so excited to see each other and have been playing together so well! Here are just a few pictures of their first few days together! We are so excited that they get to stay for the rest of the week!

Check this out - Here they are then (4 months old)...

And Now!!

I also had to add a few new pictures of Brooklyn. I am loving having a little girl to play dress-up with and of course I can't resist taking pictures when we do!

Thanks again Great Grandpa and Grandma Moosman for the adorable sweats outfit!! Does she look cute in it or what!?

Brooklyn in da house!

Check out our cute little chubba-chunk all decked out in the nike gear my mom got her. Is she a cute gangster wanna be or what?

Update & Share

I feel like it has been a while since I have been on here, so here is a quick update...

We are doing great. I have the two greatest kids in the world! Cameron is continuing to learn new things every day and is such a good kid. I was worried that we would be dealing with some jealousy, but as time passes, he seems to like Brooklyn more and more. He is constantly hugging and kissing her and is already trying to teach her things. He always says, "Look baby sister!" and then shows her different things he is doing and eating. Her arrival seems to have made him feel very grown up so I hear, "I do it please!" at least a hundred times a day! :)

Brooklyn is the sweetest little baby! I can't believe she is already a month old. She is growing like a weed, or should I say a flower? She is much prettier than a weed! She hardly cries and although she hasn't been as easy a baby as Cameron was, she is doing great! The best news for mom is that she is now sleeping 8 hours at night!

I am doing good (especially now that the uninterrupted sleep has increased) and feel like the adjustment from one to two hasn't been bad at all. I do have to apologize though, if you feel like I have been avoiding you! I am still adjusting! Just taking care of two kids isn't bad at all. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to take care of two kids and keep the house clean, and make dinner. Now I am working on taking care of two kids, keeping the house clean/making dinner, and giving my sweet and patient husband some attention. I have yet to get the part where I add much personal time! :) So, I know I have been terrible about keeping my phone near me, checking my messages and emails, and returning either!! Don't give up on me! :)

Anyway, nap time for both my sweet kids will be over soon, so I'd better wrap up. I don't have any new pictures to post yet (Sorry grandparents - it's on the to do list! :) but I was thinking of some great books I wanted to share really quick! I am always looking for new ideas and advice, especially when it comes to parenting. I read every book, magazine, and article I can get my hands on! Here are just a few that I think have helped Adam and I out the most.

The Jackrabbit Factor by Leslie Householder

My sister-in-law recommended this one to us and it is a life changing must-read!! Okay, so that sounds a little dramatic, but it really did change the way Adam and I look at life.

On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo & Robert Bucknam

More than one friend recommended this one when I was pregnant with Cameron and I really feel like it is a big part of why Brooklyn is sleeping so well at night. Cameron is just a good sleeper, and probably would have been fine no matter what we did, but Brooklyn isn't a naturally good sleeper and I think using the advice in this book has made a big difference.




Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood
by Jim and Charles Fay

This is a great book on discipline. I used the Love and Logic ideas in my classroom also. This has been especially helpful as Cameron gets closer to two years old! :)






Parenting the Strong-Willed Child
by Rex Forehand & Nicholas Long

I just recently borrowed this one from a friend (Thanks and sorry I kept it so long Shauna!!) and it also has great advice on discipline. I wouldn't call Cameron strong-willed so I didn't do the "program", but it had all around good advice that I will be using.





The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

My mother-in-law gave us this book for Christmas this year and Adam and I had a great time reading it together. We have such a great relationship, I don't think we really needed much help in this area. But, it was great to understand each other better, to know why what we are doing in our relationship is working, and how to keep it that way in the future.

Anyway, check them out if you want. I like to read everything I can and then take the advice from each that fits my style best! Maybe these will be helpful to some of you too!

Things I'd Forgotten...

I am realizing that there are a lot of things I had forgotten about having a newborn. It seems like I am constantly thinking, "Oh ya, I remember that with Cameron!" Here are just a few for those of you who are preparing for a new little one, and for others to reminisce.

• Panicked Wake-Ups: I have Brooklyn in a bassinet by our bed and feed her in the middle of the night while sitting in bed. Maybe this is a bad idea, because I wake up a few times a night completely panicked that I fell asleep feeding her and didn't finish! I remember doing this with Cameron too. It's funny, because I have never actually fallen asleep feeding either of them, so why am I so worried? Then there are times I wake up just to look over and make sure she is still breathing. I don't think I do this as much as I did with Cameron, but still probably once a night. Adam has even asked me to check a few times.
  
• Super-Sensitive Hearing: For some reason I think every sound I hear is Brooklyn crying! I can be holding her, hear a little sound, and pause to see if it is her. Am I going crazy? Has this happened to anyone else?
• Starving or Sleepy? Brooklyn is absolutely starving while I am getting her bottle ready, and then as soon as it touches her lips she sacks out on me!! This is especially bad in the evening while I am giving her a bath and getting her ready for bed. So then I get to spend a bunch of time trying to get her to wake up to eat at all!! I still have nightmares from our days/nights trying to get Cameron to stay awake and eat while he was in the NICU! Ugh!
• I had completely forgotten how many diapers a newborn goes through! Especially Brooklyn! For some reason she loves to mess up a newly clean diaper. The other morning she went through 3 in less than 15 minutes!!
• How perfect they are and how quickly you fall in love! :) You can't help but be amazed at all the tiny parts and despite the midnight wakeup call, I absolutely adore my little sweetheart!
  

Things I didn't know the first time around:

• Newborns are a little bit boring! :) I don't remember thinking this about Cameron at all. But compared to an active and totally entertaining toddler - eating, sleeping, and pooping is not all that exciting! :) Don't get me wrong, I adore Brooklyn and wish she would stay so tiny forever, but I am also excited to one day make her smile and laugh.
  
• Toddlers will try to put everything in a newborns mouth! Cameron is so sweet to try to share his food with Brooklyn, and yesterday he decided she needed a turn to suck his thumb.
  
• Newborns taste good. I have heard of other toddlers doing this, but it still surprises me that Cameron licks Brooklyn's head all the time! I've never tried it, but she can't taste that good!
• Two is even more fun than one! Watching Cameron and how much he already loves his baby sister has made it even more special.
  

Welcome to the South!!

Somehow we seem to have brought terrible weather to Memphis! The week we moved in there were record high temperatures and humidity. And now everyone is saying this is the worst storm to hit Memphis in 20 years! Aren't we glad we were here to experience it all?! Luckily Adam had just gotten home when the storm hit, because I was terrified! The storms here are just crazy anyway - we actually love them most of the time, but this one got really scary! The tornado sirens have to be one of the scariest sounds ever, and we were glued to the tv watching the path of the tornado and hearing the damage reports come in! At one point the news predicted that we would be right in the path of the storm, so we had our shoes on, our ID on us, and were ready to hide in the closet! Luckily, the worst of it passed just to the east of us. There was one small tornado that touched down like 5 blocks from us, but we are just fine - no damage here! Thanks everyone for your calls to check on us!

I Freaking Out!

Today was the first time I took both kids out of the house at the same time! Brooklyn had a Dr. appointment this morning, so I gathered up both my kids and all their stuff and headed out. My question is, how do you do it when you have more than two? I guess I will find out the answer to that one day, but for now two felt like plenty! The Dr. went well. Brooklyn is a healthy girl and is going to be a chunk! In two weeks she gained a whole pound and grew an inch!! Cameron was great and I was feeling pretty confident as we left. Then, there was a mistake with our bank that I had to go in to fix asap. Of course the lady I worked with at the bank had no idea how to help. So, here I am in the bank for 45 minutes with a two year old who hasn't had lunch and should have been down for a nap half an hour ago, and a newborn!!! Cameron really wasn't bad - we avoided any tantrums, but he was ready to go home and so was I. At one point he was tugging on my shirt so I leaned down to tell him we would be able to go home soon. He had the most serious look on his face and said, "Mom, I freaking out!" That made two of us! :) It didn't help that every person that came into the bank felt the need to say, "You sure do have your hands full!" No really, you think??

Anyway, lets just say our daily walks will probably be our only adventures out of the house again for at least a few days. I need to recover from the first experience before I try again! :)

P.S. Check out our new double stroller! We have had quite a few days of good weather, so it has already gotten good use.