3 Weeks Worth of Updates

The time just keeps flying by. Carrigan will be 2 months old next week! She seems to grow overnight sometimes. She's smiling alot lately which you'll see in the pics below. The one of her in the pink onesie is actually the first time I caught her giving me a "real smile" (versus the gas/sleep inducded kind) on camera. As far as her sleeping habits go, this past week she has been sleeping around 9 hours at night in 2 chunks. The first chunk has been around 6 hours, but Wednesday night she slept 7 hours + 2 more hours and last night she slept 7.5 hours straight (although it took her 2 hours to go back to sleep versus the usual routine of nursing and going right back to sleep)! Some days she seems to stick to a sort of schedule, especially in the earlier parts of the day where she'll be up about 1.5 hours followed by a 1.5 hour nap, but days like today she was up for 1 hour, slept for only 30 minutes, nursed, and wanted to nurse again only an hour after starting the last nursing session. Brady seemed to want to nurse constantly while I was on maternity leave, so I've been spoiled by Carrigan going every 3ish hours during the day. It's much easier to bathe, eat, etc when you're not a human pacifier! :) I know these harder days have been few & far between, and that she'll be Brady's age before I know it. I also know that once I go back to work I'll miss getting to nurse her during the day, so I really do try to keep it all in perspective.

Brady is doing great & has made serious strides in potty training. We started giving him one M&M every time he peed in the potty over the weekend. Brady, being the smart young man that he is, decided he should then try to pee a little every few minutes. Hmm. We had to help him understand that it's better not to strain, but rather to go when he feels he needs to go. He's had a few days this week with no accidents in his big boy undies all day at school. The Marvel comic & Disney Pixar undies have been a big hit with Brady & he's excited to get to wear them. As to be expected, there have been accidents (read- pee in the chair at the kitchen table, at school, in his playroom & often in the bathroom on the way to the potty), but we keep encouraging him. He's also really enjoying the summer. Every Wednesday they have Splash Day at his daycare where the kids can run through sprinklers, use watering cans, and splash around. They also have Bike Rally Day on Thursdays (which they do all year) & he's also been a big fan of getting in the pool be it at Grammie & Papa's or in our neighborhood. We are planning a trip for some time in July, most likely to the beach. It's hard to plan a trip now with 2 kids in the summer since we have to be careful keeping the kids out of the crazy hot heat. We can't really cram into a hotel room since there's no point of us all waking each other up due to our variety of sleep schedules. I think we'll end up renting a condo for a few nights. Even though it's been since last May, Brady saw his bucket & shovel in the garage last week and said, "Daddy, we got that for me at the beach." What a good memory he has! He has since been asking about going to the beach and playing in the sand. I hope we get to go because there is nothing I love more than seeing my kids smiling and having a great time.

3 weeks ago, we went to High Point and Carrigan got to meet her Uncle Bobby, Auntie Shaunda and cousin Tanner. One of the pics below if of the three cousins together. So cute! I'm sure they'll have many good times together in the future. Nothing else new to report from the last couple of weeks. We're just continuing to enjoy being a family of four although it definitely has many challenging, stressful, and sleep deprived moments. It's been awesome seeing Rocky with a newborn again & he continues to impress me every day with how good he is with the kids. It's all a balancing act now, and we know it will get easier over time.