Happy 4th Birthday, Cora and Evaline!

It's hard to believe that these two little girls

are already four years old! Four years ago today I was lying in the hospital (I was in the hospital with pre-eclampsia for two weeks before they were born), then going into labor, then having the c-section, then having the two precious and tiny babies in my arms (Evaline was 4lbs, 4oz; Cora was 5lbs, 10 oz).  And now they are so grown up.  Time certainly flies.

This year we really made their birthdays into a celebration.  Friday was my last day of maternity leave - I'm back at work today :( - so Ian took the day off and we went down to Coralville Mall.  We had the girls ride the Carousel:

Then we went to the Build-a-Bear, and let them make their own new stuffed animals (McKella the Bear for Evaline, and Emily Petersen Penguin for Cora).

On Saturday was their birthday party:

We went with a "flower" theme this year:

Tissue paper flowers (thank you, Pinterest, for the tutorials):

We had a long guest-list with both of our families...so we planned for a lot of food... went WAAAYY overboard:

Then, just hanging out at the party - We got some great pictures, but didn't pics of everyone there.  If you were there (you know who you are) and got more pics - we'd love to have copies!

Here's Grandma Donna and Willa:

Aunt Katie and Evaline:

The kids, enjoying their dinner - pigs-in-a-blanket (as requested by C&E...random, I know), cheesy potatoes, fruit salads, and chips:

Dad and Willa (they were watching the Texas A&M game: Gig 'em, Aggies!!):

I made Evaline and Cora each a special giant cookie...Eva snuck away to eat hers

Time for the Birthday Song!

Both of the girls with (my) Grandpa John:

Laryngitis

Before I had kids I had never had laryngitis.  Not real laryngitis.  I think I may have lost my voice after an intense series of "Yell Like Hell" practices back in college...but not the kind you get from being sick.  Since having kids, however, I get it all. the. time.  I'm sure its just a coincidence - I can't think of any rational reason why being pregnant or having kids would cause me to get sick.  But still, in the four years since Cora and Evaline were born, I've had laryngitis five times.

Five times counting right now, that is.  I have a birthday party for the girls where we will be hosting around 25 family and close friends (we have a lot of family) this weekend.  I go back to work on Monday.  And I have laryngitis.  Again.

It started yesterday and has gotten progressively worse throughout the day, to the point where I have almost no voice left at all.  When this has happened before at work, they've gotten me a microphone and I've taught by using that sparingly and writing a lot on the board and using our SmartBoards (interactive projector things).  But that was when I knew the kids.  I was only around for one week before being gone for 11.  I have a doctors appointment tomorrow.  Here's hoping we can get this cleared up in the next couple of days...

A Room for Two...

When we moved in to our house about a year ago, I had plans for the girls room...and its taken me just over a year to get them done.  My original goal had been to get their room finished before I started on Willa's...but then Willa's due date kept creeping up on me, so I had to finish her room first.  A few weeks ago, the Cora and Evaline went back to preschool, giving me a little time to get this done.  With my mom's help, I was able to get their quilts finished...the last piece left to do.

When the girls were born, they were given some incredibly cute receiving blankets, a set of pink of brown flannel blankets in three different prints.  They were "Dwell Studio" brand from Target (something that, unfortunately doesn't exist anymore...they were the perfect size receiving blanket...and a size that is nowhere to be found.  Luckily, they were also given a set in a different pattern...so we still have some good ones for Willa.) .  Anyway, they were actually given three or four sets of these blankets...and I always loved these blankets - both the patterns and the functionality.  For sentimental reasons, I thought it would be a shame to let them go.  So, I decided to make them into bed quilts for the girls, and decorated their room in pink and brown to coordinate.  

Here's the final product:

        

Here's a better look at the beds:

And a close-up of the quilts - they aren't identical, but pretty close:

For artwork, we took some blank canvases from Michael's, and made some butterfly hand/foot print paintings.  Some turned out better than others.  For example, these looked waaaaaay better in my head before we made them.  My hand-prints make the top of the butterfly, and each of the girls handprint makes the bottom (one canvas for each girl):

I really like the way these turned out, though.  I found this idea on Pinterest.  The girls footprints make up these butterflies:

Evaline's

Cora's

And...I had a couple canvases left over, so I let them go to town and create their own art (Evaline's on the left, Cora's on the right):

Willa, right now

In some ways it is hard to believe that this little lady has been with us for just over two months.  In other ways, it seems as though she's been here for a long time.  Such is the weird sensation of "time", right?  What is the saying?  "The days are long but the years are short."  Something like that...and it certainly is right.  Some days seem never ending, but before I know it the week is over...and then the month...and then two.

So, at two months, where is Willa? I don't mean "sitting next to me on the couch"...but where is she, what's she like, right now.  First, it was almost a week ago that she turned two months, but we got in to the doctor on the afternoon of Halloween.

Physically, here are her stats:

She weighs - 11 lbs, 15 oz (60th percentile)

and she's  21 3/4  inches long (15th percentile...I'm not sure if she was measured wrong, or if she's built like me!)

Get this one: her head circumference is 40 cm....which in itself doesn't mean much but...that's in the 90th(!) percentile.  Quite the noggin!  Probably because her brains are so big...

It's pretty strange to have such a chubby baby.  At this point, I'm pretty sure that C & E were somewhere around the 5th -10th percentiles.  This girl seems like a giant in comparison!  But she's a happy, healthy baby, and that's the most important :-).

So, what's she been up to lately:

Up until week 3 or 4, she was a very content baby.  She slept most of the time.  She didn't have her days and nights confused...she just spent most of each sleeping.  She didn't fuss a whole lot, and in general, she was very easy.  Then...she started to get progressively fussier.  She slept less during the day, and woke up more frequently during the night.  She started eating less at a sitting and ate more frequently.  She required constant walking around and jostling - she wouldn't allow us to sit with her, rocking didn't help her - only walking around and jostling would help her stop fussing.  After a couple of weeks it was getting a bit exhausting.  Now, she didn't do this constantly...but it was enough. :-)  Oh, and she wouldn't take a pacifier.

After week six, things started to get better. And since week 8 (knock on wood) things have been much better.  She took the pacifier!  She's only getting up once at night (most nights)! She will entertain herself - gleefully - under the floor gym for over half-hour stints!  She likes to sit and be rocked!  She goes to sleep easily!  The past few weeks....life has gotten much easier.

What else is she doing these days: She's starting - just starting - to bat at things under the gym.  She's full of smiles - likes to sit and talk, smiling and making the cutest cooing sounds.  She's very social, likes to be around the action.   She's enjoying her sisters, and her sisters are enjoying her.  I'm getting less uptight about the way that they like to "crowd" and "hover" around her.  At first that made me very tense, but all at the same time, I'm relaxing, they are not quite so..."hover-y", and Willa is getting sturdier...a trifecta that makes for a less stressful house.

I'm about to embark on my last week of maternity leave.  Something that I'm very torn about.  I like my job, so in some ways I'm liking the thought of getting back into it...but...there's a big (BIG) part of me that isn't ready.  But, ready or not, here it comes.  This will be a busy week, too.  I've got a few things to finish getting ready to go back to school, and I have gobs to do to get ready for the girls birthday.  Enough to keep me busy and my mind off the next week.  

Happy Halloween!!

Yesterday the girls didn't have school, so we had our own little party:

Carving pumpkins (they didn't really like this part - they needed a rag nearby to wipe their hands after every reach into the pumpkin:

And finished!  They've named him "Pumpkin Fred" :-)

Roasted pumpkin seeds.  A big hit with Evaline, Cora didn't care for them much.

Coloring their Halloween activity packets:

Impromptu Halloween lunch:

Tonight...time for Trick-or-Treating!!!

Pumpkin Fred - all lit up!

Our little "Thing One and Thing Two"

Willa went as a bag of popcorn :-)!

After-hours emergencies

Evaline has a bad habit...every six months or so she gets sick in a way that constitutes a mild emergency...and she always does this "after-hours".

The first time she was wheezing, which constituted a late-trip to the walk-in clinic, then the hospital for chest x-rays to rule out pneumonia (which she didn't have).  She was assigned to a nebulizer regimen and got better (her first of several illnesses requiring nebulizer treatments...luckily never something like RSV, though).

This past spring she was doing some weird breathing thing.  Given her history with lung issues, we went to the walk-in clinic...then to the ER when they couldn't diagnose her, and the clinic was closing.  That was a very expensive trip to find out that she was...well, just doing some weird breathing thing.  The doctors had no idea what was wrong with her...she was just being weird.

This time....

Thursday afternoon I got a call from her preschool/daycare that she woke up from her nap with a very red eye.  Ian picked her up on the early side...and sure enough, bloodshot eye, bright red surrounding it.  We called our doctor...and were lucky to get her in that evening (our doctor's office is open until 8...although, because they are open they are often full...hence the walk-in clinics the previous two times).  Even luckier, our (amazing) doctor happened to be there (I think to do paperwork...not to see patients, but he came in to see us anyway).  The red around her eye was due to rubbing it, but they couldn't figure out what the cause of the problem was, exactly.  It could have been a number of things, but she needed to see an eye doctor, who had better tools to diagnose the problem.

We went in to see the eye doctor on Friday morning...but before we did, the real story came out:
Evaline was feeling MUCH better on Friday, but her eye was still red.  I told her that we were going to see the doctor again, and she got a BIG smile on her face (she LOVES going to the doctor, as does Cora).
She said: "Cora doesn't have to go to the doctor, because she wasn't playing the game at recess."
Me: "What game was that?"
Evaline: "The wood chip game."
Me: "What is the wood chip game?  How do you play that?"
Evaline: "You throw wood chips in the air.  I got dust in my eye."

Ah-ha. That little bit of information would have been useful the night before.  She had gotten a sliver of wood in her eye.  Doctor confirmed, the wood had scratched her cornea.  Luckily the eye heals quickly, and she really wasn't in any pain by Friday morning.  She was given an antibiotic ointment to put in her eye (not her favorite part of the day), to make sure that the wood and scratch don't cause an infection.

She has been informed that it is not in her best interest to throw wood chips in the future.

Sunday Funnies

Cora:
On Friday morning Willa woke up to eat around 5:45 am, after feeding her, I decided that instead of going back to bed until C & E got up at 7:30, I would get up and work out.  So, I did, and then took a quick shower and got ready for the day.  When the girls got up, Cora came to give me a good morning hug and said:
"Are we going somewhere today?  You smell like we're going somewhere."

Perhaps I should shower more often???

Evaline:
So we actually were going somewhere on Friday...which is why I showered.  We had to take Evaline to the eye doctor (watch for a post on that story later this week).  The lady at the reception desk said to her "I like your bow."
Evaline gave her sweetest smile and said "Thank you...but its actually a ribbon."