CC and Gwen - 2 years and 2 months

Christina is going to be two years old on Sunday. Her vocabulary is in full bloom and her personality just keeps getting better. She is friendly, social, funny, sweet, and more. She is the most entertaining and the most beautiful toddler I have ever seen. She also has a ton of energy as most toddlers do and can wear out anyone. She gets cabin fever really easily and absolutely loves the outdoors.

Christina is such a girly girl, loves shopping and absolutely loves all accessories. She can spend hours playing with pocketbooks and especially loves to put them on and wave bye bye as she walks around. She always needs to have her sunglasses nearby, doesn't wear them much but loves them and needs to have them with her. She loves hair ties and bows and normally is more than willing to let someone do her hair - although sitting still is not her strong suit (understatement of the day!). She also loves shoes and I can tell this girl is already going to cost us a ton of money because Daddy of course is willing to buy her anything she asks for.

Christina is turning into such a funny little girl. She copies all of the funny things her Daddy does and it is really cool to see how she "gets it". Of course, she is a sponge and she mimicks much of what we do (and Dora as well!). Sometimes when we want to go somewhere and Christina doesn't want to come with us, we try to fake her out by saying bye and walking away. Of course she always gives in and runs after us. Well, at Best Buy a couple of weeks back, she pulled that same trick on Nik. She kept pulling his hand, trying to get him to follow her. Finally, she gave up, said bye-bye and ran off. She can be such a little stinker sometimes and it is so cute. The terrible two's, on the other hand, are not so cute. She sure loves to scream for pretty much any reason at all.

CC has started putting her hands down her diaper randomly (yuck!) and even takes off her diaper when she feels like it. In fact, we found her diaperless in her crib a couple of times and once she had even peed all over herself and her baby doll. I think it is time to switch to pull ups. Since she asks to sit on the potty all of the time as well, it seems like she is ready to start potty training.

Gwendolyn is now two months old and I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. She weighs almost ten pounds now and considering that her due date was not that long ago, I'm convinced she would have been a pretty big baby if she was born on time. I still don't know why she came early, but thank goodness it all worked out for the best. I have no idea what I would have done if she was born on time and we had to move a week later. Nik would have had to go without us and that would have really sucked.

Gwen is sporting her current dark brown hair which Nik is convinced will fall out to make room for blonde hair. Her beautiful dark blue eyes seem to be staying put for now. She hiccups regularly like most babies do and she doesn't like it. She shares with Nik the fact that when she sneezes, she will do it over and over again. It is pretty interesting that she does this because other than Nik, I have never met anyone to do this each and every time they sneeze. Other than her hiccups and sneezing, she is usually a pretty happy baby. Occassionally you can tell that she gets uncomfortable because of air bubbles and gas. I guess because she is a premie she has some digestive trouble. She has acid reflux as well which causes her to spit up. But, since she is gaining weight so well, the spitting up is not a problem.

Gwendolyn is smiling so much lately and she seems to be such a sweet little girl. She makes funny faces all of the time, especially the Zoolander face. She sleeps great once you get her going, but most nights it takes a couple of hours to get her to sleep. Luckily when she wakes to eat she nurses without really even waking up, so it doesn't take any effort to get her back to sleep.

Both kids are doing pretty well with the move. I have so much to tell you about, but really haven't had any time. I know, I know, excuses, excuses. I will hopefully tell you about our three day drive from NJ to GA, staying with amazing family members when we got here, and getting the house ready to move in. But first, I'll try to get some pictures in my next post. I hope everyone is enjoying the rest of their summer! Bye for now.

Bye Bye New Jersey

I'll keep this short because I still owe you a post about the girls . . .

We finished packing up the moving truck and we left the condo last night. I'd like to say it is such a relief, but since we haven't sold it yet it still seems like one more thing I have to worry about. But, I'm going to try not to think about that right now because today will start our three day drive to our new home state. We are taking it very very slow since we will have the two little one's and will likely have to stop every two hours (yikes).

Our mortgage was officially approved and our closing date is scheduled for 10am on August 11th. We won't get to actually see our new house until the day before when we get into town, so I'm ridiculously anxious and excited. I picked all of the paint colors for the entire house, but I really want to get in there and sample the colors on the walls. Painting starts promptly on the 11th, so there isn't much wiggle room.

I hope the long drive will give me an opportunity to relax a little though. I've been so busy running around over the last couple of weeks, that I could use a little break. Then of course once we get to Georgia we will be busy again, unloading the truck and unpacking. I am looking forward to shopping for new furniture though :-)

The toddlers were arguing about whose Mommy was coming into the room.
what other funny story about something CC did? buy buy at best buy, taking off diaper, pee pee on the potty with no pee pee on the potty, peeing on baby doll

Moving

It has been several years since we decided that we want to move to Georgia and yet, we are still here, in New Jersey, specifically, in our 1 bedroom (plus an "office") condo. With an infant, a toddler and two dogs, this place is just way too small.

A month ago when we were in Georgia for my sisters wedding, I thought moving was never going to happen. A week later, Gwendolyn was born and the very next day Nik got an interview for a position in Georgia. Three interviews over two weeks and finally he got the news that he was transfering and starting in Georgia THREE WEEKS later. Three years trying to get there and three weeks notice to do it. Wow.

So, needless to say, I have been busy. We got really lucky and found a foreclosure house even before Nik got the official word on the job. Now we are under contract on a roughly 300k house for 189k! This house is bigger than what we expected to get, is only five years old, and it is three doors down from my cousin John, his wife Anna and their daughter Evie. Evie is the cousin that is only nine months older than Christina. So, yeah, this is gonna be awesome.

Day in and day out I have been signing documents, planning the move, and packing. Thank goodness that I am on maternity leave because let me tell you, buying a house and moving across the country in three weeks is a full time job.

In between all of the craziness involving the move, I have been watching my little Gwendolyn grow. It is really amazing how much she has changed in just a measly month. I need to dedicate an entire post to her, but thought I needed to share the news on the move first. Christina also continues to amaze me. She is talking soooo much and showing everyone just how smart she is. I have a couple of funny stories to tell you about her as well. Stay tuned.

Here is our new house:

My two daughters

Gwendolyn looks almost exactly like Christina did at that age. They have the same lips, the same nose, the same skin tone, the same eye and hair color. Gwen has a birth mark on her right eye lid (which I'm told will go away), so that is different, plus her hair was thicker at birth than Christina's was (even though she was five weeks early - go figure!). So many faces that Gwen makes or movements that she does makes me feel like I have infant Christina all over again. Gwen just reminds me so much of her big sister.

Even though she looks just like her big sister though, she has been a completely different baby. Many of the differences stem from the fact that Christina was tongue-tied and Gwendolyn was not. Since CC was not getting enough milk, she was always hungry and therefore spent much of her early life trying to eat and then passing out from all of the hard work (but she would only sleep in someone's arms). Since I was breastfeeding around the clock and then I would hold Christina while she slept, I pretty much always had my hands full. Gwen does not have a problem getting enough milk, so she breastfeeds every 2-3 hours. When she isn't eating, she is sleeping. She does a lot of sleeping in fact and basically doesn't care where it takes place. As long as she is swaddled, she sleeps pretty well anywhere. This is a huge difference between the two babies.

You could say that Christina was a very high maintenance baby and Gwen is a very laid back baby, but again I think it all stemmed from the tongue-tie issue. I'm just relieved that the order was hard baby first, easy baby second, because currently Christina now, as a toddler, is a lot of work. If I had a difficult baby, I don't know how I would get through the day. With Gwen being so easy going, the hardest part of my day is keeping Christina from accidentally hurting Gwen. She loves her so much that she tries climbing all over me while I'm nursing her little sister. CC is always giving kisses and touching Gwen. She wants to hold her all of the time.

I don't remember if this was the case with Christina, it could be different since Gwen is a premie, but I've noticed that around the two week mark, Gwen has started loosing her hair. When she was born she had a thick head of dark brown hair and her eyes were very dark (couldn't distinguish a color). Now, her eyes are dark blue and her hair is thinning. I know Christina lost her dark hair and grew back lighter hair, I wonder if it will be the same for Gwen. At three weeks old, you can now start to see much lighter hair underneith Gwen's dark hair.

Also around the two week mark, Gwen started to sleep less. I swear for the first two weeks she was literally only awake when I was nursing her. Even when feeding her, it was a struggle to keep her awake. Now she actually has periods of being awake. I love it when I'm holding her upright against my chest and she looks up at me. It is so adorable. She actually moves her head and holds it up very well for such a young baby. She is also doing great with the weight gain. She is now six pounds and one ounce! At this rate, on her due date she will be much heavier than Christina was when she was born.

Speaking of Christina, she seems to be managing the transition into this new family life very very well. So far she doesn't seem jealous at all which is a huge relief. Her regular day to day life hasn't changed much. Luckily, since Gwen sleeps a lot and doesn't demand that she sleep in my arms, Christina still has lots of time with me. I have been able to juggle the two of them pretty well. It gets chaotic first thing in the morning and right before CC's bedtime, but other than that I don't have any complaints.

The biggest change around here for me is that the housework has quadrupled since our little arrival. Dishes, laundry, garbage, and grocery shopping are forever on the to-do list. One load after the other, my laundry, CC's laundry, Gwen's laundry, towels, sheets, and then let's start all over! (Thank goodness Nik takes care of his own) Our kitchen garbage gets filled every day and that is without adding the other small garbage cans around the house like Gwen's for example. Gwen's garbage gets filled every day and she is just a tiny little baby. The floors are forever dirty and keeping toys put away is just a fruitless task.

Getting all of the housework done regularly isn't that big of a deal on weekdays though. Christina is still going to daycare, so it is just me and Gwen at home many days. I do the housework, feed her and myself. That is all the time I have during the day, but I guess that is really all that I need right now.

The doctor says Gwen shouldn't leave the house for two months since she is so tiny. So, that means I'm pretty much stuck inside as well. It has been really really hot lately, so I'm not too upset about it. At least I'm inside with the air conditioning. Christina, on the other hand, really hates to be inside. The weekends are a little difficult when Nik is at work. In fact, this passed weekend Christina threw a fit because she couldn't go out.

Ok, enough blabbling, here are some pictures . . .