We had so much fun this Easter!! Now that McKenley is a bit older, she is starting to understand all the festivities and it was Parker's first Easter!! McKenley got to hunt Easter eggs with friends, her cousin Blake, and at school, the Easter bunny visited our house and left her some fun gifts, and both girls got to dress up in pretty dress and go to church on Sunday morning!! It was a SUPER busy weekend, but we had a BLAST with our family!! Here are some pictures highlighting our fun
Ready for the Easter egg hunt at school!!
Parker's first visit to the Easter bunny!!
Parker ~ gettin into the Easter spirit!
So blessed that the WHOLE family was together!! I love these people!
So lucky that these girls have such amazing aunts!!
My precious family!!
And the egg hunting fun!!!
Love spending time with these ladies and our family!
Its been 2 of the craziest, busiest months of our lives... and I don't see things slowing down any time soon!!! Our littlest princess has been with us for about 10 weeks now and we are having a blast with her!! (and yes, a bit exhausted as well, haha)
Here are a few of my faves from our 2 month photo sesh...
I'm in LOVE with those big brown eyes!!!
~ Parker is starting to enjoy her toys more and will sit and watch the lights and listen to the music for longer stretches of time... which is GREAT for mommy when she is trying to be productive :)
~ Parker's neck muscles are getting stronger and stronger!! She is able to sit and hold her head up on my lap and will tolerate tummy time for a longer period of time (still only about 5 minutes though, before she makes it clear she is DONE!!)
~ We hear ALL the time that she is "SOOO ALERT"!! Which is super cute, until you want her to be... not so alert, haha
~ Parker is DEFINITELY setting herself apart from her older sister. McKenley was always a pretty quiet baby... Lets just say, Parker's vocal chords are strong!!!
Schedule:
We have been working hard on getting Parker on a schedule and SOME days, we are pretty successful!! During the day she eats pretty regularly, every 3 hours. We let her "play" a bit afterwards and then, fingers crossed, she takes a nap. She used to nap pretty well in her swing, but we haven't been as successful lately, and naps in her crib only last about 30 minutes... so basically, the little lady does not sleep much during the day :/ BUT, when I am at my break point of crying and exhausted baby, I try to remind myself that she is a pretty consistent sleeper at night!! I feed her and put her down at 8pm and she usually stays asleep!! I get her at 1130 and feed her again while she is basically still asleep and she stays asleep until about 5am!!! Its great to get a larger block of sleep makes all the difference :)
On the 25th, we went to the doctor to see how Parker was growing, here are her stats:
Weight ~ 11 lbs 3.5 oz (55%)
Length ~ 23 1/2 inches (95%)
Head ~ 15 1/4 inches (55%)
Diapers ~ Size 1
Clothes ~ mostly 0-3 months
Can't wait to see how our little lady grows and changes this next month!!
I am literally in shock as I type this... My little lady, our first
princess, is now TWO!!! When did this happen?!? The time is flying by so
fast, I keep finding myself grabbing her in the middle of her playing
and loving on her as much as I can... pretty soon she won't let me do it
anymore! :(
McKenley has been super busy lately
learning all about her surroundings, and pretty much becoming the
smartest 2 year old out there (sorry other moms, its true!! haha). She
knows most of her colors, all of the basic shapes, she can count to 12,
and is working on her letters (mostly the ones in her name)!!
Here are some of McKenley's favorites:
Color: Green ~ if she doesn't know the color, she's gonna call it green
Song: Wheels on the Bus
TV Show: we do a rotation of Yo Gabba Gabba, Sesame Street, and Mickey Mouse
Movie: Finding Nemo
Food: Mac and Cheese & pizza
Toy: All of her baby dolls ~ she loves being their "mommy," she spends most of the day cooking for them, pushing them in her stroller, putting them to bed, and rocking them... maybe she'll start appreciating how exhausted I am at the end of each day!! haha :)
Phrase: "Oh so pretty" "Whats dis" "Tank to momma"
Accomplishments:
~ The little lady is TALKING OUR EARS OFF!!! To think, at one point we were worried about her being speech delayed! haha, guess she wanted to just talk on her schedule, not our, surprise! surprise! haha. It is so cute when she strings a whole sentence of words together or uses a phrase that she has heard mommy or daddy says (yes, we have to be VERY CAREFUL!!)
~ Being the BEST big sister ever!! We are amazed every day by how loving and caring she has been with Parker!!
~ Colors, numbers, letters... McKenley is such a little sponge for new information! She is constantly learning about things around her. She loves naming the colors of her toys, counting them, and naming the letters in her name!! Here she is showing off some of her mad skills:
Struggles:
~ Ugh! With the 2 year old birthday, comes the 2 year old attitude!!! When the girl wants her way, she wants HER WAY NOW!! We are working through it as patiently as possible and trying to get her to use her "Big Girl words" instead of crying, but MAN does she know how to push those boundaries!! :) The joys of parenting!! haha
~ MOLARS!! We're hoping this struggle has a lot to do with struggle #1!
~ The Binky... I keep saying we're ditching this thing, but keep putting it off... hoping that with my next update this will be moved to the accomplishment section!!! Fingers crossed please :)
Stats:
Length: 34 1/2 inches (75%)
Weight: 24.8 lbs (little peanut is still only in the 40%)
Head:
Diapers: Still in size 5... can't wait til I don't have to update this anymore... potty training coming soon!!
Clothes: Since she's a little string bean, she needs 2T in the length, but then things fall off her tiny waist! So.... somewhere between an 18mo and 2T, but she can still squeeze into some 12mo pants if I don't mind them fitting like capris :)
Here's a little something to send you off with until my next post... can you see why these last 2 years have been such a joy!?!?!
Can you believe it! It has already been a MONTH!! I am blown away by
how fast time has gone by with our littlest lady. Things have been a
little crazy around here to say the least, juggling two under the age of
2 can take it out of ya!! But I wouldn't trade the exhaustion for the
world!!
First official sticker pics!!!
Here's a little bit about how things are going
so far with our Parker (PS...it took me three tries of sitting down and typing this to actually finish this post!! haha)
Now that we
are home and have successfully made it through our first weight check
and her jaundice is completely gone, we've moved on to more pressing
matters... like SLEEP!! :) Our days pretty much center around keeping
McKenley entertained and getting Parker to take naps, oh the life of a
stay at home mommy.
Accomplishments:
~ She has made it a few times at night about 5 or 6 hours which is AWESOME, its just not completely consistent, but I feel so lucky to even have gotten those few nights of more sleep!!
~ We have had 5 consecutive days of Parker sleeping in her big girl crib for one of her naps!! She takes most of her naps in her swing and sleeps at night in her bassinet, so I wanted to introduce her to her bed for nap time so that when we move her in there at night, its not a super traumatizing experience. So far, she has taken GREAT naps in her room & I'm praying the trend continues!! (fingers crossed)
~ The little lady is SOO strong!! She is already lifting her head and showing lots of neck strength
~ We've gotten lots of smiles and even some little baby coos!! I love that she is already talking to us & McKenley thinks its the funniest thing ever!!
~ Parker attended her first holiday party this month! She was so excited to attend our mommy group's Valentines Party. We had to have a photo shoot before we went...
Look how high she is holding her head up!!!
~ It is DEFINITELY an accomplishment/success in my eyes the relationship these two already have!! McKenley is completely obsessed with Parker. She is always so concerned with what Parker is doing, making sure Parker has everything she needs, and talking and singing and looking after her every movement. Aren't they just precious together!!!
Speedbumps:
~ So sad, the little lady has a clogged tear duct! :( Her right eye is constantly goopy and sometimes gets so bad that she can't open her eye after sleeping! It's supposed to clear up over time and I sure hope it does, because it looks so uncomfortable!!
~ Everything else that could be considered a "speedbump" is really just her being a newborn. She LOVES sleeping on mom or dad, and while we love the snuggle time, it is rather hard when you have a 2-year old ransacking your house!! haha
Stats:
Length - 22 inches
Weight - 9 1/2 lbs
Head -
Food - She has been GREAT at nursing!! It's been such a more positive experience this time around and I am soooo thankful. She is eating every 3-4 hours and is definitely a growing girl!
Diapers - We blew through the Newborn diapers within a couple of weeks and have been in Size 1 ever since!! In comparison, McKenley was in Newborn diapers for almost 2 months!!
Clothes - Parker is still wearing Newborn sized clothing, but this won't last long, she is growing fast!!
Sleep - Making some great progress with sleep! As long as we stick to her routine of eat, "play", sleep, she seems to be pretty content! She's taking five naps a day, that are about 1 1/2 or 2 hours, and then goes to sleep for about 5 hours... yes, LOTS of sleeping!! We're really hoping she falls in line with the Boyd way of life... we LOVE our sleep around here!!
All in all, things are going a better than I ever thought they would, things just seem to be working themselves out. It get a little hectic around meal time for McKenley, because she likes ALL of moms attention, but overall, we are rockin and rollin with our two little princesses!! Now on to celebrating McKenley's 2nd birthday this weekend!!!
Back in December I posted about McKenley and Mimi's adventures in our front flower beds... take a look here!! Well... said flowers were NOT supposed to bloom until April, but thanks to good ole warm Texas weather, we have tulips in February!! ERGH!! Thankfully, McKenley didn't know the difference and was so excited to see them with blooms, we HAD to take some pictures!!
Well... we are almost three weeks in to life as a family of four and all I can say is... WHEW!!! It's definitely exhausting, but we are surviving!!! It's weird that I've already almost forgotten what it was like to just have one kiddo, it's like Parker has always been here!! So here's how the last couple weeks have gone...
For starters, we were SOOOO excited to get to actually leave the hospital this time with our baby girl!! We could not wait to get home and finally get life started as a family of four!!
McKenley has fallen right in line as the BEST big sister EVER!! She takes such good care of little Parker and gets soooo worried when Parker cries. From minute one, she was so gentle and loving. I can't wait to see how close they get as the months and years go by!!
The little lady is treating us pretty well when it comes to the sleep department. Sometimes at night she has 4-5 hour stretches of sleep!!! We're working hard to get her on a more regular schedule so that we can get those stretches more consistently. She is eating pretty routinely ever 3-4 hours... until the evening that is, when she wants to eat every 2 hours!! EESH!! She is napping okay, she just LOVES to nap on Casey or my chest... which makes it very hard to get things accomplished or play with McKenley.
We had a doctors appointment last Wednesday to check on the progress of Parker's jaundice. She never had it severe enough to put her under lights, but she has had a low amount since birth. The doctor said it had not gone away completely as of last week, so we are off to see them again on Wednesday. Hopefully it has gone away enough by then that no further treatment is necessary. Good news is, she is almost back up to birth weight!! She was 8 lbs 6 oz as of last Wednesday, which puts her in the 75%!!! She is 21 3/4" long -- 98%!!! Needless to say, she will probably have my height. Looks like poor McKenley may only be "big sis" in name after a while! haha.
Here are a few phone snap shots that I have been able to capture over the last few weeks to show what the Boyd family has been up to... as you can see, lots of sleeping and attempting to keep McKenley occupied as much as we can!
Thats it for now! Hopefully I'll squeeze in time for another post soon!!
Well... our newest addition is here... and true to Boyd form, it was an eventful entrance to the world!!!
***WARNING***
I'm about to go into detail about my labor and delivery... read with caution :) haha
The day started bright and early... well not bright, because it was so early it was still dark outside!! We had to be at the hospital by 5:30am. We got all checked in and settled into our room. I was hooked up to machines and had pitocin by 7am. There was really no change in my labor for a while, until the doctor came in to break my water. From here, things start to become a blur!!! They seemed to happen so fast for me and yet, I didn't have Parker until 7:40pm!!
My contractions started getting faster and more intense almost immediately after Dr. Robert broke my water. So of course, the epidural was soon to follow!! :) I don't mess around with pain!! Just like with McKenley though, the epidural was AWFUL!!! Come to find out I have a bit of pregnancy caused scoliosis, so she was having trouble getting the GIANT needle straight into my back and after several tries, had to use a different spot in my back... NOT FUN!!!! But finally, the needle was in and relief from the pain was immediate.
Because my contractions were already so close together, they had me start to push... and push.... and push... and push.... and, well you get the picture. This was very different for me, because with McKenley I only pushed 3 times and she was out! WHAT was the deal!?!?! Turns out, Miss Parker was turned face up, which is not how they are supposed to come out!! They tried to have me lay on my side to see if gravity would help her turn... nope... flip to the other side... nope... sit straight up... nope.... the little lady was STUCK!! I continued this pattern of pushing and laying for almost FOUR HOURS!!! until it was finally determined she was basically wedged in that position and wasn't moving naturally. On top of that, she was starting to get a bit distressed, elevated heart rate, lower blood pressure, etc. So the hard decision was made.... off to the OR for a C-Section.
Needless to say, I was FREAKING OUT!! This was not in my plans, I didn't know anything about a c-section, what did this involve? was Parker okay? was I okay? Ugh!!! So many thoughts!!! Thank God for Dr. Robert, she was so informative and walked us through everything. Casey was the MOST supportive husband in all of this craziness and held my hand through it all. Once we were in the OR, Miss Parker was out in no time! Finally, at 7:40pm, our little angel was here!!
8 lbs 9.4 oz
20 inches
7:40pm
Casey looked so cute holding her with his scrubs on!
I unfortunately, had to wait quite a while until I got to hold the little lady!! But finally, after stitching me up and wheeling me back into our room, I got my hands on our princess!!!
Special shout out to our amazing doctor!!! Could not have made it through all this without her!!
And then it was all worth it once my whole family was reunited!!! (this was at almost 9:45pm... LONG DAY!!)
MAN!! What a day it was, but TOTALLY worth it! These three are everything to me and I can't imagine my life without them!!
