Why I love having a newborn at home...

Baby Kate is now about 2 1/2 weeks old and we cannot get enough of her! She is such a sweet and fun addition to our family - it is amazing how much more love you have in your heart as you grow closer and closer to a new little baby.

Here are my top reasons why I love having a newborn at home: (this post is long, so, be warned!)

*Petting her soft hair - yes, our babies our born with more hair than most 1 year olds have - and it is so soft! It kinda starts to get greasy from all the love though! :)
*Newborns are easy! Eat, poop, sleep, repeat! I have a lot of friends who stress out with newborns and cannot wait for them to be more like 4 month old or older. This is easy for me. Luckily, my babies have not had newborn complications so that is definitely a blessing and I recognize that!
*Snuggling on your chest - there is nothing more relaxing than dozing off with a sleeping baby who has already fallen asleep on your chest.
*The scrunched up old man face - you know, that face they make when they are coming out of sleep or getting ready to eat - it is not super attractive but is so dang cute at the same time!
*Folding baby laundry - Laundry in general is pure drudgery, but, there is something different when you do a load of baby laundry, the small onsies, the cute sleepers, the cozy nightgowns.
*Kisses...often, when I have gone to give Kate a kiss, she "latches" on to my lip like it is something else! Kind of a strange sensation but sweet nonetheless!
*Soft skin. My favorite spot of soft skin on baby Kate? Under her chin and her neck. It is the softest, doughiest spot on her and I love it.
*Her breath. The sweet smell of milk on her breath (as long as she has not spit up!).
*No matter how big our babies start out, they are still teeny tiny little wonders. Little fingers, tiny toes, button nose...all with a little squish on their arms and legs!
*Watching my big girls love their new baby sister. Sure, I keep getting annoyed when they decide she needs a pacifier or needs to be burped or moved to a new location while dead asleep but I am so proud of how they are learning to care for and enjoy their baby sister!
*Being reminded again and again why I love my husband as he makes dinner or changes a diaper or helps introduce Kate to her first bottle or looks lovingly into her eyes. Seeing how much he has grown as a father since the first time I left him alone with Lindsay (that was tough!) to the first time I left him alone with Kate and the big girls. No big deal - happy to do it - and enjoying every minute of it. Knowing that I can count on him to help with late night feedings, getting me pain medication, checking my incision, and making sure I try harder to take it easy.

How am I doing? Well, I am OK. Actually, this weekend I am taking it very easy because I think I may have over done it this past week. With preschool and 1st grade programs and one last time volunteering with Art Masterpiece and doing errands and go to dance class and gymnastics, I think my body has told me to slow down. I started feeling icky and decided to spend all day Saturday and Sunday really laying low. I have spent most of the time in my bed cuddling my baby and watching a lot of HGTV and Food Network! I have lost an additional 11 lbs since my check-up 1 week after Kate was born so that leaves me with 14 lbs to go to my pre-preggo weight. Not bad considering I gained about 45 lbs! I can see every bone and vein in my ankles and feet again - that took a while longer than I remember with the other ones. I thought that one side of my surgery incision was having problems but I think it is healing well after all. I just need to slow down on the driving and getting in and out of the car so much.

Anyway, here are several pictures from the last couple of weeks. I have been slow to update our blog so sorry if you kept checking for more baby updates...here is the family in action!

Kate and her Daddy...all our girls look like Steve's "Mini Me" when they are born! (I wonder what a boy would look like in our family...our baby girls have all looked just like this!)

Caroline could not be happier to finally have a baby sister of her own!
Mother's Day - We had a great dinner prepared by Shelly, Steve and Andy. Steak...yum!!! I love family dinners - Molly, Andy and their kids were all over and we had such a great time! Steve and the girls picked out a couple of sweet gifts - the girls got me a fun new blue t-shirt, a white summer skirt, and a pair of flip-flops. They also gave me a "gift certificate" to get a new charm for my necklace with Kate's name on it. Normally Steve and the girls make me breakfast in bed but they moved it to the next Sunday because the girls spent the night at Molly's house with Shelly so they weren't home for breakfast!
(My kids and Molly's kids with Aunt Shelly.) Can we say enough about how much we love our Aunt Shelly? Shelly is my mom's sister and we could not ask for a better Aunt or Great Aunt! She plays with the kids, (and while I was down for the count, cooks, cleans, etc.) and is just so much fun to be around.
Kate's first dinner out. We went to TGI Friday's the night before Aunt Shelly left. I enjoyed having a decent appetite (and room enough to eat) a bacon cheeseburger - I had been craving that the end of my pregnancy but eating anything became such a chore so I finally got to indulge. And it was good! Shelly and the girls enjoyed a rousing game of "I Spy" which is a lot of fun to play at Friday's with all the fun pop culture decor.
The girls have so much fun playing with and reading to their sister. Often, though, they are disappointed that she sleeps so much! These are the times I find her being burped or moved or having pacifiers shoved in and out of her mouth while she is asleep. They might just love her to death! We are working hard to enforce "no touching/moving/burping" rules while she is asleep. I often have to put Kate in my room until the girls have finished the job de jour - picking up the family room, their bedroom, etc. They get so easily distracted by her!
Lindsay wanted me to bring her sister to her school for a "show and tell." Lindsay walked her around the classroom and all the kiddos wanted to touch her (of course I reminded them that they are disgusting first graders crawling with germies!) so she walked down each aisle so they could all get a good look. Her teacher has said that Lindsay cannot stop talking about her new sister. In fact, the day she was born, Lindsay was at school and her teacher kept giving her 1/2 hour updates on the time so she could know when her sister was being born! (Since our surgery got bumped a little bit, they were probably off by about an hour.)
My belated Mother's day breakfast! Yum!!! Our traditional special breakfast is French Toast, bananas, strawberries, and orange juice. I got my breakfast in bed and then everyone brought a tray into my room and we all had breakfast in bed together!
First bottle. I am lucky. I have a very easy time breast feeding and I do not take that for granted. But, I also know the freedom of having a baby be able to take a bottle too! So, at about 2 weeks, I have started each of my kids getting one bottle a day. I am able to pump very easily so we already have a good stash of milk going in the freezer. Lindsay did get a little bored feeding her - I think baby dolls eat faster than real babies. So, Steve finished it up.
First real bath with big sisters. (I think they are getting too old to have naked bath pictures on a blog!) But they got to learn about how she can't sit up and slips around and easily can go under the water (she didn't...I was just teaching them with my hands on Kate at all times.) They were all in my big bath tub with our infant tub set inside of it with them. Nothing like a clean yummy baby after a bath! Her cord fell off earlier this week and the girls were so anxious to take a bath with her. I ended up holding it up as a privilege if they got their chores done without getting in trouble along the way. Well, it wasn't until Saturday that the girls cleaned their room without fighting or making Mommy upset with their "work stoppages" and whining and crying. So, Kate settled for a few more wash cloth "sponge baths" until Sunday morning when all the girlies took a bath together.

Well, we look forward to a Memorial Day BBQ with Molly's family at our house, the last couple days of school for Lindsay, the start of Summer Movie Fun, and lots of company coming into town for Kate's blessing this coming Sunday. We are so excited to have Grandma Nadene and Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Bill coming for this special occasion!

On a sad note, we are sending our thoughts and prayers to Steve's oldest brother Scott who on Saturday was in a serious bike accident and is in the hospital having his leg put back together with pins and plates. He wrecked at the bottom of a hill trying to avoid an on-coming car and he was not being able to slow himself down and as he turned to avoid a car, his left leg took the brunt of a crash and he has two compound fractures in his lower left leg. He will be in the hospital for a couple of days and then expects to be in crutches for at least 12 weeks. This is so sad - he is the athlete of the family who runs and cycles daily and eats so healthy - we could all take a cue from his quest for a healthy lifestyle! We will be going to Asheville, NC for the 4th of July with the extended Simpson family and Scott is the master planner of hikes and outdoor adventures so I am sure that will be hard on him to miss out - that is just not his way to sit back and not be a part of it. We love you Scott and wish you all the best for a speedy recovery!!