Evangeline Grace: 2 Months Update

My favorite milestone this past month is definitely her smiling.

Our sweet girl has learned to smile and happily shares a grin often.  She absolutely loves to cuddle, nurse, take baths, and smile at Daddy.  It is especially sweet when big brother Eli comes over to play with her and makes her grin from ear to ear.  I have been surprised at how much Eva and Elijah are enjoying one another.  I thought they would be older before they really “played” together.  At this point I feel like I have adjusted to having two children although I do still worry that I am going to leave one of them somewhere!

We ended up canceling her checkup two weeks ago because I had a nasty cold.  Last week we were traveling so Evangeline finally made it to her checkup today and weighed in at 14lbs 4 oz and 22 inches long.  She is actually 2 months and 2 weeks at this point.  No wonder all of her 3 month clothes were so tight!  😉  I am so thankful that Eva is healthy.  I was a little surprised at her weight gain but I guess she is just going to be a chubby little baby until she starts to crawl.  She has the most adorable chunky little legs I have ever seen!  Evangeline continues to be a curious little girl always wanting to look around.  She has also started to squirm and kick with her legs.  Sometimes we catch her putting her little hands in her mouth.  Already she seems to be quite dramatic and acts as though she is going to die if we don’t pick her up fast enough when she is hungry.  🙂

6 Weeks Old

Thankfully Eva continues to be a great sleeper and usually sleeps a good 8 hours (except when we are traveling).  She still sleeps in our room at this point.  Evangeline recently decided that she hates bottles.  😦  We had to supplement the first few weeks with expressed breast milk and she had no problem taking a bottle.  Selfishly I would love to go out on a date with my husband longer than 3 hours so I am hoping that we can convince her to take one again.  Breastfeeding is great at this point and I believe I have made it over the two month hurdle.   I think that as a mother one of the sweetest milestones is when you are nursing your baby and they look up at you and smile and a pool of milk dribbles out of their mouth.  So precious!  If you haven’t had this happen then it probably just sounds weird but it melts my heart like butter every time!

 

How Mommy is Recovering: My incision is healed at this point and I took my doctor’s advice about walking for 2 weeks before resuming any other type of exercise.  I have worked up to about 45 minute walks and would like to reach the hour mark before I join any of the aerobics classes at our gym.  Two weeks ago I was feeling a little tender on my right side after too much activity so I am trying to be careful not to push myself too hard.  I am noticeably less tired than I was a month ago and feel like I have a good handle on things.  Now I am just trying to enjoy each and every moment.  They grow so fast!  🙂

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Happy Birthday Elijah & 20 Questions with Eli

Happy Birthday Eli. We love you so much.

It is incredibly hard to believe that my sweet little boy is 4!  Everyone says children grow up so fast but it is so true.  He is such a delight and I am so thankful that God has given him to us.  For his birthday this year we decided to use the money we would usually spend on toys on an activity since he has so many toys.  We spent a wonderful morning at the Newport Aquarium.  Elijah was even able to touch a horseshoe crab and a star fish.  He was too scared to touch a baby shark though!

Touching a horseshoe crab and starfish.

We really enjoyed the Scuba Santa show at the Newport Aquarium.

They even had a show with Scuba Santa and a group of sharks.  If you look closely in the picture you can also see Santa’s elf who is holding a great big stick that he uses to smack the sharks when they get too close to Santa!

Evangeline turned 2 months old on Eli’s birthday.

This year I decided to interview Eli.  Hopefully I will remember to do this every year.  🙂

1. Who is your favorite person in the whole world?   Baby Sister
2. What is your favorite color?  Red
3. What’s your favorite television show?  Leapfrog’s Numberland
4. What’s your favorite outfit?  He had no answer for this one.  That is probably because we are always telling him to put pants on!  😉
5. What sport do you like best?  Basketball
6. What song do you love?  Jesus Loves Me
7. What’s your favorite cereal?  Life
8. Who is your best friend?  Baby Sister-note he usually refers to Eva as baby sister instead of Eva or Evangeline.
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Eli said he wants to be a person!  He also said he wants to be a preacher.
10. What is your favorite book?  I’ll Pray Anyway-a book about Daniel that he has partially memorized
11. What are you really good at?  Playing
12. Where do you wish you could go on vacation?  A bounce party
13. What is your best memory?  When I kissed baby sister
14. What would you buy if you had $1000?  Oreos & a baby doll
15. What vegetable do you love the most?  Green Beans
16. If you could have a wish, what would it be?  He had no idea.
17. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?  Chocolate
18. Who is your biggest hero?  Mommy
19. What do you like to do best with your friends?  Play
20. What do you hope you’ll get to do before your next birthday?  Play with baby sister a lot.

He is such a sweetheart and we love him so much!  I am so glad he was blessed with such a great birthday this year!

Frugal Things I Did Last Week

She is so happy with her frugal family!

My sweet girl is 7 weeks old already!  I can hardly believe it.  My body feels like it has healed and I am no longer experiencing pain.  Hooray!  We are slowly adjusting to our new normal around here.  Our frugal ways have not kicked back in completely but we are making a little progress so I thought I would share what we were up to last week.  

Frugal Things I Did Last Week:

We hosted a birthday lunch for my Dad at our house on Sunday after church.  I made a simple BBQ from a pork loin and served it along with: Pasta Salad, Cole Slaw, Vegetarian Baked Beans, Pumpkin Cake/Cobbler, and Chocolate Cake.

Despite hosting Thanksgiving for 26 people I did not go to the grocery at all last week.  I knew the stores would be absolutely crazy and I wanted to avoid taking two young children out in the craziness.  This allowed me to avoid lots of extra impulse purchases that are much harder for me to resist around the holidays.

I baked a ham (along with the turkey) that I had to cook myself and saved about a dollar per pound.  This was actually my first time baking a full ham. I mixed up a glaze of honey, apple juice, and honey mustard.  I basted the ham about every 15 minutes and it tasted great!  It was so easy that I will probably try to bake one a couple of times a year.

I made Eva Grace’s Thanksgiving peasant dress & Eli’s matching tie shirt.

I sewed curtains for one of the windows in the kitchen.  The week before I sewed curtains for the bathroom.  Now I am just trying to decide what style curtains to sew for the Family Room and Kitchen.

I made a Christmas canvas as a thank you to a couple in our church who allowed our family to stay at their cabin while they were visiting.

I went Black Friday shopping at Hancock Fabrics and Michaels.  I didn’t go crazy and compared to most years bought a small amount of fabric and notions.  Hancock Fabrics matched JoAnn’s 25% off your total purchase saving me extra money.  

We had a bunch of bananas that were going bad so I baked banana nut bread for our Thanksgiving Dessert Social at church.

I sewed a Christmas gift for one of my nieces.  No picture since her mama reads my blog! 😉

I gave my cousin her birthday gift.  I made her doll a Christmas Dress, headband, and two tiny school binders.  I used this tutorial for the headband and Simplicity 4786 for the doll dress.  I had the pattern on hand and have made it many times.  Everything I used to make her gift I had on hand.

Eli made jello jigglers.

I breastfed and cloth-diapered my daughter all week.  This is a substantial savings in our life every week!

What frugal things did you do last week?