The day

Today, we took Rosa for her two-week check-up.  She weighed in at 7 pounds, 5 ounces, which was exactly three ounces over her birth weight, so she's right on track.  I noticed that I also had to loosen the straps on her carseat just the tiniest bit to get her in, whereas when we took her home from the hospital, even the very smallest setting was too big for her. 

So, our girl is growing!  She's been drinking lots and lots of Mommy's milk, which seems to be going well for both her and Sacha.  She also seems to be waking up from her newborn sleepiness a little bit more, at least at night.  She's been up, up, up to nurse, and has had some quality couch time with me in the night when she has a hard time getting back to sleep. Luckily, I'm working on curbing my middle-of-the-night random online purchasing!

In other news, Sacha got to take Mateo to preschool this morning, which is probably only the second time she's ever done that.  It was a nice way for them to have some special time together and I think Mateo really enjoyed it.  Then, after a playdate this morning with Talia and some friends, I managed to pick Mateo up from preschool with both Tali and Rosa in tow!  I was very proud of myself and glad to get the first time of doing that out of the way, so it won't seem so intimidating in the future.

In the land of the bigger kids, Mateo and Natalia are both doing some new things.   Mateo's been pretty excited about math lately, so we've switched our pre-rest-time learning time from reading to math.  He's at a very basic level, but it's fun to do something new, especially because he reads all the time anyway, so he doesn't need too much explicit reinforcement that way.  I mean, we do read to him all the time, but you know what I mean.

For Tali, her new big thing is that she has mastered the balance bike!  She got it for her birthday a year ago and refused to even touch it at the time, but somehow she changed her mind a month or two ago.  Since then, she's been all excited about the bike and has been practicing on it quite a bit.  Now she can go out and balance on it and nearly keep up with her brother!  It's very exciting and I think it's freeing for her, which she loves, because she is a very independent girl.  She has also learned how to put on all her clothes in the morning, which continues to amaze me.  She has got some awesome fine motor skills.

Both kids seem to love their new sister and are very interested in her and what she's up to, so that's a good thing.  I think they will continue to adjust and have their ups and downs, but that's to be expected.

We're saying goodbye to my mom tomorrow, so we'll be on our own as a family of five!  We're so, so grateful to both our moms and all of our families for their support.  We're also excited to learn how to stand on our own feet in this new world of having three kids!  As someone said on my facebook page earlier, let the games begin!

Adjusting

Having gotten into the rhythm of blogging every day or two, I am finding that I still want to blog, but my brain is slowly turning to mush.  I'm not much of a napper, unfortunately, but I would be happy to just sit here and stare at the wall for an hour if I could :)  Right now, Sacha and the baby and Tali are sleeping and Mateo is questioning me endlessly on why our house is so old and how it got to be that way.  He's fascinated by old things and why they are old, and apparently I haven't come up with a sufficient answer yet, because the questions just keep coming.

Anyway, I thought I'd post quickly about how we're all adjusting.  Overall, the process seems to be going more smoothly than when we went from one to two kids, so that's a good thing.  Instead of being completely shellshocked, we're more just tired but able to roll with it.  It helps to have such a very cooperative baby, although she is waking up more and that leads to more nighttime wakefulness.  Last night, she pretty much nursed all night except for when she was awake and wanting to party. 

That led to me being up with her in the living room for an hour twice, during which time I gave her some tummy time, played on the internet and prayed she wouldn't wake up either of the other kids.  I also got this idea in my mind that we needed a small soccer goal for our backyard, so that we could all play soccer this summer, so I ordered an inexpensive one and two soccer balls online at like 5 in the morning.  It all made perfect sense at the time, but now just seems bizarre!

We've had a lot of visitors in the past few days, so we're planning a quiet afternoon for today (or, at least, as quiet as our afternoons ever are).  We just finally got the Polar Express movie from the library, after waiting for our turn for months, so we might watch a bit of that, and generally hang around the house.  Luckily, we have a fabulous baby and two energetic kids to keep us awake entertained!

Ok, just one more!

 If you can stand it, we just downloaded all the photos from my mom's camera of Rosa's homecoming, so there may be even more photos coming soon :)  This one is from her first moment at home!

More pictures

Here are some pictures from my mom's visit with us. She was amazingly helpful in the first week and somehow we didn't post many pictures of her that week. Also, some photos of three other amazing people in our lives - Poppa, Apa, and Grandmommy! So . . . here they are!

Two weeks!

Happy two weeks to our little Rosie J, and to all of us as a family of five!

Family

I can't say enough how lucky we are to have the family we do.  We've been lucky again to be showered by their generosity surrounding Rosa's birth, and we had more visits today.  My sister flew in from DC yesterday, my dad flew up from California today, and Galen and Megan came by this evening before all the grown-ups went out to dinner...well, except us, but we're a little bit occupied right now :)

Anyway, forgive the many, many photos, but since this blog doubles as the kids' baby book, there might be more photos of Rosa being held by people in the next few weeks!  We're lucky also that the people who've come to see the baby have also made it a point to play with Mateo and Tali, so that everyone has had a good time.  I still have to pinch myself that we have three kids.  Talk about lucky!

Without further ado, the photos:

With Grammy...

Playing hide and seek with toy cars among our planter garden...

With Cathy....

....and Katie!

Chilling with my Dad

Meeting people makes me soooo sleepy....

Celebrating Auntie Edlyn's birthday

She spent most of the afternoon snoozing on my sister, which was way too cute.

Meeting Uncle Galen for the first time!

Uncle Galen with an armload of kiddos

Now, our house is quiet and Sacha and I are going to try for a little down time before we go to bed.  The baby's just nursing now, so we should have time to watch an episode of something on the computer before we hit the sack.  Our life is all about the basics these days, but in a good way, although we're both slightly zombie-ish.  

This morning, I got up with Rosie at 5 am and made the mistake of turning on the heater, which woke up Mateo an hour early, and he was up all day after that.  Big thanks to my mom for getting up with him and letting me go back to bed!  I have a feeling things are going to get a little crazy after she leaves and we're really on our own!

A picture is worth a thousand....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yep, still here, still exhausted but elated. I was just going through photos from the last couple of days and I just have to post them, because if I don't do it now, then I never will! So, here are some of my favorites: