Kruger Family "Camping" Trip

 

Every year, Keith's family takes a camping trip, usually to Millersylvania, south of Olympia.

 

Because I have a newborn, and am not crazy; this year we elected to sleep at home, and just come down for the day.  We did something similar when Parker was a newborn, but this time, we managed to get there before 4pm.

 

We spent most of the afternoon by the lake.  Parker went "swimming" in much the same sense that we were "camping", but he did enjoy playing in the sand.

 

And, even though Parker hates the water, since Mama is a massive worry-wort, he had to wear his live jacket any time he got remotely close to the water.

 

He wasn't a huge fan of the jacket, but at least Mama felt better.  I am actually a fairly confident swimmer, but water is one of my greatest fears in regards to my babies, so he'll be wearing the full-on life vest until he can prove to me that he can swim from one side of the lake to the other.

 

As it was, he never let go of Daddy & barely got his toes wet.

 

For dinner, we all roasted our own hot dogs.

 

We were also celebrating Dwayne, Kyla, & Parker's birthdays, so Parker got to open up a few presents.  He's actually starting to get into the whole wrapping paper excitement, I think he'll be in fine form by the time Christmas comes around.

 

And finally, a shot of Parker after he licked all the frosting off his cupcake and then handed the rest off for Daddy to eat.

Parker's First Oreo

 

First thing he did was twist it open and lick off all the frosting.  I guess it's an instictive thing.

Today's Project ~ One Month Art

It remains to be seen if I keep this up, but cute, huh?

 

I just wish I didn't have to sacrifice my nap for it.

One Month!

 

Our baby girl is one month already!

 

 

I know everyone says this, but it's gone so fast.

 

 

Cecily's sleeping pretty well, with usually at least one 4-hour stretch at night.  The hardest part is waking her up for her meals.  Once she's no longer starving, she konks out and very little in the world will wake her long enough to finish her feeding.  Which is why I'm stuck stripping her naked at 3 am, and then wiping her down with the washcloth.

This could be part of why she's not growing quite fast enough.

 

The other reason could be the sheer volume of spit-up.  For the past two days, she & I both have had to change our clothes at least once due to regurgitated milk.  She's lucky my milk supply is better than it was last time, so I'd certainly be crying over spilled milk.

 

For the past two weeks, Cecily has had a terrible case of baby acne.  The crusty/scabby part seems to be getting a little better, but she's still pretty spotty at the moment.  I wish I'd scheduled our newborn family photos the first few days we were home from the hospital before it started, as it is, we might be taking her newborn photos when she's in college if I have to wait for the acne to go away.

 

 

She made her first cooing sounds yesterday.  She's seldom awake and not eating (or screaming because she'd like to be eating), but her happy awake moments are starting to get longer.

 

Parker still loves, loves, loves, his little sister, although I think that over the weekend he manifested his hidden jealousy by not sleeping, at all.

 

If you'd asked me how I was doing a few weeks ago, my response would have been, "Great, we're doing great, the 2nd is so much easier than the first!"  If you ask me this week, I'd probably say, (insert long pause) "We're good".  We really are doing quite well, but I think that the sleep deprivation and taking care of two kiddos is starting to pile up and I'd probably benefit from a few moments to myself for a good cry (and a cocktail).

 

None of which was helped by the great zoo fiasco of yesterday, but that's another blog post.

 

But, all-in-all, I love these two kiddos and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have them.  I'll sleep when they're in college...and that's probably when I'll get to cleaning the bathroom as well.

 I love the way her little eyebrows go up when she's waking up (or when I'm attempting to wake her up during a feeding).  Parker did the same thing.

 

By the way, don't you love this little romper?  It's from Etsy, but I can tell I'm starting to get my feet back under me because I'm totally starting to think about where I could find similar fabric and make her a few more.

Cecily still prefers to sleep swaddled, but when she does fall asleep without the swaddle, her hands go straight up "over" her head...just like Mama (except I can actually reach the top of my head).

 

Zoo: Fail

Last week, I took Parker & Cecily to the zoo.  While we were there, we saw one of the elephants being scrubbed and checked.  Parker has not stopped talking about the "elephant shower" since then.

 

So, Wednesday morning, we decided to go to the zoo so he could see the "elephant again".

 

When we arrived, we wandered through the Tropical Rain Forest exhibit.  While looking at the gorillas, one of them charged the glass, right where Parker was standing.  (If you've never been there, there is nothing but a piece of glass separating you from the gorillas where we were).  It scared the living daylights out of Parker.

 

Once I calmed him down, we moved on to other animals, but every time we got close to any exhibit, he'd turn his head & cry "No, no!" over & over.  The poor boy couldn't even handle seeing the elephant (who was getting another shower at the time).  We finally had to go home since he couldn't handle it.  Including our lunch break, I think we were there for less than an hour.

 

Hopefully he isn't scarred for life.  Although, he spent all afternoon talking about the "elephant shower", so I guess there's hope.

Labor Day Weekend

 

It's not very often we have a weekend with no plans.  And a three-day weekend with no plans is even more un-heard of.  But, when you have a newborn, things are different.

 

Anyway, since we had the weekend free, we decided to take the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston on Saturday morning.

As you can see, Cecily was fascinated.

 

We walked onto the ferry, so it was a really simple trip.  There's not much to see in Kingston, but they had a nice farmer's market, and we found a great brew-pub restaurant for lunch.

 

She's still fascinated...

 

Parker, however, LOVED the ferry.  He & Keith spent the entire trip home running around the ferry, checking the place out.

 

In all, it was a great little day trip, and we were home in-time for nap time (not that he took one, but that's another story).