One Month Update

Izzy is one month old!  This little girl is amazing and surprising us every day.

 Growing like a weed

At 2 weeks, she weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz, and at 1 month she weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs. 11 oz (with a diaper on, but still!!), wears Newborn diapers, but we're on our last few before she graduates to sz. 1, fits in 3 month clothes and only a select few newborn clothes.

Eating like a horse

She eats pretty consistently every 3 hours, and she is settling into a routine of eating at about the same times every day, takes a bottle from daddy and usually eats between 2.5-3.5 oz. at a time, is still nursing like a champ... it's rare that she needs more than ten minutes to get filled up.

Sleeping like a... stuffed up little sweetie

Would have rather written "sleeping like a rock,' but that wouldn't tell the story of her stuffy last week of needing to sleep laying on my (or Jeremy's) chest to breathe.  Before she got sick, she was sleeping great--even getting a 4-5 stretch in each night.  Now we're lucky if we can get her an hour or two sleeping propped up in her carseat.  Poor thing!  Day sleep is getting more predictable... she likes to be awake for an hour or two at a time and then needs her beauty rest.

Other fun...

She is smiling often, and she loves when we talk to her.  She especially loves when Cooper talks to her in his special "high" baby voice (it's sooo cute!!).  She coos and squeals back at us... her little arms and legs and tongue really get going when she tries to get sounds to come out.  She is batting at toys and getting better at focusing on and tracking objects in front of her--especially faces.  She holds her head up pretty well--especially when we hold her on our shoulder.  She often throws her head back, making you think she'll jump right out of your arms!

Her first month was full of lots of 'firsts' and special moments... below are just a few:

First smiles are so quick and hard to catch, but this was definitely one of the early ones

More smiles

First bottle from daddy around 3 weeks

Sporting wildly cute hair... the collection of headbands is slowly growing!

Holding her head up better each day...

Loves laying on the floor but only likes tummy time for short bursts.  This day, I guess she was bored!

Here's a progression of her dramatic stretching when she wakes up from a long nap... and dramatic is putting it lightly.  Along with stretching and wiggling, she grunts, sighs, snorts, and blows bubbles for a good five minutes before she opens her eyes. 

Isabelle was baptized on Nov. 25

Best buds

Godparents Aunt Missy and Aunt Jackie

Our family on Izzy's special day

A Happy Thanksgiving smirk

So I realize 4 weeks and 1 month were only 4 days apart, but I couldn't resist!

We love you Izzy, and we're excited to watch you grow (but don't grow up too fast, okay?!).

Around the house

Fun times at the Kalal house these days... here's a look at what we've been up to.  I seem to have the camera at my fingertips at all times lately.  It makes for a fun update :)

As I type this morning, it's 8:23 AM, and our house is still quiet!  Cooper is sleeping in later than he ever does, Jeremy is taking advantage of the extra time to sleep in, and Izzy is snoozing on my chest.  Seems like the start to a wonderful day!


The Endres girls stopped over for another play date, and the three kids decided the blanket box was the most exciting place to be...

Abby (1 1/2) Olivia (2 1/2)  Cooper (nearly 2)

We needed to get some more toys out of the living room, because let's face it--they don't stay in the living room.  They get scattered all over the house.  We picked the toys with the most pieces and all the toys with balls, and took them to the playroom in the basement.  We also boxed up some toys that Cooper seems to have outgrown to put away for a while.  Cooper was not happy about all of this, and decided to show his frustration by chucking every toy out of the box.  We just sat there and laughed at him.  It was quite a site to see!

I am so excited to be reading stories to both my babies!  I'm excited for when they can both crawl up in my lap...

Our own little Ray Charles

Thanksgiving at Grandma and Papa Kalal's house included building a fire (of course)...

...snuggling with grandma...

...and Izzy showing off her tutu AND smiles.

And when we got home, Cooper wanted to 'help' make our Black Friday shopping lists... you can imagine just how much help this was.

Today is the first day of December, and I can't believe it's already this time of year again.  I am so looking forward to Izzy's first Christmas and Cooper's excitement this Christmas now that he understands the present idea! What a fun time of year!!!

A Big Dose of Izzy

Izzy was three weeks old on Thursday!  I have been a little preoccupied at home over the last few days, so I am in need of an Izzy update :)

Izzy continues to bring lots of love to our lives and our family... She makes us smile every day with her silly expressions and now with her big gummy smiles.  She is so content!  She loves hanging out on the floor during the day, and she doesn't mind small doses of tummy time.  At her 2-week check up last week, she weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 8 oz.!  That's just over a one-pound gain in 10 days (she left the hospital weighing 7 lbs. 7.5 oz.).  I knew she was a good eater... I just didn't realize HOW good :)  She's starting to fill out... as evidenced by her double chin and the beginning of thigh rolls.

A chance to get out of the house and try out the double stroller.

Surprise, surprise, Izzy's first walk put her to sleep!

Two weeks old!

We also just got her newborn photos back.  Mary Drummer (of Mary Drummer Photography in Carver) did a great job for us, despite the fact that Izzy was being a little stinker.  For starters, she was wide awake the ENTIRE time, which is very odd for a newborn... Secondly, she just was not her content self.  She was fussy and we couldn't get her to be comfortable in more than two or three positions.  We did get some beautiful shots of our little Izzy, though.  Take a sneak peek ;)

The reason I've been a little preoccupied is mainly that I've been trying to catch up on sleep...  Here's a rundown of our last few days/nights...

Saturday
7:30 PM: Cooper's down for the night.  
8 PM:  Izzy's awake and ready to party.  I wonder if she has invisible toothpicks holding open her eyes.
10 PM: Izzy eats for the third time in four hours.  Still not sleepy.
Sunday
12 AM:  Screaming heard from the basement.  Jeremy goes to check and finds a puking Cooper.  Izzy is still awake.
12:45 AM:  Cooper pukes again, and continues to vomit every forty minutes, pretty much all night.
1:30 AM:  Izzy is sleeping.  Finally.  I lay her down and crawl into bed.  Jeremy and Cooper are snuggling in the basement on a makeshift bed make of towels.
2:00 AM:  Izzy's not sleeping.  Surprise.  I rock and sway with her for what feels like an eternity.  I might have been sleeping while standing up.
2:15 AM: Jeremy comes upstairs to check on us and we can't decide who has it tougher... the puking boy who wants to watch cartoons between heaves or the wide awake baby who won't let her mom sit down.  I think the puke trumps the rocking...
2:45 AM:  The house is quiet.  Izzy drifts off to sleep.  Thank heavens!
4:00 AM:  Izzy is awake to eat, and I hear talking in the basement.  I go down to find Cooper warming his hands by the fireplace and telling daddy all about cartoons.

By this point, it was pretty much impossible to get any quality sleep, so I know Jeremy threw in the towel ;)  I caught a couple hours when Izzy thankfully went back to sleep after this night time feeding.

7:30 AM:  Izzy and I are up and getting ready for church.  We decide to go solo and leave the germs behind for a while.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful--no more puking.  Until exactly midnight that following night!  The night's events were nearly identical to the previous night, so I'll spare the details... but Izzy decided she needed to be awake to partake in the action--thankfully, Cooper didn't have a marathon sick night again... just a few times ;)

Coop stayed home from daycare Monday, and Jeremy stayed home from school to take care of him.  No puking again... until Tuesday afternoon at daycare, as well as Tuesday evening after a snack.  Poor guy!!  It really stinks to watch your child puke.  You feel so helpless!!!  Needless to say, he stayed home Wednesday, with Grandma Lori's help.  Guess who came home from work early Wednesday because he felt sick?!?!?  Jeremy!!  Now it's Thursday, Cooper's back at daycare and so far, so good!  No puking from either of my boys, but Jeremy is still home.  Hopefully some R&R will help him feel back to normal soon!!

Whew!  That's it.
We hope you have a HEALTHY rest of the week!

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun pre-Halloween weekend, as well as a fun Halloween night.  This post is full of pictures to tell the story best :)

Cooper was mildly excited to scoop out the goop from the pumpkins.  Jeremy was not.  And although I'd love to give him crap for wearing a glove (check out the pic) because he's scared of the pumpkin goop, it's because earlier that day, he received an RBO (really bad owie).  His thumb has a huge gash from a broken glass--he even had to go to urgent care to get some pieces of glass dug out and the wound glued shut.  I thought he would kill me when I wanted him to get gloves from the nurse so he wouldn't get out of carving pumpkins that night.  But to my surprise, he came home with a couple.

Getting curious...

Cooper decided to catch up on his reading because dad was taking so long.

When the pants came off, we knew it was business time.

Happy Halloween!

Cooper got pretty excited about the 'hot' candles inside

Our Izzy pumpkin and our Cooper pumpkin!

Halloween morning, Izzy got dressed in her little pumpkin sleeper.  I knew it wouldn't last the whole day with the way she's been blowing through diapers, and I was right :)  Good thing she had a 'real' costume for later on.

The cutest little pumpkin in the patch!

But I really don't think she liked getting dressed up... someday she will :)

A cute little kitty... who looks pretty grumpy.

And now, for the MAN of the house. Or should I say puppy?  This little guy was in love with his costume, and when he put it on, he was transformed into a wild man!

Cooper took only one house to 'warm up' to the idea of trick-or-treating.  After that, he boldly walked up to each door and knocked on the door, proudly clutching his pumpkin in one hand, and softly knocking with the other.  He couldn't say 'trick-or-treat,' but Jeremy said Cooper managed a 'please' and 'thank-you' at every stop. 

Ready to go trick-or-treating!

When they got home, Cooper wanted to 'fix' his candy.

And just before bed time, the Endres girls stopped by.  And this is the best picture of a 2 1/2, 2, and 1 1/2 year-old one can get :)

Buddies!

The next night, we stopped and Grandpa and Papa Kalal's house.  We tried to get Cooper and Izzy in a Halloween pic together, but it just wasn't meant to be this year :(

We tried!

All Cooper really wanted to do was build a fire with Papa, and then warm up his hands.

Oh, and run around like a crazy man.  How could I forget?

Papa and his little puppy.

Cooper is supervising.

And now they can admire their handiwork, Papa warming up his hands, and Cooper and Homer warming up their paws :)

Happy Halloween 2012

8 short months ago...

 Only eight short months ago, we were celebrating the news of a little one joining our family...

And now she's ours!  Our perfect little one-week-old pumpkin!

One Week Old!

How in the world has one week already passed since we first met Izzy?!?  She is already changing before our eyes, AND I have yet to do her birth story justice on the blog!!  Today is the first day I feel pretty rested from a glorious night of sleep... so here goes.  (No, don't worry, she's not sleeping through the night yet, she just decided last night that she would eat and go back to sleep like an angel every time.  She even snuck in one 4 1/2 hour stretch!)

The Night You Were Born...

The day started like any other.  I was officially 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant, and Jeremy and I were looking forward to my doctor appointment to see how things were progressing.  On the way to the appointment, I told Jeremy that I just had a feeling today at school... I left my classroom nearly spotless, double checked that all my copies were ready for my substitute, and even wrote out my parent newsletter instead of waiting until Friday like usual.  Little did I know my intuition was dead on!

Dr. Weinrich determined that I was 5 cm dilated, and he set up an appointment for me to be induced that next morning... it was like deja vu!  He said that he pretty much expected to see me back again that night, though.  He was right ;)  By about 6:00 that night, I started not feeling well, and by 7:00, my contractions were coming about 5 minutes apart, and by 8:00, they were getting painful.  Jeremy had his mom come over to the house since Cooper was already in bed, and we headed for the hospital.  We arrived a little before 10:00, and I was dilated to 7 or 8, according to the nurse.  The nurse asked me what I wanted as far as pain management... I tried to smile through my contraction as I whispered, "Epidural!"  I was admitted and the anesthesiologist was paged.  It felt like forever until he arrived with the miracle epidural, but it was a welcome sight when he walked through the door.  Jeremy and I were joking about whether this baby would arrive on October 24 or October 25, since it was so close to midnight.  Apparently Izzy wanted to come exactly on her due date, so she arrived just barely into the next day, at 12:19 AM on October 25. 

I always wondered if the feelings would be the same holding my second new baby as it was when I held my first new baby... just like with Cooper, this magical feeling washed over me as soon as they laid her on my chest.  I got to hold her fresh little body for nearly five minutes before they made me give her up to the nurse to be weighed and cleaned.  But it didn't take five minutes to fall utterly and completely in love.  The minute I saw her and heard her little cry, I knew life would never be the same! Holding our little Isabelle Ann, I thought about what an amazing miracle it really is that she came to be.  My heart swelled when Jeremy held her for the first time.  He was a proud dad, ready to protect his little girl all her life. 

 

At first, we thought it was kind of great that she was born in the middle of the night--after all, we didn't have visitors knocking down the door to meet her, and we could relax--just the three of us.  Then morning came. And our excited family came.  We were most anxious for Cooper to meet her.  When he came into the room, he knew something was up.  He was most curious about being on the bed with mommy, then playing with the balloon he brought, then looking into the bassinet, and then he started getting curious about Izzy.  He was quiet and gentle, like he knew he should be.  It was pretty cute!  He even wanted to kiss her--with closed lips, even!  I haven't even gotten a closed-mouth kiss from him ;)

 The video is a little long, and the sound quality isn't great, but we really wanted to capture the moment that our family of four was together for the first time...

Cooper's second day back at the hospital... he wanted to hold and kiss his new baby sister :)

And we quickly realized that a night of no sleep, plus a new baby, meant we were exhausted by early evening.  The adrenaline carried us through, and Izzy went to play with the nurses that first night while we got 2- to 3-hour spurts of sleep. 

This is the day we brought Izzy home from the hospital

Now that we have Izzy home, I honestly feel like she's been our daughter forever.  I just feel like I KNOW her and she's only been mine for one week...  She is a very content baby, a get-to-business nurser, and she's settling in to a sleeping and eating pattern at night that we like!!  She's even an over-achiever... always reaching her 'goal' of wet and dirty diapers each day ;)  Go figure.

Welcome Home Izzy!

Have you ever seen a prouder smile?!?!

More photos from Izzy's first days at home to come!!

How is she already one week old?!?!?!