Happy Birthday Avery!

Avery is two years old today. I can't believe it. My baby is growing up! We've had a nice day so far. Opened a few presents this morning, watched some new DVDs, played with new toys, went to the library, had lunch with Daddy at the cafeteria at his office (really good food!), and now we're taking a much needed nap. Well, the girls are. This afternoon we're going to play at the playground, then pick Daddy up from work and drive down to the Stone Fire Pizza Co. for dinner which has a cool play area for kids.
Avery has gotten a lot of cool gifts (thanks family!) and has more to open later in the day. One of her favorite things about her birthday so far is her birthday crown. We've seen several cartoons about birthdays and Avery deduced that on your birthday you wear a hat or a crown. So everytime we've talked about her birthday she's mentioned it. We found this crown at WalMart and it lights up. She's been wearing it all day.
I made Avery a "Magenta" cake, which is the magenta colored dog friend of Blue in Blue's Clues. She loves that show and Magenta is always her favorite diaper when we buy Luvs. :) I got the idea from here.

We're excited for the "terrific twos" and we love our Avery!

Our girls

Camy is now 3 months and 5 days... Avery will be 2 years in 6 days!

Look how tall Avery is getting (not including the hairstyle)!

And Camryn loves tummy time!

Sweet cheek girls...

InMomnia

I heard on the radio a while ago that the average amount of sleep a new mom who is breastfeeding loses in the first year of their child's life is 700 hours. That's enough to make you a little zombie-like, you'd think. But I think even more so is that the quality of sleep diminishes. When Avery was 8 or 9 months old I would be wide awake in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep, a kind of in"mom"nia I'll call it. It's where you lay in bed grateful that your child isn't awake and crying out for you but waiting for the inevitable "Mommy!". Or where you jump up to check on your newborn when she squeaks in her sleep. Or where you have to keep checking on your really newborn to see if she's still breathing. Or where you're so dead exhausted from taking care of kids but you can't make yourself fall asleep for a nap even though their both sleeping because you know the second you fall asleep one of them will wake up. (Can you tell that's what I'm doing right now?)

Things with Avery did not go so well when it came to sleep and I know now that I should have made her cry it out sooner. It wasn't until she was 10-11 months before she slept through the night, and then not for several more months until it was really consistent. I don't think I realized how much of a zombie I was for Avery's first year of life until I started sleeping all night again.

(This is one of my favorite pictures- both girls asleep!)

Anyways, I kind of wanted to get some advice about babies and sleep. For those of you who have kids, what did you do right or what will you do better next time? And even if you don't have kids, maybe you have some advice for me too. Camryn is 3 months tomorrow and nearing the time when she and I are both going to need to get her into a good sleep rhythm. She's really not bad at all I think but the sleepy baby bliss of her first two months of life have worn off. I see myself getting into the same routines that I did with Avery and I'm just plain not sure how to get a little baby to sleep longer than 30 minute naps or to only wake up to eat 1-2 times a night instead of 2-4. So share what you've learned, please!

Sisters!

Avery loves to read Camryn books. She mostly just flips through them to look at all the pictures while Camy is utterly captivated. She loves her big sister. It's pretty nice for me, especially when I'm busy making dinner or something.

(By the way I made this storyboard from the tutorial on this site)

Can't get enough of that face...

That's my happy girl!

Death by Co-Pays

Our family has had more doctors visits this year than I can believe! I pretty much had to go to the doctor every week for my pregnancy once we moved to Milwaukee. But even after Camryn was born it seems we've become a shuttle service to the doctor.

Camryn has had a 5 day checkup, a 2 week checkup, and 2 month checkup so far. Plus we went in once when she was a week old because she had an eye infection.

Avery had an ear infection and eye infection right after Camy was born.

Merrick hasn't been sick at all but he has skinned his leg and knee three times so far playing sports. He went into the doctor and got it cleaned up once.

And I of course had my six week check-up with my OB, an eye infection and cold right after Camryn was born, a UTI in April, a consult with a surgeon on Tuesday, and today I went in and found out I have Strep Throat. Just great! Oh and that doesn't include my crazy undiagonsed illness I had two weeks ago where I went back and forth between the chills and sweating profusely. Luckily that got better eventually.

So on top of the ugly doctor/hospital bills we're getting from having a baby, we've got co-pays and deductible payments up to our ears. And we haven't even done any dentist appointments here yet either. Plus the whole being sick thing is kind of unpleasant, especially taking care of the kiddies full time. And the thing is, I haven't ever been one to get sick a lot.

Ok I'm not looking for pity. Just wondering if anyone else goes to the doctor this much...