And the answer is....

The answer is not that Chloe sucks her thumb...although in a previous post I had a picture of her sucking her thumb. The answer is that she suck her fingers. She starts out going to sleep each night (or for each nap) with her soother and once it pops out of her mouth, then she finds her fingers. I really think this helps to keep her content and allows her to sleep longer throughout the night. She is going for more than 10 hours at night, sometimes even more than 11 hours. I am thinking that she will soon be ready to go to bed by 8/8:30 and sleep for at least 12 hours. She is feeding 4 times, every 4 hours (sometimes a little sooner) and takes 4-5 feeds a day. She is very happy and content, loves being around us and enjoys all the noise her brothers make. She is always looking around for them and following them and greeting them with plenty of smiles. When she is fussy, I don't always know what to do with her, since she is more happy than not. :)

waking up...I wake her up each morning to start her day with a bath and her first morning feed, who knows how long she would sleep if I left her!

and of course with all that hair...a little bit of bedhead

this it the way I am greeted every morning when I wake her up

such a nice way for her to wake up!

sucking her fingers

And of course big brother Ethan wanted to be in a picture too :)

Stay tuned for pictures of our last couple of weeks....I like to post some pictures each week about how our week has been, but the past couple of weeks seem a little crazy busy around here. And next week is busy too with dentist and doctor appointments. I hope to post again really soon and be a faithful blogger (or at least a once a week faithful blogger) :)

Chloe's baby photo shoot

Here are pictures of Chloe's baby photo shoot. She had just turned 2 months here. She did really well for it and we got some nice pictures of her. :) She is such a good baby, so happy and content! We all love her to pieces!! Her daddy adores her, her brothers love her and her mommy thinks back to January and February when she was a the beginning of pregnancy and feeling so very sick and how this baby was ALL worth it. Every bit of sickness was worth having this sweet baby girl! We are so thankful to God for her in our lives.

this one above, is my absolute favourite!

smiley baby

she gets her eyes from mommy

finding her feet

Stay tuned for a picture of the reason why we think Chloe is so content and such a good baby, and why she sleeps through the night for well over a week already. So very nice for us to get solid sleep!

Less Stress, More Grace

A devotional I found through Dayspring. It is something that is encouraging to me and thought I would share with you all.

When you feel overwhelmed...


Demands knock on my door.
Burdens beckon me to answer.
The to-do list stretches for miles.

I whisper, "I feel overwhelmed."
And in the stillness it seems I hear...

"Child, open your heart to Me
instead of the demands of the day.
Lay those burdens at My feet, not on your shoulders.
Let go of your list and dare to embrace My grace.
I do not require you to be overwhelmed.
I enable you to overcome.
And with Me, you always will."

I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33
--by Holley Gerth

This week at our home...

Our week around here has been good. Nothing too exciting going on but just thought I would share some pictures of what has been happening this week. :)

pretty purple blanket and pillow set from Auntie Dani (picture compliments of Auntie Dani)

this little girl slept through the night last night without waking up for a night feeding

not bad for a little over 2 months!!

Here Chloe is wearing a dress that I wore when I was a baby...she wore it to church on Sunday but only to the morning service since she had a messy diaper that went through everything. This only seems to happen on Sundays!!

Ethan is potty training. We restricted him to the kitchen (our almost only non carpeted area in our home) to play and work on potty training. The first couple of days weren't bad, by Thursday he has dry and clean all day. This morning he had little accident...but I think we are going somewhere on this. Hoping by next week things will be much better. He is doing exceptionally well though! And we are proud of him.

Grade 1 has opened up a whole new world for Seth with reading, writing and spelling. He is able to read stories to his brother. And he does well with writing letters. He also spells things out to us...like "Y-E-S---M-O-M" when he responds to a question or request.

He LOVES playing Monopoly and not the kid version either! He is able to read and count and has a blast playing this game. On the Mondays when Paul is not working, they are going to have 'Monopoly Monday'! :)

Ethan likes to be included too!

As for Paul and I ....we are well. Paul was off most this week, so we worked on the potty training with Ethan. Paul put up the Christmas lights yesterday. And I have been wrapping Christmas gifts! I am almost done our shopping. We don' t have our tree up yet and haven't been playing Christmas music. This week the weather has been too beautiful for that. But I have a feeling the cold weather will hit us and then we will get in the mood for that.

Chloe's bows/headbands

I had a request to post pictures of Chloe wearing her bows/headbands.

Here they are:

pretty little girl

this one is a sneak peek at her 2 month photo shoot

more to come soon...... :)

some pictures from last week

Here are some pictures from last week. Seth had a PD day for 2 days so he spent a bit of time doing his favourite thing....

playing the wii

Ethan had fun playing with "special lego" which gets taken out only every so often

this little girl is so happy and so very smiley!

Ethan being a big helper and keeping his little sister content

Will Chloe suck her thumb (like her mommy did when she was a baby)?? Time will tell, I do see her trying to find her thumb sometimes and this is what I saw one afternoon when she was napping.

A good friend of mine was telling me how easy it was to make bows from fabric and since I don't have fabric, I thought about looking into ribbon bows. I found a tutorial on line and made some for Chloe. I bought the headbands and made them a bit smaller. 4 bows are larger and work with the bigger headbands. The 3 smaller bows will go with smaller bands I bought. It was bit tedious to try to glue things and then do a bit of sewing but it was worth it and she looks cute wearing them!

Since it was a PD day on Thursday and Friday last week, we took the boys and their cousins Joel and Tim to Adventures on Wonderland. They had a blast for the afternoon!

Seth and his cousin Tim

Joel

And who says big kids can't join in the fun?! ;)

Paul had fun too!

And this little girl slept...

smiled....

...and cuddled with her purple bunny!

The boys had a blast with their cousins. Afterwards we went to McDonald's for ice cream and we had people looking at us...probably thinking we had 5 kids. We even had a mom ask us if we home schooled. Kind of funny. Although we didn't have a chance to explain since when we said no, she walked off. It was a good day and we all had lots of fun!

Stay tuned.....Chloe's 2 month photo shoot coming up soon! :)