Rachel is 1 month old!

I know time is already flying by! Here is her one-month picture. I also put up Levi's one-month picture to have a side-by-side comparison of the two in order to answer the question: "Does Rachel look like Levi at one month?" My answer to that would be not really. They look like siblings, but not as much as I thought they did at first...


Now here is Levi's...

Maybe it is just me, but I see lots of little differences...

So, I needed to post some more pictures of things that have happened the last couple of weeks.

Now that Levi and his friend Grant are both big brothers, they wanted to show off their big-brother-baby-holding skills.

One day Levi got a hold of my mascara and just as I looked over at him he was holding the wand up to his eye and blinking on it. Thankfully, I got it away from him before he did any damage to himself or my furniture...however he did manage to get some on his face and his eye lashes.

I had wiped the mascara off his face but decided it wasn't worth it to try to clean his lashes so I left that to come out on its own...The best part of this story is when later that evening Levi got into trouble and started to cry...in the middle of my lecture I noticed the tears had made is mascara run down his face! I had to stop my lecture and turn away because I was laughing so hard.

Another fun adventure we had this month was a trip to Stony Creek Farm. They have a pumpkin patch and you get to take a hayride to the patch and pick out a pumpkin.

At first he looks overwhelmed by all the pumpkins.


Then he tries to go for the big ones...too heavy for any of us to carry.

Then he began narrowing it down...


And finally, the perfect pumpkin!
"Mommy can I keep it?"
We plan to decorate it tomorrow.

Life with two...

So I have spent the better part of Levi’s nap today going back over the earliest posts of this blog. It was fun to see his baby pictures and reread the stories of his first few months. It is also interesting to compare how I feel as a new mom of two versus how I felt as a new mom altogether. I had a lot of redefining to do as a person the first time around. This time, I was already a mother; I just have to figure out how to balance myself between the needs of a newborn and the needs of a toddler. The toddler part is relatively new…the newborn part is not. So Levi will forever be my “new territory” child. Although, I have the added blessing of experiencing both genders in each stage in life, I am sure I will learn a lot when Levi goes through that stage first.

So the question of the hour seems to be:

How is it being a mommy of two?

My standard reply is that it is great! I love having more than one child. My in-depth answer is that daily I am coming to my new normal as a mom with more than one child. It takes time for the dust to settle, but after the first few months I can see that you start to resemble the masses that also have more than one child. These first couple of months are the hardest but I have a vision that makes me want more children…and this is just me so don’t feel I am judging anyone who wants only 1 or 2 kids…you do what works for you, but when I see my later years I see at least 3 adult children coming home and filling my house with noise, happiness, and love. I am willing to work hard to care for my children now in order to enjoy them (now and) later.Yesterday, we were at Matthew’s mom and dad’s house, and Judy (his mom) had 5 of her sisters in town for the weekend. Now, I don’t think I have the heart for that many children (there are 14 of them all together), but I was just thinking how great it would be to still be getting together after all these years. I mean there were probably many years where kids and other life obligations kept them from seeing each other as often as they would have liked, but they are truly close in a way that I hope my kids are one day.

So, on to life with Levi and Rachel. Well, Levi is adjusting wonderfully to Rachel. He asks to hold her multiple times a day...this comes with its own challenges. I have to constantly be watching him if she is where he can reach her. He is always poking and kissing and pulling on her. He loves her a little too much these days. I am sure that will wear off, but I just like that he seems to like having her around. He is also doing well with learning his colors and the alphabet. He knows the song, but we have been working on letter recognition. That has actually been a lot of fun. He is learning so fast these days!! I can hardly keep up with all of it, but I love teaching him new things.
Rachel is starting to come into her own schedule of sorts. Her eating is about every three hours and she is starting to sleep in her crib for part of the night. I don't rush these things I just let them happen at their own pace. She is wonderful and everything I had hoped for. I look forward to the coming months when she begins to show her little personality more and more.

In case you were wondering...

Here is how the labor went. I started contractions at about 8am. I was downstairs having some quiet time. I did my devotions and checked my facebook. Then I started to write Rachel a letter. I did this with Levi too. I write them a letter about how the pregnancy went and just what I hope for them. As I was writing the letter (around 9am), I began timing my contractions. They were consistent, but not real close together. I called Matthew around 10am to check on his lunch plans and let him know that I was having contractions. He said he was working until almost 12 and then going to lunch with his brother. At 11 I called him back to let him know that I was in labor and that he needed to come home as soon as he could and that he woudn't be going back to the office that day. He got home around 11:30 and Levi got picked up by Grandma Judy around 12. The midwife arrived around 1pm and when she checked me at that point, I was dialated 6 and 80% effaced. Things were moving fast. I labored downstairs until it was time to deliver. At around 2 o'clock I went upstairs to prepare to deliver my daughter. It was a harder delivery than Levi's, but all in all, it was not too bad. She was born at 2:48. I spent the rest of the night in the bedroom either nursing her, or visiting with family. It was wonderful, she is wonderful, and I feel so blessed to have two safe deliveries. God is so good!