My daughter's weird

My sister passed her RN boards, so we went to dinner last week at PF Chang's. I absolutely love their mongolian beef. Carolyn surprised us by eating well, but her favorite was stealing the green onions off my dish. She chowed down approximately half of them. I thought this was weird, but not really noteworthy. She used to eat raw diced onion while I prepared dinner.

But I was still surprised to see this while trying to get the groceries put away:

Babies and Sisters

Time flies. I can't believe that Blake is one month old. His first few weeks were a whirlwind because my family descended on Portland for the holidays. It was the first time in two years we had the whole family together, and it was a lot of fun. Here's everyone at Blake's baby blessing, hours before they all left.


All of them except Angelina. Did I mention she moved in with us? She starts her job in the next week or two and will be in Portland for the foreseeable future. She'll only be with us until she figures out where she wants to live and all that jazz, but until she moves, I am enjoying being able to take a shower whenever I want and run to the store across the street without packing up two children. It's helped this month feel a lot more bearable and less stressful.

It's been four weeks

and they still love each other!

My Past Week

Jeremy, after a month at home, went back to work on Monday. I woke early and decided to use the time I had before Carolyn woke to get in a little exercise. I threw in a pilates DVD, feeling great to actually use some muscles again. Then, I promised my sister that I would take a fast shower if she would watch the kids. Well, uh, it was 20 minutes before I turned off the water. Bewildered, I explained to her that for some reason my body got really cold and I had to stay in. Angel wanted a nap, so I told her to go lie down.

Then, I promptly got the chills and body aches, wrapped myself in a blanket, and passed out on my couch. Angel didn't even have a chance to get upstairs. She dutifully took care of Carolyn and Blake for the next two hours. That's when I finally came to. With a fever of 102.

After a mandatory trip to the OB where I swore up and down it was just the flu (my temperature was already back down to 99.4), I was diagnosed with mastitis and given antibiotics. I had a return appointment for Wednesday with the lactation lady and went home to sleep.

By Wednesday I was feeling great...until I got a concurrent diagnosis of thrush. Now Blake looks like this:

Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Isn't he handsome? His medicine comes in this cute little bottle:
Just 1 ounce. It doesn't seem like much except the fact that it dyes everything it comes in contact with. I have purple fingernails from him sucking on my fingers. He has purple marks on his clothes. It's potent stuff; I've only used like 4 q-tips of the stuff.

So today, I didn't screw the top on quite as well as I should have and Jeremy knocked the bottle off our counter. About half of it landed on our counter, cupboards, and floor. 1/2 ounce=5 square feet of purple. 2 cans of hairspray and many paper towels later we had it mostly clean. Quite a few of the grooves still had dye in them and the baseboard was still a disaster, but we were out of hairspray and the other cleaning supplies weren't working. I was about to walk to Fred Meyer, when Jeremy brought me a little item from the new man in my life.
I had spent close to an hour scrubbing and inhaling fumes until only the most stubborn dye remained. My magic eraser cleaned the rest up in about 3 minutes. There is a little left on the baseboard, but it looks about a million times better than when I started with the eraser. How I wish I had used it to start. Now if I could just use the eraser on Blake...

Here's to a better week starting tomorrow!

Jeremy says we have to move...

Two years ago, starving for some Costa Vida (or Cafe Rio, if you prefer the original), I looked up their website to get information. Lo, and behold, it noted that a store was opening up in Hillsboro that very week. Imagine my elation! I called my brother and our families went to dinner when it opened. Since that time, we've filled many a frequent diner card. Jeremy introduced his coworkers to the sweet pork. They went there often for work lunches and filled many frequent diner cards that got passed on to me. I used them all.

There was a sad time during my pregnancy with Blake when I couldn't eat their food, but that passed and I was back to going there often.

But now they are closing. Apparently, all the BYU grads and Utah transplants in Oregon weren't enough to keep the business in the black. Jeremy got an email forwarded to him announcing the closure, effective tomorrow! We made plans to have lunch there. I even bought Carolyn her own meal knowing it would be the last time she could stuff her face with sweet pork and I didn't want to share.

The signs on the doors said they would close after lunch tomorrow. So if you are in the area, you better book your booty down there as soon as possible, or wait until your next trip to Utah or Arizona.It's hard to let go, so if you go for lunch tomorrow, I might see you there.

Christmas Dresses

This picture is for Grandma Horner. Carolyn loved wearing her Christmas dress this year. We didn't actually wear it until after Christmas because weather canceled church on Dec. 21. But she got to wear it for Blake's baby blessing that we did on Dec. 28. Her perfectly coordinated bows in the hair are courtesy of Rachel.

Speaking of Rachel...

Here is the dress she made Carolyn for Christmas! She looks adorable in it.


In fact this is the first dress that Carolyn refused to change out of when we came home.

Here you can see the detail on the bodice. For better pictures of the detail (and a model who wasn't running during the photo shoot), check out my niece Emilee's matching dress.

Fingernail Painting

Jeremy's never done this for me...


But...maybe that's okay.

Chunky Monkey

Some of you will remember that when Carolyn was a baby, I stressed about her weight just about everyday. I worried that she wasn't nursing enough. Jeremy set an alarm to wake me up to feed her at night (thank goodness the lactation lady told him that was just not necessary).

It all started with her two-week checkup. I had a pediatrician I knew little about, and I left the office crying after he told me that Carolyn was crying because I wasn't feeding her and she was at an unacceptable weight. Needless to say, I never saw that pediatrician again. We promptly switched and our new doctor was much better. He assured me that some kids are small and Carolyn was growing and developing just fine. I quit worrying about her when we moved her to solids and she ate so much we switched her to table food to save $15 a week in baby food. She eventually gained the twenty pounds necessary to go forward-facing in the car. At 18 months, and just by a hair. But it all ended well.

So Blake had his two-week appointment today. Although he's a marathon nurser, I admit to some anxiety because of my previous experience with a small child. But not this one. He hadn't been weighed since we left the hospital (8 lbs 2 oz.), but now he is a robust 9 lbs. 8 oz. How nice to have a baby that gets fat like all those other babies. How nice to know he gets enough to eat and isn't hungry. Here's to many more appointments where my child does not slide off the growth chart!

Sister Love

He's Here!

Blake Lawrence Horner

Born 15 December 2008 at 8:24 pm. I know that technically it was my due date, but I was done with this pregnancy weeks ago.

A little bit about Blake: he's blonde, he was 8 lbs 12 ounces (!), he seems lengthy at 20.5 inches and, like Carolyn, he has his Daddy's eyes...

Plus, I think he's pretty great...

but so does Carolyn, which is mostly wonderful. When she came to the hospital, right after telling me hi, she said, "I want to hold him." She climbed right up and gave him a sweet hug.

Now that we are home, she wants to hold him, rock him, hug him, kiss him. Someday, like when I get free babysitting out of the deal, I will appreciate her natural maternal instinct. For now, it just makes everything harder. Maybe I'll teach her how to change diapers soon.

P.S.: Those cute bows and hairdo are courtesy of Rachel, who had Carolyn for three days. Apparently, aunts can convince Carolyn to do things that she would never put up with from Mom.

Snow!

This is not common out here for us in Portland. Carolyn was so excited though. It was quite the effort to get her to church today instead of letting her play outside. Luckily, we are in Oregon, so they cancelled church after Sacrament Meeting. We were home with plenty of time to change and play before nap.

Of Hair and Creme

Sometime this summer before I decided to cut Carolyn's bangs I had spent quite a bit of time trying to find a salon to do it for me. I have no talent at cutting hair. But I couldn't justify the expense, especially because it was really just her bangs I wanted done.

Then months passed. And her hair got more out of control. I really don't know how to explain it. She has curly hair in the back and a little on the side, but the top layer all around her head is straight. It won't curl for anything. Also, if I gelled her hair, it would look really cute for about 10 minutes. 5 if she sat in her carseat. Then it would fall out and look silly.


We really needed some help. So I took her to a kiddie salon today. Yay for chairs that look like airplanes. And for big screen TVs showing movies. And hair people who can cut hair while their subject is trying to look at everything in the store at once.



Carolyn did a great job and her hair looks great. What I love the most is Bouncy Creme. Apparently, this is what we have been missing her whole life. It defines her curls, stayed looking nice after car seat rides, and wasn't all crunchy. Now I just have to find the energy to go to a beauty supply store to buy some.

Grandparents

Jeremy has been encouraging me to get to Olympia to visit my grandparents for months. But I never felt good enough to take that on. I get one day a week with Jeremy to help around the house, and I needed the weekend to recuperate and gear up for the following week with Carolyn. So, finally, when Thanksgiving weekend came around, and Jeremy had an unheard of four-day weekend, we made the trip up to Olympia. I am so glad we went. We just went for a half day, hoping that Carolyn would sleep on the way home for her nap. We should've known better than to hope for that. I wish we lived closer, or that Carolyn were more adaptable to sleeping in unfamiliar locations.


We had a wonderful time, capped off by a delicious milkshake from Eagan's, and were able to make it home without too much of a problem from Carolyn although Jeremy did have to sit in the back with her. Thank goodness for spouses that don't get car sick. Just thinking about making a two-hour drive back there makes me nauseated.

Nothing New

So...I've been meaning to blog. Really. But there just hasn't been too much going on here. We are mostly in a holding pattern. We don't make real plans because I keep hoping I'll have a baby. Well, I don't. The best thing is Jeremy is off for the next month for all intents and purposes. I am really looking forward to having him around to finish all the things I haven't been able to get to.

Maybe soon I'll have more pictures. We have some exciting things coming up this month. My sister is moving in with us short term while she figures out where she wants to live. I am thrilled about this because when Jeremy returns to work, it will be straight into busy season. My entire family is coming here for Christmas. We did it two years ago and it was a lot of fun. And, of course, the new baby. There will be lots of pictures once he arrives.

So stay tuned...

Name that baby!

I hate naming children. We just got super lucky with Carolyn. For some reason, I knew what I wanted, Jeremy agreed, and it was settled. Her birth announcement was mostly finished at least two months before I delivered.

This baby? No idea. I just don't like names in general. For awhile, it was all my issue. Jeremy had a list, I vetoed the whole thing and had nothing I liked to offer in return. Then I came across a name I liked. Jeremy and I talked about it. We were mostly decided. And then my cousin named her new boy that same thing. Everyone says that it doesn't matter, but...I don't know. I'm weird like that.

Then like two weeks ago, I came across another name I liked. The more I thought about it, the more it sounded nice. Then Jeremy shot it down. But I kept hoping he would just come around. You know, I could be in labor, tell him that's the only name I like, and he would have to agree. Of course, I find out that a friend due the week before me has decided to name her baby that. Now I will never get Jeremy to agree.

So, we need help. This baby is due in four weeks. I personally am hoping for only 2.5 weeks more of pregnancy. It's looking like we'll just follow Carolyn's lead and call him baby brother for the rest of his life.

Although there is no guarantee we will use any of these, input is always appreciated.