February

Wait, the month is almost over? When did it start? This month has been a bit of a blur for me as I have struggled to get back on my feet, learn how to have two children, and then learn how to accomplish anything else as I care for two children. I feel like I am finally able to do the things that need to get done and not rely on Jayme so much. He has been very busy taking care of all of us and everything else the last month and a half. I am so grateful that I can start carrying some of that load.

My favorite thing about being a mother of two is just watching the interaction of my two little girls. Katarina is such a great big sister. She is kind and thoughtful, patient and helpful. She is very gentle. She is also pretty good at playing on her own. Her one shortcoming is that of situational awareness. When she is not directly interacting with Elyssa she is not aware that her feet might be touching her, or that Elyssa might be affected by some of the things that she does, but I don't think it is very fair to expect that of any two year old. I just have to remind her not to be so close to her sister if she is not playing with her. She even gets excited about Elyssa's small victories, such as lifting up her head, though I am careful to let Katarina know that she is also very good at lifting up her head.

One of the sweetest moments that we have had was when Katarina was holding Baby Elyssa and singing her, "I am a Child of God". It was a very precious moment for me. Every time that Katarina holds Baby Elyssa she asks me to take pictures. I love being able to do that. She has also started asking me to take video but then will sit for the video and pose like for a camera. I try to tell her that she should do something for the camera but she just sits there and smiles. It is pretty cute.

We had a lot of fun on Thursday. We got about four inches of snow that actually stuck. Jayme called his dad to let him know that he wasn't going out to work and then he made waffles for us. Elyssa slept while Jayme and Katarina made a Frosty the Snowman and then Katarina's friend came over and they played for a while.

Elyssa is growing like crazy. I have had to rotate though clothes sizes about every week and a half since she was born. I just washed all of the 3-6 month clothes on Friday for her to start wearing. The biggest challenge is to have the clothes fit the length of her arms. She has an amazing arm span. My concern right now is that we don't have a whole lot of 3-6 month clothes and most of the 6 month clothes that we have are summer clothes. I think I will be shopping for baby clothes very soon. I weighed Elyssa about a week ago and she was 11 lbs 3 oz. Last night I had an amazing night. Elyssa went to bed at 8:00 and I woke her up at 3:00 for her to eat. She went back to sleep and didn't wake up until almost 7:00. It was so great. Unfortunately Katarina was up a lot last night. Someday we will all sleep though the night. For now I will take the sleep I can get and enjoy all of the precious moments that I have.

The middle picture is Katarina ready for school. She has her "jacket" and everything.

Check out the arm span.

Bathtime Together

CHEESE

Katarina flying. If you look close you will see that she is wearing a cape.

Katarina wanting me to take pictures of her holding her sister.