This Past Week...

So here we are a week later and I just realized its been awhile since I last blogged. That's mainly because I really only think about blogging when I have cute pictures or lots of down time. Well, as you can guess I have ZERO down time now and I don't take as many pictures anymore cause I rarely have an extra hand to take them with! Anyway, this past week has been pretty good. It started off with a trip to the doctors for Autumn. She weighed in at 7 lbs 11 oz and seems to be gaining weight perfectly. She was diagnosed with Acid Reflux and was given some meds to help with all the spiting up, thank goodness. She is also very colicky, so lots of crying due to her tummy issues, but is otherwise she is a very healthy little girl. We moved Autumn out of the bassinet in our room and into her crib in her own room and she is sleeping pretty well now. She wakes up about 1 to 2 times, eats and usually goes right back to sleep, Hallelujah! The weather has been great which means there have been lots of trips to the park in the mornings when I need to get Owen out of the house to burn off all of his energy. Other than that, not much has been going on around here, just making it through each day without trying to rip out all my hair. Just kidding, I wouldn't change my life for anything else in the world! Here are a few pictures I did manage to get from this past week.

Here is Owen riding his tricycle in the driveway the other night after a family walk. We just taught him how to push his legs on the pedals to make the bike go without us having to push him.

He rides it for about a minute and quickly realizes that it takes too much effort to pedal it. Lol. He had much more fun pushing it down the sidewalk. O' well we will get there. When Autumn isn't crying because she is hungry, has a dirty diaper or due to an upset tummy this is what she is up to.

What can I say the girl likes her beauty sleep! Please don't mind her crazy hair in this picture.

She insists on sleeping with her hands up at her face and sometimes covering her face. It cracks us up! She is so precious.

And here she is with her Daddy. She loves him to hold her like this. It's so funny cause this is the only way Owen let Daddy hold him too when he was a baby. I love how her little arms are wrapped around Brandon's. Awe, I love her!

And here are two pictures of our 1st ever family Picnic and Movie Night! Owen has become obsessed with the Chipmunks, the old cartoon ones, so we went and rented him the Chipmunk movie from the 90's for a family movie night. Well, we thought since we were having a movie night that it would be fun to eat dinner picnic style on the living room floor in our PJ's. As you can very well see, Chick-Fil-A was on the menu for the night. It was so much fun!

Slip 'n' Slide Fun...

On Friday, my good friend Leanne who lives across the street invited Owen, Autumn and I over for an afternoon play day. She has a little boy, Linkin, who is about 8 months older than Owen and the boys have a great time playing together. She has a little kid pool, a slip 'n' slide, swing set and a giant sand box in her back yard so we decided to let the kids have some fun in the sun! After Owen's nap he got all dressed in his swim atire and we walked across the street. Owen was a little hesitant of the slip 'n' slide at first, but he quickly warmed up to it after watching Linkin playing on it. He loved it so much and kept begging me to go to the store to buy him one once we got home. Needless to say, I am taking him out to buy him one this afternoon, he loved it and it helped him burn off a lot of energy!

Isn't this picture too cute? Here is Owen all ready to walk over to Linkin's House.
He had the time of his life playing on this. Here is Linkin and Owen running down the slip 'n' slide trying to see who could make it farthest without falling. Not sure if you can tell, but they are having a blast together. If your wondering why they neither of them have their swimming trunks on, its because they kept falling off every time they slide down the mat so we gave up and just took them off. They had grass clipings and mud all over them but they didn't care one tiny bit! Boys!?!?
Her shirt says it all! Autumn loves being outside, something about the fresh air makes her one happy baby!
After all the fun on the slip 'n' slide we decided to move this little kiddy pool under the bottom of the slide. Wow, they had a blast and made one heck of a muddy mess. Do you see how black the water in the pool is?

This Week...

So this week started off a little rough! On Monday night, Autumn did not feel like sleeping that night. By not wanting to sleep, I mean up screaming all night. Needless to say Brandon and I were exhausted all of Tuesday. Well life had to still go on and we desperately needed groceries since we finally ran out of meals that friends and family had brought over. Brandon stayed with the kids and I headed to the store to tackle an insanely long list! Well, by time I got home, fed the two kids and Brandon and I lunch and put everything away I was beat. Autumn was taking a nap on the floor and I decided to lay next to her for a minute and this is what happened...

This is seriously what happened. I totally fell asleep on the floor next to her. I woke up to Brandon flashing the camera in my face because he thought it was so funny.

Anyway, after that rough Monday night and exhausting Tuesday, Brandon and I found the trick. Brandon stays up with Autumn until 10:30pm, gives her a bottle of Breast milk and puts her to bed. Then guess what happens? We don't here from her again until 4 or 5 in the morning, I breastfeed her and she goes back to sleep until about 7:30! Yes, that means we are getting 5-6 hours of peaceful uninterrupted sleep. It is amazing and this little routine has worked for the last 3 nights in a row. Now I am no longer falling asleep on the living room floor!

Owen loving his baby sister!

Then on Thursday, my friend Jess and her daughter Abby came over to play. She is 36 weeks pregnant with her second baby and after a couple weeks of semi-bed rest she needed to get out of the house so she brought Abby over for a small play date. Owen and Abby played pretty good together for about an hour and then the fights started to break out. They are 2 years old after all so I think overall things went really well. Here are some pics of the two of them.

Abby & Owen saying, "cheese"!

Owen has this huge set of pretend plastic play food that he got for his Birthday. He is obsessed with it and plays with them all day long. Abby was handing Owen some food and he was taking it to the kitchen table to make himself some lunch.

Here he is making his pretend Lunch. I love this age, he has such a little imagination!

And here is Abby with her pretend Ice Cream Cone! She loved that thing and carried it around everywhere with her. I think sweets are her favorite!

Jessica's Baby Shower

This past Sunday was my sisters Baby Shower. Well, her first baby shower, my Mom and I are throwing her one in October for all of our family. My sisters three BFF's threw her a lovely shower for all her close friends to attend. I left Owen with my Dad for the afternoon and Autumn and I went to hang with all the ladies. It was a lot of fun watching her open all her adorable gifts and pigging out on lots of delicious sweets. I can not wait to meet my first niece Abigail in December! Here are some pics from the shower, enjoy!

From left to right; Piper, Kaitlyn, Cammy & Jessica
Opening Presents. More Presents... and wait. More Presents! She got so many wonderful gifts. This baby is set! All the yummy food! I left on a complete sugar high.
We all decorated bibs for her baby. Here is the one I made.
My Mom, Sister and I.
Here is my sisters Mother-In-Law, Jan, getting in some practice for her very first Grand baby!
Auntie Kiki practicing being a mommy! Awe how precious.

Ramdon Pictures...

Here are some random pictures from the past couple weeks that I wanted to share with you all, enjoy....

Here is the proud Big Brother holding his baby Sister. He loves holding her now and asks to about 20 times a day. Awe, it melts my heart.

First Family Picture of the 4 of us. This was a couple weeks back before heading off to church.

Here is Autumn with her Mimi a couple weeks ago when she came down to visit and meet her first Granddaughter! I love this picture, she doesn't look like a proud grandma at all!

Here is my little poser. He loves getting his picture taken!

This is what my life has become! It is quite a challenge leaving the house alone with the two kids, but when you have no milk and bread in the house you do what you have to. Good thing I only needed a couple items because I have no room for groceries in the cart with my two kids.

Brandon and I had some friends stop by last week to meet little Autumn for the first time and look what they brought for her. How awesome is this pillow? My super talented friend, Leah, made this pillow. She does calligraphy and sews too. I absolutely love it!

Owen has become my little helper with his baby sister. Here he is assisting me at giving Autumn a bath. He is such an amazing Big Brother and is continually showing much more interest in her.

Here is Autumn at a Wedding Reception we attended this past weekend. Thanks Aunt Rose for the adorable outfit! The reception was outside and so hot, but little Autumn looks pretty comfortable. We left Owen with my parents so Brandon and I could actually sit and enjoy ourselves.

Owen and Olivia at the park. They were holding hands and marching through the grass. They are so cute!

Maternity Photo's...

So I have been wanting to post these for awhile now, but me and my sister were putting together a surprise gift, using these pictures, for my parents 30th Wedding Anniversary. Well, now that the gift has been given to them I can finally share them with all of you. As most of you already know, my Sister and I actually were pregnant together! She is also having a little girl, Abigail, in December. How cool is that right? Most sisters always talk and dream about having their kids together, but how often does it actually happen? Its even better that we are both having girls. Anyway, we decided at the very last minute, by last minute I mean 3 days before I was getting induced, to have some maternity pictures taken of the two of us before Autumn was born to capture the memory of being pregnant together. We had my Best Friends very talented husband, Matt, do the photos for us, and WOW they came out awesome! We are trying to convince him to quit his job and open up a studio but he won't listen to us. He is coming over tomorrow to do newborn pictures for us and I can hardly wait. Enjoy the pictures and no laughing at my belly, I am completely aware of my outtie belly button.

We tried over and over to try and incorporate Owen into a few of the pictures but he was just too busy playing with his bff Olivia, but we did manage to get this cute one!

Friends, Pool & Pampo's Birthday...

Sorry again for the delay in between posts. Here is what we have been up to this past week...

Friends:
We were feeling a little sad since we haven't been able to spend much time with our friends lately, so we decided to have them over for pizza, salad and cookies. Yum, Yum, Yum and what a fun night we had. Owen, Olivia & Cami had a blast playing together and Brandon and I had just as much fun catching up with everyone. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Here are the bestest friends eating their delicious pizza dinner together.

Here is Owen & Olivia wrestling. It is pretty much their favorite thing to do together.

I think Olivia is winning.

And Autumn slept peacefully through all the chaos.

Pool:

Well, last Friday was Brandon's last day at home for his paternity leave. So sad, 2 weeks flew by. Anyway, we decided to take Owen over to my parents house to let him swim in his favorite pool they got him. Brandon was a good Daddy and even got in the water to play with him. Owen had a blast and I enjoyed watching them play while Autumn and I hung out in the shade! It was a bitter sweet day for me since I knew it was my last day with another adult in the house to help me out. Here are some pictures from our day.

Owen loved playing with the hose.

Nana loving on Autumn. How sweet!

Taking a break from swimming to have a drink and a snack with his Pampo.

Yes, Owen somehow even managed to talk Pampo to getting in the pool with him. He is quite spoiled.

Owen and Daddy wrestling. Their new favorite thing to do together. Ugh, boys!

Pampo's Birthday:

Saturday was a pretty fun day. Not only was it my first day as a Stay-at-home Mommy of two little ones, it was also my Dad's 53rd Birthday. Well, the day actually went way better than expected. Autumn was a little sweetie and Owen was on his very best behavior for me. Not only did I survive the day alone with the two of them, I even made it to the grocery store with the 2 of them to pick up some much needed milk and bread. Around dinner time we headed over to my parents for my Dad's Birthday dinner. Brandon met up with us over there after work. Here are some pictures from our evening at my parents house.

I know a lot of people worry about the older child when you bring home a new baby, but let me tell you, Owen hasn't felt any less loved than before Autumn was here. See What I mean!
Autumn being admired by Pampo, Uncle Chris & Auntie Kiki
Here are my parents opening up a belated Anniversary present from me and my sis. August 2nd, was my parents 30th Wedding Anniversary. Wow, what an amazing accomplishment. And its even better that they are actually still in love after all these years. What a great example for Brandon and I to follow. They are a wonderful couple who have always put God at the center of their relationship and household, I hope Brandon and I always do the same.
And of course, Owen was not going to make Pampo open his Birthday presents all by himself.And if he assisted him with his presents, why not help blow out his candles too.