Foot print Christmas cards

Eliana and I made Christmas cards last week. They are footprint Christmas trees. We painted Eliana's feet green and printed them in the shape of a tree. Eliana then made a 'star' on top with yellow paint. Then she painted red dots on for decorations, and the red squiggle down the bottom is meant to be a bucket holding the tree. Remember - this is 2year old art work, so use your imagination :)

And, of course we added splotches of glitter!

Left over paint? Eliana made good use of it :)

walking rainbow

I'm thankful for my little rainbow on those gloomy days :)

Lilah 6 months

Lilah had her 6 month check up today.

Her stats:

Weight: 15lb, 8oz/7kg = 25-50%

Height: 27.25"/69.2cm = 90-95%

HC: 16.5"/41.9cm = 25-50%

She's a sweet, healthy girl. Praise the Lord! My milk dropped at around 4 or 5 months so we had to start supplementing with formula. About 1 week out of the month she needs a bottle after most feeds, but the rest of the month she takes one bottle before bed, or none.

I've tried feeding Lilah solids this week but she scrunches up her face and spits the food straight back out! This is a new experience for me. My first attempt at feeding Eliana solids was met with a delighted, wide eyed grin. Never mind the teaspoon they recommend giving at first, Eliana ate bowls full from the go! Oh well, it's good to be kept on my toes :)

Some firsts

Today, Lilah started sitting up (while leaning on her hands)!

And last week she started saying "dada". I caught it once on camera the first day, but she's saying it more and more. You better believe that I'm working on "mama" :)

Smiley faces

Eliana has loved smiley faces for a while - pointing them out when she was only just beginning to talk. Now she has started drawing and painting them! Drawing and painting are some of her favourite things to do. Yesterday she was drawing and telling me that she made a rainbow, 3, u and w (which was true if you used your imagination :). Today she said she wrote "happy birthday" on Daddy's birthday card (a few squiggles). I love this new creative stage!

Here is one of the smiley faces she painted today:

And you can see another one below (hopefully you can tell where the painting ends and the sofa begins, hehe):

There's nothing quite like the art work of a 2 year old!

Eliana: 2 years and 2 months

It has been 4 months since I've given a detailed update on Eliana. She has grown much! It's taken me a while to update because she had a sick season, having bad colds, coughs and the horrible hand, foot and mouth disease. Eliana is like me when she's sick. Every little thing is the end of the world and worth throwing a tantrum over! Needless to say, blogging was the last thing on my mind. But now our heads are out of the water, where do I begin?

Just after we potty trained Eliana we moved her to a big bed in order to free up the cot (crib) for Lilah. At first, Eliana thought that nap time suddenly turned into party time, but now, 4 months later, she is sleeping well and mostly stay on her bed (although, today I've had to stop her from playing with the light switch and caught her with all of her bows in her bed, so we take each day as it comes :).

Eliana's talking is probably the biggest development. My heart melts every day as she is communicating more and more. She has started expressing desires and wants, like "I want apple." She copies more of our sayings, like "Oh my goodness!" and sometimes gives a commentary on what she's doing, like "I put the box by the door". She's also asking questions, like "why you do that?" She's attempting to boss us around too, like "Mama, go get that!"

The most endearing thing about her speech to everyone over here is that she speaks with an Australian accent. Our friends often ask her to say things like "water" (pronounced w-awe-tah). She even pronounces her 't's, Uncle Baz... I've been working on it :)

Over the last four months Eliana has started singing more and more, which brings me sheer joy. Singing nursery rhymes with us and dancing to them is one of her favourite past times. Sometimes she'll go and get her stool from the bathroom, bring it into the hallway, stand on it and sway as we sing songs! Where do they come up with these things?

She is still a sweet big sister, although for the first time today I saw her express jealousy over a toy. She was in her high chair eating lunch and saw me give Lilah a ribbon she'd been playing with. She looked horrified and said, "No, Lilah! Don't touch! That's mine!" Looks like it's time to teach the concept of sharing!

Rolling

Lilah is such a delightful little baby right now. She's sleeping well, is happy and content when she's awake, and has a very go-with-the-flow personality. I'm relishing this joyous time! All she needs is a bit of eye contact, or even just the sound of foot steps approaching, and her little face lights up into a big grin.

She's beginning to 'talk' a lot and happily blows rasberries to anyone who pays her attention. Some other things that are so wonderful about the four month age, besides the happy faces, is that they're not on solid food, and they're not too mobile yet. Lilah is starting to roll onto her tummy frequently though, so this not too mobile age is slipping quickly from my fingers!

Lilah went from the above position, to the below position while I was in the kitchen the other day. She may be requiring closer supervision in the near future :)

More photos

Here is a link for photos of Eliana at 18-24 months.

And here is a link to see photos of Lilah's first 4 months.

Medicine for the heart

Lilah 4 months

Lilah made it to four months last week! Here are some facts for her:

Weight: 13lb, 15.5 oz (25th-50th %)

Height: 26" (95th - 98th %)!

Head Circ: 16.25" (75th- 90th %)

She is 3lb's heavier than Eliana was at this age, and 1lb heavier than Eliana was at 6 months!

• Eating: She was still having 7-8 feeds a day, with a middle of the night and a 5am feed right up until she turned 4 months. She recently dropped to about 6 feeds a day though. I kept up as many feeds as she would take in order to help my struggling milk supply. I was told about an excellent spice that helped me amazingly though, Shatavari.
• Sleeping: Lilah was not a great napper until I started feeding her every 3.5 hrs, a week before she turned 4 months (as opposed to every 3 hours). She went from 1 hr naps to over 2 hour naps instantly! She now happily goes down for naps and sucks her thumb to settle herself if she stirs.

• Physical: She rolls from her tummy to her back and has rolled from her back to her tummy once or twice. She loves her play gym and grabbing the toys dangling above her. She loves to suck her thumb or fingers, or her whole hand!
• Personality: Lilah can still be quite feisty, although she's gone from being screamy baby to dreamy baby :) She has definitely mellowed out a lot since she got close to 4 months. At the same time, she is a lovely, happy baby who goes with the flow. She lights up at any eye contact and giggles when we play with her arms or legs or when she gets tickles.

• Relationships: Eliana is a beautiful big sister. She is (mostly!) very gentle with Lilah and likes to lie next to her, cuddling her with her arm. Lilah watches Eliana a little bit, but mostly her eyes are for her mama. She loves her Daddy too, and when she's nursing while Daddy's home, she is very distracted and tries to look around to see where that deep voice is coming from, especially while he and Eliana are playing!

We are abundantly thankful for Lilah's little life. May the Lord direct her heart towards him from a young age!

Eliana turned two

Eliana turned 2 last week. Here she is on her birthday:

And below is a photo of her on her last day as a one year old. What a blessing these two years have been!

The last 4 weeks at church, different nursery workers have stopped me to tell me how good Eliana was in the nursery. What a dream! I think all of them used the word "sweet" to describe her. This is a gift from God. May He keep the sweetness of her personality all her days, to glorify and honour and serve Jesus. Happy Birthday, my sweet angel!

A tip on potty training

A couple of weeks ago I blogged that Eliana was officially potty trained. Here is a bit of the process...

Nate and I decided to do the "potty training in a day" method (although it really takes a week). We used Toddlerwise*, by Ezzo and Bucknam for advice on potty training (don't buy it, borrow it from the library). You basically stay at home for a week, put your child in undies (Summer is the best season), feed your child lots of drink and salty snacks (so that they drink more), and use a doll to help explain the potty process to your child. Every time they have an accident, you bring out the doll to go through the potty process with your child again. Any successes are rewarded.

Eliana showed signs of readiness and we wanted to do it before Nate went back to work (it would have been impossible with just me, Eliana and Lilah) so we cleared our schedule. Day one saw about 15 accidents with a few successes, day two had about 10 very small accidents but by the afternoon Eliana seemed to be getting it. Then came day 3. Eliana didn't want to have an accident, but she became too scared to go on the potty. This meant she would hold on for ages, yet she seemed very uncomfortable. This went on for 2 days. It. Was. Tough. I was ready to give up. Nate persevered, but he says it's possibly the hardest thing he has had to do in parenting so far. We prayed A LOT, we made the bathroom a fun place to be, and we eventually started dancing and singing the song "poo poo in the potty" (from the movie, Look Who's Talking II) whenever Eliana said she needed to go. At the end of day 4, Eliana made some progress and on day 5, there were no more accidents and Eliana was happily going on the potty.

The next week was great. Then Nate went back to work. I don't know if it's connected, but the day Nate went back to work, Eliana seemed to regress. She began fearing doing poos on the potty. We looked on the internet and saw that a lot of children experienced the same fear, but we could only find one success story. So now it comes to my tip. This is what seems to be working for us so far. After a lot of distress, I decided to bring our laptop into the bathroom so that Eliana could watch kids music clips on You Tube while sitting on the potty. She loves this. It's her only 'screen time' of the day, so maybe that helps. We usually only do it once a day, after breakfast, which has always been her 'regular' time. The first couple of times trying this saw us in the bathroom for about 40-50 minutes. There were still a few tears when 'it came down to it' and I had to encourage her to stay on the potty when it looked like it was really time to go. After a week of this, she has gradually been taking less time and producing less tears. For the last few days she has been going without tears, and before I can even get a music clip up. She still enjoys her "speshtal tweat" afterwards too :)

So for now, I say that Eliana is imperfectly potty trained. It's 1000 times nicer than nappies! :)

* I wouldn't recommend Toddlerwise for anything other than the potty training and some practical advice. The rest seems to have an empty focus, centering on the child's behaviour rather than their heart. Jesus said "Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45) and "Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit." (Matthew 7:17) My children's hearts need to know Jesus and submit to Him if I want them to truly produce 'good fruit' all of their days.

I would recommend, Shepherding a Child's Heart, by Tedd Trip, and Gospel Centred Family, by Moll and Chester. I haven't read Give Them Grace, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica Thompson, but I've heard it is also an excellent book on parenting and it's on my "to read" book list.

A birth story (2)

I'm a bit slow with posting birth stories, as Lilah is now 3 months! But I didn't post Eliana's birth story until she was 7 months old, so I guess 3 months late is not so bad...

I spare you the details, but birth stories are not for everyone. If you do enjoy reading them, read on!

Friday, May 27th 2011

I was four days past my due date. Contractions started at 2pm. They came every hour or so and weren't so bad. I didn't get Braxton Hicks contractions in either pregnancies, so this was a good sign. I slept well that night but woke for each contraction that came every hour or less.

Saturday, May 28th

On Saturday I wanted to stay active to try and bring on labour. I vacuumed the house and then after a bacon and eggs brekky, Nate, Eliana and I went to the Dubbo Zoo park for a coffee, morning tea and walk. Contractions came every hour or so.

At 2pm I had a spicy vindaloo lunch, made by my Dad, and we added extra fresh chillies. After that, contractions started coming every 5-8 minutes and were approximately 30 seconds long. They started stopping me in my tracks. It's funny to see the difference in how I handled labour. At this stage with Eliana (or before) I was on all fours breathing through contractions. During this stage with Lilah, I played with Eliana and we ran up and down the driveway! :)

At 4pm contractions were anywhere between 2-6 minutes apart, and 30 seconds long. I rang the hospital at 4:45 and they told me to have a hot shower and come in when contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and 60 seconds long. After the shower contractions started coming every 2-3 minutes and were quickly growing in intensity. I cried after 1 contraction.

At 5pm we decided to make our way to the hospital, so after packing last minute hospital needs we arrived at the hospital around 5:30. (I was in the room next door to where I was born 30 years ago.) I was 8cm dilated.

The midwife asked if I minded a student nurse observing. We had no problem with this and it turned out to be quite a blessing. As the midwife talked through the labour process with the student, she was full of praise and encouragement for how I was coping. The affirmation was amazing in how much it helped me through.

Nate started recording contractions but by 6:20 they were too long and close together for him to record, as he was constantly at my back massaging me. I had a hot shower and bath after this for about 30 minutes. Contractions hurt and I moaned a lot. My lovely, gentle mother was able to be calm and quiet through the labour of all four of her children. I did not inherit this gift!

Earlier, I had asked the midwife if I needed my waters broken, because I did with Eliana. She said that she could break them if I wanted, and that the baby would come about 10 minutes after that, but she encouraged me to hold off and let them break naturally, as I was "coping so well." It was tempting to have them broken, but once again her encouragement kept me going. About 15 minutes after the bath I prayed that God would let my waters break naturally because I didn't think I could last much longer. They broke within 5 minutes. God is so very kind.

About 10 minutes after this I was on all fours on the bed, shrieking and screaming through the last transition. Nate later told me that he thought I went a little insane. My excellent midwife, Judi, told me to hold it together.

At 7:40pm I was ready to push. One big push brought the baby's head in view. Judi told me to slow down and coached me through pushing without having any tearing. It was soooo hard at the time to go slowly, but in hind site, a milllion times worth it!

At 7:49 our baby was born. "It's a girl!" Nate said. Beautiful Lilah Belle. Nate cut the cord and handed me our precious 8lb, 15oz. girl. She started nursing straight away.

It was a much smoother birth process, and praise the Lord, Lilah was healthy. According to Judi, labour started when contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, which put it at about 3.5 hours. For me, the shorter labour was 10 times more intense than my long labour with Eliana. Not long after giving birth, Nate asked me which kind of labour I would prefer. At the time, "neither" was all I could say, but now that the labour pains have been forgotten because of the joy it brought forth, I would definitely opt for Lilah's labour.

I thank the Lord for our little Lilah, and for the many answered prayers that came with her, and again I thank the Lord for my most attentive, serving, amazing husband, who is the best daddy to his girls.

Lilah 3 months

Here she is! There's not much more to report from her last update. We had Lilah weighed when she was about 12 weeks and she was keeping steady on the 50th percentile for weight, 90th percentile for height, which is wonderful for me! She is still feeding 7 or 8 times a day, usually including a middle of the night feed. I'm a bit more relaxed with Lilah than I was with Eliana, but I thought that Lilah would be sleeping through the night by now.... turns out she is just a super hungry girl :)

The below photo of Lilah is pretty typical of her. She loves to grab hold of her clothes and put her hands in her mouth. She is a lovely baby. She still doesn't like going down for naps, which is opposite of what Eliana was at this age. Two sisters, and I can already tell they are so different!

If I had to guess, I would say that little Lilah is going to be our little feisty one :)

Eliana @ 22 months

Eliana is a little character these days. How she melts our hearts! (Do I say that for all of her updates?) Language seems to be falling in place for her these days. Each day she is saying new words or coming out with her own sentences. She mostly says 2-3 word sentences and sometimes 4. It started out with her copying or remembering things we say but now she is expressing her own observations like "nice day!" Nate said that after checking the mail on campus with Eliana the other day, he put her back in the pram/stroller and she said "go home to mama".

She loves pretend play a lot and I think if we had dress ups that would be one of her favorite activities. She loves to put on necklaces and walk around in my shoes and carry handbags around (whose daughter is she?!) and pretend to put on lip balm. She is getting imaginative too. Today she pretended that a pretzel she'd taken a bite of was a horse and jumped him around saying "Horse! boing, boing, boing, Neigh!"

Her hair has lightened up a lot and has a bit of curl in the ends. She pretty much feeds herself everything and can use a spoon and fork. Her favourite foods are weet-bix, porridge, rice with anything, pasta with anything, fruit and crackers. She doesn't really like sweet drinks. We tried to give her lots of sweet drinks (for the first time) while potty training her but she really just wanted water all of the time. She LOVES climbing up and down the stairs outside of our apartment. She is starting to express more independence. When we offer her help with something she will quickly say no. But when she does want help she has learnt to ask for it with "help please" or "read please".

Eliana is sweet and gentle towards Lilah and will cuddle her or pat her or rock her when she cries. She still loves wrestling both Nate and I. Nate has taught her some colours. She's pretty spot on with pink (since most of her clothes are that colour!) and mostly knows orange, blue and purple. Eliana's getting there with counting. She doesn't usually spontaneously count but likes to count along with us. Is that enough random facts for now? Man, I could go on. This is SUCH a fun age! Of course, she has her daily fits of anger or frustration when she doesn't get her own way or doesn't want to obey, and she tests us all the time (she is getting very sneaky and crafty too) but we are so thankful that God has entrusted her little life into our care. May He guide us in our efforts to guide her little heart towards Him!

For the Grandmas

Here are some clips so you can get a glimpse of our little girls growing :) We love and miss you all!

Lilah talking @ 11 weeks:

Eliana in Mama's shoes @ 22 months:

Eliana is officially potty trained!

Lilah cooing and laughing

Lilah coos a little bit each day, especially at her toys when she's in her baby gym. I tried to capture it and, of course, Lilah only performed for the camera a little :)

And wouldn't you know it, right after I turned the camera off daddy took Lilah to change her and she starts giggling at him! I only managed to get the tail end of some gorgeous giggles on tape. So below is part of Lilah's first laugh. She's 10 weeks old. Enjoy!

Lilah joins the crew

It's time for Eliana to share her blog with Lilah. Lilah turned 8 weeks old on Saturday and is growing well. She was 10lb 15oz as of yesterday (5oth percentile).

She was a great little traveller from Aus to the USA, sleeping and feeding most of the way. We dragged her all over the place while in Australia, so after a rocky night our first night back to the USA, she has settled beautifully.

Lilah has the nickname "Lilah lungs" for reasons such as you can guess!! Some people are surprised that a little baby can make such a noise :)

Eliana pays minimal attention to Lilah, but when she does, she is very sweet to her. She points to her and says her name a lot and likes to tell us when Lilah is sleeping. We are very thankful for Eliana's 'so far so good' adjustment to our new addition!

19 - 21 months

What a little delight Eliana is growing into! Since I don't know where to start with her, I'm just going to blurt out random facts about her. She has adjusted very well to having Lilah around, thanks to living with Grandma and Grandpa and having Daddy around 24/7. She is very nurturing and loves to pat Lilah or rub her back like we do. She also loves to name Lilah's body parts. It's very cute, but we have to be on the lookout as poking eye's seems to be Eliana's favourite part of body naming!

We recently went on a trip to Sydney and Eliana was a champion traveller! She is turning into a bit of a talker and a social butterfly. She was quick to make friends on the buses into the city and lit up the tired city people's faces.

Eliana has started copying everything we do. She will repeat new words often and imitate our intonation as we speak. She also copies our actions and the way we move. It makes us laugh everyday.

She cuddles just about anything with eyes - even faces we make out of play-dough. She also loves to pretend to talk on the phone and will turn just about anything, from a playing card to a block of cheese to a glasses case into a phone. She paces up and down "talking" and laughs to whoever she is talking to. We're not to sure where Eliana picked this up as Nate and I aren't big phone talkers.

Another favourite thing for her these days is watching Bob the Builder with Grandpa. They also love to watch a DVD of children singing and Eliana knows all the actions to the songs.

She is developing her own little personality, and every day it seems that we discover something new! What a blessing it is to have this little girl (and now Lilah too) placed in our care. We pray that we will guide them well with godly wisdom as they grow.

18 months

Eliana has reached the year and a half mark! Here are her stats from her check up:

Weight - 24lb/10.8kg (50%)

Height - 33"/83.82cm (75-90%)

Head Circ - 18.25"/46.35cm (50%)

This month Eliana has started trying more words. None are articulated too well but she has a label for things that are of most interest to her. She has started saying "ana" (AHna) for her own name. In the last couple of months I have been more aware that airplanes and helicopters seem to fly over our neighbourhood every 5 minutes. Eliana points to every one she hears!

On Tuesday Nate, Eliana and I took a trip to the zoo. It's the first time Eliana has been since she was about 7 months. She LOVED it! Whenever the animals moved she cracked up. She especially loved roaring at the lions and the other big cats.

Other things of interest:

• Sleep - She usually naps at least 2 hours and will sometimes sleep for 3. She sleeps about 12-13 hours at night (what a blessing!).
• Food - her favourites are porridge, vegemite toast, cheese, crackers, rice and beans, red meat, spaghetti bolognaise, rice noodles, a certain kefir drink, and she still loves any fruit. I put veggies in everything I cook for dinner. Her least favourite food is potatoes, interestingly.
• Play - She is great at playing on her own and loves puzzles and (of course) books. She has started pretend playing, like pretending to feed her baby. We have absolutely loved the warmer weather that has come just in the last few days. (Oh, how I was longing for it as we fly to an Aussie winter in two weeks!) I have noticed a huge difference in Eliana's behaviour since we have been able to go outside for long periods. She seems to enjoy my company a lot more :)

It should be less than 2 months until she is a big sister. When I ask her where mummy's baby is she'll pat my tummy and give it a kiss (talk about melt your heart!). I wonder if she really knows what she's in for? :) What a wonderful time she's about to enter.

Here are more photos of her last 6 months:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=337561&id=543241773&l=39498cbfbb