Easter Weekend!

Last weekend for Easter we went to Huntsville to spend the holiday with our family. Jayda went up to Huntsville before us on friday night after going to the Astros game with Nanna and Pawpaw. On saturday morning the rest of us headed to hville. We hung out and relaxed at Jacob's parents house then went over to my parents house to hang out with Oma and Oupa and enjoy some yummy hamburgers. Jayda had a blast opening up and playing with all of her Easter goodies from Oma. On Easter morning we went to church with Jacob's family. Easter is always so special, but this year it was even more special because Lourdes got baptised! We were so happy for her and so excited that we got to be there with her at such a special time! After church we went back out Jacob's parents house. Nanna cooked a great Easter meal and everyone came over to enjoy. Jayda of course spent most of the day outside playing with her cousins and riding around on the four wheeler. Lourde's parents and little sister also came over, so Jayda had a ton of fun playing with Lourdes' little sister Grace. Caitlyn, Grace and Jayda were like 3 little peas in a pod all day! Big cousin Caitlyn was so sweet to the little girls and they look up to her so much! After enjoying a yummy lunch we had a big Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. Jayda loves hunting for Easter eggs! She found lots of eggs filled with candy and money. We even had to go to Toys R Us yesterday so that she could buy something with her Easter money! After the egg hunt Jayda was SO tired and worn out! We decided we better go ahead and pack up to head home. We had a great weekend and loved spending time with our family!


Jayda hunting for Easter eggs at playgroup last wednesday.


Jayda with her buddy Jane at playgroup.


Sweet Sydney after waking up from her afternoon nap. She sleeps in her swing during the day and loves it!


Jayda and Daddy riding the 4 wheeler, Jayda's favorite thing to do!


Sweet sisters all dressed up in matching dresses on Easter morning.


Mommy, Jayda, and Sydney all ready for church on Easter morning.


Sweet picture of Sydney!


Jayda with her favorite peeps at church!


Lourdes being baptised!


Jayda and Grace after church.


Family Easter picture. Too bad the girls weren't too happy!


The 3 girls ready for a ride!


Egg hunt time, woo hoo!


She was on a mission!


Daddy sitting outside talking to his little girl.


Sisters!

6 Week Pics!

Last thursday Sydney turned 6 weeks old. I took some really cute pictures of her and some with her and Jayda and just wanted to share.

Sydney's sweet little smile, I love it!


Talking to mommy!


I love piggy pictures!


Stretch!


Jayda and Sydney right after Jayda woke up from her nap. Sydney was in a bit of shock, can you tell?


Sisters in matching outfits, so cute!


Another cute picture of them together.


Jayda cheesing for the camera, as usual!


Jayda all dressed up for gymnastics class. She loves to wear her gymnastics outfit!

Recent trips!

Well, I think this is my fifth attempt at trying to update my blog, whew! Everytime I sit down to work on it someone either needs to eat, sleep, get a diaper changed, throw a temper tantrum, go to the potty, and the list goes on and on. So needless to say it has been really hard to get any time on the computer these days. I am currently standing up rocking back and forth with Sydney in the infant carrier so that she'll sleep while Jayda is taking a nap. Maybe now I can finally finish this post that I started on tuesday!

A few weeks ago Jacob took Jayda to the rodeo. They rode lots of rides and visited the petting zoo. Apparently Jayda was quite the risk taker and went on a haunted roller coaster in the complete dark and on a huge slide that Jacob says they caught air on! I would of had a heart attack if I was there, so I guess it was a good thing that momma stayed home. Jayda definitely does not get her fearless personality from me, that is all from her daddy!

Jayda playing with the animals at the petting zoo. She loves animals so much! Jacob said he got out the camera to take some pictures (request from mommy of course) and Jayda started running around to every animal in the petting zoo and hugging them and saying "cheeeeeeese!" She's only had her picture taken a few times, right?


A couple of weekends ago Oma and Oupa came to visit the girls. We had fun playing and relaxing with them around the house.

Oupa holding sweet Sydney.


Oma and Sydney together.


Jayda let me put pigtails in her hair so I had to take a picture since this is a very rare occurence!


We recently took our first overnight trips out of town since Sydney was born. The weekend before last we went to Huntsville for the weekend. Jacob's grandparents had come in town to meet Sydney so we went to hang out with them. We had fun on saturday just relaxing and also went to Gonzalo's R&R party to see him and Andrea and sweet baby Sara. It was so fun getting to meet little Sara and see Gonzalo while he was home from Iraq for a few weeks! On sunday we enjoyed some delicious bbq with Jacob's parents and grandparents and practiced our shooting skills with our new gun. It was my first time to ever shoot a gun and I actually thought it was pretty fun.

Sydney talking to her Nanna and Papaw.


Jayda posing with Sydney. This is what Jayda does all the time and she says "Awww, she's so cute, can you take a picture momma?"


Caitlyn meeting Sydney for the first time.


Sydney talking to her Pawpaw.


Jacob practicing his shooting skills.


Me testing out our new pistol, look out!


This past weekend we headed back up to Huntsville so that we could go to our friends Jude and Lindsay's wedding in Plano on saturday. We got to huntsville late on friday night then got up early saturday morning to head to Plano for the wedding on saturday morning. The wedding was gorgeous and the reception was so much fun! We were so happy we got to celebrate with Jude and Lindsay on their special day! Jayda had a blast dancing to the music the band played. There were several other kids at the wedding, so she absolutely loved it! We also had fun getting to catch up with our friends Sara and Joe from law school. Later that afternoon we went back to Huntsville to stay the night. We went over to Oma and Oupa's house on sunday to see them and Jayda played for most of the morning. On sunday afternoon we headed back home. It was a great couple of weekends, but it will be nice to be home this weekend.

Jude and Lindsay getting married, what a cute couple!


Our little family at the wedding.


Daddy and Jayda. I think they look so much alike in this picture!


Jayda met a friend at the wedding reception, and then danced the afternoon away!


Sydney is doing great these days and is actually 6 weeks old today. It is so hard to believe how big she is already getting! I weighed her last week and she was a whopping 10 pounds! I didn't think she would be that big, but she was! She is a very happy baby. However, we have noticed that if she is hungry or tired she gets very mad very quickly. We're beginning to wonder if she may have a little temper on her! She is so sweet and around 3-4 weeks she started cooing and smiling. She smiles now most of the time when she wakes up and sees you or when someone talks to her. It is the sweetest thing to see her big smile! She likes to coo at you when you talk to her. Her eyebrows raise up and it is like she wants to carry on a conversation with you. It is the cutest thing! She still has very blue eyes, so we're thinking they'll stay that way. Sydney recently started coming out of her swaddle, so we had to pull out the kiddopotamus. This thing is awesome! It swaddles her up all nice and cozy and velcros around her. Now she will at least sleep in her bassinet at night which she had stopped doing once she could unswaddle herself. It was like as soon as her arms could start moving she would wake herself up and couldn't go back to sleep. And that would happen as soon as you layed her down even if she was completely asleep after 20 minutes of rocking her to sleep. Talk about frustrating! During the day she usually only sleeps either in the swing (her favorite), infant carrier, or bouncer. At least we are making some progress, but we still have a ways to go to get her sleeping by herself in her crib! Hopefully that will happen pretty soon, but I guess I shouldn't get too excited about it since Jayda never slept one single night in her crib! Anyways, Sydney is amazing and we can't imagine our lives without her. It's so funny how once you have a baby it is hard to remember life without them.

Sydney's sweet smile that she is flashing all the time, I love it!


Jayda had crawled in bed with Sydney. Jayda thought it was hilarious while Sydney was not too excited about it.


On March 11th when Sydney turned one month old I took the girls to get their pictures done at Portrait Innovations (my favorite place!). I thought they turned out really good and I just wanted to share a few of them!

















My favorite one! Is she destined to be a Longhorn or what?!!
I

Update!

Well, I guess it's time for an update. I've been meaning to update this blog, but it is not easy at all to find the time to do it now that I have 2 little munchkins that demand my attention all. the. time!! Sydney is doing great now, after our lovely trip to Texas Children's Hospital a little over a week ago.

On, sunday February 21st Sydney started getting a bit fussy and we weren't sure what was wrong. She started not eating very well and after 2 p.m. she wouldn't eat anything at all. By 10 p.m. that night Jacob and I got very concerned and called the pedi. The Dr. told us that was not normal for a newborn to go that long without eating and that we needed to go to TX Children's downtown immediately! Oh my gosh! I could not believe they told us this. I immediately felt sick and became extremely worried. We called our wonderful neighbor Michelle to see if she could come stay with Jayda while we went to the hospital and thankfully she could. We gave Sydney some more Mylicon, since we thought she might have an upset tummy and headed out. The ride to the hospital was horrible. I sat in the back with Sydney and just cried and prayed and prayed some more for her. I just kept staring at her and wondering why in the world we were being put in this situation. We were so scared and had no idea what could possibly be wrong with our sweet little 10 day old baby.

We got to the hospital around 11:30 p.m. sunday night. We checked in and took Sydney into triage. Right before they took her temperature and blood pressure she had a big poopy blow out diaper and then started nursing! Of course right! We go to the hospital because she won't eat and she starts eating right there in the ER! I immediately felt much better, even though I didn't know if that would solve the problem. The ER doc came in after a while of waiting in the room and asked us lots of questions about Sydney. After talking to the Dr. for a while he said that they would need to run lots of tests on Sydney because just being fussy and not eating in a newborn could indicate lots of different potentially very bad illnesses. They were mainly concerned about a bacterial infection, like meningitis. The dr. said there was less than a 10% chance that she would have anything, but that they have to be extra cautious with newborns since a bacterial infection can take over a newborns body very quickly. They told us that they would have to do blood and urine cultures and a spinal tap. A spinal tap?! Are you flipping kidding me? On my 10 day old baby??!! Mommy was going into panic mode! Oh, and they said we would have to stay at the hospital for at least 48 hours for the cultures to grow. I asked the Dr. if the spinal tap would hurt really bad because I have heard so many horror stories about it and he said that it supposedly wasn't too bad. He said that he thought the urine catheter would hurt worse. Later on another dr. told us that it's because you have to put them in a little tiny ball to do the spinal tap and that's what they don't like about it. Who knows, I was just freaked out! We waited in the ER for another hour or so and then the docs came in. They first did the urine catheter and poor baby cried so bad. I felt awful! They then put an IV in her foot to draw her blod and start antibiotics in case it was a bac. infection. I just held her little bitty hand as she cried and screamed. And mommy cried and cried. They then came into to do the spinal tap. I couldn't stand with her anymore but we stayed in the room with her. Let me just tell you, I would not wish this experience on ANYONE! It was the worst thing that I have ever been through. I felt so bad for Sydney and wanted to relieve her pain so bad and there was nothing I could do. I had never heard this baby cry this loud or for this long. She would just stare into my eyes and cry like "mommy help". It broke my heart and I can not even explain how bad it hurt. I literally did not think she even could cry anymore because she had cried so much. Whew, just thinking back upsets me all over again! After all the tests had been run I fed her again and thank goodness she ate again. Hallelujah, at least she was eating. Another hour or so had passed and then they came and got us to go and take Sydney to get x-rays. I was beginning to wonder when this would ever end!!

Finally around 5 a.m. they moved Sydney out of the ER and up to the Level 2 NICU upstairs. We went with Sydney to the NICU where she had a bed and we had one recliner right next to her. Jacob and I were both SO tired and Sydney was still fussy. Jacob stayed with us for most of the morning and then left to go home and get us some things. He went home and took a shower and brought us some stuff back up and then left to go to work. I stayed at the hospital with Sydney all day and it was the worst day ever! I had to hold Sydney all day because if I put her in the bed she would cry. She was hooked up to an IV, heart rate monitors, blood pressure cuff so it was hard to get her in and out of the bed and to feed her, but we managed. Poor baby! And I was such a mess. The social workers and nurses kept coming over and asking me if they could do anything for me and that I needed to take care of myself too and on and on. I just was not about to leave my crying baby with some stranger. So, I just held and fed Sydney all day Monday, and cried, and had the worst headache of my life, and didn't eat all day. Not good, at all! Jacob finally got back and relieved me so that I could go and get some lovely McDonalds from downstairs. I had never eaten a chicken wrap so fast in my life!

By about 9 p.m. that night Sydney started doing much better. I knew she was feeling better because she could be awake without crying. Since sunday afternoon if she was awake, she was crying and the only way she wouldn't cry is if she was asleep. So, I started feeling better about things. Then, the Dr. came by and told me that she thought Sydney just had a viral infection, like a common cold, and that's why she was fussy and not eating. She said she really didn't think the cultures would come back positive for a bacterial infection, but we still needed to stay in the hospital and make sure. They continueted Sydney on antibiotics just in case. So, by monday night things were looking better, and Jacob and I got a room at the Ronald McDonald house. We were SO happy!! We would have a bed to sleep in that night! I can not tell you how happy I was or how badly I wanted a place to sleep! It was wonderful and I was even able to take a shower in our room! On monday night we stayed in our room and since Sydney was doing better I went to get some sleep too. The nurse would call our room every 3 hours and I would go back to the NICU and feed her and then come back to lay down. It was heavenly to get some sleep, can not even explain!

On tuesday morning Jacob had to leave to go and take a deposition and I went back to the NICU to stay with Sydney. She was doing much better tuesday morning and I was feeling much better about everything. Around mid morning the Dr. came by and said she really thought that Sydney was fine and that if her cultures were still negative around 6 p.m. that she would be ok to let us go home that night. Hallelujah!! I was so excited since I thought we would be there at least until wednesday morning since the cultures were 48 hours at 3 a.m. Suzie and Jayda came up to see us on tuesday morning and I was so excited to see Jayda! I hadn't seen her since we'd put her to bed on sunday night and I was missing her terribly. Luckily Suzie was able to take off work and come and stay with Jayda while we were in the hospital, so that was wonderful. Thank you Nanna!! It was sad when Jayda had to leave because I so badly wanted to go home with her! My aunt Cheryl came to visit us that afternoon and stayed the rest of the day. It was so nice for her to be there and I even got to go and take a nap back at the Ronald McDonald house. That evening the cultures were still negative and they released us to go home around 8 p.m. Thank-goodness!! We were so happy to go home! It was like I was in some sort of horrible dream that I was finally waking up from! Whew, little miss Sydney, you scared us to death!

So, needless to say, it's been a little rough getting back into a routine around here. All the rest of last week was very rough becuase we were so tired from being in the hospital. Jacob was working a ton and I had both the girls at home alone for the first time! Luckily my awesome friend Lauren came into town on Saturday and stayed until Tuesday morning. She was able to help me get back in the swing of things and I am feeling much better today. It is still very crazy and not easy at all, but we are making it. We are not getting too much sleep and Jayda has decided to start throwing full on temper tantrums that we've never experienced before. But, I'm sure that after a few more weeks we'll be good. Or at least I hope, right?!


Jayda and Sydney. Can't tell you how many pics I have like just like this of Jayda holding Sydney in the boppy.


Jayda found a big stick at the park the other day and proceeded to carry it around forever!


Daddy and Jayda feeding the turtles.


Another picture of Jayda and Sydney together.


And another one! Guess who loves her sister???


Jayda and Sydney in matching big sister/little sister outfits.


So cute! This is right before Sydney starting pitching a fit!


Sweet, sweet little Sydney at 2 weeks old.


Miss Sydney in her glider. Just a few days shy of 3 weeks old.


Silly Jayda posing for the camera!