Happy Holidays and a Harper update

Only two more days until Christmas and I am feeling pretty organized this year.  I was kind of expecting things to be pretty chaotic this season with Jon in school, and the newest addition to our family keeping me much busier than years past.  Somehow I have found time to get all of my shopping done, everything is wrapped or baked, Olivia and I completed our Christmas crafts and even Miss Harper participated in making an ornament (although she slept through the entire process).  

We have had so many fun moments in the past few weeks.  Harper found her smile and discovered her hands.  She loves to bat at her toys and can reach out and grab onto things.  She then will smile, kick, huff and puff and sometimes if we are lucky, shriek with excitement.  It is so fun to watch her grow and change everyday.  I am hanging on dearly to her newborn phase the best I can, she is still sleeping in her bassinet next to my bed.  She likes to wake up early early with her Daddy (around 4:30am) to nurse and then go back to sleep until around 9.  Jon is a wonderful Daddy and will take her and change her and bring her back to me to feed her and snuggle her back to bed.  I joke that I am keeping her in the bassinet until she is five, but seriously I don't want to put my little sweat pea all the way down the big long hallway all alone in her room just yet!!   I must hang on to this baby stage!! 

But, back to Christmas..

We had lots of fun trying to get some good photo ops of the girls for our Christmas card, here are a few that didn't make the cut, and ones that did. 

Harper is saying "what is happening to me?"

Olivia was so excited about our quarter inch of snow!

naughty or nice? 

my first girl, Lola Bean.

Christmas has been full of many things this year...

to list a few

 

•    writing letters to Santa (olivia wrote at least 4 that I know of)  She asked for Squinkies Adventure Mall, a cake toy (play dough) and a treat toy (moon dough) 
• baking lots of cookies with Mom
• wrapping gifts on her own
• watching lots of Christmas movies together, Frosty, Rudolf, The Polar Express, and The Grinch
• having our very own Rudolf car (thanks Papa!) 
• celebrating baby Jesus, and reading The Christmas Story over and over
• Olivia is looking forward to being an Angel for Christmas Eve during the church service.  There is going to be a Christmas Pageant for all children to participate in. 
• Olivia played for over an hour in the snow even though we only had 1/2 an inch.  She is eagerly awaiting the first true snowfall so she can try sledding. 
• Our Elf on the Shelf - Mr Twinkletoes.  Olivia loves running downstairs each morning to find where he has hid the night before.  We have found him dangling from the mistletoe, peeking out of stockings and our tree, playing the ukulele and riding a camel.  He sure is a mischievous little elf! 

We feel so blessed this year to have two perfect healthy girls, good friends and family to celebrate with and lots of things to look forward to in our future. 

She's here!

Four weeks ago from today I became a Mommy all over again.  The weeks have just flown by. I have been completely engrossed in all things baby.  Miss Harper Elizabeth was born Sept 24th, 2011.  She weighed in at 8 lbs 4 oz, and was 20 1/2 inches long.  We are so in love, and big sister Olivia is so proud.  Life is very good to us.  I have two perfect girls, my heart is full.

I am realizing with this feeling of completeness comes an overwhelming sense of sentimentality that I don't think is going to go away any time soon.  Today I boxed up some newborn sleepers and undershirts that are already too small for Harper.  What?! Already??? !!!!  That means she is growing and I don't want to say goodbye to the newborn clothes just yet.  I refuse to tape the box closed, I am in denial of time passing by.  I LOVE how sweet the newborn phase is.  I am soaking it in as much as I can.  I love how her eyes are so wide and learning to take in this huge world around her.  I love how slow her eyes track the objects around her.  I just took a VIDEO of her SLEEPING, yes sleeping!  I love the faces she makes in her sleep, and how she sleeps with her mouth open like her daddy (is that bad?)  I am so smitten with her little newborn erratic arm movements and little piggy grunts.  I even don't mind so much when she wails and wails because she has too much air in her tummy and I rushed through trying to burp her.  I love a swaddled baby and how miss Harper still has hair. I was excited and sad when her belly button made its debut at around two weeks. I love giving her little body a bath, and snuggling her up as much as possible.  

I am figuring out how challenging it can be to be a Mother of two.  I feel pulled and a bit guilty that no one is getting all of my attention that much anymore.  Olivia is a wonderful big sister and loves on Harper all the time.  She definitely is adjusting though to the new little person in our house.  I think it took until this week to start showing some jealousy though. She is getting more easily frustrated and we have had some additional accidents and temper tantrums. I am proud of her though for trying so hard for us to be a good girl. I am trying not to feel guilty, I know that giving her a sibling is a huge gift.  Someday she will thank me for this, even if now there is just lots of waiting for Mommy to finish doing something for Harper.  She will adjust, she will adjust, she will adjust.....  right?  I just keep telling Olivia how important she is, and what a helper she is and what a great sister she is.  I think she just feels like I always have a baby in my arms and that she has to entertain herself a lot more often.  On that note, I am so grateful for any and all of the wonderful company we have been having.  Its so great to have help and have more people here to play with Olivia.

As for Jon and I, we are figuring it out.  We are tired and busy, but wouldn't trade this for anything. As much as I am hanging onto this newborn phase, I am also very much looking forward to a little bit more of a predictable schedule that only comes with Harper's age.  I would enjoy knowing for sure that I will get to shower everyday, and that I might get to sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time.  I am looking forward to having a clean house again someday and most of all I am looking forward to seeing my girls actually play together.

xoxo
Beth

snapshot

This morning I opened my eyes, still blurry from sleep, and Olivia's face was about one inch from my own.   She always greats me in the morning with a wide grin, amazed to tell me its the start of a new day, and that " The sun is out, its morning!!"  I have in the past (on a rare occasion) been awake before her and have happened to witness her morning routine.  She gets out of bed and peeks out her own window to confirm that, yes, it is daylight...and then comes to get me.  But, back to this morning....  I had the luxuary of going out last night to indulge in some delicious dessert, great conversation and to see a movie with a good friend.     I had a lot of fun, but I didn't lay down my pregnant body to rest until about 1am.  So, being nose to nose with Olivia less than 5 hours later wasn't what I was dreaming of.  Sweet lovely sleep angels were with me today though, because Olivia climbed into bed with me and I asked her if we could try and rest some more.  HOLY MIRACLE she said "ok mommy" and we snuggled in and slept about another 90 minutes.

Oh how I can't wait to meet this new baby girl in my tummy, but I have been selfishly hogging Olivia to myself as much as possible.  I want to eat her up all of the time. This morning was so sweet, I love hugging her tiny little body to me and I don't even mind when she kicks me because she sleeps like a jumping bean. I know this one on one time with her is fleeting, we have had such a great summer.  I am so proud of her and I know I'll always remember this fun summer we have had.  I was unexpectedly given more time with Olivia alone than I had originally planned, but our new plan worked out just fine.  Now Olivia, is ready more than ever to be a big sister and I am pretty sure there is room in my bed for one more.

Feeling so blessed....

36 1/2 weeks, so grateful for a healthy pregnancy

Olivia heading off to Preschool

so independent

Ms. Ashley- so glad her first school experience is going to be so good.

This week we were also very blessed because Jon's Grandpa had to have triple bypass surgery and is doing fantastic.  We love Gramps so much and had him in our prayers.  He has always been a very active healthy man, and we are hoping that in time this surgery will help him regain the energy he once had.  After only five days after surgery he is home already resting up to get back out and about again.  

olivia with her Great Papa xoxo

So today rather than try and keep this blog post in chronological order and trying to upload a bunch of pictures from the last month, I just wanted to put a snapshot of how I am feeling this morning. Life is good, and I am grateful.  Sometimes it just takes sleeping an extra hour to put it in perspective. 

xoxo

summer days gone by

Fall is around the corner.  I've been new shoe shopping with Olivia and we have our meet the teacher night next week.  We are both so excited for preschool to start.  She loves school and I know she will have a blast and make so many new little friends.  As I am mentally getting ready for fall, putting the finishing touches on the nursery, practicing the Bears fight song again with Olivia, and daydreaming about wearing my snuggly Uggs ... I want to post the rest of all of the great times our little Koepke clan has had the last 6 weeks or so of this fabulous summer gone by.

girl cousins

fashion show!

Miss Katie

ladybug Chloe

in the bubble at the Children's Museum

pool time with cousins

Katie and Olivia with Tom

first time fishing with Grandpa, so sweet matching hats

at the City Museum in St. Louis , climbing with Daddy and Brett

Me and my little monkey

me and Megan, a forever BFF

more climbing

climbing down into the caves

rock climbing

Jon and I had a night out to celebrate the beautiful wedding of Chris and Vicki!  I'm trying to work my baby bump!

my sweetie

Kristie and I , photo taken by miss Olivia @ Blackberry Farm

Olivia's first solo pony ride without Mom, she wanted to go solo.  so grown up!

Brookfield Zoo - August 14, 2011 

Dolphin show

Olivia as a joey

Lots of great memories this summer!!  Its been very bittersweet knowing that these are the last few weeks of being a family of three.  I am so excited to meet the newest member of our family, but I have been trying to cram in as much Olivia time as possible while we have all of this Mommy and O time to ourselves.  

so grateful xoxo

I can't believe how lucky we are.  Today Olivia had yet another laser treatment on her birthmark .  When I look at pictures from when she was first born to where we are now it is just so amazing the miracle of modern medicine and what is possible.

Bye Bye Binkie

Well, the biggest thing to rock Olivia's world in July was that we finally had our visit from the Binkie Fairy.  The mythical fairy that came to our house to transform Olivia from baby to big girl overnight.  In reality, it was the best way for Mommy and Daddy to pass the blame onto someone else and not have to be the bad guy taking away her beloved binkies.  (  Hey! - It was the fairy!!)   I built it up for a long time beforehand.  We talked about how special she was for being a big girl, how it was important for her to give her binkies to the fairy, so that the fairy could then deliver these binkies to new babies all over that would be needing them.  In exchange for Olivia's grand gesture she would be rewarded with a gift (or 3- this time it was Dad feeling guilty) and some cookies.  We took lots of time to intricately transform a shoebox into the "binkie box" which would be the vessel which would deliver the binkies to the magical fairy.   We were ready, I was SO nervous.  

Olivia was fine as bedtime neared.  She helped gather all of the binkies and put them in the box, which we decided to leave near the fireplace.  I guess the Binkie Fairy and Santa travel the same.   Once we snuggled in for our stories, that is when things started to get kind of hairy.  She started to come up with every excuse in the book as to why she needed her binkies back.  Her asking turned to begging, begging turned to crying, then crying turned to anger and the best and final stage was all out full-blown rage.  Jon and I were in awe and slightly shocked at how angry sweet miss Olivia could be.  I will not go into the dramatic details, but a few hours later a very exhausted and binky-less Olivia finally passed out.  Jon and I were so proud that we hadn't caved.  Although a few hours later she woke up , naturally looking for her binky, was reminded that they were gone and the cycle started again.  This lasted two nights and then finally she started to accept her fate of being a "big girl".

  Three weeks later, as I finally have a chance to write about it- she is doing much much better.  We have had some very rough nights mixed in with some nights where she sleeps soundly the whole time.  We have discovered that a consistent early bedtime really helps Olivia to get the best sleep she can and also greatly reduces the night waking (she has night terrors and cries in the night without actually waking up , but thats a whole other issue we had been working with before Binkie fairy came, so losing the pacifier only intensified that for a little bit) But whew!  we did it!!  The Binkies are gone and on their way to being a memory, until of course in only about 8 short weeks our next Little Miss arrives and we start over :)  I can't wait.

Here are some pictures from our jam packed weekend celebrating Olivia and the bittersweet good-bye to her beloved binky- again the guilty feeling parents thought she deserved some spoiling for all the "trauma" we were adding into her life. :)

Off to Santa's Village

her favorite ride - the tilt o whirl 

Only big girls get to go see a movie in the theatre! We saw Winnie the Pooh. 

its all about the giant bag of popcorn!