3 month Evie Kay

I figure I better post about Evie being 3 months before I have a new 4 month picture to post in a couple of weeks! Evelyn is growing like a weed and its such a joy. At 3 months she loves smiling, has started giggling and still likes to coo away. She recognizes voices like her mommy and daddy and will turn her head when she hears them across the room. She also smiles big for Ben. Her favorite thing lately is to roll on her side, put one arm over her eyes and the other arm and hand in her mouth.. Its a dramatic pose but she goes to sleep on her own like that.

The biggest change for Evie this month is that she has slowly weaned to all formula. I went back to work with the intention of weaning for daytime formula and evening/night nursing.. I did that for a couple of weeks but it just became a pain. Evie likes her bottles and loved the formula (2nd one we tried- Enfamil Gentlease, but we used the Target generic) so the combination of hating pumping and moving up the eventual plan of all formula just made sense. I was ready to be done too!  It feels good to have your body back and not have to be running your life by a 3 hour clock to be with a baby or a breastpump! Nursing I enjoyed, pumping not so much. Glad and proud I lasted 12 weeks with exclusive breast milk for her.

Evie also has started sleeping well... thinking the switch to formula might have helped. She now sleeps for 8-13 hours a night without waking!  I am still in shock. Ben never never did this before his 1st birthday and still wakes up a few times a week. Different kids for sure.   Evie is not a great napper but does take short naps.

Evie is still in pretty much 6 month clothes.. but the sleepers are getting short, she is long! I am guessing she weighs about 14 lbs.

In the first 3 months of life, Evie has met all her grandparents,aunts/uncles, great grandparents (4 of them ), been to MN, WI, IL, IN and MI and met all of her cousins.  Evie also has adjusted to daycare and loves her mornings home with daddy and evenings home with Mommy.  In my opinion, the hardest newborn months are over.. now come the fun months where they get more interactive. I love the 6month-year stage!

The Truth on Maternity leave

I am nearing the end of my maternity leave from work, 2 weeks from tomorrow I return to work. As much as I enjoyed being home this Spring for 12 weeks, returning to work is not a bad thing.

  The highlights of my maternity leave besides the obvious being able to spend lots of quality time with Evelyn and Ben are the following:

1) Being home in the mornings. I am a morning person and I love being able to drink coffee at home and see my kids wake up. Also the household sleeping in until 730/8 is plus, better than my 530 wake up.. especially good when you are up in the night with a baby once or twice.

2) Seeing my husband more.. since we work opposite shifts, being able to go as a family places in the morning like the zoo, park, Target was kind of a nice treat.   Pretty soon I will back to see him on his 2-3 nights off a week and then weekend mornings. Quite grateful he has a 3 week paternity leave when I return to work!

3) Actually somewhat keeping up on laundry.. an endless task

4) Being able to read a book during afternoon naps.. if they nap at the same time and if i chose to not do some other dumb household task...

5) Cooking dinner... or attempting to.

6) Afternoon Starbucks frappacino run on occasion... thankful they have drive thrus! :)

7) Several lunch and shopping dates with good  friends when I just had Evie on the 2 afternoons a week Ben  went to daycare to stay in his routine:)

8) Sunday nights.. not thinking about having to go to work on Monday. Sounds obvious but I was always thankful then.

9) Midweek shopping during the day when Jon was home and could stay with the kids.. priceless.

10) Many trips to the zoo and park and not having to rush the trips like I normally do on evenings or a weekend.

11) Traveling with my family on Jon's days off.

Reasons I am looking forward to returning to work.
1) Seeing coworkers

2) Return of a paycheck... needed.

3) Maybe feeling productive... sometimes staying home with kids, you feel so unproductive for the day yet I know raising kids is being productive in itself, its just how I feel sometimes if I am honest.

2 Month Old Evelyn

Evelyn turned 2 months old this week. Some days I feel like she has been around for so much longer as I cannot imagine our lives without her and the birth seems so long ago strangely.  She is a good baby:) She is starting to interact much more and loves to smile and coo which are about the cutest thing ever. She went to the dr today and grew 3 inches in length since birth!! She is long 24 inches (96 percentile), which is why she is in 6 month clothes. Her weight is pretty stable weighing at 11lbs 15 oz (67 percentile) and her head size is mid-range at 46 percentile which is normal... Ben is always maxing the chart our for head size, kind of glad she isn't. 

Evelyn is still doing fairly well for feeding. She  nurses every 3 hours on the dot during the day. She cat naps between feeding during the day after eating and staying awake for an hour or so then naps.  During the night she sleeps for one 6 hour stretch (8:30p-2:30am) eats and then back to sleep til 6:30 am and then naps til 8 am.  Not too bad for sleeping at 2 months.. hoping she drops the 2:30 feeding in the next month. She normally gets one bottle of breastmilk a day to keep up with bottles. She is extra hungry before bed and nurses and gets a bottle the past week as she wants a bottle before bed it seems... so if that continues we will probably give a couple of ounces of formula before bed to supplement as our freezer stock is running low.  Most likely switching some daytime feedings over to formula in July as this mama doesn't mind nursing (8minute max for Evie) but hates pumping and doesn't want to do it 3x/day at work as with commuting I am gone for 10 hours. Glad I have lasted nursing so long to be honest, quite proud of it. 

SO looking forward to vacation in a couple of weeks with Jon's family before returning to work. Jon has been working a lot so I can't wait to get away for a week in the Northwoods with the extended family and relax and have fun. Ben is so excited he asks about it every day when he gets to go on vacation with his cousins. He is going to love it so much. He will love fishing too. 

2 out of 3 months of maternity leave over... crazyness. So grateful this time home with my kiddos and for the Spring season and weather. I love love this time with both of them but I am not dreading returning to work either. I enjoy my job, miss my coworkers and adult interaction and need the paycheck so going back is not in question.  Glad Jon will be home on leave for 3 weeks when I return to work initially.  I feel blessed that my kiddos are home with either Jon or I so much of the time..most weeks they will only spend 10-15 hours a week in daycare when we are both working. It seems to work for us and this stage of life with our young kids.

Evelyn, sister, pretty girl, Evie, Evie Kay, little fella (Ben calls her).. are all the terms of endearment we use towards this little girl who we have grown to love to pieces the past 2 months. We are so blessed to have her as a part of our family. 

Surviving camping

not the best picture!

WE survived camping for 2 nights with a toddler and an infant. It was great that my parents were also with us to help.  We overall had a great time but it was a lot of work! The older the kids get the easier camping will be. WE might try one other time this fall, but not a lot of camping for us this year.  Evie was good and slept like normal. We had lots of stroller rides, baby bjorn walks and we did bring the bouncy seat too.  Ben rode his tryke everywhere.It helps we have a pop camper and had an electric site with flush toilets and showers close by. I brought the Keurig, an electric frying pan and the sound machine:)   We also had the heat on at night which helped.  The weather was pretty great overall, just cold at night. Jon and Ben even went fishing and had success.   Now back at home with loads of laundry to do while the rest of the world is camping all weekend. We had to go early due to Jon's work schedule this weekend but that is expected for our life. Most holiday weekends are working time.  Looking forward to trip to MN next week!

Update and Travel Bucket List

I am halfway thru Maternity Leave, and I cannot believe it,..seems to be going fast... Yet in the next 6 weeks we have Evie's first camping trip, a trip to MN, trip to Oshkosh, and a family vacation up north. Crazy! But now is the time to go, go, go when Jon' has weekends off and then his 3 week paternity leave when I go back to work. Will be a fun summer! 

On other notes... I have been thinking lately of my Travel Bucket List, as I have the itch to travel. We just booked a trip just Jon and I to Gulf Shores, Alabama in October. Cannot wait, although will miss the kiddos for the long weekend.

TRAVEL BUCKET LIST 

-Anniversary trip to Hawaii some year

-Anniversary trip to Mackinaw Island,MI 

-EUROPE (Italy/England/Ireland top of list)

-Disneyworld/Land with the kiddos (when Evie is 4-5 maybe)

-San Diego family trip

-Yellowstone Road trip with my parents and the family (even though I hate road trips)

-NYC trip

-Texas trip, would love to see San Antonio

-Trip to see the Olympics somewhere

-Girls trip to Napa Valley some year

-Visit the Carolinas

I can always think of more but those are must do type of trips.. some might not happen for decades, and some hopefully in the next 5 years, but traveling is important to me.  I better get saving some $$$.

1 month Evie

Evie is now 1 month old.. She is a pretty typical 1 month old baby girl. She eats and sleeps:)  Sleeps most of the day.
Nursing is still going suprisingly well, so we will see how many months I can go for the next few months.  Evie also takes a bottle well, actually prefers it, which is good for a working mom to have. We let her daddy give her about 1 bottle a day with expressed milk  We also try and losely do the eat/play/sleep routine and that seems to be working with scheduled feedings every 3 hours and and at 6 and 8  in the evening .  She isn't the best napper and will take 2 short ones between feedings but she loves her swing, just like Ben did.
Lately, she goes to bed for the night 8 or 9pm, wake to eat around 1/ 1:30 (one 5 hour stretch!)  and then 4 am and then up for day around 7ish. Not bad for 1 month in my opinion! She has some fussier days and nights where that doesn't work of course but most of the time she is good. She knows her times to eat like clockwork and will wake up ready to eat then!
She is growing big time! Some 6 month sleepers and otherwise 3 month clothes.. weighing 10 lb something.

She is slowly starting to smile...Jon hasn't witnessed it yet though! Just me:)

Only one month,, but we love her to pieces!!

Introducing Evelyn Kay

Evelyn Kay Friesema was born on 4/2/14 and was a big girl weighing in more than her big brother Ben. Evelyn weighed 9lbs 12 oz and was 21 inches long!!!  I was in shock at her weight as so was my dr as she anticipated Evie would be smaller and wouldn't hit 9 lbs.. Such a big girl!  I think she might have my complexion and not be so pale as Ben.  Eye color?? not sure yet. But she has some strawberry blonde hair like Ben and Daddy. She has a perfect round head like Ben and looks a ton like him as a newborn.

Evelyn Kay  means "pure life" which is fitting. Evelyn is a name I always liked and it grew on Jon and I  also lovethat my middle name "Lynn" is a part of it.  Her middle name Kay is my mom's middle name. We plan to call her "evie" or "Evie kay" for her nicknames. I like names with nicknames probably because Amy is a short name! 

Everything went smoothly overall for my csection and it was a world of difference compared to Ben's. Recovery already has been so much better and it so nice to know what to expect the 2nd time around. 

Evie is a good baby, nurses well which is a huge blessing, and sleeps alot. Hoping for better success with nursing this time around. I feel like she might be a little more laid back than Ben :)  My parents have been a huge help staying at our house through today and returning next weekend when Jon has 2 days of training in the middle of his 3 week leave.  Evie is just perfect... so adorable, healthy and such a blessing.  I am loving dressing her up in all the cute girl outfits, hats and headbands. Ben has been great with her too and is very curious about things but loves to talk to her.  I couldn't be more pleased with our adjustment so far. 

Praise God for his amazing blessings in our life. No greater miracle than the birth of a healthy baby. 

All Glory to God! 

Evelyn Kay

Big Brother Ben playing with Mommy's nursing cover :) 

 My loves