What the Girls Wore #90

Are you ready for the most photos I've ever posted at once?  This is to make up for the last couple of weeks with no posts at all.  It's long.

She's growing up so fast and is turning into such a lovely little girl.  If only we could get a handle on potty training.

She loves to sit in the bumbo.

That lip hey?  It kills me.

Finally... I've been waiting for years for her to be interested in colouring and this month we finally got there.  She loves her markers though her love of colouring got distracted when she figured out she could stack the markers.

Such an awesome milestone... She weighs enough to move to a booster seat and I love it.  She has tons more freedom in the car and it's way easier to get her in and out.

Yet another hospital photo.. I'm sure you all love them by now.  She's fine though, no infection, just a rough hospital visit.

We went out for breakfast as a family and had such a lovely time.  Both girls were very well behaved.

We started using the exersaucer and she loves it, spends quite a bit of time there.  She's even started jumping and playing with the toys.

She's getting so good at grabbing and bringing to her mouth.  I love all this growing up, it frankly can't happen fast enough for me.

Dressed for the day.

My two girls.

We went to Magrath for their Hometown Christmas and one of the activities was fishing for toys.  Catie pulled up her snowman hand puppet, took one disdainful look and declared, "I don't like it."  There was no convincing her otherwise and the organizers graciously gave her something else.

We ate hotdogs, scones, apple cider, visited the chocolate fountain, went for a horse drawn sleigh ride and saw Santa.  A fun night.

Grandma bought the girls Christmas dresses.  Their both sparkly and leave glitter everywhere.  This photo doesn't show the dresses very well so I'll try harder this Sunday when they wear them again.

Sleeping Eden in church, love that.

Happy in the exersaucer

Arms like an airplane... gymnastics has taught her all sorts of great things.

I usually take these photos after a really difficult day when a sleeping Eden is the best sight I've ever seen.

Despite her crankiness she really does smile a lot.

Still at the hospital.

This month we introduced Geoffrey and it's been amazing.  She loves to hold onto something when she falls asleep, in the past it's been my fingers or the ribbon to her soother with ends in her pulling it out.  Geoffrey's ears and arms and perfect for her to grab and she usually falls asleep with them clutched in her hands.  We love Geoffrey.

Hanging out.

I bought bubble bath for Catie's stocking and then couldn't wait to give it to her so I broke it out early.  She loves it.  Baths have become a whole new activity.

For three days in a row (until she peed on her dress, potty training is awesome) she was a princess in her sparkly dress and purple cape.

This is her new favourite place to play. She climbs in and closes the door.

Playing with Eden.  She learned how to roll recently.  If you put her on her back she almost instantly rolls to her tummy and then gets upset that she's there.  So you flip her over and she repeats the cycle.

Finding her toes.  I love when babies play with their toes.

My nap buddy

We recently discovered that our nearest Boston Pizza has kids night on Tuesday's and they hire a magician who also makes balloon animals (and hats).  This Tuesday was a Christmas party with Santa and reindeer noses, colouring sheets, gingerbread houses and a Santa parade.  We'll probably become frequent Tuesday visitors.

So there's our month at a glance... hopefully I"ll become a little more consistent.

Our Latest Hospital Visit

All right, it's time for an Eden update.

Since the last time I wrote here she's been hospitalized again and been on antibiotics twice more.  I've been getting pretty smart about this thing so when she started to seem off I collected a new urine sample and took it to the lab.  But the urine culture takes 48 hours and of course for this test the culture was ready on a Saturday at 6:00 so there was no way to find out the results.  At 10:00 that night she started to get really fussy, I knew they'd be able to look up the sample at the hospital so off I headed.

While we waited for the doctor the nurse took a new sample.  The doctor came, looked up her sample and it was clear but they'd tested the new sample and it wasn't clear.  So we started the admitting process all over again.  The'd give IV antibiotics until the culture is back and they can send us home with oral medicine.  They took us up to pediatrics where they took a urine sample by catheter because it's a lot more reliable and inserted an IV.

Now here's where I kick myself.  You think that nurses know exactly what they're doing so you shouldn't question but I"m getting really comfortable with collecting a urine sample and I was really uneasy with the way the nurse went about it.  She didn't put on gloves, she didn't clean Eden before she put the bag on and to top it off she didn't know which way the bag went on.  I had to tell her.

With the sample collected from the catheter they were running a urine culture but they hadn't planned on doing another analysis so I requested one.  It was now 3 am and finally time to let Eden get some sleep, so I calmed her and got her down and then I raced home to shower and pack a bag for the next two days.

I got back at 5 am where they now had the analysis back and it's clear, no sign of an infection.  So because the nurse took a poor sample Eden now has an unnecessary IV and we can't go home until the doctor comes in to see us later in the day.  Poor Eden had such a rough night, between 10:00 pm and 3:00 am she slept for about 20 minute.  A nurse would just touch her and she'd start to sob.  So my poor lady cried all night for no reason.  We waited at the darn hospital until 5:00 pm until we were finally released.  12 hours later.

Definitely not my favourite hospital visit.  All so very preventable.  But on the bright side, at least she doesn't have another infection and they got the sample back before they gave her any unnecessary antibiotics which are so hard on her system.  So we're back home, she's fussy like usual but infection free.

What the Girls Wore #89

So I know I already shared Halloween pictures but I didn't show a full shot of Eden and she looked adorable so here's our Eden kitty.

Taking a nap, I loved her little tail sticking out of her blanket.

Catie loves the Christmas tree and she spends most of the day playing around it.  She's pretty good at only touching the decorations with one finger.

My two ladies.

Catie is such a great big sister, she gives her sister big hugs and reads her stories and loves to see her.  I couldn't ask for better behavior.

All dressed and ready for church

She was eating the candy off of Eden's pajamas... "Uhhm, Uhhm"

Cousin Gwen came over and the girls decorated and ate cookies

Hanging out in hyr favourite place, the bumbo.

Cousin Emma, she's a month older.

Sisters

Love that face

Catie came upstairs one morning and this is what she was wearing.. her pajamas, a sweater dress on top of that, a twister t-shirt and a sweater around her waist.  I loved it and other than the sweater she wore this all day.

Daddy and Eden.  These two have a special bond. She looks just like him and she settles for him much better than she does for me.

Instagram

Hey here's something I've been meaning to mention for, oh a year and a half.

I'm on Instagram and I've been using it sort of obsessively. You can find me under laurawiebe.

Sledding for the First Time

Kids make things magical.  I am not a fan of the snow, not even a little bit but today we decided to take Catie sledding for the first time and we had so much fun it worth all the trouble.

First we bought a cheap sled and bundled the girls up like marshmallows

And headed outside.

Frosted Mini Wiebes.

We walked to a hill really close to our house, Catie in the sled and Eden in this awesome wooden sled my Mother-in-law found.

Here's her first trip down with Daddy, once she reached the bottom she immediately shouted, "Let's go again!"

I had pretty low expectations for Eden's behaviour.  I expected to spend a few minutes with Brad and Catie and then I'd go home with mad Eden, leaving them to continue.  It looked like that was exactly what was going to happen until she surprised us by falling asleep.

She spent the rest of her time here, fast asleep and missing a shoe.

I even took a couple turns down the hill, though my skill was much worse than Daddy's and we always ended in a gentle crash.

Climbing the hill.  We were very impressed that Catie pulled her own sled up every single time.  When she got too tired we came home.

Crashed at he bottom of the hill.

It wasn't long before Catie was ready to go down on her own, she loved it every time.

Climbing yet again.

There are these moments you plan in your head.. family outings that are magical and memorable and perfect and 9 times out of 10 they end in disaster and chaos and are nothing like you thought they'd be.  This was one of the exceptions.  We had a fantastic time, Eden slept, Catie laughed, the weather was beautiful, everyone was warm enough and we'll go again for sure.

What the Girls Wore #88

Making cookies with Daddy

My Halloween Kitty

And sadly this is the best picture I have of Catie in her Halloween costume.  Eden and I were back in the hospital on Halloween so I missed trick or treating with Catie.

Sleeping soundly... it's a rare occurrence

Hanging out in the bumbo

Grandma bought Catie a new sparkly dress that she loves (sorry the photos so blurry)

Almost ready for toys.  She looks far more interested in the bug-a-loop than she actually is.

Hanging out at the hospital ER with Eden, at least this time is was 8:00 am instead of 3:00 am

My IV girl

I have the best family.  This hospital stay was much more difficult for me this time because I missed Halloween with Catie and then the next day she threw up and had a fever so I knew she was home sick and I couldn't be there for her.  I was talking to my Mom on the phone and I was pretty sad which made her sad because she wanted to be here helping but she couldn't. She did the next best thing, she sent my Aunt Betty to the hospital.  Betty stayed with my crying baby and sent me home to be with Catie and Brad for the evening.  It was such a gift and there aren't words enough to describe how much it meant to me.  Here's Betty sitting with Eden.

I almost forgot about those cute fabric shoes I made for Eden but I found them just in time, they just barely fit.

While I was at the hospital Brad picked up these awesome sunglasses for Catie.

Starting to play