A much needed... and procrastinated update: Charlotte

It's been a while. Like over five months, going on six. Yep. Remember this beautiful baby girl:

Well, she's come a long ways in these past few months. Here are some photos in chronological order to show how much she has changed:

The day after we got home from the hospital

 A couple weeks later: James & the girls

 We were just a little tired...

 Precious bebe

 So sweet (and not posed, just how she was sleeping:)

 Blessing day!

 Happy! And excited to get pictures over with & the dress off!

 Turtle!

 Charlotte's first Christmas Day

She was tired & hungry at this point, presents weren't a highlight for her, but definitely were for Kiely!

 Fed & happy&

 "She's so squishy I'm gonna die!!"

 Sistahs!

First food!

 SO funny when she does this! Eating the swing and putting her feet up under the tray!

 She had been trying to get my attention/maneuver her way to me & fell asleep. (I was in the kitchen, this was in the LR)

 We have a picture a LOT like this with Kiely when she was a baby. :) I don't have it on my computer, though...

 Just over 5 months old! :) I love that little happy face! And those dimples!!

 About a week ago: Kiely said she wanted to read to Charlotte. :)

Charlotte has grown a lot, but is still our petite little babe. She'll go in for her 6 month check in two weeks, then we'll know where she is on the stats. For now, we think she's doing good! She is SO close to cutting her first tooth and CRAWLING!! Watch out world, here she comes! (Our babies are constantly moving, and so far, neither of them have gotten really fat.) She is getting to be so fun, and Kiely is loving it more and more having a baby sister!!

Introducing: Charlotte Rae Butler

Well, we've been home since last Monday, & I decided that it's time to get on here, put pictures up, and introduce the newest member of the Butler family. I knew she was going to come sometime conference weekend, but I wasn't sure if it was going to be Saturday or Sunday. (Mother's instinct  is how I knew, I guess... but I still wasn't able to get everything on my list done... and it's still not done for some reason!) I'm not going to give out all the details, but I'll just sum it up a bit for you. (I'm not one to share all that info with the whole world, anyways...) Friday night, this is one thing we were doing:

Little did we know she would be with us soon to see what's out here!

So I guess this shows you how big I got... because I'm sure I didn't get any bigger over the next few hours! I had no idea she'd be coming so soon. Babies come when they want to, I guess... The Sunday before, I'd been talking with James' aunt about having babies, and she was telling me how her water broke with most of her kids and I was like, "Oh that doesn't happen very often, that's crazy!" I think I also told her that I really wanted the baby (who was without a name at the time) to be born in October or that I thought it was going to be a conference baby. Can't remember which, because I don't remember when I made that prediction. Moving on... so we went to bed that night, and at about 3:30am, my water broke. I was glad I knew it wasn't just pee :) because I was originally getting up to go to the bathroom. I woke up James (after going potty) and told him it was time... "I think my water just broke." He got up, we got things ready and headed out the door. James' mom met us at the exit to take Kiely for us, and then we had to stop & get gas (that was my fault... never again!) We got to the hospital, and James didn't even have to fill out the paperwork first. They brought us straight to a room, and we got things ready for baby. (I think this was around 5ish that we got to the hospital.) Charlotte Rae made her debut at 6:57am on October 1st. Things went so quickly, and I can say that I am so grateful for hospitals, doctors, and nurses, and modern medicine. What a blessing! (Both Baby Charlotte--of course, and the modern medicine/hospital.)

 Nothing like sweet, brand new baby cheeks to kiss!

She is so sweet!

Momma can't get enough of her

Charlotte Rae Butler
5 lb 15 oz, 21 in, beautiful angel from heaven :)

Proof that she is our conference baby!

We were able to relax for a while and enjoy Baby Charlotte before conference came on. It was kind of nice just relaxing there to watch conference. Things were lots better for me this time, and by the time the epidural wore off and conference was over, I was up, showering and walking around. I felt GREAT (especially compared to how it was with Kiely) and James had to tell me to act like I just had a baby. haha. After conference & cleaning up, Bryce & Ruth brought Kiely to meet her baby sister...

Momma's holding another baby... ?

Ok... I think I like her.

Hmmm...

Ok, I guess this might be okay. As long as mom's not holding her.

This picture was important to me... I don't think I got one of James with Kiely at the hospital! He's such a great dad and husband! :)

Some of James' family couldn't come on Saturday, so some of them came back on Sunday. Kiely came with them, again, of course!

Another important picture. When Kiely was a baby, she was probably a couple months old before Jake held her. He asked me if he could hold her and told me he hadn't yet. I was so surprised! I was glad he got to come see Charlotte and hold her at only a day old. :)

James had to take Kiely to the snack fridge and get a treat. I think she liked it!

She does love Baby Charlotte!

Sweet hands... Kiely is SO big now!!

Love.

Happy to be holding her baby sister.

We stayed at the hospital until Monday. We were SO ready to leave by then. Charlotte's bili-count was high, so she became our little glow worm for a few days.

Our glow worm at the hospital.

Ready to go home. (I added the little ruffle to her shirt, and made a headband to match... the headband was HUGE, and well, the shirt is a little big, too. :) )

We sure are grateful for our new little addition. She is so sweet and precious. Charlotte has been sleeping really well... almost too well! There are times I have to wake her up to feed her, and of course that's hard for me sometimes with my lack of sleep!... But we're adjusting. We were able to take her off of the bili light Saturday morning, and after all the little pokes she'd had in her feet, I can definitely say we're glad that's done! (It's also nice to not have the machine in our room...) Kiely is doing... pretty good. She's adjusting to both a new baby sister and her new bed, so it's been a little tough, but she's getting better with things. We are a happy little family, and couldn't be more grateful to have a little piece of heaven in our home. :)

Imaginary Friends

This post is mostly for my sake... memories of our little Bug... but I wanted to write it down while it's fresh in my memory (and even happening as we speak). Kiely has quite the imagination. She even has an imaginary friend already. The other day, she pulled out the hymn book (which is done often anyways) and was singing--with her friend. They were sitting on the couch and Kiely told her, "Wanna sing ith me? n-kay. Ready. Set. Go." And then would proceed to sing the hymns (in her own language, of course). Then she says, "scoo-over a li'l bit. Scoo-over a li'l bit. That's MY spot! That's MY spot!" She makes me laugh. haha. SOOO funny! (I tried to record it, but of course she quit doing it once I pulled the camera out...) Right now, she is sitting on the couch (apparently with her friend) writing. She said, "Don't bite me. Don't bite me." Then growled/grunted, clearly annoyed at the situation that was going on with her friend. (Apparently I need to be more aware of when I'm talking to myself... or grunting when I'm home alone with her... and don't tell me that you other stay-at-home moms don't do the same thing, too... After all, we can't tell our children don't really understand everything, so we have to vent to ourselves. :)) I love her little... or more like BIG imagination! Kiely is so much fun, and I can't wait to see what it's like when our next little girl is here! (And for when they can play together!!) Just over 5 weeks left till she's supposed to arrive! We'll see if she is stubborn like Kiely was (a week late) or if she decides to come closer to her due date. Either way, I'm going to soak up the time I have left with just Kiely... and work on a few projects, as well!!

One Year Older and Wiser, TWO!

Yes. I meant to use two instead of too. That's because our little Kiely Bug is now TWO years old! We can hardly believe it's been that long since she joined our family. Time passes much too quickly! Kiely had a great birthday this year, complete with swimming, pizza, cake, ice cream, and presents. During the day, I made the cake and the dough for the pizza (that way we could put the toppings on and pop it in the oven when we got back from swimming) and also played with Kiely. We read books, and I think even sang some songs together. She loves singing and will get the hymn book off the shelf and even sing by herself sometimes. I caught her doing this today, and when I decided to video it with my phone, she quit. Just believe me that it was cute, because of course it was! Okay, back to her birthday...
After James got off work, we headed to the pool down the street from our house and swam for a little while. She'd say "simming pool!" lots and loved to splash in the water. Kiely also enjoyed watching her da-da jump off the diving boards. We talked her into going off the little slide a couple times, and then she'd want us to go down, but we didn't because we were too big for the slide. lol. I'm glad she wanted us to have fun, too! :) We played with some balls and threw them back and forth for a while, swam around, and James and I would each chase after her (while the other was holding her). Oh yeah! One of my favorite parts was watching her try to walk in the water. They have a little 2 ft section and she'd walk and walk, then when she started going the wrong direction, she'd start going down the slope of the pool... I don't know if she really ever caught on to what was going on completely! Although we were originally going to have our families come, we had fun with just our little family at the pool, then headed home and ate some chicken, tomato, olive, 1/2 ranch 1/2 bbq pizza. YUMMM! After we ate, some family came to celebrate with us (my family couldn't come, because my parents were out celebrating their anniversary which was the next day... yep. The little Bug's birthday falls between both grandparents' anniversaries, and then ours is 4 days later!) We ate some cake and ice cream, which turned out... ok. It was good, just not how it was supposed to be. I wanted to make one with the pudding/bavarian cream in the middle, but it didn't work out so well, and the pudding pretty much ended on top. It was a chocolate cake, and then I colored the pudding so that it was pink (her FAVORITE color). Kiely then opened her gifts. The Butlers gave her a teddy bear, notebook, and crayons. We got her a hoodie, some play dough, a microphone :), pink nail polish (which I'm pretty sure she thinks she got from Audrey, because Audrey painted her nails with it that night. haha), a book- Just Go to Bed (One of the Little Critters books by Mercer Meyer), and a hex bug. I don't know if you've heard of the hex bugs, but James thought they were pretty awesome, and put one in the cart when we were shopping for Kiely's presents. I wasn't so sure about it, and kind of rolled my eyes... well, she LOVES it! She thought it was so funny watching it crawl around, and still loves playing with it a week later. (It's a good sign that you did a good job when they aren't wanting to just play with the boxes or something a week later, right?!) You should look them up, because they really are pretty cool... I just wasn't sure how our 2 year old would like it! When Kiely opened her card from Great Grandma & Grandpa Andrews, she was ecstatic to find MONEY in it. She "counted" it carefully, then picked it up again and exclaimed, "Money!!" Kiely also got a new dress & t-shirt from "ANae & Kef-vin" (DaNae & Kevin), a stroller for her babies, 2 shirts, and a skirt from my parents. She was pretty spoiled this year, and loved everything that she got. Little Kiely Bug is growing up so fast, and we are grateful to have her in our family.
Here are some pictures from her birthday:

 Eating lunch. She didn't make me hold the sandwich for her at all, which is an accomplishment... :)

 The fancy cake I made for her. Oh. she said fancy today, too. It was pretty cute & funny.

 I told her to smile... There were lots of people around, and she kinda was laughing and being goofy.

 PLAYDOUGH! "Op-un, Op-un"

 She thought the microphone was pretty cool!

 Happy about getting a book

 The hex bug. SO funny to watch her with it. "It's gonna getch-you!"

 HOORAY for money from Great Grandma & Grandpa Andrews!

COLORS!!

Some things that she does and enjoys at TWO years old are:
-brushing her teeth (she does ok for a 2 year old... at least she's putting it in her mouth and sort of brushing around)
-singing songs -- her favorite at bedtime is Popcorn Popping and it's actually part of the routine. :) I've also been teaching her When Daddy Comes Home, and it's hilarious to watch her with her actions. She also loves singing the hymns at church, and usually has to have her own book.
-Puts her clothes away in the "top-un drawer" and "second drawer" don't know where the "un" came from, but she uses it quite a bit to start her sentences or just randomly... I taught her which clothes go where, and she gets it right almost every time, although I do remind her almost every time, she is getting the hang of it. I even caught her putting her clothes away without being asked recently. I had a pile sitting by her door from what I folded when she was in bed, and she just put them away without me asking!
-Knows her colors (red, pink, blue, green, yellow, orange, white, black, brown, purple)
-No longer uses a sippy, but big girl cups! Sippies get SO nasty after a while, and we decided rather than wasting money on another one for her that she doesn't really need (because she knew how to use a cup) we just got some good cups for her to use. She likes to pick the color each time, too.
-Loves to read/look at books... we're going to be starting on learning the ABCs completely within the next couple weeks, then we'll learn about sounds.
-Seems to be liking the idea more of us having another baby girl at home. She likes to feel the baby move sometimes, and others she says "Baby's sleeping" or if she is willing to feel it, she will say "Baby moof-ving"
-Can count to ten and sometimes even "elef-ven"
-Love, love, LOVES to play with her dad, and when James walks in the door, I love watching both of them Kiely "DA-DAAA!!" and James "KIELY!!!" It's pretty much the best!
-She is sadly not potty trained yet, but we continue to work on it. The biggest thing is getting her out of the crib into a bed she can get out of at night/naptime so that she can go when she needs to. (This will be happening soon, and I'll post pictures of the BED when James is done with it!!) She IS using the BIG POTTY now, though, so that's EXCELLENT for me! She also seems more excited since we started having her use the big potty, because now she's a "Big girl!"
-Her favorite color is pink, and also seems to like green.
-Her favorite fruit is probably raspberries, and her favorite vegetable? Broccoli. You got me! But she pretty much loves the stuff. Has to have the "leaves" on it, though, and it has to be cooked.
-Loves to pretend. Today she was on the couch talking to her imaginary friend, singing with her, and telling her to "scoot over a little bit"... and "it's my spot!" so funny!

Here are her stats for her two year old well-check:
-Weight: 25 lbs. 2 oz. (29%)
-Height: 34 inches. (56%) (If the theory is true that your final height is double your 2 year old height, she will be 5'8"... 4.5 inches taller than me, and I think 1-2 inches shorter than James! That's pretty tall for us!... Must have some Butler genes!)
-Head: I don't remember. I have the papers, but I remember her doctor saying "Her head is continuing to grow really well" or something like that... Not sure if that was supposed to mean her head is big for her height and weight, or what, but it looks to me like it's pretty normal...

I know our little Bug had a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and she continues to grow, learn and develop in new ways each day. We love you little Kiely Joy!!

**I haven't taken 2 year old pictures yet, but will soon, and will post those when I can... I have LOTS to do... especially in the next 6 weeks!