The Backwater Way

And it wasn’t even set up really – little miss Aunt Beca just got excited about Kami sitting on a leather couch and picked up her camera – I tell you, my sister’s got a talent – and I LOVE taking advantage of it!  I did tell her she had to put her camera down otherwise I’d have to pay her. . . ha ha!   I think she’ll be getting a super special wedding gift now, though – she saved me a trip to get her newborn photos taken somewhere else!

. . .without whom, I think my girls would be almost naked.   Thanks for all the beautiful clothes, mom – the girls look great with them on!  So, here’s the ‘almost’ first smile I was able to catch of Kami on camera – all for you!

There’s kind of a upward turn on those lips, right?

My mom makes these rattles for almost every baby she knows of.  She’s been making them for years!  I think by now she just holds the yarn and it forms into the cute toy itself.

So, Kami and Chloe went for a walk together (don’t worry – I wasn’t far behind!).  Chloe’s gotten really good at pushing her teddy bears and dolls in strollers, so she was ready for the big test – pushing her baby sister!  She did a great job!

I hope these two grow up to be best friends . . .they’re certainly on the right track at this point!   Chloe LOVES holding Kami, and she does a great job!  The only issues we’ve had with her is that she took the pacifier out of Kami’s mouth last night on the way to church.  Kami screamed!  I guess that was their first fight.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures of these two little sisters . . . I’m sure there will be many more to come!

We went out for a walk last Sunday – when Kami was only 3 days old.   I’m just so thankful to be able to have had her naturally (more on that later!) so that I could go out for a walk three days after she was born!  Downtown Greenville is so beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to see it in full bloom – the tulips were gorgeous!!  It was all I could do to not pick a few and take them home!  We went for a nice slow walk through the park – Kami pretty much slept through it all . . . but she still didn’t go without admirers!  It’s amazing how much attention these little newborns attract!

Never thought it would happen.  It’s  funny how emotional people around here get about snow. (Weather.com consistently reported 2-4 inches, but local news and gossip chattered about “5-8 inches”!!)  And here I was thinking that everyone was making a big deal out of nothing.

Until Sunday night.  When, after 2 inches of snow, our power was out and EVERYTHING was closed – Chris drove to 6 different fast food places before he could find some food for our neighbors and us!  Then I realized – people here aren’t necessarily super-thrilled about seeing the white stuff (with the exception of my mom), they’re just a little more experienced in the ways (or lack therof) that southern transportation systems handle snow.  On our way back from church (it had only been snowing 1 hour), in a one mile stretch of a 5 lane road, there were 17 cars with their hazard lights on (usually in a very precarious, stuck position somewhere), and 5 accidents.  Lanes hadn’t even been cleared on the interstate!!

So, I stand here now, after 20 hours without power, a little more educated.  I won’t give you southerners a hard time about all your excitement again.  It was rather selfish of me to do so in the first place (I really kinda was trying to zap all your excitement, after all, I guess!).  Instead, I’ll make sure we have better flashlights, and a clean house, and LOTS of candles.  And, when everyone is home from work and classes are cancelled, we’ll all just have a great time in the snow.    And. . . I won’t ever complain about my heating bill again.

I love the new car, Mom!

So, I know my posts have been few and far between this month. . . after I was in a head-on collision the last week of January, my time has kinda been caught up in dealing with insurance companies and searching (and searching and searching!) for a new car.  The Lord has provided so much for us – including a new 2008 Kia Rondo – at not a penny above the dealership’s cost (the poor salesman didn’t make a penny off of us – I almost wanted to go buy him lunch or something. . . almost. . .)

This really gives us plenty of room for two car seats, plus plenty of room in the back (think modern-day station wagon!) for hauling all the kids’ stuff while we’re traveling.  In fact, before we bought the car (we ended up going to the dealership 3 times before we bought it – we were TOUGH customers!), we took our two largest suitcases, the pack-in-play, and both strollers, just to see how they’d fit.  We had plenty of room – there’s even enough to put one of the girls back there if they get too fussy while we’re driving.  Ha ha!

Hmmmm. . . Baby K can go in the back first, Mom.

So now that that’s taken care of, and our taxes are done, we were able to focus on the girls’ rooms.  Chloe got to move into her new room last week, and started sleeping in her big bed last night.  She wasn’t too excited about it, and after about 5 stories was still getting up and asking to sleep in her crib.  But tonight went MUCH better, and she didn’t come out at all!

Baby K’s room (Chloe’s old room) still has a little work to go, but it’s all ‘cosmetic’ for the most part!  I set up her crib today, and putting in the bumper pads and setting up the mobile, for some reason, made me super excited!  In fact, Chris went in there after work today to take a look and said “Oh my goodness!  We’re really having a baby, aren’t we?!”  I still can’t get over how little newborn diapers are!  And, get this – since we had Chloe (only 28 moths ago), Huggies diapers now have a “wetness” indicator on the outside of the diaper – no more lifting them up to smell their little behinds or guessing if they’re wet by how thick their diaper is. Amazing.

So, as I sit here typing this up, I’m feeling more and more Braxton Hicks contractions, and that makes me start to get kinda excited.  It’s taken a long time for Chris and I to take in the reality of little Baby K – probably because of everything else that’s been going on.  I’m (can’t believe i’m saying this!!) kinda looking forward to stopping my life every 3 hours to feed a baby.  Hopefully Chloe will be OK with that.

Thanks for your patience as I’ve been playing catch up on here more than once in the last two months.  Rest assured that I’ll be putting up several pictures as soon as Baby K gets here. . . what else am I going to do? I definitely won’t have the energy for laundry!  :)

So, this is a little out of order, but I just got all these pictures in. . . these were all from our SS class’s Christmas Party!  We had a progressive dinner – which was AWESOME for me since I was pregnant – no diets here!