And the Christmas season begins!

We headed out yesterday to pick out (in Carter's words) a 'BIG....GREEN...CHRIMMUS TREE!' The tree lot opened up yesterday, so we headed out to pick out the perfect one. Carter LOVED it there - he was running all around the trees, shaking hands/branches with them, and pointing out the prettiest ones. Even Ellie cuddled up with us and we came home with (in my opinion), the perfect one! We haven't gotten it all decorated yet, but pictures will certainly be coming...

Here are some pics from our trip the the tree lot!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was not only Eliza's one-month-birthday today, but it was also her first holiday! We had a great Thanksgiving today. I was terrible at taking pictures (as you can tell by the low volume of blog posts lately - it really is true that 2nd child = less pictures!), so I actually missed all pictures at the Duhon family Thanksgiving. I did manage to snap a few at my parent's house though. It was surprisingly cold today, but we still had a great time hanging out outside and Carter especially had fun playing basketball with Sutton and Roman.























Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm one month old!

Where did the time go?  Can it possibly be an entire MONTH since Eliza joined our family?  It feels like she was just born yesterday...and at the same time, it feels as if she's been in our family forever. 

Happy one month Birthday baby girl!

Things to remember...

Song for a Fifth Child

 

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Beautiful children (if I do so say myself ;)

Thanks again to Hope Brown for these sneak peeks at our photography session! I love these kids :)

 

 

Scary parenting moment last night

We've been watching Eliza closely for signs of reflux. Since she was born, she's done some questionable things that have made me suspicious that she does have reflux like Carter did. She had a weird habit of gagging at random times, she seems to choke/cough a lot when eating, and she also tends to arch her back and grunt/kick her legs as if in pain.

After talking yesterday, Dr. Huval decided to put Eliza on Maalox because of these symptoms. We headed off to bed last night, and I got up at 1:45am to feed her and gave her a dose. She had seemed very uncomfortable all evening and had slept very poorly up until that feeding (like up every hour).

After I gave her the Maalox at 1:45am, swaddled her again, then fed her, I held her up for about 20-30 minutes, rubbing her back and burping her etc. Then I laid her down in the pack-n-play on the little wedge Ryan had just bought earlier that evening. I turned the lights out around 2:30am.

About 15 minutes later, I just heard the strangest sound, like she was throwing up. I turned on the lights and she had spit up a ton of milk everywhere. It was bright yellow and all over her, the bed, the wedge etc. So I stripped her of the blankets and picked her up and she was still choking. She had thrown her neck back and arched her back and was still gasping for breath. I hit her back and patted her until I felt like she was breathing ok. She still was acting really strange and stiff and was clearly uncomfortable. She was in a classic reflux pose, with her head thrown back and her back arched.

It was so scary to see her like that! Ryan got up and walked around with her and she started to relax. I called Josh (thank goodness for having a doctor in the family to wake at 3am with questions :) and he told me to just watch her as long as she was breathing ok and not running a fever.

I stayed up with her for another hour or so, and then finally put her back down to sleep in her Papasan seat, but I couldn't sleep because I was so shaken up.

I talked to Dr. Huval today, and we're moving on to Zantac. We'll try that for a week or so and if it doesn't seem to help, we'll do Prevacid like we did with Carter. I really hope it works because I never want to see Eliza look like that again. Wish us luck!

Eliza - 2 week checkup

She weighed in this afternoon at a whopping 8lbs 3oz! She weighed 7lb 7oz at birth, then weighed 6lb 14oz at 2 days old, so she's put on a lot of weight in two short weeks!

Dr. Huval was just looking for her to regain her birthweight, so she happily exceeded that. All those feedings round the clock are clearly paying off. I think she's well on her way to becoming a sweet cuddly chunker ;)

Everything else checked out perfectly and she looked completely healthy!

Our first 11 days as a family of four...

Just a few snapshots from the past week and a half.  Having Eliza here is the most wonderful and magical addition to our family, and I truly cannot imagine our life without her.  People told me before she was born that I'd somehow, some way, love her as much as I love Carter...and it really did happen.  I don't know how, but she just came into this world as if she'd always been here and I look at her and love her so much that I can't believe it.

Carter has been the most awesome big brother I could imagine as well.  Every single day, he wakes up and asks for Ellie. I know he's having some struggles in his own toddler way, what with his entire world turning upside down, but we are making sure to give him as much one-on-one time as we can and letting him know that we still love him tons. 

So here are a few pictures from the past few days.  Warning: their cuteness is overwhelming :)

A Sneak Peek!

We had the pleasure of taking some newborn pictures (and some toddler pics too ;) this morning with Hope Brown. She did an awesome job of making the kids comfortable and I am so excited that she put up a sneak peak already on her blog! The pictures are adorable, and I can't wait to see the whole set of proofs.

http://www.hopebrown.com/blog/?p=571

Happy Halloween!

I found it really surreal yesterday that Eliza was due on Halloween, and there she was, cute as a pumpkin and five days old :) She was an adorable cuddly little pumpkin and Carter was a very handsome firefighter. He LOVED trick or treating (knowing that he got CANDY!)

We were lucky enough to have our family and friends come by to visit and help us hand out candy. Ryan cooked up a delicious chili for everyone and even Sutton made the trip from Shreveport to trick or treat with us. We had a great evening!

Carving the JACK o lantern


Getting dressed


The first of many pumpkin hats she had :)


This dressing up thing is hard work


What a cute pair :)


With Duts




Pa fits in there, right?


Ready to hit the road!


Happy Halloween!