Not counting my chickens....

Ryleigh has been on her Zantac medication since Monday and I have seen a major improvement. She is like a totally different baby. I'm hoping and praying that we have finally found the answer to why Ryleigh has been so fussy. She has been doing a lot of playing and smiling lately and that is so much better to see than her in pain. Please pray that this continues.

Lovin' her playmat

Pool Time!!

This past weekend was the first weekend that the pool was open. It was so pretty outside and Emma really enjoyed playing in the water. She is fearless when it comes to the big pool. She will climb in by herself if you don't catch her in time. She loves to throw the balls and anything else for that matter into the pool. After the girls finished playing, Autumn and I put all of them in bath tub so we wouldn't have to do it when we got home. Emma did not like any one being in the tub with her so I don't have a great picture but I had to show you atleast one. It reminds me of when we were little.

Baby Ryleigh Update

Last night Ryleigh's cough got 10 times worse than it had been so this morning I called the doctor to have her seen again. We arrived at 10:30 and after waiting an hour and half to see the doctor we finally went to a room where we waited another 20 min. He came in and looked at her for a minute and said she had a cold. Ummm...no. Babies don't stop breathing when they have a cold. So at checkout I asked if I could make an appointment with our primary doctor and they said that if I saw Dr. Lowe today that insurance wouldn't cover it because it would be two appointments in one day for the same reason. I was not happy!! So after talking with someone who worked there about the situation, she talked to Dr. Lowe and she saw us on her lunch break. I was so glad that she did that for us. Dr. Lowe said that Ryleigh does not have a cold. There was something else going on. She got back her lab work from the hospital. She doesn't have Pertussin or Croup. So now that she knows she doesn't have that, she believes Ryleigh has reflux. Reflux makes perfect sense to me after thinking back on how she has been acting. So she got a prescription that she takes 3 times a day. She could be on it for months or even a year, we just have to see how she does. So far today, she has been much better. She also said that this could be why Ryleigh has been so fussy since she was born. I'm hoping she is right and we are on our way to much happier baby. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Ryleigh's 1st ER Visit

This past week was rough. We got back from the beach on Tuesday and Emma was still sick. She had a cough, runny nose, and a double ear infection. On Thursday morning, both Emma and Ryleigh had fevers, so we headed to the doctor. Emma was ok. The doctor said that on top of the ear infections, she had a cold, but we were doing everything we could for her. She still will not really eat too much and she has been sleeping a lot. Twice this week, she slept until around 9:00 am. She seems to be feeling better every day, so hopefully she will be back to normal soon. Last Tuesday night I noticed Ryleigh had been coughing more than usual. I didn't really think too much of it though. But when we were at the doctor Thursday, she coughed after she got done eating and the doctor was not happy with the way she sounded. She said it sounded like croup and thought that Ryleigh might need steroids. Croup is not very common in babies as young as Ryleigh so she decided to wait and told me to keep a close eye on her the next day or two. Friday morning she had one of her coughing fits. It sounds like a loud barking cough. It lasted for about a minute and then afterwards she quit breathing for about 10-15 seconds. I immediately called the doctor and she said to head straight to the emergency room. Josh was in Charlotte working, but my mom met me there and Josh made it back in about an hour and 15 min. They drew lab work and also sent a culture off to be tested. Ryleigh also got her very first chest x-ray. The doctor said her lab work looked good and chest x-ray was fine. They gave her a prescription for Pertussis which is also known as "whooping cough". The culture that was sent off to be tested will tell us for sure if that is what she has, but the doctor seemed pretty sure that she does have it. After doing a little research, I believe that she has croup. She has had 3 doses of medicine so far and her cough is still the same....sometimes worse. There have a been a few times since we left the hospital that she has stopped breathing after coughing and it absolutely scares me to death. Every time she coughs, even if it's just a little, I stop and check her immediately. I think tomorrow I might call the doctor back, especially if she isn't any better. So anyway, this is what our week was like. I am so tired. On top of all this, Josh has horrible allergies and has felt awful. I just hope this week is better and everyone starts feeling better soon.

Beach Trip

This past weekend we went to Oak Island. I was so excited because it was Ryleigh's first beach trip and Emma would be able to actually walk on the sand for the first time. Our trip didn't turn out so great though. Emma got sick and I had to take her to urgent care. Turns out she had a double ear infection and a really sore throat. Saturday and Sunday she had fun playing in her little pool. She loved going down the slide. Sunday afternoon we took her to the beach. She didnt really care for it so we only stayed about 10 minutes. I think it was because she was getting sick that she didn't enjoy it. Ryleigh spent the weekend mostly sleeping on anyone who would let her so I didnt really get many pictures of her.So our weekend wasn't the best but we had a lot of people to help us out. I am so glad to be home and back into our normal routine. I hope we can try going back in a few weeks.

Emma loves her juice boxesMommy and Emma

Emma and LyndseyRyleigh loves her playmat

Still here.......I think

This past week has pretty much...........sucked.Yep, that's the word I would use. My poor Ryleigh has definitely tested my sanity. Completely...not her fault. But she has continued to have horrible constipation. So last Friday I took her to a new doctor who recommended prune juice instead of apple juice. We gave her a few ounces and she finally pooped. We thought after that she would feel better, only to wake up the next morning and she was constipated again!! We continued to give her prune juice as well as glycerin suppositories. That seemed to help a little but not much. The next step was to try some Miralax. We started it last night. It is just a powder that we mix with her formula and so far she was pooped twice with hardly little effort. That's awesome! She has been so much happier today and has taken some great naps. I hope we are on the road to a happy baby again. She is just such a sweetheart and I hope she won't be in pain anymore.

We have planned for weeks on going to the beach this weekend for Memorial Day. With Ryleigh being the way she has been for the past week we still aren't fully decided on whether we are going to go. I have been so excited because it will be Ryleigh's first beach trip, and also Emma will be able to walk on the beach for the first time. So I'm hoping that Ryleigh will continue to get better and we can go. I just don't want to drive 4 hours with both of them to have Ryleigh cry the whole weekend. That's not fun for anyone.

This past Sunday was my little sister Katie's 19th birthday....man, she is getting old. :] We celebrated last night at my mom and dads house with some hamburgers and hotdogs, and also some cheesecake. Katie is growing up to be such a beautiful and smart young woman. I am so proud of her.

So I guess that's all that has really been going on lately,........now we just have to decide if we are leaving Friday...because if we are, I'm already behind on packing!!

Taking A Break

The other day, Emma was running all over the house all morning and then she just climbed up on the couch and laid down for about 15 minutes. She must have needed a break from all that playing.

2 Month Check-Up

This afternoon I took Ryleigh to the pediatrician for her 2 month check-up. She had to get 2 shots and also an oral vaccine. She did wonderful and and only cried for about 10 seconds.

Here are her stats:

11 lbs 6 oz-50th %
22 3/4 in.-70th %
Head:40cm- 75th%
She has gained 3 lbs 5 oz since birth and she has grown 3 inches!
My baby girl is growing so fast!!These pictures are very misleading because this is actually her being happy....something that is very rare now-a-days. She's not a bad baby at all, however, she has been struggling with a few issues since she was born that cause her to cry most of the day. I was so excited about going to the doctor today so that I could hopefully get some of these issues worked out. Unfortunately we have an over-booked practice that we go to and a doctor that is in a hurry, so I feel as though I was rushed and didn't get the attention that my baby girl needed. We have been thinking about this for a while now, but after today I believe we will be looking for another practice to take the girls to. The past several days, Ryleigh has had Horrible constipation! & thats Horrible with a capital "H"!! After trying everything I knew, I called the doctor on Saturday and they said I could give her 2 oz. of apple or pear juice in a 24 hr period. So for the past 3 days, thats what I did, with little success. But the doctor today tried to get things moving..(i won't explain how) and she said we could increase her to 4 oz of juice per day. So hopefully that will help her. Ryleigh cries most of the day and there is little I can do to soothe her. So after a TON of research and watching her for a while, I have come to the conclusion that she has a milk sensitivity. So as of today, we switched her to soy milk. Of course, we don't want her to have to drink soy milk but if that's what will make her feel better, then that s fine with us. We will worry about introducing her to regular milk when she is ready. I know that she is a pretty colicy baby too, and that seems to really bother her, so we made the switch from the Dr. Weil bottles to the Dr. Brown bottles and that has seemed to help some too. They have a ton more parts, but if it helps, then that's all I care about...I don't mind the extra washing. So I'm hoping that with all these changes, we will be able to make her feel better. She is such a sweet and happy baby when she isn't in pain. I just hate to see her like this. Her next check-up will be at 4 months old.

2 Months Old

I can't believe my little Ryleigh bear is 2 months old. She has grown and changed so much. She is not looking much like a newborn baby anymore. She is getting chunky and filling out some. She is the sweetest little baby but she is constantly fighting with a really bad gas problem. Most of the time she is awake is spent crying because she is in pain. We have tried everything we know to help her with this but I'm afraid she is just going to have to grow out of it. When she is happy though, she has started to smile and she loves to look around at things.

Right now she is sleeping through the night with only one feeding. Most of the time she sleeps very lightly during the day except around lunch time where she naps from 2-4 hours.

She loves to cross her feet just like her big sister. I catch her doing this all the time and I think it's so funny that they have this in common. Ryleigh is in between her newborn and 3 month clothes. She is also wearing a size 1 diaper now! She uses a paci. However, she hasn't taken to it as well as Emma did. Sometimes she is in the mood for it, and sometimes she just pushes it out if you give it to her. She goes to the doctor for her 2 month check-up on Monday so I'll have her weight and length then. Ryleigh is such a sweet and beautiful little girl. She lights up our world and we are so blessed to have her in our lives. We love you baby girl. Happy 2 Months!

Mother's Day

On Saturday night we had Josh's family over for dinner. Josh cooked Chicken Parmesean and OMG.....it was sooooo good. He did a great job. It was so nice to spend the evening with them, especially Josh's brother Sam. Since he moved back to Raleigh we don't get to see him enough. :[

Yesterday was such a great day. I got to spend it with my wonderful and beautiful girls. It started off with two sweet cards that made me cry. Then Josh fixed pancakes for breakfast. Yummy!! After we got ready we went to my mom and dads house. Emma took her nap first, then we went outside to play. It was so nice outside. Around 5:00 we all went to my Grandma Lucie's for a cookout. It was nice to see everyone and Emma and Cheyenne had so much fun running around together.

Josh and I have the most wonderful mother's ever! We are so thankful for everything you do for us. We love you so much. Happy Mother's Day!!

Play Date

This morning Ryleigh, Emma, and I headed to Autumn's house for a playdate. When we got there we let the girls play outside for a few minutes. Then we went inside for a snack and the girls played in the playroom while we went through some clothes that we are selling at her yard sale tomorrow morning. It was so nice to get out of the house for a little bit and let the girls play. We had so much fun. Hope to do it again soon. :]

Cheyenne and Emma in the playroom

Emma tried out both of the swings

Cheyenne loved showing Emma around....she kept saying "come on Emma" and holding her hand Autumn let us take home this cool tent for Emma to play in. I set it up when we got home and she loves it. She loves to stick her head through the top and spin around in circles. Thanks Autumn!

A Doctor's Visit & A BIG boo boo

Yesterday afternoon we had to take Ryleigh to the doctor for an "emergency visit". Yesterday morning I noticed that she was wheezing just a little bit when she breathed. Then as the day went on, she was wheezing more and also sounded very raspy when she would cry. It almost sounded like she was losing her voice. So I called the nurse and after a very looooong phone conversation we also found out that Ryleigh was breathing ALOT faster than she should be. I had also mentioned to the nurse that she had a fever Tuesday night too. The nurse said that we needed to get to the office as quickly as possible and that if she started to change color or breathe faster, we needed to stop and call 911. Talk about scaring the crap out of someone!! The doctor said that she didn't really think she was breathing fast. She wanted to do a white blood cell count and they also did an in and out cath. It hated seeing her get her little finger pricked and I know that catheter had to hurt but she did GREAT! She cried for about 20 seconds each time and then she was ok. Everything came back normal but they were still going to send the urine off to get cultured to make sure there wasn't an underlying infection. The doctor said she probably sounds like that because there is some drainage going into her throat or it may be caused by just crying. So we were sent home to keep an eye on her. She still sounds the same today but not wheezing as much. I've been keeping a VERY close eye on her though. I'm just glad she is ok.

Emma fell today while trying to climb on the couch and got this huge bump on her noggin'. It immediately turned blue and raised up. Poor baby!One day she'll learn that she's not a monkey!

Emma has started to really pay a lot of attention to Miss Ryleigh. When I'm feeding her, she likes to hold her toes or rub her belly. This is probably one of my favorite pictures. Emma bent down to hold her little sisters hand. Too cute!

Busy Busy Day

Yesterday was such a busy day for me. First I had to go out and do a few things. I went to the bank, Target, and then Babies R Us. I had a long list of everything I needed to do and pick up but somehow managed to forget Emma's overnite diapers. At Target I found these cute little wall decals for around $4.00. I have been wanting to put something up on the girls' wall for a while now and so I thought I would try it out. I like it, but now that I've had time to really look at it, I think I might have went a little overboard. But for now, it's still cute. Emma loves the little butterflies. What do you think?

While at Target, one of the most important things I needed to get was some hair clips for Emma. Her bangs are getting so long and they are constantly in her face. I got a couple of different kinds and she didn't even try to pull it out. :] Much better!! Giving her juice was the only way to keep her still long enough to get a picture.

Then Emma got her toes painted. It went a lot better than I thought it would. She sat real still while I painted them and she even let me dry them with a hair dryer!

Yesterday morning Josh wasn't feeling real good. He has been having really bad allergies this year but I think yesterday was the worst. He came home early from work to rest. Then I took Emma with me to the grocery store so that Josh would only have to watch Ryleigh. Once I got home I had to put up groceries, fix dinner, vaccum, give Emma a bath....all while Ryleigh was screaming. Josh stayed in the bed most of the night because he was feeling worse and then we found out he had a fever. So then I took Ryleigh's temperature and she was running a fever too.[that explains all that crying she did] I put Emma to bed and finally got Ryleigh asleep around 10. To say I was exhausted is an under statement. It was a long day but everyone seems to be feeling a little better this morning.

Sleepy Baby & New PJ's

My sweet little Ryleigh....just snoozing.

These pictures were taken right before Emma went to bed. She is quickly outgrowing all of her clothes and she was in desperate need of PJ's. So we got this set at Kohls a couple of weeks ago on sale for $8. It is so cute. It's still huge on her, and the pants go about 3 inches past her feet but she'll be able to wear it a while. Anyway, the last picture is of Emma's most recent boo boo. We don't know where or how she did this but she never cried or anything so I guess she was ok. I think it just looks worse than it really is.

Silly Girl