There's never a dull moment in our house with these two girls! Just look at this impromptu nap time photo session from July 9th below. There's so many emotions & facial expressions in just 30 seconds alone because nap time means tired and hungry for Gianna and Briella being loopy! Let's be honest here, it's what I call exhausting fun. :-)
I don't think I have to even say it because it's OBVIOUS that Gianna already adores Briella. She looks at her like this all of the time. I can't even describe how much my heart smiles.
Jim and his girls. I love these pictures because it was such a sweet, loving moment that I was glad my phone was close by because this definitely wasn't 'scripted'. We were waiting for Tom to arrive on June 27th with Alex and Gabby and I 'caught' Jim having a sweet moment with the girls.
July 2nd and July 4th with our precious girls.
While the girls definitely look similar, they also look very different. I love their individuality, even at such young ages.
Taking a picture for Jim while he was traveling on July 8th.
Even the littlest of girls like to watch themselves in a mirror.
About halfway through this moment, Briella finds a "waisin" and I laugh every single time I hear it: "Oh no, Mommy, a waisin stuck in the covuh's"!
I love how Gianna is such a happy girl every morning when she wakes up. I also love watching this and hearing Briella talk so sweetly in the background and asking to do the laundry by the bed! She is such a great, genuine helper. I can't even say that enough.
Briella, my wonderful 'littlest biggest helper' vacuuming the living room and I love how Gianna is just snoozing through the noise.
This is a quick video of the day when I put Gianna on our bed completely wide awake only to tape her falling asleep as I was vacuuming our bedroom.
Gianna sees a balloon and absolutely loves it. She was having projectile vomiting right before this video was taken and that's why the burp cloth is under her head. I think I had eaten eggs the day before and this is when I began correlating the eggs with her vomits.
Fourth of July Memories at the Greenville Zoo with the Nonni's.
Briella's and Gianna's FIRST fireworks memories. Gianna didn't seem phased by them whatsoever and just wanted to eat and be held. Briella had never seen fireworks before so this was so sweet to watch her excitement to see them for the first time. I love how she keeps telling me, "Look Mommy, LOOK!" To see the world through the eyes of a child again. It's like we get to relive our own childhoods with our own children. I was secretly just as excited as she was to see those fireworks. It was so fun to let her watch them, stay up late, eat ice cream, and just be a kid.
A quick moment of Gianna on her 2 month birthday and Briella doing laundry.
The behind-the-scenes view of Gianna's 2 month photo shoot: using "Foxy Roxy" to get her to smile. After having a Doctor appointment in the morning, traveling in the car back and forth to the Nonni's house, and not napping in her crib all day, she was more tired than I thought. She ended up napping 3 hours after this photo shoot!
Briella: She continues to become quite the independent, spirited, and impulsive little girl that she's always been. I say, "impulsive" because she reacts to how she feels in a situation. When we are shopping and she hears the music being played in the store, she dances. Even when she is pushing her own little cart or sitting in our cart, she still will shake and groove. She manages to put a smile on everyone's faces and lots of compliments from anyone that sees her doing it too.
It's unreal to think that we registered Briella for preschool this week. She officially begins August 18th. (sniff, sniff). She seems genuinely excited about it even though I know she will be sad when we actually leave her.
Just today, July 9th, I was taking a shower and Gianna was in the bathroom in her swing. She was tired and her pacifier came out of her mouth and she began crying. As Mom, I knew it was the cry that wasn't going to stop until she got it back. I had just turned off the water, even with soapy hair, to get out of the shower to put it back in her mouth when I heard Briella's feet running into the bathroom. Without me even asking, she had ran into the bathroom and put the pacifier back in her mouth. As quickly as she came in, is as quickly as she left. This is not the first time she has done this for me when I'm showering. I don't think she even thinks about it. It's beginning to become second nature to her to be a little Mommy to Gianna.
She is really trying to please us more and more, but also trying to test her independence. Recently, she has attempted to tell me "No!" on a few occasions. I say a few occasions because I don't tolerate her saying "No!" to me and quickly discipline her for it so she is beginning to learn quite quickly it will not be tolerated from me. She gets upset getting disciplined because she knows that she has disappointed me so she begins to cry and buries her face in her hands. I immediately feel TERRIBLE seeing such a pitiful display, but have to keep my poker face on and let her know that she can not tell me no. And you know what, she quickly recovers.
I love when she realizes she was wrong and will apologize. I also like that she is recognizing when I am upset and will try to change her behavior to do the right thing. I enjoy catching her playing independently and talking to her animals teaching them things that we teach her. She's very concerned that her animals are cold or are crying for her; which is really adorable. She's also admitting her wrong doing to anyone who will hear her. Nowadays, I don't even have to tell Jim if she's done something wrong or had to be disciplined while he is at work or traveling. She will tell him for me, hahaha. She's also in a repeating everything over and over and over again until we acknowledge what she is saying. I'm pretty certain she does it in each and every home video that I have posted on this blog. I've come to conclude that she is programed to do this every.single.time that Gianna is crying too. Imagine a crying baby and a incessantly repeating preschooler AT THE SAME TIME. Those are the moments that I am silently thinking to myself, "SERENITY NOW!" but also reminding myself that it's all in a day of a Mommy life; which is all very much worth it. That's why I'm writing it down so that I can remember the fulfilling insanity, hahaha.
And her food allergies/intolerances: how in the world did I forget to write about them in my previous entry?!! That's like a zebra without it's stripes. During pregnancy and initially after Gianna was born, Briella was having MAJOR sleeping issues accompanied by GI distress, rashes, and anxiety. After a few weeks of Gianna's birth, we slowly began to notice a change in that. Her sleep was "improving". Some parents would still have been tired from her 'improving' sleep, but we were beyond thankful. Instead of tossing and turning to fall asleep until 10pm, waking up for long periods of time anywhere between 1-3 times through the night only to finally be W-I-D-E awake at the 5 o'clock hour, she was beginning to fall asleep around 9, wake up once, fall quickly back to sleep, and sleep until 6am. Gradually, the middle night wake up stopped and the 6am turned into 6:30am and now, sometimes if we are really lucky, we get 7am. This has all transpired over the course of 8 weeks. Woo-hoo! Now I'm not saying she hasn't woken in the middle of the night and it's completely stopped because it happened while Tom and the kids were here, but her routine was changed and there were a lot of different noises in the house so that probably contributed. All in all, it's been a great transformation in her, though.
During these past 8 weeks of getting her into a good sleeping rhythm, she was also drinking a lot of kefir. We have pulled back on giving her as much recently, but I can't help but think that the kefir really gave her the nudge in her healing because she's not only been sleeping better, but she has added some new foods into her diet again! Double WOO-HOO! We have added two foods that are already packaged. I had completely forgotten the pure bliss, the luxury, the convenience of opening up a bag of snacks. While most 2 year olds would completely snub her safe snacks, Briella doesn't know any better and has been more than thrilled about her plain rice crackers, her Trader Joes raisins, and her puffed quinoa cereal. Along with those foods, she has successfully been eating plain steamed white rice and rice noodles. And just a few days ago, she got to have the 365 Whole Foods brand bacon with success. Thank you, Lord, for so much progress with Briella. When I am up in the middle of the night feeding Gianna, when Briella would have been awake like she was doing for the first few weeks after Gianna was born, I am tearfully thanking The Lord at the progress she is making with both sleeping and eating new foods.
It's unreal to think that we registered Briella for preschool this week. She officially begins August 18th. (sniff, sniff). She seems genuinely excited about it even though I know she will be sad when we actually leave her.
Just today, July 9th, I was taking a shower and Gianna was in the bathroom in her swing. She was tired and her pacifier came out of her mouth and she began crying. As Mom, I knew it was the cry that wasn't going to stop until she got it back. I had just turned off the water, even with soapy hair, to get out of the shower to put it back in her mouth when I heard Briella's feet running into the bathroom. Without me even asking, she had ran into the bathroom and put the pacifier back in her mouth. As quickly as she came in, is as quickly as she left. This is not the first time she has done this for me when I'm showering. I don't think she even thinks about it. It's beginning to become second nature to her to be a little Mommy to Gianna.
She is really trying to please us more and more, but also trying to test her independence. Recently, she has attempted to tell me "No!" on a few occasions. I say a few occasions because I don't tolerate her saying "No!" to me and quickly discipline her for it so she is beginning to learn quite quickly it will not be tolerated from me. She gets upset getting disciplined because she knows that she has disappointed me so she begins to cry and buries her face in her hands. I immediately feel TERRIBLE seeing such a pitiful display, but have to keep my poker face on and let her know that she can not tell me no. And you know what, she quickly recovers.
I love when she realizes she was wrong and will apologize. I also like that she is recognizing when I am upset and will try to change her behavior to do the right thing. I enjoy catching her playing independently and talking to her animals teaching them things that we teach her. She's very concerned that her animals are cold or are crying for her; which is really adorable. She's also admitting her wrong doing to anyone who will hear her. Nowadays, I don't even have to tell Jim if she's done something wrong or had to be disciplined while he is at work or traveling. She will tell him for me, hahaha. She's also in a repeating everything over and over and over again until we acknowledge what she is saying. I'm pretty certain she does it in each and every home video that I have posted on this blog. I've come to conclude that she is programed to do this every.single.time that Gianna is crying too. Imagine a crying baby and a incessantly repeating preschooler AT THE SAME TIME. Those are the moments that I am silently thinking to myself, "SERENITY NOW!" but also reminding myself that it's all in a day of a Mommy life; which is all very much worth it. That's why I'm writing it down so that I can remember the fulfilling insanity, hahaha.
And her food allergies/intolerances: how in the world did I forget to write about them in my previous entry?!! That's like a zebra without it's stripes. During pregnancy and initially after Gianna was born, Briella was having MAJOR sleeping issues accompanied by GI distress, rashes, and anxiety. After a few weeks of Gianna's birth, we slowly began to notice a change in that. Her sleep was "improving". Some parents would still have been tired from her 'improving' sleep, but we were beyond thankful. Instead of tossing and turning to fall asleep until 10pm, waking up for long periods of time anywhere between 1-3 times through the night only to finally be W-I-D-E awake at the 5 o'clock hour, she was beginning to fall asleep around 9, wake up once, fall quickly back to sleep, and sleep until 6am. Gradually, the middle night wake up stopped and the 6am turned into 6:30am and now, sometimes if we are really lucky, we get 7am. This has all transpired over the course of 8 weeks. Woo-hoo! Now I'm not saying she hasn't woken in the middle of the night and it's completely stopped because it happened while Tom and the kids were here, but her routine was changed and there were a lot of different noises in the house so that probably contributed. All in all, it's been a great transformation in her, though.
During these past 8 weeks of getting her into a good sleeping rhythm, she was also drinking a lot of kefir. We have pulled back on giving her as much recently, but I can't help but think that the kefir really gave her the nudge in her healing because she's not only been sleeping better, but she has added some new foods into her diet again! Double WOO-HOO! We have added two foods that are already packaged. I had completely forgotten the pure bliss, the luxury, the convenience of opening up a bag of snacks. While most 2 year olds would completely snub her safe snacks, Briella doesn't know any better and has been more than thrilled about her plain rice crackers, her Trader Joes raisins, and her puffed quinoa cereal. Along with those foods, she has successfully been eating plain steamed white rice and rice noodles. And just a few days ago, she got to have the 365 Whole Foods brand bacon with success. Thank you, Lord, for so much progress with Briella. When I am up in the middle of the night feeding Gianna, when Briella would have been awake like she was doing for the first few weeks after Gianna was born, I am tearfully thanking The Lord at the progress she is making with both sleeping and eating new foods.
Most parents might not think much of taping their child eating her first popsicle, but with all of the strides that Briella has made with her food allergies/intolerances, eating her FIRST EVER popsicle at 2.8 years old was huge for her and for us to experience. It's the little things in life, it really is. After years of watching Briella being deprived of childhood foods, this was so exciting for us. If in years I wonder, Jim thought to use one of the containers from my breast pump machine to use as 'on the fly' popsicle molds and, sure enough, they worked. But, we have since purchased real molds that work really well and the popsicles taste wonderful.
This is how we find Briella sleeping most every time she sleeps in bed. She loves her "Foxy Roxy".
Going swimming with Papa is Briella's new favorite thing to do. I don't think she knew summer could be so much fun.
Briella proudly wearing the frog dress that Grandma Clapp got for her & coincidentally catching a frog that day as well. (This is what she wore to church this day. She got the purple boots from my Mom: "Nonna").
Right before this shopping trip, Briella exclaimed, "I'm so excited to go shopping with Mommy today!" She is quite the multi-tasker shopper with eating her banana and filling her cart as well. I love this dress that she got from Harry and Valerie Maxwell and Briella loves it as well. I think she even talks about it in one of the videos above. The Maxwells always send her the cutest clothes!
Here's Briella helping Daddy mow on Saturday morning, July 5th.
Fourth of July with the Nonni's at the Greenville Zoo.
Late evening Fourth of July swimming with Papa.
You'd never know just how long Briella's hair is because of her curls, but when it's wet, it's to the middle of her back.
Look at her sweet face eating her post nap snack of grapes, banana, and my famous corn free, gluten free, dairy free sugar cookies. Once again, here she is being a multi-tasker using both hands to eat. And, if I'm ever wondering years down the road...Briella had put her night gown on over top of her tank top before her nap because her "Raffi" was wearing her night gown. Aunt Rita got them matching night gowns and she wanted to wear hers too.
All ready to go for her preschool interview with me and Jim. Our pretty little girl!
Helping me do the dishes. I love Briella's helpful character and nature!
I think I may have been more excited for Briella (and Gianna when she's old enough) to get this bike than she was because after almost 3 years of saving Pampers Rewards, I cashed them in and this Trike was FREE!
Briella vacuums with perfect form, hahaha
What she has memorized of The Shepherd's Psalm (Psalm 23) as of July 7th. I'm so proud of her and I love teaching her about The Lord, Bible verses, and how to pray.
Gianna: She has discovered her hands and now bats at objects in front of her. She is full of smiles, coos, giggles, and absolute amazement at the world around her. She has taken a very big liking to her pacifiers; which is very different than how Briella was as a baby. She took one on occasion, but not often. She's also different in the way she enjoys tummy time. Gianna loves to lay on beds or on the floor and kick and 'talk' to anything around her. She enjoys when I sing to her, read to her during bed times with Briella, kiss her hands, and poke her adorable cheeks.
She is lifting and holding her head more and for longer periods of time. She has slept for 5 total straight hours through the night, (it's only happened once), but is averaging about 4 hours a time as long as she is feeling well. She enjoys taking short naps on her tummy (I monitor her very closely and I only allow it because she can lift her head and switch from side to side). In the past week, she is beginning to wake up from certain sleeping sessions quietly with open eyes instead of immediately crying. It's neat to watch these transitions and milestones in her development.
She is 100% intolerant of milk, eggs, nuts, tomato sauce, and potentially chocolate through my milk. I basically eat a lot of rice, vegetables, and fruits right now. What I eat very much affects how she feels and how she sleeps. The days that I eat something that bothers her, she struggles to sleep unless she is being held because her tummy hurts and she is vomiting and having frequent diarrhea. I feel badly that she is dealing with all of this.
As of her two month check up today, July 11th, she had microscopic blood in her stool; which is a symptom of a food(s) that is bothersome to her. Well, I was eating eggplant Parmesan (minus the Parmesan) and we all think it's the tomato sauce from it that is bothering her. I have not eaten it today and I hope to see an improvement in her within 24-48 hours from now or else I'm "back to the drawing board" with figuring out yet another food intolerance. The doctor is sending out her diaper for culture, but feels confident it's fine because she's gaining weight well aside from the blood findings. She is 10.4 pounds, 22.75 inches long now, and wearing a size 1 diaper but not for long. Her eyes are still holding onto a blue-gray hue so only time will tell if they will darken or not.
Despite all of her side effects from problematic foods, she continues to be a very contented baby who usually only cries when she's hungry, needs a diaper change, or because she is tired. She does, though, go from 0 to 60 with crying when she needs picked up. Sometimes she just needs and wants to be held. She will be crying hysterically and the moment she is picked up, she just stops. That's it. That's all she wanted. She's very interesting, though, because as much as she loves being held, she is also enjoying being put down so she can play, kick, and stretch her little body. It's amazing to me how we learn to understand our kids' needs and wants, even when they are infants and can't talk. I can 'hear' what she is trying to tell me with various cries, squirms, or looks.
She is lifting and holding her head more and for longer periods of time. She has slept for 5 total straight hours through the night, (it's only happened once), but is averaging about 4 hours a time as long as she is feeling well. She enjoys taking short naps on her tummy (I monitor her very closely and I only allow it because she can lift her head and switch from side to side). In the past week, she is beginning to wake up from certain sleeping sessions quietly with open eyes instead of immediately crying. It's neat to watch these transitions and milestones in her development.
She is 100% intolerant of milk, eggs, nuts, tomato sauce, and potentially chocolate through my milk. I basically eat a lot of rice, vegetables, and fruits right now. What I eat very much affects how she feels and how she sleeps. The days that I eat something that bothers her, she struggles to sleep unless she is being held because her tummy hurts and she is vomiting and having frequent diarrhea. I feel badly that she is dealing with all of this.
As of her two month check up today, July 11th, she had microscopic blood in her stool; which is a symptom of a food(s) that is bothersome to her. Well, I was eating eggplant Parmesan (minus the Parmesan) and we all think it's the tomato sauce from it that is bothering her. I have not eaten it today and I hope to see an improvement in her within 24-48 hours from now or else I'm "back to the drawing board" with figuring out yet another food intolerance. The doctor is sending out her diaper for culture, but feels confident it's fine because she's gaining weight well aside from the blood findings. She is 10.4 pounds, 22.75 inches long now, and wearing a size 1 diaper but not for long. Her eyes are still holding onto a blue-gray hue so only time will tell if they will darken or not.
Our bathing sun beauty.
Gianna loves to lay on beds and 'talk' to the ceiling fan or look out of the window.
Gianna got so much attention on this day at the local Farmers Market in Simpsonville. We kept hearing how tiny she was, how adorable she was, and the oooohhs and ahhhs. Many thought she was only a week or two old, but she was 7 weeks old here. I think we forget that even though we think she is 'big' for now being over 10 pounds that others see her as small; which she is.
Snuggling with Mommy. We share lots of these moments together on the rocking chair and I sure do love them. I have taken quite a number of these pictures and it's so hard to pick my favorites. The way she falls asleep on me is just so heart warming.
Nonna thought to capture these pictures of me with the girls before me and Briella left for our shopping trip together on July 2nd. Mom stayed at our house to watch Gianna so that she and I could share some time together out of the house. We both needed it!
I needed to vacuum so I put Gianna on our bed to watch me. I looked over about two minutes into doing it, and she had fallen asleep! Gianna has really been enjoying the sound of the vacuum lately and has been quite soothed by it. In fact, I've had to leave the vacuum running just to keep her asleep. The video proving it is below.
Hanging out with Nonna on July 2nd completely wore Gianna out later in the day.
I know Gianna is my daughter, but even if she wasn't, I could just 'eat her up', she's so sweet and cute.
Gianna's first Fourth of July at the Greenville Zoo with Papa.
The days leading up to Gianna turning 2 months old, she began hitting objects in front of her. She loves her bouncy chair dangly animals and tummy time activity center even more nowadays.
Look at how much she's growing!
Bubble bath beauty. Gianna continues to LOVE her baths.
And here's when Gianna needed the vacuum in order to nap.
Here's Gianna talking, smiling, and kicking for me. She's my sweetie pie.
Gianna is such a sweet, darling little baby. I'm so blessed to have these special moments with her every single day.
Tom, Alex, and Gabby Visited Us!
We were able to have some wonderful 'family time' with Tom, Alex, and Gabby from June 27-June 30th. It was the first time I had ever met Alex and Gabby in person and, obviously, the first time that Briella and Gianna were meeting them. It was also the first time that Tom met Gianna. It was great to have the cousins spending time together and enjoying each other's company.
Cuddling with Gianna is so easy to do!
Cousinly love. Briella really took to Alex and kept saying she loved him. Gabby would say, "What about me, Briella?"
Alex and Gabby feeding Gianna.
Last moments with Tom, Alex, and Gabby before leaving.
The Goodsites Visited South Carolina!
Danie is named after me. Her Mom, my friend Sami, chose me for her namesake. I'm still so very honored by that!
Danie was in love with Gianna and wanted to hold her whenever she could.
After an afternoon of swimming for Briella and afternoon of being held and loved on July 11th at the Nonni's house, along with the Goodsites being there, both girls were quite tired on our drive home. Gianna went on to take a very long late afternoon nap from 5:30-8:30 this day. I love these girls so much.
