Life in April 2015

Life in April 2015 was life changing!!! Literally!  We started to month out by welcoming our sweet Evie Jo into this big bright world!  What better way to start the month than that!!

We celebrated Easter this year at our house with my parents.  I posted more about the holiday here.

While we were at the hospital with Evelyn, Elsie stayed at home.  For the first night Bev spent the night at our house and the second night my parents were there to stay with Elsie.  While we were gone Elsie and Grandma  Bonnie made these Easter projects. 

Elsie just loves to hold Evelyn.  I am not sure Evelyn feels the same :)

Elsie is such a good big sister-reading a book to Evelyn already.  It was just the sweetest thing, she dragged the stool over the rock and play.  

The second week we were home was busy with lactation consultant appointments, dance recital dress rehearsal and Elsie start Smart Start Soccer-it is a parent/child soccer program through parks and rec.  After soccer on Saturday morning ISU had Animal Learning Day.  They had all sorts of farm aminals and was meant to educate you about the food and products that come from these animals.  

On Sunday April 12th, Elsie had her first dance recital.  I was pretty nervous about how it would all shake out but she ended up doing so good!! 

Aubrey and Elsie

I did a full recap of the recital here.

This month was also a lot of getting used to two children.  I just love these girls!  

Elsie just adores her little sister

April also started to feel a bit like summer was on the way

We started to get some of our things planted out side

 

We enjoyed quite a few meals outside on the deck and out in the back porch and we had a couple of sunbathers taking a break from the pool ;)

April was definitely a great month!!!

Other April Posts: 

Evelyn Jo's Birthday

Evelyn Jo's Newborn Photos

Evelyn Jo's Hospital Stay

Evelyn Jo's Two Week Highlights

Evelyn Jo-3 Months

Ahh life with two little ones are busy and yes, Evelyn is already 4 months but I have finally put together her 3 Month Post.  As I post this-so much has changed already for her 4 months (she was four months on 8/1).  Everything that I wrote was how things were as of July 1st.  

This girl is growing WAY too fast!!!  

Overall, Evelyn is a very happy baby.  She hardly fusses except when she is hungry, tired, or wants her diaper changed. She smiles and laughs and I just love it.  She is pretty easy going.  She loves to see her sister and the two of them had a conversation one night while I was putting the girls to bed.  It was so fun to listen to.  Elsie would say something to Evie and then Evie would babble back to Elsie. It was really sweet.  

FEEDING:  We are still doing a mix of breastmilk and formula.  It is hard to tell how much she eats because she nurses half the time.  She is starting to drink at least four ounces a feeding when she doesn't nurse first.  It is about two ounces after she nurses which makes me think she is getting about 50/50 breastmilk to formula.  

SLEEPING:  Evelyn has started a little bit more of a sleep routine.  She sleeps pretty well at night waking up one time to feed.  Sometimes she sleeps straight through.  There was one morning on June 11th that she went to sleep at 10:30 and slept until almost 8:00 AM!!  I was up before she was and got some things done!  She is still sleeping in the small pack and play in our room next to my side of the bed.  I love to be able to peek over at her in the middle of the night.  

Evelyn is getting so strong!  She does a really good job of propping herself up on her arms during tummy time and has really good head/neck control for three months old.  She still loves the bouncy seat and the play mat and does not really care for the swing at all.  She spends no time in there because she just cries.  She is starting to get interested in toys and will bat at them and reach out for them.  Still not grasping them yet.  

Another thing Evie does not like is riding in the car.  Oh boy!  She can get so upset.  As long as she is sleeping the ride goes okay but if she is awake she will cry most of the time.  The four hour drive to my parents has been taking 6 hours.  We ended up trading in the Journey for a mini van so that one of us can sit in the back row if necessary.  We also bought a little white noise machine that attaches to her carseat and that has also made a bit of a difference.  

On June 29th, Evelyn started daycare.  I had to go back to work after 12 weeks.  She joined 

Elsie at the daycare center in town.  The week before she was supposed to start I went in to chat with the workers and figure out what we needed to bring the first day.  I was so overwhelmed.  There was 12 babies and only 3 staff.  There were babies that were crying and there was nothing the workers could do because they were taking care of others.  It was super overwhelming for me to see.  Let's just say this was not the first time I was uncomfortable with Evelyn being at the center.  As I write this I can say she is no longer there.  

This month was a busy month for us!  We went up to MN for a wedding and it was the first time that I spent quite a bit of time away from her and the first time I let her ride in someone else's vehicle.  She went back with my parents after a Graduation Open House and we went to the wedding.  We also went to a wedding in North Dakota and Evie had her first visit to a waterpark.  She attended her first birthday party.  Brady turned one and we went to the birthday party out at the farm.   We also celebrated quite a few other birthday this month-John's, Finley's, Grandma Junes, and Uncle Todds.  

For just 2.5 months Evelyn was the youngest grandchild on my side.  But on June 14th that changed when my brother and his wife Magda welcomed their little girl Barbara Jean into the world.  

Evelyn is now all in 3-6 month clothes.  We are completely done with newborn diapers.  We are still loving cloth diapers again this time around.  It is also amazing that we have only used diaper rash cream on her once.  No rashes!!  Which is great!  

All in all this is a great month.  We are still figuring routines but things are getting a little more normal.  She is transitioning from a newborn into a little infant and it is so much fun to see her grow and develop!! 

North Dakota and Father's Day

June 19th-21st John, Elsie, Evelyn, and myself headed to Grand Forks, North Dakota for Chris and Laura's wedding.  The week prior to the trip we ended up buying a minivan-a 2012 Chrysler Town and Country.  The tipping point for us was so that one of us could sit in the third row and tend to Evelyn because she had not been doing well on the car rides.  She cried and cried the weekend before coming back from MN.  

We ended up leaving our place Thursday night and staying at my mom and dad's house and then got up and left early Friday morning.  

Friday Donut Date! 

I was excited to get back to my old stomping grounds-where I went to college.  It had been almost 9 years since I had been there. We got up to North Dakota around 1pm.  

Crossing the Border

Once arrive in Grand Forks, we checked into the hotel and got our keys but did not go up to our room.  Instead we took a little drive through campus.  The hotel that we stayed at, The CanadInn, was attached to the Alerus Center which is UND's football stadium.  This is also where the wedding reception was going to be held.  

Alerus Center

Entering Campus.  Boy this had really changed over the years.  

My old House. Delta Delta Delta-Lots of good memories here! 

After driving through campus we headed out to the Ralph Engestad Arena where the UND Hockey team plays.  The Sioux Shop is there and I wanted to get my family decked out in UND apparel.  Back a few years the NCAA forced UND to retire the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.  So now the are just called North Dakota but will sound have a new nickname after almost three years.  This also means that is is impossible to find the original Sioux head logo on anything anymore but here it is-still up on the side of the arena. 

After checking out the store and not finding what I was looking for we headed into town to the mall where there is a Scheels which carries quite a bit of UND stuff.  They had this goalie photo op and just had to have Elsie do it :)

Future UND star?  

After shopping we headed back to hotel, checked in, met up with my college friend Krystle and her two boys.  They live in Devils Lake and since we were so close (2 hours), they met us up there for the night and hung out the next day.  

Our hotel had a waterpark and the kids had a blast playing around.  

Fearless Elsie-this girl loves water slides and her and John went down the toilet bowl water slide numerous times.  

Josh and John

That night for dinner we ate at one of the hotel restaraunts and then hit the hay early.  We were all in and asleep before 10AM.  The girls also slept until at least 7AM that morning which was wonderful!  We got up and at the hotels breakfast buffet, ran to Target to get a few random things, and then headed back to the hotel to play at the water park again with Krystle and the boys as well as Ashley, Jason, Hunter, and Boyd.  

Hunter and Elsie-Hunter wasn't so sure about the slide-apparently he doesn't like to get his head wet :)

Little Baby Boyd!  He was a little over a month old.  

Krystle and Evelyn

Coming down the toilet bowl slide:

Johnny, Josh, and Elsie

Waving from way up high!

Slide Races-Looks like Daddy Won!

This girl didn't swim much but enjoyed rocking her new swimsuit.  

Around lunchtime Krystle and the boys took off and we got the girls down for a nap while John and I got ready for the 3:00 wedding.  We ordered pizza for lunch and it was pretty yummy.  

The wedding was at 3:00 in East Grand Forks.  It was a beautiful wedding!  The Bride of course looked beautiful.  Unfortunately, Evelyn wasn't having it and Elsie was distracted by Finny.  John took Evie to the back and then Elsie wanted to join them so then I finally was able to enjoy the ceremony.  We headed back to the hotel after the ceremony so I could feed Evie before the reception.  

Hanging out between ceremony and reception.  

We had a great time at the reception.  Elsie especially.  She danced on the dance floor from the minute we walked in the receptions.  There were SO many kids there and Elsie was loving it!

Doggy Pile on Jason!

And she LOVED dancing with Laura who "Looked just like a princess!"  She even chased Laura down after the dollar dance because she didn't get a change to dance with her because we danced with Chris instead.  

She danced a lot with Daddy too!

This is how Ashley and I spent most of our night.  Evie slept through most of the dance.  

Elsie totally latched on to Erin that night too!  She had fun dancing with Erin on the dance floor and Erin tought her some new moves like "raise the roof" and "Hand on your knees"

At one point Elsie went up to the DJ and requested the Hokey Pokey.  The DJ said he was going to play it but never did.  Elsie kept holding out telling us they were going to play it and she wanted to wait to dance to it.   Finally at 11, we decided to leave after waiting over an hour to see if they would play it.  That girl was wiped out but she had so much fun!!!

Waiting for the hokey pokey. 

The next day we packed up and hit the road back to Elk River to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad.  

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Whew!  What a busy, wonderful weekend!