On the Move!

Caroline has had to keep a much more careful watch on her toys lately!  Ever since her sister has started being an expert crawler and pulling up on everything, Eleanor has decided that Caroline's toys are perfect for her, too! She especially likes Caroline's baby doll highchair. Here is a picture of her trying to pull up on it (not very safe-I know!) and another action shot of Eleanor speed crawling towards it, while Caroline breaks into a run to move it before she gets there! Caroline moves her toys around quite bit now, trying to keep them out of her sister's reach. 

Busy, Busy "Eleanor Gracie"

"Clap hands!" Yay!
"So Big!" (I think this was a coincidence-we're still working on it!)
Playing Peek-a-boo
I can stand and play now!

Trying to take down Caroline's artwork-but always with my smile on!

Eleanor is SO busy lately! She pulls herself up on anything she can get her hands on-couch, chairs, other people and has even managed to climb up the stairs all by herself already. With her consistent smile and happy babbles, she is constantly exploring everything. SHe has decided that she is too big for baby food now and will gobble down most table food as fast as you can give it to her. Her very favorite right now is whole wheat bread and cheese. She is still practicing her waving, although she still only waves backwards to herself! She gets so excited when Daddy gets home from work, we will have to work on getting it on video. She waves her arms up and down and sings, "Da! Da! Da! Da!". It is too cute!

Later this week, she has her 9 month well check-up, so it will be interesting to see how much she has grown since her six month check-up. 

Caroline's "Tumbling" Class

Waiting for class to start
Dancing with her "sticks" during her circle warm-up time
Working on her somersault

"Walking like a bear" back to her place in line

Caroline had been asking since about March to take a "tumbling" (a.k.a. gymnastics) class. We signed her up for a class this summer and she is LOVING it! She is so excited throughout the whole class. It really brings a smile to my face to watch her get so much enjoyment out of it. Originally, we were just going to sign her up as a summer activity, but we decided to go ahead and enroll her in the Fall classes as well, since it has worked out so well.

Thank You All for Your Support

Thank you so much to all of our family, friends and neighbors for all of your support, help and encouragement that we have received over the past week. Your phone calls, cards, emails, meals, volunteering to babysit and care packages have helped to bring cheer to our day while we heal. We just found out this week that our baby was a baby girl. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. It brings us comfort to know that she is now at peace. 

When It Rains, It Pours...

As if Saturday were not bad enough, on Sunday night, I developed a fever and I knew that meant there was an infection developing.  After getting antibiotics called in, I saw my doctor on Monday morning. She thought it was best that I be admitted to the hospital overnight Monday and get started right away on IV antibiotics to ensure that the infection was treated as aggressively as possible. I was also told that a DNC would be necessary in the morning in order to prevent future infections, as well. I had to rush home from my appointment and (thank goodness!!) with the help of my wonderful, wonder friends (you all know who you are!) I had babysitting, gymnastic class for Caroline and the next three meals set up for my two little girls in about 2 hours for the next day and half. Brett had to cancel has upcoming 2 day trip to Lima, Peru and were out the door and back to the all-to-familiar hospital. I was admitted right away and they did take very good care of me. Everything went well and I was even discharged a couple of hours earlier than planned. As my doctor said, " Now that [I] am healing physically, we can now begin the journey of healing mentally." And as someone just wrote very beautifully on a card to us, we WILL "take comfort in knowing that there in one more angel in heaven" to look after us all.

So very sad...

As we sit here crying. we are so sad to share with all of you that we lost our little baby this morning at 14 weeks, 2 days. We know that there must be a reason for everything, but right now, it's still really hard for us to figure it all out.  Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers while we work through this difficult and very sad time.

Baby #3-14 weeks

So we are already on to week 14! It's amazing how fast the pregnancy goes when you don't even find out you're pregnant until you're 9 weeks, 6 days. (It's a very long story that doesn't really need details on the blog!) As much as we were VERY surprised, we are very excited to see what our youngest child will bring to our family. Eleanor will be 15 months when the baby is born and Caroline will be 3 months from turning 4. We are definitely going to have our hands full, but I'm sure it will all be worth it. We haven't officially told Caroline yet, although, we did ask her if she wanted another baby "one day". She very enthusiastically said she did and then went on to request a baby brother (b/c in her reasoning, Dora has a baby brother AND a baby sister!). However, today, she was obviously thinking about it some more and said, "One day maybe I will have two baby sisters or maybe I'll have one baby sister and one baby brother." To answer the questions that many of you have asked, YES, we are actually going to find out what we are having this time. I know you're all disappointed, since you loved how Brett and I kept you all in suspense through two pregnancies. However, we decided that we wanted to be "surprised" with Caroline and Eleanor, but with this one we already got the surprise-a little early! We should find out in about a month what the newest little Oswick will be. Of course, we'll let you all know!