For some reason, blogger won't let me put a title in! This is just a quick catch up post, to be followed by a photo post of Cherry's second birthday party!

I'm doing a bit better. The meds are helping with my PPD. Some days it's still hard to get out of bed, especially on days that I don't have any real plans or "purpose" to my day. Luckily, I've been really busy lately, so there haven't been many of those days!

Armondo has been home for awhile now. When he first came home, we had a few days of awkwardness as we worked through some issues. Things were starting to get bad between us, but I think we were able to really talk through what was bothering us, and I can say that both of us are making an effort to be better towards each other. There's no need for me to go into detail, or even record what was going on, 'cause it's just water under the bridge now. Re hashing it might just bring up bad feelings.

I've been reaching out and making more friends who have kids. I was really worried that by the time that Cherry's birthday party occurred, that there wouldn't be any children there for her! But somehow, I was able to make enough friends in a short period of time in order to have a relatively large party for her. It's funny how in high school, you strive to have friends and be somewhat popular, just so you don't feel like an idiot, then you have a few years off after school where you can just pick and choose who you want to hang out with, and it doesn't really matter, but then you have kids, and all of a sudden you have to make friends again so that THEY have friends!

Peach is still pretty much a cute little lump who doesn't do that much. She's almost 6 months old, is signing for milk, is smiling lots, loves her sister, and is almost getting teeth. I can't leave her alone on any "surface" anymore, 'cause she can scoot right off, but I think it'll be a little while until she's crawling.

Cherry is full of funny phrases. She's full of "I wuv you"s and "What zat noise?"es. She is a never ending chatterbox, and is very polite. Lots of please and thank yous and excuse mes. She now know her basic shapes, and can count to ten with some prompting. She loves to sing and will often mix her favourite songs together into a cute medley. She also sings songs about her sister. There's this TV show we watch about a bunny, and the lyrics to the opening go like this: "Miffy, cute little bunny, Miffy, smart little bunny," etc. Well, ever since Cherry was about a year old, we've been replacing "Miffy" with Cherry's name and "bunny" with "baby." Well, now Cherry will sing the song replacing "Miffy" with "DeDe" (the nickname she calls her sister) and will sing "DeDe, cute little baby!"

And umm.. let's not talk about potty training. 'Cause it's not happening. And there's nothing to talk about. Cherry's going to be in diapers until she's 12.

And with that, I will end this post and start posting the birthday party photos.

Can't leave that depressing post up top for too long...

So, I give you this:

Wanna see how cute my weekend was?

I'd love to add captions, but it's getting late... so, the basic idea: Peach and "Banana" her cousin, are only 3 days apart, so we took a bunch of photos of them together, including ones in matching outfits, and ones where we made them practice their "tummy time". Those girls are probably blind from all the photo flashes all weekend!

Cherry is 20ish months here, and "Kiwi" the male cousin, is three in May. Cherry and Kiwi got along great and rough-housed and giggled the whole time. Cherry is so rough and tumble, and everyone was surprised how she stood up to her crazy, rowdy, older male cousin! (photos are in chronological order-basically)

Awww!

I was taking photos of Peach...

In the little outfit that Maidink got her for Christmas (before she was born)

When Cherry came to see what was happening...



I told her, "Look, she's dressed like a bear, look at those little bear feet! Doesn't she look like a bear?"

So, she ran and grabbed some care bears and placed them around her sister...

To make for some of the cutest photos around!

More photos on flickr.

Ahh, the joy of two, revisited.

How about when they both poop in their baths within minutes of each other? That's pretty rad too.

Ahhh... time to blog!

Thank all of you who cared enough to notice I hadn't blogged in awhile. All two of you, anyway! (Love you guys, you know who you are!)

Everything is going fine here, we've just been pretty busy. I'm not sure what we've been busy with, but it just seems like I haven't much free time.

We're doing the portrait thing again. We did the whole family last week, and I've got two more appts. this week; one for Peach by herself, and one for the two girls together. (Walmart has an AWESOME deal on right now, and the rules are a little funny, so that's why we've split up the days for the photos.) I'll be sure to scan and post them when we get them back.

Just so you know, when I don't blog for a week, it would be nice if you guys were all considerate and stopped blogging as well, 'cause I'm sooo far behind in your life stories that there's no way I'll get caught up.

Anyway, I'm off to bed right now. I'm hoping to sleep well, as last night wasn't so great when I got elbowed in the head by Armondo and later got rolled onto. Needless to say, he got kicked to the couch, but unfortunately, I did that entirely too late to really get a good night's sleep. Co-sleeping with an infant and a full grown man on a double size bed is torture. Good thing I'm already sleep training the little one, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be too hard to get her to sleep in her own bed when the time comes. (I make sure she spends at least one nap or part of the night in her bassinette or crib. Right now she's sleeping in her crib, but I'll be taking her into bed with me when I go to make the early morning feeding a little more bearable.) And we'll be sans hubby tonight. (You mess with me, you're gonna get kicked!) hee hee.

One has no eyes, and the other has devil eyes. Our optometrist is going to love us!

So much to write, so little time!

A completely posed photo. They don't really get along this well! More on Flickr.

~Ok, so I don't know how to deal with RSS feeds, but I checked and one out of three of my feeds is working, so, if you want to, you can delete my feed then re-subscribe to the working one.

~I have like 6 posts in my head, but no time to write them. I'm spending too much time hanging out with my kids and the TV. And currently, Armondo has been taking a few days to work casually as a painter, which means I'VE BEEN HOME ALONE WITH THE KIDS FOR THE WHOLE DAY NOW FOR TWO DAYS IN A ROW! (and I have to do it again tomorrow.) The whole experience has been scary, but we've been getting through it just fine. Besides me accidently closing Cherry's fingers in the sliding door. But we won't talk about that.

~Breast feeding is getting better. No pain at all on the one side now, but we're still working on mastering the other side.

No time to write any more, enjoy the photos.

Ahhh, the joy of TWO.

Know what's really rad? (besides the fact that I just typed "rad")

Is when one kid is crying, and the other kid starts crying JUST BECAUSE the other one is crying.

Yeah, that's what's rad.

Just thought you might like to know that.

Keeping you up to date.

Peach and I are doing surprisingly well. I'm sore and tired, but have been feeling better these past couple of days than I had been feeling for months!

Peach is an awesome eater, and my milk is in real good. I've been stuffing cabbage in my bra to help with the pain, which Armondo finds more than a little amusing. He's a big fan of "b00b salad".

I haven't been getting a lot of sleep, which is expected, but Armondo is so awesome with helping out as much as he can, that there's barely any burden on me.

Cherry, however, isn't doing so well. She seems to be experiencing some sort of night terror on and off. It's seems to have happened about five times in the last month, and it's quite upsetting. She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, and it takes about from an hour to three hours to console her. She had another episode last night. I mentioned it to my midwife today, who mentioned one possible medical reason, so we'll be exploring that, as well as doing some research on toddler night terrors.

Cherry's very interested in the "de de". She loves to come over and look at her and poke at her, but she's extremely rough. I don't think she's TRYING to be mean when she's interacting, but she'll poke Peach, push her around, and today even smacked her in the face. It's not like she's got a mean look on her face, or that she's making any motion that she's trying to hurt her, it's just that she just doesn't know how to be gentle. Sort of makes me wonder if I should have waited a bit longer to have a second child. Cherry's also acting up quite a bit these days. It started before the baby was born, but has sort of escalated these past couple of days. She's quite whiney, and very clingy. She's demanding more attention from us than usual, and if she doesn't get it, she'll throw a tantrum. I've been trying my best to make sure we have some special time together while Peach isn't feeding, but it can be hard, 'cause newborns are literally quite attached to their mothers. Cherry IS, however getting lots of attention from Daddy, which is good, but makes me worry that she might distance herself further away from myself.

Back to Peach. She's so much easier so far than Cherry was. She rarely cries, and when she does, it's either 'cause she needs something, or Cherry has smacked her in the face. She sleeps often, though not for long stretches, and when she's awake, you can just leave her in her bassinette and she'll just quietly look around and coo if someone isn't there right away to pick her up. Cherry screamed for the first two and a half months straight. I know that part of the difference is due to the fact that they are different individuals, but I'd also like to think that with more experience, and more spousal support, that I'm doing a better job this time. (When Cherry was born, Armondo was working 6 days a week, often upwards to 11 hours a day.)

Anyway, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I'll be calculating the contest entries soon enough, as well as writing out the official Peach "birth story" which will be the next part in my "Love Series". (The love series can be found on the sidebar.) I also have to do some template changes, including updating my "belly" shot on the side, and changing my title graphic to something a little more current.

But to tie you over, here are some more pictures:

When we got home from the hospital, we pulled out Cherry's "big sister" gift.

I think she likes it!


The following pictures were taken today, at 3 days old:

And here's a picture of Peach, looking suspiciously very much like her daddy.

What is it with newborns always having "red eye" in photos? (This one isn't TOO bad, but it was the best out of a series that I took.)


Exhausted after a good feeding.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments and for all the de-lurking that's been going on. I really appreciate it! Oh! Babe's awake, bye for now!