Birthday Girl!!

Our sweet little girl turned two yesterday...
It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital.
She has grown up so much in the last 2 months, and has really been a great sister to Luke. Since we have brought him home - she has added so many words to her vocab. It's amazing how many words she can learn in one day. Also, she has started putting together sentences - which took us by surprise. Her favorite word is "help". She asks for help all the time - mainly because she wants you to play with her, instead of Luke. The sibling rivalry has already begun!!
Her stats this month were:

Weight: 23 Ibs 7 oz - 10-15%
Height: 34 inches - 50-75%
Head: 19.3 - 90-95%

Long and lean like her daddy!!

Happy Birthday sweet girl - we love you!! :)

Baptized in Christ!

This Sunday, Luke became the newest member of the Catholic Church.
It was a beautiful service - we are so forunate to have found such a great church just down the road from our house. We were able to share Luke's special day with family and friends - it was truly a blessing. Luke did so great - he never even made a peep; not even when Father Lewis "danced" with him during the Alleluia.

Luke getting ready for his big day

Big sister Claire is all smiles - even though she was running a fever...

Waiting on mass to start

Baptized!

Luke's Godparents - Sam & Caroline

The Renner Family

The O'Mara Family

The Eggemeyer Family

We Survived the 1st Month!

I am happy to report that we survived the first month! It wasn't easy... and very stressful at times, but we did it!! Russ and I have much more respect for parents who have multiple kiddos under the age of two - or even three. Not only do we have a little newborn baby, who only knows how to cry when he wants something - but our sweet little angel (Claire) has hit the terrible twos - and she hit them hard.
I'm sure that having to share her mommy and daddy with a new baby might have something to do with it... but she has been spending quite a lot of time in TO (time out).
Claire definitely has a future in acting...she would be great in a movie with lots of drama. It's crazy how she can conjure up tears on command!!
Other than hitting the terrible two's - she has been really great with Luke. Nursing him is sometimes tricky - as Claire wants to be right next to me or wants to hold him at the same time.
When it's time for Tummy Time - Claire and her baby doll always join Luke. It's really cute! She also alerts me any time he spits up or as she calls it "baby milk".

Luke will be 6 weeks old this Saturday - which according to Babywise - is when babies can start sleeping for longer periods at night. Russ and I have our fingers crossed that this is the case with Luke. The longest he has gone is 3 1/2 hours, and that has only happened twice. He generally eats every 2-3 hours. So we are looking forward to getting more than 2 hours of sleep :)

He did give me two real smiles yesterday - and they weren't sleepy smiles! It's amazing how those two little smiles make you forget about how exhausted you are...

Claire and Luke doing some Tummy Time

So sleepy!

So sweet!

Luke's first bottle - he loved it!

One of our many snow days...

The shirt says it all!

LOVE!

Things You Just Can't Prepare For...

Having been through this newborn baby thing once already, I thought I would have everything under control. Famous last words...

There are things that you just can not be prepared for... for example:
1. Being pooped, peed and spit up on - all with in 3 minutes of each other.
2. Having all of the above things happen to you at 2:30am.
3. The sheer exhaustion you feel after 3 weeks of no sleep.
4. How messy your house can get when a two year old has free reign...
5. How much you miss having a grandparent around to help!
6. Weekdays are the longest days. I have never looked forward to Friday afternoons more. Russ = Reinforcements.
7. And finally - how much you can love a human being that is only a few weeks old. It's quiet overwhelming!

On that note - Hooray that it's Friday!! :)

It's a...BOY!!

Luke Anthony Eggemeyer was born January 8th at 1:13pm! Mr. Luke decided to come 3 weeks early...but honored his father's wishes and wasn't born during the Cotton Bowl. Since Dr. B had told us early in the week that I was dialated to 4cm - we knew that it would be soon. So sure enough - Saturday morning at 5am I started having contrations and we left for the hospital at 8:30. By 10:30 I had my epideral (thank goodness - because my contractions were intense) and I was at 6cm. By 12:50 - the doctor had me start pushing... and a few minutes later Luke was born! :) He weighed in at 7 Ibs 2.5 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. He was nameless for the first few hours of his life - but we finally decided on Luke Anthony - power saints!

Claire has been so great with Luke - she wants to hold him every time he eats. She is pretty patient, for a 2 year old. When we were brainstorming what to name him - we asked Claire what she wanted to name him - her response was "Ohhh baby". So he was "Ohhh Baby" for a while. But now she calls him Baby Uke - "L's" are hard to say...
Here are a few pictures from the hospital.

Progress!

At the doctor this morning - we received some great news!! I am currently 4 cm along and 50% effaced. When Dr. B told me - I thought she was joking, since that usually means you're in labor...but she said some women stay at 4 cm for weeks.
So here I am, almost 37 weeks along - with tons to do!! When we got home from the appointment - Russ and I started running around the house like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off. Setting up the pack n play in our room (which we are missing pieces to), getting out the car seat, etc. Claire kept following us around the house saying "Bebe" (baby). It was too cute!
I would hate to post a blog without any pictures... so here are a few of Claire having one of her many tea parties! :)

Operation Santa Claus

This was our first year to have Santa Claus come to our house - so we had no idea what to expect. Most of Claire's presents were already wrapped and under the tree except for her kitchen from Nana, a shopping cart from Granny and a broom from GiGi. Once we put Claire down for bed - we brought out the boxes that the kitchen and shopping cart were in...

Well, they were not pre-assembled like we thought. It ended up taking two adults, a few power tools and some Maker's Mark to put everything together...

An hour and a half later... the finished product(s)...

Here is a video of Claire on Christmas morning...

We got a new video camera for Christmas, and are still learning how to use it. So most of the video is more like an areial shot (thanks to Russ). We now know that videos come out better when you aren't standing over the object you're shooting :)

Also - the video is pretty quiet, so you may want to turn it up.

Lastly... our Christmas tree wouldn't turn on Christmas morning (we figured it out later that day) so that is why Claire seems so worried at the beginning.

Enjoy!!