What is Neela up to?

Neela is soooo sweet! She is actually what I thought my child would be like :) Not that I don't love Stevie Joy with all of my heart, but she is a very strong-willed child and for a first time mommy with a passive personality she took me for a loop. However, Neela is so much more laid back and laughs all the time. She is seriously constantly smiling. Every where we go people always guess that she is at least 3 months older than she actually is, due to her size, her hair, and her personality. She "talks" all the time, makes wonderful eye contact and smiles and laughs all the time! Not to brag (as if I haven't already), but she really is an "angel" baby! Stevie was totally a spirited baby! The only bad thing about how good Neela is is that it is going to probably make baby number 3 seem so hard, but I keep hoping that baby #3 will be even easier, especially since the baby will be a boy :) Titus Robert Megow!! We are going to keep it a surprise b/c it was a funner experience having it as a surprise. And no we are not pregnant yet, that may have sounded like we were.
She is rolling all around now and is starting to follow her sissy by rolling to her (so cute). Her hair is really crazy, I think it is going to be curly b/c it is a big poof afro on top of her head. She HAS to have a headband or bow or something when we leave the house :) She is actually a better sleeper than Stevie, which I didn't think was possible. She goes to bed around 8 and wakes up the next day around 8 in the morning. Naps for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening, has already dropped her evening nap to a cat nap and can take it while we are out and about in the evening. I told you she is amazing. It is like she is an 8 month old trapped in a 4 month old body! I really enjoy her so much, she makes me so happy. I could seriously have 8 if they were all as easy as she is. I am so interested to see what kind of toddler she is going to be and child, hopefully she will stay sweet and laid back.

Us at Seth's work Christmas Performance:
Neela sitting in her big girl swing:

Living on a farm

Seth and I both grew up living "in the country". We both said that we did NOT want to live out in the country when we got older because it is waaaay to far out and we are busy bodies and like to "go go go". Well we are right where God wants us to be right now, while it may not have been "our plan". I actually do LOVE living on a farm. The main reason I hated living out in the country was because my parents never wanted to take me anywhere and it was so hard finding a ride when you live way out in the boonies! I said that when I grow up I am going to live in town so that my kids don't have to worry about living so far out and have a hard time finding a ride! Well as a kid really did like the farm life. I learned to drive at a very young age driving all around in trucks on the farm and I enjoyed the animals and taking care of them. I even really liked picking all the vegetables and fruit that we grew. So I think that maybe the good outweighs the bad. Sure you can't really have huge garage sales and lemonade stands, but actually on this road you could have a yard sale. Hmmm...well I guess I will just have to be more mindful when my kids grow up and get to that "pre-driving" age and remember how much I hated not driving but not having a ride either. As kids, I feel that the country life is way better. You don't have to worry about robbery as much, traffic, etc. But you do have to worry about snakes :( We even have a pond so we get to worry about alligators and drowning. Maybe it's not safer??

Here is some pics of us enjoying the farm today. I would really like to get more animals out here, but I don't want ALL the responsibility that comes with them and Seth is not exactly the "farming/nurturing to animals" type of guy. Maybe when the girls get older and can really help and take care of them. My biggest problem is that I really am girly and just like baby animals, once they are no longer babies, it is like they do not exist to me, lol! So then what? eat them I guess haha.

Stevie feeding the chickens:


See how much she loves those dumb chickens!
Mad at me because we left the chickens, btw Seth thinks this outfit looks like a clown, but I love it, it's so bright and colorful!
Our pond:

Ear Infections

Stevie Joy has been really sick and not acting like herself lately so I decided to take her into the doctor. We took her in because she has been throwing up a lot and has had really bad diarrhea, but when we got there they ended up telling us that she also has a double ear infection. This makes her 6th time this year! They gave her a shot (she screamed!) and she now has some antibiotics to take daily. We have to go back in two weeks to check things out. If things keep going like this the doctor recommends that she has tubes put in her ears. I am not too sure what all this entails so I don't really know how to feel about this. Surgery is scary, but chronic ear infections are dangerous too. I know the doctors know best so I just pray for divine wisdom and trust in Him that everything will be okay. One a positive note: Neela can now roll over kinda consistently. She hates when she does it though during her sleep b/c she does NOT like being on her back. It is sad, but kinda funny b/c her cry is so pathetic and I go in there and she just has this adorable, confused look on her face :) Am I a mean mommy to think this is funny? haha

We may be getting a baby pig, but the girl hasn't gotten back with me yet. We are trying to "stock" the farm up. We have cows, goats, chickens, and dogs (oh yeah and one cat). A pig would kinda complete the farm don't you think? Here is a picture of them:

Another attempt

I am going to try this whole blogging thing again. I feel like we have a pretty, fun, and interesting life so we should share it with others. I am very entertained reading other people's blogs, but for some reason just find it to be so much work when doing my own. I do see the benefits in having it though. Especially with baby number two I am constantly trying to think back to how it was with the first one and the tricks we did, milestones, etc. If I had something like this I think it would help.

Probably won't be that in depth, but I am going to give it a try and see how it goes :)

I worked a half a day today. I really don't mind working all that much, but like I always tell Seth,
"My best day at work still doesn't compare to my worst day at the house!". I just really enjoy being home with my girls!! Speaking of my girls, they are doing very well. Neela is now 16.5 lbs, I can't believe it! Stevie is only like 22 lbs so that means they are 15 months apart but only 5.5 lbs apart. At this rate, Stevie Joy will catch up to her very quickly.

The girls are so different, like night and day. Stevie is much more "things HAVE to go her way" type of baby and Neela is a "laid back" kind of baby. Here is a typical example: the other morning getting ready for church Neela was lying on her blanket in the middle of the floor cooing and giggling at who knows what playing all by herself just as happy as can be while Stevie on the other hand had to follow me around and let me know that she wanted to watch a show, then proceeded to "tell me" (by whining) that the show I put on for her was not the right show so we had to go through the DVR library to see what she wanted to watch :) Then she wanted her juice....you get the picture? I am interested to see how Neela will be at the toddler age. I know you are suppose to love every age, but the baby stage still isn't my favorite. Well actually I really love it when they first come home from the hospital and you get to spoil them and just hold a sweet baby all day. And you are still healing so no one expects you to do anything either. So basically your full time job is to hold, nurse, and love on this sweet little baby that you have been "cooking" inside of you for nine months! I love it! Definitely one of my fav. stages, but then after about 2 weeks, I start lying them down for naps and training them to be independent sleepers meaning they learn to put themselves to sleep with no props. Neela is so awesome at this! In fact she won't even go to sleep if you are holding her (kinda bad when you are at a public place and you need to hold her for her nap, basically impossible!)

Well Seth is wanting some alone time now that he is through with his stuff on his computer, let's see how this blogging goes from here on out :P

Alina's Rockstar 1st Birthday

We had a lot of fun at Alina's birthday party this weekend! She had a rockstar theme, we really thought that more people would dress up (atleast a little) so we kinda stuck out like soar thumbs, oh well ;)

Stevie walking video

This is her on her first day walking! she is much better now ;)

April

We have a new baby goat on the farm. We decided to name her April, since she was born in April (how original)! She is so cute, I love baby animals.

Walking! YaY!!

Stevie Joy has finally decided to walk. She has literally been at the "almost" walking stage for longer than I have seen any other baby. She has always reached all of her milestones way early (sitting up, rolling over, crawling, etc.). The day she started crawling she also started pulling up and cruising, we just knew she would walk early. However, she just really enjoyed crawling soooo much that she decided to stick with that. Everyone always says that mommies shouldn't rush the whole walking thing because it is more difficult having a baby that can walk, but I don't really see how. For one, she would always hold out her hand and want me to walk her around the house and she was never was satisfied with one (or 4+ laps). And for two, she would WANT to get down whenever I was holding her, but I couldn't let her bc she couldn't just walk around (and a baby can't crawl on dirty floors). So far I have not been sad about the fact that she is walking. With this big 'ol belly always in the way and no hips to rest a baby's butt on, I am happy to let her roam around on her own and explore and not tote her around EVERYWHERE, I mean at least now I have a choice, whereas b4 all I could do is hold her. Also, I really wanted her to walk b4 Neela came (10 more weeks!!). I think it came at a good time, she started walking the day before Easter so she was able to walk around and hunt eggs and my parents got to see her walk which is really exciting. My dad said that I was walking at 9 months and Seth's mom said that he was walking at 17 months! So I guess that 12 months is a good in between age! Whenever I find my camera I will post some pics of her walking and try to do a video for ya'll.

NO MORE GUM!!

Here is a video to show you how dramatic our little sweet Stevie Joy can be: Let me set it up for you; She discovered this little box of gum and I didn't realize she could open the box, but apparently she can and can also chew gum for quite some time. Well when the gum was all gone she got very upset and this was her reaction, it is sad, but kinda funny!

Stevie hates the Easter bunny

I still work part time for Bouncing Balloons and Costumes, it is a pretty fun job, and pays really well! Anyways, I had to take the Easter Bunny to do a party today so I decided to take a few pics of Stevie with the bunny before the party. I was about 98% sure that she would be the type to scream and cry, but I still wanted to get pics anyway. I really don't think she was all that scared of him, I really think she just didn't want him to hold her. She was fine to look at him and touch him she just didn't want to be held by him. I have seen her freak out and cry when people hold her, so I knew this would probably be her response.

By the way I am now 7 months pregnant with Neela Grace, I think I look pretty good ;)

Today was so much fun!

Besides having to get my teethe cleaned (I gag really bag when things are in my mouth while pregnant), I had a really fun day! Autumn watched Stevie for me while I got my teeth cleaned and then we all got to hang out. I can't wait for summer so that I can hang out with Autumn everyday!! We colored Easter eggs, Alina kept trying to eat the paint, it was really funny! Stevie wasn't so sure about the texture of the paint, but she still enjoyed watching and being with mommy! She is a REALLY big Mommy's girl, she is getting to be MORE and MORE everyday! It is really sweet, but at the same time, I wish she liked other people too, what on earth will she do when Neela gets here?

Seth's Mimi blessed us so much by allowing us to spend a week in one of her time shares. We went to Palm Coast. We had sooo much fun! The Steels got to come down the first couple of days and Stevie loved playing with their girls, I loved hanging with Nicole, and Seth loved his guy time with Adam. We all had a wonderful time!!

This is Stevie and I at the beach, she is not big on kissing humans (but she will kiss dogs, cats, and all her toys, especially TOBY!!)

Stevie is in love with sunglasses, here she is playing with mine, we accidentally left hers at the condo.
The whole crew (minus Stevie and I) playing in the water...

This is funny to me, Stevie has learned to say, "Dog" when she sees a dog, but sometimes she says it when it is a bug or a bird or a cat (basically any animal to her is a dog), well we were all sitting there on the beach having a picnic when randomly Stevie says, "Dog!" so of course we all laugh and think that she is just saying it at the birds or something but then we look over and there is this dog, Freckles (his name was printed on his tag), sitting so close to Adam that he was basically in his lap. It was so funny that she was the only one that noticed ;) Freckles sat there patiently watching us eat the whole time until we got up and went to the ocean and then he finished off the leftovers that we kindly left behind for us. When I decided to take a picture of him, he professionally posed for the camera, it was as if that was his job to sit there at the beach all day and keep families company.
Stevie by the pool, she loves baths so I just knew she would love the pool, wrong! It took us about 20 minutes to finally get her use to the water (it was a heated pool, but not as heated as our baths are). Then once she finally got use to the water and started splashing around and having a good time, Seth would get super protective and say, "She needs to get out I don't want her getting sunburnt!" We literally used a whole tub of sun block on her, but it was sweet how concerned he was about her.
Going out to eat was such a treat, especially because the Steels car was big enough for us all to fit in. It was awesome to get to spend time with them. We went to Olive Garden, I know we should have picked somewhere more unique but I was REALLY craving Olive Garden. I bought these matching dresses for the girls at a consignment sale so I really wanted to get a cute pic of them wearing them, after 15 different tries I think we finally got one....
We kinda let Stevie eat a little too many M & M's. It was funny because I was explaining to Seth that he is like 10 times the size of her (she weighs almost 20 lbs and he is almost 200 lbs) and so 2 M&M's to him is like 20 to her. After we got to thinking about it like that we realized she was eating like 10-15 a day, and that is like him eating 100-150 M&M's a day. We had to put a stop to the M&M fetish after that. It was funny though because she would crawl to the spot where they were on the kitchen counter and pout for M&M's. Speaking of tons of M&M's, I hope I did not gain to much weight on this trip because I have to see Dr. Culbreth this doc appt and this is my first time seeing him and I have heard that he fusses at women for gaining too much weight. He will probably have a field day with me!!

Happy Birthday!! (to me and Stevie)

Stevie's due date was March 10th, with my birthday being March 22nd and considering that she would probably coming at 38 weeks anyway then her birthday wouldn't really be all that close to mine, right? Wrong! She did not come until my 42nd week, putting her birthday 3 days after mine. Having her birthday so close to mine is challenging sometimes. Not that I am really big on "me" or anything but I think it is nice to spread fun things out instead of having them so close together and then nothing exciting for a while. For my birthday Seth got me a laptop, he was so excited to give it to me he gave it to me a whole month early. I was really excited and happy about the present, but I knew that if he gave me my gift that early then he would probably forget my birthday. I was right, he forgot all about it. Finally, at about 4:00 that day (Sunday) I asked him if he was forgetting about something. He pondered for a while and took some incorrect guesses. I finally had to TELL him that it was my birthday. It's all good though because he felt really bad about forgetting so I got to "milk" that for a while ;)

Stevie's birthday party actually was the day before my actual birthday. It turned out really great I thought. I was nervous that with having a big party that she would get overwhelmed and I would get too stressed out trying to do everything for the 40 guests we had. Thankfully, it all turned out good. She got a great nap before hand (we had the party at 4:00 since she sleeps until 3 or 3:30 most days). I delegated my work out ahead of time and made sure that I was able to do what mattered most to me and her (spending time together on her party)! I had a really fun time, and I know that she did too. She got lots and lots of presents. The only sad thing about the party was that it was the windiest day Valdosta had ever seen. I felt bad for the little newbie babies that came (Kye, Abbey, and Josiah). Once 5:30 hit it was pretty chilly for the little guys. Other than the wind, I am pleased with how the party turned out and I am happy that Stevie was able to have her first birthday party without Neela being here. I think planning a party and juggling a newborn and a year old at the same time may have been kinda stressful.

Helping Daddy with Homework

Seth has the privilege of being a stay-at-home dad on Mondays and Tuesdays while I work. It works out really nice for the both of us. While Seth is home on these days, he does his online grad courses. This is some pictures of how Stevie Joy likes to help her daddy do his work....

Hey Hey

Stevie's favorite thing to do is wave and say "Hey, Hey, Hey"!

Seth needed me to demonstrate how to make a balloon dog for one of his grad courses, (Random)!
I love holding Josiah James Love!! Every time I hold the new Love babies, it makes me that much more excited for little Neela!!

Here are a few videos and pics to show you what has been going on lately....