Darlingest Baby Mei

I'm going to go ahead and take full credit for this beautiful creation!

Not sure if these blue eyes will stick!

My little 7 week old is starting to feel more like an infant than a newborn!

Cheeeeese!

Week 5:

Meimei is learning how to smile

Luck O' the Irish

To me, St. Patrick's Day is more than just the obligitory wearing of green in order to avoid getting pinched. This year the celebrating mostly involved food.

Sofie drooling over our rainbow cupcakes. (rainbow, pot of gold, get it?) They were excrutiating to make, but they turned out really cool looking. Unforunately this particular cupcake didn't turn out quite as impressive as the others, but it's the only one I got a picture of, of course!

Sliced bell peppers. This was an idea I got off the internet. Pretty cool looking if you ask me.

The spread.

I made Cabbage and sausage casserole, green beans, biscuits, and green koolaid.

(I love that you can see Meili's little head sticking out from under Derek's arm...)

How does your garden grow?

Derek spent part of yesterday and the entire day today preparing a garden for us! It wasn't the best weather but we're just grateful to have the time and also a place of our own to hopefully harvest some fresh produce this year!

This picture was taken last fall when we first saw the house. See the mound in the left corner? The previous owners somehow thought it was a good idea to jump dump stuff there. Grass, weeds, branches, toys, garbage, etc. This was the back corner that we decided to put a garden.

Derek found some extra blocks left by the previous owners to make a nice border around our giant compost heap (soon to be garden). This is the heap after Derek already shaved the top layer of junk off. It nearly filled our greenwaste bin.

Derek spent all day digging and dumping and digging and dumping. It was freezing and windy but we were so grateful to have generous family members that live across the street who let us borrow their trailer to dump it all. It took 2 loads! Sofie loved the "wormies" wriggling in the stuff. Turns out the heap of old refuse contributed to some wonderful soil!! (I wasn't much help sitting on a nearby chair holding a 4 week old in the frigid wind...)


Sofie eager to learn hard work.

TA DA!!

Heap gone. Beautiful soil. And a surprise pile of stone blocks for us to use somewhere else in the yard. It's not huge, but we're excited to have our very own garden this year! Hopefully now we can find another weekend to plant the garden...kind of an important part I guess.

And yes, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the grass. Or lack thereof (it may look green but it's mostly weeds and crab grass). That may take a few years to fix.

It makes me sad that people could be so negligent of their yard.

For Lack of a Better Post

Feeling bad that I haven't updated the blog in a while. Mostly it's because I have a newborn and a 2 year old and a serious case of sleep deprivation. But also it's because I have lots of pics and videos and stories I want to tell but don't have time. So instead, I'll just throw a few random pictures up here that will hopefully keep me satisfied for a couple of days until I find time to organize my thoughts. Also, all of the cute pictures I've taken are on other people's cameras and I don't have copies yet.

Meili (yes, I've decided to switch it back to one name instead of Mei Li, mostly for the average American that may get confused and also for my poor daughter who would always have to tell people to add a space and a capital L.) Anyway, Meili is a month old this week. Crazy. Where did the time go? It definitely didn't get spent sleeping. :) Doubly crazy is that I feel like the majority of people I know/care about haven't even seen her yet. Oh well, she hasn't changed that much anyway. She's finally pooping. She eats better. But no change in the nighttime rage. She's cute and snuggly and warm.


Sofie is adjusting very well and LOVES Meili to pieces!

Sleeping on Daddy. Still has angry eyebrows...means she wasn't quite fully asleep yet.

Loves to stretch out and wiggle. Very different from Sofie.

Lots O' Fun

Precious toes.

Typical evening in the Blatter home.

(I barely caught the tail end of Meili's fit. I don't think Derek appreciated that my first reponse to this episode was to run and grab the camera...)

2 Weeks

At 2 weeks Mei Li enjoys crying, sleeping too lightly, and fussing or crying all night. Mom doesn't like getting 3-4 hours of sleep -total- on a nightly basis.

Help!

Wearing my super-mommy cape.

Much more alert during the day, which is fun. Unfortunately she still has no concept of night time.

Although it doesn't look like it, Mei Li actually hates this binky.

Picture Highlights

Sweet Mei Mei (which conveniently means little sister in Chinese) had jaundice, so we tried getting some sunshine during the day. She loved it! (jaundice is under control now. Thank goodness we didn't have to do the bilibed again!)

It's okay, I won't be mad if you kiss your screen right now. I probably would if she wasn't in my arms. :)

Sugar and Spice

Sofie doesn't so much like it when she cries! The first time she saw me nursing Mei Li she got so concerned that Mei Li was crying and wiggling around, Sofie teared up and said, "Just give her a bottle!" If only it was that easy! :)

Lots of company. Unfortunately Tom was the only one who couldn't make it. :(

Also unfortunate is the fact that the only "family picture" we can take is the one where I just had a freaking baby...

Hospital Stay

Me and m'girls

Lucky Daddy got to go home and get a full night's rest

Like mommy like baby

Is our family really this big now?

So nice.

Mei Li Ann -The first few hours

Mei Li was born on Friday. Hooray!

(pronounced Maylee, like Kaylee with an M. It's a chinese name that means "beautiful")

Just a few hours before going to the hospital...in the middle of the night.

Pumping blood from poor Mei Li's stomach. Placenta Abruption was pretty scary but after pumping the blood out of her stomach she seemed to be just fine. Phew! Any time I can avoid the NICU is a great time. Mei Li was also posterior (which I have found does a great job of making recovery quite uncomfortable) and had the cord tightly wrapped around her neck. All of this could have been a recipe for certain disaster if I hadn't been able to push her out in less than 5 minutes. Thank you to Dr. Jacob who knew exactly what he was doing, and also for distracting me from the reality of what was going on.

Finally, mommy got to hold the baby after a long night of hard work!

7 lbs. 9 oz. 19 inches

My aunt Deena is a Well Baby nurse and I was so lucky to have her take care of me the first shift at the hospital. She got to give Mei Li her first bath and had my room all decorated cute when I got there.

Ready, Set, Go! Oh wait, not yet.

Here's the darling rocking cradle that my dad made for us when we were babies. Perfect combo with the quilt made by Derek's Grandma Sundquist! (my mom and I made the bumper and sheet years ago.) Can't wait! No really, I can't wait any more!

(by the way, I was hoping to have a girl simply so I could have this quilt)

Unfortunately, I still have 2 weeks.

I think Sofie's sick of hearing that the baby is coming soon. But she'll make a great big sis!