Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas and hope you all did, too. Enjoy the photos. There is a collection here: some are from when I took the girls to the mall to watch puppet shows, playing at Uncle Sean and Aunt Natalie's with Cousin Drew, and Christmas morning.

Claire is 1 month!

And weighs 8 pounds 3 ounces!

Claire's Weight

When Claire was born, she weighed 6 pounds 5 ounces. When we left the hospital, she was 6 pounds 2.5 ounces and two days later she was 6 pounds 1.7 ounces. When I took her to the doctor last Monday, she was 6 pounds 6 ounces. Yesterday when I took her to the Lactation Consultant she weighs 7 pounds 0.7 ounces! She gained a whole 10 ounces in 7 days! The Lactation Consultant was thrilled and surprised and I was just ecstatic. Hopefully, Claire will not be like her big sister and have a problem gaining weight (don't we wish we had that problem, ladies?). Although, I have to say, Olivia takes after her daddy, who was always skinny and tall as a kid and didn't break 100 pounds until he was a freshman in high school.
As for me, my appointment went great. I have 5 more pounds to lose until I am at my pre-pregnancy weight, but I want to be at my pre-pregnancy weight with Olivia so I have a couple of more pounds to lose. Right now, I am not trying to lose weight since I have to feed Claire and need all the nutrients and calories I can get right now. My incision looks great and my weight restrictions have been lifted; I just have to use common sense. I go back in 4 weeks and hopefully all of my restrictions will be lifted.
As promised, I will try to upload pictures tonight. Last night, I fell asleep and Jonathon was too busy with work to show me how to download pictures anyway.

Doing much better

Hi all! I just wanted to let everyone know that I am doing a lot better since my last post.
Claire has started nursing more regularly, which has been a huge help, and I am having to pump less and less, which is also a huge help. I am still not enjoying nursing, but it is getting easier and hopefully, as she gets older, she will get faster. Right now, it takes about 45 minutes to feed her. The first 15 minutes are filled with her latching on, getting off, passing gas, and then repeating. After all the gas is passed, she finally nurses for 15 minutes on each side. However, those first 15 minutes are trying because I want her to eat but she can't because her tummy hurts.
By the way, I want you all to know my mom totally rocks. She came down her for three days last week and totally decluttered and cleaned my house from top to bottom. It took her three whole days, but she got it done, including all of my laundry. So, with all the cleaning and laundry out of the way for a couple of days, I am feeling really good. It took Jonathon 10 minutes to put all of the trash out on trash day and a whole truck load was donated to CCA. Wow! I knew I had a bunch of stuff, but I didn't know I had that much. Anyway, it feels good to start new and fresh.
Last Monday I took Claire in for her two week appointment, although she was only one week old. Her Jaundice is going down and she doesn't look as Mexican/Asian as she did when we first brought her home. She also gained her birth weight back plus an ounce and grew an 1 3/4". Today, I go for my two week checkup and afterwards, I am going to take her up to the Lactation Consultant and get her weight checked. I know she has gained some weight and she is starting to chunk up, especially in her face. Her sweet cheeks are getting even chubbier and sweeter.
Olivia is doing fantastic. She is going to spend all this week at her sitter's house and then each week, I am going to gradually keep her home more and more until she is home full time with me and Claire. Since it is getting cold outside and people are starting to get sick, I think it is best for her to keep going to the sitter's so she can get some social interaction with kids her own age because right now, I am not taking Claire anywhere, unless I absolutely have to.
Olivia loves to pet and talk to "Baby Claire", as we affectionately call her. She also loves being our helper. Whatever we are doing, she has to do it too. Yesterday, I was vacuuming the living room and she went and got her vacuum and did it, too. She is so cute!
I would love to end this post with pictures, but unfortunately, we got a new camera and I have not taken the time to learn how to download the pictures from the camera to the computer. So, when Jonathon gets home tonight, I will have him post new pictures.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and thank you for all of your encouraging words and prayers; they really have helped.