Penny is…

…10 weeks old today.

…over 14 lbs!

…more bald now than when she was born.

…round and squishy and blessed with four rolls per thigh.

…fussy.

…starting to giggle these days, though it really sounds more like a cough.

…the spit-up queen. So much spit-up comes out of this little girl I am amazed she retains enough calories to support her constant weight gain.

…charming us all with her wide open mouth grins, reminding us of Zoe when she was a baby.

…a great sleeper if we start out the day right with quiet naps at home.

…a horrid sleeper if we try to get her to nap on the move when we are out and about.

…fitting into size 9 month clothes already!

…most likely to smile when you say her name.

…a baby that likes to be bounced and walked. She can even tell if you are sitting and bouncing her instead of standing and she does not like it.

…looking more like mommy’s baby pics than daddy’s these days.

…still sleeping by our bed- a record since both Reese and Zoe had been banished to their own rooms by this point in their infancy.

…blue-eyed.

…finally starting to get easier now that she is on regular acid reflux medication!

…such a cutie.

Green Chile Zucchini Enchiladas

This yummy recipe courtesy of my Mommy. Please note my slight alterations to make it even more healthy:).

6-8 corn tortillas

Enchilada filling:
3 Tbsp oil(I only used 1 1/2 Tbsp)
2 cups cooked rice
1 yellow squash, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 zucchini, sliced
1 c corn(canned, frozen, fresh)
1 c black beans
1 c kidney beans
1 tsp cumin

Green chile sauce:
1/4 cup butter( I cut this down to 1/8 and used smart balance instead)
1 tsp garlic
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cups milk(soy milk works fine)
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp vegetable or chicken bouillon
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 can diced green chiles
1 cup grated monterey jack cheese( I cut this down to 1/2 c, I have also made this without cheese entirely and it tastes great!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat oil over medium heat and sauté onion and squash until tender. In a bowl mix all filling ingredients including cooked onion and squash. In a saucepan melt butter and then add garlic and onion and cook until onion is translucent. Remove pan from heat and stir in flour. Return to burner and drizzle in milk, stirring continuously until mixture thickens. When all milk has been incorporated, add bouillon, salt, cumin, coriander and green chiles.
Grease a 9×13 baking pan, place 1/2-3/4 cup of filling in each tortilla and roll up. It’s best if you wilt each tortilla in oil or steam to soften. Place filled tortillas in prepared baking pan seam side down. Once baking dish is filled cover with green chile sauce and spindle cheese on top. Bake 20-25 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and garnish as desired.

I am almost always left with tons of filling. I refrigerate it and eat it by itself or wrapped in a burrito for lunch the next day, it’s yummy as is! Wish I had a picture to show but it it was eaten too fast. Yum!

How we are doing…

Many people may be wondering just how we are doing now that we are 8 weeks into the chaos of having three kids. So I thought it was time for an update. How about we break it down by family member?

Mark: Has reacted to turning 30 by going on another big health kick. We both got into a winter slump this year and shamefully did not really keep up our healthy eating or exercising habits. This seems to be a pattern with both of us, but at least it seems like we always manage to get back on track at some point during the year. Mark has been the one to ignite this year’s upswing by getting us into drinking “green smoothies” every night after we watched this amazing documentary. He has also been biking to work once again and following up by running in the evenings. Let me just say that a man that inspires me to be healthier is a very attractive thing.

Meghan: Has gone through many ups and downs throughout the course of these last 8 weeks. Just when I think I have things under control and this whole “three kids” thing is not so bad- we have an awful day and I find myself wanting to curl up in bed and pretend I don’t hear my kids crying.

I knew that this would be hard. Everyone told me going to three kids was hard. What I didn’t plan on was the sheer impossible-ness of some days. As a mother there have been times in the past where I didn’t feel like taking care of my kids some days, but I have never felt completely and utterly overwhelmed and unable to handle the simple task of caring for my kids. Yet some days I wake up in the morning and I truly do not know how I am going to manage. It has been a huge blow to my self-esteem that I feel so helpless some days. I am a person who likes to feel productive and self-sufficient. But in the last few weeks I have had to accept and beg for help from so many friends and family members and not be able to give anything in return but my gratitude. That’s all well and good for the first few weeks- people expect you to need help in the beginning- but by now I should have it together right?! I don’t feel like I can complain about needing help anymore, when some days I really do!

The one thing that has actually been a great source of relief for me has been returning to photography and beginning to take client sittings again. Most people would think that would add more stress to my life- but truthfully it is so cathartic for me. It’s a chance I have to get away from my life for a couple of hours and take joyful pictures of happy families. It’s something I feel good at, something that inspires me, something that makes me grateful for my own children, and after that short time away I always come back to my kids and feel so much more patient and loving towards them. I also am so grateful to feel excited about photography again since towards the end of my pregnancies I always feel like I am just going through the motions a bit and I am not as inspired or creative during shoots. Now I am brain-storming so many great ideas for shoots, plans for my business, mapping out what I want to do in the future. It feels so good.

I also have been trying to keep up with Mark and started exercising again last week. I’m not intent on losing the baby weight quickly, I simply have found that I need exercise for my sanity. It makes my whole day go better if I get to break a sweat in the morning without my kids in tow. I’m so grateful I have a gym membership where the daycare is awesome and I totally trust the fun ladies there with my 7-week-old baby! Last week I got to swim, bike, lift weights, and run 2 miles!

Reese: Is doing great at being a big sister to two siblings now. I think she finally sees Zoe as a playmate and someone she can have fun with as opposed to a baby who can’t join in her games of pretend. They entertain each other so well some of the time and with each day they need me to join in or to referee less. Bless her heart, she is so patient and long-suffering with the many unfair situations that take place when you are the big sister. She puts up with Zoe’s bullying(I’m talking full-on hair-pulling, shoving, kicking, toy-stealing). She doesn’t throw tantrums when I make her give up a toy or other item simply to keep Zoe from screaming. She makes a sincere effort to keep Zoe happy and not ruffle her feathers. She listens to me most of the time even when what I ask her to do is not fair. She askes to hold baby Penny often and loves to make her smile. She is truly a fantastic eldest child. I don’t know what I would do if she was difficult as well.

This summer has been a busy one for Reese. I understand now why preschool is kind of important for children this age. Reese is so bored. She is constantly asking me what she can do. A part of me feels bad that I don’t have more fun activities and ideas up my sleeve to keep her entertained but I have learned that even when I do provide an activity it only usually entertains her for about 15 minutes, so I have kind of given up! She is so hungry for information, learning, and activity and she gets very whiny when she doesn’t have these things. I can’t wait for her to be in preschool in the fall! Still, we have finally enrolled her in some classes this summer to keep her a little busy. She is taking a gymnastics class once a week with her cousin Sophie, which she loves. She says her favorite thing is the big pit of “bouncy things” aka foam cubes. She also just finished up with an 8-week swimming class and is really enjoying swimming this year. Last year she was still iffy about the water, but this year she begs to go swimming and she doesn’t need me at all if she is wearing water wings.

Zoe: Is a monster. What? You thought that she would grow out of it? Yeah, me too:).

Zoe is growing in height and lately I have noticed that she is beginning to lose that “baby chub” and is starting to lengthen and slim as children do when they are growing out of the toddler phase. Though the girl is still seriously lacking in the hair department…

She is talking much more now, though I doubt many people would understand her besides Mark and I(oh, and Reese seems to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what she is saying). It seems every day she is saying something new, but I love that she still uses many of her signs and nods her head when she says “yes”.  Screaming does still seem to be her #1 form of communication, and I swear you have never heard a child throw a tantrum like this girl can. Epic tantrums, seriously.

She is in that stage where she is learning new things all the time and I love to watch her eyes light up with understanding. She gets truly excited over something as simple as learning to buckle herself into her highchair, and the name of an animal in the book she is looking at. Speaking of books, this girl seriously LOVES books. I can’t tell you how many times a day she walks up to me with a book, shoves it in my hands, and then backs up into my lap. As soon as she is all settled in my my lap she points to the book and then frantically makes the sign for more as she says “moe, book? moe, book?” If I don’t start reading right away the quiet “moe” quickly turns into a screaming “MOE!”.

We recently took Zoe to a podiatrist because of her unusual walk. She looks like she has been walking for a couple of months instead of nearly a year. Her right foot turns in quite a bit giving her a pigeon-toed gait and causing her to stumble and fall down quite often. We were concerned but the Podiatrist assured us that while her bones are most definitely torqued abnormally, it’s nothing to worry about and she will most likely grow out of it. For now she just has an adorably funny walk that I kind of love.

Penny: oh Penny…

Penny has acid reflux. Yeah. Bummer.

She has been a fussy baby since she was born. I kept waiting for her to grow out of it. Because we didn’t seem to have any feeding issues like I did with Zoe I didn’t think that her fussiness was related to eating. But just over the last week she began to have all kinds of problems feeding and started exhibiting classic signs of acid reflux. I am freaking out a little because we were doing so well on the breastfeeding front and I really REALLY don’t want it to be nightmarish like it was with Zoe. You may remember that we ended up giving up on breastfeeding when she was only three months old because it was so difficult. I do not want that to happen again! We have started her on medication and I am hoping it helps. I so badly want her to just be a happy and content baby.

Oh yeah, and that thing about fat babies being able to sleep through the night earlier on?…MYTH! We have not gotten the sleep thing under control or on any kind of schedule. I don’t remember it being this hard with Reese or Zoe. I remember them falling into predictable patterns much more naturally than Penny is. Her sleep is all over the place and the longest stretch of sleep she has gone between feedings is just over 6 hours. Oh, how I miss my sleep.

In good news, she has started the earliest stages of giggling. She opens her mouth in a big smile and lets out little squeals and coos. It’s darling and when she does it I can almost forgive her all the hours of crying and fussing…almost. Reese, as is typical, is the best at eliciting smiles from her and is hard at work to become the first one to make her laugh in earnest.

So there it is. We are surviving, but just barely some days. I look forward to the day when I will sleep through the night again, when I don’t have to spend a good portion of each evening walking the floor jiggling an unhappy infant, when I can venture out of the house with all three kids and not return home feeling defeated. I know it will all get better, I just don’t know when…

Starting Out

This may sound strange, but I love hospitals.

When I was younger I dreamed of becoming a neo-natal nurse. I thoroughly enjoy medical drama type shows on TV including ER and Grey’s Anatomy. I am a Certified Medical Assistant. One of my favorite classes I have ever taken was Human Anatomy. Medicine fascinates me and I love hospitals, even when I am the patient.

That being said, I hate laboring and delivering with my babies. It’s uncomfortable, painful, and no matter what some people say- it is not like running a marathon! It’s an ordeal and I don’t like it one bit.

But there is one thing I look forward to, one thought I cling to all through those long months of pregnancy as I face the fact that my baby has to come out of me one way or another. It is that first day in the hospital with my new baby. I don’t know what it is but for me that first day after Reese, Zoe, and Penny each were born was magical.

It could be because I am so relieved that it’s over and that baby is out of me. It may be because I am enjoying the company of such a tiny and perfect child that I helped create. It’s possible that I’m finally feeling normal hormone levels for the first time in months. It may be because of the sweet spirit of a child so new from heaven. I really have no idea why those three days reside so firmly in my mind as three of the most perfect days in my life, but they do. I loved every moment of them. And when I think about when I had my babies, more often than not those days pop into my mind more readily than the memories of the long labors and the hours of agony.

When I was getting close to the end of my pregnancy with Penny, my friend Jackie asked if I would like her to come and take pictures of us in the hospital after Penny was born. At first, I declined. After all- who really wants to have their pictures taken the day after having a baby?! But then I remembered how much I adore that first day with my baby, and I decided that I really did want that captured, no matter what I looked like. Jackie was amazing and while I sadly did not provide her with the best conditions to shoot in, she still delivered with some beautiful photos that truly capture the feelings that I have from that first day with my little Penny Rose. I love them.

Slice of Life: How I Wake Up

I never know what will happen when I wake up in the morning. It’s always a surprise.

Some mornings I wake up to silence. Upon leaving my room I find the house empty, my children and husband missing, and usually some cryptic message about Mark taking the kiddos on an adventure so I can have a break from being a Mommy for the morning. Those mornings are lovely.

Other mornings I wake up to crying kids who are already having melt-downs at 7 in the morning. When I wake up to screaming I know it’s going to be a long hard day.

Once in awhile I am woken up by my sweet husband and four-year-old who have made me breakfast in bed for no reason at all just so I can feel like a queen for a few minutes. Those mornings I revel in the blissful silence of eating breakfast all by myself.

There have been mornings in the past(and hopefully I will be able to have mornings like this again soon!) when I wake up to my alarm and get up before everyone else and put on my tennis shoes and head out for a morning run. Those mornings always start out my day right, even though it’s close to impossible to convince myself to get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

There are mornings I have been woken up by vomiting(everyone else’s, including Cibo), kisses, ominous “THUMP” noises, hunger, belly kicks, cold, illness, smoke alarms, crying, pain, and cuddles.

But my favorite way to be woken up by far is when these two little munchkins come into my bed and proceed to jump and cuddle and giggle me into awake. It’s never fun to wake up, but when your one-year-old laughs and gives you “loves” and your four-year-old sings you a “waking up song”, nothing could be sweeter.

This is what most of my mornings look like…

Old Cobi

We have one family dog: Cibo. Cute, wild, crazy Cibo. He’s a part of the family. He loves our children. He’s insane.

But I have another dog, a much more normal one. When I was teenager, he was a Christmas present to my sister and I. My parents conveniently wiped that memory away, but I know that Cobi is still my dog. Besides being quite old, he’s also dying very quickly. His last few weeks here are being filled with treats, meat, and visits to his favorite place on earth: the beach. I have never seen a bigger transformation in a dog when he arrives at the beach and smells the sea air. It’s as though 10 years just melt off of him. Anyways, on to the photos from our latest beach trip with poor old Cobi: