Sound machines are awesome!

Here is our little beauty, a white noise machine that is helping our little one with colic to sleep better instead of scream for hours.
Hooray for white noise! (and for lifetime guarantees!)

All I want for Christmas...

...is a HEALTHY family!!!

We were hoping for an easy transition from 2 to 3 kids, maybe by the time things calm down (hopefully they will!) we will think 3 is a piece of cake!

Our life so far with 3 kids:
week 1-Lily has a fever of 104, after a few days she gets better.
week 2-Lily has another fever, after a few days, she gets better. Emma starts to get a little fussy-was is something I ate?
week 3-Emma throws up everywhere in the AM, then throws up on me in the PM. She is very fussy and we resort to the baby Bjorn and our colic techniques perfected from Spencercito's infant days. I start listing things to eliminate from my diet.
Spencer daddy gets sick. Spencercito has a fever.

...and we aren't even through with this week yet!

More pics

I had lots of fun giving Emma her first bath. She didn't enjoy it as much as I did, except getting her hair washed, which she loved.

Emma Elizabeth Lee

Emma Elizabeth Lee was born Friday, November 27th at 4:25 pm. She weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz and is 20 inches long. Other than an epidural not working for the last 2 hours of labor (OUCH! is all I have to say to that!) the delivery went very well, 2 pushes and she was out! Emma is a natural at breastfeeding and is doing great!
Enjoy her first pictures.

Adding on...
We induced Emma at 2AM, as usual it took a long time to dilate, they broke my water at 9AM, thinking I'd have the baby around noon. Well, by 3pm I was at a 4-5, the next check I was at a 7, and seriously minutes later I was at a 10 and involuntarily pushing! Dr. Cousineau had to run to get to the hospital in time, and I did my best not to push Emma out until she came! Dr. Cousineau then recommended always inducing labor after this, to avoid giving birth outside the hospital (as if my cervix would start to open without pitocin anyway).
We had a great hospital stay, my co-workers were so excited to see baby Emma, and showered us with attention, diapers, formula, etc. It was fun to see everyone again, although a little awkward on both sides, as neither were used to me being a patient, instead of a nurse. I was able to to stay in a deluxe suite and Spencer and I were treated to a special dinner of filet mignon. We felt very loved and taken care of.
The recovery for this pregnancy has been 10 times better, I am guessing because this time I didn't lose 700 cc's of blood. It has made a big difference, with the last 2 pregnancies it took me months and months to recover and get energy again I wondered if I was just being a pansy. With this recovery I don't feel nearly as drained, what a relief!

We are thankful

I asked Lily and Spencer what they were thankful for and here is their list:

kitty cat pajamas (Lily)
toys, especially trains (Spencer)
movies (both)
mickey mouse (Lily)
family (Spencer)

There isn't time to list all that I am thankful for, but I am so grateful for all the blessings that we have been given and recognize they come from our Father in Heaven.

Eviction notice

Baby Emma has received her eviction notice for Friday, November 27th. At 2AM (yes, a crazy hour, but much better than waiting until Monday!) she will be forced via pitocin to leave her uterine home and join the rest of us. We can't wait to meet her!

Oh Baby, No Baby!

Here is our no baby update:
Labor started Tuesday, 6:30 pm with contractions 10 min apart. Went to hospital at 11pm (MD wanted to monitor her from early on). Dilated to 1 cm, contractions every 5 min. Got sent home at 3AM, still at 1cm. Wednesday 4PM went to Dr's for fetal evaluation/cervical check. Dilated 2cm, baby's heart rate non-reassuring, 7 pm sent to hospital again for evaluation. 12AM sent back home from hospital, fetal heart rate fine, 2cm, contractions every 4 min. Thursday, contractions every 10-20 minutes, will see MD on Friday.
Since I am not 39 weeks until Sun they don't want to induce/augment labor unless baby's heart rate drops again.
Luckily the contractions aren't painful, just uncomfortable.

BFFs

I cherish the days when these two are each other's best buddies.


Spencer rocking and singing Lily a song before bed.

Back to normal

I am happy to report we are all back on schedule and much less cranky too!

I hate you Peter Pan!

I also hate Daylight saving time!
Both are robbing me of sleep and sanity.

One week before Daylight saving time I let the kids watch Peter Pan, thinking they would enjoy it (we are pretty strict with movie time). Here is what happens now at night:
Lily, in her own words (after screaming very loudly) "crocodile going to get me! Going to get my back and my arm!" Nice. This happens multiple times at night. MULTIPLE times. Multiple nights. During daytime Spencer keeps commenting "Peter Pan doesn't want to be killed!"

Enter Daylight savings:
The kids are usually great at sticking to their routine/schedule. But, add in Peter Pan and then daylight savings a week later, and we have a mess. Kids skipping naps, going to bed at 5:30-6PM waking all night long, and then ready to start the day at 6AM.

Seriously, this system is NOT saving me any time.

Halloween

We chose to go to the ward party and trunk-or-treat for Halloween. The kids had a great time playing the games and Spencer was thrilled that every time he said "trick-or-treat" people would give him candy. Lily was content with just one piece to munch on while Spencer filled his bag.



Lily chose to be a puppy

Spencer chose to be a fireman again this year



I decided Emma should be a spiderweb, Spencer did a great job drawing the web



Spencer playing the spider toss game


Lily terrorizing the fishing game-she did not want any part of holding the fishing pole


Lily did however, love the spider toss-she just picked up everyone's dropped spiders and placed them inside the pumpkins.

We did it!

We finally made it to a real pumpkin patch! Living in NYC and now LA has made it difficult in past years, but we took the hour long drive out of the city and had a great time. Spencer's favorite part-riding the tractors, big and small (he did ask if he could ride the pigs too, sorry buddy). He also enjoyed the corn maze, especially the part of picking which way to go at every turn. Lily's favorite part-just running around in all the open space. She also liked the chickens and really tempted them by wiggling her cute little fingers through the chicken wire




Lily tried hard to lift the big pumpkins. They probably weighed more than her 20 lbs!


Driving the tractor


Exploring


More tractors


Corn maze



Spencer asked me today what I thought was inside our pumpkin. I asked him what he thought, and he replied "maybe there is candy inside!" He will be pretty disappointed when he finds out the nasty stinkyness that is actually inside a real pumpkin!

Why I don't make cookies very often...

Somehow I got the idea to make Halloween sugar cookies (I really hate to make cookies) so that the kids could decorate them. Well, we all had a lot of fun, I think the kids got more decorated than the cookies.



I like how they both have their tongues hanging out of their mouth


Such happy cookie decorators!


I need to do something with that mullet! She keeps taking her ponytails out and putting them on her wrists, just a tiny circulation problem, that's all.




One of the cookies, notice the mountain of sprinkles


I think they liked the sprinkles more than the cookies, in the end that was what they were eating

Finally! Some pictures

Being silly-The kids were giving Minnie and Mickey piggy back rides.


Spencer loves doing his chores, especially cleaning and setting the table. His other favorite chores are making the beds, emptying and loading the dishwasher, and putting his clean clothes in his drawers.


This was me, realizing I had forgotten to take pictures of the kids at the park with a fun water area. Oops, good thing they were still cheerful in the parking lot!


Spencercito loves copying his dad either what he says and how he says it, or just how he is sitting or laying. For example:


Oh how we love watching General Conference at home!


Spencercito really got into the conference bingo. We modified it-if he heard and circled 5 words/pictures, then he got a treat. His favorite words to listen for were: President Monson, family, prayer, commandments, and love.
Lily is into coloring right now, so the bingo bought us about an hour of peaceful watching time!


The kids have had fun "practicing" for Halloween for weeks! I plan on getting a few more cheap costumes for dress-up in the after Halloween sales.

From the mind of a toddler.....

Spencercito is a wealth of information on many subjects, and loves to tell me "how everything works" Here are a few of the latest discoveries:

Spencercito seeing picture of a whale jumping out of the water:
-"Mama, does that whale have wings?"
-"No, they are called flippers, they help the whale swim in the water"
-"Then they are water wings!"
-"No, they are flippers"
-"Mama, they are water wings! They help the whale swim in the water."
At this point I decided, why argue, and laughed at my own mental picture of a whale wearing water wings.

Spencercito, after seeing the movie 'Cars' tells me: Mom, this car is a "hot water" that means it goes really fast. How does it go fast? With its "beemer", Lightening McQueen has one and he says "float like a Cadillac, sting like a Beemer" His beemer is right here in the back by the wheels.
Interesting.

Spencercito singing one of his favorite songs "Edelweiss" instead of singing "Blossoms of snow may you bloom and grow" sings "God bless the snow may you bloom and grow" If we get snow here in LA for Christmas, you can blame him!

As for our Lily, she loves to talk and sing too. Her quotes however are more characteristic of an almost "terrible two" tot.
"No! I don't want that!" "NO! No THANK YOU!!!" "No Spencer, No mommy, No daddy!!!" "I WANT IT"
In her sweet moments she does say "I love you mommy","Thanks", sings and rocks her stuffed animals to sleep, and my favorite: comes up the belly, kisses it, pats it and says "baby Emma"

I must say life with two tots is never boring!

What's new

Life is busy!
Here is what is taking up our time...

-A car that is terminally ill (seriously, it is burning up all its oil every 2 weeks!) we may be back to only one car again, our mechanic will let us know this Friday-but he isn't too optimistic.

-Park days, play dates, swimming, library story time, music classes, OB appointments, meals, naps, dishes and laundry!

-Extra training days at work-we are moving from paper charting to computer charting. It looks like the extra money will be just in time if our car is worth fixing.

-Spencer getting so many new patients each week that he doesn't have an appointment opening for at least 2 weeks! We are glad he is getting so much done, but we miss him! (Really, we shouldn't complain-at least now he is home before midnight EVERY day!)

-Baby Emma growing so huge in her breech position that my maternity clothes I wore even the last few weeks of pregnancy with Spencer and Lily don't fit now (and I still have 8+weeks to go!) I'm not really sure that she is huge-but the belly is, and I haven't gained much weight either so what is going on here?

Whew! Here's hoping to a calmer week.

The results are in.......

Spencer earned a great score of 88 on the dental boards exam!
To give some background, this is the test he has been studying two years for! It basically covers the first two years of what medical and dental students learn. Passing is a 75. In the categories (dental anatomy, pathophysiology /microbiology, biochemistry, anatomical physiology) Spencer scored 10-20 points higher than the average in each category. This score gives him the opportunity to apply to specialize in pretty much everything except Orthodontics. We are so proud of him and grateful for all the prayers in our behalf, we feel very blessed.

Follow up on big girl bed...

Lily is doing AWESOME in her big girl bed! There have been a couple of rebellions, lots of bumps on the head (from bouncing around like crazy-you'd think we didn't have a trampline right in the room-which we do by the way), but now she has truly graduated into the land of the "big girls". Hooray.

A big girl bed!

(Lily seems to be getting more than her fair share of posts, I'll have to do a special one on Spencercito soon.)

Out of pure necessity Lily has been transitioned into her "big girl" bed. I am sure we are in for many nights of "get back in bed, get back in bed, get back in bed!" But at least we won't find her standing on the dresser at 6AM (I really don't want anymore ER visits) The kids had fun decorating her wall for our Monday night family activity time.

So far......Night ONE: she fell right aleep, no problem. I wonder how she'll be for her nap tomorrow? Wish us luck!

Two more firsts for Lily...

Lily's first ER visit:
On Sunday she went from being just fine to refusing to walk or stand, favoring her right leg and was inconsolable. Finally we took her to the ER, wondering if somehow she'd fallen and broken something. Hours, ultrasounds, and X-rays later, the MD came to the conclusion that she probably had a virus settle into her hip socket, causing "transient hip pain". The treatment: nothing. But, we are glad we took her since she was reluctant to walk the next day, and then kept on tripping and falling. Today she seemed like her usual self, hooray.

Lily's first potty experience:



Lily has been insisting on using the potty and letting me know when she has to go. This started a few months ago, but I just wasn't ready for potty training and all the fun that goes with it. I finally got Spencer's potty down for her after some near falling in experiences with the regular potty. She loves her potty so much she doesn't want to leave it. She will just sit and sit and clap and smile, check her progress, and sit again. The only problem-she hates underwear and won't leave them on. Yes, I have a streaker on my hands. Oh well. I'll have a few months of diaper free days before Emma comes in November.

Mini Lee update...

Lily is 18 months old! She has had a very exciting half-birthday:
Since technically with clothes on she weighs 20 lbs she can now ride facing forward in her car seat. Yea! This has opened up a whole new world, and has made car travel more enjoyable for the whole family. (Thanks, Christy, for giving us the car seat-Lily has 4 more pounds to go to fit into Spencer's old one)
She gets to go to nursery, which she loves already
Our pediatrician gave the go-ahead to stop feeding her during the night (hooray!)
About a month or two ago she decided to start potty-training herself. (In a few weeks I plan to tackle that job completely)

Lily's stats:
19 lbs 15 oz (just below the 3rd percentile-but she is on the chart!)
32 inches (about 60th percentile)

Spencer's Stats:
31 lbs (25th percentile)
41 inches (90th percentile)


Fun tidbits of info:

How the kids are alike:
-They both have undying ENERGY and one volume-LOUD
-Both are very social and outgoing
-Neither like to eat
-Both are very determined and detail-oriented
-They LOVE to read
-Favorite songs are "Wheels on the Bus"& "Twinkle, Twinkle"
-They adore cats and dogs (in movies, books, live, etc)
-Cinderella is their favorite movie
-Both HATE their hands being dirty

How the kids are different:
-gender, of course!
-Spencer prefers trains, Lily prefers cars
-Lily would rather push the stroller and knock down towers, Spencer prefers constructing masterpiece towers or garages with blocks and preserving them
-Spencer loves to explain and tell stories, Lily loves to say "NO!" to everything-such a fun stage!
-Lily prefers the top two steps of the pool and several bowls and cups to play with; while Spencer prefers swimming the day away wearing his floaties and chasing balls
-Spencer asks for his teeth to be brushed, Lily hates it
-Lily hates to be rocked, Spencer asks for extra snuggles in the rocking chair

Freedom!

We finally came to the conclusion that we should have a second car. So, after over a week of searching and disappointments (LA isn't the most honest of cities) we found a car that just fit our budget (which wasn't a lot!) and will hopefully run well for these last 2 years of dental school.

What I already like about having 2 cars:

-No more waking the kids up early/late to drive/pick up Spencer from Dental School (and it's not in a great area either-not too fun to wait around in)
-I can have a play date any day I want!
-No more need to cram all our errands into one day (bank, groc shopping, etc)
-We can go fun places anytime we please (Zoo, museums, etc)
*When I lock myself and the kids out of our apartment, Spencer can come in the other car to rescue us (oh, did that happen yesterday? YES!)


Here is a picture:

She is a 97 Toyota Corolla, with a sun roof, alarm system, etc. And, the owner donated the $ to a non-profit save the animals organization (so we kind of helped charity too, in a way :))

It's a .............

GIRL!!!!

We'll post some pictures of Emma Elizabeth soon, so far she is our biggest baby, weighing almost a pound at 20 1/2 weeks.

Our little Pippi Longstocking

These have to be the world's smallest braids! I can't believe I can braid what little hair she has, and that she actually lets me!

How to kill a vacation in 4 easy steps...

Step 1- Enter the horrible flu virus on day 1 of vacation, both lasting almost a week
Step 2- Add two small children, getting the flu 2 days apart
Step 3- Mix well with 1 hotel room without a DVD player
Step 4- Ruin the 4th of July by adding mom to the list of flu casualties, and adding a second week of being stuck in the house with two cranky kids (and now a sick mommy).

If anyone needs any help killing their vacation, just let me know-we are now experts!

Dr. Lee and no more paci!

Two wonderful items of news to report:

Spencer has officially "become" a student dentist by starting to see patients who actually pay for his services. Unfortunately they don't pay him, USC school of dentistry gets the $ until he graduates, but still we are very excited for him. It's fun to think that people are already calling my hubby "Dr. Lee" Way to go honey!

Liliana has officially become a big girl and has left her paci in babyland. I kept telling her I wasn't going to buy anymore and she kept throwing them while on walks in the stroller, losing them in the house, and my favorite-making them disappear during the night-where then we would have to play "find the binkie" at 3AM. On Saturday she will be one week paci-free. Congrats Lily! It was a rough couple of days, but oh so worth it!

Round two...

So I shouldn't have posted that last post, morning sickness round two started right after. We also backed up our computer onto our very same computer (oops!) and we can't seem to find out where it is stored or how to delete it. So now we have no more space for me to download all of my great pictures (over 1GB!). Oh well.

Here's another little update:

-I am almost through the Suzuki violin book one (for the second time!) I have remembered quite a lot, considering the 4 year break I took when we got married and only one year of lessons I had my senior year in college. And NO, I will not be posting any video of me playing (you can always ask the neighbors how I sound-but they are probably much happier now that I bought a practice mute!). However, Lily loves my Twinkle Twinkle-she is my biggest fan. She sits on my bed and dances to the music while I play.

-I love summer! As we swam in the pool today I smelled the chlorine, felt the warm sunshine, and ate fishy crackers for our snack I was taken back to my summer childhood pool days. Such pleasant memories!

-Spencercito is enjoying the whole new realm of foods containing wheat. I must say I can't resist giving him a slice of bread whenever he asks, which is often. He eats each bite with such joy and satisfaction, its so cute (and a little sad-the poor deprived little one)to see.

We're back!

Has it really been 5 weeks? Wow, I only have one word: MORNING SICKNESS (okay, two words!)
Here is a list of things that deserve more than the blurb I will give you now, but who knows if I will get around to it any time soon. I am feeling better, but now have to regain control of the house, etc.

-The Bragg family from Benton City came to visit and we had a great time! They are a great family I met on my mission and we became instant friends and soon adopted one another as family. Spencercito loved Lexi and has insisted that he pray "like Lexi" (meaning in English) ever since.

-We got a welcome break from Dental school and visited family in AZ. As always we enjoyed our time there, especially visiting with family. Another perk was that we got our car fixed for over $1000 less than our quote in LA.

-Spencer and I had our 4th wedding anniversary!

-Grandpa Carroll came to visit and the kids loved the extra attention. Poor little things, being neglected by a sick mama! I think we all have Cinderella (the new favorite) memorized after these last few weeks.

-My niece Sarah has come out to help us for a month and we are so excited to have her! I'm not sure she realized what she was getting into... She is helping out with the kids a lot and we are glad to have her.

-I finally got a much needed haircut and by some unfortunate circumstances ended up getting 6 inches off instead of just 2. Luckily the cut is cute and my hair grows fast.

-Spencercito finished his gymnastics program.

Thats it for now. Check back later for pics.

MiniLee #3

Wahoo!!! We are so very excited to announce the upcoming arrival of the newest little Lee, coming to Southern California around Thanksgiving! Spencercito is adamant that he get another baby sister, we shall see. Lily, of course, is still blissfully unaware that her turn as "baby" will be up soon. Since I am only 8 weeks along, I'll skip the ultrasound pics for now-the baby just looks like a cute little jelly bean with a heart beat.

Hit and Run

Well, it is official. We are now seasoned Southern Californians. We had our first (and hopefully only!) hit and run accident on a 6 lane freeway. Boy was it fun! Basically, I was changing to a right lane (which was clear when I checked) and a car zoomed up very fast, trying to pass us on the right. I swerved back into my original lane but the car had braked and started fishtailing out of control and ended up hitting us anyway. Then the car fishtailed to the right (across 4 lanes) and exited, never to be seen again. I took the next exit, which was a completely different freeway, called 911 and though the police came there wasn't anything they could do except say that it happens a lot. Of course I didn't get the license plate # as I was so shocked and it all happened so quickly. Our insurance was so very helpful as to say that though I have uninsured driver insurance, a hit and run isn't covered because they aren't sure that the driver did not, in fact, have insurance. Well, that's great for me, isn't it? Luckily we are still able to drive our car, but we will be switching insurance companies. Who knows what will happen in good old SoCal over the next two years.

Spring!!!

My favorite- the Japanese Magnolia tree- it looks like a stick with huge flowers, then the leaves come later. Just beautiful!



It's the first day of Spring! Even in Southern Cal it is nice to have it officially here. The plants and flowers have made everything so beautiful. Our own little project from our "learning about plants week" is growing quite nicely, lots of little sprouts with green leaves. Spencer is waiting patiently for the flowers to appear and looks at the plant frequently to observe the progress.

I have started spring cleaning and it is going well. It is so nice to have everything super clean and organized! Too bad I'm not done yet-so half the house is looking good, and the other half is a mess! I give myself a whole week, with different tasks each day, this makes it easier to accomplish. I can't believe how much we accumulate each year! We had four phone books I'm pretty sure we haven't opened once, just taking up space. The kids had 1/2 a CD case with great music that magically reappeared once I organized the hall closet. Spencer is loving putting his toys in the new bins I got from IKEA, unfortunately he only wants a few cars in each bin. I'm still trying to explain that the point was for all of the toys to fit inside.

Why?

(This post is a clever way of me complaining just a little)

Why is is that children need to do everything themselves?

Along with that-Why is it that they manage to spill 1 cup of orange juice and 1 cup of Pediasure (within 30 seconds)on a not-even-dry-yet mopped floor?

Why is is that food cannot be eaten in a highchair, but must be thrown onto the floor to be eaten as soon as they are taken out of the highchair?

Why does a certain one year old have a fascination of emptying entire boxes of cereal on said floor?-repeated times (and yes, I did finally confiscate all cereal boxes and place them safely out of reach)

Why did we store our 5 gallon boxes of water in our closet?
and...why did we stack them- when on the boxes themselves it said not to stack?

Why did it take so long for us to notice our progressively soggy closet floor?

Why is it that the clean laundry has to all be thrown out of the baskets, trampled on, folded, unfolded, folded again, and raced to the dressers before the clothes are then taken out of the dressers and then unfolded and trampled on again?

Why does mold grow on our bedroom walls by furniture too heavy to move by myself and in places I can't even get into to clean?

Why is is that right before professional Easter pictures both children have bruises on their faces that look as if they are abused?

Why does a certain 3 year old make up his own language (two isn't enough?!) and find it hilarious that you can't understand him?

Why are kids happier playing with a pan full of uncooked rice and measuring cups than store bought toys?

The Mini Lees

This post is dedicated to the kids, as they both have had birthdays recently. We were soooooo sick the whole month of Spencer's birthday that nothing really got done. So, here it is:




Spencer Joseph Lee, born Feb 19th is now 3 years old!
He weighs 31 pounds (with his clothes on!)-40th percentile and is 38 inches tall-50th percentile. His favorite color is still GREEN and his favorite food is still CHEESE. Favorite song: The Wiseman, close second: Twinkle Twinkle. He loves construction equipment, fire trucks, airplanes, trains, trucks and cars, in that order. He also loves flashlights, bicycles, tricycles, scooters, etc. Recently he has discovered the joys of sand play (he is finally ok with getting his hands dirty) and spends each day putting his construction sand toys to good use at the park. He is still an incredibly energetic, persistent and happy boy who loves to read and especially tell stories about anything and everything. Spencer is such a fast runner (really, I can barely catch him!)that we will be putting him in soccer very soon and I have high hopes for him as an Olympic sprinter some day.

He wanted a Thomas the train birthday cake-this was the best I could do. It looks more like a race car, but he was happy.







Liliana Lee born Jan 23rd is one year old!...and a few months. We finally had the chance to take her for her 1-year check up and here are her stats:
Height 29", Weight 16 lbs, 15.5 oz. In case you were wondering, that puts her below the 3rd percentile for weight, and 50th for height. However, the MD pointed out that at least she is following her own little curve on the growth chart, waaaay down in the bottom! We have decided to test both kids for Celiac disease next week to rule it out as a possible cause of poor weight gain. I however, know that lack of calories (she won't eat much! and Spencer doesn't sit still to eat much of anything) is more likely the culprit. So, we are back to PediaSure, avacados, cheese, butter, and hours of trying to get the little princess and our prince to eat.
Anyway, it seems like Lily learns a new word every day. Her recent ones include: Abuelo (Abuuo), queso (kayko), jugo (kuko), and my favorite sientate (tentate). She loves books (especially of animals)and I often find her sitting among a pile of books reading to herself in the corner. I am amazed at how much she understands, she can answer simple yes no questions and follow simple commands. She is quickly learning how to undress herself and can kick a ball quite far. Lily wishes she could join her brother in gymnastics and I will get a video up soon of her doing her version of a somersault, in true gymnast style. Last of all, she loves to draw and does draw on anything she can get her hands on! Maybe we have a budding artist on our hands.