Catching up

Once again it's been a while since my last post.  I don't know where to start again so I'm just going to sift through my pictures and start from where I left off.  To begin with, Bryce was out of town last week so I packed up my girls and we spent a night in Pearland with Lao Nian and Lao Yie.  It was Lilly's first of many visits to their house.  :)

Mei Mei right where she likes to be.

I love that Abby likes to eat Chinese ling shi (junk food) just like me.  She LOVES eating you yu shi...just like me!

And she also loves to eat RIIIBBSS!!

Last Wednesday Abby had her 3 year well check and she did great!  There were many firsts: first time to have her blood pressure taken with a small pressure cuff, first time to have a vision test and first time there were no shots!  And as for the obligatory stats, she's 39" tall (85%) and 37.4 lbs (93%).  She's grown 4" since her 2 year well check!  

For some reason the pic won't rotate but this is Abby getting her blood pressure taken.  She didn't like how the cuff was squeezing her.

In an effort to be fair, we realized we hadn't taken any bath time pictures for Lilly so here it is!  Shhh...don't tell her she's using Abby's monogrammed monkey towel from Ruby a-yi.  :P

Haha, poor Lilly!  All Abby wanted to do was hold her.  We're still working on that....  :)

Tummy time!  Everything you've seen on or around Lilly used to be Abby's, including this tummy time mat.  Lilly wasn't too thrilled about it but Abby has been playing with it non-stop since we busted it out.

Abby trying to show Lilly all the neat things about the mat.

I love sleeping baby pictures.  Can't get enough.

When the weather warmed up this past Saturday, Abby got to swim for the first time this summer at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  I have no idea why she posed like this but I'm glad I got it on camera - she looks silly!

I can't leave without a quick update on Lilly's progress.  She's 6 weeks and 1 day old now and the only surprising thing about her so far is her neck is freakishly strong already.  She has been able to flip her head around while lying on her tummy for about a week now.  Although she is smaller than Abby was at this age, she is definitely stronger and more wiggly.  She continues to be a snacker which means less sleep for us between meals.  But otherwise she's a sweet, sweet baby.  And Abby had her first dentist appointment today too and she did sooo well!  She really enjoyed getting her teeth cleaned and she looked like such a big girl.  :)

Lilly at 1 month and 2 days....

So I'm 2 days late...it happens!  Lilly is growing like a weed lately and getting nice and chubby too.  Her arm and leg rolls have come in, she's out of newborn and into her 0-3 month onesies and she must be about 8 lbs by now.  And her eyes are still blue too!  Her hair has also grown quite a bit for one month and it sticks up now like Abby's used to.  And oddly enough, her hair is curly when it's wet!

Abby's 3rd Birthday Party

We had a fun family birthday party for Abby once again this year.  Last year we just returned from Taiwan and I didn't have time to plan a BIG party and this year, Lilly was only 3 weeks old so again, we didn't have time to invite all of her school friends.  Luckily, family parties are the best and Abby had a blast so all in all, the party was another success!

Ode to Lilly

This post will be dedicated exclusively to Lilly pictures.  She's sleeping in most of the pictures but then again, she IS a newborn.  :)  Enjoy!

Tong Ma Ma holding Lilly.  She held me and Ruby when we were baby's too.  :)

You can actually see her red-ish colored eye brows in this picture.

Abby never fell asleep in this but Lilly seems to like it.

Close up of my little baby.

Look at how little she looks on Bryce!  We love our little peanut!

We'll admit it, Bryce and I spoil our girls and we love for them to fall asleep on us.  It's a bad habit to form but it's worth the warm fuzzy feeling you get from bonding/canoodling.  :)

Yep, it's happened....

...I had a second baby and I fell behind on blogging.  A slew of new things have been going on in the Baker Family since my last post so I'm just going to cut to the chase and post pictures.

Our 7 year anniversary snuck up on us this year (my birthday, the birth of Lilly, then BAM - we both knew April 2nd had some significance!).  So Bryce prepared one of my favorite meals.  What you don't see is the prime NY strip, grilled garlic ciabatta and a bottle of our favorite wine, Turley.  It was delicious and Abby loved it all too!

Abby loving up on Lilly.  She is always wanting to help out and gets upset when we don't let her.  We are in the beginning stages of watching them interact and it's pretty fascinating already.

I can either call this picture "Nostril Shot" since you can see clear up both my girl's noses or I can call it "Happy Daddy" since he's got his 2 girls in his arms and he's CLEARLY got this dad thing down with my hospital grade breast pump and hospital jug-O-water in the background.

A close up of Mei Mei at 1 week old.

Bryce and Abby dying Easter eggs!

Us trying to get a normal smile out of Abby.  We take what we can get!  :P

Ta-da!  16 marbled Easter eggs!

I took so many pictures of Abby like this in my lap so I had to do the same for Lilly.

Abby hunting for Easter eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  She had sooo much fun!

Can't hunt for Easter eggs without some bunny ears!

Our sad attempt at getting an Easter picture with both girls in their bunny ears.  Hopefully Grandma got a better picture!

This is what an almost 3 year old looks like after crashing hard from a jelly bean and chocolate induced sugar rush.  Nothing could have woken this girl up.

Lilly is so little!  She's 2.5 weeks old here and snug as a bug in a rug lying on her daddy.  :)

Can't take a picture of the little one without including the big one!  :)

Look at my strong lemon squeezer go!  She was helping me make homemade lemonade from the lemon's from my mom's backyard.  Those lemons are AWESOME!  I got a whole cup of juice from just 2 lemons!!

Profile shot of Lilly.  She definitely looks more like Bryce.  And people always tell me Abby looks like me so I guess we got one of each.  :)

This was awesome.  One night Abby MIRACULOUSLY fell asleep on the couch at 7:30 PM (3 hours earlier than usual) and Lilly was asleep too.  Bryce and I couldn't get over how quiet the house was...

I took this picture after we gave Lilly a bath.  I was trying to capture the color of her hair.  It's definitely darker than Abby's but it's not black.  It's some sort of hybrid medium/dark brown.  Her eyes are still blue gray as of today too.  I can't leave without posting her 2 week stats from a week ago.  

19.5" tall (21%)

7 lbs 7 oz (24%)

34 cm head circumference (10%)

Lilly's birth height was recorded at 19.5" but she was actually only 18.75".  It took Lilly 2 weeks to get close to Abby's birth size.  Only Abby had a MUCH bigger head.  Lilly's our little peanut!

Life as a family of four

I have fallen in love all over again with our newest little baby girl.  I'm absolutely over the moon for Lilly.  She's only 5 days old and she couldn't be sweeter, cuter or happier.  On the rare occasion that she cries, it's just a sweet, dainty, gentle cry.  She left the hospital at 6 lb 2 oz and has already gained 10 oz as of today.  On our last day at the hospital, we were told she was borderline jaundice and to take her to see her pediatrician the next morning.  Since then, we went to the doctor again today and she's all better now!  Her skin has gotten a lot less splotchy and less yellow.  I still can't believe we had such a tiny baby.  Abby was never this little.  And it turns out, Lilly is NOT 19.5" long, she's only 18.75".  That sounds more like it.  They really measure at random in the hospitals.  In hindsight, I really picked the wrong xiao ming (nickname) for Abby...oh well.  :)

So Bryce and I originally thought Lilly looked like a little Abby but even in the last few days, we realized how wrong we are.  I mean, they definitely have similarities and look unmistakably like sisters but that's about it.  Whenever people meet Ruby and me and find out we're twins, and after they get over the initial shock of how different we look, we just explain that everything about me that looks like our dad, Ruby looks like our mom and vice versa.  And now I can say the same for my 2 girls.  Abby has my Asian face with her Daddy's white skin and body structure whereas Lilly has Bryce's face with my Asian skin (hence the borderline jaundice) and my body structure.  She definitely has my fingers and toes which I get from my dad.  I know Lilly's going to change a lot in the next few months so we're really looking forward to watching her change and grow!

Now onto the pictures.  Abby LOVES to hold, kiss and feed her mei mei.  She's been such a great little helper.  Of course, she's had her jealous moments but that's to be expected and it's not nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  Here are a few pictures from the last 5 days.

39 weeks and 2 days

The deed is done!

Abby anxiously looking through the window for her mei mei!

Dark, blurry close up of mei mei

Abby was really eager to help feed mei mei a bottle!

The 1st of many kisses to come

Our car ride home from the hospital as a family

One of my favorite pictures so far

Abby loves to hold her mei mei...

...and kiss "her little hands!"

And last but not least, all of my girls came to visit today!!  It was so fun to catch up - we missed you Ruby!