Lexie's Blessing Day

On June 6th, 2010 we blessed Lexie in the Dade City Ward, in Dade City Florida and she was given her name that she will be known on the records of the church of Alexis Diane Beckstead. We were lucky to be able to have my dad and his wife Iva here for the blessing, but missed the rest of our family. Two friends from the ward were able to stand in as well (Jaime Rodriguez and Dave Bahr). She looked beautiful and we had a very happy day celebrating our newest little girl. We have grown to love this little girl so much and are so thankful she was sent to our little family.

It was so muggy and humid it was a little misty out.

I love this picture it cracks me up.

Sweet baby Lexie

The sisters: Brooklyn picked her blessing dress.

Daddy and his girls


Mommy & Alexis

Grandpa George, Iva and Lexie

Dates with Brooklyn

After Alexis came we both took Brooklyn out on dates so she could have some alone time with her mommy and daddy.

My date with Brooklyn was Disney on Ice. We had so much fun and Brooklyn loved the show! We will definitely have to go again when they come back to Tampa.





Brad took Brooklyn to Hollywood Studios with our last Florida special tickets (we got 4 tickets for $99). They watched the Beauty and the Beast show and Little Mermaid twice, met Leo from the Little Einsteins and much more. They had a blast and tried to stay cool in the 93 degree heat with 80% humidity.






Curtsying after one of her princess shows.

Lexie's First Month

Alexis (left) Brooklyn (right)

(1 month old)

I cannot believe that Alexis is one month old today! She is such a joy and we are so happy to have her in our family. She really is a great baby. Lexie is a great eater and her chubby cheeks are witnesses of that. Thankfully Alexis LOVES her pacifier and is usually easily calmed. She is also becoming a great sleeper. She sleeps much of the day away in her swing, bouncer, or mommy's arms and is up most of the evening. She has started to be a little colicky and only wants mommy during that time. She gets so upset that her whole body turns bright beet red from the tippy top of her head to the ends of her toes. We are even getting a little more sleep at night with a wedge made for reflux babies. She usually only wakes up once or twice a night and I no longer have to hold her at night for her to sleep. She does not have reflux like Brooklyn but she definitely has some form of it. She has to be burped constantly and she spits up from the time she eats until it is time to eat again. You can hear the milk coming up and her trying to send it back down where it belongs. We have thankfully only had projectile vomit 5 to 6 times so far, and I find this as a great blessing after Brooklyn. She loves to be naked and feels that her diaper being off is a signal to go to the bathroom, unfortunately we are not only talking about urine.

Brooklyn is doing well adapting to her sister. She is definitely not the all over her baby sister type. She is glad she is here but happy to keep her distance for the most part. She does play mommy much more often, and acts out things she sees me doing with the baby. Brooklyn is a great help with Lexie though. Anytime she hears that she has a dirty diaper she is running to get me a new one. She loves to pick out Lexie's clothes, blankets and burp rags for the day (we go through lots of these). She has also started to get more interested in her and will talk to her and get Lexie's pacifier when she starts to fuss and I am in the middle of something.

We are so thankful for our two sweet girls and cannot believe that this first month has flown by so quickly. I look at them growing and I am sad with each passing day as they each get bigger. I know they have to, but I just don't want them to.

We have also been blessed with visitors this month to help us get used to two children and no sleep. Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Malcolm were here for a week after her birth and helped us get settled. After another week with very little sleep, my awesome cousin Angie and her adorable daughter Chloe came out for a week to help. We were able to get in some fun time while they were here. Brad took the girls to the pool many nights. We even fit in a short trip to the beach where Lexie and I stayed under the beach umbrella enjoying the wonderful beach breeze. It was great to have them here. Angie and her family lived in Phoenix for part of the time we were there and we miss them so much. Chloe and Brooklyn played non-stop and it was great for Brooklyn to have someone to play with. Angie also took some adorable pics of Alexis and Brooklyn. Here are some pics from the last month.

At the beach

Lexie has a birthmark on her ankle in the shape of a perfect little heart. I love it!

Lexie on her sister's lap

Chloe and Lexie

Chloe and Brooklyn after the pool. (Brooklyn isn't cold that is her trying to smile.)

Going Private

So after many random comments from people we don't know we are going private. Please leave your email address here and I will add you. I will also create another blog to tell you when I have updated so those of you that use reader can still see when things have changed. I will get back to you with that address.

Our Newest Addition

Alexis Diane Beckstead was born April 28th, 2010 at 11:49pm. She was 6lb 12.3oz and was 21 inches long.

My labor was induced the morning of the 28th. It progressed fairly slowly, and by 8:00pm that evening I was only a 5 and barely 50% effaced. It appeared that my attempt at a VBAC was going to be unsuccessful. My doctor was great though and let me keep trying. She wasn't super optimistic but gave me more time and thankfully she did. At 10:00 they came in to check me and I was at a 10 and her head was in the birth canal. I pushed for almost two hours and our sweet little baby Alexis was born. She came out with a dark head of curly hair. The brown hair surprised us all. We thought we would have a blonde or another red head.

As soon as I started to push Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Malcolm pulled Brooklyn out of bed and made the trek back to the hospital to meet baby Alexis. My mom got to the room just before she arrived and was able to witness the birth. Brooklyn was very tired but so excited to meet her new sister.

Mommy, Alexis and Daddy spent the next two days in the hospital and they let us go home at 6:00 on Friday evening (April 30th).

Since then we have all been adjusting to life as a family of four. We have been blessed to have the help of wonderful family; my mom and Malcolm, and my fabulous cousin
Angie and her daughter Chloe. Alexis is a super sweet baby and is really quite good. She sleeps a lot, like most newborns, loves her paci, and only sleeps at night if she is being held.

Lexie will be three weeks old tomorrow and I find myself already wondering where the three weeks have gone. She is already getting so big and filling out and we are enjoying every minute of it.

Our first family of four picture.

Going home!!

First Bath

Overheard...

This is what I overheard tonight while Brooklyn was playing with a friend.

"... I'm excited, its just that it feels like its never gonna come out! Do you know what I'm saying?" (This was in reference to the baby.)

Yes! I know what she is saying.

Moving... again

We have been of course crazy busy the past month. It seems like life will never slow down, but we are happy and most of the crazy has been good crazy.

We finally moved into our house! Yay! We love it and are almost done unpacking. We have made quite a few trips to goodwill as our house has more usable rooms and space, but much less storage space. We have also had crazy construction going on at the same time. The day after we moved, thankfully before most of our stuff was here, we had our sewage back up in our downstairs bathroom. Apparently the power company had drilled through our sewage line. Two weeks later, we almost have a full functioning bathroom again and all is new and replaced in the bathroom and the den. It actually created quite a bit of water damage, but the builder has been great and done everything they can to get it fixed. Thanks to some help from my dad we were able to paint all the bedrooms and the toy room, hang up all the ceiling fans and blinds in the first few days. It has been crazy, but good. Things are definitely not finished but are not as a hectic of pace as the first few weeks. We love our new neighborhood and have already met all of our neighbors. We have never done this in the past. Everyone is super friendly and their are lots of kids playing. Just the type of neighborhood we were looking for.

We are also anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby Alexis. She is due in two weeks and I have been dilated to 1cm for the past two. We are finally starting to feel ready for this baby now that we are mostly unpacked and have clothes and a place for her to sleep. Brooklyn can't wait to meet her baby sister and see what she looks like. She also keeps telling me she can't wait for my little tummy to come back. I am quite huge and there is just no room for her to snuggle me anymore. My feet have also started to swell again. I still don't think they are anywhere near as bad as I was with Brooklyn, but I can't wear any of my shoes except flip flops.

Brooklyn is loving having her things back and having tons of space to play in.

Brad's new job is good and he has started to get really busy again.

We are enjoying Florida and all it has to offer. The humidity is definitely something to get used to though. I will post about how much we like Florida again after our first Summer... hurricanes, scary crazy thunderstorms, etc. For those of you that know me, I am terrified of severe weather. It will either drive me to the loony bin or make me stronger. Lets hope for the later. We also live right on a lake and their is supposedly a 3 ft alligator that takes his residence there, but have yet to have an up close sighting. We do have whooping cranes in our backyard everyday though. They come up to our backdoor and peck at their reflection all the time.

That's about it and I will post pictures later. We really haven't done much but house, house, house lately.