We are trying to get Emily out and about as she adjusts to Julia, and we adjust to having two kids. We took her to our church’s annual hayride at an elder’s farm last Saturday. We didn’t want to stay too long with Julia and the cool evening. While we were there we were able to eat dinner, play hide and seek with Daddy, see three horses and one chicken, sit in a tractor, and show off our new sister. Emily’s favorite was the tractor!

Emily loves to play with the things that have come out of storage for Julia. She likes to put her teddy bear in Julia’s car seat and latch the seatbelt. This day she decided that she should go in the seat herself. I couldn’t pass up the photo.

Thanks to a Hardees’s commercial we have Emily’s newest nickname. We were shocked at how big Emily was when we got home from the hospital with Julia. So now we are calling Emily ‘Gigantor’ (the nickname the Hardees’s ‘little thick burger’ gives the Hardees’s ‘thick burger’). We will see how long it lasts.

We used to call Emily ‘little bit’, but now we have a ‘littler bit’ so we have started calling Emily ‘big bit’. Our short nickname version of Emily is ‘Emmy’ and ‘M’s’.

All of the other nicknames for Emily are the usual ‘baby girl’, ‘big girl’, ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’. I’m sure that these will also change a little as we get used to having two at home. At the moment I’m working hard to not call Julia by Emily’s name. It is pretty hard given that Julia looks so much like Emily did at this age. Perhaps I need to admit that I am going to do the usual parent thing of calling my children by the wrong names.

Disclaimer: In no way is this post in support of Hardees’s or in approval of Hardees’s commercials.

We celebrated Halloween this year with Bumbly and Sweet Pea. Emily has been playing dress-up with her Bumbly costume for a couple of weeks now, but in the last two weeks she hasn’t been interested at all in it. I wasn’t sure how this evening’s trick-or-treating would go. As it turns out, she wanted to put it on before dinner this evening and was ‘ok’ with wearing it when it was time to dress up. I think my favorite part of these costumes is that either they had extra padding, or I was able to add the padding to make my kids look round and squishy. I’m not sure that there is a costume that is made for a week and half old, but with a few modifications Julia made a pretty good Sweet Pea. Arms are definitely not required for a pea!

We got to use the double stroller for the first time tonight. We were only going to trick-or-treat at Grammy & Granddaddy’s house, and we weren’t sure that Emily would be up for walking the distance in a costume. Because of the costumes we were not able to sit the girls in the correct seats, but we managed. Emily was very excited to be at Grammy’s house and loved the rice crispy treats that Grammy had made for her. We considered on our walk home to stop at a few neighbors houses, but it was getting awful close to bedtime. Next year, we will make rounds to the neighbors, and Emily will understand the activity better.

This is our first family photo and today it is one week old. This week has gone by so quickly! Well at least the daytime portion of the last week. We are still up for a while each evening with feedings and day/night confusion.

Even though we have had Julia for one week it seems that I can’t spend enough time with her. Emily also can’t get enough of Julia. She gets so excited each time she sees her. She asks if she can hold her and wants to fit in your lap if you are holding her. Today we figured out how to feed Julia and read Emily a book at the same time. The only trick is that Emily has to turn the pages of the book and that can be an interesting speed and order. It is best to make up the story as you go along and then the page order doesn’t matter so much.

Emily loves to touch, hug, and kiss her little sister. This was Emily’s first opportunity to hold Julia. Her nose nuzzle is so sweet!

Emily Meets Julia, originally uploaded by Robby Edwards.

Our baby girl arrived this morning. Her name is Julia Regan and she was 6 lbs. 13 oz. and 19.5 inches long at birth. Both mother and daughter are doing fine.

Here she is meeting her big sister Emily for the first time.