Two months with our little Tay-Jay!

Oh my goodness, little Taylor Jayne is TWO months old!! I know this sounds so cliche, but honest to goodness, in so many ways it feels like she just got here yesterday and in so many other ways, it feels like YEARS ago that I delivered her! This girl is a special one, I know that for sure! She is the happiest, smiliest baby I have ever seen! I think she likes to show off those adorable dimples!

(at 2 weeks) (at 8 weeks)

(at 9 weeks)

She smiles and smiles and smiles, and when she is tired of smiling, she may let out a few cries and then she goes to sleep! Haa! Oh, I don't know how else to say how much I love her, other than I could seriously just eat her up on a daily basis! Nibble on those LONG little toes, smooch that little pug nose, and gobble on her chubby cheeks! Ohhh, I could burst! Some two month stats:

22.5 inches (75th percentile -- she's a tall one!)

10.5 lbs. (50th percentile -- maybe it's from all that spitting up! No, she IS gaining weight, somehow!)

Some little updates: Tay's reflux is slowly getting better. It is a day-to-day, wait and see kind of thing, but overall, I think we are improving. She is on a pretty good medication, which also unfortunately makes her very plugged up (if you know what I mean), so we have also had to add a little prune juice to her diet, but that seems to be working too! But honestly, the Taylor we have these days is a completely different baby than we had those first 6 weeks. She is soooo much more content and comfortable and is almost never in the pain she was in before! It has been heavenly and I feel like we are really getting to see so much more of her personality because she is not so miserable all the time now! The best part about her feeling so much better is that she is sleeping!! She sleeps like a normal little baby should (and how I wish she had done right from the beginning) and is up to 8 hours at night! Can I get a HALLELUJAH?! She is a squirmy little tay-ter-tot and though she loves to be swaddled in her swaddling blanket, she rarely is still in it when we get her up! And that thing wraps as tight as a mummy! How she works her way out, I'll never know! She has the fairest skin known to mankind (thanks to mom AND dad's fairness) and the prettiest strawberry hair! And even already, she has got really blue eyes, after her daddy (I ALWAYS wanted blue eyes, so I'm glad she got them!). She has LONG feet, and a really strong neck, and absolutely LOVES to watch Kaiya! She already thinks her sister is pretty dang funny and pretty dang cool! She loves to sit upright, with her head resting in your hands (her favorite position and one very familiar to her, since we have to burb her and wait for the spit-up after EVERY feeding) and she loves to swing in the swing. And oh, bath-time! That's when the coo-ing really comes out! She LOVES to be in that warm water, and she gets lots of them, with all the spitting up that she does! One of my favorite things is when she wakes up from a nap, she gives her cries to let you know she is awake, but the minute she hears your voice or sees your face, she immediately stops and smiles a huge smile and coos! Oh, it is the sweetness! She is just deliciousness all over!

She has started talking soooo much in the last few weeks. My favorite time of day is first thing in the morning -- when she gets up for her 6 a.m. feeding. Though I am usually a zombie at first, as I roll out of bed, it takes about 5 seconds of delicious Tay for me to wake right up with a BIG smile on my face. She eats and then we get to have our special alone time while sister sleeps. Tay smiles and smiles and does her exercises of kicking and flailing arms and she talks and coos sooo much! After a good night's sleep, she is so alive with wonder and excitement for the day! We have so much fun chatting together and it truly is one of the best parts of my days!

She WANTS to be a thumb-sucker so bad. She roots for that fist ALL the time. So, we give her a binky instead. Not sure I am so thrilled about having another binky baby, but you can always take a binky away, you can't take a thumb away! So, if it has to be one or the other, I'll take the binky! She is a hard little sucker, though! (I mean that in the nicest way!)

And here is a few little excerpts from the letter I wrote for her at 2 months:

"There are so many things that you will not remember, of course, because your very young mind is still trying to remember your home in heaven, while trying to figure out this new, temporary home here on earth. I often think, as I hold you in my arms and watch your little smiling face, that I wish so badly that you could talk. That you could tell me of all the beautiful, happy, peaceful things that you have so recently left in your heavenly home. I know you still see the angels around you, I know that you still feel the presence of your Heavenly Father, and I know that you were so brave to make the decision to come to earth to accept whatever trials, but also the joys that would be part of your life here. Heaven is a HARD place to give up for a time, but you understood and were excited about what you needed to accomplish here. What really makes my heart swell and humbles me beyond belief is that you chose to come here to be with US!"

"...Then, just as it was supposed to happen and in our Heavenly Father’s time, your sister came to us through her own miraculous way. We finally had a child! And then, as if the windows of heaven had been opened, we discovered we were pregnant after 6 long years! Something that I often wondered would ever happen to me, and yet, there you were! Do you even comprehend the miracle that you are? Do you know the amount of prayers that were sent to heaven on your behalf? Did you feel of our longing for you in your heavenly home? I believe in my heart that we all knew each other before we came here, and we all made promises to each other that we would find one another, that we would join together as a family, and that we would make our earthly home together – a happy, loving, peaceful heaven on earth…TOGETHER."

"Your short little two-month life has been a busy one, Tay. You are such a tough, strong little girl. You have been through such difficult things these past few months, (even as early as your second day of life, when we thought in desperate moments that we might lose you) and you keep fighting through it all. You have taught me soooo much in such a short time. You, in your tiny 10 lb body, but you, with your enormous, faithful spirit, have taught me how to have greater faith. You have taught me the power of prayer. You have taught me that the worth of EVERY soul is GREAT in the sight of God and that God is the ultimate lover and protector of His children. It is through you, that my testimony has increased in so many ways. And to think, you are only TWO MONTHS OLD!"

These last two months have been a dream come true. Hard, at times, yes! Did I think I would NEVER leave the house during those first few weeks? YES! But aren't all the best and most important things in life that way?! And of course, with something as sweet as Taylor, the joys FAR, FAR surpass the difficulties! And the most amazing and beautiful thing about it all is that if you would have told me a year ago that I would be sitting here today writing about a baby that I DELIVERED, I would have never believed it! Miracles do happen, God does hear our prayers, and tender mercies are poured out when you least expect them! Taylor AND Kaiya are our witnesses to that! We love you, Taylor Jayne!