From a dad's perspective

Tonight I thought Mariah deserved a ladies night out, so a few of her friends were kind enough to plan it for me. Since Rivers only source of nutrition comes from Mariah she has been the one dealing with the sleepless nights, then dealing with both of them alone when I am gone to work for 24hrs every third day. So to say the least, she deserves it. But it was not until after having the two kids alone at night did I see just how hard it really is..... As I type I ask that you just picture me writing with one hand, holding Rivers in the other b/c he has to be touched, and hear Maddie screaming in her crib for no reason. When I try to comfort Maddie then Rivers began to scream and vice versa. Hold that thought I need to go feed Rivers his bottle.

OK I'm back:

Anyway now I have breast milk all over b/c Rivers cannot keep it down. Now after eating, it is Rivers routine to grunt for 15 minutes while what little food is in him digest. Maddie did make me laugh though. On my way back to get his milk I thought I'd try to rock her to calm her down. She apparently has some gas issues, so as she laid against my belly every few minutes she would let some real loud stinkers go. It took all I had not to laugh or gag in order to not disturb her. I type all of this not to complain, but to give thanks to my wife. Motherhood is truly a labor intensive profession in which there should be many days of recognition! I am not sure how she juggles it but it is much calmer when she is here. While Mariah needs to take more ladies nights out I think she should wait till Marmie is around so I can go fishing.........

wait yep there is Maddie crying again

Catching Up!

Sorry its been so long since we blogged. Its crazy that Rivers will be 6 weeks old tomorrow. Time is flying by, and we are loving it! Life with two little ones have been quite busy for us this past month. When we got back from Mississippi, I was a little worried about handling both kiddos by myself while Mike was at work for 24 hours. But I have survived! Though it is crazy some days we have lots of fun, and I have learned lots of tricks to juggling a toddler and newborn. Also when we got back, we learned that Madeline was going to have to have outpatient surgery to remove a staph infection that had gotten in her ear. As traumatic as it was for me, she did quite well and the surgery removed all the infected tissue and closed the small sinus in her ear to prevent the infection from returning. She is a strong little girl.

I don't think I've mentioned in previous blogs that we are moving. We accepted a contract on our house just a couple of days before Rivers was born, and about a week after he was born we found a new house. So we have started packing up our house and getting ready to move. We will be moving out into a neighborhood just down the road from our new church. God quickly answered our prayers of a quick sale, and a quick buy. We are really excited about being in the South End Community of Louisville and getting to minister there the remainder of our time in Louisville (however long that may be). We close and will be in our house this time next month!

That is the recent updates from the Frantz family! Here are some pics from this last month.

1 month old!

I look more like my daddy everyday





First trip to the Fire Department to visit daddy






Fun night at the River for a cookout

Our big 14 month old

P.S. We will be getting up a really cute video of Maddie saying her new word "baby", so stay tuned!

"Baby"

2 Weeks... 2 Kids

It's been a little over 2 weeks since we brought Rivers home from the hospital, and adjusting to life as a family of four has been fun but crazy. We are so thankful to my sister for her help before Rivers was born and to my mom for her help these last 2 weeks after his arrival. This past Thursday we took mom back home and stayed for a weekend visit in Mississippi. Rivers got to meet lots of family members, and we had a great time seeing everyone!

While we were there Madeline started saying "bird". The video shows how proud she is (and we are) of her new word. She is getting to be such a big girl walking around everywhere and starting to talk.

Rivers has been such an easy going baby. We thought Madeline was laid back, but Rivers is even more... if that is possible. He has been a great sleeper and pooper. He loves to be snuggled up to and is such a sweet boy. He is growing bigger by the day and has made the transition for us having a second child as easy as possible! Its funny how different having a boy is already though. He grunts all the time, and I am definitely having to learn how to change a boy's diaper.

Here are some pics of our first 2 weeks at home and our first road trip. The kids did fabulous, and we couldn't ask for better little travelers!