The Gender

I had my ultrasound and doctors appointment today. Since all of my family know what we are having, I thought it would be fun to just give everyone else a fun little hint!

You really don't have to think to hard! 

 And here are some of the 4D ultrasound pictures we got. We also got a CD of the whole ultrasound, something that we didn't get with Julie. We videotaped the whole thing with Julie, so it was nice to get a copy on CD. This first one, she(whoops, just gave it away) is crossing her legs, she was laying on her stomach just like Julie did, and so we never got a face shot. But her lower body was sure moving a lot. It was just cute to see those legs crossed like that.

 The side profile of her spine and head.

 And here is the spine and little bum with the legs.

 

The ultrasound tech was pretty positive that we are having a girl, and I would have to agree. Now since I have girl stuff already, just need to add a few little things, makes it kind of easy when you already have everything. Guess I will have to make some bows.

Everything looks great, the doctor moved my due date up to the 22nd of February, just because I am measuring big from the ultrasound. So, basically it is between February 22nd, and March 3. I am still saying my due date is February 28th. So glad everything looks good!

18 Weeks

Rob is getting pretty good at taking weekly picture, haven't had to have him retake many of them.

Well, things are still going well, my ultra sound is this weeks so after we find out what we are having I will post again. We are excited, I really don't have any feelings of what I might be having, although we have been thinking it is a boy, just because I was sicker and this pregnancy is just a little different, but then again, all pregnancies are different. Again, I hate sneezing, and just so happens that now that fall is upon us, my allergies are sure acting up, which causes me to sneeze pretty much all day long. Still wake up once a night to go pee, last night was my first night of not waking up. We had a long weekend traveling to Roosevelt for my sisters and brother in laws sons baby blessing. More on that later, but lets just say I was super tired and slept like a log, which felt so good.

When I got into bed last night, I could feel the baby moving. So, Rob came over and was able to feel the baby move a few times, so fun.

Attempted Big Girl Bed = Fail

This last Thursday we attempted to switch Julie into a big girl bed or rather convert her crib into a toddler bed. So, while I was fixing dinner, Rob made the switch and Julie just loved climbing into bed all by herself and having so much fun. She has been loving playing with a pillow and pretend sleeping with it on the floor.

 So we put a pillow in and blankets and when it was time for bed we did everything to get her ready like normal, but the second we put her down in her bed, she just started crying, we still continued with our bedtime routine and told her good night and left the room and closed the door. She just kept crying(sometimes she will cry for a while on occasion), and you could hear her walk to the door and then walk back to her bed. Then she walked back to the door, but she didn't attempt to try to open the door until a few times of wandering back and forth. She can't quite get the door open from her side so after hearing her cry and just sounding scared a little, I went in and sat with her, she hated it when we would even bring her near her bed. Just seemed like she was scared, we would calm her down and then say,"Okay, let's go to bed", she would start whimpering and breathing hard. I left to go grab a few things I needed at the store and Rob continued to try to get her to go to bed, I came home to him sitting in her crib and she was standing right next to the bed. We even stuck a night light in there, thinking the dark scared her(she usually sleeps in the dark), we eventually ended up converting her bed back to a crib and she went down just fine, cried for a second and went to sleep. We are going to give it a month or two and try again, maybe getting a twin size bed an just putting it in her room to get used to. Hopefully the next try will go better.

20 Months

-Yesterday, Robert was sitting at the table on his computer and Julie was eating, Julie looked over at Robert and said, "Daddy, doing?", I can't remember her exact wording, but it is the first time she has really asked a question. 

-Helps grandma load laundry, my mom will put her onto the dryer and she will help her dump some detergent in and start the washer.

-repeating longer phrases

-loves her pillow

-growing up to fast, she just seems to be changing so fast lately

-can reach things on the counter using her chair to stand on

-"We come in Peace", after Rob let her play with one of his Star Trek toys that says a bunch of stuff and then ends with "we come in Peace", she says this and it is so cute.

-"gain", she will say this after most everything we do that is funny, she wants us to do it again and again.
- gives pretty good hugs now, getting better at giving kisses
-still is a great eater, except at family gatherings, seems like she eats a few bites and calls it good.
-starting to want to play with the bigger kids
-Loves her "moothies"(smoothies), we usually have one every morning
-busy body and is getting into EVERYTHING, drives me nuts.
-If you are holding her, she loves to scratch or pinch some skin, or play with your fingers.
-Is into reading books again, yeah!

17 Weeks

The Belly Shot

Well, I have really started to feel the flutters of a little person this week. I always love this part. I still get really tired, I go on a walk every morning with Julie and my Mom, and try to take a shower before hand so that I don't have to afterwords. I seem to not get so tired afterwords if I have already done my shower and am mostly ready. But, if I sit in any couch or recliner, bam, I am guaranteed to be zoned out for a while, while Julie happily plays around me. She unzipped one of our chair pillows the other day. I was dozed off and hear Julie saying, "Oh, oooh", so I knew she had done something. This only happens about twice a day, right before lunch, and then right after her nap, or before Rob comes home(the falling asleep). I am so grateful Julie plays so well by herself, and stays close by me. Her nursery teachers tell us that she is just so easygoing and plays well all by herself, don't know if that is good or bad, I do want her to play with other kids also. She doesn't get much other kid interaction other than nursery, so she is just used to always playing with us or by herself. 

She did find some pens the other day while I was taking a shower, and got the palms of her hands and a little on her jammie shirt and her legs. Yah, still in her pajamas and no pants on.

Julie

-Julie doesn't watch any TV, so the only characters she really loves are from Pooh Bear, probably since we have a Pooh Bear and Friends puzzle, and books. At night, to get a good hug from her, we have to ask for a "Pooh Bear Hug", after seeing her hug her pooh bear so hard, I decided to ask if I could get a hug like Pooh Bear, and she will quickly wrap her arms around my neck and squeeze. It is a rather quick hug, but a hug none the less. She does the same to Robert and then will brush her hands threw his hair and play with his ears, kind of funny. (Just now I was thinking Pooh Bear, Piglet, or one of these characters would make a great Halloween costume this year).
-Julie will say something like, "Mommy's Purse" while pointing to my purse and I will say "Yes, that is mommy's purse", to which she will reply in a super excited voice "Yah, Yah, Yah". 
-has started sticking the binki in her mouth, she has never been a binki sucker, and still isn't, but I guess from seeing her other cousins with them, she wants one to. She will just stick it in and bite down on it, and just go off playing, does not look right for her to be sucking on a binki. We are going to be putting them where she can't reach them.
-She has the funniest walk, it is like she was just "let down", and she slumps her shoulders, and her hands hang straight down, and she kind of walks with her legs straight. It is kind of hard to explain, but it just makes me laugh. And she will also do this thing, where she gets excited and just kind of runs in place a few steps, and then keeps walking, and she will do this several times.
-Has found that if she puts her chair up to the window, she can climb up on it and can stand there and look out the window, then she always asks, "window, open", which means that she want the blinds lifted up so that she can see better. She loves watching the "Big Bus" that comes by around 12:15, during lunch time. We also see two more buses every morning on our walk around the block.

 -Some of her favorite places are laying limp across this foot rest to our chair.

 -And depending where I am, she will move all her stuff to the bathroom door or right in front of the gate to the  kitchen, or into her bedroom, and so on. She loves to just lay on the tile floor with her toys and play.

 -I gave her some yogurt today to eat all by herself, in the past she would maybe take a few bites, so I would just feed her the rest. But, now that she has the hang of using a spoon better, she fed herself, basically only getting her chin dirty.

-Here she is doing one of her favorite things after Roberts ride on Saturday. Although, whenever she is doing something fun, she always has a pretty sober face, I promise she really loves riding with her Dad on the 4 wheelers. When she sees the one that is parked in the garage, she will always go straight for it saying, "mine, mine", haha girl, I don't think so!

-Here she is taking any chance she gets at climbing up onto her high chair when we have forgotten to put the tray back on. She gives us this mischievous look, and then goes for it. We turned it facing the table, and she has figured that she can just turn it around herself. She has been getting into lots more things lately, like climbing onto her chair to reach things on the counter.

 -Went to Wal-Mart and Rob got himself a back pack, when we got outside Rob stuck it on Julie and it reminded me of seeing those preschoolers we would pick up when I was on the bus, where they have the humongous back pack that drowns them. Well, just seeing her with the backpack made her look so much older to me.
-Just now as we were putting her down for her nap, I just love hearing her talk and giggle quite loud as she is settling down before falling asleep. It just makes me smile. One of these days, I am going to have to stick a video camera in there to see what she is doing, before she falls asleep. I will especially have to do that, when we move her to a big girl bed. I am a little worried that she won't take her afternoon nap, if she can just get out and roam around and play.

16 Weeks

Apparently I have lost track of how far along I am, I told my sister in law yesterday that I was 15 weeks today, but I am actually 16 weeks.

I have been feeling pretty good this week, other than getting bloated in the evening sometimes after eating. I also found out that my bladder muscles are not very strong, they have been fine up until this week, and I sure have been sneezing a lot lately, which is so NOT fun. Time to work on those Kegels. And so far this pregnancy, I have gained 10 pounds.

I decided to try out not blow drying or straightening my hair, it gets so damaged when I do that and with trying to grow it out, I do not want awful split ends(which I already do have), so I patted my hair dry today, and just let it dry naturally, and the curl my natural hair has is awesome. Plus my hair feels so much softer and is easier to run my fingers through. So, no heat today at all and I am loving it. 

We get to find out what we are having on Sept, 28, the big ultrasound appointment. I am thinking it is going to be a boy, I have just felt more sick this time. But, I was wrong with Julie so we shall see.

A New Place to Play

As we are getting Julie's room ready for a big girl bed, and as she has discovered everything that we have been keeping in the drawers in her room. We are emptying out the drawers, and so all but one are empty, so as clever as kids are, she found a new place to sit. Julie and the new baby will share a room, and I just hope it all goes well.

She also loves to carry all her favorite toys around in this laundry basket, and push it around the house with her, also just loves sitting and playing in it as well.

She also has been sliding her chairs around on our tile floor and her little step stool, since they make the most awesome loud noise ever(to her), I could definitely live without the super loud noise they make rubbing along those tiles. Oh, the joys of being little!

Bloody Nose and the Potty!

When Rob went in to get Julie, he came out and told me to come in, so I rushed in there to see blood all over her face, and her sheet and on her hands. Apparently she had gotten a bloody nose during the night and it was everywhere, so we stripped her down and stripped her bed, and got her all cleaned up. I did take a picture of her and then once she was cleaned off realized that I didn't have my memory card in the camera, oh well.

-Since going to her 18 month doctor appointment, we get a card with some recommendations on what we should be looking for in development, and one thing it mentioned was to get a potty for her to get used to, plus there was a blog that I love to read that she got a potty for her daughter around her 1st birthday, and she potty trained herself by 22 months. So, we ended up getting the Baby Bjorn Potty off of amazon, simple and way easy to clean. We are totally just doing this so Julie gets used to what the toilet is, but so far she loves it and has gone pee in the potty 6 times so far. We give her a bath at night and let her sit on it before we put her in the tub, and she will grunt and has gone pee every time. Kind of exciting, but we are not expecting her to be potty trained any time soon and we are not going to push it either, it will be when she is ready.
One funny thing, yesterday when Rob was going to put Julie on the potty before bath time, he forgot to check if she was messy, ha. So, he hurry and stuck her on the potty, half of the mess was on still in the diaper, but the rest was stuck to her and fell off in the potty. She did go pee, and when we took her off to show her, she kind of got freaked out about the poop that was in there also. 

"Uh, Oooooh"

Whenever Julie breaks something or loses a toy, or just needs help with something, she will say "Uh, Oh" in a really drawn out way. Well, today she dropped her plate on the floor and it broke, I was not happy and got after her a little. The first thing she says with a worried look on her face is "uh, oh", and she will usually repeat it over and over. 

I really liked this plate, but it did get a little crack in it from the last time that it hit the floor, and this time just did it in. Darn it. I guess we will have to make do with something else.

Week 15

Here I am(remembered to take a picture as I was getting ready for bed)

I am starting to get kind of uncomfortable, maybe it is because I don't move around as much. I have been going on a walk every morning with my mom, which has been nice, but I think I need a little more exercise to stretch my muscles and get me moving a little more. With Julie I was on the bus all day long, and moving around, tying down wheelchairs, I try to play with Julie more, but being at home just makes me kind of lazy sometimes. 

I think I am getting a little more energy, but my mornings still can be quite slow going.

Trying New Recipes

I am on the hunt for new recipes lately. I have found quite a few, but I always hate trying new things, because I will like it, and Rob is just like "eh, it was okay", ahhhh, I hate that. Why does he have to be so picky. He doesn't want the same old, same old(and neither do I), although everything I try just doesn't please him. 

We had Sweet and Spicy Noodles with Chicken tonight from favfamilyrecipes.com, and I thought it was just awesome, but Rob not so much, boo. It also left that chinesey smell in the house afterwords, it just smelled yummmm. I guess I will have to make it in small batches for myself.

The other recipe I tried was a while ago, and I was not to fond of it either so I will not even post it here, but I just wish I could find new recipes without having to test try them out beforehand.

I also tried another new recipe from favfamilyrecipes.com, it was Elise's Homemade Vanilla Granola, I really liked this granola, and Julie loves it as well. She eats quite a bit of it, and usually has it as a snack for after her nap with some dried cranberries. It is just a good morning breakfast, or on yogurt. I really like it. Well, on to the next recipe I guess. One of which is Split Pea Soup, which I know Rob won't eat, that one I am planning on freezing to have whenever I want it. 

If anyone has any AWESOME recipes, let me know, I so want them.

Smoothies

We are back to making smoothies, I found that I eat more fruits if I put them frozen in a smoothie. So Smoothies are a way for me to get my fruits in, and Julie loves them too. We will make them after she wakes up from her nap. We use Orange Juice, yogurt, frozen mangos, frozen strawberries, and frozen blueberries. They are a yummy afternoon treat for Julie and I.

 She does this face quite a bit, where she puckers her lips. She loves it when we do it back!

 And then just a random picture where she wanted to wear this hat while she was eating. It was huge on her, but she didn't mind.

Peek-a-Boo