Christmas is Up

  Well, we put our Christmas Tree up and decorated it yesterday! Julie had fun handing me ornaments and she has been great at leaving the ornaments on the tree and leaving the one decoration on the table alone. I keep telling her we Look with our eyes, we don't touch and she has been really good. We only put our tree up and a Santa pulling a reindeer. I might have to pull a few more things out if Julie does okay with the Santa that we do have out.

Love that Rob has his hand on my belly in this next picture, this picture reminds me of our picture last year, which looks really similar(which is posted below this picture)

2011(still need to get rid of those pink blinds)

2010(Julie has grown up so much in this last year)

It was kind of funny to see Julie crawl under this chair to the other side, it really is pretty low to the grown and she doesn't like to crawl under anything. She is afraid she will bonk her head, and we would try to get her to crawl under this chair for fun and she just wouldn't do it, and tonight she did it on her own.

This is our spot where we read stories before naptime and bedtime, reading the same three books.

So excited for this Christmas, can't wait to see how Julie reacts to everything! It truly is so much fun when you have a little one to celebrate it with.

27 Weeks

27 weeks! Had a good week, didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving, but had a good day with Robs family! We can cross getting a car off my to do list, bought a car on Black Friday, that is the only shopping we did that day, and we are very pleased with what we got(post to come)! I already love it and it is so easy to get Julie in and out of :) 

Put up Christmas today and am loving the feeling of a decorated house, granted it is not super decorated, I am just not into decorating for the holidays a lot. Just the basics! I will post pictures later!

In all it was just a good week and no difference in how I am feeling!

22 Months

-Usually gets to sleep around 8:30 and wakes up at 7:00(later if we don't get up and make noise), and also takes a 3 hour nap after her lunch.

-Still loves to get into all the drawers in the kitchen.

-She has done really well with her bed. She will usually come out on her own after her nap and occasionally in the morning. But, usually once we lay her down she will talk for a while and play on her bed and then go to sleep. There have been a few times where she will come out during her daytime nap and I will just take her back into her room and she will be good. She has only ever came out twice a couple times. Most of the time, she doesn't come out.

-We are trying to find more breakfast options for her, she eats raisins, bananas(very rarely will she eat them right now, but I still put a half banana on her tray every day), and she will eat life cereal or some sort of bread. She will not eat eggs. 

-And she loves to be at the counter and eat her food at the counter, she will usually just kneel on the chair since we don't have a booster seat for her yet.

-Loves anything Pooh Bear related, we always read Pooh Bear books before bedtime and naptime, and through out the day. Today she brought me one of her Pooh Bear Books and said,"Read Story" and then holding up one finger said very sternly, "One time". I couldn't help but laugh, it was just so funny how she said it. She also loves watching Pooh Bear shows with her Daddy. Her grandma got her a Pooh Bear ornament for the Christmas Tree and she loves it.

-She loves to read the same books everyday during naptime and bedtime, usually two of her Pooh Bear books and then "Hansel and Gretel".

-Since she loves signing time, we got her the new "Potty Time" signing DVD that was on babysteals.com the other day and she loves to watch it. Who knows if it will help her along with potty training, but I really like the DVD, it talks about growing up and how your body is amazing and has wonderful songs. Then it teaches the order of going potty, like, Potty, wipe, flush, wash. And it teaches them that you wash your hand after going potty and also after sneezing and things. Then it talks about accidents and then at the very end there is a cute song about celebrating. Anyways, I really like it so far and Julie seems to also. She always wants to sit on the potty, although we don't always take her diaper off when we sit her on it. But she has gone in it a few more times recently.

-Loves "nom tackers"(graham crackers), and loves apples right now. She also has been loving pumpkin muffins and cookies. 

-Loves the teddy bear that Rob gave me when we were dating and the one that I got at Build a Bear in San Franscisco and so we might just have to got to Build a Bear and let her choose her own stuffed animal for her birthday. She also loves to change the teddy bear diaper, they don't actually have diapers on, but she will make sure they are clean and then say "clean diaper", and pretend to put a diaper on them. 

-She has always leaned in for a kiss, but now she is starting to purse her lips and then we kiss them. And she gives hugs around our necks, Rob gets the longest hugs right before he lays her down for bed.

-I just love watching her as she plays, talking to her toys and feeding her dolls and animals, it brings a smile to my face.

-Loves to visit her grandparents houses. When we get to my parents house, she will see the basketball hoop and always say,"basketball oop", it is so cute.

-Really into colors right now and loves her purple diaper, she always wants her purple diaper when I change her and since she usually wheres it first and then next times it will be dirty and I will just tell her it is dirty and we have to clean it, then she usually asks for her blue diaper, but she usually always names the color of diaper before I put it on, even her off-white diaper. 

-She likes her sippy cups that don't have straws right now, she has two of them and she loves to carry them both around at the same time, and we also caught her the other day drinking out of both her sippies with straws, on had milk and the other had water.

 -This is her smile she gives me when I take her picture, kind of evil looking, but I love it!

-Oh, she also love Orange Juice!

Julie is so full of energy and just talks nonstop, and she loves to point out everything. Some of her sayings, "Light On","Window Open","Ookey, Dookey","Sore Bum, I know"(she says I know after sore bum, because whenever she tells me she has a sore bum, I will say I know, lets go get you changed, and so she just automatically says I know after sore bum),"Clean Diaper". And many more that I can't remember right now.

26 Weeks

Hello, not much is new, I had a good doctors appointment, and everything seems to be going well. My back is starting to get a little sore and it is uncomfortable to sit for very long, at least on hard chairs. I have been trying to get back into a routine of exercising again, but haven't got there yet.

Rob and I made a list the other day of everything we could think of to do/get before this baby comes. It wasn't too long of a list.

Some items on that list are:

Buy a bookshelf

Organize basement(need a bookshelf to organize basement)

Buy a Car :)

Food Storage Organized

Get baby clothes out and put in closet

Take junk to DI

Buy Julie's Christmas and Birthday presents(know what we are getting just need to get them)

And there are probably other things, but for now that is all we could think of. And what I am surprised about is the fact that I have only bought two new outfits for this little girl. Since we have girl clothes already I try not to look at baby stuff, we have a lot already. I will just focus on getting some cute accent things like hair bows and headbands and things like that. 

I took Julie to Old Navy today and bought $60 worth of stuff and only paid 30 bucks. Nice, I redeemed my super C-A-S-H. Got Julie a coat, two long sleeve shirts, a plaid skirt, and a cream sweater. And she had fun sitting at the table they had playing with the crayons, didn't actually color, just sat there and watched everything around her while talking LOUD about everything she saw. 

Made a few new recipes found on Pinterest, and Rob approved of them, he even chose one of them from my Pinterest board. The recipes were White Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chile Sour Cream Sauce(which my sister in law says her family all loves), and the other was Baked Chicken Fajitas, and we really liked them both. Now to find some more recipes he likes. We halved both of the recipes, and had plenty!

25 Weeks

I have a doctors appointment this week and get to take the Gestational Diabetes Test. Been feeling great, baby moving like crazy! Basically I am just not in the mood to write a post today, it was just one of those days! 

But, at least I got a picture up!
Update: My doctors appointment went well, measuring 26 cm, and my due date is now February 22nd, it was March 2nd, and then February 28, and now the last two appointments he has kept it on the 22nd, just to make sure I don't go overdue to far. Anyways, I drank the glucose drink and it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being with Julie. My iron count is really good and everything is going just fine. My doctor likes boring visits and so do I, nothing to be concerned about. 

Swinging!

 At the beginning of November when there were a good amount of leaves on the ground, I loved watching Julie trample through them. And while we were at my parents house, we took advantage of the slightly warm temperature outside and Julie did some swinging. First with Daddy, she was having so much fun!

 Then, since the baby swing was not hooked up Rob put her on the swing by herself and she did fine. I was a little worried, but she loved it. We kept having to remind her to hold on, there was one point where she took one of her hands off and kind of fell backwards and caught herself.

 Love this face.

 Then since Rob and I never get pictures taken these days of us, here is one of us!

Not looking forward to the freezing cold temperatures of winter!

Big Girl Bed

Well, Julie has spent one full week in her big girl bed, naps included. I am so glad the transition went so well. We went to Palmers last Saturday and we took Julie with us to find her a bed. We took the truck, but I wasn't expecting to find something at the first store we looked at, but we did. We got a white bunk bed, I wanted a bed with rails on the side, and the only bed that came like that was a bunk bed, so we figured we would probably use them together sometime in the future when Julie got older and her soon-to-be sister moved into a bed. If not we could always use them alone as well. I was wanting a brown color but he bed we chose only came in black and white, and I didn't like any of the other styles, so I opted to get the white. And since they had one in stock, we took it home that day and set it up after her nap. After setting it up we had to figure out how to arrange the bed and the crib and the rocking chair in her room. But, we finally got it. We didn't have any twin sheets so we were not going to have her sleep in her bed yet, but we got around that for the time being by using our queen size sheet set and just tucking the extra under the mattress. We did our normal bedtime routine and laid her down. She cried as we were leaving, but just for a few minutes and then she was quiet and fell asleep. And she slept well the whole night. I wasn't so sure how nap time would, but we did everything like normal and again she cried a little bit when we left and then settled down and went right to sleep. And that is how it has gone this whole week, with the crying ending up more just like a whimper for a second or two. There was one night where she woke up about 4:00a.m. and wouldn't settle back down so we sat with her for  a minute and then laid her back down and she went back to sleep.
Today was the first day where she actually came out of her room by herself, and the first day where she talked and played after laying her down for her nap, and then hearing the door open. I just told her it was naptime and put her back in bed, and removed the toys she had found and was playing with, and then she came out one more time, but after that she went to sleep.
I am so glad it has gone so well, it might be that her bed has the rails so it feels more like a crib, and it just has a little opening on one side for her to get out of bed. What a relief, now I just need to get some sheets and I am going to make her a bedspread for her bed, and then I will post pictures of her bedroom. Don't know how much I will go into decorating her room, we shall see!

24 Weeks

Sciatic Pain : Gone(end of story, baby must have moved)

Really, I have nothing to say, this week has been pretty boring! I have occupied my free time with researching about cloth diapers. I have been currently using 12 FuzziBunz, a few Grovia, and one BumGenius for about 6 months now. But I am looking at getting some newborn sizes(mainly prefolds and covers, and some fitted) also some One Size diapers that will increase my stash so that I can cloth diaper two kiddos. All I can say is cloth diapering has gotten me addicted. There are so many different kinds out there, and I have been reading reviews like crazy! Cloth diapering might just end up making a post of its own in the near future.
And we also got a new bed for Julie(another post), but things are going great with that, so relieved!

3 New Teeth!

Tuesday night when we went in to check on Julie before going to bed, she was hot, with a fever of 102. And had a fever that would come back without medicine for two days straight. She wasn't too whiny, but just wouldn't eat very well. She has had a fever like this before and never has any other symptoms so I am concluding that she gets fevers with new teeth. She has been fever free for more than 24 hours now without medicine, and after getting her up from her nap today I realized that she had her hands in her mouth, and she has been sucking on her fingers while I read to her. So, after brushing her teeth tonight(she hates getting her teeth brushed anyways), she was a little extra whinny and so we looked inside and saw blood from the tooth that we knew was coming in already, and then got looking and all the other three empty spots between her two front teeth and her molars are teeth just getting ready to pop through. No wonder she had a fever and had her hands in her mouth. Three new teeth at one time is definitely a record for her. They still don't seem to bother her that much, she was SUPER happy today and ate a lot better also. So after these come in, next will be her two year molars.

Halloween and Painting!

Julie painted her pumpkin a few days before Halloween, didn't quite get into it at first, but got the hang of it later on. 

We are not big pumpkin carvers, but next year we will have to for sure do the pumpkin carving.

 Julie's first Halloween was a success, she had a great time! Rob's brother and sister in law and their little son came over around 5:30, and we made homemade pizza, and then went trick or treating. We got a lot of kids at our house and I felt bad when we headed out and turned all our lights out so no one came to our door. I am sure we missed a lot of trick or treaters, but we sure had fun taking Julie out together with her little cousin Matthew and his parents. Julie caught on pretty fast and by the 4th house or so, started saying "Trick or Treat", she would say it over and over in between houses, but when we got up to the door, she never would say it. Although, we did get her to say "Thank You" after getting a treat. It was so funny. We just went around our small little block and it was just perfect, it was cold but not freezing cold. And it didn't rain until later. We will definitely have to order pizza or something next year and go trick or treating first at around 5:30, we started after dinner at about 7:45, and didn't finish until around 8:30, and then after Mike and Heidi left, we made a quick trip to my parents house. So, it ended up being a little late, especially for little ones. But, in all it was a great night. Here are some pictures, we were trying to find a Winnie the Pooh costume for Julie, but we procrastinated and also didn't want to spend 30 bucks on a costume, so we just used a costume from my parents that I wore when I was that age. She was a little witch. I will have to find the picture of me when I was that age and scan it in. Here she is. She is doing her cheeser smile, and don't you just love our Christmas decoration on the door that has been up all year long.

 Little Matthew trying to get into one of his candy bars.

What a great night!