Happy Easter!

We spent a beautiful Easter weekend in Austin with my parents and sisters.

Unfortunately, Adelyn started getting sick the day we arrived and it developed into a full blown cold by Easter Sunday so she was pretty cranky and miserable throughout the weekend, especially at bedtime and naptime. (Stuffy nose, anyone?) She didn’t even get the chance to wear the Easter dress I made for her on Easter Sunday! Sad day. And now Momma and Daddy have caught her cold, so we are feeling miserable too. But she’s doing much better now.

Anyway, despite the cold, we had a wonderful time with the whole family! We hope you all had lovely Easter celebrations as well!

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Playing with Grandpa Joe

What could this be?? Grandma Lo and Grandpa Joe made Addy a special Easter present…

Tearing the paper off…

It’s an Addy-sized oven!

And she even gets her own pots and pans to cook with!!!!!

Checking out her awesome gift.

She had a blast playing with the stove the entire weekend. She was quite the little chef and made some delicious “soups” and “stews”.

Check out her use of “spices” here.

Very good job pouring the water, Addy.

She was so careful not to spill her tea kettle after filling it with water.

Learning how to blow bubbles!

Popsicle break with Auntie Kim.

Goldfish snack break with Daddy.

And now, back to cooking!

It’s very important to keep one’s feet clean while cooking.

And if you get too hot while cooking, you can cool off with a dip in a bucket!

Enjoying Easter breakfast before we hunt for eggs.

Mmmm, bacon.

Look at what the Easter bunny brought her! A delicious chocolate bunny, and he even filled up the Easter Egg basket that Momma made (see bottom of page for an aside about that)!

Her favorite part? The coloring book and crayons. She even skipped the chocolate so she could color. Whose child is this?! (She eventually came back to the chocolate though… in fact, she’s been eating chocolate eggs non-stop since we came back home. She’s addicted.)

After the egg hunt, we checked out the goodies in the easter eggs. She was sweet enough to share all of her candies with the family!

After all the candy consumption, we went for a nice family walk.

What a great weekend!!

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I made Adelyn an Easter egg basket for the Easter bunny to fill up, and thought I’d share a pic of it up close.

It was super easy! I followed this tutorial from HMH Designs and I love the way it turned out. I even had the same purple flower ribbon they used!! I remember making something similar way back in elementary school, so it was neat to recreate something from my childhood for Addy.

Adelyn is 23 months old and I am 31 weeks, 4 days pregnant.

Happy New Year!

Can you believe that 2011 is here?? We’ve been blogging for 2 years now, which seems crazy to me. It doesn’t feel like it has been that long!

My parents and youngest sis came to celebrate the New Year with us, and it was great having them here, although I felt kinda like a party pooper because I went to bed at 9:30pm on New Years Eve. Oh ya, life of the party over here! But one super exciting thing that happened on New Years Eve?

I felt P-Squared kick for the first time!

It was just like I remembered with Addy, small pop-pop-pops like popcorn low in my belly. I felt Addy’s first kicks when I was 16 weeks pregnant and since I know what sensation to expect, I’ve been playing close attention lately. I was laying on my back in bed, almost asleep, when I felt the first little flick. I texted Derek after I felt the second one and he came running in from the other room (he and Mikaela stayed up until midnight. Impressive, eh??) and waited to see if there were any more kicks. No more on New Years Eve, but I did feel another kick the next morning. I’d say that’s a pretty great way to start off 2011, in my opinion!!

We watched some old family movies, went on a family walk, played on the slides, did some reorganizing of our garage and pantry, and played some Chicken Foot. A nice, relaxing weekend before everyone had to get back to the daily grind. It’s always sad when the holidays are over and things go back to the way they were. Yesterday, Derek and I took down all the Christmas lights and decorations, so the house is looking pretty bare right now… What occasion should I decorate for next? Grounhog Day? Superbowl Sunday? So many options.

A few pictures:

One of Addy’s new Christmas dresses! (from a week ago…)

She likes to take her babydoll for walks.

Slides are always a hit with Addy.

Having fun on the slides with Auntie Mikaela!

Going on more walks.

Let’s see, what else. Addy has been sick for 5 or 6 days now and while she’s happy during the day, she gets stuffed up and pretty, well… phlegmy… at night. It reminds us of last Christmas and New Year when she had her first major cold/ear infection (7 mos old). That was pretty miserable for everyone because she was so little and sooo sick, and basically nobody got the sleep they needed. But look how cute she was!

In other news, we gave Addy her first hair cut on Sunday! She’s been rocking a mullet for the longest time now… you know, “business in the front, party in the back”. She had this one section of hair that was longer than all the others right at the back of her head (hair that was still around from when she was first born… she had a head full of hair, remember??)

My precious 1 week old daughter. I die from the cute!

Anway, we lopped that off and did some trimming around the rest of her head. It wasn’t easy, but it’s done. And now we have a lock of her hair for her baby book! She now looks “kept”, as my Mom put it.

That’s all for now. If you could please turn your attention to this face, Adelyn would just like to say “Thanks for sticking around and reading our blog!”

Look at these cheeks. Sept 2010.

Adelyn is 19 months, 1 week old and I am 15 weeks, 3 days pregnant.

First impressions are everything…

Addy enjoys meeting new people, so when my uncle said he would be coming to East Texas for business, we were really excited that he would get to stay with us for a few days! Addy had never met her Great Uncle Ran and I was looking forward to showing off our sweet little girl.

When Uncle Ran arrived for dinner on Thursday, however, he met a testy little imp instead.

All of Thursday, Addy had been cranky and throwing tantrums. She only had a 30 min nap the entire day, so by the time dinner rolled around she was exhausted and irritable. And then, after her 4th poop of the day, we finally concluded that her stomach was really upset. Okay, let’s all say it together now… duh!!. We put Ms. Cranky-Pants to bed early, hoping that she’d sleep soundly (she didn’t) and wake up in a good mood on Friday.

Apart from a hysterical (note, I do not mean “hysterical” as in “funny”) 15 minute meltdown before breakfast on Friday morning, she chippered up for the rest of Uncle Ran’s visit, so he got to enjoy Addy as her usual perky self! They had a good time reading books, feeding her dolly cheerios, playing with her pinwheel and visiting Daddy’s oil wells.

Here’s hoping Uncle Ran can turn a blind eye to that first impression of his grand niece!

Addy and Uncle Ran reading a book. Do you like her hair? She styled it herself.

Daddy's home for lunch!

My Uncle was very interested in Derek’s oil wells, so Derek was thrilled to teach him all about them!

Derek showing Uncle Ran his well #3, currently being worked on by a rig.

Addy loved meeting her Great Uncle Ran! Come see us again soon!

Adelyn is 14 months and 4 weeks old.

The “downside” of spring

Warning:  The following post contains a lot of belly-aching on my part.

When I wrote this post about spring in White Oak, I neglected one very important aspect of the season:

Pollen.

I developed mild allergies when my family first moved from Canada to Texas.  (side note #1:  Have I never mentioned that I used to live in Canada?  We moved to TX 10 yrs ago). A change in flora will do that, I s’pose.  The allergies really hadn’t bothered me much over the past few years.  Until we moved here, that is.

We have pollen in the house, if you can believe it.  When the weather is warm, the sun is shining and the air is dry (a far cry from the humidity of Houston), you can’t help but open your windows and doors, right?!  The pollen is on our china cabinet, side tables, floors, window sills, bookcases… even our tv.  I vacuum and mop our floors several times a week to keep the floor-pollen to a minimum (we have to, what with Addy spending so much time crawling around), and I dust and wipe down the furniture, but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference.  My allergies finally got the best of me and I spent a good chunk of last night and today miserable with a migraine headache from the congestion.  We finally had to close all the windows and turn on the air conditioning to clean the air.  Tomorrow will be spent decontaminating the rest of the house for sure.

My hubby knew I was feeling terrible, so he was so sweet and took care of Addy all day today.  While I was laying in bed, sniffling, sneezing and feeling downright sorry for myself, Derek and Addy were out having a good time running errands and visiting his Grandparents. I missed out on a nice Sunday, so now I just need to suck it up!

A few photos from the past few days:

Big girl loves standing behind the kitchen chairs!

Addy came to visit me while I was laying in bed today. She wanted me to read her a book.

"We don't like allergies, Momma. "

Side note #2: Allergy meds would make things easier, but I’m not taking any since I’m still breastfeeding and we’re not sure which ones (if any) are okay for me to take… def. something to ask my doc!

Happy Valentine’s Day?

Poor Derek has food poisoning.

All because we wanted to try a Thai restaurant in Longview last night, but ate Chinese instead (the Thai place is only open Tues-Fri. Who does that?!). Anyway, it was a big mistake. He spent basically the entire night awake, and has only slept for about a half hour since I got up with Addy at 6:30am. What a way to spend Valentine’s Day. My poor hubby. He’s the one with the iron stomach who can eat just about anything, so we’re surprised he got so sick (and I didn’t). I did have my own bout of food poisoning in Tucson thanks to a slice of pizza though, so I guess I’ve done my time. Here’s hoping he starts feeling better soon!!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

My tummy hurts

Haven’t been feeling so hot lately (literally and figuratively). The joys of being pregnant, I guess. I’m feeling large and rotund, despite Derek insisting that I’m not. I’ve had indigestion the past few days (probably TMI), and today I’m getting stomach cramps too. I had my doctor’s appointment this morning so I brought it up, and she said it could be a combination of things – maybe the new prenatal vitamins I’ve started taking recently, maybe a bit of stomach virus, maybe gallbladder problems (What?! apparently gallbladers don’t drain well during pregnancy and crystals/stones can form). She suggested I watch the amount of fried foods, spicy foods and dairy products I eat to see if the cramps go away (hmmm, maybe this will help me feel better about my appearance!). Apparently it’s a fairly common thing, gallstones in pregnant women. Blah. Besides that, Baby looks great, heartrate is 160 bpm. Baby had the hiccups while I was sitting in the doctor’s office, but I felt too sick and uncomfortable to enjoy the sensation. Man, sometimes I just feel like such a whiner. Anyway, I’m staying home today to relax and recupperate. Nova is so happy, she jumped up on my belly to sit with me. She loves having someone to keep her company at home.

I’ve been listening to this pretty singing outside so I just turned and looked on our patio, and there’s a beautiful purple finch sitting on our hummingbird feeder! It looks like he can’t figure out how to drink from the feeder though, poor little guy. Spring is definitely here – birds are building nests, trees and flowers are blooming. It’s just lovely. Even my tummy is in bloom (Father of the Bride II, anyone?).

Happy side note: The wife of one of Derek’s groomsmen/firefighting buddies had a baby boy yesterday, about 3 weeks early I think! His name is Daniel Wade (precious!) and he’s perfectly healthy. He’s the first in a series of babies that are due this year for the fire department (next in line is us, then a new recruit and his fiancee). It’s funny, last year the fire department had 3 or 4 weddings, this year it’s all about the babies

Ugh.

It’s just been one of those days.

I went to bed last night with the worst heartburn ever. I had never actually experienced heartburn before pregnancy and I’ve been getting it off and on now for about a week. It’s killer. I hate it. BURNING…. At least Baby was happy. Baby kicked so hard that my stomach popped up by about 3 inches – not even kidding. It was funny.

Today started off okay, but I started getting dizzy while on campus, which was weird. And my lower back has been hurting all day. And now I’m frustrated with my stupid numerical models because they aren’t working right and take forever to set up. To top it off, it took me an hour to get home because of traffic and dingbat Houston drivers. The only thing I want to do is stay at home, sleep and do baby related things. I’m done with school. Over it.

I called Derek when I got home (upset, of course) and he made me feel a bit better. He’s going to take me out to dinner tonight, then we’re going to pick up the crib and put it together. That should make me feel better, I hope! We’ll post pictures.