Winter Fun

Mike recently decided to buy Abigail her very first sled. Even though her snow suit and boots that we purchased for her this year are still ginormous on her (we plan to use them next year now instead), we somehow made it work in order to take her around the yard on one of our "warmer" snow days this season. She squealed with enjoyment the entire time!

The best part of all, which I wish I had been able to catch on camera, was when Louis decided that he wanted to help pull the sled. He pulled the rope right out of Mike's hands and took off running at full speed dragging poor Abbey behind him. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind.

Catching Up

Now that I'm firmly in the second trimester, I thought it's time to write a post dedicated to my pregnancy thus far and baby #2's progress.

To date, I'm now roughly 15 weeks pregnant. While I'm not feeling back to my old self quite yet, I have finally started to feel a tiny bit better. My energy is slowly starting to return and I find that I don't need to nap during Abigail's naptime any longer. I'm still sick off and on, but it's nothing like the crushing nausea I felt during the 1st trimester. I still can't eat much and have lost about 6 lbs. Since I was overweight when I became pregnant with Abbey and then held onto at least 10 lbs. from that pregnancy before finding out about #2, my OB isn't overly concerned yet. I've also been craving healthier foods this time such as vegetables (I've seriously eaten vegetable soup for lunch everyday this past month) and fruits rather than sweets like I did last time, so I'm sure that's playing a large role in my weight loss as well.

I was extremely bloated for the first three months, but that is slowly starting to reside and I've now got what appears to be more baby bump than fat. For comparison's sake, here are two photos of my "bump" that I've taken so far, the first taken at 8 weeks and the second at 12:

(I swear I don't wear purple everyday. It's just a coincidence. Really.)

I also had my NT Scan a few weeks back and, thank goodness, all looks great with the baby. I thought I'd share the latest ultrasound pictures, taken at 12w1d, since it's been about 6 weeks since my original ultrasound. It's amazing how much that little peanut changes in a month and a half!

My instincts are still telling me that this baby will be a boy. Mike refuses, once again, to believe me even though I was right with guessing Abigail's sex early on. I have my 16 week appointment scheduled for next Wednesday, however, and then the appointment after that will be our gender scan where I suppose we'll find out for certain. I can't wait to know so that I can give this baby a better nickname than simply #2. Poor kid.

Oh, and this post wouldn't be complete without an update on my vehicle situation. We ended up selling the Explorer at a dealer auction and then purchasing a Chevy Trailblazer for me at yet another dealer auction. Three weeks after the Explorer kicked the can, I now call this baby mine:

(Disclaimer: No, this is not my actual vehicle. It's a random picture of my vehicle from Google. Mine is currently buried under about 3 feet of snow in the driveway, ha.)

It's so wonderful to finally have my independance back. Whoo!

Wonderful, Just Wonderful.

Crap!

The transmission on my vehicle (a 2003 Ford Explorer) just died. This was our "family" car, meaning that it was what we drove whenever we took Abigail out. Since I'm with Abbey most often, it was mainly "my" vehicle. Now, I'm stuck at home, with cabin fever nonetheless, and without a vehicle until we can figure out what to do from here.

Mike and I had known that it was starting to have some transmission problems for awhile now and it does have slightly high miles (approximately 109,000), but I'm still upset that it happened. We bought the vehicle used in 2007 and had it paid off shortly thereafter. I was really hoping to get more miles out of it, but at least I can say that I really did run it into the ground.

Mike is hesitant to fix it because of a few other issues it has. (I wish I could tell you exactly what the problems are, but I'm hopeless when it comes to this sort of thing. It has to do with the rear suspension....or something.) He's worried that we'll dump the money into the transmission only to have something else major go. At that point, we'd end up dumping more money into the Explorer than it's worth.

Luckily, we do have three other vehicles that we can use to get by: one is Mike's Pontiac Firebird that is currently in storage for the winter, a plow truck, and a Saturn something-or-other that Mike uses to drive to work since it gets fabulous gas mileage and he has a long commute. Since the Firebird can't be driven in the winter (and it's a standard so I can't drive it even if I wanted to) and Mike needs the Saturn, it looks like I'll be driving the plow truck - with the plow itself taken off, thank goodness, or I'd never be able to park it - for the time being.

Since his dad owns several car businesses, Mike will most likely attempt to sell the Explorer as-is at a dealer auction that his dad often frequents. At least then we should be able to get some money for the darned thing without having to put more money into it. We'll probably start looking for another "family" vehicle shortly afterwards as well.

Ugh. This is so NOT the way I wanted to go about buying a new car.

A "Hoot" of a Good Time!

This past Saturday, Mike and I celebrated Abigail's 1st Birthday with our closest friends and family. It went off without a hitch and we all had a blast! I'll be completely honest here and admit that getting things ready for her party was the most fun I've had in quite awhile.

As you may have guessed from the preview of her party invitations that I posted last month, the theme was, " Look WHOOO's turning one!" (think, lots of cute little owls). Now that the party's over, I can't seem to part with all of the adorable decorations so I plan on packing them away in Abbey's memory box for her to look at in the future.

You should probably know going foward that this post will be extremely picture/video heavy. Consider yourself warned!

(P.S. I apologize for the crappy quality of some of the pictures. It appears that our camera may be on it's last legs. Le sigh. )

First, the decorations:

A very happy Abigail with Mike:

She played with her toys while waiting for all of her guests to arrive. I attempted several times to get a decent picture of her entire outfit, but I failed miserably.

She was NOT happy about having to wear her hat.

She was MUCH happier about eating her cake, however.

The finished product...

And now, for the videos!

Happy Birthday, Abigail!

Exactly one year ago today, our daughter, Abigail Grace, was born at 2:18 pm and changed our lives forever.

Happy 1st Birthday, my big girl! Mommy and daddy love you to the moon and back!



P.S. Her party is on Saturday, so stay tuned for lots of pictures!

Welcome to 2011!

Reflecting back on 2010, it becomes clear that it was quite the year for our family. We had our first child in January, Mike received a promotion at work in May, I made the decision to quit my job to become a SAHM in June, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in July, and we found out in November that we're expecting our second child. So much has changed that it seems infinitely hard to believe that only a few years ago we were newlyweds who were just starting out. We've been extremely blessed and continue to be blessed each and every day.

On that note, I'm greatly looking foward to the new year and all of the surprises, good or bad, that it may hold for us.

Here's to a fabulous 2011!

Eleven Months Old!

Well, she actually turned eleven months about a week and a half ago, but you know how that goes....

We've got one month and counting until our baby officially turns into a toddler! Abigail has grown and changed so much in just one year that I simply can't wait to see how she'll develop over the next. While it's sad to say goodbye to the baby stage, I'm greatly looking foward to the next step and all that toddlerhood involves. It's just amazing to watch her personality blossom and to watch her grow into such a perfect little girl.

• She's still gabbing away and has added a few new words to her vocabulary such as "cookie" and "book" (although that one comes out sounding more like "booka"). I will say that "dadda" is still her favorite word, however.
• She's now walking! She still doesn't entirely trust herself so she'll often squat down and crawl.
• We've ditched the baby food. She's 100% on table food now. She'll eat most things but HATES peas.
• We've started weaning her off of her formula and bottles in order to transition her to whole milk and her sippy cup. While she'll drink water out of her sippy like it's going out of style, she's not a fan of the milk so far. I might try doing one bottle a day of milk instead of formula (she's down to only 3 bottles as it is) and see how that works.
• She loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the mornings with me and is great at playing independently, especially with books.
• She's recently discovered her bellybutton and will point to it when you ask her where it is.
• She can recognize her sippy cup, paci, stuffed monkey, and blanket by name. If you ask her where one of those items is, she'll retrieve it and bring it back to you.
• Most days, she'll only take one (long) nap.
• Her sleep is improving SO much. She's slept through the night several times over the past month and, even when she doesn't, she really only wakes up once or twice and then goes right back to sleep while I rock her a bit. She's finally getting the hang of putting herself back to sleep in the middle of the night.

In case I don't post again in the meantime, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

We've Got a Walker!

A Wonderful Birthday

Yesturday was my 27th birthday. Although it started out a bit rough, it ended up being my best birthday yet. Allow me to explain...

Sunday night, I started spotting again. I had been spotting off and on since my initial prenatal appointment on Wednesday, however, it was a very small amount of brown blood so I was convinced that it was simply from the internal exam and pap that I received at that appointment. I didn't give much thought to it since it went away after a day or so. That is, until I started spotting again on Sunday. This time there was red blood and I completely freaked out. I called my OB's emergency number to see how they would like me to proceed and since I wasn't experiencing any cramping or clotting, they had told me to hang tight and come into the office the next day for an ultrasound to check on the baby.

While I was still freaking out about the spotting, we lost half (yes, only half) of the power to our house. Mike initially thought that we had blown a fuse or that a surge protector somewhere had gone bad. As it turns out, neither was the case. (Keep in mind, it was only 15 degrees outside, it was 9 pm, and our heat was not working.) We turned on the generator and called the power company. Thank goodness that it only took them 20 minutes to arrive! After several minutes, they determined that a power line that runs underground to our house is bad. Since there are two wires that run to our house, that explained why we had only lost half of our power. They created a temporary fix until they can come back (in their words, "anytime from one day to several months from now...") to fix it permanently. In the meantime, Abigail's nightlite and sound machine kept turning off and on since the power company kept having to kill the electricity and then restart it, so she was continuously waking up. Here I was, supposed to be resting and instead I kept having to run back and forth to her room to get her back to sleep until the power was restored. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

I was so stressed out by the time Mike and I went to bed that he decided to surprise me with my birthday gift a day early. He bought me the Nook Color I've been drooling over and a $35 B&N GC so that I could start adding books to it! It was a wonderful distraction to everything that was going on.

Fast foward to my actual birthday on Monday. I was nervous as all heck when we went in for my ultrasound. I had never spotted while pregnant with Abigail, especially not red blood, and had no idea what we were going to find on the sonogram. By the grace of God, the technician saw the baby's heartbeat immediately. I felt like the weight of the world was taken off of my shoulders. Seeing that heartbeat, which measured at 133 bpm, instantly put me at ease. She mentioned that the baby was measuring a few days ahead and was growing like a weed. After thoroughly checking me with the "dildo-cam", the technician stated that she saw no apparant reason for the spotting. Her best guess is that it's merely being caused by implantation of the placenta into the uterine wall and that there was nothing serious to worry about.

That news was, quite frankly, the best birthday gift I had ever received. I suppose I'm just going to be a spotter this time around and resolve myself to not panic everytime it happens unless other warning signs are present.

To top off our night, Mike took me and Abigail out to dinner at our favorite Japenese restuarant and we had a fabulous time. The food was amazing!

So, to conclude this novel of a post, here are the very first pictures of baby #2:

Birthday Sneak Peek

The planning for Abigail's birthday party is well underway and I'm starting to get so excited for the celebration! I purchased her decorations and her outfit for the special day and I've gathered ideas about her cake.

I'm planning on sending out the invites after Christmas, but here's a sneak peak of what the theme of her party is (with our last name blanked out, of course):