17 Months

This Picture just about sums up Eliza right now:) Fiesty, and silly!!! Love, Love Love!!! I know 17 months is kind of a random month to do an update, but I did sort of a lame-O job for her 1 year update, and there are so many fun things I dont want to forget about this stage!

Fun things, as well as new challenges, but we are enjoying this little ball of energy and sass, and sweetness more and more everyday! We have survived a few full blown tantrums, re-adjusted our schedule, and then re-adjusted it some more. There is constant change, and adjusting to be done, which sometimes I'll admit...worries me...but I am a work in progress, and things always work out, and at the end of the day, if I can look back and say "I loved Eliza with every fiber of my being, and did everything I could/know to do to keep her happy , healthy and safe" then I feel successful. Even if the house is still messy, and there are dishes in the sink...and I stayed in my sweats alllll day:}


Here are some fun things about Eliza at 17 months:

• She loves animals!! That hasn't changed for months...but now, instead of every animal "barking", she barks for dogs, cats, and most four legged animals, quacks for ducks, and tweets for birds. Her favorite right now are birds!! She loves to see them in front of our apt. and anytime she hears or sees one she "tweets", You cannot even imagine how cute it is.



• She Says hot dog "Hog-og", outside "ow-shy-ee", shoes "shoosh", cracker "cra-gra"(which means cracker or fruit snacks:), "Hi", "HOt",cup "gup" for her sippy, and yogurt "go-gur"...she is talking all the time, whether we understand it or not! It is so fun to hear the new things she says all of the time. Every once in a while when we are tickling, she will try to tickle us too and say "gickle-gickle-gickle", cutest.thing.ever.



• She loves to watch mickey mouse clubhouse...that is the first thing she wants every morning.



• She is still the "bag lady"...she has also taken up a fascination with keys again...first thing when someone gets home, or comes over, she goes for their keys.



• She still loves talking on the phone



• She Loves Turkey dogs, broccoli, ramen noodles, carrots, bananas, yogurt, crackers, fruit snacks...and much much more, she is an awesome eater most of the time!!



• Since taking away the paci, she loves her blankies now. There isn't one in particular that she is attached to, but whichever one she is currently sleeping with is her buddy for about 15 mins after waking up, and when she is tired.



• She loves going to grandma and grandpas, and memaw and tickie-ties. When we say we are going to either one, she claps and squeals with joy...and then when we pull up there is more clapping and squealing, and clawing at her buckles...we love that she recognizes those special places.



• She signs "more" like a pro. Not only does it mean "more please", it basically just means I want that...haha



• She usually wakes up in the mornings and from naps happy and talking and then greets me with a big, cheesy, happy "HI!" when I go to get her....and then she snuggles into my shoulder for just a second....but it is the sweetest moment for me.



• she is also slimming down...this is not such a fun thing for me, because I miss all of those rolls and it just rubs it in that she is growing up. But I know that is good, cus she doesn't need to be a chunkster forever.



• She loves taking baths! When I say "bath-time!" she runs to the bathroom and automatically gets a wash rag from under the sink.



• She loves to give us big open-mouthed kisses!! Sometimes she will make kissy noises and give us a closed-lip kiss, but we love the sloppy ones!!! The best are like earlier today, when I was bent down in front of her to put her shoes on, and she just leaned over and gave me the sweetest kiss. My heart just melts...I live for those moments.

I will probably think of a ton more once I've posted this, but...thats a pretty good list :) I just love being a mommy to this sweet little girl. I love her fun, sweet, fiesty spirit. I love that I have this responsibility (along with David), to teach her and help her grow...but I also love that she really teaches me so much everyday!!! Being a mom is hard, and I am not such a pro as I had hoped I would be haha. But the rewards far out-weigh any hard times!!

AND...some more pictures....

A fun day at the little water park in Roanoke with

Grandma, Auntie A and Auntie M

She had such a blast!

She loved the little pirate ship slide~

She is saying "hi" to me before she slides down :)

Group shot before we left....Eliza was saying how
much fun she had :)

My Best Friend Ashlie came up to visit from Utah

so we got to spend a fun day with her

This was her first time ever meeting Eliza!!

Eliza giving the Stare down....

But they were bff's too before too long

Morning ritual...Watching mickey mouse:)

I have no good excuse for not blogging, and have started this post several times...but anyways here is what we have been up to.

The beginning of July brought a new and exciting chapter in our lives...debt!! We purchased our first car...well the first car that has been financed and not payed for out right. So as scary as the thought of being in debt for the next 4 years is, we are so happy to have a nice, reliable car...with working A/C!! Bring on the Road trips!! It is a 2008 Ford Escape and it is in beautiful condition!! Love it!! Unfortunately we still have only one (working) car, as we traded in our little old bmw to get the payments in the right range, but hopefully we will remedy that in the not-too-distant-future :}

We also got Eliza her first "big-girl" car seat. She loved it instantly, and acted like the Queen of the back seat....even more than usual :) It took her some getting used to as far as being able to fall asleep, but as you can see from the picture above, it didnt take too long to adjust :)

I will be Six months along on Thursday!! I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy is going!! I feel great!!! I definitely have to retire some jeans, which is sad, but I cannot take the uncomfortable pressure anymore!! I have another Ultrasound on Thursday, and my mom and Davids mom are going to come with... it will be so fun!!! Baby girl is still without a name...why it's so hard to come up with a name, I have no idea....but we are working on it.

I am also going to be babysitting two litle boys beginning mid August. My mom has watched them since the older one was born. He is now 4 and his little bro is 3. I will have my hands full for sure! But it will be a blessing for us to have the extra income, and for me to continue to stay home with Eliza and baby girl. Baby girl is coming at a great time, as far as "maternity leave" goes. She is due the beg. of November, so part of my leave will be during Thanksgiving and both of the parents are teachers, so they will get time off, then Christmas is not too far after that. I love this family so I feel so blessed to be able to do this!! Our lease is up in December, which will be the perfect time to move to a bigger apt. and one that is closer to the family I am baby sitting for, and School for David. It is going to be a pretty busy end-of-the-year, but Exciting as well!!

Here are some pics from the End of June and the 4th of July:

Getting ready to watch fireworks

Clapping for the fireworks....

She snuck a cupcake at my parents 4th of July bbq

:)

Sweet, silly little girl!! <3

playing peek-a-boo with her purse

Love this sweet little face!!!

Its a girl!!!

The "all-knowing cake, that sat in our fridge for two days taunting us!!!

Thats right, there was PINK filling in that cake!!! Eliza gets a sister!!!

this is before-hand, everyone was choosing which color balloon

they wanted to hold for the picture...

there were only like 4 pink ones...

We had alot of celebrating going on....
It was Father's Day, and My birthday,
and we celebrated Davids birthday...
And the gender reveal!!!
I loved this picture because Eliza's face is all lit up -
she thought all of the singing was for her...sweet baby!!!

I am so happy that Eliza has some great aunties who love
to play with her and keep her happy and occupied!!



Little ham

She loves to do this....A-dorable!!

What a blessed weekend!! Not only did we get to find out the gender of our new baby, but we got to do it on Fathers day, and my birthday!!! Talk about the best present!! I was born on Fathers day, and about every 6 years or so it lands on fathers day again. I always loved that! I am blessed with some incredible men in my life to celebrate! I have the worlds best daddy, who has taught me so much, and continues to work hard and be there for our family. I have an absolutely incredible husband, who is the best daddy to our little girl (soon to be girls!). I couldnt have asked for any better, As corny as it sounds, it makes me want to cry thinking about this amazing man! I dont know what I did to deserve him!! I am so grateful for my wonderful Father-in-law who taught David so so much, and is such a beacon of strength and love to us all. Not to mention the amazing Uncles and Grandpas and brother-in-laws, and cousins who are daddy's!! Like I said before...we are so blessed with wonderful families!!

Thursday was my ultrasound. I was so excited, and could NOT wait til my 5:45 appointment. We brought Eliza, and it was so neat to have our whole little family there. Even though Eliza had no idea what was going on. It is always such a relief to see all four healthy chambers of the heart, and to see all the fingers, toes, a beautiful spine, etc. I love it!! That is when it is so real that there is a little life growing inside of me!! That and the movement I am feeling more,and more. They are starting to be more pronounced kicks, punches, and flips! I also came with an extremely full bladder, which I thought was necessary. Well apparantly it's not. When I had my Ultrasound with Eliza at 18 weeks the hospital (where I had the u.s. done) told me to come with a full bladder, so even though my dr.s office didnt mention it this time, I thought for sure I needed to and i didnt want to mess it up. HA. So it wasnt too big a deal, just totally uncomfortable for no reason, and because my bladder was so full, it caused my uterus to contract leaving very little room for baby girl to move around and give us good pics. 

But I love that we can officially say "she", and "baby girl"! I dont know what it is, but for some reason just knowing that its a girl makes me feel like I know her that much better! Like she's not such a mystery anymore. She is our DAUGHTER! Just thinking about having another daughter brings tears to my eyes. I remember all of the fun my sister Lauren and I had growing up because we were so close in age, and I am so excited for Eliza to have a lil sis. Even though I was shocked because I thought it was a boy, I am completely overjoyed!!! Now to come up with a name!!!

18 Weeks

This pregnancy is flying by!! And also, I know that my belly wasn't this big at 18 weeks with Eliza...things sure do change the second time around!! 18 Weeks today! Which means, in exactly one week we will be having our ultrasound!! I am so excited!! I keep having dreams that I peak, and see the gender (since we are having a gender reveal party) and it is always a boy...so we will see!! I would be thrilled to have another sweet baby girl too, but I just keep thinking boy lately. Hmmm, we'll see how on target I am. Not alot to update here in the pregnancy dept., so I apologize that these pics and updates will probably be pretty uneventful...but I documented Eliza's pregnancy so horribly, and really regret not having those memories/pics to look back on and to compare to. So this is mostly for my benefit=) Feeling more/bigger movements, which is the best!! I am also really loving my belly band this go-round. I only used it a handful of times with Eliza, but managed to stay in regular jeans all the way through. But this time, by the end of the day, my regular jeans are really REALLY uncomfortable on the scar from my c-section. And also, lets face it, I def. have it going on in the love handle department, and so the belly band is great for allowing me to comfortably wear my regular jeans, while avoiding any un-wanted love-handleage... ;-)

ANDDD...you know you have preggo-mommy brain when you go to put away the dish towels...in the refrigerator!!! HA, atleast that's what I am blaming it on!!

As for an Eliza update: She is still cuter than should be legal! She now folds her arms AND bows her head when we say "time for prayers"...mmmm melt my heart!!! She is a little chatter box, although still not really saying much we can understand. She is becoming little miss independence, and is extremely fiesty and DRAMATIC!!! Oh boy!! Before she started walking, I heard a lot of "when she starts walking, Watch out...that is when the trouble starts", and similar comments...but, I honestly love that she can walk!! The world has completly opened up to her! She can occupy herself in a way she never could before, and I'm not sure if it's just that her mind has reached a new level of development, and how much has to do with her new found mode of transportation, but she seems to be in her own little, almost imaginary world sometimes! It is so fun to watch her toddle around and kind of chatter to herself, and play with her little dishes, and purses and animals. Motherhood is the BEST!!!

Pics of the week:

So happy to be using her big girl cup with a straw!!


She brought out her frying pan while I was cooking dinner :)

This lil guy was on our back porch the other morning

and Eliza spent a good 10 mins following it and trying to catch it!

that is a record for the amount of time something has kept her occupied!!

"Hey lizard, come here"

My beautiful "baby sis" graduated from HIGH SCHOOL last Saturday!!

I cannot believe it!! She is so sweet and talented,

I cant wait to see where life takes her next!!!

Way-to-go Steph!!!
We love you sooo much!! <3

17 Weeks

{17 weeks}

(I am not sure what is going on with all of the weird spacing and stuff, sorry)
I realize that this is not the BEST picture, but it WAS the end of the day =} So I was seventeen weeks yesterday. And I got an exciting phone call telling me that instead of having our ultrasound on the 23rd of this month, we get to have it on the 16th!! Only TWO more weeks!!

We decided that we want to do a gender reveal party. I hadnt heard of anything like that when I was pregnant with Eliza, but it seems to be all the rage lately, and it sounds like so much fun!

It will be so exciting to find out the gender of our baby at the exact same time as all of our family!!

I have been feeling little pop-corn movements for a couple of weeks now which is the best! With Eliza, I didnt start feeling anything until 19ish weeks. I guess the second time around you are just more sensitive to it, or know what to look for?? I love it!!

Other than that, I am feeling great! I am nervous to be pregnant during the hot, muggy summer months since I am already not a huuuge fan of the heat + 90% humidity. We will probably be spending alot of time at the pool (or inside the air-conditioned apt.)

I am taking one summer class online this month, and one next month so it will be pretty easy.

David is only taking one starting in July, and I will be honest...I am really happy to have him home in the evenings for another month!!

Plus that means that he can go to the Ultrasound appt. with me!!!

And of course, here are some adorable pics of Eliza:

Ready to go on our walk with her cute pink shades

that lasted about 2 mins=)

She likes to put her sunglasses on her head
just like mommy =)

This is what she does when I ask her to "smile"!!
Little miss sassy pants
she gets more and more fun each day!!!

HASTA LA VISTA...PACI!!!

I have dreaded this day since she was 2 days old, and we decided to try giving her a pacifier. Actually, if I am being honest...its been a fear of mine since I found out I was pregnant! The day we take away the paci...dun dun dunnnn!!! After working in day care for quite some time, I realized how many kids still use a pacifier until they are like 3 years old which I think is way too old!! The kids who where attached to there "paci's" "wubbas" or whatever else they were called did not talk as well, and often had slobbery rashes around their mouths from all of the saliva that drips out when they are sucking on their paci 24/7. I love love love the paci, dont get me wrong, but I didnt want my kids using one until they were in kindergarten.

I had heard that there was a window of time, between the ages of about 6-9 months where they are supposed to kind of lose interest in it and that is when you strike--but somehow I missed that with Eliza =} So here we were at 15 months and she was getting more and more attached, so something had to be done!! It was taking over!! We started out only giving it to her at nap time, bed time, and sometimes in the car so she could go to sleep. But eventually she started expecting it as soon as we got in the car (although she knew to hand it to us once we were getting out...so cute), and then recently she would go and some how sneak it out of her crib and walk around with it until she got caught!! Little goob!!

I have been saying I want to take it away for the past 3 months, since she turned one...but lets face it, I loved having it for those "emergency" moments, and I was scared for what might come during the weaning process. Also, we are in an apartment, and we have some elderly neighbors whos bedroom wall shares ours (bad building structure if you ask me), and I knew that it would be so annoying to hear a baby up loudly screaming at 3 in the morning for her paci. But fortunately David is on the same page as me on this, and is a little stronger sometimes when it comes to these things, so this weekend we decided to go for it. Sunday was her first day sans paci. She did good in the car, and only fussed a little (although David and I singing every primary song we could think of helped a bit), and then the real test...bedtime!! She did amazing!! She cried for maybe 10 mins, which was hard but then went to sleep. She woke up at 6 very upset and was only getting more and more hysterical so I had to take her out of the room and I rocked her on the couch...She tossed and turned in my lap and then finally almost an hour later she climbed down, walked into our room and pointed to her crib...I kindly obliged, layed her down and turned on her music and she was almost asleep when the music started skipping and I thought I could be sneaky and change it real quick, but not so. she started screaming again and so I gave up and put her in bed with us =/ I know, I know. But last night was a real win!! Right before we were going to go to bed she woke up and I went in and just rubbed her back and "shhhh shhh shhhhd" until she turned over and went back to sleep, only a couple of minutes. She slept until 8:30!! Naptime today was really the first time for a nap in her crib since we started this, because we had a busy weekend, and it wasnt too bad, but it took her about 20 mins to go to sleep and then she only slept for a little over an hour. Not a bad start though.

This next baby I will definitely pay better attention during that 6-9 month period!!

Picture procrastination....

......Results in one long picture over-loaded blog post!!

I've had some of these pics for a while

but my computer

sometimes takes forever to upload them

so I've been avoiding it

lately...=)

Most are more recent.

So here is a blog post in pictures to catch up.

This morning I put on one of the only kids
movies we own
hoping she would be interested
for atleast a few minutes
so I could do some laundry
and other
necessary catch-up from the weekend.
She never watches movies...
which is ok with me,
and is also why we dont own any.
But I thought Id give it a shot,
and she sat in her little rocking chair and watched barbie
for a total of about 15 mins maybe
with some breaks in between...so cute!!

She is a total bag lady!!
Notice that she has 2 bags on her shoulder=)
Plus my keys hiding under that
blue ball
and mommy's sunglasses to top it all off!
She is such a girl!!

She has recently started carrying around
whatever blanket she can find...
it is
so adorable!!!
(I say that word a lot)

This is the classic Eliza face

Cute little cheesin it smile for

the camera =)

Brushing her teeth in her fav. spot...

the kitchen cabinet...

Not sure why she loves it...

but I love it!

She put this headband on all by herself...

such a big girl =) and =(

Feeding herself....

and mommy =)

All ready for church

with her purse...

of Course!!