San Antonio- Seaworld

To celebrate Brian's birthday in September, we headed to San Antonio for the weekend. Bella rode her first roller coaster... much to my worry! Does she appear to even know what she's gotten herself into???

(BEFORE)...waiting in line with Daddy....

The Shamu roller coaster...

(AFTER)....a BIG thumbs up!

Brian also managed to get Ray & Debbie on a wet, river ride!

Of course we had to see the Orcas and the Shamu show... Bella LOVED it!

July/ August Recap

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from updating the family blog, so hopefully I can keep up with it better now that I'm on bedrest. Here's a short recap of July & August 2010:

Debbie and Ray spent the week of July 4th with us and we paid a visit to Kemah. Bella rode the Red Baron airplane ride for the first time and enjoyed also riding her usual carousel ride.

She also burned off a little energy at the Kemah Boardwalk park, but it was SOOO hot.

Grandpa, Bella, Grandma & Brian on Kemah Boardwalk....

While they were in, we all took Bella to see her first movie in theatres....Toy Story 3. She did really good and the movie kept her attention through most of it.

Brian gave everyone a tour at NASA- couldn't get Bella to smile for a nice family picture.

On August 6, we got some exciting news....baby #2 is a GIRL! Chloe Alise is expected to arrive in late December 2010.

Bella started "school" in our church's Early Childhood Program for (4) hours on Tuesday & Thursday each week. It was a bit of a rough adjustment for her, but she's finally settled in a routine and is doing very well in school. Her favorite activity is playing with play-doh!

Summer Reading Club

We signed Bella up for the Summer Reading Club at Helen Hall Library a couple of weeks ago, and she turned in her first completed log on Wednesday. She marks off a picture of a train each time we finish a book and it takes a total of 20 books to complete one log. She was very proud to turn in her log to the librarian and pick a prize from the bin. She chose a smiley face stamper, so I'm sure my house will be covered with red smiley faces very soon!!!

We go to the library weekly to check out new books and I let her choose one or two that interest her. They have turned out to be the silliest books and I would have probably not chosen them myself for her. Haha. Last week's book was "How to Catch a Star", which was about a boy who tried to catch or reach a star throughout the book. She loved it! This week....seriously...."Walter the Farting Dog". It is an absolutely obnoxious book that she laughs at the entire time I'm reading it. Yep, my kid wants to read about farting dogs. Nice.

I'll upload pictures soon....

7th Wedding Anniversary

Happy 7th Anniversary to my sweet husband!

It's hard to believe that we have been married 7 years already, especially when I look back through the wedding & honeymoon pictures. Then again, when I think of everything that we've accomplished and experienced, it does seem like it's been longer than 7 years....but it has always been interesting and FUN!

To celebrate, Brian made his specialty pizza (Margarita). He made the crust from scratch, then added the basil and tomatoes from our garden, and topped with mozzarella cheese. Yummy!

Have you ever had a cake ball? Well, I tasted my first one (notice one missing from the picture...haha) and they're awesome! I ordered a dozen of the chocolate assortment from Viva La Cake Balls in Dickinson (www.vivalacakeballs.com) and we enjoyed them as an anniversary dessert. Our assortment included peanut butter cups, German chocolate (our fav!), oreo, grasshopper, and chocolate. DELICIOUS!!!

First Swim Lesson

Tonight was Bella's first class of swim lessons at our YMCA. (Yesterday's class was cancelled due to weather). She was so excited to get to play in the pool! I definitely have a water kid on my hands, although she does not like to go under the water quite yet.



She practiced blowing bubbles with Daddy....



Then, she learned how to safely climb out of the swimming pool....



Next up was some singing and playing in the water...



These two had such a fun time at swim class tonight!

Good News!

Our follow-up ultrasound appointment went really good and the baby is growing very well. He/She has doubled in size since our last u/s 2 weeks ago and is about the size of Brian's hand. My bleed is much smaller now, about 1cm in size. My next appointment is in a week (June 16) for my 12 week checkup with the doctor.

For now, no ultrasounds are scheduled until 18-20 weeks when it'll be time to find out the gender. My guess is that the baby will be a girl because the heartrate has been 174-182 bpm. It's higher in the beginning of the pregnancy and will eventually slow as the baby grows. Bella's heartrate was always 150-160, so I'm guessing a girl just based on that.

Baby Update

We had a scare on May 23 (Sunday night) and ended up spending most of Monday at Texas Womens Hospital. After an ultrasound, we were relieved to see the baby was perfectly fine. My doctor diagnosed me as having a subchorionic hemorrage, which is a bleed/clot between the uterus and placenta.

We are scheduled to get another ultrasound on June 7th (2 weeks later) to see if the tear has healed. I have been getting plenty of rest and fluids, no lifting or straining and just trying to take it easy. It is MUCH easier said than done with an active 2 year old in the house!

Thanks for all the thoughts & prayers, it's much appreciated.

Our family is growing!

Today we went to the doctor and had our first ultrasound to see how our baby #2 is growing. Yep, you read that right....we're having another baby!

Baby #2 is growing nicely so far and we got to see their little heartbeat for the first time. I'm 7 weeks along and our due date is Jan 1st (1.1.11)...how crazy is that??? Since I'll have another c-section, it is likely that she/he will be born between Christmas and New Years. More exactly, either Dec 26, 27 or 31 because Ray's birthday is 28th, mine is 29th, and my inlaws' anniversary is 30th. Oh, such a dilema... but definitely a GOOD dilema. :)

A few pictures

In honor of a Tired Tuesday, today's post will be mainly pictures of Bella's new haircut and her attempts at styling Brian's hair. She first put the clip in her mouth as she was twirling his hair together. I asked her "Where did you learn that?", and she said "Aunt Krissy does that to fix my hair".

Awwww- the aftermath....Daddy's hair is now out of his face.

And of course, her infamous "smile".....

Spagetti Lunch + 3 Toddlers = HUGE Mess

Can you tell who absolutely LOVES her friends to come over???

Zachary & Aiden come over twice a week to play with Bella, and today was messy sketti lunch! This definitely was the best eaten meal I have ever served these 3 kiddos. After they polished off their spagetti, they enjoyed some crunchy graham crackers.

I normally don't have them take their shirts off for lunch, but it was spagetti afterall. Haha, the boys didn't waste a second with their shirts to eat, although Ms. Modesty wasn't so quick to get on board.

Sweet (and messy!) Aiden....

Week 1 without a Pacifier

Okay, so I must admit, it was premature to brag that Bella had easily transitioned to official big girl status by ditching her nu-nus. Well, it has NOT been an easy week.

At 10:30pm last night, Brian & I were actually contemplating on whether or not to make a mad dash to Walgreens to buy a pacifier. Seriously. She's not going to bed easy anymore, takes her about 2 hours to fall asleep with lots of crying, only stays asleep until about 1am, and somehow she ends up in bed with us every stinking night. Thankfully we have a king-size bed, but I want my bed back!!!

Naptime has not been fun either. She plays, sings, talks, or cries for up to 2 hours before she finally passes out from pure exhaustion. Very frustrating. Instead of napping 12-2 as before, she's now going to sleep about 3 and then I wake her at 5pm. This throws our entire afternoon & evening schedule off. She's not tired for 8pm bedtime because she's napped so late. Ugh.

Goodbye Nu-Nus and Hello Princess dress!

For those who might not know, Bella has always called her pacifiers a Nu-Nu. We have been meaning to break her of the habit of using them at sleeptime, so Monday was finally the day. She rounded up all her pacifiers and we headed to Toys R Us to get the Belle (Beauty & the Beast) princess dress that she has been wanting for some time. In order to get her dress, we made her pay with her bundle of Nu-Nus.



Doesn't she look so beautiful? Her outfit is complete with gloves, necklace and a fancy purse.



This last picture just cracks me up. She was trying to tell me how to pose her for the picture....as if she even knows! She kept saying "put my gloves in the picture!" So, here's a nice close up picture of her new princess gloves too. Can't forget to show those. :)



Way to go big girl! We are SOOO proud of you. (She hasn't asked for a pacifier one single time!)

Disney on Ice: "Let's Celebrate!"

We took Bella to her first Disney on Ice show. Ever since watching the ice skating events during the Winter Olympics, I've caught her twirling and kicking her legs and pretending to ice skate around the house. Add in her love for the Disney princesses, and we just knew she'd really enjoy the show.


Unfortunately the princesses were skating by too quickly and I couldn't get a clear picture of them. Bella loved seeing them skate out with their princes and kept waving to them. It was so cute!

She's also started watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse lately, so she was also thrilled to see the whole gang there too....Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto.

Goofy Grin

After my latest attempt of getting Bella to "SMILE" while taking bluebonnet pictures and getting the same goofy face, I decided to just post a few from the last several months for a good laugh. I am hoping that she actually learns to smile soon, but she sure does try hard. A little too hard. :)



Another "smile"....Albuquerque- April 2010


Another wonderful "smile"....Kemah- Dec 2009


The first documented "smile"....Christmas Eve 2009