Weekend Wrap-Up & Stuff

Late last week I got deathly ill again.. well, it felt deathly while I was going through it. I have no clue what's going on but in the last few weeks I've a couple rounds of this migraine/constant vomiting thing that lasts from 24 to 48 hrs. It's terrible. I used to throw up with migraines (more often before my babies) but never constantly like this. And of course I've had morning sickness but again never constant. It's really weird and I'm praying it NEVER happens again. It's an awful combination. I'm talking 10+ on the pain scale and not being able to keep anything down (not even tiny ice cubes) for over a day. :/ I'm guessing it's a weird combo of migraines and pregnancy although it never happened during my other pregnancies. I also ate roast beef before both episodes. I have no idea if there was link to the roast or just a strange coincidence but you can bet I will avoid roast like the plague for a long, long time. My awesome mother has been great at dropping everything and coming over when I've been sick and taking over the kids completely. I don't know what I'd do without her! 

Saturday I spent the day recovering and resting while the kids spent the day at my mom's and my husband was at work. 

Sunday morning hubby and I spent our last day volunteering, at church, with the little 18-22 month old toddlers. We have been in that room since before J was that age. I think a little break from the baby/toddler area will be nice before our next baby is born. We're still going to volunteer in J's four year old class through the fall. 

Sunday we had On The Border for lunch. So yummy! J discovered (or rediscovered) a love for cheese quesadillas! 

 Ice cream and fun at On The Border. :) 

Last night C wanted to watch Shark Week on Netflix. He said "That'll be a good bedtime movie." Haha! He's such a boy. He sat there and watched it just like this.

This week is going to be a busy one! I started potty training C this morning. He'll be 3 next week so I think it's time. J pretty much trained herself right around her 3rd birthday and I'm really hoping the same holds true for C. It seems like he's ready. I've never been big on potty training or pushing kids to train before they're ready. With both kids we (I) half-heartedly tried to train every few months or so from the time they were 2ish. If they didn't seem to catch on quickly I dropped it and waited for another time. I don't get the stressing out about it. Gee, I have enough stress without freaking out about getting a toddler potty trained by a certain age. At the end of the day they will NOT be going to kindergarden. Anyway, C has done great today and at this point it looks like we'll carry on. He's very proud of himself and definitely knows when he needs to go. We have a chart and stickers and M&Ms and all that. He insisted on going out in undies while we ran errands for 3 hours. He only had one accident outside in the car after we spent 25 minutes or so inside Claire's where there wasn't a bathroom.. so I really count that as my fault, not his.



Both kids are starting Mother's Day Out tomorrow! I'm so excited! I know J is excited to go back. She had a great semester last spring and she's anxious to get back and see her friends again. C seems a little nervous but says he's excited. This is his first MDO experience so we'll see how it goes. He does not have to be trained to start the three year old class (that's not why I'm training him) but I definitely feel like it's time to get the ball rolling. Hopefully knowing his classmates are going potty will encourage him too.



We're also finding out our baby's gender this week! We are SO excited! I'll be going to the ultrasound alone on Thursday. My idea is to have the ultrasound tech write the baby's gender on a piece of paper and stick it in a sealed envelope. Then I'll take the envelope to a party store with instructions for them to open the envelope, read the gender, choose pink or blue balloons to put in a huge box (that I'll bring in) and seal the box tightly. I'll leave the store while they're doing that. I'll pick up the sealed box of balloons, bring it home and Thursday evening we'll have the kids open the box and we can find out as a family! I just hope all goes as planned. :) My husband has been saying the baby's a girl since day one. I've been thinking girl for weeks now but now I'm convinced it's a boy since I've been overly focused on a girl. Ha! I really have no idea but my official guess is "boy"! For the record my husband was right on the other two and I was wrong on the other two so who knows.



We're also planning to go to the circus this weekend. The kids are super excited! I'm excited too... I've always loved the circus. Last year we took them to the Shrine circus which was a bit of a disappointment so this year it's Barnum & Bailey.



Then next week is C's third birthday! We're all excited about that! No big party this year but we'll have at least 2 small parties.. maybe three.. with different family and friends. The week after that is my birthday (so exciting, ha!) and JBF! I get so excited about JBF... I actually enjoy getting all the clothes ready and love looking through that HUGE room full of stuff. I can't wait! I'm just praying I will feel good for the next few weeks so I can get through all this.



Hope everyone's having a great Monday!

J at four and a half

It's hard to believe J turned 4 and half in July!



At 4 and half she is... 



- Talking non-stop. And I mean non-stop.



- Has known all her shapes forever



- Has known all her colors forever



- Can recite the alphabet and can identify almost every letter



- Learning to write letters



- Learning to write her name. (I'll just stop here and say we have never focused much on teaching letters, shapes, numbers, counting or writing at home. What she's learned she's pretty much picked up on her own or from day to day life and I think she's doing really well.)



 - She can count pretty well



- Is learning to add



- Has been potty trained for over a year and a half



- Loves to sing and dance



- Has a huge imagination. Her and C spent a good part of the day in "pretend play". The will spend hours playing house, school, church, camping.. you name it. It's so cute to hear them play together and listen to the funny things they come up with. :)



- Loves to help bake and clean.



- She already loves to shop! I'm so glad. :) I know we'll have tons of great times shopping together as she's growing up.



- Loves playing outside, loves to swing, loves riding her bicycle and swimming. Swings are always the first thing she'll run to at the playground although she hasn't quite mastered swinging by herself. She learned to ride her bicycle, with training wheels, right after she got for her 4th birthday.



- She's very active and is pretty much in perpetual motion a good part of the day (someone described me that way as a kid and it seems to describe her as well).



- Although she will sit still and quietly draw, read books, play with play dough, etc at different times as well.



- She LOVES drawing and art and is really into cutting up paper and/or folding it and taping it up and handing it out to different family members. :)



- We bought a little stuffed giraffe before she was born. She ignored it for the first few years of her life but in the last several months she has become really attached to it. She has to have the giraffe to go to sleep, wants to cuddle it when she's tired, etc. It's really sweet. She has always gone through phases with her other dolls and animals.. has a favorite for awhile, then switches to something else.



- She stopped taking naps several months ago and now spends C's nap time having quiet time on the couch and watching a movie. I'm not sure if she was quite ready to stop taking naps since she gets pretty cranky every evening but at least she goes to sleep quickly every night without a fuss.





And in her words:



- Favorite toys: baby dolls and doll [accessories], stuffed animals, tools, playing kitchen



- Favorite books: "Danny & The Dinosaur" and "Berenstein Bears & The Slumber Party"



- Favorite movies: "Danny & The Dinosaur, Richard Scary's Busy Town, Miffy, Barney, Angelina



- Favorite color: all colors (She definitely favors pink and purple though.)

Friday Random

 How I announced my pregnancy on Facebook last week. I love how both kids have their hands in their pockets. :)

First purchase for our new baby. We didn't know these existed (or maybe they didn't exist) when we had our other two. I hope this thing actually works because I think it will come in handy.

 J is convinced the new baby is a girl. It's so funny when we browse the baby stuff when we're out. J goes towards all the girl stuff...

 While C goes straight to all the baby boy stuff.

I have been SO nauseated for weeks now. I had a prescription for Zofran that was really working great until it ran out and I can't renew it until for a few more weeks. A different prescription for nausea put me right to sleep (even half a pill!) and didn't help with nausea at all. A few friends recommended Sea Bands and they are actually working! I'm amazed. They're working very well.

 They're working so well that I can enjoy food again! I loved the Asian salad from Chik-Fil-A earlier this week. So yummy!!

 Poor C has been pretty sick the past couple of days. Yesterday was really bad. He didn't want to play, didn't want to eat and actually wanted to be covered in blankets. Definitely not the norm for this one. Today he seems a little better but I think we'll still go in to the doctor this afternoon.

J has been going to VBS every evening this week. She loves it! Here she is last night with a card and hat she made. It is SO hard to get a decent picture of her. She is always bouncing around and acting silly.

This is the inside of her card. I asked if this was our family and she said "No, that's Jesus and His friends." How sweet. :)



We've had a pretty good week except for poor little C being sick the past couple of days.

Father's Day, Part 2 (A Day In The Country)

So, for the afternoon on Father's Day I took the kids and headed to my brother's house, with my family, while hubby stayed home to relax. My brother lives way out in the country. This was my kids first, big country experience. 

 J pushing little cousin J on the swing.

 Cousins pushing baby J on the swing.

 C in the sand box.

 This was C's first time climbing a tree!

My favorite pic of the day! C was SO excited to shoot a "real" gun. I think it's called a soft pellet gun or something.

 J taking a turn. That's my dad helping the kids.

 Cousins eating brownies and ice cream. Yum!

 They have horses on the property.

 I love the lighting in this pic of my nephew.

Cousins hanging out on the patio. They're just 2 months apart and so cute together. :)



We had such a fun, long, tiring day! The kids never stopped going. I think I could have left C there for a week and he wouldn't have missed us. Ha! He was having the time of his life! J missed her quiet time that day and was SO tired by the time we got home that she had a little melt down. She told me that she needed her quiet time every day because she was so, so tired. Ha! The kids made a ton of memories and even I enjoyed spending a day out in the country. It was really nice and relaxing.

Father's Day, Part 1

 Breakfast at Ihop. Love this pic of them! I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband who is such a great father to our kids.

 Daddy with his mini me.

 Me and my mini me. Seriously, this girl is so much like me it's scary.

 Sweet J with her chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate covered mouth.

C digging in. Ha!  

We had a pretty low key Father's Day. My hubby works a lot and we are always busy.. just going going going all the time.. so he decided a day at home, alone, sounded good to relax and unwind. Sounded good to me because after all that's what I want for myself every Mother's Day. We decided to go to Ihop for brunch and afterwards I took the kids to a Father's Day lunch, for my dad, with my family. Lots of pics to come on that!

catching up

Yes, I realize I haven't posted in forever.



We're doing great! Well, kind of. If you consider ALL DAY nausea great. Ha! Yes, baby #3 is on the way! We are SO excited! I'm 7 weeks today. I got to see the heartbeat on Friday! So sweet and amazing. There's nothing like seeing that sweet little heart beat for the first time. :)



I had ideas of keeping this a secret for a few more weeks but since it's on my mind 24/7 I decided to go ahead and share here. We're not good at keeping pregnancies a secret for long. We generally tell our families within days of finding out (if not the very day we find out!) and after that it kind of spills over to extended family, friends and everyone else.



Of course, after what happened in March I've been a little nervous but this pregnancy has been completely different than that one and I haven't been quiet as worried as I thought I would be. I've had extreme nausea, extreme tiredness and have felt very pregnant since 4 weeks. None of which I felt at all in March. So, I'm feeling pretty confident and very hopeful that we'll be okay this time around. This pregnancy feels like a very normal pregnancy, just like I had with J and C.



This baby is due right around J's fifth birthday. She is beyond excited and already sure that she's getting a baby sister. Ha! Being a name obsessed person I'm already talking names and J is giving her input on baby girl names all the time. So far she's come up with Sophie Rainbow, Liggy (?) and Sally among a few others. Ha!



In other news we've been having a great "summer" so far. It's normal to start saying it's summer around the end of May right?



The kids went through 2 weeks of swim lessons at the end of May/early June. I had C in the mommy and me class. He did great! But, honestly, he was way too big for that class. He'll be 3 in August and I know he would've been fine in the preK class. But when I had him evaluated before classes started he had not been in the pool at all this year so he was very clingy and I decided just to go ahead with the mommy and me class. He did great though and gained some confidence in the water which is good! J was in the pre K class on the other side of the pool during the mommy and me class so I wasn't able to keep a close eye on her but I know she did great too! She gained a lot of confidence in the water too. I've thought about putting them in the next level classes but decided that they'll have plenty of time in the pool, anyway, this summer and I don't want to spend the money and I don't want to spend another two weeks driving up to the rec center every single afternoon.



The kids started gymnastics on Friday. They loved it! C was the only boy in a class of about 6 girls ha! It didn't seem to bother him though. J wanted to learn to do a cartwheel on the very first day and was a little disappointed she didn't learn in the first class. :)



J has also been taking ice skating lessons on Saturdays. She seems to really like it and is doing good. She had one lesson, then we skipped the second one, and her third one was this past Saturday. I was so proud of her for learning how to stand up on her own in just one class. And she was able to get around, slowly, on her own a little bit. She has one more class in this session and we may consider putting her in 4 more classes after this session ends. We'll see.



This is really the first time the kids have taken any lessons or classes and it's been fun watching them. I think lessons, classes, sports, etc are so good for little kids just to get them out of their comfort zones and learn something new.



Well, I know this post is getting really long so I'll wrap it up. I have lots of pics I need to share and hope to start posting on a more regular basis again.



Hope everyone is doing well!! :)

evening fun

Yesterday evening my husband went out to mow the lawn, the kids went outside to play and I took my camera out to practice taking pics. I'm pretty happy with a few of these. I know next to nothing about my camera but I'm loving manuel mode! C really cracks me up in some of these pictures. He insisted on wearing socks with sandals because he has an "owie" on one of his toes. J told him that only old people wear socks with sandals.. and she came up with that on her own. Haha! Then C had his sunglasses on all crooked half the time so he looks a little goofy ha! And J's hair is a disaster but that's how it looks at home. It's hard to keep those frizzys under control 24/7. :) 

Mother's Day

Cellphone pic of the beautiful tulips my sweet hubby gave me for Mother's Day! Tulips are my all time favorites!! Love them! 

My husband used to take me and the kids out to Mimi's for breakfast before church on Mother's Day. The pain perdu (sp?) breakfast at Mimi's used to be my all time favorite. I'm pretty much trying to stay gluten free these days though so I figured breakfast at Mimi's really wouldn't be that fun this year. So this year we just went to church, then my husband and the kids took his mom out for lunch while I did a little shopping alone, picked up a yummy lunch to go from Boston Market (I didn't remember how yummy Boston Market was. So good! And an almost entirely gluten free too!), then I came home to relax all afternoon. I had my eye on a personalized, engraved necklace off Etsy for Mother's Day but ended up doing quite a bit of clothes shopping last week and told my hubby to wait on the necklace. Still hoping to get it later but new clothes will do for now. :) 

C made this for me at church on Sunday. I'm impressed that his coloring... while not in the lines... is centering more around the lines. Pretty good for a 2.5 yr old boy I'm thinking. 

And J started this at church and finished it up at home. Both kids were SO excited with their Mother's Day projects. So sweet! 

J made this card for me at school last week. These were the questions on the card and her answers:

My moms likes to.... play with me with play dough

My mom's favorite flower... sunflower

My mom has taught me.... a little bit of Spanish

My mom's favorite hobby... write things and mail them at the post office

My mom's favorite food.... chicken

My mom helps me.... get dressed

My favorite thing to with my mom... play kitchen

My favorite memory [with my mom]... playing memory game

I love my mom because.... she gets me dressed and plays with me 

The "write things and mail them at the post office" part cracks me up! I have mailed off a few gifts to a friend lately so I guess that's where she's getting that! I love seeing all her answers and getting a glimpse of her perspective.



All in all it was a great Mother's Day and very relaxing for me!