Life As it Is

Well, this past month has flown by! Things are going very well pregnancy wise. I heard baby's heartbeat at the doctor's this past week. (14 weeks along). I don't feel like I've grown much yet. I can still wear all of my regular jeans. I've been trying to take some more pregnancy pics but haven't gotten many pics because I've just been so busy. My OB wants me to get a level 2 ultrasound soon. As far as they've told me, everything is looking good with the baby. I think they just want to be extra cautious because of my liver disease and because Taeya was so tiny in utero.

I've been working a ton lately, which is hard at times but is also a huge praise as Phil is still out of work. What am I doing? I'm tutoring, babysitting 2 days a week, working for the Census, gardening for my HOA and will probably start teaching swim lessons in a couple weeks.

As a family, we drove to Las Vegas Mother's Day weekend. We were meeting up with Phil's parents to spend a little time with them. Phil's dad just boarded a ship yesterday and will deploy for the next number of months. We had a really nice time hanging out. Grandma, I and Taeya LOVED the pool and spent as much time as we could there. I have some pictures I'll post when I get around to downloading them from my camera. We brought back Timmy, Phil's brother, and Bruiser his parents dog. When we returned home, we also ended up getting another renter as well. He's the stepson of our first renter, who is still here as well. Needless to say, it's been VERY BUSY around here. Next week, Phil's mom and sister will be joining us for about 5 days. Good thing we have lots of room in our house!! We'll be one big happy family!

The past two days, I've had a constant headache that I haven't been able to get rid of with Tylenol. I don't get very many headaches and usually, if I take medicine, they disappear immediately. I have a lot of stress in my back from our drive to and from Vegas as well as all the Census work I've been doing. I'm thinking the muscle stress is causing the headaches. I need to get a message or find a chiro who can help me out I think.Well, that's about all that's going on lately. Just a little bit of busy. :)

First Ultrasound Pictures of Baby #2

On April 14th, I had my first OB appointment with my actual doctor. The first appointment I went to I just saw a nurse and answered a bunch of questions. Right before my OB appt, I had an ultrasound that she ordered done at the hospital.
Although I loved seeing the baby, and Phil was able to come along as well, it wasn't the best ultrasound ever because the technician was a bit on the grumpy, untalkative side. After questioning me as to why I was having an ultrasound done so early (I didn't actually know, the dr just ordered it) and saying it was unnecessary, she did the ultrasound and didn't say anything until the very end when she finally turned the screen to me and said, "Well, there's not too much to see." and then showed me my sweet little baby. The whole ultrasound lasted all of about 2-3 minutes. It was a quick view but I was very happy to see my little one and know that everything looks good at this point in the pregnancy.

Both ultrasound pictures are very similar. The head is on the left with little feet on the right and a hand waving in the middle. Baby measured 3.5 cm which is just over an inch. I was 10 weeks 2 days in my pregnancy at this point.

9 Weeks Pregnant

I took my first pregnancy picture on Monday, April 5, when I was 9 weeks pregnant. The reason I'm holding out 2 fingers is because I'm 2 months along (and a week). I'm going to try to take month pictures throughout the whole pregnancy so I can see the changes along the way. You can't really tell I'm pregnant at this point. I can tell a little bit of a difference but it's not really visible yet.

A Fun Family Outing

At the end of March, Phil and I decided that we needed to get out of the house and do something fun with our little family. We drove to Grand Junction and made our first stop at Wendy's for frosties.

We then drove through the Colorado National Monument. It was stunning.

Taeya is scared of heights, hence her need to hang onto the fence as she tentatively looked over the edge of the cliff.

After driving through the National Monument, we took Taeya to a park to play. While we were there, we found out there was a little pond with ducks so Taeya had her first experiencing feeding the ducks. She loved it!

Taeya did some rolling down hills and running up and down them which she thought was great fun.

After hanging out at the park we drove to Chuck E Cheese. When Phil's parents were here after Christmas, Grandma took Taeya there and had a few leftover tokens that she left with us. We were able to take her there without spending a penny (thanks Grandma!). She had a very fun filled day and we enjoyed playing with our sweet girl and seeing the joy that the park and Chuck E Cheese brought her.

It was so wonderful to get out of the house and do a little something different as a family.

At the end of our fun filled day, we had a special treat and went out to dinner (with coupons of course!) I'm so glad we were able to just spend some great family time together making some wonderful memories. Phil and I are excited to take Taeya back to that park again to feed the ducks.

A Time to Trust

Well, trying to keep my promise to blog a bit more frequently. This week has been very busy and many things have been filling our time. As you'll be able to see from reading below, Monday was a big day in our week.

On Monday, Phil was laid off at work. We are trusting the Lord that He will provide for our needs and direct our steps to where He wants us to be. Although we are hoping to stay in our current area, we are willing to move to a different area is God opens the doors. It's definitely a time where all we can do is trust and do our best to be diligent to look for jobs, send in resumes and just be open to what God has for us. Bible study this week was on I Timothy 6. Read it sometime, it's a good chapter and was very applicable to the job situation. It talks about being content in all circumstances and our material possessions.

Monday was also the beginning of the puking stage of pregnancy. Although many friends have tried to encourage me that I may not be as sick with this pregnancy as I was with Taeya's, I have counted on being sick and would be pleasantly surprised if I wasn't. Well, I'm sick...it's horrible but at least I know it'll have an end...even if it's 9 months from now. So, be forewarned, if you visit my blog in the near future (or for the next few months) be prepared for me to talk about what is consuming my life right now, puke!

The last thing that happened on Monday was my mom ending up in the hospital in CA with a serious infection and reaction to a new medicine. Thankfully, she's doing much better and was able to go home on Saturday although she's still in a lot of pain. Please keep her in your prayers as it will be awhile until she recovers fully.

On some brighter news, I'll share something about Taeya, who is still doing great and is a joyful little girl! She doesn't watch much TV/Videos but lately, I've been letting her watch some Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the evenings. As I type this blog, she was dancing all over the room to "The Old Bamboo" song. It's so precious to watch. I have to get it on video. I don't have any recent pictures because I haven't downloaded my pics lately so I attached a pic of Taeya from February.

Big Plans for November

This past weekend, Phil was away on a church retreat. When he returned, I made him a nice dinner of Moroccan Spiced Chicken and had a little present prepared for him. I gave him a box with five candy bars inside. They were: a Skor bar, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Babies, a Baby Ruth and Milk Duds. He immediately looked at me and said, "You're pregnant aren't you?!" I then replied with a "Yep." We celebrated our exciting news together and we're both looking forward to baby #2!

It's funny, because the past two months I felt like I was pregnant but ended up not being pregnant. This month, I don't feel pregnant but I am. We are very excited that Taeya will have a sibling regardless of whether it's a boy or a girl. We'll almost definitely find out the gender of the baby when we're able to. Although I haven't seen a doctor yet, based on pregnancy calculators on the computer, this baby will be due around November 8th. Since I had a C-section with Taeya, I'll definitely have to have another C-Section as there are no doctor's or hospitals that do V-BACs around here. I'm fine with that because my C-Section last time was very uncomplicated.

We'll be praying for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby in the end. I am only five weeks along but want to share our exciting news with our friends and family so that they can offer their support no matter what happens.

I will try to pick up my blogging a bit more than I have been lately. I've been busy with Taeya, tutoring and running my house. In the evenings, Phil has had the computer more frequently than he used to and I just haven't made the time to blog on a regular basis. I will TRY to do a better job of it and hopefully, some of my readers will come back and leave comments once again. :)

Christmas and a Birthday

Well, I still haven't finished sending out my Christmas cards, yeah, the ones that say "Merry Christmas" on them, so I guess it's still okay to do a Christmas post.

 

We had a wonderful time having family come out before and after Christmas. Although we had some trouble with flights arriving and such, and the little ones and many of the adults were sick with headcolds, we had a great time just getting together as family. I'm so glad everyone was able to come hang out with us in Colorado. My family all came before Christmas and stayed just a little after Christmas and Phil's family arrived on New Year's Eve and stayed for just over a week.

Taeya got spoiled by WAY too many presents from doting grandparents and a certain aunt. Not only did I not know where I was going to put all her Christmas presents, then we still had her birthday presents to go through. :) She had a lovely 2nd birthday party, or actually three. (One party with my family, one with Phil's family and one with our pastor's family's girls who love Taeya dearly.) I can't believe my sweet girl is already 2 years old. She has changed so much in the past few months and although I still refer to her as "my baby" it's getting hard to find the few traces of baby that still remain.

Have You Heard of the Advent Conspiracy?

All the Trimmings

We had a wonderful time last weekend decorating our home for Christmas and picking out our Christmas tree in the mountains with our friends, the Jones family.

Enjoying our snack time in the middle of our tree hunting.


Taeya loved the sledding.

Taeya and her girls.

Wearing Momma's hat

A little of our beautiful state of Colorado
Mommy and Taeya

Taeya had a great time playing in (eating) the snow and having fun with the Jones girls and we hunted for our tree.

Taeya looked like such a big girl here, I just had to get a picture of her eating her cereal.

Our first Christmas in our new home.

Our beautiful Christmas tree. Taeya loves it!

Our Happy Kiddo

I've been rather lax at updating the blog lately. I'm working on trying to be more consistant about uploading pictures and information.

Read at the bottom of this post for an update on Taeya. It's mostly for me to remember these days but you can read it if you'd like.

Want some corn Mama?
Taeya LOVES going to the park...any park. Whenever we drive past a park that Taeya sees, she starts laughing, pointing and saying "park!"

Sliding with Daddy.

My what big feet you have!!

Running into church a few Sunday's ago.

One of Taeya's favorite styles...multiple headbands.

Why so happy? We're at the park of course!

Here we were playing in the leaves outside the Doctor's office.

What a very sweet girl we have.

Taeya has been growing so much lately. Friends keep commenting at how big she's getting. Her language is developing everday although she is still a very quiet little girl. She doesn't talk a lot unless she wants something but when she does want something, Taeya will usually repeat whatever she's trying to say until she gets the response she's hoping for. Some of the things she can say are: Mama, Daddy, Cereal, More of dis (this), No, es (yes), cookie, cracker, mik (milk), yes eas (yes please), ruff ruff (what a dog says), Moo, baa, meow, bankie (blanket), bunny. There are many other words in her vocabulary and she understands much of what I say to her.

Taeya LOVES her sleep! She generally goes to bed between 7 and 8 pm. When she starts getting tired, she sucks on her two first fingers on her right hand and often covers her right hand with her left. If she gets ahold of one of her many "bankies" she tends to immediately put her fingers in her mouth. Taeya goes to bed so easily at night. She doesn't enjoy getting her jammies or diaper on but once they're on, she snuggles with me for a minute, I lay her on her bed and she puts her fingers in her mouth and is ready to sleep. I generally pray with her and turn her music on then shut off the lights and leave the room. We transitioned her from her crib to her open-sided bed on Oct. 31, 2009. I told her to stay in bed and when I went to get her up from her nap, she was still in bed. She's done extremely well in her new sleeping arrangement. She almost always stays in bed for both naptime and bedtime. Occassionally, she'll get up to get a toy but then returns to her bed. I always check on her before I go to bed at night and a few times I've found her on the floor. I'm not sure if she's fallen out of bed or if she climbed out. A few mornings or after naptime, I sometimes find her with all of her bedding stripped off the bed and placed on the floor by the door. She definitely has a Type A personality. She will pull off every blanket and stuffed animal and put them just where she wants them to go.

Speaking of her type A personality, she always closes doors or drawers if they've been left open. She likes everything to be very orderly (except her toys!). She leaves her toys spread out all over the place. Taeya loves to climb. She climbs on everything she's able to. She's a little monkey just like her mommy was when she was little. I love my sweet little girl and her sweet little personality. Everyday is special with my Taeya and I love seeing her grow and change little by little every day. In just under a month, my baby will be two. I can't believe that we've already had nearly two sweet years together.