20 weeks!

Somebody mentioned me to that I am half way through the pregnancy and I totally freaked out!  Half way through?!?! There is always so much to do, but I am trying to take it one day at a time.  Not sure what we are doing for a nursery yet, or if we going to use Eli's crib ... decisions, decisions.  Hopefully we will get that conversation going some time, but for now I'll just try to enjoy each day and not worry about the future so much :)

Appointments have been going well.  Between my 2 doctors, I go in about every 2 weeks.  So far she is healthy and great.  Everything has formed perfectly, we are just monitoring her growth rate from here on out.  With my autoimmune disease, (Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome for anybody that forgot - ha!), I learned that this can limit the amount of blood and nutrients that are transferred from the placenta to the baby.  This is one of the reasons I go in every month to my specialist, to monitor her growth.  As of right now, everything looks great!!  God is sooo good!! She is perfect and at a 37% growth rate, and has been growing at a very consistent rate from the beginning.  We just don't want to drop below 15%.  More than likely, I am just prone to having small babies - no 10 lb'ers over here, and I am ok with that :).

In addition, I also learned that at the start of the third trimester (28 weeks), I will go in to be monitored and have an ultrasound every week to just have a watchful eye on our precious girl and my placenta.  Regardless, even if everything is going smoothly, I will be induced around 38 weeks.  This is the standard practice for women who have this autoimmune disease.  However, I have already informed the doctor, this is my last resort - my prayer is that our babe will want to come on her own when she is ready.  After all, Eli came at 36.5 weeks and he was PERFECT!

Anyways, apologies for the novel, but I wanted to remember all of the details to go back and reference when needed.  Below are some stats on our little girl and mama!

1) Felt her kick for the first time at 20 weeks.  I felt Eli and 18 weeks, so I was getting a little anxious.  Turns out my placenta is in the front which added a little more cushion.  Now I feel her all the time, primarily at 10am, 2pm, and between 9-10pm - love it!!
2) Always active at our ultrasounds.  The sonotechs have difficulty getting good pictures; however, I loved seeing her move on the ultrasounds, especially since I wasn't feeling her yet.  At one point, I feel like she was doing her morning exercises, she was kissing her knees and and then stretching her legs all the way to her face to kiss her toes - so cute!
3) 16 weeks she was 4 oz, 20 weeks she grew to 11.7 oz ... right on track!
4) I can not shake being tired ALL the time!!  Do girls really take it out of you?  I thought we were supposed to get a burst of energy at this point.  I never had this problem with Eli
5) Pregnancy brain is real yall!  Yes, I lost my phone in the fridge - no lie... goodness gracious.
6) My sciatic nerve has been acting up, but not nearly as bad as when I had it with Eli for those 2 weeks.  It's just when I go on a longer walk or higher incline, or really on the weekends when we are running around trying to accomplish everything.  Hopefully we can find a way to nip this before it gets too bad.
7) Eli has been pointing to my belly saying Baby.  He has even started saying her name and giving her good night kisses.  Such a good big brother!

 20 week bump compared to Eli's 20 week picture.

 3D of her profile.  On the right is her sweet face/profile and in the center are her arms.  Basically like she is laying on her hands and arms

 Profile picture.  They came out a little dark this time, oh well ...

First Halloween Costume.  Being a family of four was perfect for the Ninja Turtles :)

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

We just celebrated our 3rd anniversary.  We were pretty low key this year, because we will properly celebrate in Mexico in 10 days -- what what!!  However, thank you to Poppi and Grammi, when they came over for Halloween we were able to sneak away for a few hours to go see a movie.  When was the last time that happened?!?!  Monday was our actual anniversary, and we celebrated with a homemade dinner, good music, and watched our wedding video again.  It turned out to be a perfect evening, and I am glad we could separate ourselves from the daily grind and celebrate with just us.

 Derek was so sweet and put together the table before he left for work on Monday.  When I got home, I saw our little display and loved every minute.  I don't need any big gifts, just gestures and creative things to show his love, and this was one of them.  He took pictures from our house and put them in chronological order, candles, and our wedding video.  Cards were the gift this year, and can you believe that we got each other the exact same, and purchased it from 2 separate locations ... goodness, that is when you know you are married.

Have you seen Derek?!?!

 Oh timehop.  Yes, we would love to be back in Belize on our Honeymoon!  Thanks for rubbing it in..

17 Months

I tried to hold off until 18 months to follow up on Eli's stats, but he has started doing some new things that I did not want to forget.  He is definitely growing into a little boy!

1) Still our little parrot - repeating everything we say and remembering the words and their meaning now
2) Loves all of his animals
3) He only watches one tv show on Netflix, Animal Party.  We have to fast forward to the Horses before we can start the show from the beginning.  He names all of the animals while watching and makes their sound - so cute  We try not to let him watch this too often, but this has definitely come in handy with daylight savings time and waking up an hour earlier :)
4) Going through a huge mama phase!  So much, that if I am holding him he will push away Derek or grab his beard if he comes close.  Poor Derek!  However, Eli loves playing hide and seek with him and always gets those big belly laughs with this game.
5) With that being said, we have started the tantrum phase.  This is no joke!   One day a switch just flipped - crazy!  However, he will start to hit his head or bang his head against the wall out of frustration.  This has been an interesting time for us, learning how to parent theses tantrums - a great lesson in patience as well.
6) Nighttime routine includes dad reading any books with dogs or babies in them.  Eli then crawls up in my lap to sing and rock.
7) Favorite songs that we must sing before bed time, "Wheels on the bus", "Patty Cake", "I love you Eli", "Jesus Loves Me", "I see the Moon/Twinkle Twinkle"
8) When we rock, he sits back in the chair like I do so we can recline with each other.  We have a caterpillar nightlight that shines stars and moon all over the ceiling, so we recline back and watch the stars change colors. Reminds me of an indoor camping scene. He proceeds to say "WHOA" every time the stars change colors.
9) Loves the moon ... at least in his room.  Maybe with the time change, he will get to see it outside some more :)
10) He is still my water boy.  Not sure what we are going to do in the winter... Every time he sees the hose outside he runs to turn it on and runs through it, splash, sticks his face in it, basically gets soaking wet no matter what.
11) Loves pointing out family members in pictures and saying their name.  He gets real excited when he sees cousin photos and can name each one.
12) Is obsessed with balls and throwing ... he actually has a fairly good arm for an 17 mo
13) Says GOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL when he sees any soccer game on the tv - whether Derek's Chelsea team or his video game.  It doesn't even matter if an actual goal has been scored, just if soccer is being played - ha!
14) Pats my belly and says baby, and sometimes we'll get a kiss
15) Obsessed with poking everybody's belly button; however, he calls it "butt", (we are working on the second syllable).  He will come up to you and raise your shirt.
16) Everytime he sees a cat he calls them MEOW - or rather MAOW

 Not sure what it is, but when it's laundry day, Eli loves to get inside the basket.  Derek will drag him around the house and make racecar noises - it is a hit in the family, and so cute!!

 This sweet face!

 Eli was spoiled riding in Aunt Ali's car.  Comfy car seats, DVDs on the weekend ... dont get used to it kiddo :)

 October was the month of black eyes.  This was he first one - he fell face first right on the concrete - ouch!  You can see his black eyes in most of his October pictures.  Once this cleared up, literally 2 days later, he ran into a get full speed and hit his other eye.  I guess boys will be boys, but goodness!

 My fav!

 Bike rides and slides with Dad!

 Hoarding and hiding his balls from his friends.  When it comes to balls, he does not want to share :)

 Pet Party!!! Well this show came in handy when I had to clean the house and make dinner for group, make dinner for Eli and get him ready for bed all in an hour.  That was a whirlwind, but he sat there and was so good watching all of his animals and loving every minute of it

 Where is Eli???  This is his one cabinet he can get into.  Just has a bunch of baby stuff, so he likes to make this his hiding spot - too funny!

 Such a little boy in this picture!  And, I love the morning Dad outfit :)

 Loves the hose and playing running through the water

 He knows this is wrong and this will hurt Eli when he falls, but he looked so cute ... I tried disciplining while trying to secretly take a picture off to the side.  I couldn't help it :)

 When you go into Selfie mode on your camera he runs up to it and says ... "CHEEESE".  Love it!

 He has loved pumpkins this season, even old rotted ones on the sidewalk that somebody broke.  But he went running right up to it screaming pumpkin!

Testing out his hat!

October TimeHop's

I love looking back at these.  They always make me smile.  Here are a few of our favorites this month.

 I think Eli and I are starting to look alike ... at least we for sure have the same blonde, wispy hair!

Halloween - Turtle Style

We had so much fun this Halloween!  It was really our first "real" Halloween, family costumes, fall festivals, trick or treating, the works!  Apparently our street is "the street" for trick or treating.  Some families had large picnic tables and bbq's going on in their drive way.  I guess we need to step it up for next year, but we had fun hanging out in our chairs passing out candy.

I know this picture is blurry, but I still love it!   You can tell how fast he is running and loving it before we had to go to school!

 Everley's first halloween costume!

 My favorite video EVER ... CHEESE!!!!!!!!!

 Poppi and Grammi joined us for all the neighborhood festivities!

 Slides, slides, and more slides!

 Fall festival activities - I love our neighborhood!

 #turtlepower #heroesinahalfshell #familyoffour

 So cute - waiting to pass out candy

 Eli was hysterical and loved passing out candy to all of the kids.  So much, that he would actually chase after them down the sidewalk crying and yelling for them to come back so he could give them more candy.  <3