… girl!

Yep, we are expecting another healthy baby girl! I had my Level II ultrasound yesterday down in Little Rock to check for any abnormalities (not because of any existing concerns, but because of “advanced maternal age”), and everything they saw looked healthy and normal. Although the doctor couldn’t see everything he was looking for in the heart, what he could see of the heart as well as all the other anatomical features looked fine, so David and I were satisfied enough to not schedule a return visit. FINALLY, at the very end, he was able to get a good enough look to say he was 90% certain it was a girl. That’s good enough for us, especially since I know my own doctor will do a couple more ultrasounds before my due date, so I’ll ask her to make sure. :)

We are thrilled to be having another little girl. I know you’re not supposed to have a preference, but we did. I think most people probably do whether they admit it or not, so we just went ahead and admitted it. If it were a boy, I know we would love him like crazy, and once he was here, we would marvel at why we ever wished for anything different. Maybe a boy is in our future; I don’t know. (We are seriously considering adopting in the future, and I have no idea when, from where, what age child, etc.) But for now, we’ll have 2 little girls—how precious is that?

And before any parents of same-sex siblings get on my case, yes, I do realize that another girl doesn’t mean another Anna. Anna is so wonderful and has been a blessing beyond our wildest dreams, and I know that our second daughter may be completely different than the first. But she’ll be a blessing beyond our wildest dreams too, I know it. Anna is very particular about things, plays with her toys the way they were intended to be played with, already knows her letters and numbers at age 2, and doesn’t like to be messy. Will the second child be the crazy, creative artist that leaves David and me scratching our heads wondering how in the world to help her channel her energy?

I hope that, for both of our girls, we can help them find what they’re good at and do it well. David and I share a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses. If one of our girls shows an interest in what we’re weak in, I hope that we are able to recognize it and help her succeed in whatever she’s supposed to do.

Comments(4)

You think our Bailey-boy needs a little white basket with pink gingham lining? He seems to have taken a liking to my parents’ Poms’ basket. I told him it was kind of a girly basket, but he doesn’t seem to care. :)

Comments(5)

Around my parents’ property, fortunately for us! We’re staying out at “the Ranch,” as we call it, while we’re in between houses. My parents have a nice place with 5 acres a few miles outside of town, and there are 2 pairs of Canada geese, each with 7 babies, and a lone white goose that accompanies them. They’re usually pretty far out from the house, close to the little lake, but this evening one family came up a little closer to the house to eat some of the scratch grain my dad puts out. Pretty cool, huh?

Comments(4)

We are packing up and preparing to vacate our house in a couple of weeks! It sold a few weeks ago, and so far everything is on track for us to close on time. The inspection on our home revealed nothing major except the need for a new roof, which fortunately was covered by our insurance due to hail damage. It felt so good to have confirmation that we are responsible homeowners and have taken good care of this house through the years. I knew it, but it was nice to really know.

We have found a new house, and I love it! Or, rather, I love the house it will become. It’s an older house that needs a little work before we can move in, but I am so excited about the house it will be. We aren’t the kind of people that want to move every few years, so we really wanted a house that would meet our needs the whole time our kids are growing up, and this one fits the bill. It’s in a great neighborhood, it has lots of space for our kids and all the friends they’ll bring home through the years, it’s on a wonderful lot with a big back yard, and it has a great layout with the floor plan we want. (Conway seems to be obsessed with split floor plans, where the master is on one side of the house with the remaining bedrooms on the other. I’m sorry, but if there’s a fire, or if someone is trying to break into our house in the middle of the night, I want to be able to get to my babies in two seconds flat and get out of there!)

There will be a few weeks between moving out of this house and moving into the new one, so we will be crashing with my parents in the interim and storing our stuff. It’s not the way I had originally envisioned moving, but it will work out ok. They have plenty of space for us and will love having Anna around more. They’re very accommodating!

I’ve been trying to pack, but this is all new to me. I’ve never in my life moved in such a way that we had to pack up the entire contents of our house at once. When my parents moved back when I was in college, it was an in-town move with some overlap between the houses, so we just threw some stuff in boxes, drove stuff to the new house, emptied the boxes and used them again, etc. Everything didn’t have to be actually packed. You could just strap a lamp into the passenger seat of your car, throw some pots and pans in a box and stick it in the floorboard, grab some hanging clothes and pile them in the backseat, and you were all set. Same thing when David and I moved from our first apartment into this house. This time, everything has to be well-packed in boxes. That’s easy enough for the stuff we don’t use every day (I’ve already packed things like books, china, decorations, games and movies), but we’re still living here and using our stuff, so how/when do I pack it? It’s a learning experience for sure—one I’ll have to learn all over again next time because we’re NOT wanting to do this again for at least 20 years!

So, in case you were wondering, there you have it. I’ll post more about the new house once it’s actually ours.

Comments(1)

Was I this bad about meals last time around? I don’t recall. I certainly wasn’t sick. I’m on Zofran now, which has stopped most of the nausea, but I’m still a far piece from having a normal appetite and wanting to think about or cook food. There are certain things that sound good and certain things that don’t. The things I used to love and depend on regularly are not appealing to me at the moment. What’s appealing? Turkey pitas (turkey, provolone, lettuce, tomato, Ranch dressing), guacamole with tortilla chips, and strawberries. At least that’s a somewhat healthy, balanced meal. It’s been my regular meal for the past several days. David’s still working on the leftover Mexican food from Anna’s birthday party, and Anna just gets whatever we come up with for her. She doesn’t care.

So much for eating reduced-meat, unprocessed, from-scratch meals. I absolutely do not want beans right now, and most veggies don’t sound very good either. I’ve eaten a lot of white breads and crackers (although whole wheat is slowly making its way back into my diet). Jello? You can hardly call that food! But it’s been exactly what I want sometimes. I’ve even partaken of—you won’t believe this—canned condensed soup! And I’ve had a Sprite nearly every day, whereas before I maybe had one or two Cokes in a month.

Ahh, when that glorious week 14 rolls around, things will be back to normal… wait… oh yeah, we’ll have to be out of our house about a week and a half after that. And move in with my parents for a few weeks. And then move into a new house (which we have yet to find), unpack, get settled, etc… So basically it’s gonna be at least June before you see another Menu Plan Monday from me. I know my readers are devastated about this. :) But mostly, it’s just not me. Planning and preparing good, healthy meals for my family is what I do. And I can’t do it right now!

I’ve got to give credit to David, who has been a total sweetheart and completely understanding through all this. I was so sick for about a week that he’s just happy to see me just getting some calories from whatever food sounds good to me. So he’ll get it for me. Is that sweet or what?

Comments(1)

Oh my goodness, could this child be any sweeter? I don’t think so! I know I’m a little biased, but she’s just the most precious thing ever. She smiles so much and is happy most of the time. She is smart and picks up on everything. She says “thank you” when we give her something and “bless you” when we sneeze (it comes out more like “ba-bash,” but that’s what she means). She tries to do so much for herself now, and we try to let her. Her verbal skills are developing, and she’s starting to communicate with us more and more that way (although she has understood us for a long time now). She sometimes sings along to her lullaby CD now—it started out as just random syllables sung in a sweet little voice, but lately the syllables are starting to resemble the actual words.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll just leave you with some pictures from this afternoon.

Comments(3)

It was a gorgeous day today (a fact that was apparent to the rest of central Arkansas as well), so we thought a great way to celebrate Anna’s birthday was for David to play hooky from work and take us to the zoo. It’s so great that he can take off and make up the hours whenever! Anna loved it so much she cried when we left, but I promised her we would come back. She did a few of her animal sounds, and a lot of the animals made “a mess” and needed “a bath” (see earlier post). She also enjoyed climbing on every single park bench when she was out of her stroller.

Comments(5)

We had a little birthday party for her last night. Small and simple—just the grandparents, a taco dinner, balloons, a couple of presents, and cake. I’m SO thankful I’ve been feeling better the past couple of days; I was afraid I’d be too sick to enjoy the party. I “outsourced” the cake this time, and I’m glad I did because it was super cute (thanks, Mom!). Anna had fun being the center of attention, getting some new goodies, and eating her “ye-yow” (yellow) cake!

(more…)

Comments(7)

Anna, our late-talker, has been stringing 2 or 3 words together for several weeks now. One of the first instances I can recall was at dinner one night when she kept saying, over and over, “Mama eat!” and “Dada eat!” She was quite proud of her new accomplishment.

Lately, though, she’s also gained the ability to retell things that happened in the past. Her favorite right now is, “Dixie… a mess… Dixie… bath!” While Anna was at my parents’ house last week, their little dog Dixie, unbeknownst to my mom, started going after a crawdad in a patch of mud. Apparently she was just a horrible mess and had to be hosed off out on the deck. Anna thought it was hilarious. It’s fun to hear her tell her “story” over and over!

UPDATE: Ok, so we were at her weekly “Mother Goose” time at the library today. We got to the part where the teacher pulls various animals out of a bag and we practice our animal sounds. The dog just happens to look like a little Pomeranian (like Dixie). So now, instead of “woof woof”, my child says, “A mess! A mess!”

Comments(2)

Ok, so… I’m pregnant. About 8 1/2 weeks. Due around mid-October.

I’ve had 2 ultrasounds. The first was a week and a half ago, and we had intended to tell the world after we got back from the doctor. However, even though baby and heartbeat looked good, Dr. L. saw some suspicious stuff on the ultrasound that made her think there was a chance it wasn’t a viable pregnancy. She drew some lab and told us to come back in a week for another ultrasound. With heavy hearts, we told a handful of people (like our family) and decided to wait at least another week to go public.

The lab results were normal and this week the ultrasound looked much better, thank the Lord! It’s looking more like it’s going to be a healthy baby, and she gave it a 90% chance now. She wants to see us back next week. We were going to try to wait one more week before we told people. But…

I’m sick, tired, ready to bail on all my commitments, and not wanting to come up with excuses anymore. So, folks, I’m checking out of society for about the next 4 weeks or so. :) You might see me, you might not; it just depends on how I feel on any given day. I’m very thankful for a husband who works from home (and will make a grocery run at 7 a.m.) and a mom who lives close by who can come and get Anna if I can’t take care of her. I sure do miss her when she’s gone, but at least she loves going to her Mammaw’s house. Meanwhile, I’ll be subsisting on saltines, Jello, Sprite, and white bread toast. By the way, I was not sick with Anna. This kid is already giving me trouble!

This should make moving interesting. We accepted an offer on the house, and if it goes through, we close on April 30. So, if I start feeling better at around 12-13 weeks, I’ll have about 2 weeks to pack and get out of here! I may be directing some packing from the bed or couch. No, we don’t have a house to move into yet. We may have to crash with my parents. I love my parents and don’t mind staying there, but I was really hoping for a smooth transition from this house to the next, with several days of overlap to move our stuff, rather than having to pack up the whole house in its entirety. It’s looking pretty iffy though.

So there you have it.

Comments(13)