Tea time

Some new facts about Gemma:
- She weighs 26.4 lbs
- She's 2 ft 8 cm tall.
-Her current favorite movie is "Fox and the Hound", or as she calls it "Fok in the Town".
-She wants to wear pig tails every day now.
-Necklaces are her latest obsession. She wears them non stop, won't leave the house without them, and if I didn't take them away for naps and bed time (choking hazard), she would wear them to sleep too.
-She can now say her name perfectly.
-She's basically potty trained!
-"hold you" has turned into "hold you me" (I'm a little sad about this one)

We've been playing outside much more with how great the weather has been and David decided to teach Gemma how to play hopscotch. I think David had more fun than Gemma though. After a few tries, she decided to go back to just drawing with the chalk, David kept playing hahahaha.

Here's daddy giving the illustration-

Gemma's turn...

She doesn't really know how to "hop" yet, but it was cute watching her skip.

She has really starting using her imagination when she plays. The other day I found her playing with her little rubber duck. I guess he (I'm assuming it's a "he") was sick because she took his temperature and then said, "no fever, you feel better". That wasn't even the cutest part...she also laid out her blue necklace and was pretending it was the duck's pond. I thought that was pretty clever.

This is one of my favorite pictures. There's nothing cuter than seeing a little girl play "tea time" with her daddy. I took several of course, I just don't have the patience to upload all of them.

She caught a virus this past week. It all started last Sunday (a week and a half ago) when she spiked a 103 fever. Thankfully that only lasted a day and a half. Then she got all hoarse and had a nasty cough for the rest of the week. Finally she broke out in hives. I think the hives scared me the most, but the doctor didn't seem too concerned and said it was probably due to the fact that her immune system had been low from the virus. They look pretty nasty, but they don't seem to bother her much. Benadryl seems to be doing the trick :)

Drum roll please!

Well, I think we've succeeded. I wouldn't say Gemma is 100% potty trained, but here are some things worth noting that would lead me to believe we are at a point of no return.
1. She successfully told me and used the bathroom while we were at Target.
2. She has been able to go a full two days with no accidents.
3. She has gone at other people's houses without any problem.
4. I can leave her in the basement with nothing on, and trust her to sit down on her little seat even when I'm not there to remind her. Wooohoo!!

Obviously, we'll get to the point when it's no longer such a big deal, and it will probably even annoy me that she's potty trained because she'll be asking me to take her at the most inconvenient times...until then, I'm SOOOOO proud of her!



Showing Elmo how it's done.







We've recently reached another significant milestone...ladies and gentlemen...Gemma can now wear pigtails!!!! They still resemble little horns more than pigtails, but man o man is it ever adorable!







How cute is that face?!





Baby #2 is almost here, believe it or not. I had my 34 week appointment this past Tuesday, and everything is looking great. I go back at 36 weeks and then begin going in weekly. I can't even believe that.

The nesting phase is here in full force. I have all sorts of things I want to get done, but haven't been able to because I've been busy doing a ton of other things I didn't know I wanted done. Ha! I know I'll get to it all eventually.

This is my favorite time during pregnancy. When time starts to speed up, you suddenly become super productive, it hits just how soon this baby will be here, and you start having a hard time sleeping because you're both scared out of your mind and stupid excited . Unfortunately, this is followed by one of the worst times... when you hit the "full term" mark. Exhaustion sets in once again, time slows down to a crawl because all of those things you wanted to get done, are done. And so, the waiting game begins. You have nothing to do but think about all the things you are feeling and wonder if they are signs of labor. Those sleepless nights due to nervous excitement turn into sleepless nights from having to get up and pee every time you even think about rolling over. And your evening ritual includes praying this baby doesn't decide to stay past it's due date.

I'm pretty sure God designed it this way on purpose. If it was all fun and dandy until the very end, our world would come crashing down on us the second that baby was home. If you've had kids, you know that's when the real work begins. So for now, I'm going to enjoy my "nesting phase" and deep clean as much as I want!

Potty Training...again

Yes, here we are again. I must admit, I have been dreading this ever since our last attempt. However, I've been reminding myself that it really isn't a big deal if she doesn't get it. Most kids aren't potty trained until after 2, I've even heard that it's best to not even try before then. The only reason I'm going against that advice is because the possibility of having Gemma out of diapers before the baby arrives, is much too appealing.

Monday morning I decided to try it again. I really had no set plans to try that day, but when I found her diaper almost dry when she woke up, I asked her if she wanted to go potty on the toilet...she said yes... and it was a success. I can't even explain how proud I was of her. She did have two accidents throughout the day, but she managed to tell me 90% of the time, and even took herself without any prompting while watching Diego (I brought her little seat downstairs).

Tuesday, we tried with undies on instead of letting her run around with nothing. She didn't do as well with those, mainly because I think it gave her a sense that she was wearing a diaper, but she still did amazing.

Today hasn't been as great, but I expected to have a few hard days. Overall I think she's getting it. I don't want to get too excited yet though.

On a completely different note...David and I celebrated our 5th year anniversary this past Friday. We took a two day trip to Kansas City and had a blast. David had a whole folder of things we wanted to do and i think we managed to complete "maybe" 25% of it. Ha! We got to sleep in every morning, go shopping, eat really good food, and just relax. We also went to a soccer game...I thought I was going to die of heat stroke for the first 20 minutes we were there, but it eventually cooled down a bit and I survived. For future reference, soccer games+ 100 degree weather+ 8 months pregnant= not a great idea.

It was a little strange to think about it being our last trip before baby #2 gets here. I think it's funny how it seems strange to us that we are going to have another baby soon, yet in just a couple of months it will seem weird to not have #2 with us. I remember life before Gemma, but life without her now seems strange. On our last day in KC, David and I both mentioned how much we missed her. I'll also confess, that after all the shopping we did, the purchase I was most excited about was the little tea set we got her.

I get sad when i think of sharing my love with another baby. Sad for both of us really. I'm sad the relationship we have now will change. I feel guilty she'll have to see me love another baby as much as I love her, and I also sometimes get jealous that she'll share special moments with her brother or sister that I won't be able to partake in. These are normal feelings right? It's not just me? I'm sad to see things change, but I'm also very excited to experience everything as a family of four. WOW!

I've been working on the nursery and buying the essentials for a newborn again. Having a second makes you realize, at a new level, what a blessing baby showers are. It's expensive even when you have all the big things (crib, car seat, changing table, etc.) But I'm loving getting things ready. There is so much anticipation as the due date approaches! A couple of times throughout this pregnancy I have wished I knew the gender, but the closer it gets, the happier I am we didn't find out. I can't wait to meet the little guy or little gal!

Pictures

Giving Makinley a hug before heading out to swim.


Climbing into everything these days.


Believe it or not, she already likes to play dress up


I was actually taking a picture of our new car...the hug between father and daughter is just a bonus.


Playing with daddy's key chain collection with Zoey.


Yep, still cute as ever in hats. Most of my favorite pictures of her include hats.


She does this for pictures a lot now...she says "freeze!!" and throws her arms up.

Camera trouble

If you know me, you know I'm not the best at figuring things out on the computer. So I still haven't been able to figure out why my pictures stopped uploading properly. I have asked David to figure it out tonight...I've got a few cute ones I'll put up tomorrow if he can figure it out (which he probably will in about 2 minutes). So this is officially my first post without a picture or a video :(
Gemma seems to be hitting those terrible twos a little early, so the last couple of weeks have had their challenges. I've had to step up and actually be a parent...geez! It's funny though, there are days when I hope our next baby is different in some ways, (i.e. knows how to use an inside voice, has less of a stuborn streak), but other days I hope for another Gemma. She does the cutest things! She recently started saying "Hi mommy, I missed you" when I walk in to get her up in the morning. Doesn't get much cuter than that!
Last night was a little rough for me. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. I was having a hard time falling asleep to begin with, but on top of that, David was jolting awake every 5 minutes...yes I timed it, and yes he does this quite often (mainly when he's stressed out). That went on until about 1:30 a.m. and then Gemma woke up for some reason. So I went and laid down with her, thinking I would get more sleep with her than with David...ha! At 3:30 I finally gave up and gave her a cup of milk. She was either hungry or thirsty, because she downed that glass and quickly fell asleep. The upside to all of that, is that I had lots of time to think...I'm fairly certain I know what I'm going to do in the nursery now hahaha. I have it all decorated in my head. In addition to that, we've also narrowed down our name list from about 20, down to about 5...Progress!!
I'll post pictures tomorrow...

Summer fun

Even with the terribly hot weather, the summer is flying by. It hit me the other day that if baby #2 gets here when Gemma did, than he or she will be here in under 8 weeks...woah!!! I'm not ready yet! I haven't even started on the nursery, and we definitely don't have any names picked out yet. At least there's not as much to do this time around.

Gemma is loving summer! There is nothing more fun to her than going to the pool. We will definitely be getting a pool membership next summer. Thankfully, even without a membership this summer, we've still been able to swim a LOT, and she gets more and more brave every time we go. She is no longer content to just sit and play in the shallow water...she wants to swim...or jump off the side...or float on her back...or practice kicking. Really, she's happy as long as she doing something that doesn't involve letting her parents relax. Ha! It's fun though, I was the exact same way as a kid. I HATED it when my dad wanted to lay out in the sun, I wanted him to be throwing me in the air, or racing me from one end of the pool to the other.

We were in Branson on vacation last weekend, and I only took about three pictures! I took the nice camera, so of course I didn't want to be taking it to the pool. I'll have to take a bunch of pictures in the next couple of months to make up for it :) Gemma had a total blast, was a total rock star the whole time, and got completely spoiled. The girl loves to shop!! She got several little things that kept her entertained during the trip. I think the most "interesting" thing she picked out was a spoon with a penguin attached to it, which she refers to as "Walka". It's hard to explain how she does it, but she tends to pick weird names for her favorite toys. She currently has "Walka" and "Okie". Thanks to uncle Jeff, she also learned a new word/phrase on vacation....."Oh Snap!"
Here's Gemma in her bed. I've tried and tried to get a picture of her sleeping but they just don't turn out well, and always wake her up. I guess this is the best I can do. It's also the only picture that uploaded from the ones of I've taken this month. I'll post the rest when I figure out what went wrong.

Big Girl Room

For those of you who don't have facebook, and haven't seen pictures of Gemma's new room...here they are. I've changed a couple of things since taking these pictures, but not much. She absolutely loves her room! The first couple of days, she ASKED to take a nap. I bought her a little ottoman with a lid, that serves as a night stand, and also stores all her stuffed animals. I think that, and her pink chair in the corner are her two favorite items. We put up rails on either side of the bed for naps and bedtime. We had one hand-me-down rail initially, but it wasn't working properly, so after two nights of her falling out of bed, we got another new one. So far so good!
She takes a bath almost every night these days because she gets so sweaty during the day. So our routine after her bath is drying her off in the bathroom, and then she runs naked to her room. She thinks this is sooo funny. The first couple of days after switching her room, she ran to her old room, and was confused as to why her door was shut. So I explained she needed to go to her new room. A week later, she is still doing the same thing, but now it's just a game to her.

So far this has been one of the easiest "transitions". I thought I would be sad to see her in a big girl bed, but I think it was just as exciting for me as it was for her. I loved decorating it, and then seeing her get so excited about it. She definitely looks so small in her bed when I go in to check on her and kiss her good night, but it's not sad.

I tried taking pictures of her actually in it, but I just managed to wake her up