22 weeks 2 days

I cannot believe I am over half way there now! I am definitely growing and so is little Miss Emily:) I can feel her moving around all the time. It's quite a big change from Victoria. I had and anterior placenta with her, but I also have one this go around so I'm not sure what the difference is...........Maybe Emily is just a stronger mover. I just know that had the movement been reversed I would have been seriously freaked out by the lack of movement I felt with Victoria.

I've been feeling pretty great aside from the hip pain. The nausea is mostly gone now so that's a plus! I can't eat a lot in one sitting, but I haven't really been able to the whole time this go around. I could really put some food away when I was pregnant with Victoria, but this time I think I'm starving and I could eat a lot but I really can't. I just kind of stay hungry all the time. Oh well....definitely worse symptoms I could have. I'm not having any trouble gaining weight; I can tell you that much! LOL! I have gained 13 lbs. (157) and here's the growing belly.......

I don't quite know what to think about the shape going on........I'll let ya know in 3 weeks. I just think I was more round with Victoria at this point. I have a photo at 20 weeks with her and the next isn't until 25 sooooo.......Heck the whole pregnancy has been completely different so why not the shape?

My how far you've come!

I was glancing over some of my past blog entries last night (like this one) and was amazed how back in January Victoria was just starting to put 2 words together. She is now saying full sentences can tell you exactly what she's thinking. She says things like "I don't want that one." and "I like macaroni and cheese!" and "Where'd my purple baby go?" She is easy to understand for the most part and I can't believe it was just 6 months ago that she was just starting to get the hang of it. Children are amazing with how quick they change!

ETA: I know this is not really an exciting entry for most BUT I like to have updates of my little girl. Like I said, I was shocked when I realized it was just 6 short months ago that she was just starting to put 2 words together. I also wanted to share 2 of her Daddy's favorite things Miss Victoria says......"No, it's my do it!" "I like it!" "Uh-huh, I do." and "Moon and back, thiiiiiiissssssss much!"

Stupid Type A Personality

I'm not sure why I bother planning things out way, way, way in advance. I NEVER stick to the original plan. Case in point...I made poor dear hubby trudge through about a billion of girl names as soon as we started trying for baby no. 2. Girl names are hard for us. We decided on Nadia Ragen. After many months of trying and no luck and many people giving me the the puke look I was no longer keen on that name. I like it again now....oops. If we have another baby, and if it is a girl, we will most likely use it. After I FINALLY got preggo we started looking at girl names again....we decided on Emily Elizabeth....now I have people left and right asking me if I'm naming her after the girl on Clifford. Are you serious peeps?!?! Yes, I'm naming my child after the girl on Clifford.....(enter sarcasm here).

Anywho....as some of you may have noticed I wrote a big 'ol blog here on how I was going to do nurseries.....it's changed. Surprise, surprise. I went to order the fabric for the bumper.....discontinued and no more in stock. I debated something else, but I realized just for the bumper I would easily spend $100. I decided to break down and just buy something else. I decided to go with this beautiful set from Land of Nod

We are still doing the beadboard, but we are going to paint it peridot by Behr now....it's a light green color....I can't figure out how to show you on here.........sorry:( Trim will be white and upper walls will be AWESOMENESS! I'm pretty excited about this; ask me how I feel during the process and I'll probably not feel so great. I had planned on doing lavender with a super great vinyl monogram, then I decided to go with lavender damask wallpaper (I was a little worried about if it would be too busy but decided to just roll with it).......the hubs vetoed the wallpaper, so now I am going to follow Emily with Jones Design Company's lead and try out this

She has a great tutorial complete with template and I'm feeling pretty good about it. The hubs LOVES it so we must go with it. We'll do lavender walls (haven't picked the exact color) and paint the stencil in white. When we agree on something we just have to use it because it does not happen very often;)

We aren't positive on the curtains yet, but I can say they'll be white. Then there is the lighting.....my goodness......I want a chandelier, but surprise! hubs isn't feeling it. My second choice is a basic white fan with light. Fans cut down on SIDS and provide white noise; if we can't agree it might as well be sensible. Oh, thing is hubs of course LOVES the fan idea........go figure.

I cannot wait to show pics!!!! I may give some before pics, but only if you promise not to make fun of the spot on the wall I had the grand idea to stencil on a saying and ran out of room. I have big ideas; not the best on planning them out though. There will definitely be after pics. I am so excited!!!! It'll be my first DIY with photos:) Hopefully it goes better than the DIY hospital gown I never showed. I'm still working on those BTW.....they're not gorge by any sense of the word though.

I'm about to burst with exicitment right now.........wish we could go start it!!!!! We just don't have ANY of the supplies. LOL!

Moments I Live For

Sometimes........a lot of times...........being a stay-at-home-mommy is tough. I'm the one who disciplines the most, I'm the one who gets to hear the crazy fits, I'm the one who gets to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall a lot of time,BUT then there are the other moments.......the ones that I absolutely live for. I love to watch my baby sleep, get big hugs, and hear all the new stuff she's learning....then there are the quirky things too. Right now, I can't seem to talk Victoria into wearing clothes. She laughs at me and runs away when I try to get her dressed so most of time I say the heck with it! She's 2........she gets to be naked if she wants to.........while we're at home. Yesterday, I was getting a snack ready for her and she apparently decided that would be the moment to strip down. The next thing I know she has pulled her little chair over to the counter, climbed on it so she could "color" with a pen and paper on the counter while eating her snack. You can see the red cup with her water and the bowl is somewhere in front of her. It touches my heart to know at that moment how precious and innocent my little girl is. These moments melt my heart.

I love how she is standing there with such attitude................all cocked to the side:)

Then there are these moments that have the same affect on me....

If anything can melt my heart more than my little girl it is watching my husband be the best Daddy in the world. I fall in love with him over and over and over again. He comes home early on Fridays.........most Fridays (sometimes he golfs) and today when he got home he put little girl down for her nap. He loves that little girl more than even I can imagine..........I'm pretty sure she is his whole heart..and I like it that way :)

Beach Time!!!

This past week we had our family vacay at Hilton Head Island, SC. We have been very blessed to be able to go to the beach every year since we have been together, and we ALWAYS got to HHI. Last year we also spent a day at Fort Walton, FL because we were spending a long weekend visiting my Dad. We LOVE the beach!!!! Victoria's favorite part is chasing birds, riding bikes, and getting buckets full of water and dumping them out. We aren't so sure we are going to be able to make it next year since that is when I start student teaching and we kind of need to penny pinch like crazy. We'll cross that bridge when it comes, but I will say if we do go we'll be getting a 1 bedroom condo and staying by ourselves.....it would be the very first year that would happen. The first year we went to the beach we were engaged and we shared a 2 bedroom with my parents, the next year we were only able to stay a few days instead of the usual week and we stayed with hubby's parents, the next year when Victoria was 5 months we stayed with my grandmother and her bestie, last year we shared a condo with my parents, and this year we shared a condo with my sister's family. Whew! I guess I'm just trying to say we have also been blessed with always being able to go very cheap (or free) and have the company of our families.

Hubs family has been going since he was very little and they always go the same week.....that week of his birthday. If we do go next year we probably will not be going that week for frugality reasons (rates are HIGH in July). It is nice to be able to have a family vacay where you can spend time together or apart, but you are all there....and by all....I mean ALL! This year family that went was my FIL, step-MIL and their 3 little boys, SIL, BIL, and their 2 kiddos, sister, BIL, niece, and then of course hubs, me, and V......my parents even came for a couple of days. Family is everything and even if you don't all get along like best friends, I feel it's important to suck it up for the sake of the rest of the family. I personally think it's very selfish to let your own discomfort or whatever, keep the rest of the family from bonding. Anyway....I'll get off my soap box...don't know where that came from?

Of course I have photos! I should do a little blurb and collage on the years we've been.....but I'll save that for another day.

Cousins are so much fun!!

I am pretty sure she could have fetched water ALL.DAY.LONG.

Best Daddy in the world teaching little girl to play putt-putt. She finally decided it was just a lot easier to walk over and put the ball in the hole;)

Seriously Slacking

So....I NEVER added ultrasound pics...that's how on top of things I am. I don't have a scanner though so pardon the bad quality. The first one is of her belly, face, and arm (I think she just has her head turned so it's an odd looking pic); the second one is of her knees bent up to her head. LOL! I will get a post in shortly of our vacay, but fair warning....1) I don't take great pics and 2) I pretty much forgot about my camera the entire time. Go figure.

It's a................

............Girl!!!!!!!! I am over the moon!!! I wanted another girl sooooooo bad. I felt really guilty wanting a girl, but I just couldn't help it. I wanted to be able to drag out all of Victoria's packed away clothes and use them again. Little Miss Emily should be able to get quite a bit of use out of Victoria's clothes since Victoria had winter and spring newborn and 0-3 month clothes. I tried to talk the hubs into dragging a box out of the attic and that didn't really work in my favor.....maybe because we are in the middle of getting the car packed to leave for the beach in 6 hrs. We're just trying to get a little shut eye first and then we have to leave at the wonderful time of 3am since Victoria doesn't do so great in the car. She about a billion x a billion better than when she was an infant, but she still doesn't really like to be in there for long. I can't blame her....I'm not looking forward to a 7.5 hr. drive (ride) either. Anyway....if you read my blog then you know before my fb friends;) We're not telling the fam until tomorrow....no matter how much they try to dig it out of me. I'll post some u/s pics later....by this time tomorrow.

19 weeks:)

I am almost half way there!!!! I am so excited!! I have a big week coming up. First off I only have a 3 day work week since I didn't have any kiddos today and I won't have them on Friday either. YAY!!!! I love short weeks:) Friday we hopefully get to find out what we are having and I really can't wait for that! What do you think? Boy or Girl? Most people seem to think boy. We are waiting to tell family for a little bit, but seriously just a teeny tiny bit. LOL! We are all going to the beach on Sat. so Sat. night we are going to tell my family by way of cookie cake (we're all staying in a condo together), and then we'll tell Kevin's family when they take him out to eat for his birthday. We are going to get some Hershey bars and color the "He" blue or the "she" pink and distribute them some how. One of my friends had them both colored for her gender reveal party and it was too cute! I've been doing pretty good lately....I would like to work out more....I'm just bad at making time for it. My hips hurt a bit more than with Victoria but for the most part I'm doing great:) So far I have gained 10 lbs. (154) and here I am...

Oh...and those shorts are getting a bit snug and the last thing I need is a muffin top so I'm going to have nix those from future photos. LOL!

Discipline

Whew...some days Victoria wears me out! I can get so frustrated because she rips off the sofa cushions, I put them back and say no, no, she does it again. I put them back and say don't do it again or you're going to time out. She does it again. I say Victoria I told you not to play with the sofa cushions and you are not listening so you are going to time out. She screams, goes to time out, and then rips the cushions off again. I say Victoria you are being bad and you are going to get a spanking if you do it again...while I am putting them on again. She rips them off again and gets a spanking.....repeat...and repeat again. I just cannot get through to that child sometimes. Then, 5 seconds later, she looks at me and says "Kiss Mommy" then puckers up. She kisses me and says "to the moon and back....thiiiiiissss much!!!" (This is her combining I love you to the moon and back and I love you this much.) This completely melts my heart and I immediately feel horrible for spanking her. Was I too hard on her? I need to have more patience. Parenting is super hard. It has fairly recently magically occurred to me I can't coddle her after disciplining her (hardest thing ever) and that makes me feel worse. It sends mixed signals though. Sometimes I am not patient enough, but a lot of times she just needs discipline. Last week my pastor did a sermon that included how you discipline your children because you love them. I reeeeaaaalllllyyyy needed to hear that.

So here's encouragement to the the mommies who know we have to teach our children there are boundaries and you can't just say "Oh they're just being a kid" all the time. My precious daughter obviously still loves me very much and I would say in spite of discipline, but I think it's a little....strike that.....a lot because she does have discipline. She knows what is expected of her and that's comforting to children. Heck...it's comforting to me when I know what is expected of me! LOL!

I debated this odd topic for a while, but just felt like blabbing about it so there it is!

ETA: I had to edit this because of course she pushes her boundaries in many other ways than just ripping off cushions (like finding pens and coloring all over herself, climbing on top of the bathroom counter and playing with soap and water, etc.). That was just the example I was using. She's 2....pushing boundaries and having consequences is her full time job;)