June

Summer is already flying by so quickly.  Elsie and I have been keeping busy with our daily routine of eating, walks, playing inside and out, cleaning, and napping (mostly just for her).  Here are a few of the moments in June that I was able to get pictures of.

First off, trying out the new sandbox that Godparents Jon and Angie got for Elsie.  We weren't anticipating her reaction.  Angie plopped her in and threw sand on her and screamed.  She got out of there as fast as she could and clung to Angie for dear life.

We put her back in to try again and here was her reaction...

After a minute or two, she started easing up....

And she was even willing to purposefully touch it with a pinch...

We haven't tried it again but will soon.

A common morning occurence is that Elsie explores all over the main level while I finish cleaning after breakfast or checking e-mail.  On this day I saw that she had pulled her diaper bag down and was digging through it.  I let her go and continued reading my e-mail.  Then I started hearing a "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch" sound and turned to find this....

She thought that was the greatest game ever and was not impressed when I put an end to it.

Elsie's first smoothie!  We made them while MAtthew was home for lunchy...

It is really funny to see where Elsie tucks away and puts toys now.  I thought it was cute that she put these little guys on the windowsill to look outside....

Lastly, some pictures of Elsie from last week. I was trying to get her to sit on the little chair I got at a garage sale.

A Pregnancy Story

The following is something I wrote out months ago and I am itching to put in on the blog today...

The background: After trying to get pregnant with Elsie and having the little beauty, there came a time when we had to stop and think about when we would want to have the second little one come along. We had a talk and ultimately decided that we really did not want to get pregnant before January 2012. After that we were pretty casual. In my mind, I thought we would start trying in mid June and I was thinking it might happen some time over the summer. We continued to be somewhat cautious about the whole thing but then Stacy's bachelorette party and wedding timeframe came along and I thought I should try just a smidgen bit harder on NOT getting pregnant. They always say things happen when you least expect them.

The morning of Stacy's bachelorette party, I knew I wasn't pregnant but wanted the physical proof before drinking that night. I did decide to go get a pregnancy test that afternoon to make sure I was in the clear and just as I'd expected, it came back negative. I proceeded to have 4-5 drinks through the course of the evening. :( Throughout the following week I waited for my period to come. Suddenly two nights in a row I had to get up to go to the bathroom. That never happens. And one of the nights I had gone right before I went to bed. I realized it was a pregnancy symptom and I got this anxious feeling inside. I told Matthew about it and he immediately thought I was pregnant. I kept denying it.

That Sunday, April 1, (a week after the party), I woke up very early feeling very anxious. I knew I had to get up and take a test and that I would get a definite answer. I snuck into the bathroom and took the 2nd test from the box I had bought the week prior. Right away, the paper turned colors so I knew it was working but the lines didn't show up as instantly so I put the test on the counter and took a deep breath before looking back. Then I turned my head to look and saw this....

....that was followed by a very long string of whispered "oh my God"s with my hands over my mouth. I was likely more shocked than I'd ever been in my life. I'm still settling from the shock of it. I then went into the bedroom and Matthew stirred awake asking me to check on Elsie. I wasn't going to wake him up initially but since he was half awake, I came back and said, "Are you awake?" He said yeah. Not being able to say the words "I'm pregnant" I told him, "I took a test and it was..." then I made a positive sign with my fingers. He was excited. I can't remember the words that follwed in our conversation but I know that I said "Oh my God" a gazillion more times and Matthew said things about feeling like it was very meant to be and being so happy about it. Eventually Elsie woke up but she wasn't outrageously happy about the news...
I've gotten used to the idea of a baby growing inside of me and was finally able to call to make a doctor appointment today. Now I have a mixture of pure excitement with a little bit of nervousness thrown in that something bad could happen to this pregnancy in the following weeks. I am also still a bit nervous for the chaos that will ensue when the baby actually comes, which is why I was so anxious to begin with. But I know our little family is ready to grow even bigger with love!


..............Back to the present, I am now close to being 16 weeks pregnant and very very excited for this little bug to join our family! We will find out in about a month if it is a him or a her. I usually feel like it is a girl but I did have a dream last night that it was a boy. Matthew guesses differently depending on the day but usually says boy. Here is a pregnancy shot from Father's Day last week...just kidding I haven't uploaded that to the computer yet so I will have to do that later.

Teddy Bear

I put Elsie's 12 month post below but as I was doing it, I knew I had to see the line up of her teddy bear shots month to month.

12 months = 1 year!

It is about time I get this post up! My little girl is 1 year old! She looks it too! She is getting so big and long and sure is heavy to carry around. Since I am late, Elsie is now 12.5 months so some of these updates weren’t happening when Elsie turned 1. A lot changes week to week. So at 1 year old…

Elsie shows a lot more personality. She lets us know when she is mad and frustrated. She laughs at us but actually tries to make us laugh too by doing silly things! She laughs when someone is sitting by her in the car, looks out the window opposite of her, but then quickly turns to look at her and make a little noise. She cracks up at this. Now she has started imitating it and does it to us.

Last week she had her 12 month appointment and weighed in at 22 lbs 14 oz., 30 inches long, head circumfrence 46.5. She is in the 75th percentile for everything. She has been drinking sippy cups of milk during the day but still has one bottle of formula before bed at night. I guess we will stop that once the formula is gone. The transition has actually gone really smooth. Elsie now has table food for all of her meals – it is actually harder to keep her eating healthy this way because we don’t always have fresh fruit, veg, and meat on hand. She basically has the same breakfast every morning though = dry cereal, fresh fruit, and a piece of toast with butter on it.

She isn’t walking by herself yet but is getting closer all of the time. Yesterday she took one step by herself. Today my sister was over and we were playing outside. She stood Elsie up and told her she had to walk to me. Elsie took 3 steps on her own! She consistently walks with one hand held and will stand for a few seconds on her own. I think the most common question I've gotten since Elsie was born was "Is she walking yet?" Just interesting, of course I ask this to other people too.

One of her favorite things to do is open any cupboard she can get her hands on. I spend a good amount of time putting things back into cupboards, back into bins, back on shelves, etc. She loves taking things out but has started to put things back in too. She will take all of the blocks out of a bag, then put them back in, then repeat.

She also likes to hand things to people now, or hand things back and forth.

Elsie likes to sing. It is pretty adorable. Sometimes she will sing along with us or music and other times she will sit and make up her own little tune. She also likes to dance. She presses the buttons on her toys that make music and she bops back and forth. At daycare, we were always told that she liked dancing to the guitar music at circle time.

She can be kind of wild. She would love to dive head first off the couch or bed if we’d let her.

Since turning 1, she is not into car rides so much anymore. She will cry/whine after a while or after first getting in the car. We have noticed this on the 2-3 hour drives to the cabin and Fergus. It is making me nervous for our big huge road trip in July.

She finally has two little teeth on the bottom. One came in right before she turned 1 and one just after. She wakes up every morning, rocking back and forth, making noises, while standing in her crib.

She enjoys the warm weather and likes to sit in the grass and pick away at it.

Some pictures from an outdoor playtime. Elsie likes to bang the window and stand up and look around. In the last two pictures, Elsie would NOT look at me. Then she suddenly saw Daddy coming with the lawn mower. She pointed at him and then started waving and squealing.

She had a fun birthday party! She liked to eat cake and open all of her fun presents! Pictures of that posted below! However, she probably wasn't feeling so well during the party and we just didn't realize it. Right after the party she took a nap and then woke up sick! It started with a fever. The next day she was diagnosed with 2 ear infections and tonsilitis, then went in again the next day and it turned out she had hand foot mouth disease and not tonsitilis. So on her actual birthday she was quite sick. That is why she looks a little rough in these teddy bear photos.

1 Year Birthday Party!

Elsie had her 1 year birthday party on May 20 at 11:00. The Goldade side, Wolf side, and Dietenbergers came over to celebrate. It was a fun day and rainbow themed party! I was able to take a few pictures that day and some other people grabbed the camera to help document. I will let the photos do the talking!