Goodbye 2011

So I mentioned in the beginning of the year that I thought this was going to be a big year of changes.

Well, our first change was not a good one. Having to uproot a child from daycare is not fun.  However, we found a new place for Avery to go and now I can say that we are VERY happy with where she is. The teachers there are great and they do so much with the kids. It's like she's in a preschool when she goes there and we just love it! The only bad thing? They don't take infants. So we have no idea what to do when baby #2 joins us in a few weeks.

Our second big change of the year was deciding to build a home. From the initial piece of land, to groundbreaking day, to the finish line! And of course moving day!

Change #3...our big news of the year....becoming parents again! Of course this will really effect us in 2012, but it's still a change for us nontheless.

Avery had a few big changes as well. She started potty training, and moved to a big girl bed! Not to mention the poor thing went through the daycare change and moving into a new house as well!  She's gone through a lot of changes this year and will soon be a big sister-another change for her to deal with. I have to say this girl is a trooper and has taken everything in stride-and way better than we anticipated!

One other change is in the works that I haven't mentioned on here yet. My In-Law's are in the process of buying a new house as well! They've been in their current home since before Gabe was born so this will be a huge change for them. It's a bigger home (don't you know you upgrade when you're empty-nesters?!) and closer to us, which is nice. They still haven't gotten a closing date on it yet, but they're hoping sometime in January. So they will have a lot of work ahead of them. It was sad at the holidays this year knowing it will most likely be the last at their current home.

I think that pretty much sums up the big changes for the year.

Other things to mark 2011?

I started some new skills when signing up for my first cake decorating class. It was a ton of fun and I'm glad I did it!  Now I can make my kids' birthday cakes and feel like I have some sort of clue what I'm doing!

Gabe and I celebrated 3 years of marriage already!

And some firsts for Avery....bowling, her first haircut, her first egg hunt, her first daycare performance, first time going on the potty, turning 2 years old, and having her eye tube removed,

2011 was a great year for us and we're looking forward to what 2012 will bring!

Happy New Year!

36 Weeks-Baby #2

On Wednesday I turned 36 weeks! I delayed my post so that I could include my doctor's appointment from this week, which was today.

How I'm feeling/sleeping: I'm still pretty itchy which isn't fun. It has gotten a little better, but not much. Some days are great and I won't itch at all until around bedtime (go figure). Other days I itch all day long. Overnight has been hit or miss but I'm usually up a few times scratching and/or to use the bathroom at this point.  I'm just feeling really huge these days so I get tired/sore pretty quickly now.

Appointments/events: I had my appointment today. I gained 7lbs since my last visit (did I tell you I think their scale is really off whack?! According to mine at home I gained 4lbs-they weighed me in 3lbs heavier then my scale did this time!) so according to them I'm up a total of 25lbs and am at the exact weight I was when I delivered Avery. Let's see-all of my bloodwork came back normal so no cause of my itching (boo!). They did do an ultrasound to check out baby's position and great news....baby is now head down! Yay!  Now we just have to hope he/she stays that way!  I start weekly appointments now so I go next Friday already.

Cravings/Aversions: Nothing really-no cravings, no strong aversions these days! The holidays totally killed me though-I've been eating like a pig!

Movement: Yep! Lots of movements that you can see from the outside. Sometimes it hurts too! Baby has had hiccoughs quite a bit lately too!

Avery's thoughts: Nothing new- still strongly convinced it's a girl though! 

Here are my photos from this week. The blue shirt is me at 37wks with Avery and the black shirt is me at 36 weeks now. I feel like I'm carrying lower this time around, but looking at photos I look the same! And honestly I don't look much bigger this time around either!

Christmas-Day 3

Yesterday was day 3 of Christmas festivities.

My Dad had to work on Christmas Eve when we were in Buffalo, so we didn't get a chance to see him that day. Instead, they came out to our house to celebrate since we all had off of work yesterday.

They came out around noon and I just made us some appetizers to snack on.

Avery was very excited to open up her big gift!

It was the train table she desperately wanted!  My Grandpa also sent along a little gift for her-a little leap frog thing she can play with!

Silly Smile!

My Dad also got us our infant car seat and bases for the baby, so that was a big help!  We got the train table all set up and Avery had a blast playing with it!

Before they left, we had to get a family photo:

Dad, Avery, Me, Gabe

Shortly after my Dad left, we headed to my In-Laws' for our Christmas dinner. There were about 12 of us there and we had a really nice time.

The kids had their own kiddie table for dinner and were so cute sitting there together!

Owen, Bianca, Avery

We had our usual Christmas dinner which was excellent-soup, followed by salad, followed by shrimp scampi (chicken for me since I don't eat seafood), followed by filet and roasted squash. Delish!  And dessert of course! 

Gabe's birthday is on the 29th so we sang to him at dessert time

And of course the girls had to help blow out the candles!

So our celebrations for the year are officially over. Part of me is glad because now we can get Avery back on some sort of sleep schedule. Of course it's always sad to see the holidays go! Until next year.....

Christmas Day-Day 2

Merry Christmas!

Our day started with Avery getting up and we had to remind her that Santa had come overnight. We brought her downstairs and asked "where did Santa put the gifts?" and Avery actually ran to the back door to the garage! We were laughing at that! We had to tell her they were under the tree and then she ran to the tree and got all excited saying "I want to open them!"

We didn't go super crazy with gifts for her. Gabe and I got her some PJs, an Aquadoodle, the Memory game, a Big Sister book, and a Mrs. Potato Head.

Santa brought her some cozy PJs, a piggy bank, finger paints, watercolor paints, a reese's pieces candy cane, a butterfly bow for her hair, and a radio flyer wagon.

She had a blast opening everything and of course once she opened something she wanted to play with it! I think by 10am we already had the Aquadoodle, potato head and finger paints out!

It was her first time finger painting with us, so of course I had to take a few photos of her!

Look at my hands!

While I was on the phone, Gabe told Avery to paint my tummy. She was very hesitant to do it even when I told her she could, but after a few minutes she caved in and tried it out! 

We had a pretty relaxing morning. Had a good breakfast and just played with new toys. We went over my In-Laws' house around 4pm to just open gifts (the formal dinner was on the 26th).  The kids had a lot of fun, but I think by the end Avery had had enough-she didn't nap so of course she was exhausted and was actually not into opening gifts near the end. 

Here is our nephew opening a very cool plane ornament we got him. He loved it!

And Avery (looking like a ragamuffin) with our niece:

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with those who are special to you and filled with many  memorable moments!

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!

Christmas-Day 1

Our Christmas festivities began last night-party #1 at my Sister-in-Law's house. I didn't take my camera with me, but took this photo of Avery before she left-all dressed up in her party attire!

Today was our Christmas in Buffalo. We left our house around 10:30am and got there around noon.  My Mom had Avery open up her stocking shortly after we arrived

My girlfriend Katie was in town from Maryland and I'm so happy she was able to stop by! I only get to see her once or twice a year now so it's nice to have some time to visit with her while she's here. Her son, Roman and her sister came along for the visit. We had to get a photo of us with our kiddos:

Roman, Katie, Avery and I

And since I had Avery in her Christmas dress, I wanted a nice picture of her by the tree as well!

And a nice family photo of us too!

Avery loves this one zoo book my Mom has for her so it was read to her multiple times today. Here my Mom just finished reading it to her.

My friend Renee also stopped by for a little while and also my Uncle Joe and Aunt Marion came by for a bit. It was pretty much a rotating door all day of people coming in and out. Once Renee left, we had a very yummy dinner-stuffed pork roast, cauliflower, mashed potatoes, salad, bread.

After dinner it was more guests-my friend Megan, her husband, Todd, Noah and baby Leigha.  We attempted a photo of Avery and Noah by the tree and it was an epic fail. We couldn't get both of them looking at the camera at the same time for anything! I think this was the best shot I got of them:

Avery and Noah exchanged gifts and she got a really cute doctors set. Of course we had to open it immediately so she could play with it! She was pretty funny with it too-checking everyone out to see if they were healty.

I hear something!

Whatcha got in there Noah?



Here, you listen now!

 The kids played very well together-they were even sharing the little people house!

And I had to take a pic of little Leigha-hard to believe she's almost 2 months old already! What a cutie!

Once they all left, we still had to do gifts with my Mom. Avery was so overtired by the end of the day (she didn't nap of course) that she was getting really silly. She started making a ton of funny faces and cracking us up!

We ended up not leaving until about 9pm which was really late for us. Avery crashed in the car and slept the entire ride home. She did wake up when we got home, but quickly fell back asleep, thankfully!! 

Tomorrow we get to see what Santa brings!!

35/35

35 Weeks down, 35 DAYS left....

Wow, where has this pregnancy gone?!

Updates

I thought I'd give a few updates on things this week....

In my last pregnancy post, I mentioned having blood work done for my itching. I found out yesterday that 2 out of 3 tests came back normal. The third test had to be sent out for results so they won't have them until the end of the week. So I won't have a final answer until then. Yes I'm still itching-some days are ok, others are terrible. I just wish I knew the cause-allergies, weather, pregnancy, hormones, etc.

I also wanted to update on Avery's transition to her big girl bed. The first night, she did great. We put her to bed and she fell asleep rather quickly. We didn't hear from her all night long. The following morning, she showed up in our bedroom just before 8am. So she did manage to climb out of bed, open the door, and come to see us. So I knew we needed to gate her doorway.

I thought of just gating off the stairs, but honestly I don't want her running around all upstairs either-it would mean access to the baby's room, bathroom, and spare bedroom. I thought it was too risky so I decided to put a gate right across her doorway. Her door still shuts, but if she does open it, she can't escape. So on Friday I put the gate up.

Naptime both Friday and Saturday were a joke-she was so obsessed with having free reign of her room that she was constantly in and out of her bed. We would hear her door open and shut, light turning on and off, etc. Sunday she did take a nap though, which surprised me.

Bedtime has been ok. The one hard thing was we broke her routine of rocking with us at night. We used to sit in a rocking chair and read stories then sing songs. With the bed set up, there really is no room for the rocking chair in her room. And we knew we wanted it in the baby's room eventually. So I think that transition was a little tough-she kept wanting to rock before bed and instead we were trying to get her to lie down in bed and we would lie down with her. We still do stories and songs, but now in her bed.

Some nights she falls asleep rather easily (usually when she doesn't nap). She has had a few nights of crying for awhile until Gabe goes to sit with her and rub her back. She had one night that she was just off the wall wound up and we ended up leaving her in her room to play. She played for awhile then somehow made it to her bed.

The good thing is that once she's asleep, we typically don't hear from her at all overnight. We only had one night that she woke up screaming at 1am so I went down to check on her-she had turned her light on and was trying to open her door. I asked if she fell out of bed and she said yes, though I don't believe her-she tends to answer yes to anything you ask her these days. Luckily she fell back to sleep in about 10min and that was that. So far, so good with the whole bed thing!

Other than that, we've been gearing up for Santa's visit this weekend-finishing shopping, wrapping gifts, etc. Can't wait!