Shadow kissing

Oh my just had to post about this. Kacey was standing in front of a wall this morning and saw her shadow, she looked for a minute and then leaned in and kissed it. I laughed my a$$ off, too cute and funny!

I know I am not posting much. The main problem is that I am always sleepy. I go to be between 8 and 9 (9 is REALLY late for me) and I am usually napping during her nap time. This is leaving me little to no blogging time. There really isn't too much to say and pictures are slowing down. I'll try to get better. I'll be in the second trimester as of tomorrow and rumor has it that my energy will pick back up.

My Big Girl Helper

I am trying to let Kacey "help" me more often now. She always wants to see what I am doing and gets so proud when she "helps". This morning I was unloading the dishwasher and asked her if she wanted to help. She nodded yes emphatically. I pulled out the stepstool and she climbed right up it. I then put the silverware in front of her and opened the drawer. She would take something out and I woudl point to where it went and she would put it there! She had so much fun. When she was done she tried taking some back out of the drawer to put back in the washer but I told her we were done. :)






Other things I am letting her do that gets her more involved.
~ Get in the refrigerator to help pick a snack.
~ Put her dirty clothes in the laundry hamper
~ Pick up lemons off the ground and put them in a bag in the backyard
~ Throw trash away (I think this is her favorite)
~ Put clothes in the washer, I have to lift her up with each item but she is still helping. She also gathered most of the towels out of the bathroom for me to wash the other day. She looked so big, pulling them off the rack and carrying them. :)
~ Yesterday I bought her some new cups from Tar.get. They had stickers on them that needed to come off before they got washed. I would start the sticker and she would pull it off and throw it in the trash.

Think of all the things she could do if she were just a little taller :) Let's hope she keeps this helper mentality for a while!

One more picture... we went to a mexican restaurant this weekend and guess what her daddy and uncle let her do......

Happy Birthday to Me.

Yes, today is my birthday and it is a very good one. If you had asked me 10 years ago where I thought I would be now, I would have told you where I hoped I would be. I hoped I would be happily married, with 3 kids, working a nice high end corporate career. Alot changes in 10 years, including your hopes and dreams. Fortunately the most important aspects stayed the same and even came true. I am very happily married to a wonderful husband and father. I have the most beautiful little girl and another little one on the way. Instead of the dream corporate job, I have the dream job that I decided I wanted in my early 30's when the mystique of corporate life wore off. I can't imagine a more perfect job for me. I love being home with my little Jo, I am a very blessed person with a charmed life. I know it, I appreciate it and I thank God for it every day.

Now 10 years from now? A second bathroom and some sidewalks please :)

Halloween Party

What a fun day!!!! It started after Kacey's nap. I went and got a bunch of balloons while she was sleeping. When she woke up I put one little bunch in her crib and she beamed. Daddy got her up and changed her diaper and then let her go. She came out of her room and saw all the balloons in the living room and broke into a full run screaming!!! She played with them a bit and then helped me take them outside to set them up.

We got all the setup done and then everyone started arriving. It was so nice to see them all. It's harder to see moms and babies now that some are working or different nap schedules. I think I got a chance to chat with most everyone at least a little bit.

We did try to get all the kids in one picture. Here is last years...



and this years... well let's just say complete chaos. Believe it or not, this is one of the best ones Jamie got. I know Alex actually got on top of a chair so hopefully she got a better pic.



It really was a lovely afternoon, the weather was gorgeous and ALL the kids were very well behaved and had fun together. Taline won the contest again as a little Dutch girl, but it was a close one as so many of the costumes were adorable.



To see all the pics, click here.

One final thing to end with. We were cleaning up and I turned around and found Kacey getting frosting off a cupcake and eating it. She would then turn around and do a little happy dance. Too cute! I got it on video, so enjoy!

Happy Halloween!!!!!

SO MUCH FUN YESTERDAY!!!!!! After Kacey's nap we had lunch then got her dressed up (she did NOT want to put her costume on, but mommy won the struggle) We went over to Grandma's Aunt Shirley's and visited there. Kacey REALLY liked taking candy out of the bowl and putting it into her pumpkin. She also handed out little candy corn treats to everyone since she was the Candy Corn Princess after all. We then went to GG's house and visited her neighbors. More treats in bowls, hey she was getting the hang of it very quickly! A quick stop by the Pratt's (where she was given an adorable candy corn bear) and then over to Taline's house for some trick or treating!

The girls both got right into it. They walked down the sidewalk with purpose and were not afraid to go up to the doors. They both liked taking the candy out of the bowls and seemed disappointed when people just gave them a handful and put it into their baskets for them. We did both sides of the block and that was definitely enough. Kacey started getting distracted by planes and cats and Taline was busy squeezing a crunch bar until it melted enough and the wrapping undid enough and she was able to eat some! Sneaky girl.

It was a very fun time. I had no idea the girls would be so into it and so well behaved. I loved watching Kacey walk down the sidewalk holding daddy's finger. I also loved watching her take a candy and very thoughtfully putting it into her pumpkin basket. Just so very heartwarming :)

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween too!!! I'm off to get ready for our Halloween Party we are hosting for Kacey's friends today!

WARNING: a personal post....

As most of you know, I frequent a few chat boards. One of them is "Success After Infertility". It is full of wonderful ladies who just got pregnant or have full grown toddlers. :) It's nice to be able to support someone who just got pregnant and is asking about their first low beta. Since mine was only 18 with Kacey I can offer some hope.

Today I asked a question and here it is:
"If you got "surprise" pregnant with #2.... "

what was your reaction?

Please understand I am very happy to be pregnant and I look forward to having #2. We always hoped to have more than one child but would have been happy with one also. We were thinking of doing IVF next summer and trying on our own for a little while after I weaned Kacey this fall. Well, I cut nighttime feedings over the summer and that must have triggered me to ovulate and surprise we were pregnant before I ever got a post partum period. By the time I tested I was already 8 weeks, that's how in denial I was at the possibility.

I am excited intellectually and very much want this baby. My problem is that I don't feel it emotionally at all. This is kind of hard to talk about but I am hoping someone on this board can sympathize. I still don't believe we really are pregnant. Yes, I have seen the u/s and my tummy is getting bigger and I have had m/s. But when I was pregnant with Kacey we had looked forward to it for so long. I would spend so much time just looking at the u/s's and dreaming of the day she would arrive. I would put a hand on my tummy and talk to her and it all felt so real.

With this one, I forget I am pregnant all the time. I look at the u/s to remind myself that I really did see a moving baby with a beating heart. I keep telling myself to get excited and believe it but it's just not happening. Maybe because we didn't plan and look forward to it?

Please don't think I don't want this baby, I really do and this is not a post to complain or whine. I just want to know if anyone else felt like this and if they did when did it start feeling real? Maybe when the baby starts kicking or we find out the sex? I just want so badly to feel all the things I felt for Kacey. I feel like I am cheating this baby out of something and I cheating myself too.

Fortunately I got some very amazing responses which all boil down to, I AM NORMAL. I wasn't going to write about this on the blog and I will probably delete it at some point as I do not want Twiglet #2 to ever get the wrong idea. I decided to post it though as a couple of people actually responded that they were glad to see my post as they were feeling the same way and were glad to hear they they were not alone. Oh the lovely power of the internet. Thank you internet buddies, for everything.

If you would like to read all the comments, click here.

Getting ready for Halloween!!

On Saturday, Jamie took Kacey to Descanso Gardens for their Pumpkin Festival. We put on her costume (Candy Corn Princess) and she beamed, she even let us put the hat on her!!! They had a great time, listened to a man play the banjo, played in the pumpkin patch, rode the spooky train and walked in the parade.

And she's a righty...

I have had suspicions that Kacey is going to be right handed but this morning made me pretty sure. She was coloring (that child LOVES to color!) At one point she had a crayon in each hand. She was coloring with her right hand and then looked at her left and bent back over with her left hand out as if she was about to color with it. She then stopped, sat back up, switched the crayons so that the left one was now in her right hand, bent back over and resumed coloring using her right hand. She then did it several more times and never colored with her left.

This morning I heard her talking around 6:30. I didn't rush in to get her because... well I never do. Jamie woke up too and we were just enjoying being cozy and listening to her talk. At some point she stopped and was quiet. I asked Jamie if he thought she went back to sleep and he said no, probably just playing quietly by herself. He went int here a few minutes later (about 7:15) and she was just happy as can be, playing quietly in her crib. WOW, how did we get to this point? She goes to bed without crying, is waking up without crying, sleeps through the night..... oh my. We are going to start all over again in a little more than 6 months????

Speaking of that, I felt really good all weekend. Had some energy and very little nausea, it was a good weekend. I really hope I am over the worst of it!