It's A.....

We're having another little girl! We don't have a name picked out yet but we have a list to choose from :)

Peyton is very excited about the balloons and her big sister shirt. She keeps saying, "Eester! Balloon!"

Terribly Two

That face! How could that little angel possibly be "terrible?" Well, she's not terrible. She's just, terribly two. It's as if she knows what's expected of 2 year olds. She's got a bit of an attitude when she doesn't get to watch her shows all day. My fault. I let her for awhile because I wasn't feeling good and I'm still too exhausted to care most mornings. I just don't want her watching all day every day. If we're driving longer than 10 minutes she wants a video on the car. *sigh*

She is getting very independent with her movies. She wants to choose which one to watch. Most of the time it's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I don't mind that, I'll watch it 3 times a day. (And we do) It's the Baby Einsteins that drive me nuts because they're only 30 minutes long. Once it goes back to the menu screen she says, "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" and has to pick another one. Herself. I can't pick it, because obviously I'm just dumb ol' mommy who doesn't know how to pick good movies. If she's eating I'll get up and get one. Yesterday once I put the new movie in she said, "Yay! Good job!"

She's been ready for her naps earlier in the day. Here she is falling asleep in the shopping cart at WalMart. This is a nice thing for me because I don't feel like I've wasted my afternoon if I nap with her for 2 hours. But now she is eating lunch after so it throws off snack time. Big woop. She's napping. That's all I care about!

She is quite the character. She does this shoulder dance that cracks us up. Her dancing used to consist of just bouncing up and down, but now she wiggles. I haven't been able to get it on video because she normally doesn't do it for very long. I'll get it one of these days. She does sing along with things a lot more now. Here she is singing "I See The Light" from Tangled.

Her ability to match pitch is getting a lot better. She nailed the end of the first verse, but I didn't get my phone up until the second verse.

So aside from being grumpy and opinionated and kicky, she's really not so terrible. She goes to bed pretty well in her "big girl bed." Her crib is in the toddler bed position and my bed is pushed up against it so she's not sleeping with me, but near enough that she doesn't feel abandoned, yet. She gets in bed with me around 5:30 every morning. It's not so bad because the past couple of days she's been sleeping later and lord knows I can use all the sleep I can get!

We haven't really started any potty training yet. She has a potty and she knows how to sit on it. But she also has the desire to stand in it most of the time. She isn't really giving me any signs of being ready. She doesn't tell me when she is wet and doesn't mind when she is. She'll sometimes go big potty in another room but most times does it where ever she is when inspiration strikes. She has brought us her diapers and wipes twice when she needed a change, but other than that nothing points to being ready. Oh well. I've got 5 more months to get her out of diapers!

A Baby!

Since I've finally broken the news of Facebook, I can blog about Baby #2! 

Found out about the little bean on June 30th after a stressful day and crying over a text message that said, "Don't worry about food, I'll take care of it. Try to figure out if there's anyhing you would actually want and I'll get it. You, me, us, beering each other." from Hubs. *RED FLAG!*

The test was positive so fast I didn't even have time to pull my pants up. Needless to say I wasn't emotionally prepared for that result so the first thing out of my mouth was, "Holy s**t." I hadn't been feeling very good the past couple days but we had been snacking on chili queso so I figured my sensitive stomach just didn't like it. That was partly true.

I sent this picture to Hubs with the message "I guess it's not the queso." to which he responded, "Um what?" and then "Well that complicates things."

We decided around our anniversary trip to Oregon in April that it was a good time to start trying. We tried for about 2-3 weeks and then found out that our health insurance was going up by a lot starting in July so we stopped. I got my period on time so I figured we were good to go! Negative.

We are at 14 weeks right now and I'm feeling much better than I was. I was nauseous all the time and was having a problem with my throat feeling closed up and it made me gag so I constantly felt like I was about to throw up. I had a dizziness problem when I was pregnant with Peyton. It would just hit me suddenly and I would almost pass out. My head would cloud up and go black and spotty and I would get hot and have tunnel hearing. It sat me out of a few concerts while I was still in school. I'm having that problem again but it seems to be more frequent. It's worse when I don't get enough sleep so I'm trying to go to bed by 10 since Peyton wakes up around 7. I also try to nap with her most days.

I have had two appointments with my fabulous midwife Nancy Spencer. I'm thrilled to be delivering with her again. My experience with Peyton was so amazing! My "Guess Date" is February 22nd. The funniest thing is that the day I found out, my friend Lara in Texas sent me a message with a picture of a positive pregnancy test and said, "Here we go again!" I sent her mine in response. We are due the same day! Of course it probably wont happen the same day, but how funny!

Apparently I'm not allowed to be pregnant alone. Soon after I announced my pregnancy with Peyton, my younger brother called me saying he and his girlfriend were expecting too. We ended up delivering the same day. Twin cousins :)

Here are the two ultrasounds I've had so far:

8 weeks

 12 weeks

It didn't feel real until recently. I've started to feel little movements, but once you've had a baby every little gas bubble feels like baby kicks. And I've had a lot of little gas bubbles. Ugh.

Hopefully this will give me cause to update more often!

The Girls

Have you ever had a bra fitting?
I hadn't until a little over a month ago. I assumed when my boobs got bigger during pregnancy and nursing that my band size went right along with them.

False.

My 36 C is way too big in the cup now, but feels super tight in the band. So I finally went and got fitted at Victoria's Secret. Quick and painless, did it over my shirt. Turns out I'm a 32B. 32? That's nuts. If a 36 feels tight, how am I a 32? Well, it's because the cups are in different places for different band sizes, and if your band is too big, the underwire digs in where it should be supporting a breasticle.

Instead of paying upwards of $Yikes for a bra at VS, I saved my brassiere shopping for Target. After a fun time at our little Farmer's Market, my mom and I went to Target and began the most annoying bra shopping excursion EVER.

Either everyone in the world is a 32B and bought all of the normal bras, or they just don't make regular bras in that size. Every single one we found in my size had enough padding to provide flotation to an elephant at sea. We searched and searched and searched. While there were several really cute and very pretty bras in my size, I don't need padding! It's the whole chip bag scenario. When I told Steven about the padding issue and the chip bag thing he asked who I was trying to impress. Uh... No one, that's why I don't need a padded bra to make my boobs look 2 cup sizes bigger. And foamy.

I finally found normal, unpadded T-shirt bras but they were all really bright colors and patterns. I settled on a teal one and figured I'd go to WalMart eventually and probably be able to find something. As we were starting to walk away from the neon slingshots, I saw that we were in the junior bra section.

Hello, my name is Mandy and I have to buy bras in the juniors department.

I still haven't checked WalMart. Somehow, my 34A's from high school and college fit more comfortably than the teeny bopper bra that's the right size. Le sigh.

Urpderting

I have a post for Ciabatta bread in the works. I need to actually make it the way I want to post it first. It's time consuming waiting for the bread to double in size and what not, so I haven't really had a chance.

Let's see... What's new.. Well, I've been babysitting my nieces since December. That's been fun. Peyton loves playing with them! I've been dieting and exercising since November and I've lost 12 pounds! Woohoo! I've still got my baby kangaroo pouch, but it's not as prominent. Especially when I stand up straight! I'm comfortably fitting in the smallest jeans I own (size 8!) and I'm proud of myself :)

We took a family vacation to Cannon Beach, OR for our 2 year anniversary and it was fantastic! You really don't realize how much you need a vacation until you take a real one. Not a "vacation" where you have time commitments and plans or are visiting family. (Love you all, seriously, but it's so nice to just be with your little fam) The day we got there was sunny and a little warm so we went to the beach and just took it all in.

Peyton didn't like the feeling of sand on her hands but she thoroughly enjoyed playing in the freezing cold water with her ball. She loves being outside so much. It makes me feel bad when it's so cold and rainy here and she can't go out. Maybe one day we'll be closer to the equator and she can go out anytime. After playing at the beach we went to the grocery store and made a nice dinner at our hotel. Ecola Creek Lodge is where we stayed (big kudos to Mom for sending us there!) and our room had a fully equipped kitchen. It was like a little one bedroom apartment. I LOVED IT! The living room had a gas fireplace that we kept going anytime we were in the living room. (Ambiance and heat!) It was so lovely to just hang out with Pedro and Esteban (yes, I've given my family Hispanic names). Steven was really good about not sitting online the whole time. He was the happiest I've seen him in a long time! We watched baseball, drank wine and actually talked!

The next day was very rainy and windy so we couldn't spend any time playing outside. I checked the weather before we left so I knew what we were getting into before we left. I found the aquarium in Seaside and decided we would spend part of our rainy day there. It's very small but they have 3 HUGE octopi! They're kind creepy when they're awake. Watching an octopus walk on its tentacles is so weird. Peyton enjoyed looking at all the "sh" (fish). And she pointed out many "cars" (stars/starfish) in the tanks. Once we finished looking at the aquarium tanks we went to feed the seals. They performed a variety of tricks including clapping, splashing Steven and doing the "what's up?" head nod. They were very cute. When we were out of fish for the seals we checked out the gift shop and Peyton got a book about the animals we saw while we were there.

We decided to go out to eat that night and found a lovely place called The Driftwood. It wasn't fancy or divey. Just a lovely little place with the 2nd best fish and chips I've ever eaten! (The first being in London.) Peyton had a very healthy dinner of fruit snacks, graham crackers, croutons and french fries... As we were leaving the couple next to us smiled at us and said we were great parents! I don't think they saw the meal Pey consumed, but appreciated that we were attentive and kept her quiet haha! After dinner we went back to our room and watched some more baseball before Peyton went to bed. Then it was wine and conversation again! We left around 11 the next morning and had a good drive home.

One of the best vacations I've ever been on! And we didn't have to do a bunch of stuff! We just enjoyed being us together and being away from our "world" for a couple of days. Since we've been back we've really been taking the time to get off the computer and away from the tv. We've been going up to the park when it's nice outside. We are all eating dinner together at the table. I've deleted several series recordings from the DVR because I just don't have the time or desire to watch those shows. (PS- the stupid DVR has been deleting/not recording things and it's driving me NUTS!)

Peyton is doing a lot of amazing things. She loves her floor puzzle and matches the pieces like a pro! She can now put the pieces into the spaces without help. She recognizes and says the letters "o, b, and y." She says "meow, meow" when she sees a cat or any other feline. If it's a bigger animal she says "rawr." She says, "puh puh puh" for penguin, "sh" for fish and "ya yo yi" for violin. Her favorite thing in the world is a ball. If she sees one, she says "Ball!" and wants it. She recognizes them on tv and in books. At the grocery store she was calling all the fruit in the produce section "ball!" She also apparently knows the word "bra." She said it over and over when we were in Victoria's Secret the other day. She says, "no," "help," "yessss" and "dee dee dee dee doh." (that last one is a fun little thing she repeats after we say it) She calls Elmo "o" when she brings him over to me. She matches objects of the same color and sorts her toys that way.

Lately she wants to snack all day and not sit down for a meal. It's tough at dinner time because if she's not in her chair at the table she wants us to play with her. I'm trying to get her to understand that if she doesn't eat her dinner, she has to wait for mommy and daddy to finish before we play with her.

I think that's pretty well updated for now! I'll try to get the ciabatta thing done in the next couple days. It's pretty tasty, I just want to make it into loaves for the post :)

Until next time!

Yikes Bikes..

I'm not very good at updating this. Mostly it's because I don't have much down time. The rest is because I don't really have anything interesting to write about.

Well, I was thinking about my marriage and decided I should write about that! I don't feel married. I don't know that anyone actually feels "married." I've never asked anyone. I guess it's because we've been together for over 5 years and we've lived together for a lot of that time. Nothing new came with being married other than taking his name and the comfort of knowing we'll be together "until death parts us." (Assuming all goes well haha)

We have an interesting relationship. He works all day 5 days a week and I'm home with Peyton. I cook and clean and take care of everyone and Steven brings home the bacon. He leaves for work 45 minutes after he gets up. That's about an hour after Peyton and I get up in the morning. He gets home from work about an hour before dinner and two hours before Peyton goes to bed. Once she's asleep, he's on the computer and I'm on my phone playing games and the tv is on. We don't talk much. I don't really have much to talk about. My day consists of Mickey Mouse, exercising, cleaning, diapers, Baby Einsteins, silly songs and pretend picnics. He doesn't have much to talk about other than what goes on at work.

We try to make small talk about the goings on in the world, (read- what pops up on Yahoo! News or Facebook) but those conversations don't last long. Part of my problem is that I don't have an interest in much of what goes on in the world. Politics are SO not my thing. I don't pay enough attention to the news. Most of the things I see are related to pop culture. Even that doesn't interest me much. I'm more interested in articles about healthy foods or baby stuff. I like looking up recipes and crafts. That's what I spend most of my free time doing. When Steven's online, he's reading posts on Reddit or watching two basketball games or playing a computer game or a combination of all three. We usually watch a show or two together on the couch every night.

As boring and sad as this all sounds, it kind of works for us! Or at least it has been. I'm feeling ready to turn off the technology for a little bit. We watch so many shows we can hardly keep up. There are shows on our DVR, shows on NetFlix, shows on his computer and random shows that we watch when we aren't watching shows together. It's a little much. After Peyton goes to bed is OUR time, but we're not spending quality time together.

Having time for intimacy when you have a child is hard enough, but if neither of us is making a real effort it's happening maybe twice a month. I'm proposing (when he gets home) we turn off the tv and the computer for at least 2 hours after Pey's in bed. We can read together or Heaven forbid we actually talk to each other haha! And we both need to try much harder. Most people would probably suggest a night without Peyton. I'll go ahead and stop you right there. It's impossible. I've spoiled her (and I don't regret it!) to the point where I am the only one who can put her to bed and get her back to sleep. Not only that, we would miss her and worry about her too much. We're a happy little tricycle :)

So there's a post! And it's weird and contradictory I'm sure. But ya know? My mom and sister are the only people who read this. So :-P