Gaga's 2 year old pics

Better late than never...here are the pics we chose from Gaga's 2 year old photo shoot. Saying that she loved getting her picture taken is an understatement. She was a ham saying "more cheese (while smiling)" every time they stopped taking pictures to change the backgrounds. She didn't want to stop. The bad thing about that was trying to pick out just a few good ones.

Gaga's Baptism Day

As always, we celebrated Baptism day with a dinner of Gaga's choice (spaghetti), dessert and reminiscing over her baptism pictures with candle and white garment. She had no clue what was going on when we lit her candle and took pictures. She did however do very well blowing her candle out! Happy Baptism Day, Gaga!

Cupcakes! Yum!

Unsure what was going on

Trying to get her to smile and wave at the camera

28 weeks

Nothing much to report at this point. Baby is still doing extremely well growing bigger and stronger every day. Over the past few weeks the kicks have become stronger and more of movements then just little bumps I can feel every now and then. I am finally feeling baby higher up since it is getting bigger and finding more room in its house. My latest appointment with the midwife was exciting because I am now starting to go every 2 weeks and it just makes the last part of this pregnancy go by so much quicker. My belly measures right where is should be and the heart rate was again in the 150's...pretty consistent! The midwife tried to find out how baby was lying inside and said that it was close to head down but a little tilted. She then checked one more time and it had easily moved to a head down position. So there is still a lot of room in there! The kids are still very much involved in loving on the baby whenever they get a chance. Junior will pull my shirt up to "see" the baby, rub it and tell me how big it is getting. Gaga will usually mash on it and then pull my shirt down saying "baby cold". They are getting anxious to meet this little one as much as Daddy and I are!

Snow Day 2011

Our first snow of the year took a few hours to fall and 6 days to fully melt. We only took part in playing in it the first day while it was snowing. Gaga is exactly like me, she wanted to be out in the snow playing and enjoying but all she could do when she was outside was complain about how cold she was. She would repeat over and over, "cold, cold, cold". Junior on the other hand is just like Daddy. They could stay out there for hours not even realizing it was cold. Daddy and Junior tried to make a snowman, but the snow wouldn't stick well enough.

Snow Day 2011

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010

24 weeks

At my latest visit with the birthing center last week everything has been checking out great with baby #3! I measured right at between 22-23 weeks, the baby's heart rate was in the 160's and my blood pressure was great! I feel great as well! I remember with the other two that every morning I woke up, I could barely take a step without feeling like I was going to fall down in pain from my lower back. I have not had this problem with this baby maybe because of how down low it sits. Baby has been moving so much lately, I can't tell which way it is laying. Whether it's upside down, standing up or sitting down the only thing I know for sure is that it really likes to lay low at the bottom. I have all this extra room up top around my belly button, but never seem to feel it up there. The kids seem to really enjoy giving the baby (i.e. my stomach) kisses and stickers! Yes, stickers! Especially Junior. He loves to hand out stickers to everyone and baby always gets one...right on the belly button. That's where his kisses end up also. Gaga's kisses are everywhere on my belly! The Saturday after Thanksgiving the baby was moving quite a bit and I got Junior to come over and look at my belly and right then baby gave a huge kick that Junior was able to see and he thought that was the neatest thing! Junior asked me the other day if it was going to hurt when I pushed the baby out. I said it would just a little! His little mind is always thinking!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Gaga!

I am still having a hard time believing that our sweet baby girl is 2 years old today! Although it started out ROUGH, I hope that by the end of the night with a few presents and ice cream we made it a little nicer than it started. Gaga woke up around 10pm, just a couple hours after we put her down for the night and was up screaming in pain for the next 2 hours. She did not want to lie down, she did not want to be held, she did not want to go back to sleep. We finally calmed her by having her sit up on the couch with us thinking that maybe the cold she just finished caused her to have an ear infection. After that we took her to bed with us and she woke up nearly every hour after that to whine a little more and let us know how uncomfortable she was. That next morning she woke up with a slight fever and since we had her 2 year well check schedule the next morning after that I decided we needed to take her in just to check her ears before we tried to come in for a well visit and be turned away. Of course the pedi's office didn't open until the afternoon (trying out a new schedule so they can be open on weekends) and the earliest they could fit me in was the same time as my appointment at the birthing center. So I was able to reschedule my appointment and get the one for Gaga at the pedi. Sure enough both her ears were looking "sickly" and we were given an antibiotic and ear numbing drops. I was greatly surprised once I dropped off the antibiotic prescription they had it ready in 5 mintues! So we rushed home and got her first dose on board and put her down for her second nap that day. Later that night we went out to eat and got her some ice cream, then came home and opened a few presents. By this time you could tell she was feeling much better already and she slept great that night! Thank goodness! Happy Birthday sweet girl! We love you so much!

(2 weeks later at our rescheduled well-visit)
2 year old stats:
34-1/2 inches tall
22-1/2 lbs.

The birthday girl!

Getting her much deserved ice cream

Opening presents...

Her new baby!

Gaga's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Gaga's 2nd birthday with a few family and friends at our house the Sunday before her actual birthday. As like last year, I made her another doll cake with a snowflake theme this year. We hung snowflakes around the house and wore blue shirts also. She had so much fun with all the visitors and chaos going on that day. She was a real ham opening her presents and taking her time to show everyone what she got, even holding out her cards for all to see. We saved the presents from us for her to open on Thursday, her actual birthday. Thanks to all the family and friends who came to help us celebrate our little girls birthday! Click to pic below to see the rest of the birthday fun.

2nd Birthday

Gaga's 1st Haircut

It was easy for us to determine when Junior needed a haircut (when we could see a mullet forming in the pictures we took for his first birthday). But it was different with Gaga. Being she's a girl we can let her hair grow out long. So since she's been born, that's what we have been doing. Recently we realized that the ends of her hair just looked a little sad and strangly so we figured right before her 2nd birthday would be the best time to take the plunge and get a little trim. Just enough to get off the old baby fine hair at the bottom that she was born with and to help it grow out a little more. I took her with me the day I was going to get my hair cut and have my hairdresser trim it up. She did perfectly fine through it all...it only took all of 5 minutes. She had the smock around her and sat in the chair just as still as can be. So proud of her! Although you can't tell from the before and after pictures, it does look a lot healthier and straight across the back. It was much needed for sure.

Before we started...loving her smock!

Wondering what this lady and is about to do to her

Showing me the penguins on her

Sitting so still and professional like

All done and ready for her bow to be put back in

20 weeks - Half way there!

I had my 20 week sonogram at the beginning of the week to check on baby and make sure everything is developing well. Here is what we found out:

• The baby's 4-chambered heart was pumping away at 146 bpm
• The spinal column had closed
• The placenta is posterior (meaning towards my back - same with Junior; Gaga's was anterior - in the front)
  
• The stomach was full so we know baby can swallow amniotic fluid
• The bladder was full so we know baby's kidneys were functioning
• The ventricles in the brain were a normal size
• The umbilical cord had its appropriate 3 vessels and blood flow through it was normal
• The hands and feet were accounted for

Here's what I look like from the outside

Junior loving on the baby

Gaga's turn

Here's what I look like on the inside

legs crossed with feet

hand above head

hand again above head with placenta below

profile with arm in front of face

one more profile with arm across face