13 weeks. 23 months.

So again it's been forever since my last post, but I have actually been sort of keeping track along the way so I can remember things.

I am currently 13 weeks pregnant which I'm sure you have all gathered from facebook or Christmas cards. First trimester down. I have to say it went a lot faster this time around, but that is probably because I am busy chasing around a nearly 2 year old (that has the attitude of a 16 year old).

So originally we wanted to wait to announce baby #2 until Christmas, but we decided we couldn't wait that long. It was hard enough to wait as long as we did :) We found out very early that we were expecting, so I have been keeping a little pregnancy diary to keep track of things this time around. Lots of info and I'm sure half of you don't care, but I figured I did a good job of keeping track of Aurora, I should keep track of this baby too :) So here it goes:

10/10/2012 (2 weeks, 5 days) - Seriously suspecting I was pregnant. I know it should be way too early to tell, but everything was exactly the same as last time. Boobs starting to hurt and overall feeling crummy. I'm sure I was imagining half of my symptoms, but I started to think that if I wasn't pregnant I really needed to see a doctor because I didn't feel good on a regular basis. But that's how I felt with Aurora too. And another weird coincidence - I was craving chorizo - just like I did when I was really early with Aurora.

10/15/2012 (3 weeks, 2 days) - Pregnancy test positive. I knew it was going to be. I know that you are supposed to wait until you are late, but I was feeling pregnant. My boobs don't lie. Serious pain. The hard thing about finding out you are pregnant early is realizing how long you are going to have to wait to tell people. We decided on Christmas because we wanted as much family to be together as possible (side note: Christmas = 13 weeks, 5 days preggo). And as you all know we didn't wait that long. Ended up being Thanksgiving.

10/16/2012 (3 weeks, 3 days) - Pregnancy test #2 positive. 10/19/2012 (4 weeks) - Ordered Aurora's "Only Child Expiring June 2013" T-shirt. Can you tell I'm excited?

10/20/2012 (4 weeks, 1 day) - Morning sickness starting to kick in. Want to barf on a fairly regular basis, but haven't yet. I think it's worse than last time. So far I have escaped the fatigue. Boobs still hurting. (I'm sure you all love hearing that)

10/22/2012 (4 weeks, 3 days) - Pregnancy test #3 positive. So Nick - do you believe me yet? :)

10/24/2012 (4 weeks, 5 days) - Morning sickness is awful. I want to throw up all the time. This seems to be a very constant thing :(

10/28/2012 (5 weeks, 2 days) - Had a bad day. It happens :( But on top of that I discovered that I was spotting :( I didn't freak out too bad since the same thing happened with Aurora around the same time, but still - not what I wanted to see.

10/29/2012 (5 weeks, 3 days) - Blood test at the doctor's office to check HCG levels. Came back at 12,000. I was told this is "VERY" good. As a side note. I think it's a girl. My pregnancy has been nearly identical to Aurora's (except I am sicker). So I think it's a girl. But I thought Aurora was a boy. So I'm probably wrong. But I sort of FEEL like it's a boy. THINK it's a girl, FEEL like it's a boy. So I can't be wrong then :)

10/31/2012 (5 weeks, 5 days) - Technically baby's first Halloween :) Blood test #2 to check HCG levels. Results came back good - levels doubled like they were supposed to.

11/7/2012 (6 weeks, 5 days) - Smells that make me want to barf: ANIMALS, cinnamon candles, cooking chicken, Nick's protein shake...

11/15/2012 (7 weeks, 6 days) - First ultrasound. Everything with baby looks great! Heartbeat is 165. Can't really see much, baby is still so tiny. At the ultrasound they did find a "mass" on my left ovary. The doctor said they don't know what it is, but I am scheduled to go back for another ultrasound to see if it has changed in 2 weeks. They will be able to tell more then. I am trying not to stress out. There is nothing that I can do but wait.

 

11/17/2012 (8 weeks, 1 day) - I barfed. I'm a real pregnant lady now :) I have been feeling terrible - surprised I was able to fight it this long.

11/19/2012 (8 weeks, 3 days) - I'm tired. Sooooooooooooooooo tired :( The fatigue is kicking in.

11/22-24/2012 (9 weeks) - Announcement! And Christmas card pics with Aurora wearing her cute shirt :) And I can't sleep at night :( I can fall asleep OK and sleep for a few hours, but around 2am I wake up and can't get comfortable :( and toss and turn the rest of the night. And I am tired all day and all I can think about is when I get to sleep next. Looking forward to second trimester...

11/28/2012 (9 weeks, 5 days) - Ultrasound #2. Everything with baby looks great! The mass on my ovary has changed (grown) slightly, but not enough to concern anyone yet. The doctor says we are just going to keep watching it - it looks benign so far, and they will do a more in depth look around 20 weeks. They see no reason that it should affect the pregnancy, but it may be something that needs to be removed later on. Again, not the best thing to hear, but definitely not the worst. Baby is healthy and that's what matters!

 

12/1/2012-12/4/2012 (10 weeks) - Nick and I took a trip to Cabo! We left Aurora with Grandma Lin and Grandpa Bill. She had lots of fun and I am still hearing stories about how Grandma Lin gave her 2 big lollipops (which apparently isn't true) :) But that's what Aurora remembers :)

I barfed twice on the trip. Once on the plane :) (before we even took off) and then one night right before bed. But otherwise I really was starting to feel mostly better. We had a great time relaxing and eating lots of food :) We spent the whole time at the resort sitting on the beach or by the pool. So nice! It was beautiful!

 

 

12/7/2012 (11 weeks) - I would say that the morning sickness is mostly gone. It comes in waves every so often, but nothing like it was before. SO happy about that. Just super super tired now. Maybe a little emotional too...

I have another ultrasound tomorrow (12/21/2012) - 13 weeks. Yay!

We do have a girl's name picked out, but if it's a boy that's going to be harder :( Nick and I just don't agree on boy's names. But we will cross that bridge if we come to it. We won't find out if it's a boy or girl until February.

So that's the pregnancy update. On to Aurora! She is talking so much now. It's hilarious because she has a lot to say, but she has a lot that she babbles still. Some of her favorite things to say are "No, Mommy," "lollipop," "Watch, Frosty" or "Watch, Nemo." She's obsessed with those 2. It's so hard saying no :( But she can't sit in front of TV all day. And I don't know that she even wants to, I think she just wants to have them on. She's funny.

Every meal is breakfast. When she's hungry she wants to eat breakfast. Even when it's dinner time she calls it breakfast. She has gotten pretty good at saying most things correctly, but there are a few she continues to say wrong. She still insists on calling Mr. Pickles, "Pick Pick." And instead of saying thank you she says "nice you." I love it.

Aurora has started singing - her favorite songs are Frosty the Snowman, Twinkle Twinkle, and there's a turtle song she's getting pretty good at. She doesn't sing all of the words, but she's got the first line down at least. And she sings "ABCD..FG...LMN..TUV" :) She can count to 6 when she wants to, but her standard answer for counting things is 3. Her standard color answer is blue, but she gets green, orange, and purple when she actually thinks about it :)

I know there is so much to say, but she changes so quickly and it's so hard to keep track of. They grow up too fast!

We have planned a another trip to Disney World. We figured we had to. She was so funny last time and loved it so much. Plus we are running out of time for her to be free on the plane and in the parks, so we have to take advantage while we still can. It's hilarious because we have been telling Aurora about it and she knows this: "tiki room. go plane. dora dora. after birthday. lollipop." See if you can translate :)

Well, it will probably be another 2 months until I update next :( That's just been the trend lately. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

I Need Help

I keep putting off blogging because I know I am so far behind, but the longer I put it off the further behind I am going to get and the more I am going to forget, so I figured I should do the little I can before I forget everything. Plus I need to do it before I get a text from Dom telling me how far behind I am :( Updates since August: Disney World was a blast!!!!! If anyone saw my updates on facebook this is repeat info, but mostly Aurora just wanted to collect hugs from all the characters. She is still talking about them 2 months later. I love it! She loved "Tig," "Pooh," "Qua Qua" (Donald), "Goof" (which she now says "Goofy" very clearly, but she emphasizes the y), and "Mic and Me." For some reason Goofy is now her favorite, even though while we were there she was really into Chip and Dale and the Winnie the Pooh characters.

Since then life is busy as usual. Aurora has been making friends and we've been having playdates. That's been fun for her and for Mommy :) We gave up the binky when we got home from Disney World and that was a rough week, but she got over it pretty quickly. She's such a big girl now :( Growing up too fast. Speaking of which, Aurora is talking so much now! 9/21 is when I am saying that she really started putting 2 words together and saying 2 syllable words. Among her favortie things to say at that time, "co mos" (cookie monster), "corvette," "go away," "goofy," "octopus," "strawberry," "fla-mee," (flamingo). I guess those were more my foavrites because they were sooooo cute when she said them. 10/10 Aurora said her first sentence, "I need help." The next day it was followed by, "I pick up," and "I make food." Ever since then she is on a roll. I feel like she is talking or babbling constantly and she has a ton to say. I can understand most of it, but some of it is still a little hard. It seems hard to imagine a time when she wasn't talking. Nick and I have given up having converstations with each other when she is awake - she interrupts way too much. And she's loud :) Aurora has started posing for pictures, but it's only because she likes to see what she looks like after we take the picture. She would rather be on the taking side when it comes to pictures.

Aurora is a super picky eater right now. It is very frustrating because I never know what she is going to want to eat. One day she likes something the next day she doesn't. I thought we'd given up baby food, but I was desperate for her to eat veggies so I bought some baby food peas and sweet potatoes and she gobbled them up. I think she has a texture problem or something. Fortunately she likes fruit a lot. Frozen blueberries are still favorties and she likes plums, strawberries, and watermelon. Her favortie food is either cheese or french fries. Either way she is definitely my little girl.

We went to the pumpkin patch last weekend and had a lot of fun. We went to Agua Linda Farm for the first time and I thought it was adorable - we will definitely be going back there in the coming years.

So that's a little of the excitement for now :) I know you were all just looking at the pictures anyway :)

Since I've Been Wondering...

Every time we go to the doctor and find out how much Aurora weighs or how tall she is I always wonder who she takes after - how she compares to Nick and I at that age. Well, I have our baby books so I thought I would chart it. I know - the engineer in me. But here's the results :)

Aurora weighs the most at 18 months. I was actually the tallest, but it looks like Aurora will pass me up pretty quickly. We weren't that far off from each other. It's fun to see the trend :)

Yeah... It's been a while...

Ok, so I know I have been a horrible record keeper the last 3 months and I probably forgot half of the stuff that Aurora has done and all that, but she changes so much every day that it started to get very overwhelming keeping track of everything. And it’s hard enough to keep up with her and her energy levels let alone write about it later. But I will try my best to hit some highlights and bring people up to speed. Lots of fun stuff has happened since my March updates. Here’s a list and some pics: 1. (April) Easter We did an egg hunt and everything! Aurora had fun collecting the eggs, but more than anything she wanted to pick up rocks... We got to celebrate with Brittany and Jared since Phillip was in Florida for flight schoo1. Mom made way too much amazing food as usual and it was a good time with family/friends.

Cake Pops!

2. (April/May) Cheryl's Wedding Festivities: Breakfast at Tiffany's Bridal Shower

Bachelorette Party. Can you tell the theme was 80's?

Wedding

3. (April) Nick's Mom got married! She is now Mrs. Dennis Moak and has since moved to Colorado.

4. (May) Aurora and I took a trip to CA for Darryl’s graduation. We got to go to Knott's Berry Farm. She's been before her daddy! She LOVED Snoopy.

5. (June) Camping with Dominic, Krystal, and Logan. I had no idea Aurora could even get that dirty. She had fun playing in the dirt, but was not the biggest fan of hiking. She didn't sleep great so she spent some of the time tired, but she got to try some fun new things. Like S'mores!

S'More face:

6. (June) Mt. Lemmon trip Aurora had much more fun hiking this time. Maybe she'd gotten enough sleep or something. Whatever it was it was nice that I didn't have to carry her the whole time. Part of the time, but not the whole time. Walking with Grandma and Grandpa:

Help from Uncle Taylor:

Sean & Megan:

But again with the dirt. This time she was intentionally smearing it all over herself.

7. Aurora’s first trip to the lake. She had fun, but hated the life jacket. And wasn't ready for the raft yet. But I went water skiing! I haven't tried it since I was 17, but I was still able to do it - hooray!

We are still doing our Little Movers and Shakers class once a week and Aurora loves it. She loves climbing on things. She's not great with the organized song time - she just wants to play with the toys. But they are good about moving things along. We are also taking a sign language class. It's more for me to learn the signs to use them at home, but we do music and stuff that Aurora likes. And she has fun signing. She catches on really fast and only needs to see a sign once or twice before she does it. We've kind of stopped going to storytime (baby time) at the library because it’s now when her naps are. She was getting kind of old for it anyway - it's time for her to move on to toddler time.

Aurora has all 4 front teeth on the top and bottom and her 4 molars. Still several to go, but she’s got quite a moth full now. Aurora is a complete temper tantrum thrower. She does it on almost a daily basis. We are talking throws herself on the floor, stomps her feet, flings herself around, slams into walls, screams her head off fit. It’s usually because she wants her binky (which she only gets when she is sleeping) or wants to watch TV and I won’t let her. Her favorite thing is the TV and she is constantly asking to watch and I am constantly having to say no. It’s sad because she likes it so much, but someday she will understand. I hope. Her favorite shows are the Wiggles, Barney, and Dora the Explorer. She Wiggles her ears when she wants the Wiggles. It’s pretty funny. She went through a phase where she would wrap one arm around my leg and drag me to where she wanted to go in the house. That was hard because I couldn’t walk when she did that. Now she holds my hand and takes me places. She likes having me in the room. She will play somewhat independently for a few minutes, but I have to be in there with her. She is going through some separation anxiety. She especially doesn’t like to be left with strangers or people in the nursery at church. One Saturday night she didn’t make it all the way through the service and we had to go get her. I have since gotten to know a few of the women that volunteer in the nursery and it sounds like usually as long as they hold her she is OK. That’s nice. The other children run around and play with each other, mine needs to be held for an hour and half. Aurora hates shopping carts and strollers. I think the last time we tried using a stroller was in Hawaii in February. It was just too much work to push it around and carry her at the same time so I’ve pretty much given up. We may try again when we go to Disney World next month, but I don’t have high expectations. I’m a little nervous about that whole situation as it is – Aurora is in the very bad habit of taking off the second her feet hit the floor. She just picks a direction and runs. Not cool. Aurora is becoming extremely picky about food. She will always eat chicken nuggets, frozen blueberries (she prefers frozen fruit – weirdo), cheese (sharp cheddar only) grapes, and happy melts (freeze dried yogurt). But that’s about it that I’m guaranteed she will eat. Otherwise it’s hit or miss. Sometimes she likes PB&J, watermelon, mac ‘n cheese, and burritos. It’s so hard to know what she is going to eat. It doesn’t make me want to spend a lot of time preparing food, that’s for sure. I’ve been trying really hard to make sure that she is on a good schedule and not eating too many snacks, because if she snacks then there is no way she will eat her meals – even food she likes. I think a lot of it has to do with her milk – she LOVES milk. Some days she drinks 4 cups. She also LOVES juice, but she doesn’t get that every day – otherwise she gets addicted.

Talking wise she says quite a bit. I’m not counting her words or anything – there are certain things she says a lot like Mama, Dada, milk, juice, cracker, grapes, chicken, cheese, Dora, etc – mostly things associated with things she wants. She is doing a really good job at repeating things that I say and she certainly knows how to use her voice. Her stuffed animals are still her favorite toys. Mr. Pickles is still her night time buddy. But she has formed a recent attachment to a brown teddy bear that used to be mine. I named him Sepie, but she calls him “Ses.” She loves animals. Especially dogs. She is really funny because she doesn’t call animals by their names, she calls them by their sounds – ruff, baaa, quack, meow… I guess that’s easier for her (?) She is funny about giving hugs and kisses. She will give them to almost anyone that I tell her to, but when Nick or I ask for them she runs away and things it’s a game. She is getting better about it though. I’ve been getting “smooches” on a more regular basis so that’s nice. I guess that's it for updates for now. I know I've missed a lot, but it took me over 3 hours to write this post, so I'm going to sleep now. But a few more pictures:

March Updates

The cutest thing happened this morning. Aurora was in her high chair eating breakfast and Nick walked out to the garage and Aurora turned and waved and said "bye bye." SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute. He wasn't leaving yet, but she knows that's where he goes when he does. She's been waving bye bye for a while, but this was the first time she actually said it. I am going to count this as her 5th official word. She says Mama, Dada, dog, duck, and now bye bye. I love it!

Aurora now has 6th teeth - she got her top middle left one poked through (03-10-2012). And I think its funny that it has almost caught up to the other one in the middle. She is going to have a mouthful pretty soon.

We are officially done weaning and I have to say it wasn't nearly as painful as I was expecting it to be. Aurora has no problem drinking cow's milk now - I learned she wants it in a sippie cup and not at meals - any other time is fine. She also prefers chocolate milk :) but fortunately she will drink it plain too. And we managed to give up the 5am morning feeding with only 1 morning of fussing. Now she will sleep 7pm to 7am no problem. She still kind of wakes up in the early morning, but goes right back to sleep.



We have been keeping busy. Aurora loves storytime at the library and we just started a little movers and shakers class with Parks & Rec. She had a blast the first day - she loved racing, "flying" (running with her arms out), and shooting hoops. She still gets to see Grandma Lin every Tuesday when I go to my Mom's class/Bible Study and she now loves shopping because she can pull things off shelves. It is exhausting for me that she won't sit in the cart very long and just wants to walk around and do her own thing. But we manage :)





Also, we now have 3 Mr. Pickles and a baby Mr. Pickles. The orinigal Mr. Pickles is so ratty. He's been washed several times and I don't know that he has much life left in him - so we are ready with replacements :)

Growing Up So Fast

So I am about a week late on all the latest developements (must take note of that for when I finally do Aurora's baby book. Gotta get the dates right!) It seems like Aurora has become such a big girl recently! She is starting to understand so much! She can point to her head, nose, ears, hands and toes. She knows how to "clean" when I ask her to and to hold my hand when I ask. She still isn't saying much in the way of words - she makes LOTS of sounds, but still nothing that I am going to count as words. Other than "Mama." LOVE it when she says that. I get b sounds for ball and blue, and d sounds for dog, but those still aren't words... But she is such a good singer - she sings "lalalalalalala."

Her dancing has recently consisted of head banging. She is super in to imitating right now, but I'm pretty sure she didn't pick that one up from me. I'm a bad dancer, but not that bad :) She also loves sharing food. That's pretty much OK now since she eats a lot of food that we eat, but she likes to share stuff that's already been in her mouth. I've eaten a lot of soggy pretzels :(

Her 5th tooth has emerged! (02-21-2012) Her top, center right one is poking through. So much for the fangs - I will miss those!!!!

We have started the weaning process and I've gotta say it's not fun. Aurora really doesn't like whole milk. So far I can only get her to drink it at night before she goes to bed and only if it's 1/2 mixed with breast milk. But we are working on it. It's a slow going process, but it will happen someday. Just gotta be patient...

Well, that's it for my little updates :) Here's some more pictures:

Hawaii

We are back from Hawaii! We took over 1700 pictures so I am just posting a few. It's going to take a looooooooooooooooooong time to go through and decide which ones to print and if I wait until then to post these it could be years, so I just grabbed a few that caught my eye.

We had a blast. Aurora was not the best traveller, but it could have been worse... She loved the beach and chasing birds. We also found a Teddy Bear Museum there and she was in heaven! We got to see A LOT on our trip and we were so lucky to get the chance to go.

Here are a few of the highlights...

Kailua Beach Park:



Hiking Diamondhead Crater:


View of Waikiki from Diamondhead Crater:


Beach:


Swimming with the sharks (in cages). Nick got in the water - Aurora and I watched from the boat:



Hanauma Bay: