Baby Bump Update - 8 Months!!

32 Weeks

Wow...am I already 8 months pregnant???!!! And yet, I feel like I still have an eternity to go. I've become so much more uncomfortable these past several weeks. I have to take it really easy otherwise my lower back and hips ache and I'm pretty much out of commission for a couple days if I've overdone it. I didn't have that with Alexa...then again, I also didn't have a 30 lb toddler that I was carrying around while pregnant with her! Anyways, other than that, things are going great. Payton is a very active little girl, keeping me up most nights with her gymnastic routines and martial art moves, not to mention that it's extremely difficult to find a comfortable position these days. Thank goodness for my pregnancy pillow otherwise I don't think I'd get any relief! But I LOVE to feel her move. As uncomfortable as life can be lately, I know I am in partnership with my Heavenly Father in creating life and that He has entrusted me to take care of Payton during her life here on earth...what a great honor that is. I truly feel blessed to be able to experience the miracle of childbirth.

Well, only 8 weeks more to go! I'm going to have another baby NEXT month, isn't that crazy??!!!

Girls' Overnighter!!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to get a break from my wonderful mommy duties. It was just overnight, but it was so needed. I adore Alexa and absolutely love staying at home with her, but I haven't been apart from her since the day she was born and I was needing some ME time to rejuvenate...especially before Payton makes her arrival. So a group of fabulous ladies and I headed to the hills to this cute little cabin for some serious girl time. Thanks to Sarah's MIL for letting us use her cabin...it was wonderful!! The highlights of the trip...yummy food, great conversation, good laughs and the knowledge that I have truly been blessed with some friendships here in Kentucky that I will treasure always. Here are a few pics from our getaway...

On the way to the cabin. We travelled in two vehicles. Here are Amber, Erin and Emily.

And then Waveney and I.

(Sorry to Brinn, Sarah, Melissa and Janelle who were in the other car - no picture!)

LOVER'S LANDING...that was the name of Sarah's MIL's cabin before she bought it. I love it!

And here's the cute little cabin. What a fun place to head off to!

And who can resist a bacteria-infested hot tub??!!!! Of course, being pregnant I could not partake...but I did dip my feet in for awhile so as not to miss out on the fun times.

And here's the big group of us on Saturday morning before heading off for some hiking before heading home.

(Left to Right: Me, Emily R., Janelle R., Melissa T., Brinn K., Sarah R., Erin W.,

Waveney T. and Amber W.)

Thanks ladies for your friendship and for a fun getaway!

Our crazy girl...

Here are just some random photos over the last couple weeks. I admit that I've been really bad at taking pictures lately...but at least there are a couple.

Alexa attached the ice cream bucket around her neck and was having a blast using it as her drum.

On Valentine's Day, we gave Alexa a little gift bag with some Strawberry shortcake magnets, some bracelets, and some purple chapstick...and as you can see...she LOVES the purple chapstick. For the first couple days, it didn't leave her hands and lips.

This morning, Alexa woke up and wanted to get dressed right away (a rarity for her!!)...then came downstairs and claimed to be "sick" so she could get some apple juice. But apparently her outfit wasn't complete without some hot pink shades. And this was all before the sun even came up!!

It has become quite the battle to do Alexa's hair lately. She just prefers it au natural! And even if I manage to get it done for when we have to leave the house, as soon as nap time rolls around her piggy's have to come out!

Mmmmm....Cooooookie!

Alexa had some of her friends over this morning to decorate Valentine's sugar cookies. She and Sydney T. thoroughly enjoyed the icing as an appetizer!!

Then they had fun with the cookie dough.

And then when it came time to decorate the cookies, all three of them (Sydney, Alexa and Nathan I.) went straight for the icing once again!! So much for decorating the cookies!!

Mmmmmmm....good icing!

Growing up is hard to do...

...at least for the mama anyways!! We bit the bullet and got a toddler bed for Alexa. I had tossed around the idea of just getting another crib for the new baby, as Alexa LOVES her crib and has never once tried to climb out of it. But I finally decided we had plenty of time until the new baby needs the crib and so we could just set the toddler bed up, let her decide if she wants to sleep in it...and just let her get used to it. And the verdict...well, she loves it but only to play on. Any time we ask her if she wants to sleep in her "big girl bed" or the crib, she opts for the crib. Oh and I've pushed the bed back against the wall with her name on it so that there's only one side to fall out of!! Anywho, as I said before...we have plenty of time for her to get used to it, so I'm not worried. I'm sure she'll make the transition one of these days. In the meantime, it's just hard on me seeing evidence that my baby girl is growing up and that pretty soon she'll no longer be the baby!

Baby Bump Update - 7 months

28 weeks

FINALLY...the 3rd Trimester!!! Yay!! There IS a light at the end of the tunnel. Although, I'm not sure if I'm excited for that light to come or extremely nervous? I'm looking forward to having a new baby to hold in my arms, but I'm also nervous about having a new baby to hold in my arms...with a toddler attached to my leg. I know women do it all the time, have more than one child...and I'm sure I can do it too, but I just hope I'm up to the challenge. I hope I can equally show my love to both my girls and that Alexa won't feel left out or put on the back burner. I hope I can love this little one inside me as much as I love Alexa. I hope I can provide for her as I've done for Alexa. I hope I can give both my girls a good life and teach them to be loving, caring, good people. I hope my girls will love each other and be great friends. I hope this little one will have her daddy wrapped around her finger just like Alexa does. And I hope they both will know how much their mommy and daddy want and need them.

Wow...I kinda went off on a tangent there. Sorry!

Have a great weekend!

The many faces of Alexa!!

These pictures make me laugh. They truly capture Alexa's fun little personality! I was telling her to smile and say "cheese" for the camera and this is what we got! She'd have to "peek" at the picture after each one to see herself. She's a funny girl! Her newest thing is to get mad. She'll put her little hands on her hips and say "I'm mad" and "more mad" and stomp around the house. She's not sure what she's mad at, she just knows she's mad. Where do kids get these things??? I know for a fact, I've NEVER put my hands on my hips and said "I'm mad".

Superbowl Fun!

We had friends over to watch the Superbowl tonight and so I had to show off the good eats. Here is the football cheese ball I made for the festivities. I was pretty impressed with it, even if I do say so myself! :-)

And here are the cute football cupcakes that the Curfews brought over. We also enjoyed yummy brats courtesy of the Roundys! Thanks guys for sharing in our fun and good eats. Too bad I didn't get any pics while everyone was here. Seems to be the story of my life!

But here is Alexa giving her daddy some pre-grame lovin!

SNOW DAY #4!!

Yep, that's right...Kevin gets a 6 day weekend!! Friday classes were cancelled as well. We woke up to almost an inch more of snow this morning but the sun is shining brightly now and it's supposed to warm up significantly tomorrow and Sunday which will hopefully melt all this nasty ice on the trees, thus reducing the threat of more power outages with falling branches. HOWEVER...Monday is supposed to bring another huge snowstorm!! And depending on how the storm travels before it gets here, we could get anywhere from 3 to 10 inches of more snow! But at least they're just forecasting snow and no more ice...let's hope it stays that way!

We'll keep you posted on the exciting weather times here in Louisville! In the meantime, have a great weekend!

SNOW DAY #3!!

Once again, school was cancelled for Kevin today...much to our surprise. We thought for sure Kevin would have a late start for classes today but were shocked to get the email last night saying they were totally cancelled. And we were even more shocked to have already received the email saying tomorrow's classes (Day #4) are cancelled as well. Woohoo....it's like having an early Spring Break!! Except that the weather is nasty.

So, no pictures from today. But we did finally get out of the house...after Kevin chiseled our car out of under the sheet of ice that was on it. We had some serious cabin fever so we risked getting out of our treacherous parking lot (thanks to a very skilled Canadian-experienced driver!!!) and made our way through our neighborhood. This is where I wish we had pictures...it's like a war zone out there. Deep ruts in the snow, trees and branches down everywhere and even a few downed power lines. But once you make it to the main roads, all is clear...so we made our way to the mall to have lunch and let Alexa get some of her wiggles out.

Upon returning home, we found we were needed to help a fellow church member get her car unstuck...but after many attempts, it was conceded that she was just going to have to wait until the snow melted (due to the nature of her car and the nature of her parking lot - it just wasn't feasible!!). But as we left to help her, a UPS truck had gotten stuck in the entrance to our parking lot. Thankfully (again this Canadian-experience driver showed some serious skillz!!), we were able to squeeze past the UPS truck to get out of our parking lot, but when we came back, the driver had gotten himself in an even worse position, making it impossible to come back in. We contemplated parking on the street but didn't feel that was the most safe decision, so we parked in the parking lot below our building as they had been plowed but for some reason ours had not!

After a couple hours, the UPS guy finally managed to get himself unstuck and so we ventured out again to return our car to our normal parking space and decided to grab a few groceries while we were out since there's a chance for more snow tonight. FABULOUS!! We'll most likely be home bound again for the weekend. But at least Kevin doesn't have classes tomorrow and now we have food AND we still have our power...so we're among the lucky ones. My heart really does go out to those who are still without power though as I know what you're going through and I pray that the power will be restored soon!

I wonder what Snow Day #4 will bring...

SNOW DAY #2!!

So classes were cancelled again for Kevin today! And the weather was actually worse this morning than it was yesterday. We've had periods of freezing rain interspersed with snow, which makes for some pretty treacherous conditions! In fact, 100,000 people in Louisville are now without power due to downed power lines. I'm SOOOOO grateful that we still have ours...I honestly don't think I could have handled it after our 8 day power outage back in September! I just hope everyone gets their power back on soon. Here's a look at what we're dealing with right now. The first batch of pics are from during the storm this morning.

These first two are looking out off our back balcony.

And these two are from our front porch.

And these are from after the storm. I have to admit, things look pretty...but I sure don't want to go out in these conditions!

And I'm especially glad we didn't park our car underneath this tree. It's a holly tree that is normally straight up but with the weight of the snow and ice, is practically laying on our neighbor's car. Let's hope it doesn't break with the pressure!

I really am looking forward to 70 degree winter days and not having to deal with storms like these once we move back out west!!!

Practice makes perfect!

Alexa is taking her almost new role as the big sister very seriously! She's very protective of her "baby moose" and has to sleep with him every night and at nap time. Well, tonight...she also needed to change his bum and make sure he was all clean. At first, she was just having me help with the diaper, but then she went over by the table and got out the changing pad and the wipes and proceeded to very efficiently change his bum (despite using 1/2 the package of wipes!!). She's going to be such a great help when the baby arrives!

SNOW DAY!!

It still makes me laugh that a couple inches of snow can shut a city down...but that's exactly what's happened here today. I guess that's just my Canadian blood coming out - 3 inches is a "skiff" of snow. I don't ever remember having a snow day growing up and we would have snow piled up almost as high as the roof of the school some days. Anywho, I digress...today is a snow day and Kevin even had classes cancelled, although he had a huge test scheduled for this morning that he would have preferred to have just gotten over and done with, but we enjoy having him home. Especially when we get to play in the snow.

Alexa was so excited. She loves to "walk in the nose". That's how she pronounces "snow". And yes, those are crocs she is wearing. We are very ill-prepared for snow around this house. I had to put warm tights on, then jeans, then socks over the bottom of the jeans and then her crocs. We don't have boots or snowpants or anything of that nature here!! And we don't really intend on investing in any either seeing as we'll be heading back to Arizona in a little over a year and won't have a need for such crazy things! :-)

This is the best shot we could get of Alexa and myself as she was pretty much to her breaking point. But she did enjoy making snow angels with daddy right before that.

And I had to post a THEN and NOW segment...we had a huge snowstorm last March which was Alexa's first experience in real snow. She's wearing the same jacket but she sure has grown up a lot between now and then...my chubby little girl has sprouted up!

Kevin was sliding down the hill in our parking lot as it not only snowed but icy rain fell as well so it was pretty slick and Alexa thought it was fun. So here's a video of her enjoying "sliding" down the hill Alexa style and then of her just enjoying being outside in the "nose"!

A brief reprieve...

So we had a break in the cold weather here in Kentucky and actually had a rather spring-like day. And of course we took advantage of it to get outside. Not to mention that we'd been sick at home all week anyways because of the stomach flu, so it was nice to get outside for the first time in days!! Alexa absolutely loved being somewhere other than our living room and was so eager to explore everything at a park we haven't been to in months!

Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to turn cold again tomorrow....where oh where are the nice warm days of summer???? I'm not sure how much more of this I can take!!!