It's a...

BOY!   

We went for our 20 week appt on Dec 30th and originally, we were not supposed to be scheduled for an ultrasound but they messed up and scheduled us one.  At our dec 2nd ultrasound, the doctor hinted that it was a boy and laughed when I asked if there was a chance it could still be a girl.  Well, he told us he was 90% sure, but we were not ready to tell anyone till we knew 100%.  Frankly, I was still holding out for another girl!  Well, as you can see from the scan on the 30th, it was quite obvious compared to the one on the 2nd that our itty bittiest baby is indeed a boy!

December 2nd "boy" scan

 

December 30th "boy" scan

 

The baby started moving on Christmas Day.  I felt him that night as I was laying down in bed.  It was a beautiful little Christmas blessing.  We left LA on December 27th so we could spend sometime getting things done around the house before Brandon went back to work on the 3rd.

On New Years Day, I started running a fever which lasted for 13 hours.  Longest most intense fever ever and I don't know if it is because of the pregnancy, but it was rough.  All the Tylenol did was bring my fever down from 102 to 100.  We started getting really worried about the baby and said that if it didn't go away by the morning, we would go to the ER.  Apparently, God heard our prayers and the fever finally went away and I felt fine.  So strange....

Anywho, we are super excited about the little man.  Candice is already planning a baby shower at prenatal pics in March with a "One Fish Two Fish" theme.  Bring on the blue!!!!

The itty bitty baby at 13/14 weeks

Hello all. 
Lily is sleeping under the Christmas tree right now and I am finally getting around to putting up an update from my last doctor appointment on December 2nd.  The baby looked great and was right on track.  We did another ultrasound because last time, our dates and the size of the baby wasn't adding up.  I wasn't originally scheduled for one, but since the meds I am on can cause a heart defect so we wanted to make sure the baby was growing right on target and sure enough, it was.  The baby was measuring perfectly at a June 1st/2nd due date and the baby was moving all around being so sweet.  The heart rate was 156 bpm (Lily was ALWAYS 160+).  That is one of the things that makes me think this one is going to be a boy.  The second inclination is that I have been craving red meat.  With Lily, I wanted any and all meat far FAR away from me.  This one has me craving a hamburger a day.  My third inclination that this one is going to be a boy is that I keep referring to it as a "he".  With Lily, I always said, "she".  Who knows.  We shall see soon enough. 
Another really great thing is that we saw during the ultrasound is that the baby was taking "breaths".  It is kinda early to see that, but either way the doctor says that is a sign of good brain development.  Here are some pics from the scan...

 Profile shot

Face shot

 A little bitty foot.  So sweet!

Another profile shot

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a blessed new year.  We leave on Friday or Saturday to go back to LA, but we will only be there till the 26th or 27th.  We are coming home early this year because I have another doctor appointment on the 30th and it will give us a week to get things done around the house before Brandon goes back to work. 

BTW, I know I may get fussed at for saying too early, but Brandon has gotten a job offer at Chevron!  We will know more after the first of the year, but we are very excited and very VERY proud of him.  He works so hard and does some pretty cool stuff.  :)  Great job, love! 

Lily is ONE YEAR OLD!!!

Hello everyone!  Well, on December 1st, the big day was finally here.  Lily turned 1 year old!  What a crazy road it has been, but it has been an absolute joy watching her grow.  I just can't believe she is already a year old.  We celebrated her big day on Saturday, December 4th and had tons of family and friends around to celebrate the occasion.  The theme for her party was Winter One-derland.  I thought it would be fitting because last year, we begged to leave the hospital on December 3rd so we wouldn't get discharged in the snow on December 4th.  We had crazy amounts of snow here that day.  That being said, on December 4th last year, we also took a few ambulance rides through the snow to get to Texas Children's. Today, Dec 7th, we are officially 1 year without any seizures!  Yeayy! :)

When the snow first started falling last year.  It got to the point where the grown was completely coated for hours.

My little one on December 4th last year.  Sleeping through the snow.

My little Lily one year later playing outside at her first Winter One-derful birthday party (in 72 degree weather, mind you).  :)

Here are some things Lily is doing at 1 year old:
Going up stairs
Going down the slide in her treehouse without any assistance
Does "Twinkle Twinkle" motions when we sing "Twinkle twinkle, little star"
Knows her belly button, hair, nose and feet.

Some firsts we have had this past month:
First stomach virus with vomiting :(
First fever (the day before her birthday)
Turned around in her carseat (Nov 18th)
Walks all the way down the street to the mailbox with me
Trip to Maryland (2nd plane ride)
First Thanksgiving
Will bring us books for us to read to her and will let us know if she wants a different book.

Things she has said:
Night Night (more frequently)
Bye bye
Nana
Mom
Daddy (da-yee)
Cat
Hungry (huh-eee)--did it once in Maryland, but she did it! 
She is also using her head shakes (yes and no) more frequently when you ask her a question

What a joy this past year has been.  I love this little girl so much.  She is such a funny, sweet, happy girl .  She has learned to make these silly little faces where she will lift her eyebrows and look at you out of the corner of her eye and if you smile at her, she can't help but to smile back.  Sometimes, she will just laugh to get you to laugh and we laugh back and forth over nothing all the time.  Her smile is contagious and her laugh makes my heart melt.  She always wants her mom around, but would pick her daddy to play with any day over mom.    Mom is not nearly as much fun as daddy is. :)  She's so great.  I am so lucky to be her mother! 

Happy First Birthday, Lily!  We love you sooo much!  :)

Thanksgiving in Maryland!

I just realized that I forgot to post about our fabulous trip to Maryland for Thanksgiving!  Everything was wonderful.  Candice was a great hostess as always and Maryland was just absolutely beautiful.  Lily THOROUGHLY enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner to say the least.  She is an amazing eater and will eat anything and everything you put in front of her, just like her daddy.  She loved it! 

As you all know, Lil was supposed to be here on Thanksgiving Day last year, but decided she was waiting till all the leftovers ran out, so this was her first Thanksgiving.

Also, Hallelujah, Dave was back in the states this year to fry up a turkey right!  Last year, Dave was on deployment and we had a few issues with the turkey frying.  Nothing big, Brandon just dropped the turkey a foot above the hot grease because he couldn't find one of the pieces to the turkey fryer and then Mrs. Jerry almost fell in the fryer...seriously, like fell a foot away from the fryer.  Thankfully, Dave was back for it this year to take over and the peanut gallery stayed inside far FAR away from the fryer!  :)

The day after Thanksgiving, we decided to take a ride up to Hershey, PA (3 hrs away) to go to the Christmas in CandyLand up there.

That probably will never happen again.  First of all, omg, it was absolutely freezing.  I think it was 30 degrees or something like that.  Second of all, it wasn't NEARLY as amazing as it sounded on their website.  Now granted, I would love to visit Hershey again to go to the museum and to go to the Chocolate World (factory tour), but the park was not worth it at all.   The Santa was ok, but they have a better Santa set up at the Galleria.  Santa and "his reindeer" are almost a mile away from each other and this did not make for a happy southern girl when you have to walk from one side of the park to the other with a freezing cold baby.  No me gusta.

Anywho, Hershey wouldn't be THAT bad if you did it in the spring and had time to visit the other things around town, but forget the park.  It was pretty bad.
It was a wonderful visit though.  I LOVE IT when the kids are able to play together.  Lily just lights up when she is around other kids her age and she absolutely adores her cousins.  I love getting videos and pictures of them together.  These are just moments you can't get back. 
 Here is a video I love from the week there.  :)

Exciting day!

Well, the cat's out of the bag.  Our families finally know so I can now make it public.  We are expecting another little bundle of joy in June!  We went for our first sonogram on November 4th and everything looked great.  The heartbeat was a super strong 180 bpm and it was moving all over the place.  Well, it wasn't moving all over the place till it's sister started screaming to high heaven.  Then, it was everywhere...  I don't know if it was because it heard her or because my blood pressure must have sky rocketed when she started acting like a hot mess.  Either way, it was cute. 
Here is a picture of the scan.

I was kinda worried because based on my LMP, my due date would be June 1st and I would have been 10w 1d.  The baby was only showing to be between 9w 3days and 9 w 5days.  With Lily, she always measured a week over, but the doctor said that as long as the heartbeat was strong, he wasn't worried about it.  I guess this is just the beginning of the process of not comparing pregnancies/children.   Instead of a June 1st due date, we are now June 5th. 
I may have not been complaining about it to the public, but the morning sickness has been just as bad with this one.  The only difference is that I throw up almost every night and not in the morning.   Odd, but I now take my prenatals at night so I'm not a mess all day.  A 2nd pregnancy with a 11 month old is no joke.  It's freaking hard.  I completely forgot the EXHAUSTION level.  Boy...not fun, but thankfully the first trimester is almost over and THANKFULLY, my sweet Lily is now putting herself to sleep at night so I can finally relax in the evenings.
We waited 3 months to tell our families this time.  Brandon wanted to wait till CHRISTMAS so we could tell everyone face to face, but I told him that wasn't going to happen.   We called my mom the night before we left for Maryland and she made the big announcement to the whole family on Thanksgiving Day.  Then, when we arrived at the airport in Baltimore, Lily was wearing a shirt that said, "A little birdie told me a secret..." (on the front) and on the back it said, "I'm going to be a big sister!".  We just figured we would wait to see how long it took Grammy to figure out to look on the back of the shirt!!!  It took till we had just about collected all our bags at baggage claim.  I think it would have taken longer if Candice hadn't figured it out first! 

Anywho, we are very excited about our upcoming arrival.  This will make an age difference of  almost exactly 18 months between Lily and the new baby.  It will be tough at first, but when is it ever "easy"?   Take care everyone!  :)

Lily is 11 months old!!!!

Hello all!  Here we are at 11 months old.  Only 4 weeks to go till her 1st birthday!  I know I say it every month, but I can't believe we are here already!

This month, Lily has just about perfected walking and is starting to run.  She is all over the place and trying to climb everything.  She has also started going from a sitting to a squat and then standing.  That's pretty good.  It usually takes them a while to get that type of balance, but she is really focused on her motor these days.

She has started saying "bye bye" and "no no"  in addition to "mama" and "dada".  We also think she is saying "cat".

I've always addressed how we have had problems getting this child to sleep, but I am happy to say, that Lily is FINALLY putting herself to sleep in her own crib every night and every nap with minimal fussage. She was just finally to the place where she was ready to and wanted to put herself to sleep. 

As of October 19th, Lily is 25 lbs 6 oz and is 31 3/4" long.
Based on ECI's measurements, she grew 1 1/4" in ONE MONTH! 

Here are a few firsts Lily has experienced this month:

Eating her first sushi roll (Avacado roll)
Clapping!  Praise GOD this girl finally started clapping!
First Halloween!
Shaking her head "yes"
She is trying to jump.  She isn't jumping yet, but she is trying!

 

This upcoming month, we have lots going on!  Right after Halloween, we are putting up our Christmas decorations because we are going to Maryland to visit Candice, Dave, Abby and Drew for Thanksgiving and then they are coming back to Texas to celebrate Lily's first birthday!  :)  The theme for her first birthday is "Winter One-derland" and we couldn't have a Winter One-derland celebration without our Christmas decorations up, so... :)  Christmas decorations are going up early this year!  Yeayy!

Lily 11 month and family pictures

10 months old! :)

 10 months old!

 

I can't believe we are here already!  Last month, I showed a video where Lily was taking steps, but this month she was walking all over the place!  She seriously went from taking a few steps to walking across the living room in a matter of days.  She was a big hit at Kindermusik walking all over the place.  Everyone was just as proud of her as I was!

As of September 17th, Lily was 24.14 lbs and 30.5" long...She is my big girl!

Here are some fun things Lily is doing this month.

The beginning of this month, she was talking up a storm until she started taking more steps and then of course, she started concentrating more on that.

She is being a helper with simple things.  I will ask her to give me things, or pick something up for me and she does it!

She is wanting to help out in the kitchen.  When I am in the kitchen, she wants in and just stands by the dishwasher and watches me do my thing.
(We keep her out of the kitchen with gates because the cat food is in there and in the laundry room is the litter box....I would DIE if she ever got into the litter box!)  
She is really trying to learn how to fall back asleep on her own when she wakes in the middle of the night.  She is going through a little bit of a phase where she seems scared when she wakes up...odd.
Foods...she is eating anything you give her!  First fast food experience was 9/24 at Chick-Fil-A.  
NO MORE BOTTLES!  We finished our last box of bottle liners and they are gone! We have finally found another sippy that she likes besides the Pamper's sippy cups.  I think they are "The Learning Curve" They have Tinkerbell on the front and a firmer spout than that of the Pampers cups.  We have tried so many types.  We have quite a collection going on! 
Lily had her first babysitter on  9/27/10 while I brought the cats to get their vaccines and check-ups...It gets a little out of control and there was no way she could be there.  She also stayed with my mom, her Nana, when Brandon took me to see Chelsea Handler for my birthday!  It was the first time someone else had put her down for the night and she did great!  :)

Here are some things she enjoys this month...

Sesame Street (particularly Elmo), Barney, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Loves going to the park and playing on Buzz Buzz.
The bathroom???  Don't know why, but she is obsessed with getting in there.
Kindermusik. Best investment I have ever made!! We started back Sept 23rd with a new chapter and she was so excited and squeeling in her little squeel while going around and playing.  I love seeing that!

As for Brandon and I...we have had a lot going on around here.  We went to LA for the weekend of labor day for Mr. Mike's birthday.  It was really nice because he was able to have all his grandkids there.  Also, he and Brandon were able to go fishing on his bass boat for hours on end and I know they both enjoyed the quality time spent together.  Meanwhile, we enjoyed going out on Mrs. Jerry's boat with the kiddos and a few glasses of wine...bliss.
When we got back, my friend Katherine came and stayed with us for the weekend and we were able to go to one of our mutual high school friend's baby shower.  It was so great to see Katherine and it was wonderful to connect with our other friends almost 12 years later!  The next weekend, we took on the huge undertaking of painting the interior of our house on the weekends.  Will take a few weekends, but it's the only time we have to do it. It's looking great! 
Brandon is working like crazy.  He got on a year long contract with Chevron through his work and he has been super busy.  On the plus side, he has his own office up at the Chevron office with a door and everything!
With Lily and I our playgroup has been keeping us busy during random days during the week.  We don't go to everything...we usually just go to the same places because there is a lot for her age to do, but Lily loves getting out of the house and I enjoy talking to other moms with kids Lil's age.
We finally booked our trip to visit Candice, Dave, Abby and Drew in Maryland for Thanksgiving.  We are so excited to go and then we get to bring Candice, Abby and Drew home with us for Lily's FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!  There are many more EXCITING things coming up soon.  Too much to talk about right now! 

Anywho, my little girl is getting so big and learning so much.  The amount of pride we get when she does just any little thing is overwhelming.  I never want her to forget how proud we are of her everyday.  Watching her grow is so rewarding, it is unbelievable.   The fact that Brandon and I share it together makes my life complete...she makes OUR lives complete.

Here is the link to the rest of Lily's 10 month pictures on our Picasa site!

Lily 10 month