Wednesday, January 9, 2013

New Year, New Changes

As we look ahead to the new year, we have so much to be excited about!  A lot of changes will be coming our way with Cody's transition to a new job (within the same company), my parents moving to California (we'll miss grandma and grandpa so much but are so happy for them!), adding a new baby to our family, and me becoming a full time mom after baby #2 arrives (I'll be taking at least a one year leave from teaching next year).  While sometimes I have a hard time making big transitions, we're excited about each of these changes. 

Of course our biggest change is going from a family of three to a family of four.  I feel like I've neglected blogging about this pregnancy with everything else we've had going on, so wanted to do a little catching up and "journaling" about our daughter who will be joining us in a few months.  When I look back at my first blog book, I devoted 6-7 months to just blogging about my pregnancy with Ella.  It's funny how the second one doesn't get the same treatment as the first born!  Being that Cody and I are both the second born child in our families, we see how things really went for us ;).

First off, we found out right before Thanksgiving that Ella will be getting a little sister.  We are so thrilled to be adding a precious new baby girl to our family!  Being that our house is filled with all things pink, bows, princesses, and baby dolls, it seems quite fitting.  While we loved the surprise and how we found out that Ella was a girl, we never actually saw her girly parts at the ultrasound.  Both Cody and I decided that we wanted to see everything at the ultrasound, and found out at 18 weeks that this baby indeed has all her girly parts!  We hadn't told our families that we had found out the gender as we were looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with both of our families and wanted to surprise them when we were all together.  So we wrapped up cute little boxes for each of our moms to open with tags that said "turk-HE" and "turk-SHE" in honor of Thanksgiving day.  They were filled with a pair of little girls shoes and some big flower headbands...



So fun to share our news with our families!

Cody shared his thoughts about having two little girls with his beautifully written poem that brought me to tears.  My girls are so lucky to have such a strong, wonderful, sensitive, and loving father.  I couldn't have picked anyone better than him to raise our daughters!  

  Daughters

I always thought about having a son
Playing with cars and trucks
And communicating with farts and grunts
Peeing outside behind a tree
And coaching a little mini me

Teaching what it means to be a man
And how to install a bathroom fan
How to woo a girl with just a wink
And to hate the color pink

To show my love with a pat on the head
An “atta boy” or a firm handshake
I’m a man’s man for heaven’s sake

But, I never thought about having a daughter
Playing with dolls and princesses
And communicating with hugs and kisses
Wearing pigtails, bows, and boots
And going on daddy daughter dates

Teaching what true love means
By loving her mother
And that she deserves more respect
Than to be woo’d by a wink
So it’s okay to embarrass boys pink

I sit here today a father
To one beautiful daughter
And another arriving soon

So I must say
I wouldn’t have it any other way
For this man’s man wasn’t really a man
Until he had daughters
- Cody Lamens

Ella is also very on board with all things having to do with "baby sister".  I'm pretty sure she thinks this baby is hers alone and will be her own real life baby doll!  She loves to talk to, kiss, and hug my belly.  She loves putting her hand on my belly to patiently wait for her sister to kick or move.  She often asks what baby sister is doing in there or tells me that her sister is sleeping, waking up, swimming, or kicking.  She's gone with us to a few of my doctor's appointments and has listened to the baby's heartbeat and seen the baby on the ultrasound.  With every appointment she asks, "Is baby coming out today?"  And then when I tell her not until April, she'll say, "Okay, but maybe this afternoon she'll come out".  Let's hope baby decides to wait a little bit longer to make her appearance!  

And as for me, I'm mostly just tired these days :).  Thinking back to my first pregnancy, this was about the time that summer vacation was starting and I was able to put my feet up most days and relax, work on getting Ella's room ready, and do all the nesting I wanted to.  This time around, I'm having a hard time just making it through my days at work.  I'm thankful I'm working only part time right now, but being that I have a job where I am on my feet all day, I often get sharp back pains during the middle of the day that last until I'm in bed at night.  Add that to keeping up with an energetic two year old, as well as having major sleep issues (I wake up at 3:30am most mornings and can't fall back asleep), and I'm in a constant tired haze.  I'm telling myself that things will just be that must easier once this baby arrives and I won't be sleeping anyways!  I will be working up until spring break, and will be on maternity leave for the rest of this school year.  It'll be tough to say good-bye to my amazing class this year, but I know they'll be in good hands. 

It's also funny to me that we really haven't started doing anything to get ready for our little girl.  I've picked out the crib bedding that we'll get, but we just haven't gotten around to ordering or purchasing anything, getting her room ready, etc.  With just about 14 weeks to go, we have plans to start soon, but I guess we're just more realistic about the fact that she really won't be in her room for the first few months.  With Ella, everything was in it's place and ready well before her due date!

Regardless of whether we'll be ready or not, we are so excited for April to get here and to meet our newest little addition.  I personally hope she'll decide to come a week or two early as we've been told to expect at least a 9-10 pound baby based on her last few ultrasound measurements! Eek! 
Check out those giant chubby cheeks already at 25 weeks!  We can already see a resemblance to Ella...so crazy!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Christmas Part 2

After Christmas we headed to Ephrata to enjoy celebrating Christmas with Cody's family.  Ella was so excited to see the snow, her grandparents, and her Uncle Beau!

Uncle Beau after he had just gotten off work...
 Checking out the lights on his car...
 Ella supervising Daddy and Grampy as they made her her first snowman...





Excited for more presents!
 We spent the first night with Cody's parents at their house, and then got to enjoy the next night at the Cave B Inn and Winery.  We even got to see Les Miserables and enjoy a fabulous dinner at the restaurant at Cave B. While we enjoyed some time with just us, Ella got to spend another night and some quality time with her grandparents.  She loved making cupcakes and painting her nails with Grammy.

 Cave B overlooks the gorge and is built on a cliff.  While it was beautifully breathtaking with the snow, we decided it'd be fun to come back in the summer and enjoy the wine tasting when I'm not pregnant ;).
Right outside our room...
 


 The entrance to our Cavern Room...

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Christmas Day

Christmas this year was filled with joy and anticipation and was everything we could have asked for.  After a fun evening spent with my mom's side of the family at my cousin's house on Christmas Eve, we put Ella to bed and played Santa's helpers getting ready for the next morning.  Ella was so excited to see Santa had visited when she woke up and came downstairs Christmas morning.  She had asked Santa for a pink baby doll (a baby wearing pink) and a princess doll.  Santa delivered and she was one happy little girl!

Christmas Eve with Ella's second cousins, Tanner and Sophia:
 Our family room Christmas morning:


 Seeing her new princess castle that Santa brought...



 After breakfast as a family (Trader Joe's chocolate croissants - my newest obsession), we headed up to my parent's house for more presents with my family, a delicious dinner, and our traditional white elephant gift exchange with my dad's side of the family who joined us in the afternoon.


 Ella loved petting Uncle David and Uncle Tom's beards :).

Our families know Ella well, as she received seven new baby and princess dolls over three days! 




Monday, December 24, 2012

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

I LOVE this time of year, and seeing it all through Ella's eyes as she's starting to understand it all is just that much better.  We've packed a lot into the month of December and I haven't had a chance to post it all.  So this post is longer than I intended with pictures, but I wanted to remember some of the fun things we've done with Ella this year, some traditions we've kept, and some of the new ones we've started. 

 The bottom branches of our Christmas tree all look similar to the one below...4 or 5 ornaments piled onto one branch, thanks to Ella's decorating skills.  I love it :).

 Ready for a night out of dinner, Christmas shopping, and Snowflake Lane with mom and dad...

Snowflake Lane in Bellevue:


 A trip to Molbaks with Grandma and Grandpa. Love Molbaks at Christmas!




Making Ella's first gingerbread house...


Cody and I got to go on a fabulous Christmas date night - dinner at Daniel's followed by seeing Elf at the 5th Avenue - LOVED it...
 ...while Ella got to spend the evening with Grandma and Grandpa.
One of my favorite memories this Christmas season is when we put Ella down for bed, then went in a little later and got her up to surprise her with a night out having hot chocolate and looking at Christmas lights in jammies! Ready for Christmas light gazing...
A stop at Starbucks for hot chocolate...
 
 We found this great house in Issaquah that coordinates their lights to music that you can hear on a radio station.

Ella joined me for my class party at school.  She was in heaven with all the attention from my 1st graders and was hamming it up every time somebody took a picture with a big "cheeeeeese!"

We made a chilly trip to the Cougar Mountain Zoo with Alison and Nathan for their annual Reindeer Festival.  The kids got to see all of Santa's reindeer and feed them apples...


Helping mommy make sugar cookies.  Ella definitely ate more frosting than made it on her cookies...


 We went to WildLights at the Woodland Park Zoo with the Magnussons.  It was the first year the zoo put it on and it was a bit underwhelming.  Still fun to enjoy a festive night out with friends though!




 We went into Seattle with my whole family for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (a tradition my family grew up doing), a ride on the carousel, and a viewing of the incredible gingerbread houses at the Sheraton hotel...





Love the picture below :). I'm not sure who enjoyed the carousel ride more: Auntie Emily, Grandpa, or Ella?



 Our worn out girl by the end of the night...