Here we are

Monday, May 14, 2012

Family of Four

I had hoped to get one last update before Will arrived, but of course, it didn't happen. After almost a whole week of being in labor (false labor, I guess since we were sent home from the hospital twice), Will finally decided to make his arrival on Easter Sunday.  I'm not sure if it was the Easter Egg Hunt the day before, the pedicure I had on Good Friday, or the probably hundred miles I walked the week before that convinced him to finally get here.
At 11:45 am Sunday, April 8, William Kyle McDonald was born. He was a surprising 8 lbs, 2 oz---surprising because the sonographer had predicted he would be under 7 1/2 lbs.

Will is a very different baby than Elisabeth was. To start with, the boy likes to eat!!  He gained weight the first week, weighing in at 8 lb 4 oz, and then at two weeks 8 lb 14 oz. At 5 weeks old, he has almost outgrown many of his 3 mos sized clothes! I don't even think Elisabeth was big enough to wear that size until she was about a month old. I'm only half joking when I say he is going to be as big as she is in a year!  He has also struggled with some reflux, but Zantac has helped a lot, and he seems to be much less fussy after taking it for about a week.
Elisabeth was beside herself with excitement to finally meet baby brother. I will never forget how her face lit up with love the first time she saw him in the hospital room.  She has been a wonderful big sister, always wanting to help change his diapers and bathe him, and trying to comfort him when he cries. Before he was born, her behavior had taken a dive---but now that we are settled in, it has improved considerably and we are all happy about that. Here are "before and after" pictures.



Just a few weeks later, it was time for Elisabeth's 3rd birthday!  It feels like we just brought home our baby girl, but she is defnitely not a baby anymore. Her party was at Gymnastics Sport Center, because I knew I didn't want to host the party at our house this year, and I didn't want to risk planning it at a park in case it rained. About 15 of her friends came, and while she had a great time, I think she was a little overwhelmed by it all. Mom and Dad thought it was loads of fun, though!  Here are a couple of pics from the "Pinkalicious" party.

 


Life with two kids is hectic, but I am happy to learn to adjust. We had newborn and family pictures taken today, so I am looking forward to posting some really good photos of Will and our new family of four!  One last photo of my sweet baby boy until the next post . . .


Saturday, March 31, 2012

He is almost here!

Well, at less than 2 weeks until my due date, I have decided I'd better get in one last blog before life turns upside down (in a wonderful way, of course).  Part of the reason I've not updated is because I was scared to upload the pictures from my fanstastic Christmas present--a new camera! I was afraid it would be too "smart" for our dinosaur computer and make everything crash. To my delight, it works fine and the pics uploaded in about 10 seconds!!! It would have taken 30 minutes with the old camera.  So now, I can add a few pics of some of the ways we're preparing to meet our little guy. I have been "nesting" for months now.

Here is his room (I can't figure out how to rotate the image, so just tilt your head):


Here is the kids'/guest bathroom. I redecorated it in January.  Again, tilt your head :)


I feel very spoiled to have gotten two wonderful baby showers for my second sweet baby. I have also been blessed with lots of friends who have boys, and so we have more baby clothes than he will probably ever be able to wear!  Here are a few pics from the showers.




Last weekend, Elisabeth and I had some pictures done with our amazing friend Meegan Weaver. So far this is the only one I've seen, but I adore it. I think it's so special to have some pics of Elisabeth loving on her little brother and her mommy. She is so excited about becoming a big sister. Will is going to be one LOVED little brother.



I think (fingers crossed, hoping, hoping, hoping,) that my next post should be to let the world know that Will is finally here. I was halfway hoping he would make his appearance today, but obviously, no such luck. I go back to the doctor Monday, and am hoping she will be willing to induce me later this coming week if he doesn't come on his own. We can't wait to meet him, and I also can't wait to sleep on my back again. 




Sunday, January 1, 2012

Hello 2012

As usual, the Christmas holidays seem like a blur now that it's already the new year. I tried really hard to spread out some of the fun times this year, and we did pretty much celebrate Christmas over the whole month of December. Now that Elisabeth is old enough to know what's going on, it is especially fun for all of us.
We did our usual family trip to the Fantasy of Lights. Terry and Elisabeth had already been once during the day on a field trip with her school, but she was thrilled to go again. We also enjoyed looking at all the lights in the country club neighborhood, but discovered that Elisabeth has inherited her mama's motion sickness, and our night ended in somewhat of a mess. (Turns out that was somewhat of a theme for us this month!) 

I have such wonderful memories of baking with my mom I was super-excited to try baking with Elisabeth. The cookies we made for the neighbors turned out to be fun & yummy. The cut-out cookies that seemed like such a good idea when I bought the cookie cutters turned out to be a HUGE pain in the rear. E was highly upset that I was making a big mess because I kept having to add so much flour to my wax paper and rolling pin. We'll have to see if I'm brave/foolish enough to repeat that next year.

It would certainly not be Christmastime without a visit to Santa. Last year, Elisabeth was so excited to see Santa, but then absolutely terrified when we got up to him. Not so this year.  She was delighted to sit in his lap, and thanks to some technical difficulty with the elves and their camera, she had about 10 minutes to chat with him. Turns out his mommy is in Heaven and his favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin (too bad for him he doesn't get those at our house!).  She asked him for Skippyjon Jones, and of course, he delivered 5 of them on Christmas Day. That was the only thing Elisabeth has asked for since early November when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  Terry has been thrilled at how funny those books are. They are a little long, but are certainly more interesting than lots of other kids' books.

Christmas Day was great! Dad came on the 23 and spent a few days. We all went to a nice service at our church on Sunday morning. Then our hectic week began. We got up on Monday and went to visit my family in Irving. We had a great time and Elisabeth was thrilled to play with her cousins Ben and Kayla. Since she doesn't have any first cousins, we try to arrange for her to see some third cousins at least a couple of times a year. I got a new camera for Christmas but in true pregnant-lady style totally forgot to take any pictures of the kids/family that day. Then on Tuesday we drove to Tyler and stayed until Thursday. We visited Terry's family and my dad, and even got to visit with some family friends at El Charro--yum!  One of our favorite parts of visiting Tyler is stopping in Sherman at the Chick-Fil-A (or chicken flay as E calls it).  We stop both on the way and on the way back. However, on the way back,---again in true pregnant-lady style---I got horribly sick in the car about 3 minutes from the restaurant. It was bizarre because E got sick in the exact same spot when coming back from spring break. Maybe she really is my girl!  At any rate, it was 12:30, Chick-Fil-A was packed, and I had to change clothes in the parking lot of a very busy shopping center. Elisabeth was crying and hysterical because she was so upset that mama "choked." Terry held a blanket around me and I had the car for some cover, but I'm sure someone probably saw something they will never be able to unsee.  It was NOT the highlight of my break, but I'm sure my kids will enjoy laughing about it someday. 
And on that note, it's farewell to 2011 and hello to 2012!  Hopefully I will have an update with a somewhat complete nursery for William in the very near future.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

WORLD'S WORST BLOGGER

I think it's official that I am the world's worst blogger. It feels like it has been FOREVER since I have updated.  So much for once a month . . . In all fairness, though, I have an excuse for the last few months. If our computer had a comfy chair/desk, it wouldn't be an excuse, but since I have to sit on the floor to blog, I'm giving myself a pass. Sitting in the floor with a baby in your belly is definitely not the most comfortable position. 
This pregnancy has been so different from the first. With Elisabeth, I was hungry all the time (which is probably why I grew to such gigantic proportions) and had some heartburn. I had morning sickness at night for the first 3 1/2 months this go-round. Despite not having had the crazy food aversions I had with Elisabeth, I haven't been so hungry, and I've only gained 12 pounds as of 22 weeks. All these differences probably should have told me it was a boy. And for the first month or two I was convinced I was having a boy, but then those silly online gender prediction quizzes convinced me otherwise.
Last week, though, we saw VERY convincing sonogram images of our little boy. I was completely shocked (why, I'm not sure---there are really only two possibilities).  We can't wait to meet William Kyle this spring. Elisabeth repeatedly said she wanted a little brother until the day we found out. When we asked her if she wanted a brother or sister (obviously we were confident she would say brother), she said, "I want a sister."  Oh well, I've told her a baby is a baby, and she is now constantly asking what baby William is doing.  I think she is going to make a wonderful big sister. Today when I put her down for a nap, she said we were both mamas.  I said, "I'm your mama, and you're Baby Paci's mama."  She looked at me like I had lost my mind, and said, "No, I'm baby William's mama."
I'll leave this post with some recent pics and hopes that I'll get Christmas and Santa updates on here soon!



Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Summertime at last


Maybe I should make my blogging goal to be once per season, rather than once a month. It felt like spring was over before I could blink this year.  We stayed here for Easter, rather than driving to Tyler. It's nice to get to go to our regular church for that special day, even though we miss seeing our families. Elisabeth has a super-cute Easter dress, but as usual, we were running late on Sunday morning and she wasn't volunteering for pictures. I thought I'd get some pictures of her when we got home, but sadly that did not happen. However, we had some sweet bunny photos made back in February, so . . . I'll count that as her Easter pic.



We have enjoyed the spring weather and gone to the park quite a few times. She loves to swing and says "Wheee!" pretty much the whole time she's swinging. The rest of the playground is not as popular because she is not a fan of sand, especially walking through it.
On May 6, our baby girl turned 2!  We definitely have a toddler on our hands---she has her own agenda, and is on the go nonstop.  The highchair has been put away, and we are working on potty training (a much huger undertaking than I was expecting. My baby has turned into a sweet girl who loves to make us laugh. She teases and giggles and does her own form of slapstick comedy.  I heard that for most kids, at around 18 months they began talking a lot more and imitating language. That didn't happen for us until she was about 23 months. And now, wow--our girl is a chatterbox! "Where Daddy go? Daddy work."  "Truck/Bus/Car Beep! Beep! Where truck go?"  And now her favorite: "No like it." Which is pretty much in regards to any food that is not fruit, yogurt, or turkey (which explains her skinny little body). My favorite is "Hold her please." She has not been much of a cuddler until lately, but the last couple of weeks she has made this request quite often. I love it! 
We had a small birthday party for her, which was not planned very well as it was on Mother's Day weekend. Luckily, Grandpa got to be here, and she had a great time.  I will try to plan a bit better for next year.
Snuggling with her hippo pillow pet from Grandpa.







We rocked out with Elmo!
Trying out the new "cicle" from Mawmaw & Pawpaw.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Goodbye Winter, Welcome Spring

Well, I certainly haven't done monthly posts as planned, but I guess I never really do anything as planned. And truthfully, January and February are not my favorite months. They are COLD---especially around here. We had 5 total snow days off from school in January.  I cannot ever remember a school year with more than 2 snow days. While it was nice to have some unexpected time together, it was not so nice that we couldn't go anywhere. We made a huge pot of chicken noodle soup and borrowed the Chuck Seasons 1 & 2 dvds from our neighbors and pretty much sat in pj's all day for almost a whole week.

















In February, Grandpaw came to visit. We always enjoy time with him.  Elisabeth's mouth became very full of teeth in January and February, and by the end of the month, she defnitely was looking like a little girl--not a baby.

And now March. Spring is my favorite time of year. The cold has let up (for the most part). We get a break from school, and then when school starts back up it seems to just fly by. We headed to Tyler for the first part of spring break. We went to Caldwell Zoo on Saturday, and the weather was just perfect for a day with the animals. Elisabeth is pretty much obsessed with animals these days. She has loads of books about animals, and she can point out all the particular ones when you name them. She says puppy, kitty, and cow (Chick-Fil-A was a very exciting place for her with all the cow pictures) but for  the other animals she makes their sounds. She does a great monkey sound complete with scratching under her arms, and her elephant trump with outstretched "trunk" is my favorite. She had a wonderful day at the zoo, even if seeing the white tigers up close was a little scary. While in Tyler, we also got to visit my friend Candice and her 2 kids---they have a wonderful backyard full of fun stuff. After returning to Wichita Falls, my friend Wendy and her 3 boys came to visit from Oklahoma City. Having 4 kiddos in the house at once was definitely different, but the kids seemed to have a great time, and we always enjoy getting to catch up with Wendy. I'm looking forward to more R&R over what's left of the break. Hooray for Spring!



The flowers were so beautiful---too bad Elisabeth wouldn't look up!


So glad to spend some time with Grandpaw
The white tigers were beautiful, although a little
too close for comfort!
We love hanging out with the Zeitlers

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Getting Started


I've finally decided to start a blog---as much for myself as for anyone else who might be interested to see what's going on with our little family. Hopefully, someday, my kids will be able to look back at this and get a glimpse into our life (if only from Mom's point of view). 
I'll start with a brief recap of Christmas. Both Terry's parents and my dad came to our house for Christmas. I like having it here. I can make the menu, and I enjoy cooking/baking all that yummy holiday food. We don't have to make arrangements with Santa to come early or deliver gifts anywhere else. Annie gets to celebrate with us instead of being boarded at the vet's. And, I get to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower.
As usual, Elisabeth was a big winner in the gifts department. She got loads of toys including some sweet dolls, a Tickle Me Elmo, a rocking horse, and a closet-full of new clothes.  She checked out her stocking and the toys Santa left first. She sort of went into gift overload mode---by the time we got to the end of her boxes, I was opening them for her and she was a bit uninterested.
Sunday we went to Irving and celebrated with my family. My grandmother was there, and I'm always thrilled to spend time with her. My Uncle John, Aunt Sandra, cousins Chris and Jessica, and their kiddos were also there. The kids had a great time, and Elisabeth embraced the role of the monster who chased her older cousins around. She definitely tried to keep up with the big kids. Despite having a wonderful and big Christmas lunch, Dad, Terry, and I stopped at Freebird's in Fort Worth for dinner. It was a great ending to a truly wonderful Christmas.

 
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