Christmas 2009

Well, we are starting backwards, but here goes!

Here are Ken's brother Bill and his wife Kristen, whom Skylar loves! She spent the entire time they were here with them! I'm sure you can tell why...

While waiting for them to arrive so we could open presents, Skylar kept going in the living room and giving us this face saying, "More presents?" in the cutest little high-pitched voice that she uses quite frequently nowadays when she wants something we have told her she can't have. I'm not sure where she learned this new trick, but its actually one of the cutest things ever!

Sky LOVES to have her picture taken, and even more, she LOVES to see her picture afterwards! One of her presents this year was a kid-friendly camera that she has really enjoyed!

Posing in front of one of her presents- the usual cheese!

Being silly about wearing the Santa hat.

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom's house along with my brother and his family. Here Skylar is giving Granny kisses.

Trying on Cheyanne's new Cowgirl hat!

Playing with her new computer!

And of course, "Pisky" (Pipsqueak), the newest member of our family. (Zhu zhu pet- thanks mom for finding these!) Skylar loves Pisky and plays with him all day- he is the first thing she goes to when she wakes up in the morning and she routinely checks on him throughout the day. He has a wheel to run in and a car to drive, but the car doesn't work on carpet which we have in the bonus room, so she mainly puts him in the wheel to run his little heart out!

The stocking from Granny- complete with a sock monkey! Notice the hair-do! Gotta love her hair when she first wakes up!

Every year for Christmas, my extended family gets together on Christmas Eve to eat and exchange presents. It is always one of my favorite traditions! Here is Skylar and her Cheyanne.

Dustin made it this year with his little boy, Dakota. Notice the resemblance?!? Dakota had just woken up here and wasn't quite sure about all of these people, but he warmed up nicely. At the end of the night, he came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said bye. Totally a charmer!

Austin, Jaxon, Izzy, and Micael got Skylar this little doggy that has its own house to live in and she loves it!

Some of the older kids took turns helping Skylar open and figure out what her presents were!

Snow!

First snow of the year!

Skylar loved the snow this time (last year she was a little hesitant, especially if any of the snow got on her hands, face, legs, etc.)! Skylar was super excited to watch the snow come down and then get ready to go outside- although she didn't want to wear her gloves, scarf or hat...

Of course, she had to taste it.

Nana and Papa showed her how to have a snowball fight!

Skylar didn't get the hang of throwing snowballs, but she really enjoyed calling the dogs to her and rubbing a handful of snow on their backs. When the dogs were not available, daddy's legs were a good substitute.

The dogs were a little hesitant- they get cold easily, but they loved running around in the snow once we forced them outside!

Not quite the full cheese here = much better picture of her face!

More catch up... randomness

What have we been up to the past few weeks??

Lots of cheesin'

Lots of laughing when Daddy scares us... (notice how the hands come up to cover her chest!)

Lots of covering the mouth when being tickled.

Lots of dancin', with or without partners

Puppies have been growing steadily!

So cute!

Time to catch up... Thanksgiving

Since it is almost 2010, I figured it was time to put up a few pics from the past couple of months. I didn't really take any pics of Thanksgiving day, but here are a couple of Skylar with Gigi- her great Grandma on Ken's side. Ken's grandparents came into town for the holiday and Skylar got to spend some good time with them. She usually takes a little while to warm up to them since they live in TN and we don't see them that often, however she definitely remembered them this time- but made them work a little bit for the smiles and hugs.

Here she is with Gigi, examining the small "Christmas Trees" that Nana brought home- aka rosemary plants.

Here is Skylar and Gigi going through her flash cards- and the ever present Skylar "cheese" that she does whenever she sees a camera pointing in her direction... Most of our pics lately are of her cheesing with a mouthful of teeth and her eyes shut!

Pittbaby update and potty training

Skylar is now "officially" potty training! She has known how to use the potty, wipe, flush and wash hands for many months now; has used the potty consistently at night for a several weeks; and has had the occasional successful potty trip at random times throughout the day for a while. However, after lots of searching, I finally decided on which potty training pants to use and we just got them two days ago. Skylar doesn't like it when we refer to them as her "big girl" panties b/c she wants to be the baby, but she likes it when we refer to them as the same as mommy's panties. She has had a couple of accidents in them and will look down and say, "where biper?" She looks sooo cute in them!

Now we just need to work on her stripping down nekked, especially at night, so that she doesn't have any more accidents... Or incidents like the other day at naptime when she had a BM and tried to clean it up herself. She was so proud of herself...

And here is the latest sonogram photo of pittbaby! If you look at it sideways, you can see a profile of the pittbaby's face with the ultra chunky cheeks! My midwife was concerned about how baby would grow with the two-vessel cord, however now they are concerned about how much pittbaby has grown! Our little chunker is weighing in at 3lbs. already, putting pittbaby in the 86th percentile for weight. If it stays in the same percentile, we are looking at a 9lb.-er! So now, instead of more ultrasounds checking for pittbaby's growth, we are now going to have constant ultrasounds checking to make sure pittbaby isn't getting too big!

As for me- I have started getting pretty uncomfortable these last few weeks. I have the most trouble getting up and down the stairs at work multiple times per day, because I am inevitably out of breath by the time I get to the top. I have also started on the diabetic diet as of Tuesday a week ago. So far, it hasn't been that hard, I am kind of testing things to see what I can get away with- however my blood sugar is consistently high every morning for my fasting test. I talked the my midwife about it and she suggested eating a later snack before bed and keep her updated. If we can't get it to come down to normal range, then I will have to start medicine. The last thing I want right now is to take insulin or anything else, but I can't control what my body does naturally. If my sugars were high b/c of what I ate, I can control my carb intake better, or exercise more; but I don't have much control over my fasting sugars.

On another note, I have started swelling in my hands, ankles and feet, especially after school. In fact, I waited a little too long to take my wedding rings off and after days of trying many different tricks, I ended up having to get my wedding band cut off. Perhaps this just means that Ken will have to buy me the matching band to go with my engagement ring?? Or perhaps I'm just wishful thinking? Much more likely...

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

We actually had a party for Halloween! We celebrated Skylar's 2nd and Jaxon's 5th birthday (her cousin) since both of their birthdays are pretty close together in October with a Halloween party. The kids had a lot of fun, played games, ate food and then went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

Nikki (Jaxon's mom) made several games to play, bean bag toss, ring toss, bowling, etc. and we had glow-in-the dark tattoos and lots of other little goodies to give out. We had a pinata filled with candy, bobbing for apples, eat the doughnut without your hands while someone dangles it from the air with a string, and decorate your own Monster rice crispy.

For food we had mummy hotdogs, eyeballs, spider cookies, little pumpkins, oranges carved to look like pumpkins, punch with "ice" hands in it... and more.

And most of all, I'm just happy that we actually got to have a party, even though the weather could have been better. We noticed Skylar had a lot of little bumps all over her torso last night during tubby time and after doing some googling, saw that they looked just like the beginnings of Chicken pox. Just to be sure, we took her to the dr.'s today and was told that although they do in fact look like chix pox, since they have not begun to blister over, are not itchy, and she doesn't have a fever, it is probably being caused by something else. So, the party was still on!

After a lot of coaxing, we finally got Skylar to wear her Cat in the Hat outfit that I made, although she refused to wear her hat for the first half of the party.

The cutest little leopard ever!

Izzy, successfully retrieving an apple!

Skylar refused to bob for apples, but was kind enough to help hold the towel for Cheyanne. While she ate a doughnut. p.s. I have several pics of different kids bobbing for apples with Skylar in the background surreptitiously eating a doughnut...

Skylar's "monster" rice crispy treat. She really just wanted to eat the marshmallows.

Ahh, the famous "Skylar" face. This was a teddy bear that her aunt and uncle got her for her birthday and this was her face when she saw it. Not the most gracious of recipients. She hasn't learned how to act overly excited in the hopes that they will get you bigger and better things next time...

The big balloon toss- quite possibly the best part of the day for most of the kids. Just give them a room full of balloons to throw around.

The fam about to go trick-or-treating.

Notice the tail? Yea, she was cute. :)

Part of the gang!

I wish I had better pics of all the kids and all the decorations, but oh well. You'll just have to take my word for it that the kiddos were cute, the food was fun, spooky and yummy, and the house was nicely decorated (mostly in part to my wonderful hubby :)).

I passed!

I passed!

A little history: Last week I went in for an early glucose tolerance screening since I had gestational diabetes with Skylar. And I failed. :( I was really upset about this even though chances were high that I would get it again. But I had tried pretty hard to eat right and knock out a lot of carbs from my diet in an attempt to steer clear of the diabetic diet this go round.

So, I prepared myself all last week but planning low-carb meals, ditching basically all snacks, and letting go of my one soda day per week rule. And it was incredibly hard. I forgot that the worst part about gestational diabetes is that you crave what you can't have. And pregnancy cravings for me are pretty strong. I don't crave weird things or specific things, but if I think about a certain food, or hear a TV ad, etc. then I really crave that food until I get it. I downloaded diabetic recipes off-line and tried out a few... and tried to convince myself that they tasted just as good as the real thing. Not so really.

So, with a big fat "F" on my record, I was scheduled for a 3-hour glucose tolerance test this morning for a final slap in the face confirmation. And surprisingly, I passed! Everyone was really surprised, especially since I failed my first (out of four total) tests- my fasting one. Usually if you fail the fasting one, then you are a shoe-in for failing at least one more. Earning you a big diagnosis of gestational diabetes. But surprise, surprise, I passed all three of my next tests!

I'm not sure what this means next for me; I will probably have to test again at a later date b/c the further along your pregnancy is, the greater your chance of developing diabetes. Since I tested early this time in an attempt to be proactive and catch it early (that is how certain it is that I will develop it again), we had decided that if I was close to the limit, we would test again in a few weeks when most women test.

So for now, I will take my few extra weeks and be happy! I won't go overboard b/c I want to do right, but I will enjoy my cereals, breads, fruits and pastas with a lot of happiness... for a little while!

Portrait Photographer on the side?

As some of you may know (or can judge from the massive amounts of pics on this blog...) I love taking pictures. I would love to learn more about photography and perhaps start a productive side hobby doing portrait photography. Sooo... if you remember from a few posts back, there was a baby shower for a friend at work who had her baby girl. I asked if I could come take pics and went over this past weekend. It was actually much harder than I was prepared for, but I hope I got some good ones. The worst thing was putting my skills out there and not being able to deliver... Please keep in mind that none of these pics are touched up or edited. I would love to get photoshop, but that will have to wait. Maybe Christmas?

Here is Aftynne with baby Mackenzy. She is such a sweet baby, and Aftynne and Ray and great parents. It was so sweet to see them interact with her!

You can't see in this pic, but Ray is HUGE! I loved watching him with his little girl!

The family portrait...

I love how Aftynne is looking at Ray here, with Mackenzy making her feelings known. I think this was the only time she cried the entire time I was there.

Look at the difference in their head sizes!

The feet shot. It took forever to get a shot of her feet actually in focus- she was a wiggly thing!

And, a bit softer light up in her bedroom.

I love how happy she looks here laying on her mom's chest!

And for some reason, this might be my favorite shot.