Easter (Round 1)

Ainsley saw a picture of some Easter eggs late last week and got excited and had to bring it in to show me, while saying "eggs, eggs"!  I didn't understand her at first, but once I saw the picture I knew what she was saying.  I told her, yes, those were Easter eggs and that the Easter bunny was going to come see her.  She got really excited!

We went to Aunt Roycelyn's on Saturday for lunch.  Ainsley fell asleep right after eating lunch, so she missed the Hettick Easter egg hunt at the park.  Joel didn't want me to wake her up for the Easter egg hunt at Aunt Royce's house, but I knew Ainsley would be excited for it.  I know everyone says to never wake a sleeping baby, but she needed to wake up to experience all the fun!  She wasn't very happy after I woke her up, but quickly got excited when I told her the Easter bunny had come and brought eggs.

Not a happy girl after waking up!

Grandma was trying to talk to Ainsley, but she wasn't having it.

She knew just what to do once we got outside.  I told Joel that she had to of picked it up from the Mickey Mouse Easter episode that's been on for the last few weeks.  Mickey and gang look for Easter eggs on the episode, and once we set her down outside, she took off running for the eggs and candy!  I guess Mickey Mouse is good for something other than keeping her quiet for a few minutes while I get something else done around the house!

Kids are ready for the hunt

Just like Great Aunt Kara...always with her finger up her nose

She would get excited with every egg/candy she put in the basket and then would take off running to get more.

Off she goes

Uh oh, she fell down again.  Good thing Uncle John was right behind her to help her up!

After the egg/candy hunt, we went back inside where Ainsley was running wild.  She kept bringing me things, and I figured someone was giving them to her.  She'd bring me a sucker, juice box, toy, etc.  At one point, I hadn't seen her for awhile so I went looking for her, only to find her in Aunt Royce's bedroom going through Delaney's Easter loot!  Oops!  I guess no one had been giving her things...she was just taking them from other kid's bags!!!

Actually sitting with Uncle Thom and not screaming

We headed to Jeremy and Kathleen's after leaving Hettick to color Easter eggs.  I think Ainsley had more fun dipping her entire hand in the mugs with the dye than anything else.  Thankfully, we did it out in the garage and used koolaid as dye, so it wasn't so bad. 

Lani helping Ainsley

The boys even came out for a little bit

I had seen on Pinterest to use a whisk for little kids to dye eggs.  You pull the whisk apart enough to put the egg in it and then give it to the kid to put in the dye.  It worked really well!

They were both worn out after a long day

35 weeks

I had a doctor's appointment last Thursday, and everything went pretty good.  The baby's heartbeat has slowed down, which Dr. Huston said is because we're getting closer to my due date and that's normal.  I gained a few pounds, which unfortunately, was also normal.  He had to look at my feet again since they're still swollen, but everything else looked good (blood pressure, protein, etc.) so he's still not concerned with my swelling.

I asked about my hands being swollen when I wake up, and he said that it's pregnancy carpal tunnel.  Like I mentioned before, I know I had this with Ainsley toward the end.  He said I could get some wrist braces and wear at night, but that's about all that would help.  No thanks...I stuck it out with Ainsley, and I'll live this time without them too.  It takes about half an hour or so every morning before I can make a fist, but I'm in the home stretch and think I can handle it for another few weeks.

35 weeks... (yikes!)

For the last month or two I've had major cravings for oranges!  It seems like cravings come and go in spurts, but this one has stuck around.  I eat at least one orange a day, and between Ainsley and I, we'll eat 5-6 of the little "Cuties" clementines for either breakfast or lunch. 

Sleep is becoming harder and harder to accomplish.  Between getting up at least 5 times throughout the night to go to the bathroom, and Ainsley in the middle of our bed grabbing my hair or kicking me, I'm lucky if I get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. 

Contractions are happening more often now.  I was up for a few hours last night with Braxton Hicks contractions, and I think I had a few regular contractions over the last week.  This pregnancy is totally different than Ainsley's.  I never felt a contraction with Ainsley! 

Our precious little Lily loves to kick me in my rib cage (only on the right side though), and punch my bladder.  I can just see her in my belly making a little fist and then whacking my bladder....at least that feels like what she's doing! 

I have a feeling Ainsley may have picked up kicking from the things I've said.  Lily will be kicking me and I'll say out loud that I wish the baby would stop kicking me, or something along those lines.  Ainsley will come over and give me a hug when she hears me, but I'm wondering if she's also picking up that the baby is kicking Mommy and that's where she thinks she can kick me too!

I went to Babies R Us last Thursday evening after my doctor's appointment and got almost everything we needed for Lily.  My cart was overflowing with diapers, wipes, a hamper, bath tub, and everything else we needed.  I got lots of crazy looks from other people in the store, and some even offered to help me (that was when things started falling out of the cart because it was so full).  But, I made it.  I was completely exhausted by the time I got home, but I made it!

Ainsley loves going into Lily's room and playing.  She'll open all the drawers and look inside, but her favorite is the sock drawer.  She can spend half an hour or longer in there pulling all the socks out and separating them and then trying them all on.  She's also started walking around the house pointing to things and saying "baby".  She'll point to the car seat that we have out downstairs and say "baby", point into Lily's room and say "baby", and point to my belly and say "baby.  I just hope she's understanding that there really is a baby coming!

Tea Party

If my heart could smile, it would be right now.

I just watched Ainsley set up a tea party and invite all her "friends".  It was the absolute cutest thing ever.  I'm sitting in my office working, and she runs in and gets her Minnie Mouse tea party set that has cups, plates, and spoons.  She takes them all out and separates them by color (there are four different colors).  Then, I watch her look around the living room and run over to the basket and grab her stuffed Minnie.  She carries Minnie over and sets her down in front of the dark pink plate, cup, and spoon that she had already sorted out.  I hear her say "Mickey, Mickey" and she runs over to the basket to find her stuffed Mickey.  She carries him over and sets him down in front of another color.  After giving Mickey a little pat on the stomach, she proceeded to find her own color of cup and set it in front of her while saying "girl".  She then laid down and started drinking.

Before she laid down, she looked at Minnie and Mickey to see what they were doing.  Of course, she couldn't get them to sit up, so they were laying down.  I guess that's why she thought she needed to lay down also.  I sat at my desk for a few seconds just watching her drink out of her cup while looking over at Mickey, as if wondering when he was going to take a drink before I got up and ran in to get a picture.

I'm not going to lie, this emotional pregnant Mommy had tears in her eyes at this point.  My little girl set up her first tea party all by herself and even invited her friends!  I love sitting back and just watching her.  She's starting to get an imagination and it's so much fun to watch.  I'm beyond lucky that I'm able to spend a few days each week at home with her and watch her grow.  I can't wait to watch her tea parties over the years!

Humming, animal noises, and baby shoes

I forgot to post a few videos of Ainsley from the last month or so in previous posts.

She loves to hum and sing.  Here's a video of her humming at the beginning while playing with her blocks, and then saying "owwww".  As you can see in the video, she was really hurt.  Little stinker!

She can tell you what noise just about any animal makes.  I'm working on trying to get her to say the actual name of the animal instead of the noise it makes, but that's a work in progress.  She was looking at a book the other day and was saying all the animal noises while pointing to the animals.  If you pay close attention, you can see her scrunch up her nose to snort for the pig, and make a fish face when pointing to the fish.  Here's the video.

One of Ainsley new favorite places to play with her jewelry is in the baby car seat that we got out over the weekend.  She likes sitting in it and rocking while putting her bracelets and necklaces on!

I mentioned in an earlier post that Ainsley had to try on almost every pair of her old shoes as I was getting them out for Lily.  She was especially excited when she found her first pair of rubber boots.  Somehow she managed to get them on her feet and walked all around the basement in them, refusing to take them off, even though there were almost 3 sizes too small!  The girl loves her rubber boots!!!  Here's a video of her trying on some of the other shoes.  She says "baby", "nope", "shoes", and "boots" all in the video, but it's kind of hard to hear her.

Snow day!

In typical Illinois weather fashion, we had a mixture of weather last weekend.  Saturday, it was in the 50's and very nice.  It quickly turned early Sunday morning and we ended up getting almost 12 inches of snow!

Ainsley remembered the snow from our last round of snow we got and when she looked out the window on Sunday morning and saw the white stuff, she immediately said "brrrr". 

It snowed pretty much all day Sunday, so we watched it from inside the house.  The neighbor kids across the street (not really kids, they're just a few years younger than me) started building a snowman late in the day.  Ainsley would run from one window to another watching them. 

Joel came home late Monday morning for the day, and we decided to take Ainsley outside that afternoon to let her play.  I don't know who was more excited, Joel or Ainsley!  Joel couldn't wait to go out and make a snow fort for Ainsley to play in.

 

I walked Ainsley across the street, so she could see the huge snowman.  The closer we got to it, she said "wow"! 

She didn't want to leave the snowman and threw a pretty good fit when I put her down so she could walk across the street with me back to the house.  Of course, I had set her right beside a huge water puddle.  All she wanted to do was jump in the water!!!  Then, she leaned down and stuck both mittens in the water puddle and started splashing.  When I tried to coax her into going back to our house, the meltdown began.  She refused!  I had to pick her up, hold her away from me, because she was soaked at this point, and carry her across the street and up our driveway.  As soon as I set her down in the garage, she immediately took off running to the street where there were more puddles.  Of course, Joel was nowhere to be found, so I'm yelling at Ainsley (out of breath from carrying her) and Ainsley's yelling and screaming back at me.  Finally, Joel comes around from the back of the house, where he was digging a new snow fort to help me. 

I'm so glad he came to help, so he could see just how terrible she was acting.  She wanted her Cozy Coupe out of the garage.  Joel told her no at first, but then gave in.  She tried and tried to get into the dang car with no luck.  Her snow pants, coat, and rubber boots weren't letting her move very easily and she kept getting stuck in the dang car, hanging half out.  Which, of course, led to even more crying fits. 

Needless to say, we had to wrestle Ainsley into the house and get her undressed.  I'm ready for the terrible twos to be over!!!!!

Jamie's Baby Shower

Jamie's baby shower, or "The Mustache Bash", was a few weekends ago.  The theme was mustaches.

I just have to say that the cupcakes were delicious!  I'm not gonna lie; I ate two!

I was afraid we would be late getting there, but we made it in plenty of time.  Ainsley fought me when I tried to put her dress on.  She's done that now a few times, and mainly just for dresses.  Once I finally wrestle the dress on her, and she gets down, she immediately starts playing with it and twirling.  My child will wear dresses whether she likes it or not!  Joel was "working" (probably just drinking coffee, visiting at Napa, the bank, or Bluejay, or checking the cows...you know "working"), so I told Ainsley we would take a picture of her in her pretty dress and send to Daddy.  She got excited at first, but then covered her eyes and acted shy!

I had to run by Dad's before the shower to pick up Thom's a-dor-able baby outfit he came home from the hospital wearing.  Let me tell you, it's snazzy, complete with little red bow tie and all!  Mom stuck it in the gift bag, so Jamie could have it.  You know...just in case she wants to put Baby "H" in it. 

I can't wait to see Baby "H" all dolled up in this outfit!

We got to the shower a little early to help get everything ready, and Ainsley loved running around.   I couldn't keep her in one place!  Luckily, Grandma Shelly showed up shortly after and wouldn't you know...Ainsley didn't want anything to do with me anymore.  So, Grandma got to chase her around for a little bit and change her diaper.

I hadn't seen Jamie in a few weeks, and of course, she looked just like the pictures I had seen.  Just a little (or not so little) basketball belly.  No double chin, love handles, or cankles.  Just a belly. 

There were lots of gifts on the table, but I didn't get to see her open very many.  Visiting with everyone, and Ainsley kept me pretty busy.  I wish they lived closer so I could have seen everything out of the gift bags!

Ainsley loved running around and playing with the other kids.  Of course, she was a little stinker at times and didn't want to share, but they all got over it. 

Getting practice holding baby Abe!

Soccer, anyone???

Lexi and Ainsley...they really liked giving each other hugs!

Avery and Ainsley.  They've gotten so big!

At one point, Ainsley finally realized that Jamie was opening presents and had to go over and help.  I only let her help with one or two presents, before pulling her away to do something else.  She really enjoyed all the books baby "H" was getting. 

Ainsley was being typical Ainsley, and has to be in the right mood to go to people.  Of course, everyone wanted to play with her, but she would mainly just run away or give them the "evil eye".  It didn't stop most of the aunts from picking her up and giving her a few kisses anyway!  Aunt Royce was able to hold her for a minute or two....but I think that was partly because she was bribing her with mints!

There's going to be lots of little babies in the next few months.  Jamie's due April 29th; I'm due May 5th, and Jamie's sister Jackie is due June 7th.  It's going to be nice for Ainsley and Lily to have a little cousin they can grow up with!

My feet were about to bust out of my shoes! 

Jamie with her sisters, niece, and Mom

 I can't wait for this baby to arrive, so we can finally find out the name and I can quit calling him "Sy".  I also can't wait to see how these two new parents adapt to a baby.   I have a feeling they're going to be in for a shock!!!