Who needs lunch...

when you can have a Leatherby's sundae instead?

Christmas

I was lucky enough to get both Christmas Eve and Christmas off work this year. Since I have been so sick/tired/miserable with this pregnancy, we decided not to decorate for Christmas at all this year. I figured Clara will never remember and it was not worth the effort. I love Christmas and I am really not all bah humbug or anything. It has just been a rough few months.

We did our own little family Christmas on the evening of Christmas Eve. Here's a picture of the set up, in front of our entertainment center due to lack of a Christmas tree.

 Here's Clara walking in to see her presents for the first time.

 She had a great time opening gifts, and wanted to play with each one before moving on.

We split Christmas Day between Zack's family and my family. It's nice to be close to both families so we can share these special occasions with all of them. We enjoyed opening gifts, eating lots of junk, and just relaxing with people we love.

Thanksgiving

I've decided to just get through Thanksgiving and Christmas, then cut my losses and pick up at the present. 

So Thanksgiving was pretty low key for us. I had to work so Zack and Clara spent most of the day with Zack's family. In the evening after I got off work, we headed to my parents' house for the turkey dinner. 

Here's some cute pictures of Clara in her Thanksgiving getup.

Halloween

I told you I was behind, but I do want to make a bit of an effort to get caught up for my own sake.
I bought Clara's Halloween costume earlier in the year on a really good deal, but by the time October roller around, I got too worried that she wouldn't leave it on. So when we went to a church Halloween party with my sister and Clara's cousin a few days before Halloween, we just dug out a bunch of the pink giraffe clothes we already had on hand and made a costume out of those. She was adorable. Marseille was Minnie Mouse, and also adorable. After the church party, we went to a trunk or treat right near our house.

On the actual day of Halloween, I had to work until 6:30, so Zack went after work to his parents' house and let Grandma take Clara trick or treating to a few neighbors. Zack isn't as much of a wimp as I am and decided to try out the costume that I bought for Clara earlier in the year. She actually left it on a was super adorable in it. (it's an octopus, in case you can't tell)

When I got off work, I picked up Zack and Clara and we went to my parents' house so Clara and Marseille could go trick or treating together. Clara didn't really get what was going on, and she wanted someone to carry her pretty much to whole time, but she enjoyed all the candy afterward.

Maybe she'll get it next Halloween.

Anniversary date

Yeah, now I am headed all the way back to the beginning August. Just trying to get caught up.

I decided when I planned our monthly dates back in February that our anniversary date in August would involve an overnight getaway... our first since lovely little Clara came into our lives. My mom was very gracious and agreed to keep her overnight to make this possible.

We started our evening at Faustina restaurant. Dinner was yummy and we enjoyed sitting outside, enjoying the summer air, and not trying to wrangle a very busy toddler whilst trying to eat. Very relaxing.

We decided to stay the night at Haxton Manor, a little bed and breakfast right downtown. We didn't want to go too far away to minimize the time we would have to spend away from our baby. The room was cozy and cute, and we relaxed, pigged out, and laughed our way through some crappy TV. 

I was so looking forward to my first good night's sleep in a very long time. My baby still gets up a minimum of 2 times per night (on a very, very good night) and I am one tired momma. I can hardly think of anything better that a complete, uninterrupted sleep. And I was getting just that... until the fire alarm starting blaring in the middle of the night. Zack went out to see what was going on, and I guess it was just malfunctioning, so we just went back to bed and just kinda hung out for the half hour or so that it kept blaring. *sigh* I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Besides that, we had a delightful time. They brought us breakfast to our room, which was delicious, and we went home feeling relaxed and somewhat more well rested than usual. My mom, on the other hand, got to learn first hand what I go through every night, and just to really drive it home, my child decided to wake up for the day at 4:30 that morning after getting up several times over the course of the night. Sorry mom. You are a good sport. 

I am so glad that I married this guy 6 years ago, and that we have added our little sweetie to our family. These 2 people make me so happy. Love you guys!

a pregnancy post

Just stopping in to give some info about my pregnancy.
- I am now 20 weeks pregnant. I am due May 18th. Clara was due May 15th, but came 3 weeks early. We'll see how this one goes but I wouldn't mind if I went a few weeks early again.
- I have been sick sicky sick sick. Zofran has not really helped significantly. Things seemed to improve somewhat around 16-17 weeks, meaning I am not nauseous ever so often, but I am still exhausted and generally don't feel good most of the day.
- Some people are thinking it. Some people are even tactless enough to ask it. So I will just put it out there... Yes, this was a planned pregnancy. It happened a lot faster than we thought it would (took us over a year to get pregnant with Clara. We scored on the first try with this one. TMI?) but we are thrilled that our kids will be close in age.
- Although I worked full time throughout my last pregnancy, this one has been much harder. For starters, I started getting sicker than a dog before my pregnancy test even read positive. Also, I have a very busy toddler to take care of, and I am still working 2- 12 hour shifts per week. We also moved a few weeks after I found out I was pregnant. Needless to say, my life is a mess. We have never gotten totally moved in to our new place (3 months later...), my blog is so far behind, my house is a total disaster zone, I don't even shower half the time. I am proud when Clara and I make it to the end of a day alive. So far, we're 100% on that one, so I guess that's something to be happy about. As a control freak, I find all of this very distressing, but I am trying to keep in mind that it is a temporary state of being. I know I will feel like a new person the day this child exits my body. I know having 2 children will have its challenges, and I know that the sleep-deprived newborn stage isn't exactly a walk in the park, but at least I will feel like myself again. Looking forward to that.
-It's a boy! Are you wondering why I didn't put that at the top?  There should be something exciting after the whiney little rant you just tolerated. He was pretty uncooperative in our anatomy ultrasound. In fact, we have to go back in a couple of weeks to have a few things checked out because he wouldn't cooperate. But he wasn't at all shy about letting us know that he is a he.
-Yes, we have some name ideas. Nope, we won't share them with you. Sorry. We don't want your reaction/opinion to ruin the name options before he's even here. Ha ha.
- Yes, I am already huge. No, it's not twins. No, you can't rub my stomach.
- I am planning on returning to work after I have the baby.
- Due to the difficulties I have encountered during this pregnancy, I believe this is the last one we're having. I hate being pregnant. I would maybe consider having more kids if I could skip the whole pregnancy thing, but 2 kids doesn't seem so bad to me.
So there you have it folks.

18 months

Clara is now 18 months. Ok, 19. Better late than never.
She is so much fun and we so enjoy having her in our family.
Here's some things about her right now:
-She loves letters. She can muddle her way through the entire ABCs. She especially loves the letter B. I have no idea why. She always picks it out though and often roams the house looking for a letter B to carry around (we have alphabet magnets as well as some foam bath letters.)
-She is talking up a storm. Every time we go to the doctor, they are super impressed with her vocabulary. She often just repeats stuff over and over for no apparent reason.
-She loves to color. She gets so excited if she finds a pen or some crayons. She loves people to color with her, and mostly wants them to draw cats over and over and over.
-She is very interested in the moon right now. When she sees it in the sky, she just says "moon" over and over and over. Sometimes, when I tell her it's nighttime, she says moon.
-She finally decided to wean from breast feeding. We were just feeding a couple of times at night for the last couple months, and she dropped those feedings altogether just before she turned 18 months. I was happy.
-She thinks "be nice" means caress the side of someone's face. When I tell her to be nice, she usually goes up to whoever I was talking about and does just that while saying "nice"
-She loves slides, and is a total slide daredevil. She'll go up or down them, she'll go on her stomach, face first, etc. Her cousin has a slide toy at her house and Clara just adores that. Often when she goes over there, she says "slide" over and over until someone gets it out for her.
-She got tall all of the sudden. She has been hanging out near the 50th percentile for height and weight basically since she was born. At her 18 month appointment, she was suddenly 95th percentile for height.
-She's in a total momma's girl phase. It can be difficult. It breaks my heart when she cries when I leave for work, and she won't really go to nursery (children's class at church) without me sitting in there with her. But mostly I love it and eat it up.
-She is obsessed with taking baths. She could stay in there all day if we let her. She always cries when she has to get out. She took a bath with her cousin Marseille the other day and she has been saying "Marseille tub"to me multiple times a day since then.
She is just so funny and we love seeing what kind of silly things she's gonna let loose each day.

We are excited to announce that in May 2014, Clara is going to become a big sister.