New News!

Hello second trimester.  Hello vacation. 

Yesterday was the first day of my 2nd trimester and my dream of my symptoms disappearing with its appearance didn't come true.   But I am feeling a little bit better.  But that may come hand in hand with vacation mode.  Alfred and I are on vacation until the 7th of July and we don't have anything specific planned and it's great!! Yesterday we went to Moody Gardens in Galveston and we had a lot of fun.  Aleczander had a blast!!

Alec and daddy checking out the octopus.  Alec didn't like the octopus too much!



Can't blame him for being scared of it when it looks like this!

 

My big boy!



Me and my baby boy.  He never wants to look at the camera for a picture with mommy.



Alec looking at a bird in the Rainforest Pyramid.

Alec with daddy.





The highlight of Aleczander's day is when we made our way over to Palm Beach at Moody Gardens and he got an opportunity to cool down.  My kid LOVES water!

 Pooped out but not ready to leave.

We barely made it out of the parking lot before he knocked out and slept all the way back home.  It was a great day and we all had a lot of fun.  We have ambitions to paint some of the rooms in the house while we are on vacation, but we may not get to it.  Tomorrow, for the 4th of July, we may head downtown for the Freedom Over Texas fireworks and festival.  Who knows?  We may stay home and be lazy all day. 

I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday which is only 2 weeks since my last doc visit.  I will continue to go every 2 weeks until I gain some weight.  I can't belive I am losing weight with the way I have been eating.  My food of choice has varied from cheese fries (yummy) to fruit. For some reason, drinks make me more nauseaus than any foods.  Friends and family have been asking me if I have started to show yet.  I am not showing yet although I can feel a difference in my belly.  I'm a big girl though and usually big girls don't show very early.  With Alec, I was showing by now, but my significant weight loss in my first trimester with him, it allowed me to show a little earlier. 

Well that's all I have for now.  I need to eat something...

Old News (Should have posted this weeks ago!)

Baby (the unborn one) update: I am now almost 11 weeks pregnant.  I had an appointment with Dr. Gullet this morning and all is going well.  It was a basic check up with nothing fancy like ultrasounds or anything like that.  But I did get to hear my precious baby's heartbeat!  Even though I have been here before when I was pregnant with Aleczander, it still amazes me!  My overall health looks good, but my weight is a bit of an issue now.  I have lost 6 lbs in 3 weeks and that concerns my doc.  I promised him I have been eating as much as I can stomach and I am having to eat around every 2 hours.  With Alec, I barely ate at all during the first trimester.  Due to that, I lost 20+ lbs in the first trimester so he is concerned that it may be a pattern for me.  So instead of seeing him in 4 weeks, I have an appointment in 2 weeks so he can keep an eye on my weight.  Before he walked out of the room, he told me to eat more ice cream and french fries.  He said he never tells pregnant women that so I should feel special.  No problem doc, I've got it covered!!

I have most of the "wonderful" pregnancy symptoms still but they are slowly fading away.  Instead of having "morning sickness" (which lasted ALL day with Alec), I have evening sickness with this baby.  I feel somewhat nauseas throughout the whole day but it gets worse around 5pm until I go to bed. I wake up at least 2 times a night; once to potty and once to eat because I am starving around 3am.  I am absolutely exhausted still and I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.  I don't care where I am, what I'm doing, who I'm with... if it is quiet for more than 2 minutes, my head is down and I'm out for the count.  It's incredible what a 10-15 minute cat nap can do for my nausea and my strength. 

My sense of smell still runs my life.  I cannot stand the smell of any type of cleaning chemicals or cleaning products even down to the dish or bath soap in our home.  Perfumes, colognes, Germ Ex, fruity or floraly lotions and a whole bunch of other normal every day scents make me gag.  I don't remember being this sensitive to smell with Alec.  I am still taking nausea medicine but not as often as I needed to a couple of weeks ago.  On Saturday, I went the whole day without taking any.  But Sunday (which was Father's Day) was a completely different story. I'm hoping that is an idicator that I am toward the end of this "stage" of this pregnancy.  Feels like it has been taking forever!  Only 2 weeks left (hopefully). I am not "showing" yet but my shorts and some of my jeans are fitting a little tighter than usual.  With Alec, I was showing at 3 months but that is probably because of all the weight loss I experienced.  It has been said that you show earlier with baby #2 because your body knows what to do and your abdomen is already stretched from baby #1.  I don't think that will apply to me this time. I'm okay with that.  That allows me to hold off on spending money on maternity clothes for just a little longer.

Baby (the "grown" one) update:  Aleczander is amazing.  He FINALLY has 2 of the 4 molars in that he has been trying to push through for the longest.  He loves to dance and sing lately and his new favorite (and I mean drop what he's doing and run to the TV FAVORITE) show is "Dino Dan" on Nick Jr.  This kid loves dinosaurs!! When they come on TV he growls at them and says "dawww", which is his way to pronounce "dinosaur." This "Dino Dan" show provides me at least 20 minutes of peace in which I can cuddle with Alec and take a quick little nap.  Thank you Dino Dan, thank you! 

This past weekend, Alfred, Alec and I went to Clute to celebrate Alec's cousins, Caila and Caiden's, birthday.  It was at an outdoor park area that provided ample amount of room for Alec to run free.  And run free he did.  He DID NOT care that it was 100+ degrees outside.  This kid was everywhere!  Other children were content with hanging out under the shaded covered area and playing games, but Alec was free as a bird.  He wanted to play basketball with the grown men, go down the slide 3000 times, swing, run across a small bridge that was near the park repeatedly and do everything in his power to avoid daddy and me.  Where do they get this energy from?!?

Here is a picture of daddy helping him participate in his first sack race.  He had so much fun though.  My boy is going to be an outside sport kind of kid and mommy is okay with that.  Mommy can work on her tan during baseball games.  I love him so much.

SO MUCH.

Daddy was a good sport and got a painting of dinosaur on his face for Alec. 

We are waiting till we get a little closer to the arrival of baby number 2 before we completely convert Alec's room into a toddler wonderland.  We will get him a new twin size bed, get rid of the nursery themed stuff in his room and move on to a more "grown up" themed room.  Maybe we will do "dawww" (dinosaur) theme. Alfred and I go on vacation at the end of the month and on our list of things to do is paint the inside of the casa. I'm super excited about this but I hope my energy has returned and my super-sonic sense of smell has stopped. 

The newest addition to our lives has a nice little home in our garage.  To what am I reffering to?  My new and improved mommy-mobile.  I got a new car!! I bought myself a new Ford Edge and she is a beauty.  I justify this purchase because of the need for more room for a second car seat when baby #2 arrives and the old Saturn Vue just seemed like it was lacking in that area.  I have had my eye on this car for YEARS and I finally had an excuse to get it.  She is equipped with a whole lot of the latest technology and gadgets and I love her color.  The only thing she is missing that I really wished I could have is a sunroof.  I miss having a car with a sunroof.  Next time.

This Sunday is Jennifer and Miana's baby shower.  I still have a bit of shopping to do for some of the essential party things (plates, cups, forks, etc) but all of the fun and personalized stuff is purchased and ready to go!  This party is going to be so beautiful, just like Jennifer is and just like Miana is going to be.  I can't believe Jennifer is already 7 months pregnant!  It truly feels like just the other day she called to tell me the exciting news!  Her hubby Stu (who I lovingly refer to as Stewie) could not be there at her maternity photo shoot so she asked me to do the honors and keep her company .  Of course I jumped at the opportunity and I am so glad I did.  The amazing photographer, Amanda (http://www.dayzphotography.com/) able to capture this special moment between my beautiful best friend and I.

I'm so glad I was there for her and her pictures came out incredible!

Finally!

Sooooo... due to the high chance that I would have spilled the beans earlier than I wanted to, I have been avoiding good old blogger for quite a while now.  And since I have been avoiding it, sit back for a long entry. With that being said...

WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!!!

Phew! I finally said it. That feels better.  Alfred, Aleczander and I are expecting a new bundle of joy on January 14th, 2012.  As of today, I am 7 weeks 5 days pregnant.  Still in the "danger zone" but we are optimistic that all will be great! I am so in love with the idea of having a winter baby since winter is my favorite time of year.  And my birthday is also in January.  Good people are born in January. Spring is a close 2nd to my favorite time of year and Alec was born in the spring so I am one happy mommy.  Since Alec was born through c-section, I will have a planned c-section with this little one as well.  There is no big secret that we are hoping for a baby girl, but we will embrace another boy with all the love in our hearts just the same.  Neither Alfred or I had the pleasure of experiencing the joys of having a brother so it would be a treat for us to see Alec grow up with a little bro. But still fingers crossed for a girl.

The big question I have been getting from people is "how are you feeling?"  I feel pregnant! But honestly, I can't complain too much.  So far, this pregnancy has been a lot different than my pregnancy with Aleczander.  With Alec, I had nausea before I could even take a pregnancy test.  I knew something was up within a week from conception.  I was so insanely nauseated with Alec from week 2 until week 17.  I was extremely emotional, tired, almost depressed.  Don't get me wrong, we were ELATED to be pregnant with Alec but I was not prepared to handle all of the symptoms that came with it. I was put on anti-emetics with Alec around week 7 and that helped a lot. But the damage had been done and in the first trimester I lost around 22lbs. My doc actually threatened to hospitalize me if didn't start to gain weight.  It was a scary time.

So far with this pregnancy, I didn't have any clues that I was pregnant until "flow" didn't show up.  But even when she didn't show up, we still didn't test till like 3 days later.  Reason being is that we have been trying to get pregnant for about 5 months now and in the past 5 months "flow" was late by at least 2 days around 3 times.  So we just assumed it was one of those situations again.  So when we did decide to take a test, we were SUPER excited and surprised!  Actually, I took 4 tests.  Since I didn't have any of the same symptoms I did right away like I did with Alec, I was a little bit in denial that the tests were accurate.  So finally after 4 tests, I believed it.  Well I knew my luck wouldn't last too long.  Last week, around week 6, my symptoms started to show up.  Nausea, fatigue, an INCREDIBLE heightened sense of smell and now heartburn!! I am on meds again for the nausea so that is under control, thank God!  I still get it occassionally but not as bad as it would be without it.  I am starving every 2 hours but can only eat a small amount of food when I do eat.  I am craving carbs and fruits a lot.  Ginger Ale and water are my drinks of choice.  I'm super excited that I only have about 4 weeks left until the end of my first trimester.  Compared to Alec, this trimester has passed quickly. 

So there, that's how I've been feeling.  This pregnancy has already proved to me that the saying "every pregnancy is different" is definitely true.  It it tough to be pregnant with a toddler hanging around though.  After work, there is no down time until Alec is asleep.  I love my son beyond words but sometimes I just wish I could curl up in bed right after work and sleep until the next day.  I am so excited that I am experiencing this pregnancy while 2 of my childhood best friends are also pregnant, Jennifer and Cory.  Our babies are going to grow up so close to eachother just like we did and I love it.  Jennifer is due in early September and Cory is due late October.  So our babies will only be months apart.  I cannot wait for all of us to get together and spend time with our children.

Aleczander is growing up so fast and learning so much everyday.  He copies/mimics everything we do and say which is really scary because mommy tends to have a potty mouth at times.  He makes us laugh everyday and he is such a happy kid.

Right now he is getting 3 molars in so he has his down moments where he isn't in the best mood but that's understandable and expected.  He loves to share all of his food with Lilly.  There isn't a meal that goes by that Lilly has not had some portion of thanks to her little brother. 

He's such a cool little dude.  Well, with baby numero dos on the way, potty training has moved up on our list of things to do.  We really do not want to have 2 babies in diapers.  When we do sit Alec down on the pot, he goes.  But he hasn't got the whole idea of having to tell us when he needs to go down yet.  We are working on that.  We are also working on teaching our son the importance of conservation.  As pictured here, he clearly doesn't know what that is...



Here is a quick candid glimpse of what goes on in our home while grandma is in charge. They are learning their ABC's.  I'm not too sure about the seating arrangements but whatever works, right?

Well that's all for now.  I'll make sure to keep up with the progress of our growing little family on here as times goes on.  I know the next 7 and a half months are going to fly by and before we know it, we will be a family of 4.  What a blessing!!