my bella is 18 months old today!

I can't believe it, my baby is a year and a half today! It has gone by too fast. Last night I decided that I wanted to take pictures of her so that I would have 18 month photos...it was pretty common when I was little for kids to go to Sears or JC Penny's to get their pictures done, but now - everyone is much more creative and the photos are much better when you do them on your own. I would have never got her to smile for me in a studio with some stranger taking her pictures. Anyhooooo - she's 18 months old and FULL of energy. She's starting to look like a kid now, and not a baby. This morning while I was getting ready for work, she was sitting on the couch watching Dora and was singing away...not really with any words, but the usual "laaaa laaaa deeeeee oooooo" typically baby sounds. I think she's the next American Idol, but what do I know? We have lot's of plans for the weekend; today is my dad's birthday so we are going to my grandparents house for dinner. Tomorrow morning we are driving to San Diego for a family party at Stephen's parent's house...my parents and my grandparents are coming too....there's going to be lots of people...and there's ONE other surprise that we have planned for the weekend, but I will have to wait and share that a little later :)

Happy 1 1/2 Birthday Bella Rooski!!!

On another note - I love Spring....especially toddler clothes. My goodness - I am going to have to lock up my ATM card and not go crazy on cute clothes for Bella. She does need the next size up, so we might have to do a little shopping this weekend. I'm in serious trouble if she likes to shop like her mommy! I wish that she would wear my bows that I make, but I do not try to make her...So, I will just continue to make them for other people's kids, and then maybe when she's older, she'll decide that she wants to wear them after all!

WEEK 17

Happy St. Patty's day baby! You will get to celebrate your first St. Patty's day next year...but you will still be way too young for green beer. Every year for St. Patricks Day, the entire family gets together and eats corn beef and cabbage. We've been doing this since before I was born, I always went over to my Nana and Papa's house. This year was the first year that my mom cooked (your Nana) - she did an awesome job. You seemed to enjoy it too because I slept great that night! yessss!

Something that happened this week that I am a little worried about is how your big sister reacted when I held Dylan. She completely broke down because I was holding another baby...don't worry, when you get here - she's going to be just as excited as we are :) She's just too little to understand right now.

I am still extremely tired! My gut feeling is that you are a girl...but I don't remember feeling this tired with Bella, so maybe you're a boy and taking every ounce of energy I have. We have an ultrasound appointment this Friday, it will be the day before I am 18 weeks. Your daddy and I have decided to watch the ultrasound, but when she's around the gender parts - we are going to look away. We really want to be surprised with you...

I will say the worst part now is the heartburn. It is TERRIBLE. I feel like all I do is eat Mallox. My Nana always told me that if you have heartburn when you are pregnant, it means that the baby has a lot of hair. So far, that's true - with Bella, I had horrible heartburn and she was born with a full head of black hair....Boy or girl, I picture you with a full head of dark hair! We're one week closer to meeting you little one!

 

Week 17 - baby is now the size of a ONION.

Here are some cool facts about the baby at week 17:  

• the rubbery cartilage is now turning to bone.
• baby is finally growing some meat on those bones - and putting on some fat.
• the umbilical cord is growing ticker, and stronger.

 A few updates from the mommy-to-be...

How far along? 17 weeks 0 days

Total weight gain/loss: the million dollar question, ha!

Maternity clothes? yep.

Stretch marks? the same ones

Sleep: I want some more. Can I buy additional hours in the night?

Best moment this week: corn beef & cabbage :)

Miss Anything? wine.

Movement: yes. happening more frequently now.  

Food cravings: Fruit

Anything making you queasy or sick: nope.

Have you started to show yet: Yes. 

Gender prediction: Girl 

Labor Signs: No

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: happy, excited, anxious... 

Weekly Wisdom: do NOT give in to finding out the gender!

Looking forward to: ultrasound on FRIDAY!!!

 

 

Week 16.

Week 16 has been a good week other than how tired I am all the time. I remember being pregnant with Isabella and getting this burst of energy during my second trimester...I am WAITING for that burst of energy - I need it. I am feeling a lot more movements now. I feel a bit more relaxed than how I was feeling last week with the whole ER visit. It's extremely important to keep stress levels to a minimum while pregnant because the baby can sense it...I believe it.

Other than being completely exhausted, I will say that my boobs hurt VERY bad. Even when I'm in the shower, just the water alone feels like knives hitting them :/

My stomach has started to itch - and you know what that means...it's growing! Which means that my skin is stretching...which means more possible stretch marks, uh. That's okay though, I have earned each and every one of those. This week the baby is a size of an avocado - I LOVE avocados, I have actually eaten a lot this pregnancy :)

 

 

Week 16 - baby is now the size of a avocado

Here are some cool facts about the baby at week 16:  

• baby can hear my voice thanks to the tiny bones that are forming in his/her ears.
• baby is growing hair, lashes, and eyebrows
• baby is forming taste buds

 A few updates from the mommy-to-be...

How far along? 16 weeks 6 days

Total weight gain/loss: I still haven't bought a scale...but I PROMISE I will update this once I see dr. chu on the 23rd :)

Maternity clothes? yep.

Stretch marks? the same ones

Sleep: i brought out my body pillow, and I'm sleeping a little better now.

Best moment this week: I FELT THE BABY MOVE!! I have felt little flutters here and there, but this is more constant. Oh, how I've missed this feeling!

Miss Anything? wine.

Movement: yes. happening more frequently now.  

Food cravings: Fruit

Anything making you queasy or sick: nope.

Have you started to show yet: Yes. 

Gender prediction: Girl 

Labor Signs: No

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy, we are having ANOTHER baby! 

Weekly Wisdom: drink lots of water. 

Looking forward to: dr appt in a couple weeks (18 week ultra sound)

proud momma.

Isabella continues to amaze me daily, I find it incredible the new things that she picks up so easily. We definitely have a very active little girl - she has A LOT of energy. If I had only a 1/4 of what she had, my day would probably run more smoothly.

When I dropped Bella off at Linda's house this morning, she told me - do you know how sweet and gentle Bella is? Usually kids (especially her age) tend to be a bit more rough with their movements - not on purpose though. For example, I hear a lot of parents say to their kids - 'be gentle to the baby'...Linda told me this morning that Bella helps her feed the new 3 month old that goes there her bottle. She also pets her head very softly and is very sweet to her. She's the same way with animals - she just loves them to pieces! Here I am worried about how she's going to be with a new baby, but I think she's going to be just fine.

Some of her many new talents are:

She counts - 1, 2, 3...and then skips to 5 - and on some days will say 7. Maybe she only wants to count odd numbers after 3?? who knows.

We love to play face - to - face...this is just putting our faces together so that our noses are touching and me (or Stephen) will say, I love you, I love you, I love you...and she says "sksdkfskldfaskdlf" it's fantastic.

She has recognized the letter "I" - everyday at daycare they practice name recognition (have I mentioned that I love Linda!?) Bella can now pick out the letter "I" and she knows that her name starts with "I" - genius, I tell you.

New animal sounds that we're practicing: Monkey - "ooh aa aa", Lion - "rarrrrrrr", Bear - "rrarrrrr" haha! basically every large animal with teeth says "rarrr" to her. She LOVES butterflies...and can say that word too.

Her vertical jump is amazing! She's got hops...who knows, she just might be a volleyball player.

NO MORE BOTTLE - granted, she started taking a bottle really well around 10 months old, but she still only took it at night. She has not had a bottle for well over a week now, and it doesn't even phase her. She still drinks milk at night, just in a sippy cup. Such a big girl!!

I will sing the ABC's to her and then when I'm done, I will ask her to sing them to mommy...she will sing, but it's not the ABC's - but I know she's trying.

As I write all of these things down I just can't get over how big she's getting. It still feels like yesterday we brought her home from the hospital and I sat up all night watching her sleep in her bassinet to make sure she was breathing! Now look at her - she's a little person, with a lot of personality!!

week 15.

This has been a very eventful week. I have had some serious pain in my lower abdomen - so much that I had to take a trip to the ER. The doctor thought that I had appendicitis...the problem is that diagnosing it in a pregnant woman is close to impossible considering the doctor's can't pin point where my appendix is. Since my uterus is expanding, everything gets pushed around - it's starting to get very cramped in there...hence all of the pain. I spent majority of Thursday day / evening in the ER and then was told that I could go home but needed to be on bed rest for the next 24 hours to make sure I didn't get worse. The doctor's told me that they're going to guess it's round ligament pain - which tends to be more on the right side in most pregnancies. So, I went home and my loving husband took very good care of me (and so did Bella).

Since the day we found out that we were pregnant, Stephen and I have decided to keep the gender a surprise. I imagine us in the hospital on delivery day and hearing those little words...."congrats, it's a ____!!" and then Stephen running out to tell the rest of the family that we have a little boy or a little girl. But not finding out is a lot harder than I expected. My first temptation was last Friday (the same day as the doppler appointment)...Stephen wasn't with me because we weren't having an ultrasound, so it was just me. Dr. Chu caught me off-guard and said, "okay, let's take a look".......I said I thought we weren't having an ultrasound, and then she told me - well you want to know if you're having a boy or girl, right?? omg. Typically, I would be the first one to say YESSSS, but since we have decided to wait - it was the hardest 'no' I had to say in a long time. The second temptation was a little different, while we were at the ER, I had to have a complete anatomy scan of the baby to make sure that 'it' was healthy. During the scan, the tech said, 'okay, I know the gender' (we couldn't see the monitor, so we weren't even able to peek!) I asked her if she was 100% sure, and she replied with, '200%'...dang it! TWO TIMES we passed up the opportunity to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl! Even though we both have a gut feeling that we are having another girl - we would be extremely happy / excited with either...boy or girl - we are going to LOVE this baby unconditionally...I still can't believe we are going to have 2 kids. yay!

Week 15 - baby is now the size of a navel orange

Here are some cool facts about the baby at week 15:  

• Continuing the march toward normal proportions, baby's legs now out-measure his arms.
• All four limbs have functional joints. Your fetus is squirming and wiggling like crazy down in the womb.

 A few updates from the mommy-to-be...

How far along? 15 weeks 6 days

Total weight gain/loss: according to my last dr. chu visit (which was 3/2 - right at the beginning of my 15 week mark) I had gained ONE pound in a month. I need to remember to ask her what my starting weight was so that I can get an accurate number for my weight gain!!

Maternity clothes? yep.

Stretch marks? the same ones

Sleep: Sleep is already getting bad - my back pain is pretty bad, and I wake up several times in the night to switch sides :(

Best moment this week: Having the doctor tell us that the baby is healthy (since my appendicitis scare)

Miss Anything? a good night's sleep.

Movement: yes. tiny movements that only mommy can feel.

Food cravings: Fruit & Mexican food.

Anything making you queasy or sick: not really.

Have you started to show yet: Yessss!

Gender prediction: Girl

Labor Signs: No

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Anxious now because we COULD know the gender of our little one, but have decided to keep it a secret.

Weekly Wisdom: have POSITIVE thoughts....I AM HEALTHY.

Looking forward to: feeling the baby move more - he or she is already 6 ounces!

Here's the belly picture - as you can see, Bella wanted to be included too...(chalk board will be added later)

week 14.

bad mommy - I didn't take a picture this week...but, I did get to listen to the little one's heartbeat for the very first time. It was music to my ears.

bellarina...

I still need to post my 15 week chalkboard update (I missed week 14! eek!)...hopefully I can get to that tomorrow. I just get a little busy when I get home from work with a certain 17 month old. I keep asking Bella if she wants to be a big sister, and she says....YESSSS. I will remind her of that when she's 7 :)

She almost made me cry the other night because she kept on the headband long enough for a photo. Granted, I had to keep telling her that she looked so pretty and that she could watch Bubble Guppies afterwards...haha!