No more Binky... kind of

Tea Party with her Little People

So, last week, I was driving up to my parents house when I realized that I had forgotten to pack Katie's Binky.... and we were going to stay there for 2 nights. I could have turned around to get it (we were 5 minutes away) but I decided not to turn around and get it... I was gonna risk it.

So, I told Katie that Mommy left her binky at home by mistake and she was going to have to go to sleep without it. So, she kept saying - Binky home.. binky home.

The drive to the mimi and grumps house was a SUCCESS... She slept for the first time in I don't know how long, without a binky in the car and never once asked for it.

So at my parents house I decided I wasn't going to go buy another one. We were putting her to bed that night without it. So, at bedtime, we told her that she was a big girl and that she didn't need her binky anymore and she said... Binky home.... Went to bed without it - no tears or anything - I couldn't believe it!!!!

Day 2 - nap-time... Grumps wanted a cheeseburger.... and what pregnant lady would turn down a cheeseburger? So, Mimi, volunteered to stay with Katie while she slept.... long story short... Katie didn't nap that day... she wasn't asking for her binky - but she wasn't settling down either. Plus we thought she was having pooping issues so we kind of figured she wouldn't nap that day.

Day 2 - night time.... She went to bed without asking for binky.

Day 3 - we headed home and I told Katie that Daddy had taken Binky to work and she says... No Binky home... so I told her again that Daddy had taken it to work. She didn't nap that day.
But she went to bed at night without ever asking for it.

Day 4 - She fought and fought and fought a nap and finally cried herself to sleep. It was pitiful!!
but she went to bed at night again without it.

Day 5 - I was alone with her and she threw a FIT at naptime... so I broke down and gave it to her and she settled down in under 2 minutes and was asleep for 2.5 hours.

So... we didn't totally win... but we didn't totally lose either. She gets it for naps and it works like a charm - and she doesn't ask for it at bedtime... so we are tied 1 - 1.

As for talking - Katie is officially talking. I don't mean saying words- I mean sentences and questions and actual conversations. She also sings songs from memory. Jingle Bells, Peanut Butter and Jelly, almost the complete ABC song, Wheels on the Bus, and her current favorite Happy Birthday and Ring around the Rosie. There is no such thing as quiet in my house anymore.. except for naptime - which is where I recharge my sanity every day:)


We were signed up to go back to a mommy and me class (which she LOVES) but the program was temporarily moved to a location that was just really unsafe and not good for toddlers...(bad lighting and tables blocking exits so they wouldn't run away type of thing...) PLUS they overbooked the kids so it was total chaos... so I pulled her out - which I still feel guilty about because she LOVES it. I tried to find an alternative... but they are 3 times the amount of money that our original one was going to be and I just can't see spending that kind of money on her right now. We have at least 1 or 2 play dates a week and I take her to story time at Barnes and Noble and I am researching The Little Gym and My Gym which are supposed to be lots of fun... but they are just so much money... I'm talking more than a gym membership money - so for now - we are waiting until the next YMCA program opens up at a better location.

As for baby number 2 - I'm not quite as tired anymore and the headaches have subsided.. but the nausea is worse. I don't ever throw up so I am SUPER LUCKY - as I can be totally nauseous and still eat cheesy fries at the same time. In fact, the other day - I was eating a salad and I looked down and saw a bug in it... so I said... Oh my god there is a bug in my salad... so my mom JUMPED UP and grabbed my plate and took it away and calmly said... it's ok, it's ok - we can have something else... she was nervous because she said when she was pregnant with me and Mike, if she had seen that, she would have been throwing up food from 3 days prior!!! So, I know I'm lucky but it doesn't make it any more comfortable.

O.k. that's our update for now. Katie is going to sleep now and baby #2 needs some ice cream!

Apple Picking Highlights!

Mickeys lunch

I was giving Katie lunch yesterday and asked her what she thought Mickey would like to eat. (he was sitting in Daddy's chair - we usually have someone in daddy's chair during lunch.)

I was talking to her while I finished her sandwich and turned around and saw that she had started to empty my pantry onto the table in front of him. So I stopped, grabbed the camera and watched her for a few more trips back and forth to the pantry. He ended up with a whole container of mango puffs, about 8 packets of oatmeal, an empty cup, some Chai Tea bags, a plate and some Cocktail Sauce. She is turning into quite the gracious hostess:)

Here are some more pics of the past 2 weeks. This one is Katie waiting for Dave to finish brushing his teeth in the morning. she sat in front of the door, knocked and told him... I'm waiting...
This is one of our million tea parties since Dave started playing that with her last week.

In other news, we went to the doctor on Tuesday and got an Ultrasound. The lady said everything looks like it should and the baby looks fine. Somehow I only gained 4 pounds so far which is Amazing since I have been eating nonstop for like 4 weeks now. I'm sure it will catch up to me at my next appt, when the doctor tells me.... oh look at that, you gained 20 pounds this month!!!!:)

This is week 13 - which means we are awhile from finding out what it is. We go back once every 4 weeks until I think 35 weeks, then we go every week. We keep trying to explain to Katie that there is a baby coming and she came to the ultrasound - she kind of gets it... to be honest, she isn't too excited about it yet - but it's cute when I ask her who all the little clothes in the house are for and she tells me the baby... so perhaps the connection is actually there after all. She will sometimes kiss the baby too... if you ask her.

I'm feeling much better than I did for most of the first trimester. The headaches are going way and I'm not as tired so that's good.

My new favorite Katie thing... is she says I WUV YOU. Pretty much always when we are saying goodbye and sometimes now she will say it unprompted randomly throughout the day.

It's the BEST!!!!

Happy friday.

Please come over

Mimi and Grumps are coming to visit tomorrow, but they said they can't come until dinner time... which isn't nearly enough time to play... so here is Katie letting you know that you should come sooner. She's waiting at the door.


And here is some video of Katie's tea party this morning. When she's all done she says Tea Party Over... bye bye to her friends... and we are trying to teach her thank you for coming! It's AWESOME!

Tom Boy???

We were getting ready to go to an outdoor play date in early fall weather and Katie decided she needed her HAT.

She put it on her head backwards and it totally completed her outfit....
Perhaps I should have knit that sweater in a pink!!!!!

This is officially my new favorite picture of her!

5 Year Anniversary

This weekend was our 5 year anniversary!

We celebrated by going to our BFF's house so that Dave could go up to Fenway to see the Rex Sox with Uncle Jeremy and Katie and I could hang out with Auntie Steph and the kids. (I bought them tickets this year for their 30th birthdays.)

When we got back from that, we went on a family date to Outback (baby was craving a steak and a loaded baked potato) and then went shopping for some Keurig Accessories....
Which brings me to the point of this post....

(Besides of course that we have been awesomly and happily married for 5 years...)


MY NEW EMPLOYEE LOUNGE!!!!!

Jealous? It has all the necessities for this insane pregnancy.

• Snacks, (since I seem to be eating every hour on the house this time)
  
• Candy for nausea, (I'm nauseous at least every 3 hours or so for just a few minutes at a time)
  
• our superly awesome new KEURIG!
• plus a fun gossip magazine, cause I love to spoil myself and buy them sometimes!
  

Oh Keurig, I don't know how we lived so long without you. You can make Iced Coffee, Iced Tea, cappuccino's, lattes, a billion types of fancy yummy coffees that come pre-packaged and I can even make my boring old Maxwell House Half Caff in you. The best part? One cup at a time ensures NO BURNT COFFEE.

I cannot wait until April when I can fully enjoy your capacity but for now, I will enjoy your de-caf options and make sure to have tons of fun kinds of coffee for guests:)
Thanks Mimi and Grumps!

I have to share this little tid-bit... look at the picture below. When we got the box, Dave pulled a "Mimi" and said... OH COOL, does it come with it's own special travel cup????
Because of this picture.... Which made me laugh cause I immediately thought of the car battery incident... so just thought we'd share with you!

We also got gift cards for a dinner out from Grammie and Grampie (THANK YOU) and we are treating ourselves to a much needed 2 night get away before baby number 2 arrives and our lives are turned upside down all over again! Dave also got me some really awesome earrings to match a necklace we bought together in Hawaii on our honeymoon and I bought him a bamboo wooden cutting board with an M in engraved in the middle since the traditional gift this year was wood.
All in all, it was a nice weekend and we've had and will continue to have a GREAT life together!

In other news, I am STILL working on Mo-mo's sweater. But am happy to report that I am seriously almost done. I have one sleeve and a collar and button hole band to do. Although it has been very stressful at times..... it actually wasn't that hard to make - just time consuming and it looks adorable!
Other than that, we're just trying to survive this pregnancy. It's exhausting like I've never imagined and I'm not kidding when I say I am eating like every hour or 2. So cross your fingers for me that I don't gain a billion pounds with this one:)

O.k. we are off to watch a movie to close out our Anniversary weekend. Happy Fall everyone!

Don't worry Katie is still awesome and I'll try to get some video of her talking since she literally repeats like, 1/3 of everything we say now. She is currently obsessed with running, her thomas, percy and salty trains and her beep beep cars. She also recently discovered Barney and will sing and dance along with him. She has learned blue, pink, purple, yellow and green and for the most part gets them right at this point. We will have to start working on lowercase letters as we've never really done those and she doesn't get them... as well as saying the uppercase letters. She can point most of them out (I am being 100% serious) but she doesn't always say the letter...

She's good with her numbers 1 - 10 and tries to count sometimes although she always starts with 2, 1, 1, 2, instead of 1, 2.... but hey... she's not even 2 so we'll let her count backwards if she wants to:)

More pics later this week:) Thanks for reading

My little helper

Yesterday I had some sort of super human pregnancy energy or something... Or perhaps I finally got sick of not having food in the house - either way I decided I was gonna COOK!

So, first we made muffins.... I let Katie help me by pouring the water into the muffin mix. (I separated the 3/4 cup or water into 1/4 portions so that if she "lost" some, we'd know how much more we had to put in) It worked well... she put all 3 cups of water in the mix perfectly!!!

Then, I let her put the muffin cups in the pan for me. She took this job very seriously:)




Then we were able to eat the muffins for lunch before nap time. (Fiber One Apple cinnamon muffin mix... SO YUMMY!!!! I added some wheat germ too for extra kick)



Then I decided to try to make Katie Cod Fish Cakes. Yes, I DETEST fish of all kinds. But I know it's healthy and we were successful in having her eat Salmon sticks that we bought at Whole Foods, so I figured I could suck it up and be a good mom and make her some homemade 100% REAL food, fish cakes.

The recipe was easy. Mashed potato, a little parsley, steamed cod (it smelled awful and I had to clean every pot and pan and utensil that touched the fish as soon as I used it to make sure the smell didn't linger) a little parmesan cheese, egg and salt... Then you form them into little patties and coat them in breadcrumbs and pan fry. There was also a recipe for a lemon, yogurt dipping sauce which I made for her and she seemed to like.

Then I had purchased apples to make apple crisp - so I figured PERFECT I could bake the apple crisp right after making the fish and it would overpower the fish smell... which worked!! Except my apple to crisp ratio was off and it ended up being Crisp with a few cooked down apples underneath!! Better luck next time!!!!!!

I have decided to start cooking more often. I mean, really cooking. Not reheating or mixing a few things together... but things like her cod cakes. (which I now have some in the freezer and I know everything that went in them and they will take 5 minutes to cook when it's time to make them for her)

Happy Weekend!!!!

Katie has an announcement!

We can't tell if she's happy about it or not... but we certainly are!!!!
Our due date is March 27th!!!!

More details to come soon:) Happy Wednesday!