8 months in review...

June 2011 was my last update?! Oh where do I begin?? I have trouble remembering to wake up everyday so this might not be an easy task. Let's start from present time and work backwards.

Maddison: Maddison is a big Kindergartner now! In fact, on Friday she was awarded Student of the Month for the first time!! We are so proud of her. To celebrate we took her to Peter Piper with the family and got her ice cream after. She's reading really well now and writes me little love notes all the time, it's so sweet. This Wednesday we are taking a field trip with her class to a stuffed bear factory where the kids will see how stuffed animals are made and they get ot bring one home, so it should be really fun. I volunteer at her school once a week which has been so fun. It almost makes me want to be a teacher. Almost! It really is rewarding though and every week I have new kids calling me "Mom" and holding my hand in the lunch line. Last week little Mason looked so disappointed when he fiddled with my wedding ring and said "So you're already married?" It was the cutest thing.

Maddison is taking a break from dance class. The school we had her at is in it's beginning year so things aren't exactly organized. It was a lot for her in the beginning anyway with school being full-day kinder. She wants to try cheerleading and basketball now so as soon as I find somethingthat fits into our schedule she will be starting something new. All in all shes a happy, healthy, smart little ray of sunshine as always!

Kylie: Kylie is now 17 months old! She's such a big girl now. She's very active and a bitmischievous. In fact, just before this she dumped all the water out of the humidifier in her room and completed soaked herself. She loves being outside and giggling at all the funny things her sister does. She's so smart, she surprises me every day with the little things she knows and understands. Yesterday I asked her where her shoes were not expecting any kind of answer but instead she yelled "Shoes!" and ran over to the stairs where she had dropped her hot pink checkered boat shoes and brought them too me. Little things like this tell me she's just not a baby anymore. I love watching her grow and learn but sometimes I wish she'd slow down a bit! She's talking so much lately. She says:

thank you (dan do),

here you go (he go),

ni-night,

hello/hi,

bye-bye,

doggie,

DADDY! (her fave!),

Mommy,

Maddi,

Siss (sissy),

shoes,

kitty,

ut-oh,

up,

down,

out (outside),

Papa,

Gamma (on her terms),

poo-poo (one I personally dread hearing)

and apple....though it's never about an actual apple so I'm not sure what it actually means.

Other than a bout of croup last week and a mysterious round of hives we are currently fighting off she's a happy healthy little toddler!

Marc: I can't remember when Marc finished his remodel but I don't think it was before my last update, SO, that's done. He did so well. If you have no clue what I'm taking about, he was put in charge of his store's remodel. A 13 week complete store overhaul that added a grocery department to his store and brought his out-dated store up-to-date with the newer Targets. It's like a mini Super Target, but I actually like it better. It seems to have nicer home accessories. Anyhow, he did an amazing job! I'm so proud of all his hard work. I wish I could explain in better detail what exactly he did but I'd be here all day. Shortly after he went through a series of interviews to become a Business Partner. He is currently signed off as a District Facilities Manager and as soon as there is an opening he will start in his new position.

He also is the proud owner of a new car! He had test driven a couple new cars but just wasn't sure. Then, on the way to get the brakes fixed on the Mustang, his transmission went out! There's 'yer sign! He had to drive backward from Yuma all the way home because it was the only gear it would shift into. We both laughed the whole way home and then piled into the truck to go buy that Mazda he liked so much. Even though the dealership had to come tow it away, they still honored half the trade-in value they had already agreed upon so it worked out pretty well! Goodbye Mustang Sally!

Me: Well, my Bands of Blossoms is now "Desert Blooms Baby Boutique". I have a shop on etsy (view here http://www.etsy.com/shop/desertbloomsbaby) which has been growing rapidly the past two months. The birthday outfit I made for Kylie's first birthday has been a huge hit so I've sold quite a few of those as well as different variations of it. My "Flower Footies" are now called "Baby Barefoot Sandals" and those have also been doing well. I have items for sale in a local playland/store called "Koko Bee's Playhouse" (http://www.kokobeesplayhouse.com/) and I've had 7 or 8 online inquiries about wholesale pricing. I have an agreement with the shop owner of Zandy Zoo's children's boutique in Nederland, TX so hopefully soon I'll have some items in her shop! It's crazy how things have picked up this year. I opened my etsy shop in July of 2011 and finished out the year with 10 official sales. I sold more than that on etsy but because I didn't know what I was doing all my custom orders went through private e-mail and direct PayPal invoices so I didn't get credit for them on etsy. So in reality I probably had 16-20 orders or so on etsy and only a few through Facebook. Just this month I have 16 orders on etsy and 2 on Facebook! My craft desk has turned into an entire craft room and I have a huge 50x30 US map littered with red pins to the places I've shipped! It's so fun looking at the map and seeing all the states where at least one person is wearing something I created. This definitely wasn't my childhood dream of nursing but it's definitely a fun new challenge!

I'll end this 8 month recap with a collage that best depicts the highlights and holidays from August through February.

Bands of Blossoms

Exciting news!! I started making "Bloombands and Flower Footies" for Kylie and Maddison. Everywhere we go, people ask where I bought them so Margie and Marc talked me into creating a "business", so, I am now introducing "Bands of Blossoms". You can find me on Facebook! :) And actual update on the family will come soon!

Holi-Daze

With a brand new baby in the house, the holiday's flew by in a huge blur. Here are some photos from all the festivities. Maddison was sick for Thanksgiving, so her and I were not able to join in on the fun, and Marc's not much of a photographer so we don't have any photos to share. Click on any of the photos to enlarge in a separate screen.

The Christmas Party at our house. Tons of fun!

Our Christmas.

We have no photos of Kylie's presents from Santa, but she made out pretty good too!

10-13-10

The girls got to model for a friend's bow business, Ribbons By Lace, and these were used in her business poster :) These were taken 10-13-10 when Kylie was 11 days old, Maddison is 4.5. Maddison is wearing her flower girl dress and bow from our wedding. Lacey, the owner, made Kylie a matching headband since she was part of the wedding also! :)

(Click to enlarge)

Finally, pictures!

Photo's from Kylie's Birth Day!

Click on the photo to enlarge in a separate screen.

Kylie is here!

Kylie Makena Strick came into the world on 10.2.10 at 4:43pm weighing 6lb 3 oz and 19inches.

This is coming a little bit late, and will be a bit long, but the day after my last post was quite eventful! Friday Oct 1st, Maddison and I were just about to head out to run a bunch of errands to prepare for the following week's induction. We got into the car, I said goodbye to my mom on the phone, turned around to back out of the drive-way noticing Maddison was already falling alseep, when suddenly I realized I really hadn't felt Kylie much at all that day. Next to me sat a full glass of ice water, so I downed it which usually perks her right up and had no response. So I sat there in the truck for about 10 minutes poking and prodding her with still no response. She is usually extremely active on her own and anytime I gave her a nudge she would normally nudge me right back, so this was just not normal. I called my doctor and headed in to L&D for some monitoring. After about 10 minutes on the monitors the nurse barged in and said the doctor was going to induce me that night because the baby's heart rate had a big dip and since she was already expected to have IUGR they needed her out asap. Marc was already on his way from work and heard the nurse over the phone so he sped over to pick up Maddison and go home and get everything ready. My doctor was off that weekend, so the call was made by the on-call physician Dr. Walter through the same clinic. My doctor had promised me that as long as it wasn't between 10pm and 4am he would be there to deliver even if it was his weekend off. I decided not to say anything to the nurses about it since by then it didn't matter who caught her, it only mattered that she was OK. At 8pm, my doctor walked through the door as promised to check on me anyway! It was like Mommy kissing a skinned knee to know he was following through on his promise! Such a huge relief! This was 4 hours on the monitors at that point, and she had a few more dips but nothing too serious, so they decided to start me on pitocin at 11pm on a very slow drip in hopes I could rest through the night.

Now, if you are not into reading Birth Stories, now is probably where you should stop and just look at the pictures. If you're into that sort of thing (like I am!) here goes:

At 6:30am they got "aggressive" with the induction and started upping the pitocin by 2mL every hour or so. I say "aggressive" because with Maddison it was increased by 5mL every 15-30 minutes! At 11:30am my doctor came and broke my water and told me that since I planned on getting an epidural, now would be the best time to get it since the contractions would start becoming more intense. Apparently I thought I had something to prove because I declined saying I wanted to experience more pain than I had last time since the epidural was basically rammed down my throat each time they came in to increase the pit until I finally caved in just to shut them up. My mistake! I labored for 4 hours, still refusing to ask for it, until Marc finally asked if I needed it yet. Since he offered, and since I was already breathing back the urge to push with each contraction, I accepted! By that time there was a wait, and I was number 3 in line for the anesthesiologist. Like I said, my mistake! At 2:30pm that wonderful man came in and got me feeling comfortable again. I was checked, and was at 4-5cm, completely effaced, and completely discouraged. I could not believe after 8 hours of pitocin (technically 15.5 hours of pitocin) and 4 hours of the worst pain I have ever experienced I was only at a 4! I was sure they would check me and say, "Wow! You're ready to go!" so I was honestly very disappointed in my lack of pain tolerance. 50 minutes later, the nurse came in at my doctor's request to check me. Again, this is his weekend off and time's a tickin'. I was starting to feel bad for the guy and was going to tell him not to worry about it, but lo and behold I was ready to go! In trying to be a hero and prove to myself that I could handle some pain, I had tensed myself up so badly that I had stalled the progression. Dr. Rathee arrived around 4pm and we joked about beating my record of 14 minutes. We aimed for 12. We got 43! She was stuck on my pelvic bone AND she was sunnyside up so I definitely had my work cut out for me, but she is worth it! She had pretty massive bruising on her forehead from my pelvic bone as you can see in the pictures, and she still has a dent on her nose but perfect in every other way! She scored 9/9 on her Apgars, and had the doctor a little surprised that she never developed jaundice being that badly bruised. We were very homesick and missing Maddison so we even came home a day early. The first night home was ROUGH. She screamed from 11pm-3am when I finally caved and gave her some formula. She zonked for 2 hours. I supplemented with formula the next 4-5 feedings and then tried pumping to see if she had been getting anything for the last 2 days - not a drop! Poor thing was starving, so we continued on formula until my milk came in and now she's a happy healthy breastfed baby!

On Tuesday Oct 5, she had her first visit to the pediatrician. She was down to 5lb 12oz and 18.4" long. Not suprised about the 7oz weight loss drop since she starved the first 48 hours of her life, but the doctor wasn't too concerned and said she should be back up by the following week (Today). Her 8" shrink in height is due to her head going back to it's normal shape, so really that's what her real length was.

As of today, she is back up to 6lb 2.5oz and 18.5" long. She is gaining her weight back perfectly and even grew a little. She had her second NBS done today (heel prick) and even had a visit to SmashBurger!

So, we are all doing well, Maddison just adores her. It took her a day to be able to touch her, but now she loves to hold her, hug her, kiss her, play pat-a-cake, this little piggy - you name it. She's a great big sister and a great Mommy's helper too! We are all still adjusting to the new addition and the lack of sleep. Marc took 2 weeks off of work, so he will go back next Monday and I am a little nervous about getting Maddison off to school on time but I am sure we will figure it out! We are still trying to introduce Kylie to everyone, breastfeeding isn't exactly the most convenient thing, so if we have not seen you yet it's only because we are not coordinated enough to just throw a blanket over us yet. But we will figure that out too! Pics to come next!

Not so wonderful news...

I've been having my normal NST and BPP's every week. I missed last weeks, but the week before that I asked if they could give me an EFW (estimated fetal weight), but since it wasn't on the order from the doctor they couldn't. Well I haven't noticed any belly growth and barely any weight gain in the last 2 weeks, so I asked my doctor on Tuesday if he could add EFW to the order, which he did. 2 weeks ago at 35 weeks gestation she measured in the 40th percentile for growth. Not terrible considering Marc and I are not the largest people on earth! At this point the baby should be gaining about a half a pound per week. Yesterday I was told she has dropped to the 11th percentile and my doctor told me to prepare to have the induction talk at Tuesday's appointment. This is pretty disappointing for me as I was really looking forward to a better (more natural) birth experience this time around. For those who don't know about my last, there were no health complications, but upon being admitted I was strapped to continuous monitoring, IV fluids, and other than a trip to the bathroom I was to stay in bed. This lasted 14 hours. By the time I had delivered I was blown up like a parade balloon which is pretty uncomfortable! This time around I had planned on a hep-lok and oral fluids for as long as I was allowed and was planning on an active upright labor. I'm not sure how much of this will change now, but I'll find out Tuesday. I'm really hoping that although I'll have to have pitocin, I can still go without IV fluids for a while and will be able to at least walk around. But even if I have to be stuck in bed for another 14 hours strapped to continuous monitoring and blown up like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, this is by far what's best for baby since the concern is that my placenta is shutting down. Despite my birth plan desires, the goal isn't to have an amazing birth experience, it's to have a healthy baby so how that goal is achieved really isn't the concern anymore! Well, I will know more on Tuesday afternoon so I will update as soon as I find out. Unless they decide to induce that night!

32 more days!!!

But who's counting, right? ME! I've officially hit the miserable stage, but I won't complain to you. That's what Marc is for! :)

An update on baby: My belly was measuring 3 weeks small as of my 32 week appointment so they set me up with weekly NST (Non-Stress Test) and BPP's (Biophysical Profile). The NST is just a test done in the hospital where they hook me up to the monitors and watch how often baby moves as well as her heart rate during these movements. They want to see at least 2 heart accelerations of at least 15bpm above her heart's resting rate in a 20 minute period. Little gymnast has passed the last 2 tests with flying colors. She's extremely active, and at yesterday's appointment she had the hiccups during the test and was kicking the monitors so hard the nurse had to turn the volume way down because it was so deafening! The Biophysical Profile is an ultrasound that basically checks for the same things. They want to watch and make sure the baby is practicing breathing (which she is!), check the veins and placenta and make sure everything is flowing well (which they are!), and they also measure the amniotic fluid (which has been fine!). This past Monday the doctor did a quick growth scan in the office and she measured 4lb 15oz, which puts her in the 40th percentile. At this late in the game ultrasounds can be off +/- 1lb, so really it's just an estimate. But, basically - she's a healthy baby that has small parents. I can't complain about all the tests though, since I get to peek at her once a week!

The nursery is pretty much finished, just dragging my feet on applying the vinyl wall quote because I'm scared to mess it up! Big sister Maddison is not-so-patiently awaiting her baby sister's arrival. We created a ring calendar a week ago so she is beginning to understand just how much longer we have to wait! Marc is getting a little anxious as well. He has 2 more weekends of work and then he's on "baby watch". He will be taking 2 weeks off of work to bond with baby so it will be really nice to have him home! I do have to say that I am the most impatient of all! I am definitely looking forward to meeting her and getting some comfortable sleep! It might not be a whole lot of sleep, but at least I'll be comfortable!

One more tid bit of good news that I just heard today is that my mom and James will be moving back to Phoenix!! At the very latest they will be here by next June, but if they can sell their house before then they will be here a lot sooner! So everyone pray they get a good offer on their house soon so they can finally make it back to the valley after being gone for 4 years!

Anyway, thats a quick update on what's been going on around here! I'll post the finished nursery as soon as I get up the courage to apply that quote!

Nursery Progress!

Nursery painting is finally complete!! Well, almost. You'll see why down below. Dad came over yesterday and replastered the section of wall that was ruined by the wooden border, so this morning after I cooked a hearty biscuits 'n gravy breakfast we got straight to work!

Smoothing out the plaster job. What a MESS! Maddi helping paint the pink part.

She was very happy to have a part in painting her sister's room!

The finished product! Just missing the chocolate brown chair rail in between the two colors to match the one on top.

Maddison and Mommy Day

Today Maddison and I had Mommy 'N Me kind of day. I promised her last night that if she stayed in bed and went right to sleep after Oliver & Co. on cassette was over that I would take her ot see Despicable Me. Well, she was a very good little girl and suprised me by waking up at 6:45am! I was already up and had been on my morning walk with Sedona, so we woke up Marc, sent him off to work, did Pre-Natal Yoga together, had breakfast and then started getting ready for the movies. Despicable Me was super cute! I chuckled through the whole thing basically and even teared up at the end. Then I took Maddison for a chocolate ice cream cone and she helped me try to pick out a dress to wear to Derek and Angela's wedding on Friday. After that we went to Barnes N Noble and she picked out Princess and the Frog Read Along. We read a bunch of books and then she wanted to go to Pier 1 Imports next door to go "furniture shopping". Since she was highly anticipating her cousin Joey to come over we didn't stay very long. Nicholas was sleeping so Joey and Maddison's play-time will have to wait until tomorrow which she is kinda bummed about, but all in all I'd say we had a very fun day together!

Weekly Update

I stole this from a fellow preggo blogger =)

How far along? 26 weeks 5 days!

Total weight gain: As of 7/15/10 it was 13.5 pounds! I have since eaten like a hog so I am afraid to know what it will be when I weigh myself next Tuesday.

Best moment this week: That's tough. I'm on week 2 of being a SAHM so really I am enjoying ever second I get to spend with Miss Maddison. Can't pick a best moment!

Movement: TONS! She is quite the acrobat in there! I can see my whole belly roll and move with her and she is starting to make me a little uncomfortable these days!

Gender: Female. I'll have to come up with a new one for next week since this one won't be changing!

Belly button in/out: It's pretty much out. You can't see it yet through a shirt, but very soon!

What I miss: Being able to sit and lay comfortably.

What I am looking forward to: NO HEARTBURN! This kid is going to come out like a gorilla if this heartburn keeps up! It's aweful =(

Milestones: We are now in the semi-safe zone is God forbid something were to happen and she came early. 24 weeks I believe is the beginning since baby's lungs are a little more developed but I would prefer her to bake a LOT longer!!

Inspiration...

This is the bedding we bought for Miss Cylie's nursery.

This is a little inspiration for what I want to achieve with the bedding. I LOVE this room. I'm not a huge fan of the fabric dresser though. Since we do not have tray ceilings we can not do the silk on the ceiling (which I LOVE), but I love the warmth of the room and the color scheme is somewhat similar to Cylie's bedding. The picture of it seems ultra pink, but it's more of a dusty rose in person so this would be a nice room to create around it.
I also fell in love with this room. I saw this one before I saw the last and absolutely loved it. I couldn't pull off the look exactly since we have an espresso dresser and side table and an oak crib (not excited about them not matching but oh well!). But again, I love the feel of the room and if you notice the paint colors are similar in these 2 rooms. I had originally planned to do a paint job similar to the one shown in the bedding photo but with creme stripes on top. Now I am really liking the sage green. Much to think about!

I really don't get the tree thing. If you go to Rate My Space where I found these photos and view the nursery pics like 60% of all nurseries on there have trees painted on the wall. Tree of life?? Maybe. But I really don't get where that trend started or why SO many people are following it. Another 30% have huge alphabet letters painted usualy on one wall, with the letters turned different directions. I usually see this in boy rooms. Again, cool idea, but when soooo many people do the same thing it kinda kills it for me. Still love the color scheme and overall feel of the room. Can't wait to see what mine will turn out like!

A while back I had posted about a dilemma regarding the downstairs guest bedroom. Since we had never used it due to it flooding a month after we moved in we just weren't sure what to do with it. We ended up deciding on turning it into a scrapbooking/craft room for me, and Marc could have the loft to put all of his sports stuff in. Well, it's almost finished! The only thing left to do is add a second coat of paint and install the closet doors. Oh, and it needs a shleving unit and chair/sleeper sofa which we have not purchased yet. Other than that, voila!

I can't wait to get some work done in there! So far I still have not had time. Being a SAHM is a lot busier than I had imagined, so hopefully once all the projects and construction is done in the house I can get busy scrapbooking again!

Cylie's Nursery

We have finally started the grunt work portion of Cylie's nursery! These pictures are going to be out of order since I can't figure out how to do it correctly all in one post. Anyhow...

Cylie's stroller and carseat! We splurged a little on this, but it's the #1 rated carseat in America and all the WTE moms raved about it. We went with the green versus the pink to be more gender neutral JUST in case Marc buys me that boat in exchange for kid #3 and it happens to be a boy!

Cylie's diaper collection, some clothes (all size 6 months for some reason??) and my Guess purse I am using as a diaper bag because I have a minor obsession with Guess purses.

Construction! We had some difficulties prying off the bottom wooden chair rail/border thinggy and made 3 holes in the drywall. OOPS! P-Paw Larry saved the day with a patch job. Next we have to re-plaster this whole section where the border was because it's pretty messed up, as you can see.

The whole room...in shambles...and done completely backwards since I just HAD to set up the crib before we started. Blame it on "nesting".



Again, sorry the "before pics" are posted after the "during pics", but I was having trouble and got impatient.

What the guest room/"Grandma's Room" looked like before...

24 week Appt.

24 weeks!! 24 week appointment went well. My belly is measuring exactly at 24 weeks, heartbeat was 156 like usual. I just had a couple people notice for the first time that I am pregnant yesterday at work which is kinda funny, so I guess I'm doing better this time as far as not gorging myself on Big Mac's and Footlongs! I will have my glucose testing at my next appointment, not really looking forward to that. Ugghh...my blood needs to stay IN my body!! With Maddison I was borderline diabetic, but with the way I ate back then I am not suprised! Hopefully everything will go fine this time around.

Good news: TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY OF WORK!!!! AHHH!! I'm so excited!! I am a little nervous too, that I'll get bored or just simply miss people interaction, but Maddison will keep me very busy I am sure! We also shave a lot of work left to be done on the nursery so that will keep me busy, and my scrapbook room finally has the wood flooring installed! All that's left in there to be done is the baseboard in the closet and it will be good to go! Marc put together my desk which is awesome! It's HUGE so I will have more than enough room to let my creativity spread out! So by the time all of that is completed I will probably have a little one in my arms so I think I have more than enough to keep me busy. So excited!!!

It's been awhile...

Well I have had a very busy couple of weeks! I am almost done with work (YAY!!) Friday will be my last day. I'm so excited to spend all of my time with Maddison, and have time for early morning walks with Sedona, and work on the nursery, and clean, and learn to cook....well...maybe not so excited about that last one! But anyway, my scatterbrain is getting to me so here is an update of my last 2 weeks.

The 16th was quite eventful! A typical HOT Wednesday at work, in my typically HOT storage room, doing the typically non-pregnancy friendly things I do, ended up not-so-typical spending 4.5 hours in the L&D unit. After spending about 45 minutes in the heat and lifting boxes and all of those super fun things, I started feeling contractions. A couple were very uncomfortable, but nothing resembling the horrific labor pains (sorry to scare first-time Mommy's out there!). I was having 4-5 an hour just sitting at my desk at work so around noon I called Dr. Rathee. They had me come in and did some poking and prodding and decided it would be best to just send me to the ER to get hooked to a monitor and make sure nothing was happening. Most of the 4.5 hours was waiting in the lobby, and by that time they had completely stopped. The nurses talked me into staying so I did. An hour and 15 minutes hooked up to the monitor and they didn't see anything alarming so they sent me home. Good news! AND a good excuse for an 11pm stop at the McDonald's drive-thru for a Big Mac!

The next day was even MORE fun! I hadn't been to the dentist in 6, yes SIX, years so I went in for a routine cleaning and exam. Nothing routine about that visit either! 5 cavities (3 under old cracked silver fillings), 2 fractured teeth, impacted wisdom teeth, root canal, crown, and gum disease. Uggghhh. I decided to let them go ahead and work on the worst tooth (the one needing the root canal and crown) and also did the most horrific gum treatment ever. They numbed my entire face, pulled back my gums from each tooth and power blasted water at them. They also chiseled away 6 years worth of tarter build-up (yuck, not sure why I am sharing all of this...). I left in absolute agony. Thankfully, this was during Maddison's week long vacation (sad face) with her father, so at least I got to go home and sleep, but I was in agony until my root canal the following Monday. That part actually turned out very well. The only bad part was there wasnt much tooth left to clamp to, so they had to clamp to my gums and I ended up with stitches back there, but I felt asbolutely amazing once the novacaine all wore off. Amazing that is for 24 hours...until the infection set it. Yikes! So I am currently on a round of antibiotics and the sore is clearing up good now so hopefully that should all be gone by the time I get my crown on July 7th. Yippee. Can't wait for that either. I still have a LOT of mouth work to be done, but the rest of it is pretty pricey so some of it might not get done until after Miss Cylie arrives. Definitely not the wisdom teeth until then. I very much would like to be able to have percocet for that!

As far as the week being away from Maddison...it was tough! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I always prepare for the worst and hope for the best (pessimistic? Maybe!), so I was really expecting to be in a deep depression the whole time. Especially when I called Tuesday and realized they were out of cell phone signal! Ugghh, so I spent my days watching lots of re-runs and put in a few extra hours at work. I was SO excited that she wanted to come home early on Friday, and surprised her dad let her. So she came home Friday and boy was she the snuggliest kid on the planet! She stayed with me until the following day until about 3:30pm when they had a BBQ but came home Father's Day (Sunday). Ohhhh soooo good to have her back! Not letting her go for that long for a WHILE!

Well next baby appt is tommorow where I will be 24 weeks!!! She is definitely getting very strong! My entire belly moves every time she kicks or rolls, and every once in a while she does something that really hurts! So I will definitely update tomorrow on how that goes. The anatomy scan was June 10th when my mom was in town for Maddison's recital (WOW am I behind on this!) and she was 13oz at 21 weeks 2 days. I doubt Ill get another ultrasound but a girl can hope, right?!

Memorial Weekend at Upper Lake Mary

My catchin's

Sedona enjoying the freezing water

Maddison and her Ladybug friend

Marc getting his pole ready

P-Paw Larry and Maddison




Ahhh...what a peaceful weekend it was! Marc, Maddison, my dad, Sedona and I all made the drive up to Lake Mary on Friday afternoon for a camping and fishing trip. I hadn't been there since I was 4 years old and my dad caught a fish that was literally as big as I was. I'll have to find that picture and post it on here. The weather was beautiful during the day, around 72 degrees both days. the nights were a little more chilly. 36 degrees Friday night and 32 degress Saturday night! WOW that's cold! It was a great trip, so relaxing and refreshing, it was just what I needed! Not to mention Saturday I was the only one to catch anything and I caught three 7lb Pikes!!!! We haven't eaten any of them yet. Dad filleted one of them but his knife wasn't sharp enough to do a decent job of it so we canned that one and brought the rest home for him to do with some decent utensils. I'm excited to try it! I have never had Pike, neither has my dad. In fact in all the times he's been to Lake Mary he said he has never caught a single Pike! So I am pretty proud I was able to catch 3 in one day! Not to mention, decent sized fish at that! Anyway, we all had a great time, but it's soooo good to be home and showered and have a real bed to sleep in. Our air mattress apparently has a hole in it so within an hour or so we were all on the rock hard ground. Ah well, that's what "roughin' it" is all about!

Belly Pics

19 Weeks 1 Day.

16 Weeks I don't have my 8 week photo because it is stored on a phone that no longer has service. But considering there's not much to see at 16 weeks, there was even less at 8 weeks!

3D Ultrasound

Beautiful Baby Cylie

It's a................

GIRL!!!!


We had our 3D ultrasound today and got some good pictures and some very good looks at many different angles to double/triple/quadruple check that she really IS a girl. Maddison played a trick on me at one point (well, actually the ultrasound tech just wasn't the best...), so she is definitely a girl. The whole last week Ive been saying its a girl, so has Marc, and even Maddison decided she wanted a sister after she found out boys can't wear dresses with her! =) So I am very excited to start a new search for girl stuff. At first I was very set on it being a boy, I had bedding picked out and I knew exactly what I would do with his room. Now, I get to start fresh! I am a little relieved, I must say! Boys are just...not my thing! I know nothing about them, and they are just too roudy and loud for me. Plus, I am so used ot my little cautious queen, I think a dare-devil boy might give me a heart attack! Maybe next time...if there is a next time!!

As far as names for a girl, we are thinking (so far...like I said, we were set on a boy until a week ago I just had a feeling it was a girl so we havent put as much thought into girl names as we had boy names):

Top Contenders:

Cylie (Kylie)

Rylee

Makena

At one point Mackenzie was on this list also...not so sure anymore.

Names I LOVE but are afraid to get negative feedback about:

Aspen

Blake

Blair

Denver (Yes, even for a girl...I don't know whats up with the Colorado cities...don't ask.)

Kennedy

Rylee is sort of on this list too!

Prescott (Strange, maybe! But I think it's cute!)

...as of now that is all I can remember.

If she had been a boy our names were:

Mason Montgomery

Easton Montgomery

and TODAY on the way I came up with the greatest of them all which we just might use for the next (if it's a boy)....

COHEN! Yes, I did watch 2 episodes of The O.C this morning when I was up at 4am, and I'm glad I did, my special love for Seth (it's a special kind of special....like a "I wish he was my best friend/brother" kind of special) brought me to this name because as you ALL know, Summer always referred to Seth as simply, "Cohen". "He's Cohen" was her explaination for his many quirks. So Cohen Michael Strick would have been our boy, but we always have next time...maybe! =)