Bath time

It's always fun to discover a new trick Jilly has developed. She LOVES baths and this is just one of the reasons why:



When I first saw her doing it, I ran to get the camera, but the battery died as I tried to click the picture! By the time I got the new battery in, she was all hamming for the camera, so I didn't get the shot I wanted. But soon enough she was up to her tricks again, and I was able to catch this fun moment!

This kid cracks me up!

Silly day with Jilly and Mama

Today was a fairly low-key day for Jills and me, but there were a few funny moments that I just had to share. We were all up late last night, so she and I slept way in this morning. She woke up somewhere around 11am, but I wasn’t feeling well, so I left her in there until closer to Noon. When I finally went in to get her from her crib, she greeted me with a very enthusiastic “HI!” which was fun, because she never really says Hi. :-)

But of course, goofing with her and then lifting her out of bed totally set off my empty stomach, so I made a quick dash for the bathroom. While the toilet and I were renewing our acquaintance, she first stood in the doorway giggling at the sounds I was making. Then she proceeded to come in the bathroom and imitate me, leaning over and everything. It was hilarious. It’s actually something she’s done the entire pregnancy, and it cracks me up every time. She’ll often pat my back and ask, “You okay?” as well, but today we just got the mimicking. Hehehe.

Later in the day, she was wandering around and started barking randomly. This is a new thing Steve has taught, but often with things like this, she’ll only do it when we start it. Somehow barking has stuck with her really well and she’ll just launch into it at odd times. We’ll be watching TV or whatever and then hear this “Wuff wuff!” Too funny.

One very sweet thing she did today was climb up on the couch and cuddle with me for a little bit. Then she wanted to give kisses. After giving me a couple, I asked if she wanted to kiss the baby. She lifted up my shirt (she insisted on that) and gave my tummy some good smooches. I told her to pat the baby and say Hi to the baby. She smacked my stomach and say “Hi!” It was quite sweet to see her so enthusiastic about the baby. Now, we just need to work on being a little more gentle. ;-) Good thing we have a few more months!

Well, wouldn't you know?

Well, I guess it's about time for us to spill the beans here. As many of you already know, Baby #2 is on it's way to Hall Manor! "Wildcat" is due to make its appearance sometime about Independence Day. I'm about 22 weeks along now and finally feeling human again (well most of the time).

I was seriously ill when I was pregnant with Jilly for the first trimester, needing medication every 8 hours in order to tolerate moving out of my bed, never really felt good. We were anticipating a repeat performance of that and it has mostly happened. I had about 3 weeks (between 8 and 11 weeks) that were pure hell. I was so sick, some days it was all I could do to lift Jilly out of her crib and maybe hand her a cup of juice. There were a few days where I couldn't even change her diaper until later in the day, because I was too sick to move. Luckily, I have some awesome family and friends who gladly came over and helped get us through. Not to mention an AMAZING husband who picked up all the slack and more, while I was feeling crappy. Since then some things have gotten better, but nausea still lingers if I don't eat every couple hours. So I have to express some bottom-of-my-heart gratitude to Michelle, Stacey, Jeanne, Nikiy, Heidi, and my mom and family for all the astounding help they were in either taking care of Jilly, bringing me something to help me feel better, bringing us dinner or kidnapping Jilly and me and nursing me back to health. Not to mention everyone at work and church who picked up the slack when I couldn't be there, and did it cheerfully. :-)

Now, things are getting fun. For a few weeks now (since around 15 weeks) I've been able to feel Wildcat fluttering and moving around. That's about 2 1/2 weeks earlier than I felt Jilly. But I know what to feel for now. It's such a funny feeling, because it's still in the butterflies-tickling-me stage of feeling. Of course, along with the baby being big enough to feel, means there is more pressure on my other organs. There has been more than one night lately, where I've woken up to immense pain from a very full and compressed bladder. Yep, already starting that. ;-)

My belly started popping out almost as soon as the "+" showed up on the test, which necessitated maternity clothes right away. It grew fast, then slowed down a little, so it's more in line with how much I was showing this far along with Jilly. We'll see if I get that big again, and whether I carry super low again or higher. Not sure what I would prefer...

We're not sure if this will be a boy or a girl. I was convinced it was a boy since before we got pregnant. But as Steve's mom pointed out, it's the pattern on both sides of the family (his and mine) for it to go Girl, Girl, then Boy. Then my mom started talking about how it would make things easier to have a second girl (getting to re-use most of the stuff, etc). So I started thinking, yeah, maybe a girl. Steve has no inkling either. Jilly however has said "Baby Sis-uh" on several occasions, but never Brother. But now I'm back to vacillating between thinking it's a boy or having no clue. So there you go. ;-) We are planning on finding out the gender through ultrasound, probably in the next couple months. We'll let you know.

So that's our news. Everyone get why I've been a little off my blogging game the past few months? ;-) I am trying to come back to the real world now and will hopefully be keeping things up to date a little better. But if not, just blame it on Wildcat. :-D

P.S. We're pretty darn excited, in case you couldn't tell!!!

Here is the belly shot at 8 1/2 weeks:


And here we are today at 22 weeks:

We got spoiled

Yesterday Jilly and I got spoiled. And it was great! My mom has every Wednesday off of work and often we get to hang out with her. It's really nice because it gives us an excuse to get out of the house during the day and we both get some Granny time.

My mom called at 9am to find out if we wanted to get together. We made plans for her to come pick us up and run errands. (We're pretty easy to please.) She ended up being a little late, but it was just fine, because not only were we both completely ready (a rarity for us) AND we had time to run to the mailbox. Well, she picked us up and we headed for the mall. We love the mall. :-)

We ventured around Nordstrom first, finding some cute work out clothes for Granny. Then we headed downstairs to the Kids' section to look for Easter dresses. We found a ton that we loved and were reasonable prices ($26-$36, not nad especially for Nordstrom!). Poor Jilly was getting sick of her stroller by this point, and we dragged her to the dressing room to try on a bunch of dresses. Strangely enough, we found that size 2/2T doesn't really work for her. While the length is usually fine, my kid is a bit barrel-chested and the dresses were too tight around her chest! We actually had to go with size 4 on almost everything. She ended up with 3 dresses, two for summer and her Easter dress. I tried to find pictures on Nordstrom's website, but alas! They don't have them listed....weird.

After Nordstrom, we ventured into the mall itself and while it was not our intention, we totally got sucked into the Gymboree vortex. It's like a tractor beam (sp?) with the two of us. Ridiculous, I tell you. But they were having their Baby Sale for regularly priced merchandise plus anything on sale already was 20% off. How can you pass that up?! You can't. It's physically impossible. So sucked in we were. We looked a ton of stuff we liked a lot, but eventually settled on two T-shirts and two sets of hairbows. One of the T-shirts is to match a pair of leggings I bought Jilly a few weeks ago, when we'd used our Gymbucks (which we'd earned back in December when they had another awesome sale going on).

These are the plaid hairbows. We also got some yellow and turquoise curly bows, but I can't find the picture of them.


The Butterfly T-shirt


The yellow smocked t-shirt. They had a bunch of different colors in this t-shirt.


These are the leggings I bought a few weeks ago. The yellow shirt and curly bows will complete this outfit.


After Gymboree, we were running out of time, so I ran down to a store where I had some gift cards from Christmas. Mom stopped at another store while I tried some shirts on. She met me and started giving me new things to try on. I ended up with three shirts and a dress. The dress pretty much put it over the top for what my gift cards would cover, but my generous mom offered to pay the difference, essentially buying the dress for me. The shirts are cute. One is light turquoise short sleeve t-shirt with a ruffled cross-over neckline. Another is a long sleeve hoodie, but almost mesh-like (it's so light) in green with a darker green ivy/flower print. The third shirt is also short sleeve, white with blue, green and black overlapping polka dots, and black around the collar and cuffs, plus it ties in the back. The dress is simple, sleeves are right above the elbows with a crossover neckline, in a bright magenta that comes to just below my knees. It's super soft and cozy cotton, so it's great for anytime of year, and I can wear it to church or just during the week.

We had a great time spending a few hours with Granny. She was really generous and kind to not only take us, but to buy us such cute clothes! We're spoiled!

My Purse

I was tagged by Sariah, and even if she's hadn't "officially" tagged me, I would have done it anyway. I love purses that much. :-D

My purse:

1) "Post a picture of whatever bag you are carrying as of late (and the inside too). No, you cannot go up to your closet and pull out that cute little purse you used back before you had kids. I want to know what you carried today or the last time you left the house."

The outside:


The inside:


Inside I have my makeup, a small notebook, paystub, wallet, keys, a PopTart, pens, the keys to the Parts building at work, sunglasses, lipstick and carmex, and I'm sure there's more.


2) " I want to know how much it cost:) And this is not to judge. This is for entertainment purposes only. So spill it. And if there is a story to go along with how you obtained it, I’d love to hear it."

This purse cost about $26 I think, by far the most I've ever paid for a purse. I debated about whether that was too much or not for awhile. But I wanted it badly and I was on a girls night out, so I decided to splurge and get it. And I definitely have gotten my money's worth out of it! I originally bought it so I could fit my Primary binder in a stylish purse and only take one bag to church (instead of my purse plus another bag for the binder, not to mention the diaper bag). It's ended up being great because when I go out during the day or on errands at night with Jilly, I can just throw a couple things in there, diapers, travel wipes and a sippy cup on the side and I'm good to go!

3) "Tag some chicks. And link back to this post so people know why the heck you’re showing everyone your diaper bag/non-diaper bag."

I tag:
Candace
Nancy
Christy
Michelle
Bri

Go for it ladies!!

Picture Time!

Recently, my sister griped to me that I hadn't put up any new pictures since Jilly's birthday, over two months ago. Well, first off Katie, bite me. Second, here you go. Some new pictures.

Jilly was getting ready for bed and we wrapped her up in the comfy, super soft adorable purple robe Auntie Karen sent for Christmas. You can't help but want to cuddle her for hours when she's in this!


Next we have Jilly demonstrating her most cute grin. Of course, she is chewing on her fingers at the same time. That has been a rather typical experience lately, as her upper 2-year molars are coming in (and all that goes with them, we love Motrin).


After her bath, she is still just as cute, wrapped in her towel as when she was a newborn. It never gets old. Cute little girl. :-)


Dressed in her pjs, she chows down on pretty much her favorite food, a bagel. Her food vocabulary has exploded lately as she can ask for all her favorites: bagel, apple, (ba)nana, orange, juice, milk, and go-gis (goldfish).


She has these beautiful curls in the back of her hair and I keep marvelling at them. So pretty!


This is the dress she wore to Stake Conference this morning. Auntie Terry sent it for Valentines Day. It's so pretty!!!!


And for those that don't believe me, just call her Captain Destructo!! She is insane these days, tearing apart everything in the house. This was at the end of the day, when she'd pulled only half her toys out, but gotten a hold of her diaper bag, ripped a Kleenex into tiny bits, and thrown goldfish ALL OVER. Twerp.


But just one look at that smile, and you can't stay mad. ...Or can you? ;-)


So there you go, a quick narration of some pictures from lately. Happy, Katie? ;-)

Quick Hitters

This week has been a bit of a lazy one for us. Jilly was still recovering from her cold, and I just had no energy. So there was more than one day where we both laid in bed until super late. But you could tell she was feeling better when she started destroying and coloring all over the place (see my latest Aimeeland blog). What can you expect from a 2 year old? ;-) But of course, as Jilly is getting better, Steve is coming down with her cold and has spent most of the week feeling sub-par. Poor guy.

Probably the most exciting moment of the week was the Season Premiere of LOST!!! We were so stoked about it. I think Jilly skipped her nap that day and we packed her off to bed before 9pm so we could watch in peace. It was awesome. I could go on for hours about how amazing this show is, and Steve loves it even more than I do. But we were a little weirded out by the first episode ending at 9:53pm. It didn't seem like the next episode started right away either. That was slightly annoying, but oh well. Still loved it. :-)

Another score this week was Tuesday night when my mom and I took Jilly to Gymboree to get some cute things. She had earned "Gymbucks" last month (spend $50, get $25 off during a certain time period) and I had a gift card from Jilly's birthday. So basically, we were getting $50 worth of stuff for free. Score! We found an adorable nightgown that will fit her for a looong time, as well as some bright turquoise with white polka dot leggings. We also got a couple of white undershirts, since she's outgrown onesies. This time we actually managed to bring the stroller with us (we'd forgotten the past several times we'd gone to the mall). But as always, once actually in Gymboree, Jilly insisted on being let out, so she could watch the TV. She also helped move some of the boys underwear around. Apparently, it needed to be hung in a different spot. ;-) She ran into a couple of colleagues there, who were about their same age. Once the little boy said Hi to her and she just stared at him. Then later a little girl came in, Jilly walked over to her, says Hi! and the other girl proceeds to yank the keys right out of Jilly's hands. Hahaha. It cracked me up quite a bit. We had a lot of fun with Granny. We always love Gymboree.

Jilly had her 2-year-old pictures taken at Yuen Lui last week, but since she was sick they didn't come out that great. I think we'll be getting them re-taken. Poor girl was all red-cheeked and glassy-eyed and it really showed up. The photographer did a great job getting as many shots as she did (we love Amanda at the Alderwood Yuen Lui, I would HIGHLY recommend her to anyone!) but unfortunately, Jilly just wasn't all the way there and it showed. But we'll get them redone soon and they'll look great. :-)

That's pretty much all we've been up to. We hope your week is going well!