Belly at 26 weeks

Here is a belly shot to track my progress. Don't mind my outfit --- this is pretty much my "uniform" when I get home from work. A t-shirt, fleece, comfy pants (these or my adidas running pants), and fleece socks... Poor Travis... the guy never sees me in nicer clothing until right before we leave the house. Comfort is becoming much more important than fashion at this point :)Yes, those are bruises on my belly... Due to a condition that I recently found out that I have, I have to give daily injections (a blood thinner) in my belly. The injections leave small bruises behind for about a week. I hate the injections --- but the good thing is, the injections might allow this little guy to stay in my belly past 36 weeks :) The doctors now believe that during my pregnancy with Evelyn, my tendency to form blood clots (during pregnancy) possibly could have somewhat plugged up my placenta. That could explain the low fluid, and also the reason why Evelyn's growth tapered off at the end, which caused her early delivery.

Not much else going on here... I am having lunch with a customer today at Cheesecake Factory... YUM YUM!! Definitely looking forward to that!

Happy Birthday Little Peanut!!

Evelyn turned one on December 26th. Hard to believe how much my life has changed in the past year... Evelyn is the sweetest little girl in the world! I sometimes wonder what Travis and I did to deserve such an angel... I sometimes wonder if we used up all of our good-baby karma with baby #1... I sure hope not!!!

Here is Evelyn and my brother Gary the morning of her birthday... we had just gotten back from picking up balloons.

Here is me & Peanut before the party started...

Evelyn playing with some friends... actually, I take that back -- I think she just stole Kaitlyn's purse :)Evelyn wearing a new hat that she received -- she is also playing with her new "Bee Bop Band" -- she loves all the new noises she can make with the toy instruments!

Evelyn and Daddy opening presents...First bite of her birthday cupcake... This is YUMMY!!
MMM.... Cake!!
Evelyn getting a little bit of a sugar high...Such a silly little girl :)
Here is Evelyn (wearing another new birthday hat) and our friend Boris. She had such a sugar buzz going -- I didn't think she was ever going to want to go to sleep that night!!Evelyn's buzz is starting to wear off... She went to sleep about an hour or so later than usual on her birthday... I am sure she had cupcakes in her dreams!!Here is Evelyn and Gary in her new giraffe tent/playhouse. She loves it!! I can just picture her in a couple of years wanting to camp out in the living room in it :)
And here is Evelyn with another one of her new favorite toys. She loves to dance to the music -- she is such a little jammer!

A couple more X-mas pictures...

Here are a few more x-mas pics --- I took some of these from Sally's camera...

The first two are from Saturday, December 22nd. We all got together at Trav's grandpa's house for dinner to celebrate Bob's (Trav's dad) birthday.

I had to include this one --- since I don't have many of Evelyn and I together... I am getting better at taking advantage of the photo opportunities though... :)

Here is a photo of my dad and Evelyn on Christmas... a lot of people think that she looks like him. She has his same blue eyes --- and maybe a similar shaped forehead...

Here is Travis and his girls... don't mind his eyes being closed... they are like that in about 50% of the pictures that we take of him for some reason....
Here is Evelyn with Bob & Sally on X-mas eve:
Gotta love the little grin :)
Don't look for any teeth in the last picture.... she doesn't have any yet. I guess I got mine kinda late (but younger than 1 year) --- Travis might have got his when he was around 10 or 11 months or so... I sure hope Evelyn gets some soon!!! She can't be gumming things for the rest of her life :)

OK -- I am going to check out Celebrity Apprentice... I promise Evelyn's birthday post soon...

Merry Christmas!!

Here is a copy of our Christmas card... thought I would share it with whoever reads my blog :)

We had an amazing Christmas this year! We started the festivities on X-mas Eve --- Travis, me, Evelyn, Chuck, Kim, Bob & Sally all met up for Mass together. Here are a few photos:

My family (brother Gary, his girlfriend Emily, Mom & Dad) all flew in on X-mas morning. It was so fun to have a full house for Christmas!! I had spent extra time decorating and making cookies and sweets this year. I couldn't help it -- I was excited!! My family and Trav's family all came to our house Christmas day to have an early dinner and celebrate together.

Evelyn loved the wrapping paper, bags, and boxes. Cocoa was excited for about the first 30 minutes -- and then she took a nice long nap.
Here is Travis, my mom, Evelyn and Cocoa on the couch:

Here is Emily and Evelyn (I think this picture is out of order -- this is before presents)
Here is Chuck and Kim (holding a dog toy)
Here is another random picture:
Evelyn surrounded by gifts:
That is all for now... I am going to save Evelyn's birthday post for tomorrow or Thursday... Travis and I are going to veg on the couch right now and watch a movie :)

Double strollers?

Anybody out there have a recommendation for a good double stroller? We will have a newborn and a 16 month old... we have just started looking into strollers and I don't know where to start.

The ones that hold the infant carriers just look so enormous!! But I don't know if I would be able to live without using the infant carrier/carseat. When Evelyn was little, it was so easy to just pop her in and out of the car, stroller, etc -- and not have to unbuckle her or wake her up if she was sleeping...

Any tips or ideas?

Just pictures...

So I am completely behind on updates -- so I am just going to include a few recent photos...

Here is Evelyn in a new festive outfit from her Nana (Trav's mom):

Here is Evelyn meeting Moose (her godparent's cat) -- she was much more interested in him than he was in her...
And here is my favorite --- pictures from our tree cutting (these were from the beginning of December sometime). Keep in mind --- it snows like once a winter in Seattle. I was extremely excited to be going to get our tree while we were getting a "snow storm". It definitely made it feel like Christmas was coming :) I also really love the place where we get our trees from... it is a huge tree farm about 30 minutes away. They give you a saw and let you go cut down whatever tree you want. They also provide free hot chocolate and apple cider -- YUM!

Look at Trav's jacket in the picture -- it totally looks like something a gas station attendant would wear, doesn't it?? These were part of our old process engineer uniforms from when we worked together in Iowa... they even had our names embroidered on them -- aren't they great?!?

11 month photos... very late

I just realized that I forgot to put Evelyn's 11 month picture on here... things have been SO busy lately!! This picture was taken actually one day before she turned 11 months.
I was anxious to get the picture taken because I wanted to work on the invitations for her first birthday party. It was quite the little art/computer project for Travis and I. It was a lot of fun!! Here is what one side of the invitation looked like...
We are having her party on her actual birthday (the 26th) --- just invited family and a few close friends that live in the area. We have both sets of grandparents in town for Christmas -- so we wanted to celebrate it when all of the immediate family could get together. Should be fun!!


I have more updates (from Christmas tree cutting to decorating the house, etc)-- but will post them tomorrow or something... I am going to wrap a few Christmas presents and then relax and watch some tv.