That Darn Cat Pillow

Let me let you in on a dark secret of mine.  When I was born, my Grandma Kaiser made me a blankie.  You know the kind that you buy in a pre-quilted panel and you just have to put the binding on?  That's what it was.  The front had a scene with a sheep jumping over a fence and a second sheep running away from the fence, and the back was covered in little sheep.  I loved that blanket, and at some point in life it was referred to as my "Sheepie Blankie," and it remained named that ever after.  I used it so much that my mom put several new bindings on it when the previous ones wore out.  When I moved to Illinois for school (at 18 years old), that blankie came with me.  When I went on vacations, the sheepie blankie always came along with me, tucked safely in my pillowcase.  I slept with that thing every darn night until I was married.  I'm not even kidding.  It's **possible** that I've even slept with it a couple times after my marriage.  It's just SO COZY.  I should mention, there is no longer any sheep on the blanket, or a binding, or stuffing inside... it's completely white and see-through.  That thing has been loved to death.

Fast-forward a little.  While I was pregnant with Lex, my Grandma Kaiser bought her a fluffy cat pillow.  We all laughed about it at the time, cause it was just a funny little pillow.  After she was born, we would lay Lex on it and she'd burrow her cheek into it.  It was clear she loved it.  She now sleeps with it every night, and I'm not even kidding, this is her version of the sheepie blankie.  She sleeps so well when it's in bed with her, and on nights where she's thrown up on it or something and it's in the wash, it's always a harder for her to sleep.  When I put her to bed, I have the pillow at the top of the crib and lay her little head on it.  However, this girl is a WILD sleeper, and moves so much in the night.  I really don't even think I'll be able to move her out of a crib for a long stinkin time, cause half the time she's pressed up against the rungs--- I'm sure she'll end up on the floor frequently when I do move her to a toddler bed.  The funniest part is, when she moves in her sleep, she drags her cat pillow around with her.  I took some pictures over the course of about a week of her sleeping at night with her kitty:

I'm going to be in serious trouble if/when that thing wears out.  I've created a little mini-me!!!

13 Weeks

I seriously can't believe I'm already done with my first trimester.  I still forget I'm pregnant half the time... I've hardly been sick at all, and I'm so busy with work and a 1-year-old that time is flying!  For the past week or so, I've been feeling this little baby move!  That's seriously THE BEST part of being pregnant, and I'm excited I'm feeling movement earlier than last time.

Today I went to the doctor for my routine checkup.  He tried to pick up the baby's heartbeat on the normal little monitor in the exam room but wasn't able to get it, so I had another ultrasound.  I wasn't worried at all, because like I said, I've been feeling this baby move.  Sure enough, that tiny little kid is a wiggler!!!  The ultrasound was fun, because I could see the baby flinging it's arms and legs around and turning over... seriously, it's an active one!  My doctor gave me a couple pictures from the ultrasound:

The top one shows the back of the baby's head and it's teeny-tiny spine.  The bottom one is a profile with a little arm up by it's face.  So cute!

My next appointment is in 5 weeks, and we'll find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!!  We're excited to have Grammie there with us, and hopefully Mammie too :)  

The Deets

So since I went public a little over a week ago with this second pregnancy, I should probably document it on my blog.  If you want the short story, it's this:  This pregnancy is a completely different than my last one.

And here's the long story:

On February 4th, it occurred to me that I was a day late for my period.  I didn't think much of it, cause I hadn't been tracking my cycle too closely so I didn't know how regular I was.  I had to take Cosmo up to the vet that day, cause she'd gotten into some burrs the day before and and we couldn't get them out.  I dropped Lex off at my mom's house, and while I was on my way back to the vet to pick up Cosmo I figured it wouldn't hurt to pick up a pregnancy test.  I stopped by Wal Mart and bought a 2-pack, then I was too anxious to wait so I went and took the test in the Wal Mart bathroom.  It immediately showed a plus sign, but I thought I was reading it wrong (I hadn't looked at the box yet, and it had been a long time since I took a pregnancy test).  When I realized I was pregnant, I just kind of stood there in shock and trying not to laugh.  Since I was already at Wal Mart, I bought a Captain America onesie and I put it in DJ's truck with my positive pregnancy test while he was at school.  He was pretty excited when he found out :)  The timing is pretty much perfect... I've always wanted my babies between 18 months and 2 years apart, and these two will be a little less than 20 months apart.

On February 16th, after a tough workout, I started bleeding.  I never even spotted with Lex, so I was positive I had miscarried.  I was bleeding quite a bit, but it happened to be a Saturday night and Monday was a holiday, so I knew I couldn't go to the doctor for several days.  I was certain it was a miscarriage, but for some reason I felt so calm about it.  I just knew that whatever happened, Heavenly Father was in control and I'd be fine.  The next morning we went to Kennedy's baby blessing, and while we were singing the opening song in Sacrament meeting (I Know That My Redeemer Lives), I had a little meltdown.  I tried to keep it together and not make a scene, but I couldn't stop crying.  It just made me so sad to think Lex wouldn't get her little brother or sister so quickly.  I know Nikki saw me crying, and maybe Jill, but I pulled it together pretty quickly and moved forward.  On Monday I started feeling really sick, and on Tuesday I called my doctor first thing in the morning to let them know what was going on.  They had me come in immediately and they did an ultrasound to see what was going on.  The baby was teeny tiny and 100% okay!  I was really relieved, needless to say! 

Two weeks later I went back to the doctor for my routine 8 week check up, and again everything was fine.  Two weeks after that, we told everyone I'm pregnant.  We were going to wait until this week when we were in Disneyland with my family, but last Sunday at church a lady came up to me and asked if I was having another baby.  I was like, "Ummmm... yes!"  It was super funny cause I hadn't told anyone else yet so I felt a little bad telling a random lady in my ward, but I couldn't lie to her!  So I told DJ we needed to tell our families that day.  I figured that if a Latina was asking me about it, white people were thinking it. (Just one of the many reasons I love my ward-- people aren't afraid to say what they think!!!)  We made Lexsi a onesie that said, "I have a secret," on the front and the back said, "I'm going to be a big sister!"  She wore it over to my parents' house for dinner and that's how we let them know.   We also sent a picture of her in the onesie to DJ's parents, and called the rest of his family.

This pregnancy has seriously been a breeze.  Like, I barely even feel pregnant!  I'm not sick (SO weird-- last time I was sick for like 30 weeks!!!), which may be the pregnancy, and may be that I'm on Zofran.  Either way, it's awesome.  Last time I wanted sugar All. The. Time.  and this time around all I want is fruit, which made me sick last time.  So I'm much better off-- I've actually been losing weight cause I'm eating so healthy!  I have heartburn like mad again-- looks like we have another baby with a head full of black hair on the way. The bad news is, I can't drink milk.  Last time I drank SO much milk and it helped with the heartburn, but this time it makes me so sick.  It's super weird, cause I can eat cheese, yogurt, ice cream... any other dairy but drinking milk.  So that's dumb.  My stomach has already popped out a little, thanks to my previously-stretched tummy muscles.  I'm okay with it, cause, well... that's life.  

All in all, this pregnancy rocks.  I'm so excited to have another tiny baby!  I think it's a girl, but we'll find out in about 7 weeks :)  

Alterations

Last fall, I discovered Wal Mart sold some really cute, cheap colored skinny jeans.  I was in love, and went a little crazy, purchasing 5 pair.  They looked adorable paired with boots all winter, but I discovered an unfortunate truth:  My calves and ankles were far too skinny in comparison to my hips for the pants to look good without boots on:

 I decided today to convert my pants to capris for summer time!  Since the bottoms of the pants were the parts that didn't look great, I just chopped them off and re-hemmed them:

MUCH better!  I did two pairs shorter, and two pairs a little longer:

I'd say I'm ready for Spring!!!

Home Improvement

 This morning, DJ and Sean were outside digging holes for our fence posts:

They were working so hard and I'm so excited to have a new fence... and it made me want to do some work on the inside of the home.  Heaven knows it needs it-- I've basically done nothing but hang a couple pictures since I moved in in October.  Pathetic.  So today, I decided to paint my back splash.  I decided painting would be the best option, as I don't plan on living here forever and what if I put up tile someone hated and then they didn't want to buy the house or something?  Paint isn't a big deal-- just paint over it.  So I bought a stencil, paint, and a couple supplies.  Less than $30 and about an hour later, my kitchen had gone from this:

To this:

Now, if you're coming to my house, don't look too closely-- it's definitely not perfect!!!  But I really like the result and the vibe it gives my kitchen.  Now to spice up the rest of the house...  :)

My Big Girl

 Two weeks ago, my little girl turned a year old.  Honestly, that was the fastest year of my life!  It flew right by!  A couple weeks before her birthday, we had some pictures taken of her:

Could you just die from her cuteness?  Gah.  That girl.  

We had two birthday parties for her this year; one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  The Saturday party was for the Savage side, and we had a LOT of people there.  Debbie and Rod, Karen and Jon and their 4 kids, Michelle and Sam, David, Megan and Kennedy, Nikki, Keesha and Sean, and Jordan, Jill and Kate all came.  We played a couple games, had some snacks and just hung out together.  Lex got super spoiled, and was particularly in love with a baby doll from Debbie, Rod and Michelle that laughs and babbles and kicks her legs.  Here are some pictures from that day:

 I found her in her bedroom emptying her tissue box... typical:

Singing "Happy Birthday" at the party:

On Sunday we had a party with the Kaiser side, so we had Grammie and Tooge, plus Josh and Carly and their 4 kids.  We did pretty much the same thing as the previous day, but it was really fun cause we had a double birthday party with Sarah as well.  Lex and Sarah have back-to-back birthdays, and we were so happy that Sarah lives here now so we could celebrate with her!

Lex in Daddy's silly glasses:

DJ and Lex, Josh and Sarah:

So here are some updates on my sweetheart:

- She still isn't walking, and I don't know that she will be any time super soon.  She's a super fast crawler, and cruises the furniture, but doesn't show much interest for walking.  I always thought she'd be an early walker, but I've learned that kids are all different and I'm not going to push her to do it-- she'll do it when she's ready, and that's just fine!

- Her favorite foods are pizza, spaghetti, french fries, chips, rice cakes and yogurt drops.  She's OBSESSED with pop-- she'll come over and give you puppy dog eyes if you're drinking it.  She just knows what's in that can and she wants to have some!

- New words:  Hola (which often gets confused with "hi," and turns into "Hi-la!"-- so funny), doggy, puppy and baby.  Puppy and baby sound an awful lot a like, but they clearly mean different things.  Also, when she babbles to me it's usually things like "bub bub," and "ya ya,"  but when she babbles around Spanish speakers, it's "laka laka laka."  So, she really does get the difference between the languages, which is cool and super funny.

- She LOVES to play the piano!  She's discovered she can pull herself up on the piano bench and play the piano from a standing position, and she does it regularly.  She knows what the piano is, and can be doing something completely different, but when I say, "Will you play the piano for me?"  She goes right over and plays it.  I love it!

- Her new favorite song is the one with Tiny Tim eating the soap and getting bubbles in his throat... when I do the "bubble bubble bubble," part, she gets super excited and does the big "POP!" with me.

- Her favorite pastimes include emptying anything-- my drawers get emptied daily, as well as book shelves.

- Her daddy is still her favorite person, but she's gotten more attached to me as well.  After us, her favorite person is probably baby Kennedy-- she's just obsessed with babies!


And now just a few more pictures of my beautiful girl:

Can you even handle those big brown eyes?  She's far too pretty for her own good.

She's moved on from picture books to things like "Dear Dumb Diary,"  haha:

Playing the piano:

Still the craziest sleeper I know:

9-10-11 Months

So-- hey!  Haven't done Lexsi's monthly update for the last quarter of the year... oops.   Let's just say I didn't keep up so that when I don't do it for any of my other kids they won't feel as bad.

Anyway...  Lex is so big now.  Over the past few months she:

-- Has turned into a master crawler.  She's so fast!

--  Is more punky than ever-- she knows she's not allowed to push buttons on the DVD player and X-Box, so she starts to crawl slowly toward them, and as soon as DJ or I say her name in a warning tone, she crawls as fast as her little legs can take her towards the untouchable, and pushes buttons as fast as she can.  When we come pick her up, she laughs her head off.  We've been holding her on time out on our laps when she does things she knows are wrong, which she doesn't love.  It's sooo hard not to laugh though, because before she gets off time out, she has to turn toward us and we talk to her about what she did wrong.  She usually throws her head back or looks anywhere EXCEPT our faces-- she knows she's busted.  She also will lean forward and give you hugs to try to get out of the talk.  The funniest time was when I let her go and turned her toward me, I held her face in my hands to make her look at me, and she YELLED at me!  For several seconds, she just yelled right in my face.  You have no idea how hard it was not to crack up.  I think I managed to do okay with keeping a straight face.  Good grief, that girl!!!

-- Is talking more.  Her two newest words are "Hi!" (which is absolutely adorable), and she said her first Spanish word, "Mas."  {"Mas" means "more," FYI.}  So, now we're in the crazy zone where we have to try to figure out what she says in English AND in Spanish, and what is still just babbling.  It's pretty much awesome.

-- Loves to sing!  Her favorite songs are "If you're happy and you know it, " {she loves to clap her hands!} and "The wheels on the bus."

-- Plays peek-a-boo.  She doesn't always get her hands over her eyes, but if they're on her face at all she thinks it's peek-a-boo.

-- Pulls herself to standing.  She isn't cruising furniture yet, which I think is because we don't have any low furniture... She and I spend 6 hours a day upstairs where there's literally nothing for her to pull herself up on so... we'll work on that :)

-- Is a total bookworm.  She'll dig through a whole bin of toys to get to a book on the bottom.  She reads for literally hours every day.  She flips through her books and "reads" them out loud.  It's absolutely adorable!

I'm dying that I'm less than a month away from my baby turning a year old.  Where has the time gone?!  I adore her, and I'm sooo grateful for all the light she brings to my life every day!!!

9 months old:

10 months old:

11 months old: