They Finally Came!

Lydia has 2 new teeth!!! Yippeeeeeeee!!!! So now, at 20 months old, she has a total of 6 teeth - well, almost. Her new teeth are her top 1st molars, but they aren't completely in obviously - just one cusp so far. How weird is that!?!?! She doesn't have her lateral incisors yet, but we can see them coming. It honestly looks like all the rest of her teeth are trying to come in (except her 2nd molars. I haven't seen signs of those yet). She has been working on these teeth since before labor day! She got a nasty ear infection 2 weeks ago, so I knew there had to be new teeth to follow - there always is! I can't wait to see her with all her teeth!

We've decided to switch daycare. There were a couple reasons for this:
1. Lydia can't seem to stay healthy in the daycare she is at. I know, it's a daycare and kids get sick. But the other daycare has fewer kids and is at the lady's home. '
2. She kept getting bit and scratched resulting in 3 incident reports in less than a month. I felt so bad for her. But on top of that, she seems to be picking up some not so desirable behavior - like hitting and pushing other kids. I realize it is hard to disipline each toddler that acts out when there are so many kids. But since she only does it when she is around other kids, and she is rarely around other kids with us, it is hard for us to stop the behavior.
3. Money. This in-home day care will save us $200/month and it is only about 2 minutes away from our house! We met her and her family last week and really liked them. Lydia seemed to feel right at home when she was there and loved all the new toys!

So she will start there in about 1.5 weeks. I'm hoping we made the right decision and she adjusts well.

Baby - It's a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So excited! And relieved. I would have been stressed about having to get a whole new baby wardrobe, especially when money is tight right now. We have plenty of little girl clothes in sitting in bins in the basement, ready to be worn again. I am going to have to go through everything, wash it, and figure out what we might need more of. I'm super excited to decorate their room! We decided that they will share a room and I have so many cute ideas in my head! I already know how I want to lay it out! I just got Pottery Barn bedding for Lydia (who will be moving to a twin size bed) and the new baby on craigslist for a KILLER deal! I am so excited to put it all together with the white dresser we refinished. I can't wait to take pictures and put them on here! I also need to put pictures up of the ultrasound (but they are on a disc at home, and I am at work right now). The ultrasound tech said everything looks great. She is a little peanut so far. She was measuring a week behind, but the ultrasound tech that we could have just caught her before a growth spurt. Lydia measured 2 days ahead at her appointment. Since Labor Day, I have actually lost 1 lb! I don't know if you remeber, but I gained 3 pounds over the weekend and was thinking, "here we go again." But I ended up dropping those 3 pounds and ended up gaining 2 pounds total last month. I am about 2 pounds up again this month - with the next appointment coming up in about a week and a half. It is weird to me to be gaining so slowly after gaining so quickly with Lydia (I had gained 20 pound these same two months with Lydia!). It makes me worried sometimes that baby isn't growing normally - but I think she is probably just fine.

Fall - I cannot express how excited I am that it is Fall. It has to be possibly my favorite season! The weather is so much more comfortable (especially after the ridiculously HOT summer we had this year), the trees are so pretty and there is fun activities to take part in. Not to mention the anticipation of all the fun holidays coming up! We went to Emma Krumbee's apple orchard in Belle Plaine a couple weekends ago. It was beautiful weather! Lydia was kind of crabby (teeth?) but we all ended up having fun and picking some delicious Harrlson apples!



Lydia helping pick apples




Our little family - including my bump from our new litle girl :)



All smiles with grandma waiting to catch her at the bottom!



Lydia loved the pirate ship with the big yellow slide!

 I can't wait to go to the pumpkin patch now!!!! I found so many fun ideas for painting and carving pumpkins on Pinterest. So fun!! 

Love, Brie

Already?!?!

We are playing the Fall league of sand volleyball this year, which I am so excited about! DH and I have so much fun playing. We have played the Summer leauge the last couple years and this year, I guess we all wanted more :) We play with my dad, DH's mom, brother, sister and dad (Except he is injured for this season). It is good family time (for the most part, haha) and so nice to have a reason to see everybody at least once per week. We had our first games of the Fall season last night - we won all 6 games (3 games/match)! Great start, especially having an aweful finish to the Summer season (We narrowly avoided a family brawl due to the overly competative nature of a certain family member). A problem has arisen, however. I got up this morning and had a hard time walking. It is a familiar pain. I had the same thing happen with Lydia. It is lower pelvic/groin pain. I think SPD is kicking in, already :( It did not happen this early with Lydia. If I remember correctly, it held off until the third trimester the first pregnancy. I guess we'll see what happens after the games next week. Maybe it's a fluke. Maybe I just tweaked something weird?

In other news....We find out what we are having on FRIDAY!!!! Yay! My oppointment was originally made for for next Tuesday, but I just couldn't stand to wait until I was 20 weeks +1 day! So I called and had them switch the appointment to Friday :) I'm definitely thinking girl. The heart rate has been the same as Lydia and I've had very similar symptoms, just stronger with this pregnancy.

DH is thinking we should put both kids in the same room. He thinks there is no reason why they would need their own rooms at this age. I definitely see his point. It would be much easier to have them share a room if this one is a girl also. But I suppose we could make it work either way. They just wouldn't be able to share a room for as long. We'll have to think about it.

Miss Lydia is definitely getting teeth! She woke up (after she had a rough night) Saturday morning with about 8 bumps in her mouth where she is working on getting teeth in. 8!!!! That is crazy! It would be great if she actually did get all 8 at one time and get them over with. Then we wouldn't have to keep going through the teething process over and over again. I can't wait to see all those new teethers either! It's going to be so cute! I just hope we have a couple more good nights of sleep in the meantime. Although I think last night was a fluke and we just lucked out ;) She stayed with my MIL Saturday night while DH and I had a BBQ and bonfire with friends. She only woke up once (from 3-4am) that night, which is pretty good lately.

Here are some pictures of her weekend:


Eating corn at Grandma's




Checking out Grandpa's peppers

 Doesn't she look so big?!?! I can't believe it! I was asked this weekend if she is 3! She is only 19 months! It went too fast! But she is so fun at this age. She is talking so much! She learns so quickly now. She knows most of her body parts - head, hair, teeth, nose, cheeks, eyes, chin, ears, shoulders, arm, elbow, belly, belly button, leg, knee, foot, toes! We are working on letters, colors and numbers. She can count to 3 and is practicing "A-B-C." She is going to be speaking in full sentences before we know it!

Love, B

Escape Artist?

For the past week it has felt like my little bug has been trying to escape my belly! It seems my tummy is expanding daily and some days it feels like the little one is just going to expand right out of me! It is showing too... I think I went from barely showing/you wouldn't really know I was pregnant unless you knew me to "um, that is definitely a baby in there!" In a week! That doesn't seem right, does it??? Accompanying the growth of my belly is extra pounds. 5 lbs to be exact. In the last 2 weeks. But who's counting (I AM!!!)?

My appetite has been out of control. I have to eat every 2 hours, at least. I had been doing pretty well with making good, healthy food choices. This weekend was different. And it shows (at least I think so). We were up at Woman Lake Lodge from Saturday to today (Tuesday). We had an abundance of food, none of which I would consider healthy, with the exception of the fruit I brought. We had brats and burgers, chips and dip, fried fish and jalapeno poppers, soda and cookies, muffins and pancakes. I could go on, but I think you get the point. I guess those extra 3 pounds I put on this week is good motivation to eat right and exercise more. I am planning on  gaining no more than 15 more pounds for the rest of the pregnancy. Hopefully I don't put on any more weight the next couple weeks - the last two weeks already exceeded my weight gain quota for the month ;)

Miss Lydia had a great time up at the lake! She came fishing with us and loved looking at the fish. She liked the boat rides too. She was able to run around and explore lots of new things. The thing she didn't like about being up at the lake was not having her bed to sleep in. We brought the pack and play for her and her pillow and blankies. Apparently it just didn't cut it. She slept well 1 out of the 3 nights we were there. The other 2 were a battle. She refused to sleep in her pack and play. And she wasn't happy laying with us either. That meant to calm the raging baby, we had to stand and sway with her. This had to happen for at least an hour before we could even think about laying down with her. That was not fun. We think she is getting some teeth too. She has been drooling more, tugging at her ears and seems pretty uncomfortable at night. We have been giving her ibuprofen at night, but I don't like to give it to her so often. She sleeps so much better when she has it though. Hopefully those teeth poke through soon and we get our good sleeper back!

That's about all the updating I have for now. I'll see if I can get my hands on some pictures of Lydia from this weekend and post them on here.