ONE YEAR.

It still seems surreal to me.  An entire year has gone by since I gave birth to our sweet girl in San Antonio.  Hard to believe that this time last year, we were still in the hospital; Nic was almost finished with his Nurse Transition Program, and we were preparing to make the drive back to Lubbock.  Since then, we've moved across the country, made new friends, Nic started a new job, we joined a new church and small group, and have gotten pregnant again.  My, what a year. 

The thing that's most surreal about it is how far Audra has come.  The cliche "they grow up so fast" definitely rings true.  She's really not much of a baby anymore.  She's a toddler.  She's walking, and doing things on her own.  Of course, she needs my help with nearly everything; but not like she did when she was first born.  When Nic and I sang "Happy Birthday" I felt a little tear-y just thinking about how she'll never be the tiny little girl we brought home again... from here on, she only gets bigger.  Of course, I know that's a good thing, it's all just happened so fast.

All about our newly-one-year-old-Audra:
Motor Development: 
She's walking, pretty much like a pro.  She can cross the entire length of the house, and definitely gets to where she's going.  She walks a lot more than she crawls.  Crawling is still faster, though, so if she's on a mission she'll resort to crawling.  

Talking:
She can say:  mama, dada, hi, bye-bye, nigh-nigh (night-night), bobble (bottle), and whoa.  The funniest of these is "whoa."  Her timing with it is perfect.  Just a few minutes ago, she vigorously shook the bag that holds all of her plastic Easter eggs (still a favorite toy despite it not being Easter anymore), and all the eggs went flying everywhere.  She looked around and said, "Whoa."  On her birthday, she was being crazy and shaking her head back and forth really fast (can you say too much sugar?).  She lost her balance and fell backwards then immediately rolled to her stomach and said, "Whoa."  She's quite the crack-up.  I don't know where she got "whoa," since I don't think I say it too often, but maybe I'm wrong. 

Favorite "toys":  Of course, most of her favorite things to play with are non-toys (which is why we don't buy all too many of them ourselves).

• Her very most favorite thing to play with is the dishwasher.  She loves to splash around in the wetness that falls out of clean dishes.  She will also take out most of what she can reach while we're loading the dishwasher... which is why we now load it while she's sleeping or eating, or super distracted.  (Though as soon as she hears us doing dishes, she races over to the kitchen haha.)  
• Her next favorite thing to play with is probably any paper product, most specifically toilet paper.  It really sucks if we accidentally leave the bathroom door open haha.  
• After that I would say she loves things with buttons; especially any remote or phone she can get a hold of. 
• Of her toys, she will sometimes play with the little blocks we got her for her birthday.  She enjoys putting them in and taking them out of the bucket.  (She generally enjoys putting anything in and taking anything out of a space.)  
• As mentioned above, she still likes to play with her Easter eggs.  
• She has figured out how to gracefully get out of her little kid armchair that her Lolli (Nic's mom) got her.  She used to just throw herself out of it, which was funny to watch.  Now she knows how to get both feet on the ground and stand up.  So lately, she's been doing that over and over.  
• She often opens her books and will "read" them.  This is super cute to watch. 
  
  It's been a lot of fun to watch her learn through play. 

Eating:
She is trying nearly everything we eat, not always liking everything at first.  We rarely feed her pureed food anymore.  She's good at feeding herself finger foods, and is getting decent as using a spoon when we're in a mood to let her get messy.  She's not a huge fan of vegetables unless they're seasoned in some way, and I don't blame her.  ;)

Temperment:
She's a pretty easy-going baby.  She wakes up happy, and will stay happy throughout the day if all of her needs are met within a reasonable amount of time.  She really enjoys getting out of the house and being around people.  She's most in her element when she's interacting with others.

Sleep:
She takes one nap a day around 11 or 12, and sleeps for 1.5-2 hours.  She goes to bed between 7 and 8 and sleeps about 11 hours straight.  We've found a correlation between amount of calories consumed in a day and the time she wakes up in the morning.  The more we feed her, the later she sleeps.  She's usually awake by 6:15 or 6:30; 7:00 or 7:30 if she ate a lot the day before.
  
One whole year of getting to know this girl.  I couldn't dream up a more perfect child for us if I tried.

A Damper on Plans

'

Well...  I guess we won't be camping.  It was already going to be an undertaking of its own just going with a 1 year old for the first time and figuring out all those logistics.  But add in being 3 hours away and tropical storm Andrea set to hit Friday, and it could be a royal recipe for disaster.  So we're going to stay dry at home and try again another weekend.  Maybe somewhere closer to home, for the first time.  And after she's walking like a real champ.  (Right now she can cross rooms, but if she REALLY wants to get somewhere, crawling's still her go-to.)

So, there we go.  Andrea put a bit of a damper on our plans (literally).  But the weekend's not a total bust, since a good friend of ours is having a birthday and now we'll be able to make the festivities!  :)  I hope all of you out there are staying safe and dry! 

XOXO,

Stefanie

Lots Happening!

Well hello again!  Finally!  It's been just a *little while* since I've updated.  Sorry about that.  There's been a lot happening around here!  Getting pregnant!  Audra's birthday (in less than a WEEK!)!  Preparing to camp with an almost 1 year old!  Aye yai yai!! 

So here's the 4-1-1.

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By now, most of you probably know that we're expecting again!  Do you know what happens during the first trimester of pregnancy?  That's right: your body builds a whole ORGAN (the placenta).  Along with that comes being very very tired.  Instead of writing on this little blog, I've been lounging on the couch, not doing housework, and letting Audra play.  Granted, not a whole lot of rest is happening when you're caring for a baby at the same time.  But in general, I haven't had the energy to put forth toward other things.  But now?  Now we're at 15 weeks and I'm feeling like a new person!  I even swept, steamed & vacuumed the floors yesterday!  And dusted!  And did laundry!  It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life!  And I'm feeeeeelin' good!!! 
I've been getting a lot of questions about this pregnancy, so let me answer some for you, in case you're wondering too.  ;)
 
Were you trying to get pregnant? 
Not exactly.  We weren't exactly preventing it, either, if you know what I mean.  We always knew we wanted our kids close in age, so we were under the "if it happens, it happens" umbrella.  It happened sooner than we thought it would... so here we go. 

Were you surprised?
I'd read that breastfeeding can make it harder to get pregnant.  Considering I hadn't had a period yet, I was a bit surprised that I was pregnant.  But it makes sense that we got pregnant very shortly after switching to solids, when I was breastfeeding a little bit less than before.  Apparently the fact that I never had a period and got pregnant while breastfeeding means I'm a little "extra fertile."  Well. Good to know.

Since you already have a girl, are you hoping for a boy?
Nic is definitely hoping for a boy!  Of course.  I think it would be fun for Audra to have a sister so close in age.  Also, we (obviously) already have all of the girl things we would need, so re-using could save us some $.  I'm pretty sure Nic is terrified of having another girl.  He just keeps thinking about when they're both teenagers, and then possibly paying for two weddings around the same time further down the road.  He's said repeatedly that if we have another girl, trying for a third will take some convincing.  He DEFINITELY does not want THREE girls!  I'm pretty sure he'll take what he gets (but he might throw a fit!).  (That was for my teacher friends.)      

When are you due?
I've gotten three different due dates:  Nov. 27, Nov. 30 & Dec. 1.  My OB is going by the earliest one since apparently there are certain procedures that can't be done until the 39th week, even if medically necessary.  (My OB spent like 5 minutes explaining this to me, though all I really remember is what I just said.)  So taking the earlier date would allow those procedures to get done if we need them without waiting longer.  They aren't hard and fast about an induction at 41 weeks, especially since my due date has been so variable.  We already said we'd just keep an eye on things at the end and just see how everything looks before scheduling an induction- if this baby goes over like Audra did.

Are you delivering on base?
We opted to downgrade our insurance so I can see a civilian provider instead of a military provider.  I'll be delivering at one of the local hospitals, with a civilian OB.  There were multiple reasons for this choice, the big ones being the availability of the OB and personalized care. 

Are you going to try to deliver naturally this time?
A lot of you know that I wanted to deliver Audra naturally, but due to the crazy nurse and basically... FORGETTING EVERYTHING I WAS TAUGHT about delivering naturally, I ended up getting the epidural.  I still haven't decided what I want to do this time around.  Part of me really longs for that beautiful, natural birth I so badly wanted the first time.  Another part of me still remembers the pain of contractions (after all, it WAS just less than a year ago), and wants to just take the easy route and get the epidural.  We'll see.  I'll keep ya posted.
 
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Audra turns one on MONDAY!  JUNE 10th!  It's so hard to believe that my beautiful tiny little floppy baby is now walking, climbing up on stuff (the dishwasher!  her push toy!  tsk, tsk, tsk.), destroying things (the toilet paper roll and anything paper, amongst others), identifying body parts, talking, and demanding my attention.  It's amazing how far she's come!  We're going to take some pictures of her eating a (not too) sugary treat for the first time on her actual birthday and celebrate just us, as a little family.  A few weeks later we'll have a few of her little friends that she sees often & their families over for a bigger celebration.  I'm thinking of a simple theme like 'girly colored polka dots.' Keep it simple.  Nothing huge or overwhelming for this baby.  Just us, a few good friends, some cake, and a few gifts.  Just a fun day celebrating our little one year old.  :)

 

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This coming weekend, Nic's unit at the hospital is having a family camping trip in the Shenandoah Valley.  We both love camping, but are a bit hesitant to go with Audra.  She is a baby who is used to her routine, especially her nighttime routine.  She just doesn't go down easily when getting put to bed somewhere other than home.  Nor does she sleep very soundly at night while away.  Usually, she'll sleep from about 7pm-6:30am without waking up.  Or at least if she does wake up, she doesn't tell us about it.  ;)  When we're traveling, she often wakes up multiple times in the night, I think because of the unfamiliarity of everything. So that could make for some tiresome days while camping.  Despite those things, we're still going to go.  They're planning on going down Friday and coming back Sunday.  We'll pack like we're staying the whole time but have already decided to not make it too hard on ourselves.  If we feel like it's getting to be miserable instead of the fun that it should be, we'll just go home.  It'll be an adventure, either way.  I'll let you all know how it goes, and anything we did that made it easier.  Or maybe what we should have done to make it easier.  ;)

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All of that aside, things are going beautifully around here!  It's summer and the sun is shining and we've been spending a lot of time outdoors.  Last summer, Audra was just too little and demanding of our time and energy for us to get out and explore much.  She HATED the beach when we tried to take her, and in general things were just too new and crazy for us to get out a whole lot.  This summer, we've already been to the beach, the neighborhood pool, walking on trails, getting custard... (and that was all in one weekend!)  And we plan on doing more of the same, more often.  I'm still relishing in the fact that we can even go to a beach any time we want!  And it only takes 10 minutes to get there!  Nic and I have a goal of doing SOMETHING each day that he's not working.  As in, not just sitting around the house and going to CrossFit.  Like, actually going to a park or a beach or hitting the pool or hiking or paddleboating... the possibilities here are great so we're really just looking forward to doing them now that the weather's nice. 

I hope this has found you happy and well and hopefully getting some nice weather, too! 
Happy summer!








Shenandoah Valley picture found here.