The pictures are of a playdate with Kevin and Miss Pickles. The short video is Nevi's interpretation of my impression of Captain James T. Kirk, at a moment of heightened frustration, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

December 1st....big day!

December 1st was a big day here on Lydia Dr. We celebrated my 34th birthday one day late but it was worth the wait. Robb made a pot roast with veggies (yum!) and Nevi and Robb together made a beautiful poke cake that tasted great and gave me a HUGE sugar buzz! Robb decorated and wrapped lots of fun presents for little 'ol me and as usual, he made me feel great. A fun celebration! After our party, we had an official streamer-cutting-ceremony to initiate Nevi into her new big girl bedroom. Robb turned her toddler bed back into the crib and now the baby room is ready for the little man. All of Nevi's clothes and toys are in her room now so I guess it's official. We praised Nevi to the high heavens for how proud we were of her that she was gracious enough to give up her bedroom for her baby brother. She has had NO interest in changing bedrooms but Robb and I both agreed that we wanted her to be comfortable in her big girl room well before baby arrives. She was excited about our ceremony but did put up a bit of a fight once she realized she was going to actually sleep in her new room. By 10pm, luckily, she was settled and sleeping - slept through the night but did wake earlier than usual (7am) ready for some additional security in her new surroundings. All in all, she is doing great with the transition and I couldn't be more proud of Nevi . I anticipate that she is going to be one amazing big sister. She spends LOTS of time right now putting her own baby dolls and stuffed animals to sleep in their sleeping bags and wrapping them up in blankets, feeding them a bottle and changing their diaper. She can do this fun game for HOURS. My mom has offered to donate my old baby doll crib to Nevi and I can only imagine how much fun Nevi will have putting her babies to sleep in an actual crib. She even sings them lullabies! Thanks to ALL who made my birthday a memorable experience and for all who contributed to the furnishings of Nevi's new big girl room. It really is perfect for her and has SUCH a calming energy to it! We are very grateful! P.S. the pastel broken star quilt on Nevi's new bed is mine from when I was a little girl, a quilt that my Grandma quilted by hand. My Grandma has one of her homemade quilts now in every bedroom of my house, even a blue and red baby quilt for our coming bundle.

Thanksgiving 2011

As Robb and I were discussing potential Thanksgiving plans earlier in the month, Robb brought it to my attention that this will be the last Thanksgiving it will be just the three of us. So, for the first time ever, Robb, Nevi and I celebrated Thanksgiving just the three of us (and our furry friends, too) and it was MARVELOUS! I couldn't have imagined a more perfect day in which to celebrate ALL that we are most grateful for. We started out watching the Macys Day Parade - a tradition that my family bestowed unto me as a child. Then, we packed a light lunch and headed to the mountains. We landed at a very sacred place that Robb and I have shared in years past, a place called 'Sunrise Amphitheater', just up a windy road from Boulder. We hiked the Ute Trail and played around in the amphitheater for a while, enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather and scenery. Up on this amphitheater, you can see all of Boulder Valley plus the land that extends all the way out to the sky rises in Denver. It's breath taking. After our adventure, we headed home to prepare our feast. (On our way home, we HAD to stop by the Louisville BEAR dressed up like a turkey for a snap shot.) Nevi napped for a bit while Robb and I did our domestic duties. We ate a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal, but I admit, it was not all cooked from scratch as usual. But it WAS prepared with love and a happy heart. Nevi has been fighting a cold the last few days but was a real trooper and a blast to be with on this very special day. UPDATE ON BABY: His movement are SO strong now...stronger that I remember Nevi being in my belly, but my memory can be somewhat lacking at times. The weight of him is getting intense, especially in the evening after a full day of gravity pulling him down on my frame. Robb's been rubbing my lower back in the evenings which is my biggest complaint right now. But a little back ache is a pretty good sign at this point of a VERY manageable pregnancy. I am going to the doc every other week now and he is still measuring perfectly (i.e. my uterus measured 28 inches from base to top when I was 28 weeks along) with a heartbeat of around 150-155 beats per minute. I weighted in at 146 last week (holy smokes!) and am still expected to gain another 5- 9 pounds before he's born. My appetite is shrinking and I can only eat small amounts of food at a time as there is very little room for both food AND baby in my belly. When pregnant with Nevi, I maxed out at 151 pounds but then lost a pound at the end, so weighted about 150 when she was born. I am hoping to weigh between 150-155 when this little guy arrives as this should be a do-able amount of weight to lose while nursing. Most importantly, I feel healthy and thriving, a vessel of life to this new little person that I feel honored to help create.

Halloween, 2011

Nevi really wanted to be a 'Super Hero Spelling Fairy' for Halloween this year so we did everything we could to comply. Luckily, we had some fun costume items already at the house that we turned into, what we think, was a pretty neat outfit. We first celebrated Halloween at the YMCA where we (she) ate popcorn, a cookie and pizza, and more importantly played Halloween games for prizes, jumped in the jumping castle and watched an ice skating performance, which she absolutely loved! We also went on a hayride that night which was a definite highlight for me. We carved pumpkins on our front lawn and Nevi drew a pretty cool picture on her pumpkin, which daddy ended up carving out. Quite the artists. Then, came Trick or Treating. Nevi got REALLY into it this year and after learning how to pick the houses with front porch lights on, would say after each trick or treating experience, 'Let's find another house with a light on!" We stayed only in our neighborhood and it still lasted for a full hour! We visited with friends in the streets and saw some pretty cool pumpkin displays. Nevi was so exhausted after an hour of trick or treating that she suddenly said to daddy and I, 'I'm tired now, can we go home?' She even needed daddy to carry her home. I LOVE things that tire her out... When we got back, she dumped her pumpkin full of candy out on the carpet and asked a lot of questions about what each candy was...the only one she was familiar with was M&Ms, plain, her favorite. I am sure she will be enjoying her candy for weeks/months to come, as we're attempting to teach her that candy is best enjoyed a little at a time. She still doesn't like most candy but now is developing a palate for some cookies, strawberry ice cream and plain M&Ms. She has been in a very picky eating phase the last 6-10 months, but I've noticed very recently that she is trying new things again and enjoying a variety of foods offered. Thank goodness....hope this lasts. October has been a fun month, but it has also been a trying month with our health. Nevi was sick two separate times, once with a fever flu in the beginning of October that lasted over a week and again the night after our YMCA Halloween celebration, where she vomited for 7 hours straight....wonder where she got that bug from.....? Robb and I have been good up until last weekend when we both came down with a flu of sorts. I have never been sick while pregnant before and it definitely added that extra-shitty-feeling-factor to a traditional flu bug. I have disinfected the entire house and am hoping that our immune systems are strengthened enough now to get us through the rest of the fall and healthfully through the winter. Crossing my fingers..... By the way, next week begins the last trimester of this pregnancy...unreal.

Pumpkin Patch & Ahma/Ahpa visit

We went out in to the fields to pick our pumpkins this year at a local farm. They had a petting zoo, hay ride, carmel apples (mmmmm), jumping castles (still Nev's fav), and we left with fresh picked pumpkins, some funny gourds and a pie pumpkin that I have already baked and froze, ready to use in our Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie. We arrived early to avoid long lines and crowds and it truly was perfect, warm in temperature, but a perfect pumpkin day otherwise. This is by far my favorite time of the year as days grow shorter, allowing time for hibernation, and nights offer cool relief. Nevi just loves looking at the colors on the trees, picking up different leaves that attract her attention and hearing the crunching under our feet as we walk. It's a sensory explosion, especially for a curious 2 year old!

We also had a great visit from Ahma and Ahpa who war able to have a night away with Nevi in the mountains. They snatched up Nevi and took her to Georgetown for a real coal engine train ride. Though it snowed and Ahma and Nev piked up a flu bug while there, it was an awesome trip for all of them. And I thoroughly enjoyed a night to hang with Robb and work on Nev's new big girl room. The room is almost complete (will have pix soon) and I hope the transition goes smoothly - as of now Nev has no desire to make the leap into the new surroundings but we do enjoy reading books there each night as part of our bedtime routine.

'Little Guy' Pregnancy Journal Blog

I've been calling him 'Little Guy' lately. We've picked out a name finally that we both REALLY like but of course want to meet him first before making his name official. We'll bring the list of potential names with us to the hospital, just in case the name we like most doesn't fit. I'm 23 weeks pregnant - not totally sure how to calculate this into months but probably around 5 1/2 months along. He is really making his presence known in my belly with larger movements, morphing my belly with each readjustment or movement. I love feeling him alive and thriving and find myself talking to him a lot, mostly telling him to 'hang in there' on physically demanding days. I am doing things in this pregnancy that I never would have dreamed doing when pregnant with Nevi, things like picking up 30 pound toddlers, eating peanut m&ms, using nonorganic cleaners to clean the bathroom, not sleeping for three nights straight due to a sick toddler and I am not exercising as much as I did with Nevi, per say, but I am definitely on my feet more and find that I have very little time to just sit and bond with him like I did when I was carrying Nevi. But to be to totally frank, I feel like I am able to enjoy this pregnancy much more than the last. It feels like a totally different experience, in fact. There are times, even as of late, that I wake up in the morning forgetting I'm even pregnant at all because I have so few negative side affects. No indigestion or gas pains to speak of. No back aches yet. No breast tenderness. Only a few weeks (a while back) of insomnia but now I sleep like a champ (when Nevi lets me). Much less anxiety about my body changing or the daily exposures. All in all, it feels like I am carrying this little one differently than I did with Nev. I feel like she sat inside me more, smooching my internal organs. This little baby seems to be sitting outside me more, reeking less havoc on my digestion tract and sticking out a bit more. Still, I get tired easily, just as I did with Nevi and I'm nesting like crazy lately, a similar experience. It's really fun sharing this pregnancy with Nevi and watching her get excited about being a big sister. There has been one experience to date that I definitely NEVER had with Nev and it was very recent. I was exercising at the Y....Ahma and Ahpa were in town with Nev.....and I had a growing discomfort that quickly turned into straight up pain....but it wasn't pregnancy pain like contractions or anything low in my belly.....it was a pain up high in my diaphragm that severely affected my breathing and felt like lightening from the top of my belly through my breasts, lungs and even to the roof of my mouth. I phoned Robb for help. He picked me up from the Y and took me to Urgent Care because I couldn't hardly talk or breath or stand or sit, etc. Once I got there, I squatted on the floor and Robb put his hands to my belly and back. Like an uncorking or untwisting I felt immediate relief from the surging pain and as quickly as it came on, it was gone. By the time the doctor actually saw me, I was completely normal again. He said he had no idea what happened but the nurse had a little more insight. She thought it sounded like nerve pain and wondered if the baby may have kicked a nerve sending lightening all the way up my respiratory system. Because the pain was gone, there were no tests to run but they checked on baby and he was totally fine, a real trooper. Strangest experience of my life. Hope that never happens again. Next to labor, that was the most pain I can ever remember. To conclude, I just wanted to blog in order to remember how wonderful I feel, how unique this experience is and how excited I am about meeting the newest love that feels so resonant inside me. I'm starting to wondering if he'll look like Nev or Robb or even my dad.....

Preschool Projects

Nevi seems to be settling into preschool at Kiddie Kopia quite nicely now. She comes home most days with new and fun art projects that she's completed with her class. We take pictures of the ones that we can't hang on the fridge and cover the fridge with the ones we can. Most days, Robb and Nevi have to inform me of what the art project is (unidentifiable) - the supplies are made mostly from food to embrace the full sensory experience for the kiddos, and to keep them out of harms way. Most of the art is of animals and themed with the season: *the pink frosting/chocolate and butterscotch chips on the paper plate is a pig, *the paper pig and paper squirrel are pretty cute *she made a Family Tree last week with many family names on each leaf (my personal favorite) *acorns made of some sort of wafer/pretzel/chocolate combo on a plate. There's more on our fridge that I will photograph soon. She really does seem to be enjoying school more and more and while the weather is nice, the class goes to the park 1/2 block away to add exercise to their day. Robb told me a story last week of how he arrived a few minutes early to pick Nevi up and the kiddos were walking single file on the side walk, back to Kiddie Kopia from the park. They were on the OPPOSITE side of the street so anytime the kiddos cross the street, Miss Kimmie and Miss Jeannie have the kiddos line up side by side on the sidewalk before they cross the street. Then they all walk across at the same time. While the teachers were organizing this street crossing, Robb said that all the kids were quiet and looking at the next kid over to be sure they were straight. Nevi however, was singing and dancing throughout the whole process, just in her own little musical world. I laughed hysterically for quite a while after hearing this story. I can just see it!