Mama's Big Girl

I always talk about how Macyn is such a daredevil. She thinks she is indestructable. Lately, she has grown tired of the safety and security of the baby swings and has ventured on to the big girl swings!! The first few times she tried, she fell off after a few pushes but I kept telling her to hold on tight and she rode it like a big girl!!! Although she did pretty well, she still scares me because when she is done swinging, she will just hop right off instead of letting me know to stop the swing! I don't push her very high or fast so when she jumps off she's usually ok but the swing usually smacks her right in the back of the head. She is such a crazy girl! She also loves running around chasing the older kids at the park and trying to play with them. It's hilarious because when they stop and try to talk to her, she does her usual jibber jabber that they can't understand and they look up at me with this puzzled expression. Then I have to tell them that she's just a baby and doesn't talk very much. She just wishes she was so much older!

This picture is a bit grainy but it's one of the few ones of Macyn and me that I actually like. Her little tongue sticking out is the absolute cutest. She is really starting to show her personality. She loves to laugh and loves to make others laugh. She is such a little jokester. If there's anything that gets a little bit of a giggle out of me or Dax, she keeps doing it over and over again. She is such a happy little girl and she is so sweet. She loves to cuddle and lay down with you to snuggle up with a book. She loves monkeys and calls her favorite monkey "ah ah" because of the sound that monkeys make. She is a HUGE fan of balloons. Every time we go to the grocery store she gets a free balloon and will play with it all night. She's such a good little girl and we are so lucky to have her in our lives. I hope that Ren is just as good natured and sweet as our little girl!!

Baby Belly 35 weeks

With my pregnancy with Macyn, I really didn't take many pictures of the baby belly until later on in the pregnancy and I'm afraid that I have taken even less with this baby. But I wanted to document the belly in at least one picture so last week, I decided to take a quick picture in the mirror. Surprisingly with Macyn, I was a lot bigger. They say that with the second you get bigger, faster but Ren must be a little guy because mama isn't that big. But Macyn was a big baby (weighing in at 9 lbs 5 ozs at birth) so that might have contributed to my weight gain. I also wasn't chasing around an 18 month old when I had Macyn so that could be it too. Who knows, we'll only know how big he's going to be when he decides to make his entrance. We can't wait to meet you little guy!!! We hope you come out nice and healthy!!!

Grammy and Aunt Shannon come to visit the DIVA!!

For four days, we were able to spend some time with Grammy (whom she lovingly calls Gee, Gee) and Aunt Shannon and they had a ton of fun while I got to get some much needed rest. They took her for walks around the loop, played in the park, splashed around during bathtime, and read tons of books! It was great having them here and seeing Macyn interact with them and get to know them. It only took about 10 minutes for her to warm up to them which was great. She must have remembered them from Christmas. We're sad to see them go today but this weekend was filled with so many great memories. They can't believe how much Macyn has matured and how different she is from just a few months. Here is a picture of our little diva with Aunt Shannon's sunglasses on. She actually put the glasses on and tapped Shannon on her shoulder just to get a reaction. That's her little kissy face that she loves making because it makes everyone crack up. She is such an entertainer!!

Here are a couple pictures of Macyn with her Gee Gee at the park. Macyn loves jumping up and down on this bouncy part of the play area. Gee Gee and Shannon said that she had a blast playing and didn't want to leave, even when they told her that mama and dada were waiting for her at home. She was having too much fun!

Macyn and Gee Gee watching Little Einsteins before bedtime. As soon as Macyn hears the opening song, she immediately wants her milk. Sometimes she doesn't even drink it, she just likes to hold it. Although we sometimes do let Macyn watch television during the day, she usually watches it for a few minutes and then hops off the couch and is off doing something else but it's a whole other story when we put on Little Einsteins. She is mesmorized by everything which is nice because they play classical music and teach her about art and music. That's her little bedtime treat.

Recently, we were starting sleep training all over again after Macyn's transition to a big girl bed. I thought it was a little soon but she kept climbing out of the crib no matter what we tried and I didn't feel a crib tent would be safe. She is such a crafty little girl and I've read some pretty scary stories about crib tent strangulation. It was a tough road but we finally have a pretty good bedtime routine. Her night time sleep has also effected her nap time sleep in a positive way. I'm glad that we did this before the baby came, annd hopefully, knock on wood, it will stay this way for a while!!

Macyn playing in mama's rainboots. they come up just below my knee and they cover her whole leg. I don't know why, maybe it's the material, but Macyn loves playing with these boots. She always hands them to me when I'm putting on my shoes or tries to put them on herself. I should get her a pair of galoshes but I'm afraid she'll never want to take them off. Could you imagine a little girl in her swimsuit and a pair of galoshes frollicking on the beach??Here is Macyn a few weeks ago when we were at a picnic with one of my playgroups. We were trying to get a group shot and Macyn kept gravitating toward one of the babies. She would just sit there and watch him and try and play with him. I hope she takes to the new baby as quickly and she is that loving and gentle. I think she is going to make such a great big sister, she is so kind and empathetic toward younger children. We were given tips from our pediatrician on how to reduce sibling rivalry when the new baby gets here and she had some pretty useful advice that I'll share:

-Think about getting the older sibling a little gift from the baby. This could be a new toy or something more sentimental like jewelry. I was thinking of buying Macyn a necklace from Ren. She LOVES playing with my necklace, I'm just afraid of keeping it on her when she goes to bed. I would have to take it off before night time and nap time.

-Buy little toys and wrap them and keep them somewhere hidden. Bring one out and give it to the older sibling every time a visitor comes with a gift for the new baby so the older sibling doesn't feel left out.

-When you talk baby talk to the newborn, you can gush about them but also include things about their older sibling. The baby won't understand that you aren't talking about them but the older sibling will. Say things like, "Your big sister Macyn is such a great helper to mommy!" or "Macyn is being so nice and sweet to you, don't you love your big sister!"

-This one I found really interesting and something I don't think I would have thought of. Don't blame things on the baby. For instance saying, "We have to leave the park early because the baby is crying." or "Mama is so tired and can't play because of the baby." She said if you constantly do that, the older sibling will start resenting the baby.

Hopefully, I can remember all of that while being sleep deprived, hungry and going through all the other great emotions that come with the postpartum experience!!

More words!!!

Macyn has really been trying to speak more and more ever since our return from Scottsdale. I'm not sure if it was the exposure to older children for the whole week or if she was just tired of us not understanding what the heck she was talking about. Before, she was really GREAT at saying "dada." Everything was dada--me, her toys, complete strangers and sometimes even her actual dada!!! Dog was another favorite as well as socks (pronounced "ocks") and snacks (pronounced "acks"). New words developed pretty slowly but she was trying really really hard!! Macyn always knew the sign for more and when that wasn't working well enough she really stepped up her game. When she wanted to hear her favorite song, Row Your Boat, she would say "Row, Row." She FINALLY would say "mama" on a consistent basis!!! She says night-night, bubble, apple, up, pap pap, ball, eye, ear, and Paul, just to name a few. She also can roar like a lion, says "ah ah ah" like a monkey, barks like a dog, meows like a cat, and growls like a bear. It's so great being able to hear her voice after 18 months and I can't wait for her to learn more words and to have an actual conversation with her!! I have so much I want to ask her! Here is a great picture of Macyn running away from the tide. The weather is getting a lot warmer and we've been able to take Macyn down to the beach for walks which I've missed over this long winter! She loves running up to the water and she is the biggest daredevil I know so I am predicting that she is going to be a surfer when she gets older. Mark my words, she will be surfing in no time!!

Mmmm...cupcakes!!

We recently went to one of, I assume will be many, birthday parties for one of Macyn's little buddies. The had little snacks here and there and although Macyn had her snack, she couldn't resist the temptation of a scrumptious cupcake. At first, my dainty little darling picked at the icing and would lick her fingers but then she started tasting the cake and realized there was something even more delicious under all that sugary goodness. Here she is shoving the cupcake into her mouth!!! When Macyn was first eating solids, I remember getting really grossed out at all of the food that she would get everywhere. I remember trying to wipe up every morsel off of her face before I would feed her her next bite...futile effort on my part but I tried anyways. Then I came to the realization that she is a child and she is going to get messy. It's not guaranteed that once the food reaches her mouth, it's going to stay there and I really had to calm myself down and just let her get as messy as she wanted (I'm still working on this but I've gotten a lot better!!)

Even though she didn't finish the cupcake, Macyn thoroughly enjoyed it. I was so tempted to finish her half eaten cupcake but she made such a mess of it, even pregnant mommy didn't want to eat it.

Vacation in Scottsdale

We recently took a family vacation to Scottsdale, Arizona with our friends the Koplans and Castros and we had such a blast. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cool allowing us to swim almost every day, all day (granted, the pool was always heated to a perfect 90 degrees). On the cooler days we did a little shopping at Fashion Square Mall (0ne of the best malls I've been to in a long time), and took the kiddos to the train park.
Macyn LOVED the pool and she swam around and around every chance she got. Gwen was so sweet and let Macyn use her puddle jumper flotation device after she became an expert swimmer practically overnight!! Macyn loved to float on her back while her daddy and I would chant "relax, relax." She also learned how to blow bubbles in the water. She is so ready to swim, I bet by our next vacation get-together she will be swimming alongside Gwen and Whitney. This time, she just had a good time floating around with Whitney!

Macyn also learned how to play pool during this vacation!! We are preparing her for a career as a pool shark, who would suspect a little 2 year old could whip some butt in pool?? The only issue she had was keeping the tips on the pool cues...she knocked every single tip off of every single cue.

We had such a great time and the girls really acted like sisters which made me think of my own sisters and our relationship with each other. Gwen was the older sister, she was the "cool" one that both Whitney and Macyn wanted to be like. Kerry brought over some of her nieces toys which included various pairs of plastic princess shoes. Gwen of course loved walking around in them and Whitney and Macyn quickly followed along in their shoes (although their little feet didn't quite fit as well). All three of them were so cute and played together pretty well. I loved watching them interact, especially Macyn who is just starting to really want to hang out with other kids and play with them instead of just going off on her own.

We had a great vacation with awesome friends and I can't wait for the next one!!!

Totally slacking

Ok, I know that I've totally been slacking on my posts but unfortunately I can't post pictures through my Iphone and our computer has a huge crack down the screen making it really hard to see. So I'm using Dax's work computer to get some stuff done.
Here are a few new things that are happening in our little world down here.

I am in a constant search of different outdoor activities I can do with Macyn before the new baby arrives and totally rocks our world!! I recently just learned about a free program that Lowe's hardware store offers every other Saturday where they have different projects for little ones to work on to pique their interest in construction and how things work and are built. Our first project was a little heart music box (in honor of Valentine's Day). I think Macyn was the youngest one there (the age minimum on the package said 5 years) but there were definitely kids there younger than five. It just happened to be more of a project for mommy than for baby...and I really messed it up. Dax wasn't able to come because he was on call. I always prided myself on being able to put things together fairly well but all of my bravado went out the window with a squirmy little toddler sitting on my lap grabbing the hammer and hitting the table, chair and pieces of wood and snatching up the directions. I like to think she was trying to help in her own little way. Unfortunately, it hurt the project outcome. It's so bad, I'm not even going to post a picture of the finished product. Let's just say it has major design flaws causing the lid to not close completely and therefore keeping the music box playing continuously instead of stopping when the lid is replaced. (I had to stick a piece of tape on top of the music box to keep it from playing.) Oh well, a valiant effort on my part! But as an added bonus to a morning filled with hammering youngsters, they give every mini construction worker a free apron and safetly goggles which I think Macyn pulls off fairly well.

Ahhh, a weekend with no call and no errands to run!! Our family loves to lounge around especially daddy and Macyn while mommy sits and watches from afar sometimes taking part but usually just taking pictures with my phone. (I should really start using the good camera again!) Here are some pics from one of our many lazy mornings hanging around!

For Christmas, Dax bought me my first sewing machine (well, first one that I can truly call my own!) and I have been working on various projects ever since. (With a severe lack of work due to morning sickness, fatigue, and just plain laziness) So far I've made a plethora of baby burp cloths for expecting friends, a baby blanket for baby Ren, burp cloths and a bib for baby Ren, a dress for Macyn (that she can wear when she's about 5 years old due to a sleeping model and lack of an actual pattern) and this dress which Macyn models so adorably:
I have so many projects running through my head at the moment I don't know if I'll ever have enough time to follow through but I'm really trying!!! Hopefully, I'll have more pictures to share.

Well, I know this post doesn't make up for the lack of posts in the last few months but hopefully it suffices until I can get my act together!