My daughter the genius :)

So, I know every parent thinks their kid is the smartest kid. But seriously. Makaylee has been suprising even Mike and I. In the past month she has learned how to say and identify shapes. At 16 months old my daughter can say and point out circle, oval, diamond, triangle, star, rectangle, and we are working on square. She has also become a dangerous little parrot. If we say something, she will repeat it. I tell her she is crazy, and she repeats it right to me. So we have to really watch our language slip ups. She also said her first sentence last week, which lets Mike and I know what kind of child we will be dealing with. Her first sentence was "No Mama, no, no, no, no!" I asked her if she wanted to get dressed and that is what she replied to me. When your childs first sentence is to tell you no, you know you are in for a good battle of wills!

The fair was going on the past two weeks, and we bought season passes at Costco so that we could take Makaylee on the rides and see all the animals. You are supposed to be two to ride the rides, but Makaylee is a bigger girl, so we got her on the rides. She was not to impressed with them. She LOVED the fun house. Mike took her on the giant slide, and I took her on the swings. She enjoyed both of those, but not to impressed with either of them. I took her on the carosel, hoping that she was over the fear she developed of it a couple months back, but no such luck. She freaked out on the carosel, crying most the time on it. When we got off the ride she dived from me to Mike who was safely outside the carosel gates. She really enjoyed watching it go around though, but stayed far enough away that she was not in danger of having to ride it again. As unsuccessful as the rides were, the animals were the complete opposite. Makaylee was totally in love with the animals. We have been working on animal sounds for quite some time, and she is really good with them, but actually seeing some of the farm animals was quite different. We go to the zoo, but at the fair the animals are really close, instead of far away in a cage. She LOVED the cows, they were her favorite. Though she refuses to say cow, and instead Moo's when she wanted to go see them. I think we walked around the barns at least 5+ times and she was highly empressed each time.

Makaylee has also discovered art in the past week. She has been coloring with crayons for awhile now, but never to impressed with it. With her obsession with shapes I got the idea to cut out shapes and let her glue them on a piece of paper. She LOVED it. We did shapes, and I let her play with stickers, and crayons. She is having so much fun. She keeps going to the table and telling me she wants to color. Yesterday we tried play doh, and she was having fun with the feel of it. Of course she did keep trying to eat it. She got a little piece in her mouth, they are quick! My picky eater actually enjoyed the taste of the play doh, so she kept trying to eat more, so we had to pack up the play doh for the day. Back to the crayons and stickers.

I have been having sentimental times going through Makaylee's first year of baby clothes. Now that we know we are having a boy I can stop storing Makaylee's clothes. They are so tiny! It is amazing how much she has changed in the past 16 months. I am planning on selling the clothes on ebay, only keeping a select few.

Kaiden is doing well. I have finally gained my first 3lbs, *sniff*. He is breach at the moment, so must of his kicks are on the bottom of my belly and right into the bladder. But that makes it difficult for Mike to feel on the outside as most of them are to low. I would be worried that he is breach, except for the fact that I am having a c-sec so it is not a big deal, plus he still has plenty of time to turn around. The biggest problem of him being breach is his head is pushing and causing my heartburn to be HORRIBLE this time. With Makaylee, if I took my Zantac medication then my heartburn was mostly under control. Last night I had taken my medication and taken 4 tums and the hearburn was still horrible. My next appointment is on Oct 4 and it is my Diabetes test, which I am not looking foward to. Last time I was so sick feeling all day. Plus I hate giving blood!

I guess that is it for now. Nap time is almost over. I will try and post pics tomorrow!

Our Busy labor day weekend!

Well, I was suppose to go out of town for a girls weekend over labor day, but I chose not to go after Makaylee's hospital stay. I just couldn't bear to leave her yet! But we had a great weekend. On Saturday we went to the park and had a nice picnic. Makaylee had a ton of fun picking the "flowers" (aka weeds) out of the grass to smell them. She did put them right back when she was done smelling them. She also had fun playing with the dirt under the trees.

Sunday we went up to south center so Mike could pick up something for his new mountain bike at REI. We went to the mall, and just had another family day. We took Makaylee to the spray park that evening and she had so much fun. What a difference from the last time we took her. Every other time she wanted to hold our hand and needed help walking around. She has finally developed enough confidence to walk around on her own.

She had so much fun!

I took some belly pics yesterday :) So, here I am at 21 weeks at 1 day. The stretch marks are not new, just a gift from Makaylee :)

We also got our stroller!!! I have had my eye on the Peg Perego Duette since we found out we are pregnant. However it is $800! So, I have been keeping my eye on craigs list. We found one! It is the previous model, but still has all the features I wanted. My favorite being that I can flip the seats around in any pattern. So the kids can face each other, face out, face foward, face me, or back to back. I LOVE it. It has great shocks, and great storage. We are going to try it for the first time with Bailey at the puyallup fair sometime this weekend or next week when we go with Tabi and Spencer. So here are some picks:

Makaylee's hospital stay

Last weekend Makaylee had her first hospital stay. :( For those who haven't heard it, here is the story:

Makaylee had been teething and cranky all week. We put her to bed Saturday night and she was perfectly fine. She was totally normal all day long. At 12:30 she woke up screaming. I ran into the room and she had thrown up all over herself. I started stripping her and took her into the bathroom and Mike came running. She felt really hot so we took her temperature and it was at 106.0 We freaked. Mike called the DR while I cleaned her up with a wash cloth. The nurse took our info and said she had to contact the DR to call us back. After getting Makaylee cleaned up and running a cool wash cloth over her we got her fever down to 104.4. So we decided to leave and go to the hospital.

We got triaged really quickly and they took her temp at 103.6 and gave her a rectal tylenol. Then we waited almost an hour to get back to see the doctor with her screaming and miserable pretty much the whole time. The DR saw us and said she had an infection with a fever that high so we just had to find out where. They had to do a catheter to get a urine sample, draw blood, put in an IV, get chest x-rays. It was HORRIBLE. We had to have 2-3 people to hold her down for almost everything and she just screamed the whole time. The test results started coming back and she has a urinary tract infection. We started to relax until the DR said in infants her age it required IV medication and they had to find the cause so we were looking at a 1 to 2 day hospital stay. Thank goodness the UTI is the only infection she had and they immediatly started her on Antibiotics and fluid through the IV. By sunday evening her fever was down to between 100-101. The DR contemplated sending us home that night, but decided against it. She had to get an ultrasound done on her kidneys and bladder. The 3 possible causes of a UTI in a child her age are a kidney deformality, a kink in one of the tubes connecting the kidney and the bladder, or bacteria from a BM got into her urethra. We had the ultrasound on Monday, but not until 6:00 at night, so we didn't get home until later Monday evening. Makaylee's fever is gone, and we were sent home with antibiotics. She is feeling much better.

We had a follow up with our pediatritian on Thursday. She said she wants to have a test run on Makaylee to check to see if she has Kidney reflux. She likes to do it on every child that has a UTI under the age of 3. If she does have kidney reflux and it is not treated then her kidney's could fail. So here is a link to a website for kidney reflux info:
http://www.drgreene.com/21_626.html

Here is a link for the test that she has to have done:
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=voidcysto&bhcp=1

Our pediatrician said that the test is not pleasant and we have to get it done at the childrens hospital in Seattle. She also has to have it done with her daughter next month because she just got over a UTI. Her daughter is 6 months younger than Makaylee. So we have some time before the test, but I am not looking foward to it.

Kaidens room theme

Kaidens room will be the old guest bedroom. Which we already have painted a light cappacino color with green carpet. So we tried to find a theme that would go with these colors. We could repaint without a problem, but changing the carpet is another story. Here are some pictures of the room right after we got the carpet in:

So here is the nusery set we are thinking about going with:


We have decided to not purchase a new crib for Kaiden. Instead Makaylee will be getting a new bedroom set, and Kaiden will be using her crib, changing table and dresser. We figured this would be better rather than having two cribs. Plus her stuff is like brand new anyway. So, that is the plan at the moment!

Baby is a boy! Say hello to Kaiden William.....

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Profile.....Is it possible for him to have my big lips already?
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It's a BOY! There is a tiny arrow pointing to his boy parts!
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The ultrasound went great! The tech actually remembered us from Makaylee. Kaiden was SUPER active to the point where she had trouble getting all her measurments, but she got them eventually. We were in there for about 25 minutes. He was flipping and turning every time she tried to measure something. The first couple of times she tried to get the gender shot Kaiden had his legs crossed, and Mike was getting really nervous that we wouldn't be able to tell. Then she was checking out his belly and he spread his legs and she froze it cause his little boy parts were right there. I thought Mike was going faint when she said "there is his Penis!" She knew he wanted a boy. So it was really cool. The tech said that it was a perfect ultrasound because he was in a wonderful position right on top. Which would explain why he has been so super active. We could really tell everything we were looking at and got some great pictures. Mike also got to feel him kick for the first time last night. So everything looks good and now we will have one princess and one prince! The tech gave us a ton of pictures. I wish we could share the video, but it is on VHS and I don't have the right tools to get it onto the computer. I wish they would get a DVD recorder, but this was our last ultrasound with them, so I guess it is not a big deal. We do plan on getting a 3D ultrasound in California like we did with Makaylee so our family can experience it with us. Hope you guys enjoyed the pics!

Our House is painted!!!!!!!

We painted our house! Here is our before:




Here is the after:



The body is green, but we added a red accent seen below. Our deck out back is going to be painted the same color. We will be painting the deck in the next month or so, so I will post pictures when the deck is done. Hope you like it!!!!

Makaylee is walking! Sorry for not sharing these sooner, but here are her video's. She is really getting good at it now. I think she forgets that she can walk sometimes because she will start crawling somewhere but if we tell her to "Stand up and Walk" she will stand right up and walk to where she wants to go. She does not like to go on uneven surfaces. So like between the hardwoods and the carpet she will get down and crawl past. Or if she steps on anything in her path she gets down and starts to crawl. But she is doing really well, and I am sure she will be a full time walker before we know it!

Makaylee at the beach!

We went to the beach over the weekend and had a ton of fun. Makaylee LOVED the beach. I only wish it had been warmer because the weather never got above 65. She she didn't really get to get into the water to much. She loved walking around in the sand, and bending down to pick it up.

As you can see from the pictures she has FINALLY started making progress on the walking front. She is standing on her own now and taking steps! YAY! I think 5 is the total now, but she is starting to walk more on her own free will as appose to us behind her trying to coax her into it. So I am sure we will have a walker any time now.

Makaylee has really started to catch on a lot to the baby sign language. It is so wonderful being able to communicate with her. She tells us what she wants when she wants it. It makes life a lot less frustrating for everyone in the house. Well, enjoy the pictures!

Ultrasound Photos!

We had our appointment last week and everything looked great. My official due date is January 13, but my estimated c-section date is January 7. So looks like my dates were really close. Baby was very mellow and slept through the whole affair. (S)He had their hand covering their face the whole time. So that is a hand right above the head. My next appointment is July 16!

Makaylee Update!

Our little toddler is still not toddling :) I think she is not walking just to drive us crazy! She is getting braver and starting to stand on her own a little more, but only for a few seconds. She is crawling at the speed of light though and can go from zero to in trouble in 2.6 flat :) Her favorite thing to crawl to is away from us and off the side of the bed. We have made several dive attempts to prevent her from going head first off the bed. She thinks it is the best gave ever!

Makaylee is getting really independent in her play. Basically if you are in the same room, she is good. She will play on her own and do her thing. But she doesn't like it when you leave the room. Luckily she can follow us by crawling. Our biggest problem with the crawling is Zoe is loosing her winter coat and there is white dog hair all over the floor. I vacuum almost every day and the floor is still covered in dog hair. Which means Makaylee's knees, and hands are covered in dog hair as well.

We got a swing and sand box for Makaylee out on our deck now. She LOVES both of them. She starts giggling as you walk out to the swing getting so excited to go on them. The sand box is only for bath nights because she is a pro at getting sand everywhere.

Well, that is about it for now. Hopefully we will be updating on the walking soon!

Pregnancy update

Well, there is really not much to update about yet. My first appointment still isn't for another 2 weeks. June 18, the day after fathers day. I am still exhausted and napping every afternoon with Makaylee. Then going to bed usually by 9, sometimes I can make it till 10. My morning sickness is coming and going throughout the day. I got a pill called morning sickness magic and it is really helping. The only problem is the cravings have started. If I am not craving something then I have to choke it down and it will usually upset my stomach. Last night I made dinner and everything tasted funny so I ended up not eating. Dinner was a basic marinated chicken, garlic bread, broccoli and potatoes with cheese. Everything was gross. LOL. Though Mike said that dinner tasted great to him! My belly is already starting to pop out a little bit, but truth be told it was still popping out from Makaylee :) So that is our update. Just waiting till our first appointment. We will have an ultrasound, so we will have pictures of baby then.

Pictures of Makaylee

I took these pictures of Makaylee today and just love them, so I wanted to share:

For those who I have not spoken with..........

So, if I haven't spoken with you, or the growth ticker at the top of the page didn't give it away. We are expecting baby #2! SUPRISE!!!!!!!!!! We are due in mid January. I am saying January 15th right now, but will have an official due date when I go to the DR on June 18th. Sorry for such a quick update, but pregnancy symptoms are in full force with exhastion and all day sickness at the top of the list. I will keep everyone updated!

****** The ticker is blue in hopes of a boy, but we will be happy blue or pink as long as the baby is healthy.

Makaylee's first birthday professional pics