Summer Fun!

Summer has just started but we're already having lots of fun and have lots of things planned!  Hoping keeping busy makes the time go fast until this baby girl comes in September!

Mothers Day Family Picture at Church! 

 

Park Fun!  This picture of Caitlyn and Cole is one of my favorites!  I think I'm going to put it on a canvas! 

 

 

Picnic and Fireworks in Grandma and Papa's backyard Memorial Day weekend!

 

 

Breakfast in the park with the Sheehan family!  Caitlyn loved holding baby Embry (can't say she felt the same way)!  Wish I had taken more pictures this morning, we have so much fun at these family get togethers!  Looking forward to more of them over the summer!

 

 

LaVista Daze! 

 

 

 

Coming up the rest of June is my birthday, a trip to Des Moines for Adventureland and the zoo and our camping (in a cabin) trip with grandma and papa Darling to Ponca State Park! 

 

Color Me Rad 2014

April 25th I signed up to do a color run 5K with my sister and some girlfriends.  Being pregnant I didn't / couldn't run it so I decided to bring Caitlyn along.  We had so much fun!  She got a little tired towards the end.  I asked her if she wanted a piggy back ride for part of the way and she said "no thank you mommy...I don't want to pop your belly."  I don't think I will ever forgot that!  It made me seriously laugh out loud at her!  Love her so much!  Here are some pictures from the day! 

Before the run

 After the run!

 Sister baby bumps! 

 Before group shot!

 After group shot minus Caitlyn

 

Caitlyn wasn't interested in the last group picture.  But over all it was a super fun day!  Beth, Caitlyn and I all went to brunch at Cracker Barrel afterwards.  So yummy! 

That will be my last 5K until after this baby though.  My hips and under the belly hurt so bad afterwards.  I had my first ever visit with a chiropractor this past week and plan on continuing.   The pain with this baby is much more intense than I remember with either of my other pregnancies. 

5 Year Anniversary

On June 25th Jared and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  We didn't really get to celebrate because I had surgery (which I will post about soon) that day but we recognized the time we've been together.  We actually met and started dating pretty quickly.  We were together for 4 years prior to getting married.  So we've been together for 9 years.  Some days it feels much shorter than that and others much longer!  One thing that I can say is that I love Jared more and more each day.  He provides for our family and worries endlessly about how he's going to do that on a daily basis.  He takes care of me when I'm sick and out of commission.  He takes care of me when I'm feeling down.  He's trying to support me on my weight loss journey and while I can appreciate his thoughts on this it's hard for me to listen because he's never had to go through the process.  He is an awesome daddy to Caitlyn and she loves him like no other!    He makes me laugh with his silly totally inappropriate comments.  I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone other than him.  He is my rock and he leads our family in many directions.  I look forward to the next 5 years to see where we are and how we change our growing family. 

Celebrating 32!

Today I turn 32.  Just another number!  I actually like to celebrate my birthday all week.  I think I need more than just one day! But today I took the day off work.  Aunt Beth and I took Caitlyn to the zoo.  I had sushi rolls from HyVee for lunch.  I got sunburned while at the zoo.  We came home and Caitlyn took a nap.  I would have too...but I'm a horrible nap taker.  I filled Caitlyn's pool so that she could go swimming in her little yellow polka dot bikini!  Then Jared took me to dinner at Red Lobster.  Yum! 

I am so thankful for another year.  My life is good.  I have great family and friends.  I have a wonderful husband who loves me for me (even when I'm driving him crazy).  I have my beautiful, loving, sweet, tantrum throwing, hug and kiss giving baby (toddler) girl.  And we're embarking on another journey to try and grow our family.  What more could a girl ask for? 

Mommy Brain

When you get pregnant they tell you that you start to loose your memory.  They call it pregnancy brain.  It doesn't get much better once you have the baby.  They just change the forgetfulness to mommy brain. 


Yesterday Jared, Caitlyn and I went to Home Depot to get tomato plant cages.  We get to the truck and Jared starts loading up while I take Caitlyn and put her in her car seat.  I then proceed to get into the truck while Jared puts the cart away.  We drive off.  We get to our next destination...Babies R Us.  Which is when I realize that I left my purse in the cart at Home Depot.  I start freaking out.  I got mad at Jared for not noticing.  He blamed it on the fact that my purse is orange and blends in with the carts at Home Depot.  Had we been at Lowes he would have seen it.  We drive back.  The whole way back I'm thinking about everything in my purse.  My wallet.  All our credit cards.  Our checkbook.  My phone.  My personal notebook.  I couldn't believe I didn't grab it! 


We got back to Home Depot and luckily my purse was still in the cart out in the parking lot.  It took awhile for my heartbeat to slow down.  I turned to Caitlyn and told her that I was losing my mind...she looked at me and laughed. 

Cute Stories

We tried to push the binkie on her as a newborn. We probably bought 20 different kinds / brands trying to find one she liked because I was so worried about her sucking her thumb. She wouldn't have it though. Wouldn't you know now she terrorizes the other babies and takes theirs? She doesn't suck on them - she just wants it because she doesn't have one. The daycare really has their hands full with her!

The other day I was volunteering with a coworker selling tickets for the O What a Duck Race for the Omaha Food Bank @ the grocery store. My sister was there and I brought Caitlyn with us because Jared had to work. Caitlyn was tired and I was trying to cuddle her and get her to fall asleep in my arms. This wasn't happening. She hates to cuddle. The only cuddle time I get is when she's taking her bottle. Doesn't matter how tired she is. I kept telling her I wanted her to be a cuddle bug for me. My co-worker just looked at her and said she's more like a squirmy wormy. So true!

First Trip to the Zoo!

June 9th, 2009

I took the day off for my birthday! Beth and I planned on taking Caitlyn to the zoo. Jared decided he didn't want to miss this, so he took the day off too and we made it a family day! Caitlyn really didn't get what was happening. She wasn't too interested in seeing the animals.

She really didn't like petting the goats in the petting zoo. She's not much of a texture feeling baby!

She was way more interested in people watching. It was a little chilly out for a June summer day. I can't remember the last time it was cold on my birthday! We also got rained on a little bit. Luckily we got to see most of the outside stuff before the rain started. Once it started raining we went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Then we did inside stuff for the next couple of hours. Her first trip to the zoo was definitely more for the adults! But it was a fun day.
She fell asleep within minutes of getting into the car. But woke up once we were home and decided that napping was for the birds! So she only had a 20 minute nap all day! Aunt Beth and Uncle Josh watched her that night while Jared and I went out for drinks with Colleen and then to dinner. Beth said she fell asleep in the highchair and went right to sleep when she laid her down. My little angel!
On a side note: Jared bought me a ring for my birthday. It has 2 heart stones with my and Caitlyn's birthstones. He called it a hand-me-down ring. Someday I'll give it to Caitlyn - maybe for her 16th birthday! God I can't believe I just said that....the time moves quickly enough as it is!

8 Months

Written 5/27/2009.

We are feeding her more and more table foods vs baby food. She only gets about 50% of the food into her mouth and I usually end up helping her so that I know she's getting some food in there! She's doing really well though and so far she likes everything we feed her! I'm getting braver with her. I still worry that she's going to choke on something, but I have to let go sometime....this won't be the only thing I worry about.

Last Friday (5/22/09) Caitlyn started crawling forward! We're in trouble now! She's drawn to the bookshelf so that she can pull all the books off the bottom shelf and chew on them. She's also drawn towards the tv and all the gadgets when we're downstairs. Doesn't matter that she has her tub full of baby safe toys sitting right there in front of her! She's starting to pull herself up on furniture but only on her knees so far. She hasn't pulled to a standing position yet. On Sunday she was trying to pull up on the coffee table and bonked her head. Poor thing. I hate those tables...way too many corners for her to hurt herself on. I told Jared we should shop for new ones! :0) She's also started clapping! I LOVE it!!! She's loves playing patty cake. Now we're working on hi & bye.

Mothers Day was wonderful this year! Jared was out of town for Josh's (my sister's new husband) bachelor party which was in Des Moines that weekend. He left Saturday afternoon and came back on Sunday afternoon. Before he left on Saturday he went and got me flowers from him and Caitlyn. They were beautiful! On Sunday we went to breakfast in the park with Jared's family (even though he wasn't there). I had debated on going because Caitlyn had been sick with a cold and ear infection. But it seemed nice enough out when I took the dogs out, so I decided to go for a little while. Of course when we got there the wind picked up and it was pretty chilly. Total bummer. So we only stayed for about 30 min. But it was still fun and some good food. And they all got to pass Caitlyn around. Then we went home and just hung out the rest of the day. It was an awesome day and one I've waited to celebrate in this way for a very long time!

The ear infection that I spoke of in my last post reared its ugly head again. Apparently she had a very stubborn infection. So 2 rounds of antibiotics...a very painful antibiotic shot...5 Dr. office visits in 6 weeks...lots of $ out of pocket...I'm told it's finally gone. Hopefully it doesn't resurface again. Poor baby girl.

Her 9 month Dr. appt will be coming up in about 2 weeks. No shots at this appt so I am very excited!!! I'll also be getting her 9 month pictures done. I'm very excited about this as well! Lots of things to look forward to!

7 Months

This was written April 28th, 2009.

Life for our family has been quite busy! I feel like I'm going to miss

writing about so many of Caitlyn's milestones. She's totally sitting up on her own now. She's such a big girl! She can't get from laying down to sitting yet, but she'll get there. She scootches backwards really well and the other night she took a few movements forward. She's so close to crawling she can taste it! Jared and I on the other hand are so not ready for this! We still haven't started the baby proofing yet....better get busy! She's still working on getting the Gerber puffs into her mouth on her own. She can pick it up, but can't get them into her mouth so well yet. I also gave her bits of banana's the other night, again she has issues getting them into her mouth. We'll keep practicing! She's now getting 3 meals a day of baby food. The daycare started feeding her a solid at lunch time last week.

We got her a new baby tub - it's a ducky! And when you squeeze the beak it quacks! Plus we got her new bath toys...she loves bath time!

She had a great Easter. It was our first time since we got together (almost 8 years) where we had to fit 2 family gatherings into one day. A little stressful - but we made it! She got an Easter bunny from Grandpa and Grandma Darling and she got an Easter basket with goodies from Aunt Shanna! She also got the Easter Bunny from Hallmark that dances from mommy - he's so cute. She is a spoiled little girl and I have a feeling it's only going to get worse!

She's had almost a constant cold since starting daycare in January. 2 weeks ago I took her to the pediatrician because her cough was so bad she rattled. This was her first sick visit to the Dr. Come to find out that she had a double ear infection. So we had to give her an antibiotic to get rid of that. A week later and she was ear infection free! I'm a little worried because she's been tugging on her ears the past few days and she's got another cold that started Thursday night. Hopefully the ear infections aren't back....

We also had a visit to the dermatologist. She has a spot on her head on the left hand side about an inch back from her hair line. It started out looking like a pimple so I didn't worry about it. But then it got bigger and turned an orange color. So I called the pedi and they referred me to a dermatologist. It's nothing to worry about as long as she doesn't get any more of them. And it should go away on it's own in the next year. I felt like I was acting paranoid - but I'm glad we had it checked out. Piece of mind!

Aunt Beth's wedding is coming up and Caitlyn is one of the flower girls. The ring bearer (Noah) is going to pull Caitlyn and Melanie (Josh's niece) up in a wagon. It's going to be sooo cute!

This is what happens when I don't post for a whole month! Super long messages....