number 2 [week 6]

Symptoms: I've been so bloated. I feel like I look so bloated in this photo. I'm not really showing yet, but my Bloat Baby is in full effect!

Cravings: Salt! Tortilla chips sound amazing.

Aversions: I'm struggling with my daily salads. Spinach and I will probably be taking a break from each other very soon. Hopefully a brief switch to romaine will do the trick.

Missing: Beer. I've been sniffing Eric's beer. The funny thing is that I'm less of a beer drinker and more of a cider girl. I think I only want it because I can't have it.

Mood: Nervous. I'm so happy that we finally got pregnant, but I'm scared at the same time. It's a natural kind of scared that all pregnant women experience in some form, just hoping that everything will turn out okay.

Sleep: Exhausted is an understatement! Just when I think I might not be able to sleep again after a nap, there I go...

Dreams: I'm volunteering at an event this weekend that's being held at a local private university. I've never been there before, and for some reason I dreamed that the campus was something like a scene from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. African animals scattered across expanse grass spaces while students passed between buildings, and an eatery that resembled the state fair's midway was erected in the parking lot and sold what seemed like every junk food known to man between carnival games and gambling machines. I was just trying to find a dang Dutch Bros!

Clothing: Pants are feeling tighter because I'm so bloated. I fear that dressing will become a harder task sooner than expected.

Best Moment: I was excited to have my prenatal phone appointment with a nurse this week. I needed to update my recent health history and was asked a few routine questions about my previous pregnancy and my current one. The nurse was really nice and we had a great conversation. This is the beginning of everything starting to feel real!

Pregnancy Purchases: Since trying to conceive, I've only been taking a simple folic acid vitamin. Now it's time to change over to a regular prenatal multivitamin, and I purchased my favorite combo pack from Target that also comes with a DHA supplement. So far I've been able to stomach them without issue.

Other News: It's funny walking around work with this huge secret. I've only told 3 people and I plan to keep the news quiet for the time being. While I have no reason to think anything will go wrong, I'm still nervous with the idea of spreading our news too quickly too soon. I'm hoping my nerves will be settled soon when we finally have my pregnancy confirmed.

Looking Forward To: My first in-office prenatal appointment is next week! Hopefully we'll get to see our little one and be rest assured that everything is developing naturally on the inside. There's always so much anticipation leading up to an ultrasound... it's hard to wait!

here we go again!

After months of trying, Eric and I have finally succeeded in conceiving Number 2!

When you see a number of negative pregnancy tests, it's almost confusing when you finally see a positive one. I can't count how many times I've looked at this, reread the instructions and doubled checked that this is in fact positively positive. It's the first time since August that I've seen more than one line.

I bet you just looked at the date of this post and realized this was written at least over a month ago. Yes, my blog has been set back to private so I can quietly chronicle what will be the beginning of our second pregnancy journey, which I have lovingly named Number 2. My posts will become public again once we safely make it to the second trimester.

Shock is still in place and I cannot believe that we are about to do this again. I cannot believe that Simon is going to become a big brother. Eric says that our family is going to be complete.

Thank you for completing us, Number 2. We look forward to meeting you!

Simon's 2nd birthday [part 1]

It's about time that I post about Simon's 2nd birthday!

I'll start by saying that so far, having a 2-year-old is absolutely splendid. Yes, he's definitely already acting like he's two going on twenty, but the spark that ignited in him after his birthday has made life so much fun. He's grown and changed in so many ways in such a short period of time that it's hard to keep up with, but we absolutely love living life with our little two-nager.

Back to the actual birthday: we had a blast celebrating the birth of our baby boy! We began his special day with breakfast at our favorite neighborhood donut shop, a tradition we started last year. Upon our arrival, Simon received a free donut hole from the sweet owner and then picked out a chocolate and sprinkled donut for his treat. It being his birthday and all, I let him devour the whole thing and oh boy did he! Our little charmer received lots of birthday greetings while we enjoyed our yummies. Once finished, we were eager to continue on with the day's festivities.

Our next stop of the day was to make a dapper dude out of the birthday boy. We visited EJ's Little People, an adorable hair salon for children where Simon received his first haircut at 18 months old. This was Simon's third haircut at EJ's and his stylist, Daneece, was happy to make a little gentleman out of our boy. The haircut was quick and easy and Simon enjoyed pawing through the basket of fun toys while sitting atop the barber chair.

The big surprise of the day was taking Simon to the Sacramento Children's Museum! I'll admit that I didn't know much about this place except for what I'd read online, but now I can say from experiencing it that this place is freaking awesome! Eric and I had as much fun playing and learning and exploring as Simon did! We spent a lot of time at the Cityways exhibit playing with trains on the giant activity table modeled after downtown Sacramento. The table was interactive and had several stations for building bridges, skyscrapers, and automotives. Simon was playing here so long that we practically had to tear him away so we could see other areas of the museum!

We were able to get Simon over to the Neighborhood and Market exhibits, which had the best pretend play setup I've ever seen anywhere. So much detail down to mail in the mailbox outside of the playhouse, laundry hanging from a clothesline, and rare vegetables and spices to purchase at the farmer's market (none of which I got pictures of, bah!). Simon was spotted in the farmer's market by the museum's manager who noticed his birthday shirt and brought him a special button and announced his birthday over the PA system. He loved his birthday button so much and was excited to have it pinned to his shirt.

After lunch we checked out the Waterways exhibit, where Simon was only interested in playing with the Lego wall, and then we headed over to the Art Studio for crafts. The activity of the week was a Valentine's card and Simon was really engaged in coloring his card, using every available marker he could reach. I got him to use a Valentine's stamp on the front and then (because he saw another little boy do it) Simon wanted to put his whole hand on the ink pad to make a hand print on his card. It actually came out really cute! He then proceeded to continue coloring on the inside of the card until we turned his attention to painting. The studio was partitioned off by a large series of clear windows on which the kids had free range to paint. Simon totally dug this! He ran from color to color, making little designs on the window above each paint canister. He was into this for a long time, and even now sometimes asks to "paint" when he really means to color with crayons.

We hung out until afternoon storytime at the Story Factory, which was the best part of the day. All kids who wanted to participate gathered near the stage and the story leader led a song to introduce all of the friends who were present for the day's story. When it was Simon's turn to introduce himself, he proudly announced his first and last name and the story leader noticed his birthday pin. At the end of the song, the group--kids and parents alike--sang 'Happy Birthday' to Simon and he grinned from ear to ear! The story leader then read the book, 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,' which was one of my favorites growing up. Our little entertainer got on stage with the story leader and helped read the story, bellowing out his "BOOM BOOM" with every accompanying "Chicka Chicka."  I later realized that we had this book at home and we ended up reading it to him again that night before bed... and have for several nights since (it's become frequently requested!).

We were all exhausted after hours of fun at the children's museum, but we had such a blast laughing and learning with our boy. Later that evening we were joined by Cho-Cho, Pappy and Laura, Auntie, Uncle Bucky, and Uncle LunchboX and Auntie Eat (Simon's name for Brianna!) for pizza at our house. Eric and I shared about Simon's day while the birthday boy played and showed off all the goodies we brought home from our adventure. Our entire celebration was absolutely perfect and Simon seemed to be bursting with joy. This birthday was so fun and magical, and the fact that Simon understood it was his birthday and continued to be excited about everything we did made it that much more special. Eric and I felt extremely lucky to be the parents of this wonderfully awesome TWO-YEAR-OLD!

Simon [2 years]

Happy Second Birthday to our beautiful, smart, funny, energetic, creative, empathetic, silly, loving son. Daddy and I are beyond proud to call ourselves your parents. You constantly amaze us everyday with how much you learn, how much you inspire us, and how curious you are about the world around you. Thank you for loving us and for making us yours.

nostalgia

At this time exactly 2 years ago, I went into labor.

It was funny, because I did not expect to be immediately in labor with the onset of my first contraction. Being my first pregnancy and like most people I knew, I assumed that labor would be a long affair for me, stretching into multiple days or, in the very least, several on-and-off agonizing hours before it would finally be time to go to the hospital. But for me, my body and my child were different. At 8:25 pm on Saturday, February 9th, my uterus contracted its very first labor contraction and thus initiated the final process of my pregnancy: the birth of my son.

I've been joking a lot over the last couple of weeks about being emotional over tomorrow. Recently I said to Simon, "... your birthday is 2 weeks from tomorrow! I'm gonna cry." His emphatic response: "Mommy, don't cry!" Do I really think I'm going to cry? No. Truthfully, I am very excited for his birthday and have so many fun things planned. But does that mean that am I emotional over this annual milestone? Ohmygod yes.

We love Simon so much, and we are so thankful that this big, bright ball of joy came into our lives when he did. 'Two' feels like uncharted territory, but Eric reminded me that the same can be said of every new and ordinary day ahead of us. I'm not afraid of the unknown; rather, I am intrigued over what adventures lie ahead for us as we enter Simon's 3rd year of life.

Happy Day-I-Went-Into-Labor-With-Simon Day; a day that will always be special in my heart... the day I knew I was about to meet my first born.

snow day!

Eric took the week off from work to enjoy some time off and lots of fun-filled family time with Simon and me while I'm on Winter Break.  Since Ben is also on vacation from school, we invited him to spend the night and join Simon, Courage, and us for a trip up to the snow.

We bought a sled yesterday at Sports Authority (thanks for the advice, Jen!) and had such a fun time watching Ben go nuts flying through the snow.  He said today was his first time ever riding a sled, and he was quite the pro at it by the end of our day.  Today also marked Simon's very first experience in the snow; he reacted as expected, unsure of the snow's texture and not fond of its chilly temperature, but he warmed up to it (lol) after a while and enjoyed throwing snowballs and watching us build a snowman.

The baby is now in bed, and I swear Eric and Ben have been playing the same video game for at least 3 nonconsecutive (only because we turned it off during dinner) hours now.  I've been relaxing by myself as they play, but I don't mind sitting back and letting the two of them spend some quality time together.  It's actually wonderful that brothers 20 years apart are able to find things to bond over... I realize that basically means I'm married to a giant child who loves video games, but I've known that for years now.

Happy Friday!

2014: a year in review

It's absolutely atrocious that I haven't posted on my blog in over 8 months.  I had planned to continue posting here after The Big One, but after 31 weekly pregnancy posts and 12 months of baby updates I guess I needed a little long overdue break.  What matters now is that I'm back and ready to play catch up and reflect over this past year of 2014!

We began the year on January 1st with a cranky and brief after-midnight photo, one that may have interrupted an early slumber on the couch.

In February, our little boy celebrated his first birthday!

During the month of March I attended my very first Comic Con with Justin, Athena, and James.  We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine with lots of outside play.

April brought us Simon's 2nd Easter and a more successful visit to see the Easter Bunny at Fairytale Town.  Pappy and Uncle Ben joined us, which made the holiday extra special.

Simon was enrolled in his very first swim lessons in May, I turned 29 and celebrated a relaxing Mother's Day, and Eric and I both left Simon overnight for the first time... separately!  One night for me chaperoning the 8th grade field trip in Yosemite, 3 nights for Eric spent at KublaCon in the Bay Area with the guys.

In June the regular school year ended and summer school began, and we had a fun Father's Day with both of our dads.  Simon of course played, played, played.

When summer school ended, July included many adventures such as Independence Day, our FREE TRIP to the Aulani Disney Resort in Oahu that we won (joined by Jen and Bliss because Eric was unable to come due to work), and a visit to the California State Fair.

We took a family camping trip to Bucks Lake in August with all of our friends.  I went back to work mid-month to start the new school year.  Great Aunt Sami traveled to Lake Tahoe for a wedding so we drove up for a visit.  Simon also turned 18 months old and got his first haircut!

September was a busy month full of many birthday parties, including Uncle Ben's 9th birthday at Roller King.  Simon visited the dentist for the first time and was an all-star patient!

Our family was even busier during October celebrating Eric's 29th birthday, our 4th wedding anniversary, the wedding of my wonderful friends Josh and Rob and Caitlin's visit, and Halloween.  Oh, and Courage turned 4 years old!

Things calmed down in November and we had a nice Thanksgiving celebration at Cho-Cho's house.

The holidays came and went in a flash this month in December.  We saw Santa, watched the Festival of Lights Parade in Auburn, and continued our Christmas traditions as a family.

Oh yeah, and Eric's been growing a beard.

2014 has been one crazy ride full of many wonderful memories and experiences.  As we close out the year tonight, I am reminded of the adventures that await us on the horizon: Simon turning TWO, Eric and me turning THIRTY, celebrating FIVE years of marriage, and so much more.  I hope to make as solid of an effort as possible to be here on this blog documenting as much happiness and love as time will allow me.  I hope that you decide to stop by to share in this journey, too.

See you soon, 2015!