Harvest Fest 2011...

Our church decided to have a Harvest Fest this year. This was our first year to do anything like this - the kids had such a great time.

I had a great time too.

I may or may not have eaten 2 bags of cotton candy.

I love things like this because it's an alternative to going door-to-door to trick-or-treat. Trick-or-treating is so weird to me. Taking Amelia to a strangers home and asking for candy - no thanks. (LOL) Anyway, Amelia LOVED Harvest Fest. She played non-stop and was worn out by the time the night was over. Her favorite thing was the bouncy house.



I went back and forth on what she should be this year. I loved her Amelia Earhart costume last year and wanted something unique this year as well. After seeing this little dress on etsy, I knew she had to be Audrey Hepburn. I LOVE Audrey Hepburn movies. Sabrina is my all-time favorite and then Breakfast at Tiffany's. Here she is all dolled up!



My sister-in-law found the mini tiara in the Walmart party section for $1.00. It worked perfectly! We couldn't find solid black sunglasses so she just wore her animal print ones from Gap. The pearls were $1.00 from Accessory City and we already had the shoes. It was an easy costume and I thought she looked adorable.



She played the fishing game, the cake walk, and made a bracelet too!



She told us she didn't even want a bath when we arrived home, though she still received one. :) She was so sticky from the 12 suckers she had over the course of the night. She never finished one. She just carried them around, licked on them, and then handed them to random people to discard for her. HA! Little Ms. Audrey was spotted all throughout the evening, rummaging through the candy buckets, filling her bag. She didn't really grasp the concept of getting all the candy she could though because she would walk back over and empty her bag. She ended up bringing home about 10 pieces of candy - thank goodness!



Eating her candy...



It was a fun night for all!



Love to all,

18 weeks...

I'm 18 weeks today! This pregnancy seems to be flying by. I've been thinking about names...mainly girl names...just in case my feeling of BLUE is incorrect. Alex and I both come from families with six children. There are 3 boys and 3 girls in each of our families, so the thought of Amelia having a brother or a sister makes me extremely happy!

I've starting feeling things but still unsure if it's the baby. You would think I would know since I've been pregnant before but I really have no clue. Maybe in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to tell if it's the baby or just my food digesting.



Our sweet baby currently measures 5 1/2 inches (about the length of a bell pepper) and weighs almost 7 ounces. :)

Love to all,

All About Amelia - 2 Years Old!

Amelia,

As I sit here thinking about the fact that my baby is 2 YEARS OLD, my mind immediately goes back to October 22nd, 2009. 1:01AM.

Silence.

No crying.

No kicking and screaming.

Just silence.



They rushed you by me and I didn't see your sweet face until 12 hours later.


Even then, I still couldn't hold you. I couldn't believe how small you were and how much you looked like your Daddy! You did have my lips though. :)



I remember sitting down in that rocking chair and holding you for the very first time. You were a day old. My heart felt so incredibly full. I laughed. I cried. It was such a happy day...the day God's promise was fulfilled. I was holding MY baby. I prayed for you for over 3 years and there you were in my arms...my answered prayer.



I remember thinking I would have to go home without you. I would cry every night in the hospital - the thought of leaving you there broke my heart. The Lord took care of us though. Something would happen every day that wouldn't allow me to go home. We were able to stay in the hospital with you for that entire week.



The day we brought you home was exciting and scary at the same time. You were so tiny, weighing a little over 5 pounds. You were such a laid back baby from the very start. You fussed when hungry and that was about it.



I feel like you're still pretty laid back. You're content to sit by us and watch a movie or play in the floor on your own. You're affectionate and have such a tender heart. You're always saying "I love you." You're incredibly smart and I think you're the most beautiful thing God ever created.



You are my heart, sweet girl. I can't imagine my world without you.



Happy 2nd Birthday, Amelia Joy!



You will always be my baby.

I love you,
Mommy

Party Planning, Perspective, & Prayer Request...

My friend, Christie, designed Amelia's birthday invite this year and I just love it! She's so talented...you should check out her SITE.



I've been in party planning mode for a few weeks now. Amelia's 2nd birthday is this Saturday, the 22nd. I decided on an Autumn theme and found lots of cute things! I've really felt behind because I'm usually planning/preparing for many months ahead of time, but with my morning sickness being so bad the first trimester, not much was accomplished. Anyway, I've been wrapping up loose ends and was going to use this entire week finishing things. Alex ended up needing to go out of town on business so that was a little added stress to my already planned week. I love throwing a party but I always let myself get stressed over the details that in the end don't really matter. I have a desire to make it special and unique. Nothing is wrong with that but letting myself get stressed over party planning is ridiculous. It's something that I've had to really work on over the years. I'm getting better at just letting things go and enjoying the party whether everything went as planned or not. Alex can attest to this because he's the one that has to remind me. :)

And there's nothing like a good dose of perspective to make you realize what's truly important. To make you realize it really doesn't matter if you have labels for all of the food, or stickers on the favors, or seating for all 60 of your guests.

I received the call yesterday that my Daddy will have open heart surgery on Wednesday of this week. Needless to say, the party is being postponed. I want to be with my Daddy & Mama. That's WAY MORE IMPORTANT than any birthday party. And I can't even count the number of times my parents have dropped what they had going or had planned to come be with me when I needed them. I called all of the vendors yesterday to let them know I needed to postpone and let everyone on the guest list know they shouldn't show up at my home this Saturday. I'm thinking we'll celebrate early November. Amelia will never know or even care. When we mention her birthday all she ever says is "tay-tay cake??" (LOL) I'm assuming she's saying birthday cake and she will most definitely still have birthday cake on Saturday.

So now I can concentrate on my Daddy and helping Mama in any way I can. Please say a prayer for my Daddy? I know everything will go well and he will feel so much better once he has recovered, but it's major surgery and recovery could be lengthy.

Love to all,

16 weeks...

I'm 16 weeks today! I'm feeling pretty good. I still have nausea off and on but more than anything, I'm just really tired. I'm back to cooking dinner every night, so that's a huge improvement from how I felt during my first trimester. I feel like I'm showing more every day. I'm wearing all maternity clothes because they fit and are comfortable. I'm not one to try and squeeze myself into regular clothes while pregnant. I need to be able to breathe.

We started discussing baby names. We've had our boy name for years but really weren't sure if it's a girl. To my surprise, we actually came up with a girl name over the weekend that we both agree on! We'll keep discussing but it's nice to have one that we both really like. We won't be sharing the name choice until we find out if we're having a boy or girl. So sometime next month! :)



Our sweet baby currently measures 4 1/2 inches (about the size of an avocado) and weighs 3 1/2 ounces. :)

Love to all,

The Punkin' Patch...

We've been telling Amelia for a couple of weeks now that we were going to the pumpkin patch this month. This was our first free weekend so today was the day! She was pretty excited. She kept saying, "going to punkin' patch!!"



This was when we first arrived. She was sleepy from the ride and not quite ready for her picture to be taken.



Alex said she needed to feed and pet the animals. Thank the Lord for hand sanitizer :) They had pigs, goats, calves, and ducks. She LOVED feeding the baby goat. We asked her afterwards what animals she saw and she said, "I feed goat grass." She also says she met "Ivia & Ian the pig." She loves the cartoon Olivia. (LOL)



My favorite thing was watching her with the calf. It would lick her hand and she would laugh so hard.



I think about when we took her last year...she couldn't even walk. She has grown so much.



She insisted on walking the entire time - but once she saw Daddy with the wagon - she wanted a ride!



We picked a pretty cinderella pumpkin and let her pick a few little pumpkins as well.



She held her 3 little pumpkins the entire way home and even asked to take a nap with them. How cute is that?



It was such a fun day with our girl. We were talking about next year - we'll have an almost 3 year old and a 7 month old. Can hardly imagine!!



Love to all,

The Great Escape...

Well...today was the day. I was exhausted from the time I got up and was very much looking forward to nap time today. It was officially a pajama day. We've had lots of these lately. My sis & nephew came over for a little bit. Amelia loves when her Aunt Joy and cousins come to visit. Cody was sweet and read her Goodnight Moon. He really had no choice. Girl was harassing him until he read the book. :)



After Joy and Cody left it was time for a nap. I put Amelia in her crib and then went to my room to lie down. I could hear her over the monitor, she was counting to 6 over and over. And then she got quiet. Sleep...sweet sleep.

Nope.

I saw a shadow coming towards my bedroom door and then what do you know...Amelia walked through the door. She said, "hi, Mommy." She was very cool about it, as though she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

I on the other hand was having a slight heart attack. I could barely form a sentence. How on earth did she get out of her crib?

I took her back to her room and asked her to show me how she climbed out.

She gladly demonstrated.

This is when I almost had a panic attack. She got up on her tiptoes (she has extremely long legs) and threw her leg over the crib.



After throwing one leg over, she slowly lifted her tummy up on the rail and threw her other leg over. And then she mission-impossibled it down the crib. I had to stop taking pictures and go spot her because I was so scared she would fall on her head. She was so high in the air!



I still can't believe she tried this and I fear she'll try it again.

I'm bummed because I really wanted to keep her in the crib until she was at least 3 or until her legs were just too long for it. (LOL) We were planning on buying another crib for the baby on the way, so Amelia could stay in her bed. I'm just not one to rush anything. I usually have to be told by her pediatrician that it's time to try something new or change something. She sleeps SO WELL in her crib...I guess I'll just pray she'll do the same in a toddler bed. I certainly can't go through the panic of seeing her climb out again. Heaven help.

Guess we're going toddler bed shopping.

Love to all,

14 weeks...

This is the first pregnancy post I've done since announcing my pregnancy. The second time around truly is different. For me anyway. I took weekly pictures starting very early on in my first pregnancy but haven't felt like it this time around. I think being sick along with chasing my almost 2 year old around every day has something to do with it. I'm just tired by the time Alex gets home and haven't thought about having him take a picture. But since I'm officially in my 2nd trimester now, I decided it was time to start posting! I took a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror so it's not the greatest pic but it shows the belly. That's all anyone cares about anyway. How big is the belly getting!??

I thought I would do something different this time around and share different things each week, other than the size of the baby. I found this idea on Pinterest (one of my favorite sites) way before I was pregnant and thought it was a neat idea. This week I'm sharing what I've been craving over the past 14 weeks!



Our sweet baby currently measures 3 1/2 inches (about the size of a lemon) and weighs 1 1/2 ounces. :)

Love to all,

Food Trucks & Football...

Our weekend was centered around food & football. Needless to say, it was a FUN weekend!!

Alex had the opportunity to have a guys weekend in Dallas. They had awesome tickets to a luxury suite at Cowboys Stadium to watch the Hogs beat A&M! He came home barely able to talk...I think he screamed the entire game. I was happy he was able to go...he deserves some downtime from all the other stuff he has to do. He had a blast which made me happy! :)



Amelia and I started our day over breakfast at Mimi's Cafe. I enjoyed a mocha latte, which is more mocha than latte, but it sure was delicious. I'm trying to get my love for coffee back. Morning sickness ruined it for me but I'm finally over that and starting to enjoy it again!



After breakfast we ran some errands with Aunt Joy and then headed to the Food Truck Festival downtown. I was so excited for this! I watch The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network religiously. I was hoping for some gourmet cuisine like Hodge Podge or The Lime Truck offered but it wasn't really like that.



This is Hot Dog Mike. He's a local celebrity around these parts. He makes the best hot dog on the planet. He also offers veggie dogs for all you folks who hate meat.



I enjoyed a frito chili pie dog.

Oh my.

It was delicious.



FYI: pimento cheese has made a comeback. We split a grilled pimento cheese sandwich by Green Cuisine.

It rocked my world.



We had a great time and came home with full bellies.



I must now clean my kitchen and do some laundry.

It's the hard-knock life.

Love to all,