And then there were two...

Joey and I had decided a long time ago that we wanted more than one child, and we are so blessed to be expecting a baby boy on November 7^th.  That will put the baby and Aubrey 18 months apart, which sometimes seems incredibly daunting, but at the same time, I think it’s going to be great down the road, when they are older and will hopefully become close.  Needless to say, I have been a bit exhausted lately and I hope that now that my energy is back, I will be able to post more entries and give some more perspective of the 2 under 2 world, I guess I will just start here and fill you all in on the past few weeks.  

I had started feeling just odd in March, not good or bad, just different.  On a whim I took a pregnancy test and so our new journey began.  I have been sick again this time, and terribly exhausted, although I'm sure that some of it has to due with the fact that there's a one year old running through my house at all times.  

While I have had morning sickness again, it only lasted until 16 weeks this time and was not as severe as last time, and for that I am grateful.  It's been a little more difficult to pay attention to my diet and work on exercising with a crazier than expected work schedule, I'm happy to say that I'm getting there.  Here's hoping the second half of this pregnancy is better than the first.

Keeping true to form, we decided to keep the gender a secret and reveal to family all at once.  Only this time, we decided to find out at the doctor's office ourselves, and then tell our families that night over dinner.  I was convinced that it was another girl, and boy was I in for a shock.  It actually took me a couple days to wrap my head around it, but I am getting there.  I have bought a couple outfits and luckily, we will be receiving some hand-me-downs from my cousin that had a baby last December.  

She actually was happy at one point, we promise!

So here we are, and we are so grateful to be able to add to our family.  Stay tuned!

The Year in Pictures

Since we have taken a picture of Aubrey every month, I thought it would be cool to show them all in one place so that you can see how much that she has grown over this past year.  Enjoy!

One Year Old!

Here we are, over a month since Aubrey’s first birthday, and I am just now getting to post about it on the old blog, that being said, I’m going to go ahead and sneak in what has been going on during month thirteen as well.  As you will see in upcoming entries, it has been a little bit busier around here than I expected.    At any rate, it has been a great past couple of months, and it seems like Aubrey has been doing something new every day.  I look forward to waking up every morning to see if there is something new that she has learned to do, and she usually comes through, or at least finds a way to make us smile.

While Aubs is very energetic, she is also incredibly loving and sweet; I have lately been calling her my sour patch kid.  She’s into something she shouldn’t be one minute, and then giving you a big hug and a kiss the next.  She has really gotten into her books and always wants me to read them to her, or at least flip through the pictures.  As an avid reader, this makes me incredibly happy, and I hope I can pass my love of reading to her.  I can’t wait to be able to catch her under the covers with a flashlight, finishing that last chapter as I often did when I was younger.

Other big developments these past couple of months have been several steps (our record is eight).  She still prefers to crawl, but I have a feeling that will change here in the next couple of weeks.  We of course went and got her some big girl shoes, and she loves them.  She has also started talking a lot more, while it is still gibberish to us, usually starting her sentence with “Aubee”, and she will repeat the same thing over and over, until we say “yes” or “really?”.  I just can’t wait until the day that we actually know what she’s saying.  I’m sure then that we will never hear the end of it after that.

We also had our one year appointment last month, and the doc says that Aubs is right on track on doing great.  She weighed in at 18 pounds (5^th percentile) and measures 28.75 inches (50^th percentile), while she’s still out little peanut, she makes up for it in sheer energy.  I don’t know how she stays so slim considering she could probably eat most 3 year olds under the table.  She hasn’t met a food she didn’t like, although her current favorite is any type of fruit.

She also had her birthday party last month, she really showed her cake who was boss and she loved her presents.

I can’t believe that I’m here with a one year old and that time has flown by so quickly.  Aubrey is such a joy, and although there are the days where I wish she would slow down just a little, I’m not sure that I would really want change a thing.

Ten & Eleven Months Old

It’s been a very busy couple of months, so I will be condensing the ten and eleven month updates into one.  Baby Girl is proving to be quite the handful, she is crawling at warp speed and can now climb up the stairs as well as turn around and come back down safely.  She really amazes me with how fast that she can catch onto things and also how fast she can make a mess, especially when it comes to the pantry. 

We have had to get serious about our baby proofing this month as Aubs has figured out how to open the cabinets.  She loves taking absolutely everything out and attempting to climb right in.

As far as food goes, so far Aubs hasn’t met a food she didn’t like.  She’s getting over the purees, and she’s all about the finger foods or whatever is on Mama and Daddy’s plate.  Blueberries, green beans and waffles seem to be in the top three.  She is now mostly sleeping through the night and now goes right to sleep at bedtime.

Big events these past couple of months have been the arrival of Aubrey’s cousin Sam, and of course Easter.  Aubrey is getting used to her cousin, although she is frequently reminded to use “gentle hands” when patting him on the head.  She also doesn’t like to share him with Grandma and Big Daddy, we continue to work on that one.  We are so blessed that we are in the same town and the cousins will be able to grow up and makes some great memories together.

Easter was a wonderful time with family and friends, we had an Easter Egg hunt with my family, and the kids seemed to have a great time.  Aubrey found the golden egg and got $2 for her piggy bank.  We had a wonderful dinner with family on Easter Sunday and got some great shots of Aubrey and Sam.

Next month, our girl will be one, time has flown by!  Maybe I will be able to get that post up in a reasonable amount of time.

Clovers for Collins

When I first found out I was pregnant, I went to babycenter.com daily to check the status of what was going on with my pregnancy, as well as finding out what was normal and not normal, since I had no clue.  I found the community section on the website, and joined the board for the moms of May 2011 babies.  This was a great place to go and talk to other people going exactly through what I was going through, and it provided a group of people to talk to outside of work and home, since we had decided not to spill the beans until I was out of my first trimester.  


There were thousands of people and so many posts everyday that it was hard to keep up.  One day I saw a post for the start of a spinoff group of moms that were sarcastic.  I of course signed up immediately.  We became a close knit group of ladies, and eventually the group moved to Facebook.  We went from talking about our pregnancies to one by one, to welcoming our babies into the world.  


Of the 27 women in the group, one of the ladies was not able to bring her son home with her.  He had a disease called ACD, which a rare lung disease that strikes newborns.  It has no cure and is always fatal.  There was no way of knowing that he had this disease, and the night we all found out, we hugged our babies tight and prayed for strength and comfort for this fellow May mama.  


One of the services that was provided to family in their loss was a photo session of her dear son by a group called "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" (NILMDTS).  This group brings in a photographer to hospitals to do a photo session for families to have a keepsake of of their babies that have gone to be with the Lord.  She has told us many times how she treasures these photos and how great it is to have something so beautiful to remember him by.


With all that being said, our group decided, that in celebration of his life, we would do a fundraiser in which for a $5 donation, people could purchase a 4 leaf clover (her symbol for Collins) of their choice that was handcrafted by a member of our group.  The fundraiser is called Clovers for Collins and all proceeds will be donated to NILMDTS in Collins' name.  We have started a Facebook page, which you can access by clicking the button on the right hand side of my blog.  Please take a look and consider donating to this great organization.  I know that they have done a great service for my friends' family, and hopefully they can continue their work in the future for more families.

Nine Months Old!

What a crazy month this has been, while Aubrey was just starting to get mobile last month, she has now become very good at it, a little too good actually because we are constantly chasing her down and getting her out of things (including the dust bunny collection behind the couch).  Our house is now in the best shape that it has ever been.  Yes, we have to sweep and steam the floors every week, but it’s worth it.  We have also installed baby gates at the top of the stairs, and will be installing them at the bottom of that stairs this weekend, thanks to daddy’s “lessons” on how to climb the stairs last week. 

Between the crawling and the standing up everywhere, Baby Girl can get pretty much everywhere that she needs to go and absolutely everywhere that she shouldn’t be going.  It is unreal how fast she has picked up crawling, and it’s a great feeling knowing that sometimes she’s barreling toward me.  Now I just have to remember to wear sweatpants with drawstrings, so I don’t get pantsed when she pulls up on me.

This month has been very busy also with the onslaught of tax season, which came with an additional 10 hour a week requirement at work.  I am working out the kinks of the new schedule, and I think we are finally getting adjusted.  While I am enjoying the adult time at work, I sure do miss getting to hang out with my sweet girl as much.  It has also been a challenge to work out a new schedule in regards to working out and getting the house in order, hopefully that will come with this next month.  This month has also been bittersweet, as I made the decision to stop breastfeeding.  It was becoming too stressful to meet all my requirements at work as well as Aubrey’s nutritional requirements, so we switched to formula.  It hasn’t been terrible, but I must admit I miss it.  Hopefully one of these days when Aubrey has a brother or sister, I can make it the full year.  I am very proud of my 8 months though!

We had Aubrey’s well check today, and she’s still a little peanut, weighing in at 16 pounds even and 28.5 inches long.  She definitely has the Barbeauld genes in that regard, because the kid can put it away!  I honestly have no idea where all the food goes.  Our doctor says she’s doing great and wants us to work on getting Aubrey to sleep 8 hours at night.  While the prospect sounds nice, I’m not going to push it until Aubrey is a year.  Yes we have gotten a couple of full nights of sleep, but they are always followed by a week of bad sleep, so I have just decided not to get too comfortable with any type of sleep routine.  I have found just taking it one day at a time works the best for all of us.

Eight Months Old!

I just can’t believe I am writing this post.  This first year is going so fast, and we are really enjoying every minute of it.  Aubrey continues to amaze us every day and we have been so blessed to have such a great kid.  Here are a few snapshots from Aubrey's first Christmas.

Aubrey got some wonderful gifts, including a rocking horse that was handcrafted by her Papaw. 

It is a beautiful family heirloom, and we look forward to being able to enjoy it for years to come.  It was great to see all of the family together including all of the new additions that we have gotten this year.  Next year should be really fun when they are all mobile!

Speaking of mobility, she is still army crawling, but getting on her knees more and more.  She is big on exploring, and we often have to move her back to her play mat when she gets out of sight and into things.  

Another big change this month is sitting on from crawling and pulling up on anything and everything, the dog food was her first temptation, now she just does it to do it.  We have since lowered the crib mattress to avoid that temptation for now.

Our eight month pictures went a little bit better than last month, although she is definitely harder to keep in one place these days!  She loves her new boots that were made by my friend Amanda!