20 Months

Dear Annie,

Oh, my little tiny one, you are closely approaching 2 years old and it is blowing my mind! Frequently these days, I go back and look at your ultrasound pictures and am just astounded that you went from that little blob to this real live person now. It's mind blowing. As a little side note, I think this was our most successful photo session yet. You looked. You smiled. You performed well! Way to go, bunk :)

Last month, I talked about how easy going you were and how you rarely seemed cranky. Well, you must have somehow read that and decided that this month, you'd get a little pissier :) In general you are in good spirits, but crying and crankiness is a bit more frequent this month than it was last month. You still REALLY hate the process of getting ready for bed, and sometimes in the mornings you've been upset too. I'm not sure what this is related to, as usual, because I am unfortunately not a mind reader. My only hope is that it will pass and you'll be back to being happy - and maybe, MAYBE someday get it through your noggin that YES, EVERY night we are going to put your pajamas on and brush your teeth. Every single night. It never wavers.

While you can go with the flow most of the time, you do love your routines! You now know when I'm going to be picking you up from daycare based on what kids are left and look for me up the stairs. You know that when Barry (Sue's husband) comes downstairs, that means it's time to go outside to play at daycare. You now finally seem to get that when you have a dirty diaper, you need it changed. We also started saying "say bye bye to your belly button!" before zipping up your PJs at night, and now regardless of if we say it or not, you'll say "bye bye bee bo!" which we learned because you did it when Grandma put on your PJs! If we say anything is going to happen, like a walk, going outside, or eating, we better be ready for it to happen IMMEDIATELY, because you go to the door, your chair, or wherever, saying "eat? eat? outside? walk?" and get upset if we aren't moving in about 2 seconds. You also always now want me to give you a kiss before leaving the house, and make the exact same face each time. I once forgot to kiss you (well I think I already had, but not immediately before leaving) and you just gave me your "kiss" face from the chair so I knew to return :)

As that indicates, you are understanding more and more, and even give us appropriate answers to questions. You know if you want or don't want something, and get this look on your face when saying no that is just hilarious. While it does get a bit trying to hear "nooooo" so often, it's hard to be annoyed at you for just telling us how you're feeling! You are a pro at your body parts, know tons of animals and animal noises, and are starting to identify letters and colors. When you find clothes now, you put them on yourself, or try to - even if you already have clothes on. Pants are especially fascinating to you.

You LOVE to sing songs with us (mostly me, since your Dad does not sing) and always sing along, but your songs sound very similar regardless of what the song is :) The ABCs and Old McDonald Had a Farm are big hits right now. Really any song I sing you gets a big smile, which I'm happy about despite my not so amazing singing voice.

In terms of milestones this month, you had your first tummy virus which disrupted your eating for a few days. You also are getting a few more teeth - I've seen the pointy ones come through on the top and you now have all 4 molars completely in. You don't have a ton of teeth still, but you're getting there. Luckily, teething doesn't seem to bother you too much.

You really are such a joyful little girl - you still love to SCREAM whenever you see someone you know - it can be heard from FAR away! You still have the best facial expressions and now will give us open armed hugs and kisses (upon request typically). You are typically pretty good about sharing toys and will still just wait for a opening to grab something rather than taking it directly from someone else. While you don't always give up things if someone else tries to take it, unless it's a real favorite, you don't get too upset about it. You actually are starting to play WITH other kids now, and play with your friends at daycare and with Mia, doing things like ring around the rosie, or both playing with the same toy together. You get a little shy with new kids, depending on your mood.

Things you love this month - still your tiny animals, laying down on dish towels that we lay on the floor, or being covered up by them while laying on the floor, getting stickers, picking up acorns, puppies of all kinds, except real ones in your face, playing ring around the rosie alone or with other people. You also seem to be more into ME this month which I love - you get so excited to see me at daycare, and actually want to be held, versus last month when you'd go hide in a plastic house when I'd arrive. You shout MOMMY!!! when you see me, which just warms my heart! You also have been allowing me more and more to read books to you, which is so fun for me!

Eating still continues to be pretty similar to last month, with the addition of "noooooo" when you don't want something, along with a look of pure disgust. You also have a very annoying habit of holding a mouthful of food at the end of a meal, and when you say you're done, you also remove any trace of food that is left in your mouth, as if you can't even stand to finish what you have. Hopefully you grow out of that one quick, because it is GROSS!

As I mentioned, you are TINY. I don't really get it. You eat A LOT of food - yes, some nights you choose to not eat dinner at all, but overall you eat VERY well, sometimes more than me. Where does it all go? You still easily fit into 12-18 month, and 18 month sizes are a bit baggy yet. I've gotten you some of the bigger size which you can wear, but they are definitely big yet. You are a size 4 shoe now, which is exciting to me because that means you are ALMOST to the point where I can buy you new shoes! I don't know your stats, but I'm doubting you've grown too much since your 18 month doc visit when you were 21lbs, 6oz and 31.25inches tall. Time will tell if you will always be a peanut or if you will someday have a huge growth spurt!

You make your Dad and I smile every day, little Annie. We love you!

Love, Mom

So many good pics this month - it was hard to choose!

your response to "make a funny face!"

"Where are your eyes?"

Still a fan of "so big" sometimes!

Your dad asked you where your belly button was

Found it!

Fall Cabin Weekend

While Ben was off gallivanting with his little boy friends in Montana, I decided to forgo single parenting for the weekend and enlist the help of my parents by way of going up to the cabin. I know women do it all the time, but hey, if I CAN have help, I'll take it :) Bonus, Annie gets some time with her grandparents and great-grandma, who she rarely sees!

Jake took a ton of photos of the weekend in Montana, including many of them peeing outside (why? I mean I get WHY - but why the photos?! Whatever), but I will just include this one. Looked like it was a fun trip! Glad it won't happen again for nearly 2 years! :)

I tried to keep pace with Ben's good example of documenting Annie's time without him, but she wasn't always a willing participant. Honestly she was a bit cranky this weekend, which was tough - she doesn't sleep QUITE as well at the cabin, and likes to whine whenever I come back into view and was pretty clingy. It wasn't that bad or anything, but she wasn't a ball of joy every second either :)

My mom saw how much Annie loves her little tiny animals, so she got her a lego set with more small animals! Annie loved it, of course :)


The other little animals still had to be in the action too, though (glad to see she can still fit into this chair! Good thing she never grows! :)




Now she even carries it around to her chosen spot!


Every morning was really foggy - this one looked particularly pretty as it burned off!




I just have to include this one since it's so rare for her to actually be looking AT THE CAMERA, OMG.


Playing outside with rocks and pinecones


I love this outfit my mom got Annie! Note that it's 18-24 months and still pretty huge :)




Pretty spiderwebs on the deck


A cheese face even!


This is the face Annie makes every time I turn the self portrait setting on on my iPhone. Every time. Gives a good view of her molars at least!


Just laying around, eating peas


Maybe in a few years :)


Ahhhhhhhh BOTH OF US LOOKING! Good job, Grandpa!




She can do this in like 4 seconds now, so I guess it's time to move on.


Taking a walk


Entranced by Wheel of Fortune, clapping for the contestants


Blurry, but just shows how obsessed she is with laying down towels and going night night. Even in the bath, with a wet rag after all the water has drained. NUT.


There's that face again!


Clinging to me because the SUPER SCARY Maggie the Boxer (not scary at all) is coming!


This is the face Annie makes whenever she's telling us No. Like she's offended we are EVEN ASKING. I think I asked if she wanted her milk.


Cutie!


Finally, at the very end of the weekend, Annie was mildly ok with Maggie. Then she'll forget about her and be scared again the next time she sees her :)


Eating her sandwich


Warming up her hands :)






Later on Sunday, Dad and daughter were reunited at Mia's 2nd birthday party!!

18 Weeks

Due Date: February 27, 2012

Weight Gain: I did weigh myself once last week, I was up about a pound maybe. So, still basically the same.

Symptoms: Unfortunately, still lots. Still really tired most of the time, headachy, and most sadly of all, still feeling pukey. Just puked again yesterday, although I mostly blame the fact that my Dad was cleaning the coffee pot with vinegar and the smell hit me when I was already feeling gross. EW. Barely made it to the bathroom with that one. So still obviously not 100%.

What's different this time: Just again that I'm still feeling crappy. Otherwise it's pretty much the same but that's a big one!

Cravings: I have cereal pretty much every night after Annie goes to bed.

Aversions: Can't really eat much of anything healthy. I CAN, and try to, but I really only can eat a few bites. Normal dinners at home take me a long time to eat a somewhat acceptable amount.

Sleep: Not great.

I am loving: Having our little family all home again, for another week at least, before Ben's NEXT guy's weekend. And then he goes to NYC for work, and then we have a family vacay to Wisconsin, then I go to Orlando for work. Sheesh! At least the time will pass quickly!

I miss: The normal things about not being pregnant. Still glad to be pregnant, obviously, but I will be glad to be on the other side with a baby and NOT being pregnant. This is a lot to say for someone who isn't a big fan of newborns.

I am looking forward to: See above. In the immediate future, our ultrasound in one week - strangely enough, it does seem to have gone kind of quickly, despite feeling like I've been pregnant forever.

I'm spazzing about: Too tired to spaz.

Best thing about this week: Getting cookies and milk delivered to work from Ben (from tank goodness) on Thursday!! Our 6 year anniversary was on Saturday, and he was gone in Montana for a guy's weekend trip, so he had to make up for it :) Worked for me!

Milestones: My belly is definitely popping and is harder. Still managing to sleep on my belly some though!

Movement: Getting more consistent. I feel it at least once a day now, and I'm certain it's the baby. I would love to feel it constantly, but I suppose that's coming soon!

It's a...: whoa, one week til the big reveal! Any guesses? I have none :)

Exercise: No. Will I ever find the energy for prenatal yoga? I just don't know.

Diet: Passable. Nothing great, but I'm eating.

Scottsdale, AZ - September 15 - 18

I've already talked a tiny bit about my trip to Scottsdale last weekend in my 17 Weeks post, but here are all the details! As is my way, this is long but I didn't want to do 2 posts, so just settle in.

It all begins in 2003 (?I think) in a nasty old house on East Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis. This house was shared by 7 people in the lower half, and 5 in the upper (I think) and for 4 glorious months, I subleased from Kimberly while she was studying abroad in England, before my own stint in London. I like to think it was fate that I ran into Mindy on the Washington Avenue Bridge the spring before and happened to mention to her that I needed a place to live fall semester, or I never might have really known these ladies the way I do now! (Except probably still for Mindy and Chelsea, since we went to high school together). Even though I only spent 4 months there, these girls are some of my best friends! Here are a few pics of us through the years...

This is the only one I have of the group (minus Maria, who must have been out of town) when I actually lived there - this was New Year's Eve. If you look VERY closely, you will notice that my nose is very crooked (broken, in fact, due to be "fixed" in 2 days) and I have some heavy concealer to cover up my black eyes from the broken nose. I am actually surprised at how relatively good I look considering that! (This is one that actually shows the black eye and broken nose much better if you are interested :) Yeah, there was one random guy that lived with us. I don't think I ever talked with him, and no one keeps in touch with him now (other than facebook maybe)

September 2003, our very first girl's weekend trip to Laura's cabin! (I was taking the pic)

This was in January 2004, during a progressive dinner we had as all of us were living in 3 places at that time. Laura was in absentia, but we honored her as you can see.

(There were many things that happened in between these 2 photos - weddings, dinners, trips, etc, but I am too lazy to search my external hard drive for those photos. Going to the basement to scan pics was enough for me for the night!)

And finally, this is us on our last girl's weekend trip, which happened in May 2008... and then we all started popping out kids and that was the end of those trips for awhile :) We went to LA to visit Maria, and this is us at Sunstone Winery in the Santa Ynez Valley (HIGHLY recommended - this was all of our favorite of the day we did wine tasting!)

FINALLY, last spring, we decided to try to plan an actually weekend away. We'd all vaguely discussed going to Vegas for our 30th birthdays - right now is right in the middle of all of them, but since several of us had hopes to be pregnant around the time we'd go, and one would be nursing and need to pump, we nixed that idea. That left us to find a location that was pregnant friendly, and a reasonable flight from LA, Billings, Montana and MSP. I think it was probably me who suggested Arizona, since I figured we could do something spa related there and it would be cheap to fly into Phoenix at that time of year.

Once we settled on Scottsdale, I did a bit of research, found us a nice house to rent, a spa to go to, and gathered recommendations from anyone I knew who had knowledge of the area. Special thanks to Lisa for all her great recommendations! We all booked our flights and I reserved us a minivan that I was told would seat 8 and we waited.

One week before leaving, I got an email at 7pm from the house rental agent telling me there was a "problem with the house and it couldn't be rented" and asked if I'd like a refund or another house. Uh, yeah, we're leaving in a week... what am I going to do with 8 women and no place to stay? Thanks, I'll take the other house. They handled it well, and found us a "comparable house" that was still very nice, albeit WAY farther away from the center of town now that I look at a map. They actually handled it well, but it was not what I wanted to hear a week before leaving! The only other hitch that came about was that apparently Alamo has no minivans that actually seat 8 - they only have the kind with 2 bucket seats. I still hesitate to believe this as most have a little 3rd seat in the middle you can use, but whatever. We had to make do with a huge suburban, as well as an upcharge for the larger vehicle which was annoying. All I have to say is if you have a large group, have someone actually call the rental agency and confirm - I just went on my AAA agent's word and research but should have gotten more confirmation. Oh well.

We got into PHX on time, around 10:30am, and got the rental car and met Maria, who flew in from LAX. Rebekah had drawn up a rough schedule, which I think is pretty key when you are traveling with 8 people, so there wasn't a lot of wondering what we were going to do. We headed to Fashion Square Mall to find lunch and do a little shopping.

We ended up going to Grand Lux Cafe, which felt very similar to Cheesecake Factory. We then opened the menu and discovered that they are owned by them - so that explains that!

My lunch - they had a lot of good lunch options! Of course, I couldn't finish all this...

... but Rebekah and I still split peach cobbler for dessert!

We spent most of our time at Charming Charlie, where I got a wallet and a necklace!

We then stopped at Sprinkles Cupcakes (no matter where I am, I can never resist a cupcake!) to pick up dessert for that night, which we ended up being too full for, sadly.

We then were finally allowed to check into the house (at 4pm) so we headed up there, unpacked, went grocery shopping, and got pizza for dinner after trying to find a local place that actually delivered. I don't even remember what we ended up with, it was fine but nothing amazing. A low key rest of the day (which is the theme for the weekend for sure :) We were all up and at 'em by 7am the next day, after complaining about having to leave by 8:15 to go to the spa. Uh, guess that wasn't an issue for us!

We then went to the spa, aka HEAVEN! Camille dropped us off (the spa isn't her thing) and headed to a casino to spend the day there :) Rebekah, Kimberly, Laura and I had all gotten the "Desert Nectar Honey Wrap" for our service, and Rebekah and I were first at 9am. We got there just in time so were ushered in quickly. I've never done a body wrap, what this one entailed was stripping down, laying on a bed that is covered in a thick plastic sheet, getting smeared with an oatmeal mixture all over, then getting wrapped up in the plastic and towels while a conditioning treatment is applied to your hair. You then lay there while they elevate your legs (very nice!) for about 10 minutes for it to soak in. There is a shower in the room, so after you are unwrapped, you shower all the oatmeal mixture off, then lay back down and get a nectar moisturizing lotion applied all over, wrapped up again, and then get a facial. It really was heavenly. There was kind of a little massage, and basically a full facial, so it felt like a lot of bang for the buck! They offered us some kind of heat wrap upgrade but you couldn't do that when pregnant, so Rebekah and I had to pass. You also were supposed to end in the sauna, but again that's a pregnancy no-no, so we decided to sit out in the women's "solarium" (aka cabanas outside) for about a half hour eating the complimentary apples and drinking lemon water while we soaked in our hydration :)

I was a bit confused when I was booking the spa, because it said you could use the spa all day with the purchase of a one hour service, but then they also offered cabana rental. I thought that meant the chairs by the pool, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it actually just meant full cabanas that were set back (you can kind of see them in the pic above) but the chairs by the pool were open to anyone. Totally awesome that you can hang out here really all day along with your service!

Had to get in every so often to cool off! It was about 96 (cool for them) when we were there.

We then ordered some drinks and an appetizer from Sprouts, the restaurant at the spa - very refreshing and it was really nice to not have heavy food after feeling so full the day before!

We hung by the pool for quite awhile - loved those chairs... I could lounge there for a week!

Mindy really just loved the cacti :)

Then we had lunch in our robes :) Ha!

Loved my meal! It was a special, chicken cranberry panini

We then enjoyed some of the amenities inside - I took an illicit (due to pregnancy) dip in the hot tub, but only stayed a few minutes. They also had a steam room and a sauna, but I did avoid those. Took a LONG shower, cut myself a few times with the provided razor, and then got ready to go!

While we were outside again for my belly pic, had to take some more of Mindy and the cacti!

Bellies! Yeah, Rebekah is 3 weeks AHEAD of me but my belly is like 6x bigger :) I hope she enjoyed being taller than me for once!

Grabbed one group photo since Camille was back to pick us up after her time at the casino :)

We then went home, had our cupcakes, napped, lounged by the pool, some watched movies, etc - then got ready to go out for dinner at Olive & Ivy.

LOVED my cupcake (I got lemon and also tried black & white and something else I can't remember) but I think they definitely would have been better the same day. Oh well!

Testing the light before our real group shot :)

I only had my iPhone at dinner, but most of us really loved this restaurant! Don't expect to be able to have much of a conversation, because it is loud, but has a fun vibe and the food was delicious. I was again pissed because I always get full so fast and the food was so tasty!

The next day was really low key - just lounged by the pool all morning... went into town for lunch and made dinner at home! Very relaxing.

Did a timer shot so I could get in on the pic :) in my glasses even!

Out to lunch at sand-wich-club, not very good (although my rueben was pretty tasty) and the workers kept kind of harassing us about not eating our full meal and asked if things were ok like 30 times which got really old.

It's the 3 pregnants! :) Even in "order" (Laura is 14 weeks, I'm 17 and Rebekah is 20)

Old Town Scottsdale - lots of art galleries and shops... not exactly my thing, but fun to walk around!

Me alone, since I wasn't in the last shot :)

We then went to Sugar Bowl ice cream, which I thought was really fun - the ice cream was good but nothing outstanding but the ambiance was really cute and they had tons of fun things on the menu!

Staging of a good facebook pic :)

Our super glam dinner at home, complete with Funyons in the background :)

Our final morning, we just lounged by the pool, packed up and got the house ready for checking out, went to brunch at The Good Egg (which I really liked), and then headed to the airport with tons of time to spare. All in all, an awesome trip - I hope we can make another one happen in a few years!!