Cross your fingers...

Rachel here. Hopefully I won't kick myself for saying this, but yesterday was an AMAZING day! Reese was the perfect little thing... I just wanted to bottle her up and sell her to everyone who has a crabby kid. ;) She played wonderfully both with me and by herself despite the fact it was icky outside and we stayed in all day. There were no tears or arguments at nap time, in fact she wanted to go down a little earlier than normal! She slept for 2 hours! We had a wonderful afternoon, and I put her down for bed at 730 after reading her book... with no tears or screaming!!!! She did kick her unborn baby sister once while I was trying to change her diaper, but I call that a minor infraction when everything else ran so smoothly!

We're trying to really explain to her when she does something that we don't like. Instead of putting her right into timeout, I've been giving her 2 chances to fix the behavior before we put her on her stool. It seems to be working really well. Granted she does occasionally end up in timeout, but this system is working much better. I also got the book "The Happiest Toddler on the Block"... it came highly recommended by Miranda (a friend of a friend... THANKS MIRANDA!). I usually hate self-help type books, but I do have a couple that I've used for reference through this whole mommy hood thing. The reviews that I read sounded great, so I hopped on the used book website and $11 later... I'll have some reading to do in the car on our way to Florida!

Yay for Jen!

My Auntie Jen is amazing! She just sent Mommy these pictures of their weekend vacay to The Burg. She took super cute pictures of everything Mommy didn't. :) Enjoy!

Mommy with my sister and Auntie Jen.

Me hanging out with a couple of my peeps "frog" and Baby Adam.Me at the big game!

Adam... just think... one day all of this will be OURS!

Deucie Roo

Rachel here. We went in today for our 30 week appointment (even though I'm 31 tomorrow), and everything checked out wonderfully. I'm up 21 lbs... that's up 5 lbs since my last appt (2 weeks ago)... oh bliss. :) We were able to get a couple more good pictures of Deuce through 3D/4D:

That's all the excitement on the baby front I suppose.

Yesterday we had some fun filled exciting information though. I was shopping in Roanoke getting some things for our pending trip to Fl. (more on that in a bit), when I get a call from Bryan asking where I was and basically if our house was on fire. Interesting. My brother came over to check everything out, and all was well. Turns out there was a downed power line feet from the bottom of our street here in The Burg. This then caused a brush fire to erupt, which resulted in 5 acres of land being burned. One of our neighbors said there were 3 large explosion sounds... the 3rd resulted in sparks flying out of her outlets. Yikes! Besides large billows of smoke and some flames, we were also out of power from about 330 yesterday to 10 last night, which was actually kind of nice. No TV or computer... makes you talk to people... what a concept! :) It could have been much worse... no one's homes were harmed thank goodness.

On another note... Florida. So Bryan has a training next week (Wednesday and Thursday) in Orlando. We're packing up the good ol' Subaru and making our grand finale of voyages before Deuce is here. That is unless of course they shut Disney World down because of this Pig virus shenanigans! I have spent the last 3 days compiling the perfect "Family Vacation Packing List", so I swear on all that is holy if we don't get down there... someone will pay. Until then we'll be very busy cleaning and packing for our trip and attending our good friends Angie and Tommy's wedding (Mommy's in it... lord help us all... she looks like a giant black jelly bean in her dress). Don't be surprised if you don't hear much from us until we arrive in "sunny pig virus infested Florida!"

My BFFs

So our neighbors C and B got this awesome Gator for B's birthday. They like to take me for rides around their yard. I'm in love... the boys are okay too. ;)

Rachel here. Funny story. So B, who's 3ish, was flying through the front yard in this Gator... C was in the back... and Reese was the passenger. Now when I say flying... not really... their dad put the governor in, when they said they wanted to take Reese for a little ride. Anyway... so they're flying through the front yard, make a sharp left turn, and Reese goes FLYING out of the Gator. Now this time I really do mean flying. Bryan, their dad Kurt, and I all jump up and race over to her rescue. She jumps right up and appears upset... but not because she just nearly lost her life, but because the boys kept going! She was literally chasing them through the front yard trying to get BACK IN the Gator. She makes me smile. :)

What?

What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? This was out for Baby Adam to play in? You're crazy! I SOOO fit! :)

Baby Adam

Baby Adam, his mommy, and daddy came to visit us this weekend. He's so super sweet and VERY well behaved. I think I love him. :)

We started the weekend with 2 bbq's. It's so nice to get together with friends and hang out... especially now that most of Mommy and Daddy's friends have babies of their own, and I have babies to poke/look at and new friends to play with. The Spring Game was also this weekend... guess what? VT won! ;) Actually the Maroon team beat out the White team if you're really that interested. Mommy forgot to take pictures at the get-togethers and game... sorry. :(

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and watching "Yo Gabba Gabba," which happens to be one of my favorites... I think Adam liked it too. :)

We LOVED having you all, and I can't wait to use my new watering can you all brought me!!!!! Mommy said we're going to use it in the bathtub tomorrow. :) Mommy also can't wait to use her great gifts for her and my baby sister too... she just loves her Jen. Muah!

Daddy?

So it's no secret I LOVE SESAME STREET! I know a lot of the names of the characters now... so exciting. Mommy loves to point to Oscar the Grouch and have me say his name... I call the old chap "Ossie"... but you only get the full effect if you say it in a grouchy voice... which I do. :) Mommy cracks up because I say "Elmo" and "Bee Bir" in a super happy high pitched voice... "Ehhhrnie" gets my normal voice, but "Kiki" (Cookie Monster) and "Ossie" get the grouchy monster voices. It's funny what we tiny tots pick up on. But I digress... so I'd have to say one of the best parts of the program is when Mr. Noodle, who lives in Elmo's World, comes on TV. Now Mr. Noodle is a good enough guy, but I fancy Mr. Noodle's brother Mr. Noodle. This guy:
Every time my beloved Mr. Noodle's brother Mr. Noodle comes on the TV I scream, of all things... DADDY! This makes Mommy laugh so hard she almost wets her pants (which isn't too hard for her to accomplish these days)... this makes Daddy grimace and quite concerned. While they do have SEMI-similar fancy hairlines (sorry Daddy... Mommy says it's only a matter of time), my daddy does have a better sense of dressing style... well... when Mommy helps him. :) I love you Daddy!!!! :)

30 weeks

Rachel here. Here we are in all our 30 week glory:

Things are going well for the most part. The Glucose screening was fine, still getting sick (although strangely it's subsided some since my allergies have been out of control), heartburn has ceased for now, but I'm constantly exhausted. No energy at all. It's quite inconvenient. :) The lower pressure is still awful, and I've started to have some quick striking pains and some contractions that haven't been at all painful.

I'm still crazy nesting, and Reese is still crazy un-nesting. ;) Reese's room is just about finished... just waiting of Grandaddy's finishing touches. He's made her a couple of BEAUTIFUL pieces for her new room that we can't wait to share. Deuce's room is finished except for her letters for her name and any final decorative touches that may come up.

We have our 30 week appt. next Tuesday, so we'll have a better update of how the baby's doing then. Hopefully we'll get a couple of good redo pictures from our 3D/4D as well. Until then...

The nugget

Rachel here. Yes... Reese has been driving me bonkers, but she also has the ability to make me laugh... all in the same breath. She's turning into such a little person it kills me! I know it's not her 19 month bday, but she's starting to put words together into little phrases. One of her favorites is 'Daddy go?' She also says something that sounds like 'Daddy's at work.' There was something super funny she said yesterday too, but pregnancy brain is getting the best of me.

Her allergies are making me so sad for her. The pediatrician told me to give her Children's Claritin, which has helped her with her sleeping at night. She hasn't woken up in a coughing fit for the last two nights. She's just as perky (and naughty) as can be during the day despite her forever running nose. Her throat doesn't seem to be bothering her anymore, and her eyes only get watery when I'm blowing her nose for her. (The Ped said to call him back in a couple of days if it got worse or there was no change, so hopefully we are on the mend.) Oh the nose blowing! She's learned to do it on her own, which is both VERY helpful and such a pain in the arse. Helpful because when we say blow she actually blows... a pain because she has started getting the tp herself, putting it up to her nose, blowing, and then promptly pulling it away... with a large gooey trail of snot following it. She's so precious. ;)

Not one of my finer moments

Rachel here. I usually try to post only happy wonderful things about our family life and Reese growing up, but the fact of the matter is... everything is not always wonderful and peachy. While I started this blog to help keep our families (mainly mine because they live so far away) in the loop, it's ultimately a time capsule for my children. I want them to know what life was like when they were little. Am I obsessive about what words Reese is learning or whether or not she can eat with a spoon yet? ABSOLUTELY... I want to remember what these days were like 10, 15, 20, even 50 years from now. I deserve the right to be obsessive because ultimately this blog is for me... mine... I write what I want to write and how I want to write it. It's about the great times and the not so easy times. With that said...

Reese is driving me bonkers. DO NOT GET ME WRONG... I love her to death and for the most part she's a doll, but the past couple of weeks have been really trying. She's learning so many new words and how to do so many new things, which are so wonderful, but at the same time I think she's starting to realize how much she wants to know how to say and how to do that her frustration level more times than not is through the roof. She is demanding more and more of my attention these days, which is fine. I've gotten pretty spoiled with her being very content playing on her own, but now I'm realizing she wants to play with me way more than she has previously. That is not a problem... except for when I need to sit and relax because of the lack of sleep from the previous night, or I'm just not feeling well (this pregnancy is really kicking my butt). It's times like these when she insists on hitting me, kicking me, screaming at me, and being all around MEAN to get my attention that are taking it's toll. I've been more than understanding. She's a toddler I know that... she's trying to tell me she's frustrated, but to become a human punching bag is frustrating too. She hits and kicks when it's time to leave the library, she's hits and kicks when it's time to leave the playground, she hits and kicks when it's time to get out of the sandbox, and now she even hits and kicks AND screams at the top of her lungs at nap time and bedtime. It's just too much sometimes especially because I'm so hormonal and physically uncomfortable.

If you're even still reading this I know what you're thinking... "oh she should try to divert her attention when it's time to transition... she should set up a routine when it's time for nap time/bedtime." I know... I'm not a guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm also NOT helpless. I do hand her other objects while trying to get her to leave something she's having fun doing, I do have a solid routine with her throughout the day... and when she's thrown off in the SLIGHTEST is when we tend to have these problems that take days to recover from. I'm slowly learning that it's just not worth throwing off her lunchtime/nap time/bedtime... anything for that matter... if it's just going to frustrate her and ultimately me.

While this may be categorized as 'one of your downer posts', which is what Bryan likes to call them, they are MY words, MY feelings, it's MY blog, and frankly... I feel better, so I guess there you have it.

Poor nugget

Rachel here. Poor Reese... it turns out she may be my mini-me more than I would have liked. Since Easter she's had an awful runny nose, itchy eyes, sore throat, and a cough that has successfully woken her up between 3-5 every morning for the last 3 mornings. My guess allergies. Ever since she put that damn flower in her nostrils (see top picture of blog), we've had issues. I called the pediatrician today, and he said to try low doses of Claritin and call him in a few days if we don't notice a change. Bless her heart. She's still her perky, energetic, hungry self, so I know it's bothering me more than her. The only thing worse than Reesie not feeling tip top? Mommy not feeling tip top... and Daddy being out of town. Cross your fingers we all get some relief!

On a lighter note... the DeSantis clan is coming to visit this weekend (we're not contagious!!!!). We'll finally get to meet little Adam, which we could not be more excited about... well and seeing Jen and Rusty. ;) Then there is the Spring Game on Saturday and lots of good times and laughs with some of our closest friends. (Oh how I hope Tech wins!!! ;)

Rain rain...

... go away! This weekend I spent most of my time outside doing this:

Oh how I love my new sandbox that Gma and Gdaddy got for me for Easter. While I know the word turtle and what a turtle looks like in a book... I call my sandbox 'frog.' I'm very good at spotting him through the living room window, running around the house... through the kitchen... and to the back sliding glass door, and yelling 'frog!!!! side!!!!" at the top of my lungs until someone will let me venture to the back porch. Each time I've been playing in my 'frog' Mommy and Daddy come up with some lame excuse as to why I need to come out (now this is literally HOURS after jumping in the 'frog')... 'nap time', 'lunch time', 'dinner time', 'there's a tornado coming', they are HUGE downers! Don't worry though... I can throw a mean tantrum. :) So while it's raining outside today, Mommy was brave enough to take me to the bookstore (where she knew I would desperately want all the books I could get my hands on and then scream when it was time to leave) to pick out a couple of books for me. I did in fact want all the books I could get my hands on, but settled on a few (or 6) nice ones that Mommy had to dangle in front of my face while praying we would make it to the checkout before there were waterworks... it worked. :) So please weatherman in the sky... make the rain stop so I can play with my 'frog' once again.

The Coeds

Rachel here. Living in a large college town (not so much a large town... but the home of a large university) is both amazing and sometimes quite annoying.

Amazing: no matter what all of our friends come back to visit, there are TONS of (free for the most part) sporting events to attend on beautiful days, the resources are great... there are always things to do for families/children, the university does great things to take care of the community through volunteering and such, and there are usually 3-4 months throughout the year where you are one of few people driving around town.

Annoying: The Coeds who are usually drunk at said sporting events, The Coeds who have their butt cracks hanging out of their low rise jeans displaying their 'tramp stamps' during said volunteering events, The Coeds who are calling your daughter the cutest thing known to man and laughing while she has thrown herself on the cement and has begun throwing a temper tantrum because she's "learning to control her emotions/frustrations but her lack of communication skills is prohibiting that", oh and then there are The Coeds who stare at you through your tinted windows in disgust while you are trying to breastfeed your child (story borrowed from Schmlaura Schfunk~ name has been changed to protect the innocent ;0). Oh and we can't forget there are 8-9 months where you may need to drive around your small town wearing a helmet due to the lack of driving skills by The Coeds.

I know what you're thinking... Rachel... at one point YOU were one of The Coeds... yes... yes I was, and I did each of those things too... proudly... with a smile on my face. :) Now I pay town taxes with the rest of 'The Townies.'

VT ♥ 32

Today Mommy took me over to campus to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL day. I got to hang out with my BFF Aly Funk too... she's so cute! I said "Aly" and "baby" the ENTIRE way home. :) While on campus we walked around and got some fresh air.

Mommy wanted to make sure we paid our respects at the memorial set up for our 32 friends that are now in heaven. While I don't understand what happened and probably won't for many years to come, Mommy feels its important for us to make a little visit whenever we can.

I desperately wanted to go see the ducks at The Duck Pond. We were sure to not forget our old bread for them. They were very hungry apparently because many of them stole bread right out of Mommy's hands! She was a bit nervous with the ducks getting too close, so we got rid of the bread asap. I was so excited to see the ducks I ran right towards the water at full force. Mommy caught me just in time, however I did make it into the water. (Yikes people... Yikes!)

All in all it was a beautiful way to spend a beautiful day in remembrance of 32 beautiful people.

neVer forgeT

So tomorrow marks the 2nd anniversary of the events that happened April 16th here in Blacksburg. The weather is supposed to be 'not awful' tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be heading over to campus. There are tons of events planned throughout the day, but I think we'll just spend a nice afternoon at The Duck Pond decked out in two of our favorite colors. :)

One of those days

Rachel here. Today is one of those days. Not a gloomy 'I have so much to do' kind of days. I mean a good day. It's one of those days where you realize how much you love your life and the people in it... mainly my Reesiebug. Is my house clean? Hell no. Do I have tons of things to do before this baby comes? You bet your undies I do. Do I plan on being productive today? Hopefully. Do any of these things matter when your daughter does this:

or this:

Nope.

Here's to a great rest of the day where I hope to clean my house, get things done before the baby arrives, be productive, and enjoy my nugget. :)

3D/4D

Rachel here. We went in this morning for my 28 week appointment with Dr. Roberts. All went well from what I can gather. The pressure and fatigue I've been feeling is completely normal for a second pregnancy, so I'm in the clear. I haven't gotten a bad phone call about my Glucose Screening yet, so I'm assuming all is well with that. I'm measuring right where I'm supposed to be and am up 12 lbs. I should gain about 10 lbs this last trimester, so I'm on par with where I was with Reese.

We also went in just this afternoon for our 3D/4D ultrasound. Babyvision is so awesome! Our pictures with Reese were phenomenal! Little Deuce wasn't as cooperative. Her umbilical cord was in front of her face the majority of the time, which was causing some shadowing on her little face. Our technician did manage to get a couple of good ones and said we could come back in 2 weeks (after our next appointment) and see if we could get a couple more goods ones free of charge. :)

She's just about as cute as a little blob of unborn baby can be. :) The technician also said she has plenty of hair and many weeks to get more!

Love to you from the Reester Bunny

Happy Easter everyone! I definitely had an adventure filled day today, and I hope yours was just as lovely! We woke up bright and early, so Mommy and Daddy could show me what the Easter Bunny brought me. I got some sidewalk chalk, a coloring book, some bubbles, a couple of books... it was lovely.
A little before lunch time we headed to my Grandma and Grandaddy's where we went to Easter Service. I got to hang out with Nana and Betty Jean at church... I'm pretty sure they had as much fun as I did. :) Gma and Gdaddy had some Easter goodies for me at their house. I got tons of eggs with Goldfish and money in them, some Color Wonder markers, and a coloring book!

Oooooh then there was the fun girl quilt Gma made me. It matches my mommy's since I loved hers so much. Thank you so much... I love you two oodles!
While all the adults ate lunch (I ate mine in church), I meandered around running a muck until it was time to go home. Before we even hit the interstate, this is how I looked:

By the time we got home I had hit my second wind and was ready to PARTY! Mommy and Daddy threw me a surprise Easter Egg Hunt (you'd think they would be super sick and tired of these by now!) with the awesome eggs my Great Nana Wharton gave me. Thank you so much they are so pretty!!!! I even enjoyed kissing a couple of them. :) While we were outside, we had an impromptu photo shoot. I think we got some pretty cute shots!

Mommy and Daddy are hoping I sleep super well tonight and have fabulous non-sugar induced dreams. :) Until next year... HOPPY EASTER!

Take 3

God bless the SMART organizers of the the Blacksburg Easter Egg Hunt is all we have to say. The hunt was this morning, and it went splendidly. They had so many age groups, it was wonderful. I got to hunt with the under 2's... there were about 15-20 of us. They only allowed 25 kids to go at a time per age group, so it was really nice to be able to move around and enjoy ourselves without tons of kids running all over the place. They had little areas quarantined off and didn't allow the parentals to come in with us. But they did have tons of volunteers in the little areas to help us kids out. I soon figured out that if I just pointed to all of the eggs, my little helper would grab them for me and put them in my basket. I'm a genius! All those eggs... and no effort. It wasn't until I saw Mommy and Daddy taking pictures and screaming my name (oh how embarrassing) that I ran over to them and saw tons more eggs and started piling them in my basket.

The Easter Bunny was there, but we were having none of that. We opted for Ziggy the balloon man to make me a creation. We waited in line for what seemed like forever... my little hands were starting to freeze!

(That's me holding onto Mommy's leg... she's getting ginormous... someone should really tell her to lay off the snacking!) Ziggy made me a frog... I love him. ( I swear it really is a frog.)

A year and a half...

Rachel here. I CAN NOT believe my little nugget is a year and a half old today! Reese seems to be changing more and more everyday. She's got quite the personality. Throwing herself on the floor quite dramatically seems to be one of her favorite past times these days. Sometimes it's to throw a mini tantrum, and sometimes it's just to do it. She's getting to be far too heavy for me to bend over and pick up, so I tend to tell her she looks ridiculous and she needs to get up off of the floor. This morning at Toys 'R Us was where she chose to get some practice in. It was FABULOUS... sense the sarcasm? We also like to cry when we leave the teeter totter at the library, leaving the slide at the playground, and now when we see toys at the store that Bryan and I won't let her stop to play with. I'm sensing a long hot summer in the backyard in the coming months where we can throw tantrums in the privacy of our own world. :)

We don't have to go back to the pediatrician until she's about 20 months, so we're unsure of her weight/height, but rest assured she's still a fantastic eater. She's eating a huge variety of things... just not much of it. She's far more interested in running around than stopping for a bite to eat. We've also FINALLY moved to 'hard nippled' sippy cups. It took forever to get her off of those Nuby's. Half of the time she would just sit there and chew on it as opposed to actually drinking out of it. She's still working on self feeding with utensils. Once she gets the food on the spoon, she flips it over to get it to her mouth... this of course causes a huge mess. She's learned to put the food on the spoon, and then pick it up out of the spoon with her fingers... then in to her mouth. :) We have most of our teeth now, so eating has turned into a nibble fest. She will take the already smallest piece of food and nibble it to oblivion.

The potty hasn't gone anywhere as of lately. She loves to sit on it, but using it is a different story. She went up to it before her bath one night and said potty? I told her that was in fact her potty, took off her clothes and diaper... she promptly peed on me. Was she trying to send me a message? We've since picked up a couple of books from the library to get us started on training.

Language is starting to get pretty funny. She rambles on and on, and then all of the sudden you'll understand one random word. We've added the following to the vocabulary: Ears, Hair, Belly, Teeth (all of which she can also identify on her body along with her feet and knees), Zoom, Car, Milk, Ball, Ice cream, Color, Phone, Potty, Di (blankie), Good girl, Sairs (downstairs), Run run run, Rock rock rock, Bear, Bed, Sit, Baby, Train, Yo yo (yogurt) and Kiki (cookie). She's also able to say some names of the characters on a couple of her favorite shows: Ernie, Beebir (Big Bird), Elmo, Yo yo (Yo Gabba Gabba), and Bert. There are probably a few more that I'm not thinking of, but that brings her grand total to a little over 60ish.

We think she's starting to understand this whole baby thing. We're hoping to get some cute pictures of her with my belly in the coming months. She's taken to her baby (that Nana got her) a lot recently. If you ask her where her baby is, she runs right to it. She loves to feed it a bottle... granted she loves to put the bottle in her little eyes half the times, but she's learning. If you ask her where Mommy's baby is, she points right to my belly... lifts my shirt... and plays with my belly button. She's been such a little helper trying to get things ready too. It's funny because she's totally into all of the baby's toys, clothes, gadgets... you name it she wants to play with it. Her baby has been hanging out in the baby swing, and we put her into the Bumbo yesterday... I think she actually fits in it much better now than she did when she was a little chubbo. :)

She'll soon be moving into her big girl room. The walls are finished, her bed is set up along with her quilt rack, and most of the pictures have been hung. Bryan has been painting the new toy box Grandaddy made her, and we'll be working on painting a few other pieces of furniture... there are a few projects I'm having my hired help Amy D. help with next week... then she'll be all set! Here is a little sneak peak of what's to come!