Retirement Lunch

craig, jimmie (FIL) and irina
craig and irina making the same face :)

yummy lunch!

Since my father in law has retired from teaching at Keller-ISD he and I have made it a point to hang out on a regular basis, we also meet up with his mother (Granny) who is a young 94!! Last week we went to the OG for lunch and Craig was able to join us, he has every other Friday off and we love that! We has lots to talk about and my FIL was taking bets on the sex of our baby as well as my SIL and her baby. He was right about my SIL-Brooke, she found out she is having a BOY!! We will not know if he's right about our baby until sometime in March or April, thats if Craig wants to find out the sex! I have a blast talking to him and Granny, she has the best stories about life.

Little Book-Worm

Every now and then in my loud and rowdy house a quiet moment will set in and I quickly wonder.."what is she doing, what room is she in and what is she doing!?" I drop what I'm doing and run off to find her immediately, sometimes I find her in a corner chewing on an old pen and MOST times, which is good; I find her reading a book. It has happened several times and I usually find her little nose in a book. She loves to sit in your lap and be read to aloud..

We are expecying Baby #2!

positive test result after 5 negative ones..

me and my baby(s) daddy

We are very happy to say that we are expecting baby#2 in August! Craig is beyond thrilled and I'm getting more and more excited as time goes by. I am officially out of my first trimester and I feel great! I had a few days when I felt very queasy and had a horrible headache but other than that I have had no other symptoms at all. I feel great! I thank God for an easy first trimester and now I hope and pray that through out the pregnancy I dont get sick at all. We did have a bit of a scare at about 8weeks, I started to bleed and was thought to be having a threatened miscarriage. I wasnt too worried about it because I experienced the same thing with Irina and here she is running around as I type. I was put on bed rest and took some vitamins my midwife recommended. Which brings me to another point, we are SO looking forward to a homebirth with this baby. I remember telling a friend when I was pregnant with Irina, and I quote "my dream is to have the baby at home and never make it to the hospital". I think about saying that and I wonder why I didnt just do that..why didnt I just plan a homebirth? The truth is, I was a little nervous and being a first time mom and I dint know what to expect (ha, even the book didnt help). Not that I'm a pro this time around but I feel more confident than ever in what my body can and was meant to do. I love my midwife and everything that is a part of a natural birth. What a different experience this time around!

My BIG girl is out of diapers!

I have not blogged in a while and a friend brought it to my attention today, so this is for you Jeanine :)

I guess I've been busy with my baby girl POTTY TRAINING!! and thats why I haven't had alot of time to write!! It all started when we went to our friend Laura Roskins house for a playdate one Friday afternoon....the kids were running around, being loud, not sharing; you know the usual when little Bella had to use the potty. Irina was insistant on watching and observing the whole thing, she did not want to leave the bathroom! Bella's mom said it was ok for her to watch so she did, when Bella was through taking care of business; everyone made a big deal for her with clapping and tons of praise. This must have given Irina an "AHA!" moment because the very next day, early in the morning Irina said she wanted to go pee-pee in the potty. I wasnt sure about the whole thing at first, my plan was to potty train around age 3; I thought it would just be easier. I did not want to be potty training for 6months, it might work for others but it wasnt going to work for us. I was given a potty chair at a baby shower and it was still in the box on a shelf, I didnt want to get it out unless we were going to use it for the intended purpose. I didnt want her to think it was a toy, I wanted her to know the exact use for that potty. Again, this is just my opinion, it might work for others to leave the potty out but it wasnt our thing. So anyway, I got the potty out, gave it a wipe and told Irina to sit down. She sat and sat and sat for about an hour and then got a blank stare on her face...she was going pee-pee in the potty!!!! I was so excited and proud of her!!! We sang a song, danced and had a sweet candy surprise for her big accomplishment! She did that all day Saturday, she even went #2 in the potty! I was so proud of her! The next few days we made it a point to stay home and focus 100% on potty training, it was going great. We even took her to get some big girl undies, she picked out little boy briefs and we were glad that she wanted to keep them dry and clean. We followed lots of examples from a book called "Potty Wise" which was written from "Tiolet Training In Less Than A Day", both books give lots of useful advice. It took more than a day for us, it took about a week and a half for her to really get it but every day she gets better and better. She still has the occasional accident when we dont make it to the toliet in time but that will get better with practice. Just recently she started waking up dry from naps, I still put her in diapers for naps and night time though. We tried to avoid pull-ups all together and it worked out for us. We just put cloth diaper pre-folds (burp rags) under her bottom in the car AND had to pull over alot at first when she said "pee-pee", that was so much fun! not really, just kidding. So it is nearly 2mths after she started and we are so proud of her! And thankful to Bella for allowing Irina to observe her in action, thats all it took...well that and TONS of patience on our (craig & I) part.

Irina's 1st Day of Pre-school

Short and Sweet: Irina cried a little and I was bawling, I was in-consolable. I heard her cry and thats when I lost it, I wanted to pick up my baby and go back home with her. But she stayed and had a great time, especially in chapel; Im told she was dancing quite a bit. She even napped there! She goes back on Friday( weather permitting) for day 2 of many more to come.