Goofy girl

Earlier this week, Ayla did some pantless "shopping" with her back-pack on. She sometimes fights to keep her pants off after I change her. And lately, socks are a no-go. She takes them off and flings them, hides them, does whatever she can to keep them off her feet. I find little wadded up socks everywhere.


And may I vent for a moment? At work, customers are asking me all day long if I know the gender of our baby and I always answer with a smile, "Yes! It's a girl!" Most know that this will be daughter #2 and more often than not, my answer is returned with a look of pity or a reassuring, "Ohh, well that's okay." Did I give any indication that it wouldn't be? I've even gotten an, "Oh. That's no fun." It's really starting to irk me. What is there to pity? I am going to be blessed with another beautiful baby girl and I'm 110% happy, thrilled, excited, and ecstatic about it.

Two down, one to go...

I'm officially in my third trimester...this pregnancy seems to be flying by at record pace! That's all I have to report. :)

Aunt Marla!

Marla stopped by our house for a little bit last night before heading to her company Christmas party. I think Ayla enjoyed seeing her and having someone to talk to and play with besides me. :)



And just a quick PIP update--I swear she has doubled in size since my belly pic post. Just wait until you see my next picture. Tuesday night, I sat down on the couch after Ayla went to bed and couldn't believe how much bigger my stomach was. I was pretty sure my belly had grown since I got up that morning. All of a sudden, I feel PREGNANT. I've been blabbing away about how great I feel and it's caught up with me, I think. I'm watching her dance in my belly as I type this--rather than just the little bumps and kicks, it has turned into more of the rolling, alien-like movements. I could sit and stare at my stomach all day. :)

Yeh-Yeh & Ayla

My dad snapped this picture on his webcam today...it's super cute of both of them so I thought I'd share. :)

Elf on the Shelf...and 26-weeks

Last night, we started Elf on the Shelf with Ayla. For those of you who have never heard of it, it's a story about how little elves who work for Santa come to our houses to watch and see if we're naughty or nice. At the end of the night, after we're in bed, they go back to the North Pole and report back to Santa about the day. Every morning, before we wake up, they come back and sit in a different spot for the day and we have to find him. Cute, right? It's like a nice way to bribe and threaten your child to behave. :) We named him J.B., short for Jelly Bean...we leave him a jelly bean each night instead of milk and cookies like we leave for Santa. His first spot was pretty obvious...on the mantle in the living room. I wanted to start out easy. She thought it was pretty cool and it was so cute because all day, she kept saying hi to him and would talk to him about what she was doing. Tomorrow, he will be waiting for her on the towel rack in the bathroom so he can watch her brush her teeth...a daily battle lately.
And P.I.P. news--I am 26 weeks along and to risk sounding like a broken record, I'm still feeling great. Hopefully I'm not eating my words later, but this has been an incredibly easy pregnancy so far. With each week, she is moving more and more and I'm loving it. She's still the most active at night...I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that changes when she's born. :) She really gives my bladder a beating. I feel like she's always stomping on it. I don't remember ever feeling that while I was pregnant with Ayla. My belly has grown quite a bit since my picture two weeks ago...and let's just pretend I don't have the same shirt on. (Erika, do I look round enough for you to take some belly pics?)

I'm getting so anxious to meet her...to see what she looks like and to see what her personality will be like. It's a different kind of excitement than what I felt with Ayla...with Ayla, I was super excited, but it was a Holy-#$%*-what-in-the-world-is-it-going-to-be-like-to-be-a-parent-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-I'm-totally-freaking-out excitement. We had no idea what to expect. Having gone through the last two years with Ayla and experiencing everything with her and feeling the absolute purest, truest form of love, I am ecstatic to get to do it all over again with another little person. How lucky am I? I want to enjoy every last second of the baby stage this time. I was so stressed out and nervous about doing everything "right" the first time that it just flew by and I hardly even remember it.

We finally started cleaning out the "office" so P.I.P. will have a room when we bring her home. We're nowhere near finished yet, but it's a vast improvement. I wish I would have taken a "before" picture to show you all just how bad it was. Seriously. It was a disaster. I'm getting anxious to get it all done now that we've made a good dent. I've been searching Craigslist the last couple of weeks for a long dresser that we can put in the nursery. Ayla has one in her room and it worked really well as a changing table. I finally found one this weekend and nagged Dean until he went and got it for me tonight. I really really wanted it and wanted to be sure to snag it before someone else did. It is now sitting in our garage and I'm giddy about it. We're going to paint it white and attach new hardware. It's a beautiful, solid piece of oak furniture...it's hard to find stuff like that these days...and it was only $75. Dean was disappointed that I didn't bargain with the guy. I'm not good at wheeling and dealing (and by "not good" I mean I don't do it at all) and like I said, I really wanted it, so here's the 75 bucks, gimme my dresser. Here is the "before" picture...stay tuned for the "after" picture...

Gingerbread house

We decorated a gingerbread house this morning! I wanted to do it last year but figured Ayla was probably too little so I was really excited to do it this year.

She doesn't like getting her hands dirty...at all. A bit OCD...so when she got frosting on her fingers almost right away, she panicked and wanted me to clean them off. I made the mistake of telling her to just lick them. Sigh. Her eyes lit up as soon as that sugar hit her tongue. For the next half an hour, she preceded to eat frosting and candy...more than she's ever had, in fact. She was even plucking candy off of the house that we had already stuck on. She forgot the definition of "only one." Oh well. We don't do this every day and she had fun with it so I'm good with it. :)

Our finished product is not going to win us any awards by any means, but I think it looks pretty darn good for our first one. It really just looks like we stood across the kitchen and threw a handful of candy at it.

Strike a pose

This morning I put Ayla in her white fuzzy vest that Meghan, Chris, and Heidi gave her for her birthday. It's so darn cute. I plopped her on the kitchen counter and told her to pose...and can you believe it, she actually did.



Ayla is definitely turning into your typical 2-year old. She is feisty and is a master-whiner. However, I've found that if I remain as calm and patient as I can and talk to her without caving in to her demands, she does understand. She's starting to negotiate with us so we are able to do it in return. Before, there was no way that would work. Sometimes she gets a bit over excited and becomes very demanding so we've been reminding her of her please and thank-you's...and instead of saying "I want fill-in-the-blank!", she is learning to say "Can I please..." Much nicer to hear, if you ask me. We haven't started time-outs yet...definitely going to be a must, I think.

***And just a side-note--I haven't mentioned this yet, but Meghan, Chris, and Heidi are moving to Cleveland in just a few short weeks. They told us a while ago but I think I've been in denial. Chris was promoted and they have a wonderful opportunity awaiting them, but I'm so so so sad to see them go. Meghan and I have been friends since high school and we've been through a lot together through the years. She moved to San Antonio after college and when she and Chris both moved back to Omaha, I was thrilled and thought they would be here to stay, especially after Heidi was born. Since both of our girls were born, I pictured them growing up together. Needless to say, I'm bummed, but I wish them the best. Meghan, have a room ready for me, because I'll be coming to visit!