Thanksgiving success

It was sad to not be able to spend Thanksgiving with Mom, Dad, Melisa and Scott this year but we managed to have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner thanks to Oma Ronnie and Opa Peter's hospitaliy. The food was amazing and it didnt have to do with the 2 sides I brought. Thank you Veronika for the wonderful dinner for the 6 of us. It was also very nice to see Rich, Ev and the kids too when they dropped by for dessert. Liesl had a great time with the kids, especially Helena who played dolls with her and cuddled by the TV watching Barbie Christmas with her. I remember when Helena was her age, she is so big now. All of those kids are.

Liesl has been working hard for the past 2 weeks on her potty training. We have been using a caper chart whicha has a little bit of other things on it to get her lots of stickers for doing things well. I do believe she is going on a week plus of dry days now. We should have started the stickers earlier. It also helps me not get frustrated seeing how well she has has been doing with everything. Next task, teeth brushing.

As well as she has been doing with potty training she has been back pedaling on the sleep since the time change. I hate time changes. It screws up the whole schedule. But I suppose with me out of work that she is getting a lot more sleep anyways now that I dont have to drive her in the wee morning hours. Hopefully we can keep up this lifestyle that we are living. We have cut a lot of corners and I am enjoying spending more time with everyone in our little family and being able to focus more on nurturing the baby inside of me.

Last week Liesl and I visited the farm center and nature center with Gavin and Heather. It was quite an adventure as we got to see 2 twin calves that were only 5 hours old. They were very cute and it was nice to see the calves with thier mother as I have never seen one in the pen with it's mother before. The mothers have been seperated from thier calves every time I have been to the farm. Thank god I couldnt smell as well as Heather that day, she said the smell was horrific. I guess I was starting to get the cold I am experiencing now. Liesl and I have been doing a lot of resting for the past couple days to try and knock it out but I dont know if it is doing too much good. We are going to try and go to the movies again today to see Muppets with Kimmee. I dont know why I torture myself so......We shall see how she behaves. Last time it wasnt the movie theatre she misbehaved in it was the restraunt afterwards. That will not be a reoccurrance. I think one thing.....especially if she behaves we should not risk screwing up the good feeling.

Halloween went well, Liesl went as Rapunzel, thank you Dennis for the wonderful costume. She gets into wearing it every other day. In fact I had to tear it off her to make sure she didnt get milk on it when she was eating her cereal. She had a very fun time tooling the neighborhood around Shannon's new house with Shannon's little sister Chloe. They held hands the whole time which was good to keep them both contained. Again, another child I cannot believe has grown so much. She was also a bigtime sweetheart to Liesl. They did several streets around the house and she is still trying to make her way through her stash right now. She loved all of the lights and decorations on all of the houses and told Shannon and I that they were beautiful and wanted to walk around and see as much as she could. She even loved walking around on Tillson St which most kids would find scary. I dont know if that is a good or a bad thing.

Looking forward to finding out the sex of the new baby coming. I am either 20 or 21 weeks along now so I am into my second trimester. I dont know how much better I am feeling... At least I dont have the nausia anymore. I am into the acid reflux now. What the heck? took me til almost the last couple weeks to start up with that. I dont think I am gaining anything with this pregnancy. Last time I went in they said I had but of course I had the soft cast on my foot from the ankle twisting incident. Thank god I am feeling a lot better from that. I am a little unsteady still so hangining onto the gear to make sure I am prepared if I start to feel weak there anymore. I think I am past that though. It's always gotta be something doesnt it. I couldnt believe I took a tumble like that right before I was going to lose my health insurance. Well I am all hooked up now again and able to go to the Dr on the 5th when mom comes back to find out the sex of the baby. It will be good to be able to label the baby better than "It". I am of course putting off finding out til mom gets back from her trip. I couldnt go without her. I am starting to feel some definate kicks that I think others would feel if they had thier hands on my belly. I have definately been feeling the baby for a while now but it felt like bubbles not pushing. Having the experience from the first one helps me know signs earlier.

Photos to come soon. I have been saving them up for a while. I just need to get something in writing before I get too far behind.

Birthdays and Baby Elephants

Still been feelin the insomnia, overtiredness and nausia although I did manage to get alot done this weekend and have some fun too. Saturday Liesl and I did a lot of yard work to get the yard ready for winter. Daddy managed to get our super-fast growing lawn cut down and mulched. I suppose that I should turn the sprinklers off and blow them out in preparation for the winter. Liesl and I put a new pirate steering wheel in on her playset and a new car swing  from the mom to mom sale Saturday. Mom and I got up early and found a bunch of dresses for her for her 4T collection. I also found a couple fleece sleepers for the weekend in 4T but things are getting slimmer and slimmer pickings at those mom to mom sales for her since she has been getting bigger. We found some very, very cute little dresses and I cant wait to bring them back out of the wash to show her. I knew that as soon as she saw them that she would be all over them wanting to wear them.

Sunday, Liesl, Daddy and I went to the Toledo Zoo. We packed a big lunch with lots of snacks to keep us hydrated and fed throughout the day. The biggest reason for going was to see the elephants and a bonus feature was that there was a little baby calf elephant still nursing to visit. We went back to the exhibit 3 times that day and never got enough of it. Liesl was very excited about the baby having hammies. The little elephant was so cute to watch chasing momma to nurse. The big mother elephant even grunt/growled at Jim for one reason or another. They have a very nice zoo there in Toledo. Alot of the exhibits allow you to get very close to the animals and are large plexi or glass windows. We really enjoyed seeing the hippos which are in a large tank like seaworld had. Liesl even got nose to nose with one of them from the glass. The gorillas were really hamming it up for her and really close to the glass. She really enjoyed the aquarium that has black tipped reef sharks, tons of salt water fishes and fresh water fishes jellyfish, sea anemones, sea-horses, eels, stingrays and some bioluminescent fishes. There is just too much to mention. The zoo was super fun and we closed them out. Liesl managed to procure a baby orangutan from the store and has been babying it since.

 Her little orangutan got to sit down to dinner with us at Perrysburger in Perrysburg (after about an hour of driving in circles in the toledo area. the burgers were amazing there. Jim got a texs burger or something and I dont know if he was just that hungry or what but he said he wouldnt think about eating another burger to sully the taste of this one. I had a Chicago... built just like a Chicago dog..... nice touch. Liesl had a crabby patty :) Very cute little burger.

Yesterday was my birthday. Thank you to all that celebrated with me and Facebooked me to wish me a happy birthday. It was so nice to hear from everyone and all the well wishes flooding in all day. It was a good day. We are planning on doing a mini-vacation to Frankenmuth on the 30th/31st to celebrate my birthday. Plus it should be pretty darn cool for halloween decorations! After putting the little one to bed last night I was rewarded with gorgeous sunflowers from my wonderful husband. thank you baby.

Visit with the Dr

I had my first appt with Dr Goulding for this pregnancy this morning and my "12 wk" ultrasound. She is guessing I am anywhere between 11.5 to 13 wks into the pregnancy. We are guessing from the ultrasound that I am probably about 12 wks. But who knows. So that would make the due date fall anywhere between April 8th and April 17. I had the ultrasound right before the appt. We even squeezed an extra person above the 3 allowed guests into the screening. Well it is par for the course since they made me wait an excruciating extra 30 min with a full bladder. 

Liesl was very excited to see the pictures of her new sibling. She has been very good about the new baby's upcoming arrival. Every night she tries to listen to my belly for the baby, talks to it and tells us that the baby is tapping her on the ear or something of the like.

The Carousel is open at the zoo now. We are so excited to go and ride it. Liesl has been "reading" about it for a month now. Maybe tomorrow we will go. She has been having a lot of play dates with her different friends.  She loves to hold hands on their little excursions to the zoo, play place, cider mill, bounce house etc. She visited the Rochester Play this past week and found that it was Legend......wait for it..... dairy and cant wait to bring her friends. They also have preschool there coming soon. We will have to check that out.

8 and 12 wk ultrasound pictures of our new bundle

8 week pictures

 12 week pictures

Sleepy Sleepy

Last week was Ota's 89th birthday (or was it his 90th? or maybe his 98th?). He has been saying since his last birthday that he was 89 when he was only 88 and now he is saying he is 90. What is the difference anyways. It's funny. This weekend we had a gigantic sleepover up north to celebrate it. He was so very happy but I think he was a little claustraphobic one of the days and a tad crabby. Liesl and I had a great time tent camping in the garage. We told stories for bedtime which she has graduated to. She doesnt need a book or the "haammies" anymore and just listens to you and passes out. Maybe she is close to her own kind of ritual soon. We had a good time kayaking with Aunt Barb and Oma Gabi and Kaethe to the far end of the lake until Liesl had enough and wanted to turn around and go home. We had a little version of thanksgiving too. a big turkey and stuffing and some mashed potatoes (yummy) Will have to get all I can of that in with Mom, Dad, Scott and Melisa I can this month as everyone is going to Curacao this thanksgiving. The drive up to the cottage and back was pretty rough. I was so tired I was ready to throw up. I am sleeping pretty much all of the time and had to call off work yesterday because I couldnt get out of bed. This was good for the Omas and Kaethe Tante this weekend because they got some time in with Liesl and I crashed on the couch alot. I made some heavenly apple cherry crisp yesterday. Jim was very pleasantly suprised and wolfed down a lot of it. It was very tart and tasty I must admit. Ultrasound this Friday. i am nervous and excited about it. We will finally get a look at our new little baby.

Nauseous but happy

I have been a bit nauseous for this 1st Trimester of the pregnancy but very happy to be pregnant so of course it it is cancelling out the sickness. It is my way...other than my growing belly that lets me know about the cute little person inside of me. The last ultrasound was kinda lousy and I couldn't see a thing. What I saw of the baby was a little peanut shaped coming in and out of focus. Apparently I didn't remember this time how much earlier I need to drink water before an ultrasound than the Dr tells me. I am always at least a 1/2 hour behind. They based thier due date on thier measurements from the ultrasound but I dont know the accuracy of those measurements because it was so bad. We will see what they say at the end of this month when I have my second ultrasound. I am of the belief from the date I recorded my period on that I am still correct on my due date of April 8th. We shall see.

Memorial day weekend I took a little time off and Liesl, Ota and I went up to meet mom and dad on the boat in Traverse. We had a great time in Traverse, Mackinaw City and Macinac Island. We had dinner at Fred and Robin's. It was very nice. Fred made a bunch of perch for dinner and some wonderful tomato salad. I was only able to eat the tomato salad but Liesl ate more that hers and my share of them. We are guessing she had at least 15 perch. She was stuffing her little face so full of them we all couldn't stop laughing.  The next day we trolled around the cities on the coast while dad was sailing with cousin Fred. Went to the beach, got some dinner at a polish restaurant. It was a beautiful lawn out the back with gardens and Liesl loved running around there while we at exploring the properties. On the beach we found a frog swimming in the lake among the waves, found lots of rocks for Liesl's rock garden and did a little wading. Liesl was filthy when she was done. There was sand all over her. We ended a long gorgeous ride in Mackinaw City waiting for Dad and Fred. In Mackinaw City we were planning on catching a movie but missed. Got some cupcakes at the cupcake factory, did a little shopping and got really cold up there. The nights we slept on the boat were really stormy so we were bumping up against the dock alot at night. When dad and Fred finally made it to Mackinaw I was so happy for it finally to be dinnertime! Again Liesl shocked Fred with the amount of food that she could put away at the buffet. She woofed down 3-4 pieces of fried chicken and some fish. We spent 1 night in Mackinaw and 2 on Mackinaw Island. Liesl got a little seasick on the boat going over saying that the trees were dancing on her. Pretty funny. Liesl's favorite restraunt on the island was the Pink Pony... I am thnking this is only because of the name and the placemats. the second time she insisted on eating there she told me she even had her order planned out. No objections other than from Grandad. She behaved herself rather well in there so definately no objections from me. She begged us from the moment she got there to go on a horse and buggy ride. We thought we would out last her but no.... Tuesday we ended up doing the Carriage ride. I think she finally got it out of her system thank god. We did a couple runs around the island on the bikes and visited the school playground which she loved because they had a climbing wall. Then we got to take a ride back on the ferry. She slept a long time in the car. When we got home daddy and Stormy were quite sick. Unfortunately now our poor Stormy didnt make it and we again are dogless :(. It was short lived.

We have been visiting the zoo quite a bit this past month too. Liesl got her face painted the last time we were there. We saw the new Lion's den which is awesome, getting ready for the new carosel opening at the end of September and Zoo Boo. Liesl loved the face painting... after it was done. She was a little shy about getting the paint on. We said goodbye to the Dinosaurs for an unforeseen time which was sad. I hope they come back soon.

August almost to a close

Well I said that I would celebrate Liesl's birthday all month and we sure did. We had cakes all month and birthday parties. 3 in total to make make sure everyone was able to celebrate with her. Last Saturday we had one with all our friends and some family with all the little kids we could muster. We had 8 little kids there mostly around her age. We had the large blow up pool with the makeshift Little Tykes slide with a hose hooked up. Some of the little boys were jumping off the slide into the water. Little daredevils! All the little kids had such a good time together on the swingset and the pool. They had a great time with the pinata. Thanks to Vince for breaking open the treasure chest to reveal the candy. We had all kinds of treats for them and tattoos which they put on right away. Ran around with thier little eyepatches with skulls on them.

The weekend before we had Scott and Melisa, Oma Ronnie and Opa, Kimmee and Dennis over for cake and such. It was such a nice little gathering. We played with all of her new toys together esp the play doh and took pictures of all the funny creatures we all made.







The weekend before that Oma Ronnie and Opa Peter had a party for her and invited Aunt Melisa and Uncle Scott. It was also a nice gathering with a beautiful Barbie cake. They were all special to her. Thank you everyone for making her birthday celebrations perfect. Love you!

Looking forward to maybe seeing the elephants in Sept when it cools off in OH. More zoo time with the Dinos before the exhibit closes in Detroit and maybe some more farm center time. Fall is my favorite time of year. Apple Orchards sound like so much fun now. Also looking forward to mom and dad's sailing trip and hooking up with them along the way. Next weekend, 4 day weekend, might do some kayaking up north with Oma Gabi, Daddy and Liesl.