4 Years Old

Well my sweet girl, today you are 4 years old.  I find myself looking at you all the time and thinking, "Wow, she's so big!  How did that happen?".

This morning when you woke-up, I said happy birthday to you and you asked me if you were a grown-up like mommy and daddy.  When I said, no not yet, you were quite upset.  I know 4 seems very big, but you don't need to be in such a hurry to grow-up.  There is plenty of time for that to happen!

The past year has been full of change for our family.  You had a tough time with the the move and missed our old house, but you are now happy where we are and you love your school and your best friend Elsa.  You are also very excited to be a big sister and you cannot wait for your baby to come.

Your very favorite thing to do is read books.  You read every day and always need a book close by.  You will read anything and everything, including my cookbooks and make up stories to go along with the pictures of food.  You also love to help me cook. Your favorite things to make are biscuits and chocolate chip pancakes.

Your other favorite things to do are play with your baby dolls, princesses, littlest pet shop, and my little ponies.  You are a girly girl through and through.  You only want to wear dresses and are drawn to everything pink, sparkly, and princess.  You love to sing and dance, especially to Taylor Swift and Katie Perry.

You have learned how to do so much on your own now.  You can get dressed and put on your shoes and socks.  You can open things by yourself that you couldn't before and you have been very helpful to me when I wasn't feeling well, getting me water and things from the fridge.

You are such a sweet girl and so full of personality.  You can definitely be challenging, but you make me smile everyday.  I love you so much and it is a joy to be your mother and watch you grow!

We celebrated your birthday and your cousin Josh's birthday last week with my family.  We had lots of fun at the park by Auntie Sara's house.

Then today we celebrated with daddy's family at the park by our house.  I think you had a very good birthday and I know everyone had fun spending it with you!

Happy 4th birthday Raeya!  I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

17 weeks

I am 17 weeks pregnant today.  I am getting close to halfway there!  I am pretty sure I felt the baby move for the first time a couple days ago.  It's so hard to tell because it feels like teeny tiny taps or twitches down in my uterus, but I really can't figure out what else it could be.  I think I'll just choose to believe it's the baby and be excited.  With Raeya, I didn't feel her until about 20-21 weeks, but I think I just wasn't aware when the movements were so tiny and hard to notice.

I am feeling so much better lately and it's definitely making time go by faster.  I can actually go out and enjoy life again!  I still need the Unisom&B6 for nauseau, but I'm down to one Zofran a day from three a day before and will probably stop the Zofran completely in a few more days.  I just need to get the courage to do it!  I guess the worst that could happen is I throw-up and take it again.  I just hate throwing-up so much.

I finally took some decent photos to document this pregnancy, so here is one from last week.

16 weeks pregnant.

Raeya is very excited and loves her baby.  Last Sunday we had a joint party for her and her big cousin Josh with my side of the family.  This Sunday we'll have a party on her actual birthday with Jose's family.  I can't believe my baby is going to be 4 years old in a few more days!  And this summer she won't be my baby anymore.  I will do her 4 year update after her party on Sunday.

A Lot of Change

I guess that's what happens when you don't blog for almost a year!

So, we moved to a new city in March.  Only 30 minutes away from where we used to live, but a very big change for us.  We love the area that we moved to and even though it was a little stressful, we are very happy with where we ended up.  There is a small city park right across the street from us and we can walk to a really nice creek trail and also a very cute downtown area.

We were sad to leave the home that Raeya grew-up in for her first 3 years, but this has been a good move for us.  I don't see my friends as often as I used to, but I do see them frequently and I'm working on making new friends in my area.

Raeya started preschool over the summer and we both love her school very much.  It's a Spanish-Immersion preschool, which is very hard to find, and it has everything I had hoped to find in a school for her.  She even made a new best friend there who she loves to play with and looks forward to seeing at school.

 Raeya's 1st day of preschool

Jose just started his last semester of school!!!  I am beyond excited as this has been a long road for us all.  He will have completed his Masters program in May which will bring about a lot more change for us, but I can't wait to have him home more.  Who knows where the job search will take us, but I don't really care because we are all ready to spend more time with him.

And last, our biggest and most exciting news...

Baby #2 will be joining us this summer!!!  The due date is July 30, 2015.  I will be 15 weeks on Thursday.  I feel like I have been waiting forever for this baby, but there is no way I was having another one with Jose in school and working 2 jobs! 

The planning seemed perfect until the horrendous nausea and morning sickness started!  It got so bad that I was throwing-up every 2 hours!  I got medication to stop the throwing-up, but I was still very miserable and could barely function.  Luckily the worst of it was during Jose's winter break from school and I started to feel better just in time for him to go back.  I was nowhere close to being this sick with Raeya, so it kind of caught me by surprise.

I think those are the main things that have happened since I was last on here.  I will try to do more regular updates since I am pregnant and would like to document the journey.  With Raeya, I took pictures every 4 weeks starting at 8 weeks, but since this baby made me so sick, I haven't been doing that.  Sorry baby, that's just how it goes.  I'll try to get the pictures started.  I feel so much bigger this time around!

I do have one crappy cellphone photo that I took at 13 weeks.  I guess I could share that.  Then maybe I'll have motivation to update with a better photo!

So, there's the belly.  I definitely need a better photo!!!