Happy Birthday Dennis

Happy 30th Birthday my love! I'm glad to hear it's not a number that freaks you out like so many other people. I know you've had a very busy year this past year between school and work. But it looks like this year is going to be a lot less stressful and there is a lot to look forward to! Just about all our third baby's firsts will happen this year! (Sorry, got baby on the mind!)

But really, Happy Birthday. I love you and I'm so glad that you were born and become that man that you are now. I'm thankful we both followed the paths we were suppose to and met at school and got married. It's been a wonderful 8 years with you. Here's to us sharing a lot more years together, and a lot more of your birthdays!

Charity's First Day of Preschool

Charity's first day of school was TODAY! She was so excited and looked so cute in her backpack! They had to make puppets of themselves and take a few items that describe them. All morning all I heard from her was asking if it was time to go yet. lol. On the way there, all I heard was are we there yet! She was surprisingly cooperative all morning with getting ready to go, even brushing her hair. But that's cuz she knew she had to do it to get to go! lol.

Here are a couple of pictures from today. One of her posing in front of our door, I barely got her to hold still for this cuz she just wanted to leave! There were a couple more I took that ended up being of her back because she was ready to go out the door. lol, But it wasn't quite time yet!

And then the other picture is in front of her school.

Sorry it's really not a very good pictures. Since I got the Froyo upgrade on my phone, I think it ruined the camera! But she certainly is a cutie! And so happy to be going to school! She could barely stand there to get her picture taken though and was so antsy I think it contributed to the blurriness! lol.

When I picked her up from school today she was just a grinning and when I asked her how was school, she told me "I LOVED it Mommy!" Sounds like a good day to me :)

Oh, I forgot to mention, the objects she chose to put in her bag to describe her was a couple of crayons (her favorite colors blue and purple of course), a shell from the beach, and the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. I think she made some excellent choices :)

Baby Costs

Ugh. It's amazing how much a third child can cost you! With our first, we were either able to find most of what we needed at a discount or had people give it to us. Got our crib from DH's sister, my parents found us a stroller at the DI or a yard sale for cheap, given lots and lots of clothes, got the swing at a consignment store, found a cheap baby monitor... I did insist on a specific pack 'n play so that wasn't cheap, but overall we didn't have to spend all that much money. Or maybe it just felt like it because we started preparing soon after finding out I was pregnant. With Danielle, we had pretty much everything we needed, all I insisted on was a bouncy seat because we'd never gotten one of those with Charity even though I'd wanted one.

This time, though I posted about figuring out what we needed, because of how busy and crazy life has been we are now down to less than 2 months to go (if she comes as early as Charity did, a little less than 5 weeks!) and we haven't gotten anything! Well, until this last weekend. But for this third one we needed a bunch of stuff because after 4 1/2 years, it's all worn out, broken, or gone now. Last weekend we did manage to find a swing at a Consignment store here in town so instead of spending a ton of money on a new one we got one for relatively cheap, and we also found a playmat and a monitor. So that has helped out some. I also found some warm baby clothes to round out the wardrobe for the baby. Going from 2 spring babies to a fall baby definitely calls for some warmer clothes!

BUT Dennis went to put up the crib and discovered that sometime in the last while when it was stored a piece got broke and so we can't use it :( Cribs are expensive, and we've never had to buy one before. So, added onto the fact that I wanted to get a bassinet for our room this time. And found one that I absolutely LOVE and insist on wanting that one, (There's always something each time I get my heart set on it seems) now we're trying to figure out what to do about a crib. :( Dennis is leaning towards simply not getting one and just setting up the pack 'n play in the babies room (which reminds me, I need to figure out where that is!) but then I can't use the bedding set I bought since you can't put the dust ruffle and stuff on the pack 'n play! Though, after browsing at a Babies 'R Us this weekend, I want a mini crib now since it converts to a frame for a twin size bed later on. I think we'd get more use out of it overall. But, the cheapest one of those cost more than the cheapest regular crib so who knows what we're going to do! But we need to figure it out!

Our carseat has gotten too old so we have to get a new one of those, that we haven't gotten yet, and even the cheapest ones aren't cheap! I've picked out which one I want, (not THE cheapest but just about) but we're gonna have to buy it online cuz Walmart doesn't have it in store, unless we want to drive to a Baby's R Us and spend more money on it. Grrr, but it is such a pain!

Dennis is now worried his wife is trying to take him on an expensive shopping spree since I'm trying to finish up getting everything we need. It's not my fault he's insisted we wait until near the very end to get everything! I've been trying to convince him for months we need to start looking and getting the stuff we need! In the meantime, I've got to get the hospital bags packed so we're ready and still have so much other stuff to do! It's just so frustrating trying to get everything ready!

Potty Training Update

So, we are now on Week 2 of Potty Training. I haven't been as diligent with her as I was with Charity but I still think she's starting to catch on. Yay! With any luck she'll be potty trained before the baby gets here, and she won't regress afterwards! I'm not sure about the timing of this whole potty training but I've put it off long enough. Hopefully by the end of this week she'll be going on the potty almost every time.

So, here's to more progress!

Staple Removal

Last night we had to take Charity back to the instacare to have the staple removed. I wasn't really sure it was actually ready because her cut/gash (what would be the right word for it?) didn't really look healed enough. But we went.

Charity did NOT want to go. She threw a fit about it for quite a while before we left and then refused to get out of the van when we got there. We practically had to drag her out. Luckily, she'd calmed down and was behaving nicely by the time we got in the building, though Daddy had to carry her.

The doctor examind it, said it was ready to come out and snip, it was out. It took a lot less time to remove that staple than it did to put it in! Charity insists it hurt worse to have th staple removed than to have it put in though, lol. The doctor said the removal is the practically painless part so I don't know if I believe her, especially with how she didn't want to go back. But he said it's healing up nicely.

I hadn't thought the staple had bothered her much but when she went to bed last night, she told me excitedly that she could lay on the back of her head again so it must have atleast caused a discomfort for her at night :( I'm glad she's doing fine though and there wasn't any permenant damage from hitting her head though!

Potty Training

Well, Day 1 of Potty Training Danielle has started... We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping she's beyond ready and takes to it quickly and readily!

So far today, no success but she did poop near the toilet! Since she's small we definitely are going to have to get a stool for every bathroom though so she can get the on the toilet by herself!

Falling Asleep at Dinner

So, you know that cute moment when your kid is just soo tired they just lay their head down at the kitchen table (or high chair, or whatever) and fall asleep? Yeah, I've never had that experience until last night.

There we were eating our yummy Anniversary dinner of Steak and Potatos. Did I mention Yummy? All Danielle wanted to eat was steak, lol. She was on her 4th helping of it when I glanced at her an realized she was barely keeping her eyes open, swaying a little bit and she looked like at any moment she was going to crash. I pointed it out to Dennis and he was worried about her hitting her head on the table if she fell asleep sitting up so he decided to go sit by her so he could catch her if he needed to. Well, as son as he sat down next to her she leaned her head on him and fell asleep. It was sooo cute! And there wasn't a peep out of her when I took her in her room and put her to bed!

Spent some time at Instacare tonight...

First off I want to say I'm so thankful for a wonderful neighbor and friend who I can call on in emergencies!

I was doing something on the computer when I heard Charity start screaming from the living room. She'd been jumping from the couch to the bean bag. We have the bean bag right in front of the window. Somehow she'd managed to turn around and fall and hit her head on the window sill hard enough to gash it open.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on with Dennis upset over all the blood and Charity just sobbing. Poor girl. We got her in the bathroom and I held a wet rag to the back of her head until we got the bleeding to stop. Once we were able to examine the wound well enough I decided it was big enough we'd better take her to have it looked at. I wasn't sure if she'd need stitches or something but it was like an inch long. So, I called over to Tiffany's to see if the could watch Danielle while we took Charity to the instacare. She came right over and got Danielle and we left.

It didn't take them long to get Charity back to be examined. And the doctor ended up determining that she was going to need a couple of staples. We opted to not worry about the local anestetic since he said it was a very painful shot and there would only be a couple of staples put in. Well, he ended up only needing to do one staple and Charity didn't even complain a bit about it! Ofcourse we rewarded her for being so brave by letting her get some new shoes and a coloring book. lol, I think she was working on taking full advantage of Mommy and Daddy feeling bad for her.... As long as she doesn't concoct ways to get hurt to get special treatment all the time, I was ok with it!

So, we have to take her back in a week to get the staple removed. My poor girl, Dennis said she's trying to catch up to her cousin Spencer on visiting the doctor! lol