San Antonio- Seaworld

To celebrate Brian's birthday in September, we headed to San Antonio for the weekend. Bella rode her first roller coaster... much to my worry! Does she appear to even know what she's gotten herself into???

(BEFORE)...waiting in line with Daddy....

The Shamu roller coaster...

(AFTER)....a BIG thumbs up!

Brian also managed to get Ray & Debbie on a wet, river ride!

Of course we had to see the Orcas and the Shamu show... Bella LOVED it!

July/ August Recap

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from updating the family blog, so hopefully I can keep up with it better now that I'm on bedrest. Here's a short recap of July & August 2010:

Debbie and Ray spent the week of July 4th with us and we paid a visit to Kemah. Bella rode the Red Baron airplane ride for the first time and enjoyed also riding her usual carousel ride.

She also burned off a little energy at the Kemah Boardwalk park, but it was SOOO hot.

Grandpa, Bella, Grandma & Brian on Kemah Boardwalk....

While they were in, we all took Bella to see her first movie in theatres....Toy Story 3. She did really good and the movie kept her attention through most of it.

Brian gave everyone a tour at NASA- couldn't get Bella to smile for a nice family picture.

On August 6, we got some exciting news....baby #2 is a GIRL! Chloe Alise is expected to arrive in late December 2010.

Bella started "school" in our church's Early Childhood Program for (4) hours on Tuesday & Thursday each week. It was a bit of a rough adjustment for her, but she's finally settled in a routine and is doing very well in school. Her favorite activity is playing with play-doh!

Summer Reading Club

We signed Bella up for the Summer Reading Club at Helen Hall Library a couple of weeks ago, and she turned in her first completed log on Wednesday. She marks off a picture of a train each time we finish a book and it takes a total of 20 books to complete one log. She was very proud to turn in her log to the librarian and pick a prize from the bin. She chose a smiley face stamper, so I'm sure my house will be covered with red smiley faces very soon!!!

We go to the library weekly to check out new books and I let her choose one or two that interest her. They have turned out to be the silliest books and I would have probably not chosen them myself for her. Haha. Last week's book was "How to Catch a Star", which was about a boy who tried to catch or reach a star throughout the book. She loved it! This week....seriously...."Walter the Farting Dog". It is an absolutely obnoxious book that she laughs at the entire time I'm reading it. Yep, my kid wants to read about farting dogs. Nice.

I'll upload pictures soon....

7th Wedding Anniversary

Happy 7th Anniversary to my sweet husband!

It's hard to believe that we have been married 7 years already, especially when I look back through the wedding & honeymoon pictures. Then again, when I think of everything that we've accomplished and experienced, it does seem like it's been longer than 7 years....but it has always been interesting and FUN!

To celebrate, Brian made his specialty pizza (Margarita). He made the crust from scratch, then added the basil and tomatoes from our garden, and topped with mozzarella cheese. Yummy!

Have you ever had a cake ball? Well, I tasted my first one (notice one missing from the picture...haha) and they're awesome! I ordered a dozen of the chocolate assortment from Viva La Cake Balls in Dickinson (www.vivalacakeballs.com) and we enjoyed them as an anniversary dessert. Our assortment included peanut butter cups, German chocolate (our fav!), oreo, grasshopper, and chocolate. DELICIOUS!!!

First Swim Lesson

Tonight was Bella's first class of swim lessons at our YMCA. (Yesterday's class was cancelled due to weather). She was so excited to get to play in the pool! I definitely have a water kid on my hands, although she does not like to go under the water quite yet.



She practiced blowing bubbles with Daddy....



Then, she learned how to safely climb out of the swimming pool....



Next up was some singing and playing in the water...



These two had such a fun time at swim class tonight!

Good News!

Our follow-up ultrasound appointment went really good and the baby is growing very well. He/She has doubled in size since our last u/s 2 weeks ago and is about the size of Brian's hand. My bleed is much smaller now, about 1cm in size. My next appointment is in a week (June 16) for my 12 week checkup with the doctor.

For now, no ultrasounds are scheduled until 18-20 weeks when it'll be time to find out the gender. My guess is that the baby will be a girl because the heartrate has been 174-182 bpm. It's higher in the beginning of the pregnancy and will eventually slow as the baby grows. Bella's heartrate was always 150-160, so I'm guessing a girl just based on that.

Baby Update

We had a scare on May 23 (Sunday night) and ended up spending most of Monday at Texas Womens Hospital. After an ultrasound, we were relieved to see the baby was perfectly fine. My doctor diagnosed me as having a subchorionic hemorrage, which is a bleed/clot between the uterus and placenta.

We are scheduled to get another ultrasound on June 7th (2 weeks later) to see if the tear has healed. I have been getting plenty of rest and fluids, no lifting or straining and just trying to take it easy. It is MUCH easier said than done with an active 2 year old in the house!

Thanks for all the thoughts & prayers, it's much appreciated.