A girl and her Helper Tower

This post is way overdue, but the bonus of that is that I've been able to add more photos, so let's just call it a win, OK?

Sometime in 2012 I read this blog post and got to thinking about how I'd love for Elle to have a Helper Tower. I tried to think about anyone I knew that might be able to build it, and I contacted a mommy friend from one of our mommy/baby groups - her husband is a carpenter and I wanted to know if he thought this was something he could do. While I totally think he'd do a great job, the price he quoted was much more than the retail price of the tower. So I went back to the mental drawing board.

We were planning a trip home for Thanksgiving - Elle and I drove up and Tim flew up and drove back with us. (It was during that trip that we announced we were pregnant with Wesley.) With the pending trip in mind, the gears started slowing spinning as I thought about who might have the tooling needed to make this tower.

I contacted my brother-in-law, Jeff, because I knew that he loves building stuff (we share a love of furniture assembly that few people can fully understand unless they're passionate about furniture assembly, too), and I knew that he had inherited some of my grandfather's woodworking tools and equipment. While I wasn't sure exactly what tools he had or would need, my first inquiry of him was if he was interested in attempting to build the tower for Elle. I sent this tutorial and explained that we could bring it home with us on our Thanksgiving road trip, which would eliminate the biggest issue of the Ohio-built, Florida-dwelling piece right away. Lucky for us, he was interested and willing and presented it to Elle as an early Christmas present.

Jeff took extra time to paint, decorate and personalize the tower - it turned out absolutely awesome. Elle spent some time checking it out:

And we've since used it for all sorts of baking and cooking fun in the kitchen: 

Pizza fun!

Helping Daddy make popcorn.

Making brownies with Aunt Marti.

Quality control.

It takes up some space in our dining area, but it's been an awesome, safe way to have Elle involved in the kitchen, and she loves it :) We're so thankful Uncle Jeff could help make this idea a perfect reality!

2013 family photos

I am (obviously) eons behind in my blogging, but I do want to make sure I highlight some of the bigger moments of the last few months when my posting wasn't very plentiful.

We had family photos taken in late October by Regina of Regina Peterson Photography. I highly recommend her if you're in the Bradenton/Sarasota area. I loved the park we were at because there was a lot of greenery but it was also right on the water.

Tim thought having photos taken just a few short months after Wesley's newborn photos was overkill, but Wesley had changed a lot in those first three months, and I was thankful to have updated family photos for our Christmas card and gifts. It was windy the day of our photos and Wesley was especially drool-y. Elle was especially uncooperative, but Regina still managed to get several good shots :)

Here are a few of my faves:

 

Looking back at 2013

Happy New Year, folks. Since I've been rather absent from the blog for the last half of the year, I figured this survey (taken from Heather) would be a good way to look back at 2013 and recap some of the things I haven't mentioned on the blog. I think it will be a good way to recap future years, too, so hopefully it will be a blog staple :)  Apologies now for the length of this post, too - catching up and recapping is wordy work!

1. What did you do in 2013 that you had never done before? Potty trained a child. Got an epidural. Had a CT scan. Guess I should explain that last one, because it is definitely part of the "catch up on the last six months" clause. Throughout my pregnancy with Wesley, I had a lot of on and off pain around my belly button. I mentioned it to my doctor, and he said it was likely just round ligament pain/Wesley's position/etc. Nothing to worry about. And for about a month after Wesley was born, I had no noticeable pain. But then it returned. It felt like a pulled muscle, and it really started to bother me soon after my postpartum check up (this timing was not lost on me, as I could have brought it up with my OB if it had been an issue before the appointment). The pain continued to increase (and after surviving natural childbirth I feel I have the right to say I can handle moderate pain without issue) and it worried me that it was very unpredictable - it would often last for days and then disappear for a day or two. It would travel, moving up and around my abdomen, sometimes a dull ache, other times a sharp pain. There was no rhyme or reason, and no one else I knew (or could locate on Google) had experienced anything similar. After about 10 weeks, I finally went to a doctor in my PCP's office because I wanted to know if it was "just" a pulled muscle or if it was something more serious (I had imagined all sorts of "worst-case scenarios"). The original response was that it was likely a strained muscle and they wanted to avoid unnecessary, costly tests, but if it didn't improve within 2-3 weeks, I needed to call. It didn't improve. So a CT scan was ordered for me. The good news about the CT was that originally it was ordered with contrast, so they would have injected dye in me, and I would have had to pump and dump for two days. UGH. When I arrived at the facility, they told me they actually didn't need the scan with contrast, but I *did* have to chug this disgusting, chalky bottle of barium. (If you think the glucose drink you have to take during pregnancy is bad, this is like a million times more disgusting.) I had the choice between vanilla- and banana-flavored barium, and the vanilla was recommended to me by a tech. It was still awful, but I shudder to think of how bad the banana would have been! The scan itself was painless and took a few minutes. The results were in a few days later, and the results were good in that nothing looked terrible wrong. The only bad thing was there was no clear diagnosis of what was causing the pain I was experiencing. A follow up with my actual PCP was reassuring - she's got a daughter Elle's age and a one-year-old son, and she is confident that it was a severe strain that happened during my pregnancy or early in my recovery stages, and with the two wee ones, it has had little chance to fully heal. I try to avoid heaving Elle or Wesley in his car seat around whenever I can, but because of our schedules, I pick them up from daycare and do our regular bath routine, so it's been hard to completely stop lifting "heavy objects." I've been careful in my efforts to get back in shape, and when it bothers me (which still happens occasionally, almost a full six months after delivering), I take an anti-inflammatory medicine and rest as much as possible. I seriously hope this heals completely, on it's own and soon, but the possibility that something was really wrong and that multiple tests would be needed was terrifying.

2. Did anyone close to you have a child? Moi :) Several good friends had babies, and both my sister-in-law and a close friend are due this year (my nephew could come any day!). 

3. Did anyone close to you die? My great aunt passed away. This hit me especially hard because while my aunt and I weren't super close, she and my grandma were, and I was very close to my grandma. Losing my great aunt brought all of the feelings from the loss of my grandma back and reminded me the special, sisterly bond they shared. It also upset me because I couldn't be with my family. Over the last few years, I've gotten closer to my cousins (my great aunt's daughters), so I also mourned for them and my great uncle. I also had two friends who lost babies - one at 22 weeks and one just shy of 12 weeks - and those losses rocked me.

St. Augustine in April!

4. Where did you travel? We went to St. Augustine in April - a rare trip to somewhere other than Ohio. It was a nice trip to an adorable, historic town that had something for everyone in our family and was a good trip to take with a toddler, while pregnant. Then we went to Ohio that week, too, to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. In October, we went to Disney for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party - we stayed in the Art of Animation resort and had a good time two hours from home. Travel was kept to a minimum this year because of a lack of vacation time/funds and being pregnant, but we did take several day trips to St. Petersburg and Tampa and got to explore several museums, beaches and aquariums with Elle.

I would love to see more of this guy -
this photo from a date night to a hockey game
in December to celebrate his birthday.

5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? I could go on for days on this one, but I'll keep it to the general items highest on my list: To see my husband more (ideally, to have him have a "normal," Monday-Friday schedule). To move. More "me" time. More visits with family and friends.

Elle with my dad during our April
trip to Ohio - she was helping him
read his birthday cards :)

6. What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory? July 3, my last day of work before Wesley. July 13 - my due date. July 15 - Wesley's birthday. Sept. 16 - return to work. Nov. 15 - our five-year anniversary.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Hands down, Wesley. From carrying him to term without major complications to birthing, nursing and caring for him, I don't think you can achieve anything much greater than creating and nurturing human life. (I've been bringing that up at work a lot in the last month - when anyone mentions that I was out of leave and therefore shouldn't be eligible for Employee of the Year, I have been known to shout "I created life!" Since I won Employee of the Year in 2012, I'm OK with not getting it in 2013, but I still like to remind people that I wasn't just lounging pool-side when I was on leave.) Even though Wesley's birth was extremely different from Elle's (from being induced to having an epidural), I still think carrying and delivering a baby is totally amazing. Professionally, things were extremely crazy for the first third of the year at work, and I was working a lot of hours (and some Saturdays) to stay afloat. It was intense, but I feel a huge sense of achievement for handling the stress and pressure. I also had a pretty awesome month in May - I earned Employee of the Month for my work on several big projects, and knowing that I was "on my game" while in my third trimester was a good feeling, too.

8. What was your biggest failure? Not moving.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury? Yes - the apparent severe muscle strain that earned me the CT scan. I've pulled muscles before, but MAN. That has taken nearly half a year to recover from, and it was extremely painful at times. Tim and I were hit with a nasty stomach bug early in the year - I think it was a mild case of food poisoning, but being ill while pregnant sucks. And the whole family had a stomach virus when Wesley was just a few weeks old. That. Was. Awful. I was lucky that Tim could come home from work to help with the kids while I died in the bathroom and on the couch - not sure how I would have managed without his help for a few hours there.

10. What was the best thing you bought? Hmmm. A new mattress, maybe? We took advantage of Labor Day sales and replaced our old one. (I'm a very exciting person.)
 
11. Where did most of your money go? I think the majority went to medical stuff - there was the whole baby+loss of income during maternity leave thing, and I had a lot of unplanned dental work done, and then the visits and tests for my abdominal pain. We also had a lot of "we're adults now" costs - from overdue work on the condo (like duct cleaning and AC maintenance) to regular maintenance on Tim's car, it was all necessary.

Disney in October!

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? All things Wesley :) And our trip to St. Augustine and Ohio in April and Disney in October.

13. What song will always remind you of 2013? When Elle likes a song, she likes to hear it constantly. The big winners for her last year were "Trouble" by Taylor Swift and "E.T." and "Firework" by Katy Perry as well as "Heart Attack" by Demi Lovato. I personally got hooked on "Wake Me Up" by Avicii and "Say Something" by A Great Big World with Christina Aguilera (Wesley seems to love that song - it's the only thing that keeps him from crying when I change his clothes).

14. Compared to this time last year, are you A) happier or sadder? B) thinner or fatter?  C) richer or poorer? A) I think this would probably be a draw ... last year I was contending with pregnancy hormones. This year, I'm just dealing with raw emotion, and while I'm happier that Wesley is here and how he's changed our family, I'm sad about a lot of other things. B) Fatter, although thankfully only slightly ... at this time last year, I was still in the "I've lost a few pounds because I'm nauseous" phase of my pregnancy. I'm only two pounds above what I consider my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm definitely much squishier than I was at that weight. C) About the same. While we weren't able to save as much this year as I might have hoped, we had a lot of expenses that we didn't have the year before.

15. What do you wish you’d done more of? Seen more of our families and friends. Learned more about our DSLR. Blogged more. Done more Pilates and strength training. Saved more money (I'll probably always wish we had saved more money, though). 

16. What do you wish you’d done less of? Seen my dentist. Spent money. Worked.

17. Did you fall in love in 2013? Yes, with our little squish monster Wesley.

He's the squishiest!

18. What was your favorite TV program? Scandal. I'm absolutely in love with that show. I also got hooked on The Voice. And I'll never turn down an episode of Nashville.

19. What was the best book you read? It's hard to remember many of the books *I* read that weren't kids' books. I did read "Me Before You" and enjoyed it. I read "Gone Girl" and was absolutely hooked until the end, which frustrated/disappointed/surprised me. I read a few other books by Gillian Flynn but I found them more disturbing than consuming.

20. What was your greatest musical discovery? That my daughter loves Katy Perry songs? :) Honestly, I was introduced to a lot of good songs through The Voice, like "Say Something," "Burn" by Ellie Goulding and "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. For a good portion of the year, we could only tune in one radio station at work, and it was a country station, which introduced me to Hunter Hayes and Lady Antebellum's current hit "Compass."

21. What did you want and get? A healthy baby boy. A ring from my grandma soldered on to my wedding band (at left). A right hand ring that was my "push present."

22. What did you want and not get? More time with family.

23. What was your favorite film of the year? Hmmm. It's probably a bad sign that the two best movies of 2013 I can remember seeing are ones I actually watched in the first week of 2014, isn't it? "Blackfish " and "Frozen" are the two standing out in my mind right now.

24. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 32. My birthday was on a Monday, so I worked and then we went to a minor league baseball game that night. We celebrated the weekend before by going out to eat for dinner, too.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013. Sometimes you have to let go of what you think you need or what you think is expected of you and just trust that it will all work out in the end.

Wordless Wednesday: Family/maternity snapshots

About a month ago, I had this sudden urge to have maternity photos taken. I went back and forth, in true indecisive pregnant lady fashion, and finally decided that I didn't really want to pay a lot of money to have my huge belly photographed. I did, however, want to capture my pregnancy. I didn't take a ton of photos during my pregnancy with Elle except for my weekly bump photos, and while I've taken weekly bump photos with this pregnancy, I wanted some photos that were a little more artistic and posed. I also wanted to capture Tim and Elle in some of the photos.

Although it was already super Florida hot, we asked one of our babysitters (hi Ashley!) to watch Elle for a few hours while we ran some errands together and went out for dinner. Then we came home and went to the river to take some photos - Ashley helped by taking some photos of the three of us and also keeping Elle safe and happy during the rest of the shoot.

I'm glad we did it, and I'm glad we didn't spend a lot of time and money on the photos. I managed to jam my wedding ring on my swollen fingers for the pictures, although I had to wear different shoes than originally planned because my feet were too swollen. My hair didn't appreciate the humidity, and Elle and I were both sweaty messes within five minutes. In 10 years, though, I think I'll be happy to see how close I was to meeting our son and how we were preparing for Wesley as a a family, but I don't think we need to plaster the walls with photos of my giganticness :)

Here are some of my favorite photos:

She's going to be an amazing big sister.

We actually bought Wesley's little shoes about two hours before these photos were taken.
Props for the win!

Love Elle's face in this one.

Tim is convinced this pose is going to explode on Pinterest.
I call it "pregnant woman split in half by lamp post."
He calls it "brilliant."

Yup, that's our kid.

We promised Elle some playground time if she cooperated in the photos.

Sibling musings.

I was going to post this one tomorrow, but for the next 15 minutes it is still National Sibling Day, and that seems very appropriate :)

I was telling Tim a few weeks ago that I absolutely love the fact that Wesley seems to be awake every night when I'm putting Elle to bed. I love that I can feel him kicking as I read to her, and it makes me think about how bedtimes in the future will be - when they both gather around to hear a bedtime story, when they giggle to each other as they fight sleep.

I had gone through the possible scenarios several times in my mind before our gender ultrasound - Elle with a little sister, Elle with a little brother. Since I have both a big sister and (two) younger brothers, I could relate to either situation. I had no preference, but I think I was more emotional about it than Tim because he has a younger brother, and that's all he knows.

My older sister, me and my oldest younger brother ...
my sister was 11, I was 7 and my brother was 5. Doug was -10 :) 

I'm 90% sure this is our last pregnancy. I was about 80% sure before I found out we were having a boy, but now I'm more sure, knowing that I'm carrying the son that Tim has always dreamed of, knowing that because Tim is almost 13 years older than me I never expected to be having kids for years and years, and knowing that financially, two kids is probably a comfortable number. I'm not ruling out the possibility of a third kid some day, but I don't think it's likely. As one of four kids, that makes me a little sad, but mostly, I'm excited about our kids and the bond that they'll share.

About 10 days before our gender ultrasound, Elle and I were playing in her bedroom, and we were talking about my grandma. There's a photo in Elle's room of me, Elle and my grandma, taken when Elle was about 10 weeks old, during the first and only time my grandma got to see her. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but I told Elle that Grandma Rene's sister had surgery that day and I was praying for her and her family. I found out a few hours later that my great aunt had died - there had been complications during the surgery. I was extremely emotional that night, thinking of my cousins, who had lost their mother or grandmother, and my great uncle, who had lost his wife. I was sad that another key member of my family was gone, and sad that I was 1,000 miles away and unable to be with my family during a time of loss and grief.

But I also thought about the bond that my grandma and great aunt had shared, and that got me thinking about the relationship my sister and I have, and the tie between sisters in general. I cried a lot that night, thinking about what an amazing woman my great aunt was, recalling how she and my grandma were such strong personalities, finding peace in the fact that they're together again. It brought back a lot of the emotions I had when my grandma died. It also reminded me of just how important family is, and the fact that I was carrying part of Elle's family.

As Elle and I talked about Grandma Rene and her sister that night, I tried to explain the bigger concept of siblings to her. I told her that Mommy has a sister. She told me that Daddy has a sister named Mackenzie (not true, haha). But I tried to introduce the concept of "You might have a sister, too. Or a brother."And then once we found out we were having a boy, it took her a while to stop referring to the baby as "my little sister, Wesley."

A few weeks ago: Elle using my baby bump/her sibling as an arm rest.

I'm extremely excited that Elle is going to have a little brother. SHE'S extremely excited that she's going to have a little brother. I treasure the relationships I have with my little brothers, and they have always looked out for me, even though they are 23 months and 17 years younger than me, respectively. I remember lots of things (good and bad, haha) about growing up with a brother close in age. These are the memories I hope Elle and Wesley will have, too. Going through high school is hard enough, and having a sibling two years younger than you in almost all of the same extracurricular activities as you can sometimes feel stifling. At the same time, it was nice to always know where my little brother was, to share groups of friends, to know that some of my fondest memories of band, baseball, newspaper, etc. involve him. After we both went off to college, I think we got closer, as we were both able to find our own places in new surroundings and appreciate the friendship that we shared as siblings. As an older sister to younger brothers, I know that Elle and Wes will share a special bond.

Celebrating my brother's 23rd birthday :)

My youngest brother and I have always been close, as he is very much a "mini me." I was in the delivery room when he was born. Since I went to college close to home, I was able to be around him a lot during his toddler and little kid years, and we have lots of fun memories - road trips, special outings, etc. Things that I'm glad to have shared with my little brother, and things that I will always remember as part of our special relationship.

My youngest younger brother and I at our sister's wedding in 2000.

But I'm also a little sad that Elle is probably not going to have a sister. She won't have that bond that my grandma and great aunt shared. There were definitely a lot of days when my sister and I did not like each other - times when I'm sure she thought I was a pest, times when I thought she was intolerant of a little sister who was following in her footsteps so closely I was practically tripping over her. But I completely idolized my sister and am grateful to her for a lot - from letting me come stay with her during Little Sibs weekend at college to letting me have emotional breakdowns on her couch years later.

Sister sister, August 2008.

We're four years apart, so we didn't always share a closet, but we share a friendship that is unlike any other relationship in my life. For three decades, she has been a built-in best friend - one that I don't have to worry about losing because of distance, life experiences or petty things. She offers me encouragement, sarcasm and doses of reality when needed, and we've shared a lot of awesome experiences (from her helping me plan a wedding from 1,000 miles away to running a half-marathon relay).

Photos are an awesome way to share news.

Ooohhhh, you're all going to think someone hijacked my blog. I've got actual posts to post! But first, I will share with you some photos that we had taken in early November (bear with me, these are just my favorites):

 

When we were home for Thanksgiving, we used these family photos to deliver some big news to our families. My family was orderedencouraged to "look at our family photo slideshow" on the iPad ... and after they swiped through a few photos, they got to this one, which we had printed out and gave to Tim's family at a family holiday gathering just a few days later:

 

My mom was a bit slow to get it, and my dad was speechless (for the first EVER. Mark it down). Tim's mom scrambled to find her glasses so she could read the chalkboards, but I think she mostly figured out the news from our sister-in-law's excited squeals. The photo also appeared on our Christmas cards this year. It was a pretty cool way to spread the news, and it was SO awesome to be able to tell so many of our friends and family in person on our trip to Ohio, even though it was still extremely early in the pregnancy.

There was also this one for good measure:

 

And just two weeks ago, this little photo was taken, showing our little bean, healthy and almost nine weeks old. We got the see the heart beating away, too, and got confirmation on the due date: July 13 :)

 

 

More details/posts to come. I've got several posts, including weekly bumpdates, in draft form, as well as some other non-pregnancy related posts that I will publish over the next week or two. I swear I didn't start my little blogging hiatus when I got pregnant - the blogging took a backseat weeks before the positive pregnancy test and long before the nausea and fatigue hit. And I can't promise that I'll be blogging super regularly because of the wonderful nausea and fatigue, but I will definitely be chronicling the pregnancy here, just like I did with Elle's, because otherwise I will forget every last detail (especially labor ... still in denial that I'm going to go through that again).