Names, Names, Names!!!

Baby Zig officially has a name!!

DRUM ROLL......We have decided to name baby Zig #2 Sophia Grace! Picking the middle name was easy for us. Unlike Emily's middle name, it really doesn't really have a meaning to us. It wasn't that we were opposed to creating a tradition and using our grandmother's names as middle names. For Emily, it just seemed like fate. Especially since she was due on my late grandmother's birthday. We both just really liked the name Grace. Zig would have really liked to use it as a first name.

As for the first name, it was pretty much the only common name on our top 5 lists. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the name Sophia. I always have. There has been a huge rise in its popularity over the last several years, which is why I was hesitant to choose it, but I think it is really pretty and let's be honest, Emily has been in the top 5 names for over 10 years until recently, so I guess you could say we go with the trends. That and Zig and I have VERY different tastes in names.

I give you my top 5 (in no particular order):
Ava
Aria (R-E-ahh)
Harper
Norah
Sophia

Zig's(again in no order):
Teegan
Skylar
Sidney
Arizona
Sophia

So Sophia it is, and I am glad we waited a while to really think and decide. Emily loves it. She has a Sophie the Giraffe that has always been one of her top buddies, so she was sold on the name immediately. Although if you ask her what she wants to name her baby sister, she will either tell you "Baby Sister" or "Ruben." Yeah, Ruben. No clue where that came from. This kid and her names.

On that topic, a funny story about Emily. She picks crazy names for her buddies. Crazy. We have "Howie" a small purple Koala bear. We have Ruben, a owl that is really a back pack and very obviously a girl. We have Kitty Cat, who is from the Aristocats and she now calls her Marie (pronounced in a french accent just like the movie. She will correct you. It is Maw-ree people.) Princess Kitty is a stuffed animal she made at build-a-bear. We have Pedro, our elf on a shelf. We have Herman, a stuffed giraffe and Butter, a stuffed dog that stay at school. There are many more. But when it comes to baby dolls. They are all named baby doll. Every last one of them. There are about 5 at school and I made the mistake of asking her their names one day. She proceeded to tell me each of their names. Baby doll, Baby doll, Baby doll, Baby doll, Baby doll. Silly little girl.

Well there you have it. Baby Zig #2 is no longer nameless!

Bump Date

So I officially am TERRIBLE about posting these and remember to take pictures this time around. I chalk it up to lack of sleep and sheer and utter laziness. I am not to proud to admit that. I am LAZY.

The last month seems to have flown by! I have seen my doctor a couple of times and everything is looking great. She felt around my belly and determined that at that point baby was head down. With the way this kid moves though, it is likely that she flipped again. She is SUPER active. Especially at night. Here is a little monthly update.

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: As of today I am 34 weeks ::breaths heavily into paper bag::
Size of baby: Huge I feel. With how big I am looking these days, she is pretty big. I think we are like pumpkin status?
Total Weight Gain/Loss:up 15 lbs total. Doctor is happy with my weight gain. I am too. I am really hoping to stay under 25lbs. We shall see.
Maternity Clothes: Oh yeah. Some of my tops are getting short!
Movement: Tons and tons. Jabs, kicks, rolls. Last night we even had a case of the hiccups.
Sleep:Meh. There are lots and lots of pillows on my bed. And there is lots of adjustments that occur throughout the night.
What I miss: Wine. A nice big glass of red wine. I have had sips and very very small glasses now and again. Judge away. While my doctor cannot legally tell me it's ok to have a glass now and then and how often and how much, she did say that if I had a small glass with a meal, it was not going to hurt anything. I will pour maybe 3 or 4 sips in a glass and make it last all night long.
Cravings: I would not say I am having a lot of cravings really. I still have an aversion to chicken though. Chicken strips ok, grilled plain chicken skeeves me out.
Labor signs:None yet. I am starting to get some shooting pains in my back, similar to the ones I had with Emily, but laying down or just relaxing helps a ton. I pray I don't have back labor like I did with Emily. That was no fun!
Best moment this week/month: Finally deciding on a name. This is not baby related, but potty training Emily was definitly the best moment this month. Had I known it would have gone that well, I would have pushed for it a few months ago. Seriously. Ahh-May-Zing. It is so nice not to have to change diapers all the time! She is still in a diaper at night time. Today is her first day sans diaper at nap. She has woken up dry all week, so she is ready. She even started waking up in the morning dry, so she may be sans diaper completly here soon.

Pictures from 29,31, 32, can be found here for Emily. There were no pictures for week 30 and 33. See a trend. I was lazy last time too. ;) I was just better about posting more often. Here are pictures from 31, 32, and 33 this go round. I looke exhausted! I will get 34 in this week. Only 6 weeks left! (Hopefully!)

31 weeks



32 weeks-Holy crap. I seems like there is a huge difference from week 31.



33 weeks

Emmy's a big girl!

I wish I had a better picture of her showing offer her stickers. She is so proud of them. They have doubled since I took this, but she will not let us start a new sheet. I am going to save it and show it to her one day. A forewarning. This post is all about panties, pee and bowel movements.

So it is fairly safe to say that Emily is pretty much potty trained. We decided, since Em's school was closed on the 13th, that I would take the day off and we would spend a long weekend ditching the diapers.

Let's go back in time. We had introduced the potty a while back. We never pushed her to sit on it. We let her tell us if she wanted to and we would ask on occasion if she wanted to sit. Usually before bed. A little before Christmas, we started changing her diaper on the bathroom and encouraging her to sit. Stephanie did the same at school. Every diaper change she sat on the potty. After about a week, she would pee almost every time she sat, but she was still going in her diaper. She kept that up till the day we said goodbye to the diapers for good.

Day 1
I woke her up Friday morning, explained to her that she was a big girl and we made a big to do at saying good bye to her diapers during the day and that she would only be wearing them temporarily during nap and at night. She was really excited. I told her that if she peed on the potty, she would get one sticker (kid is HIGHLY motivated by stickers) and on single fruit snack. If she went #2, that meant 2 stickers and 2 fruit snacks. We expected accidents. She made it the ENTIRE morning without one. I asked her every 30-45 mins if she wanted to sit. Sometimes she went, sometimes she didn't, but she seemed super comfortable with the whole thing. We made a routine. She would help pull her pants down, she'd sit on the potty, wipe, pull her own pants up (with help), flush, wash hands, sticker, fruit snack. In the after noon and early evening she had some accidents. We ended the day with a total of 5, but we had 13 successes!

Day 2
Same routine, except dad was here to help. She had one accident all day long. We still asked her if she wanted to go every 30-45 mins. At this point I think she was getting annoyed by us asking, but I wanted her to get in the practice. We ended day 2 with the one accident, and about 14 successes! She woke up completely dry from nap.

Day 3
Same routine. She had one accident and it was totally my fault. I went to take her and then the doorbell rang and I forgot. She immediately told me she had an accident and was really upset she peed in her Minnie panties. On Sunday she started telling us when she had to go, and we started extending the period between asking her. She pretty much caught on that if she went on the potty, even a little bit she got her reward, so we made SEVERAL trips to the potty this day. We still encouraged the practice.

With every accident, we never got mad or frustrated. We just told her that accidents happen and that she should tell us if she had to go. That next time she would make it and she would get her stickers. We also had her take off her dirty clothes and clean up any mess she made (which she really didn't). She would wipe her legs, put on new clothes and put the dirty ones in the washer.

She went to school Monday morning armed with several changes of clothes and extra pairs of panties. Steph had a field trip planned that day so we were all a little anxious. She didn't have a SINGLE accident all day and woke up completely dry from nap. We switched to yogurt bites on this day because the fruits snacks were making her constipated. She had her first # 2 in the potty on this day!

Tuesday she had an accident at school and a small one at home. We started waiting until she told us she had to go and I think she got caught up playing. She was upset about getting her big girl panties all dirty. Still lots of successes.

Wednesday she had a bit of a relapse at school. She had 2 accidents in a short period of time. Told Steph right after it happened and again was upset. She had no more accidents after that.

Thursday and Friday were accident free. She told us every time she had to go. Woke up from nap totally dry again.

Saturday Emily woke up totally dry from bed time and asked to sit on the potty right away. Zig surprised me with a date day, so Rebecca came over to watch Emily and she had 2 small accidents because I think she was having too much fun. She hasn't really had to ask anyone else to take her to the potty other than Zig, Steph and I, so I think it threw her off a little bit. She didn't take a nap this day.

Sunday again, Em woke up asking to sit on the potty. She had no accidents. She tells us every time she goes and she doesn't expect stickers or treats with every success. She woke up from nap totally dry.

We are so proud of Emily. She knows she has to go potty before she leaves the house. She is great at telling us when she needs to go, and if for some reason we can't rush her to the potty right away, she will hold it. We still have a long ways to go I am sure, but she is doing miles better that we could have ever expected or asked for. We expected lots and lots of accidents and lots of frustration, but it has not been that bad. With the number of successes she has, the statistics are in her favor. I am glad we stuck to our guns and didn't go back to diapers after the accidents and I am so glad that we went cold turkey to big girl panties and didn't go the pull up route. We made a commitment and we are sticking to it. Today (Monday) she will not wear a diaper at nap time. Once she starts waking up dry from bed time consistently, we will ditch the diapers all together. She hasn't had a # 2 accident since Tuesday. My kid is a champion pooper! I worried that was going to be the hardest part.

Way to go Emily! At a little over 25 months, you are pretty much potty trained!! We love you Angel!

Christmas 2011

This post is super late. I am just glad I at least was able to post this with in a month after the big day as opposed to previous years when it was way late, if ever.

We had the best time with Emmy this year! She was really into it. Singing Santa songs (which is still a regular occurance), to welcoming "Pedro" our elf on a shelf to the family this year. She had the best time. We had the whole family here which made for an even better holiday, because really that is what Christmas is all about. Spending time with the people you love. We had matching boy and girl jammies again this year, which was so much fun, but we always forget to get a group shot. Next year I guess.

Emily and even baby #2 (who may or may not officially have a name :) ) were very spoiled this year. It's crazy to think that next year we will have a 3 year old and an almost 10 month old! Wild. Anyway, here are a ton of pictures! What most people come here for anyway!

Christmas Eve
Saying Thank you to Santa. If he looks familiar, he should. It's "Noni's Papa"!

Big hug for Santa!

Saying goodbye to Santa. Wondering why he is walking across the street to Papa's house

Christmas Morning
Checking out the loot
Presents!
Checking out the empty plate. She was pretty upset at first that Santa ate "her cookies"

Family photo on Christmas morning
Emmy's big gift from Zig and I
Love this gift. Thank you Auntie Becca and Uncle Rich. Can't wait to take pictures of the girls in this.
Mommy and Emmy. Emmy and I shared the bed, which should explain the bags. Saying Emmy is an active sleeper is a total understatement.
Auntie Koley!
Opening gifts


Christmas Day
Kisses for Daddy

Zig, Emmy and cousin Livy

My sweet angel
I have no clue what is happening in this picture, but it's awesome. It cracks me up!

Emily 2 year/Holiday Pictures

Since Emmy's birthday falls close to the holiday's, we take advantage of the 2 for 1 and do her year 2 pictures, with our Christmas card photos. We had Kim Jackson come out again this year, and we love what she was able to capture. These pictures are totally Emmy. Because the weather was not great (it snowed the entire night before), we did them at our house again, which worked out perfect because Em was in her element. Here are the moments she captured and how our card turned out! (A little late I know, but better late than never). I had to put them in a slide show because they were way to big to upload. Enjoy!



I have a bunch of posts in draft including a bump date (don't get too excited, I have been HORRIBLE about taking pictures weekly), Christmas, and most importantly, A POTTY POST!!

Forward Facing

At 2 years and almost 2 months, Zig and I finally made the decision that it was a good time to turn Emmy around and start forward facining her. I will try not to be too preachy when I write this post, because this is a totally positive expereince for us and I don't care what you chose to do either way. We chose extended rear facing for many reasons, but the biggest reason was because it was truly what was best for our Emily and our family. Plus I watched way to many videos that showed the way the impact of a crash is distributed through the body of a child rear facing vs. forward facing. Emily is petite and her safety was far more important to us than her reaching any other milestones. Honestly, this was just not a milestone we wanted to rush. Was she ready earlier, probably. We knew that we wanted to rear face for at least 2 years. I am so happy we made it past that. And I can honestly say, that if we were not expecting another baby in less than 2 months (OMG), we probably would have kept her rear facing longer. My car would just not allow her seat to rear face anywhere other than the middle seat, and with 2 seats next to eachother, things would have been tight. It's funny because I received a lot of criticizing questions and comments about our decision. I got a lot of "it seems cruel to make her sit like that, she must be so uncomfortable sitting like that, or she must be so bored" Fact of the matter is, she was not uncomfortable and she was not bored. When her legs got longer, she just crossed them. Kids are super flexible. Heck, she is still sitting with the crossed half the time when I look back at her. And there is not a single documented case of a child's legs, hips, etc being injured or broken during a crash while rearfacing, yet there are plenty of cases of spinal, head and neck injury in forward facing children. And to the bored comment, she doesn't know any differently. So no she was not bored. I don't judge those who choose to forward face earlier, so it always irriated me that people chose to judge me. Even though I think people make up ridiculous excuses to turn their children around earlier. To me, it was about Emily and Emily alone. By the way, the AAP does recommend rear facing to 2 now, just sayin. So is extended rear facing for everyone. Maybe not, but I do encourage people to research the topic a little bit before making the decision that is best for them.

So how is Emmy doing with it. She thinks it's great. She tells us all the time that she really is a big girl now. And she likes that she can see us. She tells me countless times on our 15 min drive home from school "I see you Mommy." So she is doing great and we could not be happier with our decision!