In a nutshell

New Year

2011-01-04T22:30:00.002-06:00

I announced on FaceBook that I planned to create a "30 before 30" list to attempt this year. I just turned 29 on December 29th, and I can't get over how much momentum my life seems to be picking up. Every year goes by faster than the rest, so I want to be more intentional about how I spend my time. I wont share my whole list here - partly because it's not done yet! It's really hard to find 30 things to accomplish (reasonably) in one year. Had I made this list when I was 25, though, I could have put things like "have two kids", "buy my first house", "learn photography", etc. But now it would be cheating to put those on there.

So far my list includes a few main areas - spiritual growth, health/fitness, finances, personal and business goals. Lucky for you, one of my "personal" goals is to blog at least once a month. That is setting the bar pretty low, but when measured against the rest of my list I couldn't justify more without setting myself up for failure.

Here is a sampling of my list (in no particular order).

1. Read through the Bible cover to cover. I'm ashamed to not have done this yet. I've read the whole Bible, just not like this and not all in one chunk of time. I just finished Exodus today. Woo hoo!
2. See the Holy Land. Not trying to brag, but this is totally happening! Frank and I are joining his Dad, Step-mom Janet, and his sister Jen and husband John on a 2 week cruise for the Journeys of Paul tour. We leave at the end of September, and we are SO excited!
3. Lose 15 pounds. Now that there are no kids on the horizon and I have my back more or less in check, I finally feel free to really work hard on my weight. Frank is a great motivator/encourager. Tonight we went for a run/walk. So far I've lost 1 pound! Hey, it's a start.
4. Blog once a month.
5. See a Broadway musical. I don't care where or which one. Frank has promised to take me, and he will be a wonderful date because he will enjoy it as much as I will. I love him for that.
6. Run a 5k. That may not seem like a big deal, but at the moment I can't even run a half mile.
7. Learn 20 new recipes. This week I tried something called "Birds Nest Pie". It was SO yummy! Even Allison had seconds and she is picky!
8. Do a family service project each quarter.
9. Sponsor another child through Africa New Life Ministries.
10. Get Posh Eyewear on page one in Google for all relevant search terms.
11. Develop a family devotional plan that works for us and our kids.
12. Do 50 push-ups at one time. Right now I can do 8. Hahaha...
13. Memorize Ephesians. I started this in college and got the first 2 chapters done. It's always bothered me that I didn't finish and have forgotten most of what I learned.
14. Read Atlas Shrugged. Thanks, Jen for the suggestion!
15. Ride in a hot air balloon. This just sounds fun, but I kinda doubt it will happen.

Any idea what else I could put on there?

I will actually go ahead and promise at least one more blog this month. I have quite a bit to share about what is going on with my girls, too but this all seemed relevant since it is the new year, and I'm always open for some accountability.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with your families!

What's Up?

2010-11-04T13:31:00.002-06:00

Oh man, I'm a mess. Any time I spend a long time away from my blog, I find myself reading through old posts before I can start writing again. This time I read backwards all the way to Hailey's birth announcement blog, and was crying by the end of it. But what mom doesn't get emotional when reminded of the great day she met one of her precious babies?

So what's up now? Yes, it's been quite a while since I've been active on this site and I'm sure I've lost quite a few readers. I can't blame you! Well I've been staying really busy building another new business. I'm a textbook entrepreneur. I have tons of ideas, lots of passion, and I get crazy obsessed with my projects. Then I let them run, and move on. In case you're wondering, our reading glasses business Posh Eyewear is still around and doing well. But this time I am working on a business called Elastic by the Yard selling 1/8" skinny elastic for baby headbands. You'll see a few photos of Hailey proudly displayed on the home page. Anyway, I've had a blast working on this business and I see a lot of potential for growth and product expansion. I'm so excited to start promoting it this week! In fact, as part of my promotion I'm starting a give-away right here! If you would like a FREE five yards of elastic from my store, simply post a blog with a link to my home page. Then shoot me an email at kristinbarnettATgmailDOTcom with a link to your blog where I can see the post, your name and shipping address, and the color you'd like me to send you. It's that easy! Once you receive your colored elastic you can start creating your own baby headbands.

I'm not going to try to cram two months of information into one blog. Instead I'm going to start posting a little every day so you can get caught up. A lot has happened recently, and I have lots of pictures to share.

Anyway, we are doing great. I just wanted to say a quick "howdy", and let you all know to start coming around again to see what's up!

Hailey Bear

2010-08-19T12:39:00.009-06:00

That is my latest nickname for her. In fact, I'll admit that I am guilty of coming up with ridiculous pet names for my girls. I'm too embarrassed to even tell you my latest one for Allison, but I will tell you another one of Hailey's - baby hippo! (hence the shirt) Come on, that's pretty cute! That name comes from the fact that this girl can put away some food, and her little (read: massive) double chin is proof. I remember Allison chunking out about this age, but not so much as this.

Hailey will be two months on Saturday! I've loved spending sweet time with her. She is a very clingy and cuddly baby. I shared with Frank a few days ago that I think I'm a much better mom this time around. I set very high standards for Allison to reach, and drove myself crazy making sure that she followed all of my 'rules' correctly. It's no wonder first borns end up having type-A personalities!

Just to prove to you how crazy I was, (and granted I honestly believe my hormones made me mental) when Allison was 5 weeks old - 5 weeks! - I was crying to Frank because she wasn't on a good nap schedule yet and I was positive that my lack of ability to get her to sleep was going to turn her into an unhappy child that no one would want to be around. Poor Frank. How do you rationalize with a sobbing new mother who has no perspective, no sleep, and no experience?

This time is so different. I'm still working to get Hailey on a schedule, and following Baby Wise the best I can, but I feel so much relief now knowing that if we don't have a perfect day that it's alright. I can bend the rules here and there - which is a necessity when you have a two year old to entertain at the same time - and still feel good about how she's being raised. So instead of putting her down as much as possible to play on her own, I take time to cuddle with her. Instead of letting her cry for 1/2 an hour so she can make it to her 3 hour feeding time, I will go ahead and feed her. Things are just different, and it's nice. I'm grateful to have another little girl, and since she is most likely our last I want to enjoy her as much as I can.

Here is what I've learned about Hailey in the last two months.

* This is the biggest one. She HATES being on her back. I figured this out about a month ago, and it has changed our lives for the better! One night she was totally inconsolable. Fresh diaper, check. Fed, check. Swaddled, check. Tired? Absolutely! And yet she would not go to sleep. In the middle of the night I'm willing to try almost anything, so in a moment of desperation I pulled her arms out of her swaddle and flipped her on her tummy. Silence. I counted to ten in my head thinking she was probably just confused and getting ready to let out another wail. Nine...ten. Still nothing. So then I had to have the conversation with myself about how pediatricians recommend that babies sleep on their backs to prevent SIDS, etc. In the end, I recalled that when I was a baby all babies slept on their tummies. That was good enough for me, because Hailey was happy. I'll also note that she was strong enough at that point to hold up her head and occasionally push up on her elbows.

No, that's not the angle of the camera.

* As I've already mentioned, she is a very cuddly baby. Since she doesn't like being on her back - even cradled in my arms - I hold her up on my shoulder and she alternates between looking around and tucking her face into my neck. All at once - 'awww!'. :) The whole time she's there she grabs hold of my sleeve with one hand, and has a fistful of skin from my neck with the other. I love how she likes to hold me back!

* The ceiling fan is her friend. As with most babies, she finds them fascinating and will stare at them and smile for the 5 minutes she tolerates being on her back.

I love that she smiles now!

*She hates her car seat. This is terrible. Unless I put her in the car when she is sound asleep, she will scream for the duration of the car ride. At the same time, Allison is sitting next to her yelling 'Stop crying, sister! Mama what's wrong with Hailey?? Hailey stop!'. I have to mentally prepare myself for the chaos before we go anywhere. I'm really hoping this is just a phase with Hailey. Did anyone else have this problem? How long did it last? Too bad they don't make car seats where they can ride on their tummies! She would be in heaven - or maybe that would be me.

My beautiful family.

I will love this picture forever!

* She is great at having her diaper changed. Not only does she not cry, but she also stays dry while I'm changing her. I wasted soooo many diapers with Allison because she would pee everywhere just as I was fitting the new one on. Of course, I may be faster now, but either way this is a big plus in my book. Just a note: She's been in size 1 diapers for a few weeks now!

* Hailey developed baby acne around week 7. It's all over her face and even on the top of her head, so she can look very blotchy - especially when she's hot. I also think that sleeping on her face probably aggravates the problem some. She also has a clogged tear-duct in her right eye. Poor baby. I'm hoping both of those clear up soon. It did, however, make for a funny remark from Allison. She saw Hailey's face looking pretty red one morning and she said 'oh no, Mama! Hailey is a mess!'.

*Hailey has awesome leg strength. She already wants to try and stand in my lap even though her head is still floppy.

* Recently, Hailey has given up bottles. I have plenty of milk saved in the freezer, but she will have nothing to do with it. If she's starving she will accept about an ounce and then hold out until I allow her to nurse. Talk about being nailed down! I have to be sure anywhere we go that I will have a place and opportunity to feed her. It also means I get no help with the late night feedings anymore. That is very sad!! I don't think Frank minds though. :)

* Finally, she is starting to make progress sleeping through the night. Her record is 7 hours, and that only happened once. Most nights she will go for 4 -5 hours, and I'm happy with that. I expect her to be at 7-8 hours consistently by 10-12 weeks.

That's my Hailey Bear, in a nutshell. :)

Conversations with a 2 year old

2010-08-07T15:10:00.005-06:00

I just have to share. Allison is such the comedian, and I think she knows it. I really believe that she is going to grow up with a very dry sense of humor - my favorite kind. She can say anything with a straight face, and it cracks me up!

Since Hailey was born Allison has been waking up more frequently in the middle of the night just sobbing. It's very sad to hear! When we check on her she clings to us and wants to be held and comforted for a while before going back to bed. Well she did this a few nights ago, but it just happened to fall on a night when Hailey was refusing to do anything but cry, and I was already at a point where I was ready to join her! So when I heard Allison chime in, I was really at the end of my rope, so to speak. I left H with Frank while I went to be with Allison, and I ended up taking her into the nursery so I could rock her in the glider. She laid with her head on my shoulder, and was happy to just be held. I let out an audible sigh out of pure exhaustion, and it caught her attention. She quickly sat up and looked at me in surprise and (with great concern) said:

A: What's wrong Mama?? (waits for answer)
K: Mama is very tired, sweetie.
A: (Gently puts one hand on each side of my face) Oh, boy... (followed by a long sigh of her own) What's the matter, Mama? Tell me..
K: I told you, baby. Mama is just very tired.
A: Oh, no! I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry! Aww! (leans over and gives me a BIG hug!)

I was cracking up! I don't know where she learned to cup my face and look at me with such empathy! Doesn't matter, though, because she made me smile when I was feeling pretty overwhelmed, and I love her for that.

She is always making us laugh. Tonight she and Frank were playing with one of her balls, and Frank couldn't help but peg her with it once as she runs away. She turns around and says 'Ouch! Be sweet!" lol! Guess she's heard that one before!

I get blamed for this one a lot, but Frank is my witness that I did NOT teach her this! Allison and I were in the front yard watching Daddy pull weeds, and she stood next to him the whole time blabbering away about whatever was on her mind. Then Frank walked off for a moment to throw something in the trashcan on the side of our house and she runs after him saying "Hey! I was talking to you!" Seriously - NOT me!!

She has become quite the back seat driver. She recently learned about stop lights, so she tells me 'Red, stop!' and 'green, go!' when she sees them. She has apparently been paying attention to our surroundings when we go somewhere, because once I tell her our destination she will tell me where and which direction to turn. That one still surprises me!

She's also become something of a parrot - which is dangerous. A couple days ago, we were driving to visit my parents and went through a highway area that's under construction. It was rush hour, and when one lane abruptly ended, it totally bewildered an out of town driver in the lane next to us. Frank slowed down to let him in, but the guy didn't move quick enough. Frank said (loudly) "well, come on!" Immediately from the back seat came a sweet-but-emphatic, "come on!" Guess we'll have to watch ourselves more close there.

That same freeway construction has also become the scene of another fun Allison experience. Thanks to an episode of Dora, she now instructs all passengers to "duck your head!" every time we drive under the many overpasses that are going up around us.

Allison is still a little obsessed with mowing - who knows why! Although she no longer thinks that's what Daddy does at work, it's still the highlight of her day when she hears a mower start up somewhere in the neighborhood. She knows the names of all of our neighbors, so she will often ask me "Danny [Rick, Kyle, Daddy] mowing?".

Here is how she sings her ABC's. A, B, C, D, A, B, C, H, I, J, K, ELMO, P... The rest is pretty dead on, except that she refuses to say 'next time won't you sing with me'. Instead, she just repeats 'now I know my ABC's' over and over.

I was thinking of all these things the other day because I had been struggling with whether or not to keep her in the Mother's Day Out program that starts next month. I initially signed her up for it because I was assuming that I would have the 'struggling to keep my head above water' feeling like I did when she was a newborn. But actually, it hasn't been as hard as I had expected with two kids. Plus, I still have help from Jackie (MIL) and from my mom, too. Anyway, these are the kinds of things that helped me realize just how much I would miss out on if she were gone those days at school. Soon enough she will be in someone else's care 5 days a week, and I don't look forward to that day. So for now, I will selfishly keep her under my wing.

Anyway, just wanted to share some sweet and funny memories because they were on my mind.

Fun Weekend

2010-08-01T19:57:00.018-06:00

This weekend we had so much fun family time. We made two trips to the neighborhood pool, played outside with bubbles, and took the girls to Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch. We had even planned to make it back to church this morning for the first time since Hailey was born, but believe it or not, somewhere in the last six weeks I was able to forget what time church started. At 10:00 this morning I was leisurely finishing up some laundry assuming that I had plenty of time left, when Frank tells me that it starts at 10:00, not 10:30 as I had thought. Oh well, I guess we'll make that a goal for next week.

Anyway, I was inspired this week to finally break out my 'nice camera' to take some pictures. I spent some time talking to another mom in my neighborhood who religiously documents her girls and I realized that I needed to try harder to simply take more pictures and stop caring so much about perfect focus, composition, lighting, etc. This is the downside to knowing too much about photography. I'm trying to just appreciate a photo for what's in it.

All that to say, I brought my camera along to these fun things this weekend and captured a lot of great moments that I can share here. These are just my favorites, so check out my Facebook page soon for all the pictures. Sadly, I still don't have many photos of Hailey because, well, all she does is sleep and cry. Seriously. If she's awake and happy it's because I'm holding her, and Frank is not known to pick up a camera so I still only have one photo of me holding her. ONE! (hint, hint Frank!)

Let's start with a few photos from Friday. I finally got fed up with Allison's scraggly hair, so I gave her bangs again. I was trying to just let her hair grow out, but she won't keep a clip in her hair so it's always hanging in her eyes. Once I cut her bangs I also tried out pigtails, and they were so cute!

Before bangs...

After. What do you think?

I couldn't believe she sat still for the pictures!

Hailey thinking about crying. She pretty much hates that bouncer.

Allison watching a movie in her 'Allison chair'.

These next pictures from the pool are so fun! I was stuck on the side watching Hailey, but she was good enough to let me snap some photos when we first got there. Allison did so great swimming with her special swimsuit. I can't tell you how many times a day I hear 'Allison do it!' from my super independent child, so having the ability to swim around the big pool without help was a really big deal to her. She kept yelling 'Mama, look at me!'. We were so proud of her!

I absolutely LOVE the daddy-daughter pictures!

See how confident she looks?

We love to sit on our back porch from about 6:30 till dark in the evening. It's the only time of the day where it's bearable to be outside, since it's shaded and has two fans. We entertain Allison by letting her water the plants, eat a popsicle, or by blowing bubbles. Today was bubbles day!

Pure joy! I love that face.

She's not often successful at blowing them herself, but she tries. When it doesn't work she licks the wand and says 'mmm, tasty!'. I think she does it just to get a reaction out of me. :)

Finally, here a few from lunch today. Allison was so distracted by all the things to play with, I think she only ate about one bite of pizza.

Counting her coins.

She's having fun even if her face doesn't show it!

Serious fun. lol.

When it comes to buckles, Allison is turns into Rain Man.

Riding with Chuck E.

Hailey sleeping through it all. Frank and I laughed at the fact that we had our 6 week old in a Chuck E. Cheese today because we refused to leave the house with Allison until 8 weeks because we were paranoid about germs. Ah, the life of the second child.

Allison was bribed with Root Beer so we could take this photo.

After a good 5 minutes of pleading to 'play again!', we found her crashed in her car seat despite the fact that Hailey was screaming in hers!

The rest of these are just random photos from the month of July.

Maybe I have my mama goggles on, but Allison is just so beautiful. I'm worried about the teenage years!

The sheep is still a staple for Allison. Everywhere I go she petitions to 'take sheep!'.

Hailey watching TV with Daddy.

Such a sweet little face.

She likes to nap with Daddy, too.

Actually, she just likes to nap in general.

And I'll leave you now with her peaceful sleeping face because it's bedtime and I'm hoping to get a few hours of sleep myself! Goodnight!

Sisters

2010-07-19T12:43:00.007-06:00

Today, Hailey turned 4 weeks, and she will be officially one month old on Wednesday. As always, time is just flying by but we are enjoying (almost) every minute of it.

Hailey is still a very sleepy little baby. I think I remember Allison being much more alert at this age, but I could be wrong. We are trying very hard to stick to the Baby Wise guidelines, but she is testing my resolve. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that she will start sleeping through the night in the next 4-5 weeks. Her sleepiness makes it nearly impossible to get her to take a full feeding in one sitting, and even harder to keep her awake after she eats. We've tried everything from rubbing her toes, undressing her, giving her a bath, and letting Allison sing (read: yell) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her. NOTHING wakes this child when she is determined to sleep. And yet, at her two week appointment she weighed in at just under 7lbs (1.5lbs gained) and was 20 inches tall (2 inches gained). So she's clearly getting enough food!

Hailey is still looking a lot like Allison did as a baby, but we are slowly watching her features change, and seeing her turn into her own person. She has lighter hair, and has softer features than Allison did. Unfortunately, she is following in Allison's footsteps with the umbilical hernia, though. I was really hoping Hailey wouldn't get it, but it has arrived. The doctor said it runs in families, so there you go. We have kids with big belly buttons!! Oh well.

I have to admit that even though I was really looking forward to having another baby, I was dreading the first eight weeks. I did not do well in that time period with Allison, and all I remember was feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and stressed out. I think my hormones were really messed up, because I'm not normally that much of a basket case. Luckily, something is different this time, even though I have MORE on my plate! It could be that the hormones aren't that bad, or that I have more experience and my perspective is better - maybe a little of both. Either way, I've felt much better this time around and I'm SO grateful! I feel like it has given me a chance to enjoy Hailey more at this stage than I did Allison.

Allison is adjusting pretty well to having a baby in the house. It's taken some time, but I think she now really enjoys having a little sister. For a while she only referred to her as 'sister' which was really sweet to hear. She frequently asks to hold her, and wants to help feed her when she gets a bottle. She's turning into a wonderful big sister! Not only is she being helpful, but she also wants to include Hailey in family activities. She notices when she isn't around and will ask to go 'find her' because 'Hailey is hiding'. This is a big improvement since just last week she would tell me to put 'Hailey in bed' any time I was holding her.

All in all, things are going very well. Of course, adding a baby into the mix has meant making some adjustments, but it hasn't been as turbulent as we had expected. Mostly, we just feel so blessed to have two sweet, healthy little girls. We couldn't ask for more.

Allison continues to amaze me. She really is very smart - at least we think so. She is constantly putting ideas together, and using her imagination to build new ones. She is fascinated by letters, and she sees them everywhere - even where they are not. For example, she was given a piece of garlic toast at dinner a couple weeks ago, and she held it sideways and said 'D'! Frank and I are often confused by her strange proclamations, but upon further investigation she is usually right. Sure enough, the garlic toast was in the shape of a D. But it gets better. She took a bite out of the side of the bread and then told us it was a 'G'. Yep, it sure was! Here's another example - we were in the car together parked in a shopping center when I hear her calling out random letters. Then I realize that she is focused on a large sign and is spelling Market Street.

She also has started to study the clouds to find shapes. I definitely didn't teach her this because I thought it would confuse her to point to the sky and name something random that isn't really there. On our way to a friends house she kept pointing to the sky, though, and would tell me that she saw things like a train or a baby elephant. When I told her I didn't see it she would say 'cloud' and point back to the sky. I'm excited to see how she uses her imagination as she gets older!

Allison wearing her pretty new dress before heading to Storytime at the library.

Sleepy Hailey. Check out that light brown hair!

She's getting big so fast!

Yep, she can even sleep comfortably through a bath.

Sister time!

Allison was so proud to hold Hailey like Mama and Daddy do!

Say cheese!

Allison LOVES to have Hailey in bed with her.

Allison kissing Hailey on the head.

I love my girls!!!

Delivery Story

2010-06-24T18:22:00.005-06:00

I always love hearing other womens delivery stories (good and bad), and apparently so does a large chunk of the population, given the ridiculous amount of reality TV dedicated to just that topic. I figured I would write out mine for those of you who would love all the details, like myself. I don't plan to be graphic, but I do plan to give a few details that you may consider TMI. If you don't want to know that much about me, just go ahead and skip this post. That was your warning! Here we go...

At my 35 week appointment, I was checked simply so my doctor could verify that Hailey was in fact head down as she suspected (she had been in the transverse position since about 28 weeks). I was thrilled to have her tell me that, yes, she was definitely head down so I could cancel the sonogram and stop worrying about what would have otherwise been a very possible c-section. During that exam she also found out that I was already 2.5cm/30%. She was concerned about me progressing too quickly and advised that I 'take it easy' so I could let her cook as long as possible.

At my 36 week appointment I had another exam where I was measured at just over 3cm/80%. The doctor told me that she didn't think I'd make it into July! That was definitely exciting, but I still had things on the calendar up through June 20th that I really wanted to be able to attend, plus I wanted to at least hit 37 weeks so she would be 'full term'.

The following Friday (37wks, 1 day) I had another appointment at which point I was measuring 4cm/80% - so I was obviously progressing week to week.

My mom, my sister, and good friend Kelly hosted a 'diapers and wipes' shower for me the next day and after everyone but family had left we all took turns guessing the day of her arrival. I guessed Monday (6/21) partly because it was only a couple of days away (and I was hopeful), but mostly to be funny because I thought that was too early to actually be a good guess. The rest of the guesses filled up remainder of that week, but no one else wanted to guess Monday with me.

Sunday night I took a bath and joked with Frank about how I needed to go ahead and shave my legs since I'd be at the hospital delivering the next day and wanted to be prepared. Again, totally not thinking it was an option since I felt completely normal. But I put in the effort and shaved my legs anyway (anyone who has ever been pregnant knows that it is definitely effort!). Frank and I stayed up talking till a little after ten, and then went to bed but I was never able to fall asleep.

About an hour later, I started getting some mild contractions that just felt like menstrual cramps so I got up and drank some water and then laid back down on my left side to make them stop. Another hour later they were still coming and had increased in intensity to the point where it was too painful to even think of sleeping. By 12:45am I decided it would be a good idea to start timing them just in case so I woke up Frank and asked him to get me my watch, a pen, and some paper. He was too tired to be alarmed, and I'm pretty sure he went back to sleep immediately (lol). I laid there and took notes on the timing of the contractions for about 20 minutes and quickly noticed that they were exactly 4 minutes apart and lasting 60-75 seconds.

The pain was increasing and I started to actually wonder if this was it! I certainly wasn't going to be able to sleep, and I definitely didn't want to go to the hospital looking like I had just rolled out of bed, so I decided a shower would be a good way to be prepared 'just in case', and possibly keep my mind off the contractions. I woke up Frank again to catch him up on the details, and told him I'd let him know if I decided that we should start packing a bag.

So about five minutes into my nice hot shower I look up and see Frank standing on the other side of the glass. It was really comical because he was just standing there staring at me as if that would help him discern our situation better. Then he tells me there is no way he's going to be able to sleep, so he needs a job so he can feel like he's not just sitting around waiting. I didn't have any suggestions since I still wouldn't let myself believe that I was actually in true labor, so he went and cleaned the kitchen while I finished.

After showering and blow-drying my hair (and still unwilling to pack the hospital bag) I did some reading online to see if I could find some information to help me better tell if I was in labor or not. I found a site that said that if it was true labor, then walking would intensify the contractions. So Frank, Maggie (our dog) and I set out for a walk around the block at 2am, stopwatch in hand. I actually felt pretty good and by the time we got home I think I had had only one contraction, so I went back to bed. About five minutes after laying down the contractions started up again and had intensified so I got out my watch and timed them at 3 minutes apart.

Call me crazy, but I STILL was afraid to go to the hospital in the middle of the night just to be sent home again, so I called the Labor and Delivery line and talked to a nurse. After telling her my situation she assured me that they would keep me, so Frank and I started the scramble to pack everything we would need. I threw on some make-up while Frank collected our things, and then we dropped Allison's monitor off at a neighbors house. By 3:15 we were on our way!

When we got to the hospital I still wasn't feeling too bad, but the contractions were still coming. We signed in and were put in the triage room in the L&D department, with a very spunky nurse. She joked that I must not be in labor since I was still smiling (not funny!). I got my IV, the lovely hospital gown, and the two monitors that they strap to your belly. After a quick exam she said I was at about 5cm/100%, and I reminded her for maybe the third time to go ahead and order my epidural. She said it was on it's way soon, and that she'd have us transferred to our own room shortly.

We were left in the triage room for a while, and during that time my contractions got a lot worse. At first I could only tolerate the pain by sitting up in the bed and breathing through the contractions, but there was eventually so much pressure 'down there' that that was not working either. I decided I'd rather be standing, and I needed to pee anyway, so I took off the monitors around my belly (half hoping that would set off an alarm and get my nurse to come back) and headed for the bathroom. Once I got back from the bathroom my contractions were around 60 seconds apart and VERY VERY painful, and I was panicking. I was literally shaking from head to toe - barely able to stand but in too much pain to sit, and I lost the ability to control my breathing so I was taking very short quick breaths. With still no sign of our nurse I started crying and I begged Frank to go check on our room and the epidural because I had already felt WAY more than I had planned to for the delivery. I was terrified that the baby was coming too fast and I would lose my opportunity for the epidural and be forced into natural labor.

The nurse came back and helped me walk to our room around the corner and she gave me some pain meds (not sure what) that would take the edge off and also help with my anxiety. She kept trying to get me to slow my breathing because she was worried I'd hyperventilate. I could feel the drugs kick in pretty quick, but the pain was still way too intense for me. Thank goodness it was only another five minutes or so until the wonderful anesthesiologist showed up. Just like with Allison, the epidural was administered with virtually no pain. That was around 5am, and I was resting comfortably by 5:30. Another quick exam showed that I had only progressed to 6cm at that point. I couldn't believe all that pain only got me 1 measly cm!

I was exhausted and, with plenty of drugs, was definitely in the perfect state for a nap but my mind wouldn't turn off, so I ended up watching the History channel instead.

The next few hours went by pretty quickly, and I don't remember many specific events. I know they gave me some pitocin when I hit 8cm to get my contractions to get closer together, and around that same time my doctor came in and broke my water. She was confident that that would take me the rest of the way to 10cm very quickly, and she was right!

The next time they checked me I was ready to push, so they called my doctor and started getting everything set up. I warned my nurse that not only was I an excellent pusher (lol) but that my last baby came out quickly and I would expect this one to do the same. She still wanted me to start pushing before my doctor got there, so I pushed for about 5 seconds and her eyes got really wide and she told me to stop or else she'd be delivering the baby! My doctor flew in the door and sat down to finish the delivery. I asked her if she wanted me to push and she just laughed and said something like 'well I guess you can, but you could also just sit up and she'd fall out!'. So I pushed for another 5-10 seconds and Hailey was born! The doctor said that was literally the easiest delivery she had ever done. Don't hate me!

Hailey cried immediately when she came out, and she looked just perfect! She didn't even have much of a cone head. They let Frank cut the cord, and I got to hold her while they toweled her off.

Other than the terrible pain at the beginning of labor, I definitely got my wish of a wonderful and easy delivery. The recovery this time has also been great - even better than last time. I feel like I'm already almost 100% back to my old self.

I hope this satisfies the curiosity of all of you who want to know the 'whole story'! Sorry it was so long, but I wanted to write this for myself, too, so I don't forget the details with time.

Introducing...

2010-06-22T20:32:00.007-06:00

Hailey Michelle Barnett! My newest little angel was born Monday morning at 9:08am, weighing 5lbs 8oz, and is 18in long. She was a tiny little thing since she came over two weeks early!

I've really enjoyed getting to know Hailey these last two days. She looks so much like Allison did when she was born! I was expecting a totally new look since their 3D sonogram pictures were so different, but they really do carry a lot of the same features. We'll have to play a few 'guess who' games with their pictures in the future.

Here's what I've learned about her so far. For starters, she's a great eater! It took me a loooong time of working with Allison before I felt like she got the hang of nursing. I would spend around an hour feeding her every time she ate because she was so inefficient and slow. Not Hailey - no ma'am! She latched on like a pro on the first try, and has been eating a ton ever since. I probably feed her for about 20-30 minutes every two hours. (Hence the lack of updates!)

Hailey is also very cuddly, which I love! She wants to be held even while she sleeps which will eventually cause some problems, but for now I'm just soaking it in and enjoying time with her.

That's about it for now. Like I said - it's only been two days! :)

I will hopefully write out the whole story of the delivery soon, but for now I'd just like to sleep. I haven't had more than two hours of consecutive sleep since Saturday night, and that's really starting to take a toll on me.

Thanks to everyone who has reached out to us in the last few days! We feel so loved (and well fed!).

Goodnight!

The only picture I have of my baby belly through the whole pregnancy!

My sister Amy came early Monday morning to wait with us for Hailey.

Hailey being measured after delivery.

Allison meeting and holding Hailey for the first time. She's waving hello!

Now a family of four!

Hailey with Grandma.

Papa and Hailey

First day at home, bundled in her bouncer.

On her way to her first doctor appointment.

Liveblogging Baby #2: The Home Stretch

2010-06-21T07:13:00.000-06:00

Nurse just came in and they're starting Kristin on a pitocin drip to get her contractions closer together (they spread out when she went to sleep and haven't narrowed back). That should get things moving, so the nurse expected our little princess to make her appearance within the hour.

So this will likely be the last blog post, although there may be some facebook/twitter updates if I get time. We'll post pics and more info as soon as I have time.

Liveblogging Baby #2: An ETA

2010-06-21T06:15:00.000-06:00

With Kristin's contractions redlining (the scale is not apparently large enough to show the full range of the spikes), the nurse just came in and after a brief exam, gave us an ETA of "mid-morning," or around 9 or 10am.

For those of you with kids or otherwise know what this means, she's at an 8 (I'll spare you the other potentially TMI details), so everything is on target for mid-morning. Kristin's doing great thanks to the wonders of modern medicine (read: epidural).

Liveblogging Baby #2: Checked In

2010-06-21T04:48:00.000-06:00

At a little after 1:30 this morning, Kristin woke me up to tell me her contractions were getting so serious and regular that she felt like it was getting close to time. But - not wanting to be the type that checks in early only to get sent home - she took a shower, and we went for a walk around the block.

Then we called the hospital and headed on in.

We've got a feisty Irish nurse with a great sense of humor - helpful, since Kristin's contractions were causing quite a bit of pain for her. But, thankfully, we got her an epidural and now she's fast asleep. As I'm watching the monitor showing her contractions, I'm really impressed at how well the drugs work. I don't exactly have a frame of reference, but spikes like that don't look particularly comfortable.

In any case, looks like Allison's little sister will be born on the first day of summer - two little June bugs for us!

More to come...

Allison Turns Two!

2010-06-08T21:47:00.013-06:00

Over the weekend, we celebrated Allison's second birthday. Ever since I found out that I was pregnant and would be due in early July, I had made the decision that her party this year would be super small. I mean, I love Allison, but let's be honest - she still has no idea what's going on, and I don't have a love for party planning that would outweigh my desire to take it easy with only a few weeks left until a baby will be joining our family.

We had to limit the invitation list strictly to immediate family (Allison's aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents). The moment we step out of that box, we instantly have over 20 people added to the list, so we stuck to it.

Our party plans basically included opening presents, grilling out burgers and hot dogs for lunch, followed by cake and a nap - because who doesn't love a nap??

Our party snack spread. Believe it or not, Frank did that watermelon himself before I even got out of bed that morning!

Aunt Amy made this adorable strawberry cake for Allison! She did a fantastic job! I'm so impressed with her skills. Thanks, Amy!

We tried to get Allison to pose, but she spotted the candy. Oh well!

Allison really enjoyed having a house full of people she loves!

Playing with Amy and her pretty necklace.

Can you tell how much she loves her Uncle Eric??

Allison felt very special that day because she received so many fun treats! Not only was she allowed to eat some peanut butter M&Ms, punch, and cake - she was also given some fantastic gifts! Everyone seemed to get her a gift that suited her perfectly and she has loved them all! Funny story: The next day as I was putting her down for her nap I was talking with her about everything that we did at her party. I went through everything I could think of to tell her about it - who was there, what we did, etc. (not even sure if she was getting the gist of the conversation) and when I was done she piped in and said "and CANDY!" I love how she can make me laugh!

This farm came in the mail from Papa Mickey and Nana Janet a few days before her birthday, and I let her have it early. She LOVES it!

Opening presents with Daddy.

Frank and I got her some new books and a soccer ball for her birthday.

This is her new "scooter" from Papa and Grandma. She loves to ride it around the kitchen every day, and outside when we go for walks.

Singing 'Happy Birthday'.

She felt very special with everyone singing to her!

She looks so grown up!

Allison enjoying her yummy cake!

She polished off every bite of it, but here she is licking some frosting off her fingers.

The day was not emotional for me like I would have expected (especially since I'm full of pregnancy hormones!). These big milestones with Allison always remind me of how much she has changed, and tend to make me a little sad that I wasn't able to bottle up a little bit of her and save it forever. No one ever told me that she'd change just as much in the second year as she did in the first! I watched a video of her last week that was taken right after her first birthday, and couldn't believe my eyes. She was a baby! She still walked like a baby, looked like a baby, and sounded like a baby. Now I have a little girl - it's undeniable!

The party was wonderful, and we were all ready for our scheduled naps when it was over. Thank you to all our family who showed up to help us celebrate Allison!

This blog wouldn't be complete without a few fun stories about her, though, so here are a few of my favorites.

I always try to do a few specific things with her when I put her down for a nap: read a book, sing a song, and say a prayer. I was tired of the usual songs (and just tired in general) so my creativity wasn't at it's peak. All I could think to do was hum Brahm's lullaby. She seemed to calm down significantly while she sucked her thumb and cuddled with her sheep, watching me with sleepy eyes. When I had hummed it a few times I started to get up to leave and she pulled her thumb out of her mouth and said "more hmm hmm' (since she had no word for humming). It was so precious! I sat there for another five minutes or so just humming the short tune over and over, and to my great surprise she fell fast asleep! I guess there's a reason its a classic lullaby!

One of my favorite things about Allison is being able to communicate with her. People don't believe me because she is so shy outside of the house, but she talks non-stop at home and in the car. I love hearing what's on her mind, and finally having a glimpse into how she sees her world. Allison is very expressive, and has a flair for the dramatic. For example, she likes to slide off our couch head first (in slow motion) while exclaiming 'oh no! I'm falling, falling!' and then hits the floor and says 'I'm ok!'. But if there is even a hint of pain she will point to the offended area and with wide eyes say "oh no! happened!" (because I usually ask 'what happened?' she now thinks happened is an entire sentence). Then she will tell me 'hurt!, kiss it?'. Aww! Who could resist?? She can also be a little whiny, so I've recently started telling her "no whining" in a stern voice when she starts it up, and so far it's worked pretty well to correct the behavior! Yay!

Dressed for church on Sunday. I loved this dress, so I snapped some pictures of her before we left.

I cut her hair again recently to give the sides a chance to catch up with the growth in the back. I think she looks darling. :)

Allison also loves to be tickled, which I will never understand because to me it would be a form of torture! :) But she likes it and will often run up to me and try to tickle me, then she'll grab my hand and put it on her tummy and say "tickle tummy, Mama!". Another thing she loves to do is crawl in my bed with me. Usually in the morning after her breakfast she will come to me and ask if we can go to "Mama's bed", so we do, and the first thing she does is cuddle up on Frank's pillow and pretend to sleep. When that's done, she rolls over and gives me a big smile and usually wants to count our fingers. When that gets old we have some tickle time, followed by reading a book together or looking at pictures of her on my phone. The best part of it all, though, is that at random times between all our play time she will give me a big hug and say "I wuv you!" and kiss me on the cheek. I think she sees that it melts me, so sometimes I get three hugs and kisses. :-)

Finally, I have to brag for a minute about how smart she is. She definitely got her Daddy's brains! She is consistently recognizing about half of the alphabet, she can count in spanish (which I can only assume she learned on TV!), and she can recognize her own written name. One of the times that she was given a peanut butter M&M, she examined and then looked at me in surprise and said "Hey, an M!", and then told me it was orange.

Can you tell I love this child? I seriously can't get enough of her. I love her big brown eyes, her sweet disposition, and I love watching her learn. She is a bigger blessing to this family than I ever could have imagined when I dreamed of having kids. It makes me excited to think that we are starting this journey again very soon with another little girl who will give us just as much joy.

Finally, an update on the baby. As I noted on Facebook, she has officially turned and is now in the correct head down position. Yay! I hit the 36 week mark yesterday, and when I saw my OB again this morning she said things are still progressing so she feels that I most likely will not make it into July. But then again, I was told I would never make it to my induction date with Allison and I did, so I have to take their opinion lightly or I'll drive myself crazy! The baby also 'dropped' yesterday which caused a lot of discomfort and pain. If I felt like I was waddling before, I was wrong! :) Anyway, it's just a waiting game now. Who knows when we'll meet this sweet little one, but till then I'm going to soak up as much Allison as I can - and maybe a few naps!

By the way, Frank has informed me that he will be 'live-blogging' this birth again so stay tuned in June! :-)

Happy Birthday, Mimi!

2010-05-30T20:47:00.004-06:00

Friday we celebrated Mimi's birthday with lunch, cake, and ice cream at her house. She picked up Carter and Allison on Friday morning as usual, and brought them back to her house to 'help' decorate. Allison was in charge of choosing the streamer colors, and Carter was in charge of tearing them at the appropriate length. Mimi always knows the perfect jobs for little ones.

Frank, myself, Laura, and her daughter Shannon showed up around lunch time so we could eat and play. Mimi thought it would be more fun to give the kids presents on her birthday than to receive them herself, so she got Allison and Carter buckets filled with fun toys like bubbles, water guns, and bath toys. Allison has enjoyed her bucket every day since!

Thank you for the fun party, Mimi! Happy Birthday!

This Little Light of Mine

2010-05-28T08:23:00.004-06:00

One of Allison's new favorite things to do is participate in songs. Last night she 'sang' along to This Little Light of Mine. Gotta love her enthusiasm! Don't be afraid to hit play. I had Frank sing instead of me, since I cant even carry a simple children's tune. :)

Thank you, Aunt Susan!

2010-05-27T07:23:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Allison's second birthday is next week. My Aunt Susan knew EXACTLY what she needed - two Texas A&M t-shirts! I let her wear one of them yesterday, and she looked so cute that I had to grab the camera.

Aunt Susan, thank you so much for the perfect gift! We love it! But you don't have to take my word for it... Allison will tell you herself. Love you!

Please turn!

2010-05-24T19:37:00.002-06:00

Two weeks ago at my OB check, I was informed that the baby is laying in the 'transverse' position which means she is laying across my belly. I had another OB check today, and was disappointed to find out that she has definitely not moved yet. The doctor was positive that she felt her head on my left side and a pair of feet on the right. I'll be 34 weeks in a couple of days, and I'm told that babies run out of room to change positions by 37 weeks.

If she still hasn't moved by my 37 week appointment, they will schedule an ultrasound to determine her exact positioning. Then I have to decide if I want them to try to turn her by using a technique called an 'external version' or just schedule a c-section. Honestly, I don't want either. I haven't heard good things about the external version, and I REALLY don't want a c-section! Since I don't consider either of them good options, I'm just hoping she'll go ahead and make the move very soon. I'm trying not to stress about it, because in the end we have a healthy little girl, but I can't seem to stop worrying.

That's all. Just thought I'd share.

Where are you, water?

2010-05-23T06:56:00.014-06:00

I usually start a blog post with a least a vague mental outline of the things I want to share, but in this case I'm blogging simply because it's been a long time since my last post, and also because I know I won't have much quiet time to myself in the very near future. For a very long time now, I've had nothing but myself to blame for a lack of posting. Yes, life is busy and there are always other things I could be doing that are productive, but in the end the truth is that I hate writing and always have. The subject is irrelevant. I would much rather express myself through conversation because I feel like I can make my point more effectively and certainly in less time. But here I am anyway, because I desperately want to remember these days exactly for what they are. Since I also have a serious aversion to scrap-booking this is the only other way I can think of to "easily" document my life as a parent, and to one day give my kids a glimpse into their childhood. (Side note: I know MANY women who love to scrap-book, and I applaud you. You do amazing work and I am always jealous of your neat, organized, and artsy books of your kids. I just have NO patience for that much detail. But if anyone wants to make one FOR me... :))

There is no other way to describe Allison right now, than to say that she is just too stinkin' cute. She is talking almost non-stop, and she is finding new ways to use her words daily! I'm totally amazed by her. I just watched a video I took of her a year ago when she had just started walking, and she was just a babbling little baby. Now, Allison will be turning two in less than two weeks!! I can't believe how much she's changed!

I've been trying to teach her to answer the question 'how old are you?' for about a week, but I think the concept of age is totally lost on her. I hold up my two fingers to represent the number, and she thinks that is fantastic. She isn't able to do it with her hand for some reason, so she just bends fingers at random (looking more like a claw) and yells 'TWO!'. See what I mean by cute??

I think talking with Allison is my new favorite thing. She speaks mainly in phrases now, and I'm still not used to it. I actually have to pay attention when she talks now to figure out what she's trying to communicate instead of assuming that it's just baby babble like it was just 6 months ago. Some of her most used phrases are:

I see a ___. (could be anything from an airplane to a ladybug)
what are you doing?
where are you going or where did #name go?
more ___ .
no, mine! (we are working to extinguish that one!)
good morning, Mama. (one of my favorites)
here you go!
Thank you, welcome!
I don't see 'em.
There he/she is!
I don't know.
Ready, set, go!
What's this?
See you later!

She also addresses me specifically when she talks, and I'm not sure where she learned that. For example, she will say 'thank you, mama', 'ready, mama', or 'more crackers, mama'. It's the sweetest thing, and I love it!

Frank and I made a trip to Borders a couple weeks ago so that everyone in the family could get a new book. Allison made it out with 'Goodnight Moon'. Great book! I'm sure most of you know it, but the whole book is about a bunny going to bed and he is saying goodnight to everything in his room. Last week I told Allison it was nap-time so she ran to her room and sat on her bed facing all of her stuffed animals. The next thing I hear is 'night pillow, night baby, night bear, night sheep, night Tasha (Backyardigans stuffed toy), night mama, night Maggie, night book...'. I called Frank and asked if he taught her that, but no, she had decided to apply the book to her nap all on her own. I love her imagination!

Here are some pictures of our trip to the zoo that was almost two months ago. Frank and I were convinced that she would love seeing the animals, but in reality, she just wanted to run free around the zoo. She seemed mostly irritated when we'd stop her to show her an exhibit, so in the end we just let her run. She had a blast!

The rest of these pictures are pretty random, but you'll notice that most of them are outside and involve water in some way. Frank taught her how to water the tree in our backyard, so that has become almost a daily task for them that I'm pretty sure she looks forward to all day. We also go and swim at her Aunt Amy's house every couple of weeks.

I'll leave you with few more pictures and a cute video of Allison. She loves to brush her teeth and wash her hands which we did after our trip to the park last week. I was trying to get her to talk so everyone could hear her sweet voice, but of course kids never perform. Notice, though, that when I ask her to say 'I love you, mama' she instead says 'love, Papa'. Lately, my dad has been the only one she will say that she loves, and it's true that he's her favorite person in the world. We can't figure out what he did to win her affections, but she is totally sold!

Pregnancy News

2010-04-26T13:52:00.006-06:00

Not much has been going on at our house lately. We made a trip to the zoo with Allison for the first time, got the nursery ready, got another sonogram, and have been enjoying more and more time outside since the weather has warmed up.

I feel guilty, though for my lack of documentation on this pregnancy. Last time, I felt consumed by it. Every day I wanted to know how Allison was developing inside me, and what fruit to compare her to that week. I even kept a ruler in my desk drawer at work so I could draw a line on a sheet of paper the exact length of my baby so I could gawk at her size. This pregnancy I will occasionally look up what is developing from week to week, but that's it. This child is loved - don't get me wrong - but the process is so different the second time around.

Just to be sure I don't make it this whole pregnancy without any notes, here is what's currently going on. For one, she is still a 'she'! We had another sonogram a couple weeks ago, that was done at a sonography school by a girl I used to work with. Yay for free sonograms! They confirmed that she was in fact a girl, so I could rest easy knowing I was fully prepared. The week before our second look at her my OB scared me when we had a conversation that went like this:

OB: Do you know what you're having?
K: Yes, it's a girl.
OB: (Pauses, looks at his chart) Who told you that?
K: Um, the lady who did our 18 week sonogram.
OB: Huh, ok. Well congratulations.

At that point a nurse walked in and we moved onto another topic before I could circle back to find out why he seemed so uncertain. Pregnancy brain kept me from remembering the conversation at all until after I was half-way home.

So anyway, we got our sonogram, and they attempted to take some 3D pics of her, but her head is super low and pressed up against the placenta, so none of the pictures came out very clear. We did see that she already sucks on her fingers, though which is really cute. I'd be happy to have another thumb-sucker like Allison. The baby is measuring about 7-10 days small, but that's fine by me. She can grow after she gets out! She kicks almost non-stop, and sometimes it actually feels like she's trying to dig her way out (which is super uncomfortable!). And because of how low she is, my bladder is almost non-existent. I'm making 3-4 trips to the bathroom each night now, which is really cutting into my sleep. I told Frank last night that it felt silly to even flush anymore since I am basically doing the equivalent of spitting in the toilet. Sorry if that's TMI!

I believe we have finally settled on her full name, but that is still subject to change. As I mentioned before, we will be keeping it a surprise until she is born. Again, her due date is July 7th (my brother-in-laws birthday), but I'm really crossing my fingers that she will come in late June. I've decided not to induce this time, unless she goes past her due date, so waiting on her will be a new experience for me.

I've read a lot lately about birth plans that people have put together, and it's just another reminder of how NOT type-A I am. I'm an organizer and a planner, but that's where it ends for me. Here's my 'birth plan' (the extended version).

1. Keep the baby safe.
2. I better not feel anything!
3. By anything, I mean NOTHING.

You see, I worked in the labor and delivery wing of a hospital for a semester as part of a co-op program in high school my senior year. I saw a lot of births, and it was at that point that I started subconsciously deciding my own path during delivery. I wasn't even allowed to watch the natural births for some reason, but that was fine by me. Hearing the screaming all the way down the hall was all the exposure I needed. I will never understand it, but I will give a bravery badge to anyone who goes through it. I would need a lot more than a badge, though. Maybe a new car waiting for me in the parking lot - and it better have a HUGE bow on it!

I never wrote out my birth experience with Allison, although I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was seriously the best day of my life, and that's the kind of experience I want to capture again if possible.

On June 5, 2008 we checked into the hospital around 6am. By 7am I was signed in, changed into the hospital gown, and hooked up to the IV which was dripping pitocin to induce labor. When I got there I was already 3cm/100%, so I had a slight start on my own. I don't remember feeling any pain other than some slight cramping sensations around 9am. At that point I wanted the epidural because, if you reference the birth plan you'll see I didn't want to feel anything. I was terrified of the large needle used in the epidural, and I remember trembling in fear (and because I was freezing as a result of all the fluids they were pumping in me to stay hydrated). The nurse warned me before the part that is supposedly the worst, so I tensed up and gritted my teeth but never felt anything. About 15 seconds later I was still dying from anticipation, but she was already done and I never felt it! Almost immediately I felt this amazing warmth rush through me. My toes were no longer icy, I could feel my fingers, and there was no more cramping. Heaven! But, to be honest (and gross) the BEST part was getting a catheter! I know, TMI. But, for the first time in MONTHS I didn't feel like I had to pee!! Like I said, it was Heaven!! After that we had some family visit in between my cozy warm naps, and by 2:45pm it was time to push. The doctor came in to check on me before we got started, and he told me it usually takes around an hour of pushing, so he wanted to leave me in the able hands of the nurses until we got closer to the actual delivery. I believe I pushed about 3 times before they had to call him back in to deliver Allison. Then, the funniest thing happened. The sweet nurse who was there to care for Allison when she came out was standing behind my OB, and right when I'm told to push she whips a bite-sized Snickers out of her pocket and holds it out to Allison who has yet to make her appearance and says in a playful voice 'Come and get the Snickers!'. We were all laughing so hard that I wasn't even able to concentrate on pushing. I'll never forget that! Allison was born one push or so later at 3:14pm. After that it all flows together in my mind, but like I said - it was the most fun, beautiful, best day of my life.

I can't wait to meet my next baby girl and introduce her to her wonderful big sister. God's been so good to us!

Salon Barnett

2010-03-25T14:19:00.011-06:00

I've been in the spirit to save money lately. Having another baby will do that to you! So to stay in line with my budgeting goals I opted to cut Allison's hair myself. Equipped with a nice pair of scissors borrowed from a neighbor, I set to work.

I left Allison in her high chair after dinner last night, and rolled it closer to the TV as a distraction. While she enjoyed an 'Elmo's World' segment on drums, I wet down her hair and combed it the best I could so I could make a plan. She was pretty squirmy, and didn't want me touching her so I had to have Frank hold her head still. First, I made a few snips in the front to shorten her bangs that were hanging in her eyes. Then I focused my attention on the mullet she had grown in the back. I don't know why the back and top of her hair grows so fast, and the sides seem content to stay at a nice slow pace! Oh well.

I ended up cutting over an inch off the back, which helped even out some natural layers that she had. I have a new respect for people who cut hair well. Who knew cutting a straight line was so hard?? I never got it perfect (or very close), but her hair is a little wild anyway so no one will notice. She certainly doesn't care!

Here is a 'before' picture. I forgot to take a real one, but this is from a few weeks ago.

Here is the final result! Cute, right??

She's looking out the window here, because it was thundering and she wanted to see what 'BOOM' looked like. =)

Allison has Moved!

2010-03-21T20:04:00.013-06:00

Another month, another blog post. =)

Friday night a week ago Allison spent her first night away from me, and bunked at my parents house (just 20 minutes away). We never intentionally set out to keep her with us at bedtime, but it just kind of worked out that way, and I was happy because I prefer to have her around. She had a great time with Grandma and Papa, and even slept through the night in her tent! They are already asking to book the next slumber party, so she must have played nice. We planned this mostly because Allison will be spending a few days with family while I'm in the hospital this summer, and I don't want that to be her first time away in the midst of so many other changes. Hopefully we'll be able to schedule a few more of these practice runs before baby number two gets here!

We spent our free night painting Allison's room a very sweet lavender, and hanging a ceiling fan, so she could officially move in. I had totally planned to paint with Frank the whole time, but he politely took my brush and shooed me out of the room after about twenty minutes of painting. It was very cute and sweet that he was so concerned about me being in the fumes while pregnant. Plus I think he just wanted to serve me, and be the hero - which he was! I sat down on the couch and caught up on some great DVR material with a cup of hot chocolate, and peeked in every so often to see progress. At ten, I was exhausted and retired to bed, but I left instructions with Frank not to stay up too late. He came to bed around midnight, but finished the whole room by himself! He is an excellent painter by the way. I wouldn't leave that job in his hands if he wasn't even more of a perfectionist than I am! I wasn't aware of this trait when we married, but it has served me well. Now every room in my house (including the laundry room) has paint on the walls. I think Frank is glad he's done!

The following Sunday we let Allison take her first nap in her new room, and she did great! She never got out of her bed, and there was minimal crying before she crashed for a 3 hour nap. My initial plan had been to let her only nap in there for about a week, just to give her time to adjust, but after that performance we threw all our chips in and let her spend Sunday night in there, too. I was nervous because I had wanted to buy her a nightlight first, assuming she would be scared if she couldn't see well, but Frank gave me the 'you're over-mothering' look so I dropped it. He was right of course - she didn't care one bit. She slept through the night, and got up at her normal time. I'm so amazed at how well she adjusts to new things, and it makes me think I should challenge her more often, because she's obviously up to it.

I think it was Tuesday when she had her first problem napping in her new room. For some reason she just wasn't tired enough to go to sleep so THREE times I went in her room to find that she had piled literally everything into her bed that wasn't nailed to the floor. Each time I walked in she would proudly yell 'hi!' as she sat on the stash of stuff she had accumulated. The third time I cleaned it up (well over an hour after I had initially put her down), I decided that it just wasn't working so I put her in front of the TV (go mom!) to wind down a bit more, while I cleaned the kitchen. By the time I finished that and put away some laundry I found her crashed on the couch. It was easy to move her to her room where she took a really long nap (thank goodness!). Until today she hadn't repeated the piling, but I expect that's just something I'll have to deal with from time to time.

Sitting on everything she owns.

Not a thing left out!

She crashed hard after all that work!

The final step to move her to that room seems to really cause me to see her as a little girl now. It doesn't help anything that she knows a few hundred words now, and is communicating like crazy. I'm shocked at some of the stuff she knows, and how she manages to use it in context. Some of her favorite phrases are 'here you go', 'I don't know', 'oh man!' (thanks Swiper), and 'all done'. She has also learned colors using her crayons. Strange enough, white is her favorite! That one doesn't even show up when you use it! She can identify and say white, yellow, pink, red, purple, orange, and sometimes blue and green. This one really stunned me - she can identify letters A,S,C,B, and L most of the time, but she can also find them on a keyboard fairly consistently. I didn't set out to teach her that, she just likes letters! Side note about letters - she got multi-colored alphabet fridge magnets for Christmas that she loves. The weird thing is that she has a habit of taking the four orange letters out of the mix and moving them to the hearth next to our fireplace. No other color gets this kind of attention for her. And just as soon as I move them back to the fridge they end up on the hearth within the hour. I'm hoping she's suggesting we burn the orange letters, and not showing a preference for the color since we've already discussed that she's only allowed to go to A&M. After all, orange is the color that makes Jesus cry. =)

One of my favorite things is to hear her sing along to songs. We often played her a lullaby from Backyardigans on the Viking Voyage episode where the vikings sing the mermaid to sleep, and she loves it! She throws in a bunch of the words while it's playing, and we'll often hear her saying it herself alone. She also sings the 'clean up' song. (Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere! Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share!) Her version sounds like this: Eee-mma, Eee-mma, eevvbody. Then she trails off and starts over. It's SO adorable!

My other favorite thing is that she can finally say her own name: "Al-sin". She likes to point to pictures of herself and tell me who it is. I can't get her to understand that Allison is a name, though. Every time I ask her what her name is, she will point to her neck and say 'name!' (obviously confusing neck and name). We'll get there. :)

Dancing on Daddy's feet!

First time going out for yogurt with mom and dad.

Having fun at cousin Carter's birthday party!

Peek-a-boo!

Progress

2010-02-26T14:04:00.008-06:00

Ah, it's Friday! I love Friday's because this is the day my weekend starts! I'm soooo lucky to live close enough to some of Allison's Grandparents, and they bless us every week. On Wednesday, Allison spends part of her day with her Grandma (my mom), and on Friday she is picked up at 9am by her Mimi (Frank's mom) and she usually spends the rest of the day at her house, and Frank stops by to pick her up on his way home from work. The implications for me here are HUGE, but I also love that Allison gets some time away from our house, and away from me. Most importantly, I know she's well loved, cared for, and taught when she's with her grandparents.

Today was only a half day with Mimi because Mimi had somewhere to be this afternoon, but it still gave me the entire morning to myself. I had time to do some laundry, clean the kitchen and the master bathroom, get myself showered and dressed, do all the prep work for dinner, and eat lunch! Now my pregnant body is tired from the non-stop running around, but I feel great about the day. Allison is sleeping peacefully in her toddler bed, and I can most likely expect another couple of hours to myself till she wakes up.

Speaking of her sleeping, now would be a good time to note that she is making strides in her '5 step program' to her big girl room. Turns out, this has not been as big of a battle as I had expected it to be. Maybe she was more ready than I thought! For some reason, she has very little interest in getting out of her bed. I truly believed that once the choice was hers she would stop napping and run circles in her room, pound on the door, pull everything out of her drawers, and cry. I'll admit that she did a little of all of that during her first nap time in her toddler bed, but that only lasted about 30 minutes. Since then, I've gotten smart and hidden the few things in her room that really peaked her interest and tempted her to stay up. Now, I put her down and she stays in her bed till I come and get her - even if she's been awake for 30 minutes!

She was doing so well that I discussed with Frank that we should attempt to take away her bumper this weekend (eek!). I had intentionally settled on starting it the days I knew he'd be home with me for support! Well, I was doing her laundry on Wednesday and part of that involved stripping the fitted sheet off of her bed to include in the wash, and I got a good up close look at her bumper. I noticed that some of the white parts had started to yellow, and it had a few stains. After all, it had been attached to her bed for almost two years! Gross, I know. There is probably a solid mixture of spit-up, drool, sweat, and maybe the occasional wet leaky diaper. That mental image was enough for me, so I took it off and planned to wash it for her. However, I quickly found that not even half of it would fit in my washer - and I worked at it! It's a Pottery Barn bumper which I had insisted on having - not for the name brand - but because their bumpers are a good inch or more thicker than any others. I felt like they offered the most as far as comfort and protection. Anyway - this thing is a beast, and I didn't feel like taking it to be dry cleaned ($$!). My only other option was to hand wash it, and the only place big enough for that was my bath tub! So I piled it in there (where it still barely fit), and filled the tub with hot water and plenty of Dreft. I also pretreated all the really yellowed places that had emerged. I'll just skip to the end and say that this process ended up taking me most of a day! At some point between, washing, rinsing, and drying I decided that I would never do it again, so Allison wasn't getting it back. It is going to stay clean and ready-to-go for my next little girl.

So Allison napped that day for the first time without her precious bumper, and only lasted an hour. But since then it's been no problem! Yay! I will say that I'm still a little sad for her though, because she now piles her stuffed animals around her head to substitute. How adorable!

The only thing stopping me from moving her to her new room now, is that it's not finished. I still need to buy her a toddler bedding set, paint, and hang curtains and a ceiling fan. After all that, I'd like to add some nice things to decorate the walls, too. I thought we had tons of time, so I had put all of those things off for a while. I guess it's better to get it done before I'm huge!

As for being huge, I finally have a baby belly, and have the need for maternity shirts. I can still get away with my normal jeans, but some days it's nice to pull out the maternity ones just for extra room and comfort. Other than that, this pregnancy is uneventful. I wish I was the type of person who savored every moment, but I just don't. I love feeling the baby move, and I miss that when it's gone - but everything else can go! I've told Frank many times that pregnancy just makes me feel very 'unpretty'. From the weight gain, the teenager-ish breakouts, and the exhaustion, I just don't feel like myself. Some women make pregnancy look adorable, but I'm not one of them!

I haven't taken many pictures lately, but here are few cute ones of Allison eating chocolate pudding for the first time yesterday. I picked it up at the store on a whim thinking it would be a fun treat from time to time. I hit the bulls-eye on this one! She dug right in, and did all but lick the bowl clean!

This is (obviously) from Valentines Day. I thought her hair was adorable, but it didn't last long.

These are just random pics from a few days ago. I had some music playing and she danced along the whole time, oblivious to my snapping pictures.

Finally, this picture was taken last month, but I forgot to put in my last post. I love my family!

Five Step Program

2010-02-12T14:39:00.016-06:00

My new years resolution to be a better blogger is really not working out for me. But what can I expect when I have such a bad track record with my past resolutions? I might as well just decide to fail! :)

Ok, now that you know I feel bad about the lack of communication, I can move on.

The biggest news I have to share (as some of you already know via facebook) is that we found out Monday that we are having another baby girl! She is healthy and functioning as planned at this age, which was a huge relief to hear. I was more than excited leading up to the sonogram, which can probably account for part of the reason that the whole thing seemed very anti-climatic. With Allison, I was alert and focused on the screen, Frank was pacing the room, and the moment we found out the sex we were beaming and ready to make phone calls. This time, when we were told 'it's a girl!', we remained calm and viewed it as more of an interesting fact than life changing news. Don't get me wrong, we're very excited about our new addition, but it's just such a different feeling with the second child. I find myself pondering how Allison will adjust, and ways to prepare her for the change, and wondering how my heart will find room to love another one just as much. All that will work itself out, I know - but those are the things on my mind.

I'd say the most frequent question we are getting these days is regarding the baby's name. We attempted to keep Allison's name a secret, because quite frankly we don't desire any else's opinion (which is inevitable). We also think it's a fun surprise, but our families don't really share that excitement. We haven't decided for sure yet if we will share her name in advance, but I think we will most likely keep it to ourselves. So far, though, we have not been able to stick with a name yet, so there is currently nothing to share anyway! I'm sorry if this is disappointing. We love our families, but Frank and I really cherish keeping some things between us.

The next thing I'm asked about is my back. All I can say is praise the Lord I'm still up and moving!! I don't have a single doubt in my mind that God is keeping me in good health so that I can continue to take care of Allison without burdening family and friends. I have been virtually pain free for almost 4 months now - which is longer relief than I've found with any other treatment. Last week I had a scare where I pulled my back putting Allison in her car seat, and I was in so much pain the next day that Frank had to come home from work to help with Allison. I was in tears that night thinking that it might be the end for me, but after a weekend of rest and ice packs I feel like new again. Really, this is a miracle. My back has never healed on its own.

Now for the explanation on the 'Five Step Program'. This will take a little explaining, but stick with me. As I mentioned in my last post, we got Allison a toddler bed that we planned to move her to some time before her sister arrives. In my head, I was thinking we'd wait until she turned two so that I could explain to her how great it is to have a 'big girl bed', and how she needs to give up her bed for the baby, etc. Right now, she knows that it's called her 'big girl bed', but the phrase 'big girl' has no meaning to her, and therefore no perks. Well, earlier this week I watched her attempt to climb out of her crib while I was putting away her laundry. Once I noticed that she was basically just laying on the front bar I ran over to save her (afraid of the fall) and at that point she felt like it was safe to let go because I was there to help. But that was that. She didn't try it again for a few days and I assumed she had forgotten this new trick. Yesterday, though, she was really fighting her nap, and made the decision to go for it. I was watching her in the monitor, and when I realized what she was doing I ran for her room to stop her but it was too late. She had already hit the floor and was screaming. I comforted her for a little while and then put her back to bed with the assumption that that had to have hurt too bad for her to try it again. Wrong! Just two minutes later I see her hiking her leg up on the front bar again, and this time I REALLY ran. But she was too fast and I again found her flat on the floor, and crying even harder that time. It took a lot of rocking, singing, and playing to get her to stop crying and my mama's heart wouldn't risk her doing it a third time so I gave up on the nap all together. Obviously, the crib is out, because it's not safe anymore so I needed a plan. A 'program' if you will - to make the transition to her new room.

Here were my thoughts. There is NO WAY she would get any sleep in her new room right now because it's just that: new. New room, new decorations, new toys, new bed, new freedom. So I decided that we would convert her crib to a toddler bed and leave the bumper attached so that it very closely resembles what she is already used to. With this set-up she can still safely get in and out on her own, but it require a little work to climb over the bumper. The next step will be to remove the bumper - and I'm having a hard time with that one. Allison LOVES that bumper. Ever since she was little she has crammed herself into a corner of it to sleep. She cuddles with it like a stuffed animal, and I'm honestly not sure how she'll sleep without it. The next step is to let her start taking naps in her new room. If the temptation to get up and play is too strong, then she'll take her naps in her tent in the new room instead. Finally, we'll eventually have her spend the night in her big girl bed. I anticipate that is will take a few months and a lot of sleepless afternoons, which I'm not looking forward to, but I guess this is necessary. Perhaps this was the way we should have been planning it all along, and we just needed her prodding to adjust our schedule. We'll see.

Wow. The more I write, the more I realize exactly how much I have on my mind. I think I could write a novel of thoughts at this point. Nothing super interesting, just stuff I feel like recording right now.

I think for now, though, I'll just say a quick 'thank you' to Emily Malone. I read a blog post she had about a week ago (maybe longer) about efficiency. It really made me think of how I'm going to need to restructure my time when I have two kids. Right now, I'm working on making dinners at our house less stressful. In the very recent past I had been waiting for Frank to get home before starting dinner because then he could amuse Allison so I could cook without having her hang on my legs and try to push me out of the kitchen. But I considered what she said about making dinner every other night, and then keeping leftovers so that dinner doesn't need to be a hassle every night. I've been meaning to expand my menu for quite some time now, because I'm getting tired of shopping for, cooking, and eating the same things over and over - and this seemed like a good time to finally do that. I picked out three new recipes to try this week and then made a very meticulous grocery list. I actually had more fun at the grocery store this time since my eyes were looking for new ingredients. Last night I made King Ranch Chicken. It's not difficult to make, but it is time consuming. Frank was a HUGE fan, and I was surprised that even Allison ate it! We ate almost half of it, and I froze the rest. I'm new at freezing food, and a little nervous it will be ruined, but my hope is that I can pull it out next week, and make a wonderful meal of it again. Tonight I tackled homemade baked potato soup, and that was awesome! Probably better than any soup I've ever had. MMMM! So anyway, thank you Emily for taking the time to share your thoughts. I've learned a lot from you - even at a great distance.

Finally, I will make the inevitable comments about the snow in Dallas. Personally, I don't care for snow. I think it's very pretty to look at, but I don't care to stand in it, make a snowman, or even a really good snowball. However, my assumption was that all kids love snow, and I would therefore be a bad parent if I didn't give Allison the chance to play in it. I resisted going out in it all day yesterday since the snow was literally falling from the moment I woke up till I went to bed, and I didn't want to be soaked. Today, though, we had a blanket of about 8-10 inches of snow in our yard, so Allison and I got bundled up to go play in it. The previous day I had been building it up for her. All the blinds were open so she could see out, and we'd talk about snow, and how it's cold etc. She got the idea and would run to the window and yell 'snows!'. (That's another story - Allison says all her words in the plural form right now. No idea where she learned that.) Anyway, I digress. All that to say, I expected excitement from her. However, she is certainly my child in this regard. The moment both of her feet were planted in the snow she started whining and wanted to be picked up. I didn't give up that easy. Just because I don't care for it doesn't mean she can't give it a chance. I moved in front of her to try and get her to venture out farther, but she turned around and ran back up to the front door and started pounding on it. I eventually coaxed her to walk down the driveway, and she fussed the whole time. Then she spotted a section of concrete where the snow had melted and she made her way for it. She plopped herself down right into the slushy puddle, soaking her jeans. *sigh* In my last effort to entertain her outside, I decided that it was quiet enough on our street that I could let Maggie out to run around with us. She LOVES the snow, and Allison liked watching her enjoy it. :) In all, we spent around 20 minutes outside, and then came in to get some lunch. I posted a really funny video of her outside in the snow on facebook. Definitely check that out.

Here's the view from our front door.

These pictures are in order. This is the point where she headed back to the door!

What good would a blog be without a bunch more pictures? Here are some fun ones I've collected in the last month that are unrelated.

Allison loves her cousin Drew!

Well, she's now waking up from her nap, and it's about time to start prepping for dinner so that's all! I hope you all have wonderful weekends!

Mama...eat...please

2010-01-14T11:07:00.008-06:00

FYI - The pictures in this post don't necessarily go with the text. I just like them. :)

I have to skip the trip from Phoenix for one post, because I can't resist bragging on Allison. She had her 18 month check-up last week. Her percentages remained steady: Weight 23.4lbs (29%), Height 32.5in (81%). When the doctor asked if she was able to say 6-8 words, I was proud to tell her that Allison had collected around 60 words! She told me that she expects most kids to start putting words together into phrases by the age of two, but that she felt like Allison would do that well in advance. Cool, I thought - but I didn't expect that to be THIS week!

The first time she did that was on Monday while I was making her scrambled eggs for breakfast (which I've learned she will eat if they are topped with a little cheese and ketchup!). She was hanging on my leg, and I asked her what she needed. She looked up at me and said "Mama, eat, please!". Wow! She had never even put two words together, so I was shocked! Since then she's been collecting more words, and starting to make more phrases. I absolutely love communicating with her because I can finally find out what's going on in her head. I've been writing down her new words to keep track of what she knows, but this will probably be the last list I give here because she is learning so much every day that it's impossible to keep up. But just for grins, here are the words she has learned in the last couple of weeks: water, bubbles, strawberry, banana, cookie, hot dog, cow, please, milk, cup, apple, hat, mittens, pretty, more, Drew, off, push, pull, bear, bow, legos, belly button, chair, eat, cold, book - and the one that will eventually cause me a lot of embarrassment in public - poo poo. :) That one came in handy when her Aunt Jen was watching her in Phoenix, though. Jen reports that Allison was sitting in her lap and looked up at her, pointed to her pants and said "poo-poo!". Well, at least that's helpful!

After Christmas we set ourselves to the task of cleaning out our spare room (or if I'm honest, our junk room) because we needed space to put Allison's new big toys like her kitchen. That room also has her "big girl bed" already in it so she can get used to seeing it and crawling on it before we move her permanently around her second birthday. She loves having a room to herself, and she'll spend over half an hour in there at a time playing alone and pretending to cook. The rest of the day she is pushing around either her shopping cart or her stroller. She likes to run into us or Maggie at full speed and yell 'boom'! Since Frank and I are usually on a couch or chair to keep us out of the way, Maggie gets most of the abuse. The poor dog spends a good portion of her day trying to avoid impact.

Here's Allison the first day I showed her the toddler bed. It was love at first sight!

Here she is looking darn cute in her slippers!

Another big moment for Allison was her first haircut. She was looking a little shaggy, and needed a slight clean up around the edges. We took her to a local kid salon, where she sat in a race car chair watching Finding Nemo while they wet her hair down and then cut it. Allison was so well behaved, that even I was surprised. There was no squirming or crying. She just sat there smiling and saying saying 'cheese!' when a camera was pointed at her. I was shocked at how simple the hair cut was! The lady literally combed it down in the front and made 3 snips to even out her bangs, and then combed down the hair at her neck and made 3-4 more snips to even out the back. Guess how much that cost? You're not going to believe they charged us $19 plus tip for that!! The whole experience was ruined for me at the register because I felt cheated for being charged a ridiculous flat rate when they spent less than 5 minutes with us from wet down to blow dry. Oh well, lesson learned. I'm buying my own scissors and cutting it myself from now on.

I'm ashamed that I didn't actually get a good 'after' shot. But honestly, it doesn't look that different.

I mentioned reading 'Parenting by the Book' a few blogs ago, and that comes to mind again as I'm now starting to need to practice some of the discipline that it teaches. The book refers to all toddlers as 'little criminals', which I actually think is pretty fitting. My little criminal has started making herself known around our house recently. It's hard to watch my sweet innocent little girl find her mean and defiant side. Since she still can't express herself with words as well as I'm sure she'd like to, she has decided to start yelling something that sounds like 'MMMEEEEE-OOOOOOOOWWW!' when she's mad. Apparently she's a very angry cat. :) Anyway, since you aren't here to hear it, I'll translate. It means (and I quote) 'No I will not do what you are asking me to do, and I'm furious that you think you could impose that on me, so now I'll stand here and stare you down to let you know I mean business! So back off Mom!'. Brevity is one of her strengths. Of course if Allison knew how competitive I am, she'd know that I'd never lose a fight with my toddler, and I certainly won't be disrespected by one. So each time she yelled at me she got popped on the back of the legs, and I made her look into my eyes as I told her 'No' as powerfully as I could without yelling. She'd immediately break down into tears, and I'd leave her to work it out. When she was done, then we could hug and cuddle again. This went on for a little over a week, but each time she said it she got more quiet and unsure of herself. At the end she would put her head down and look at me out of the corner of her eye and say it almost in a whisper, which is still not ok and gets the same response from me. I'm super proud to report that it's now been days since I've heard the dreaded 'word', and she actually seems happier. It's true that kids love discipline and boundaries.

Now for just some really cute and unrelated pictures of Allison!

These last few remind me of a post from Emily not long ago about Luke wanting a ton of Christmas bows in his hair. Allison found her bag of bows and started bringing them to me one by one and leaning her head down saying 'bow!' so I would put it on. We ran out of space quickly, and this was the result.

Christmas Corner

2010-01-05T20:09:00.009-06:00

With less than two weeks since my last post, you won't believe how much I have to share! Between Christmas, a trip to Phoenix, first haircuts, pregnancy news, and Allison having a bunch a cute moments, this blog could be quite long. I don't think I'm up to it, so I''ll have to split it out into a few posts. Patience, patience...

I guess I'll just go in order and start with Christmas. Frank and I were both very excited about it this year because we were anticipating a lot of excitement from Allison. We didn't get her much because we never want Christmas to be just about gifts at our house. We obviously want to emphasize Jesus, but also family traditions, and giving to others. So this year we bought Allison a kitchen at a consignment sale, and some pots and pans to go with it. We also got her a few books and some jewelery to play dress up with. She loved the kitchen, and we loved watching her play with it and seeing her mind alive with imagination. It was also fascinating to realize how much she watches me in the kitchen.

First thing Christmas morning.

Opening her stocking filled with some fun jewelery.

She wasn't quite as excited about that as I had expected, but she's a big fan now.

After her nap we had plans to go to my parents house to open gifts and have dinner with my family. We decided to dress Allison up in her Christmas dress and surprise everyone since since she hadn't had a chance to wear it. You can tell she felt very pretty posing in front of the tree. We took a bunch of photos, and I really can't pick. Doesn't she look like a little girl now??

The rest of these are a few pictures from my parents house. We had a great time there, and the grandkids were definitely spoiled! Allison got several new outfits, some fake food to go with her kitchen, and a grocery cart! Our house is filling up quickly! Help!

Opening a present from Uncle Eric and Aunt Amy.

It's a doll! She loves to push this doll in her new shopping cart. :)

Of course, it never takes Allison long to scout out Eric.

A new Elmo toy!

I think Amy had to pin her down for this picture. There was just too much going on!

Baby Drew was also distracted by all that was going on.

Allison opening her shopping cart.

As if all that wasn't enough fun, we had also had a visit from Frank's mom (Allison's Mimi) on Christmas Eve. She also came bearing (too many!) gifts for Allison. She got a pink portable DVD player, several DVDs to play on it, and a baby/stroller combo! I told you Allison was spoiled! She hasn't stopped running over me and Maggie with that stroller since she got it. Apparently it's really funny to hit someone at fun speed and watch them jump!

Allison had just gotten up from a nap when Mimi arrived, and for some reason decided to stay in a pretty grouchy mood the rest of the night - despite all the fun toys! That should clarify her lack of spunk in some of these photos.

That's all for now, but as I mentioned I'm very behind on posts so come back soon for more of our adventures from the last couple of weeks! On a quick side note regarding the pregnancy - I start my second trimester tomorrow and at the moment I'm not feeling too much better for it. The nausea had slowed up for a little while, but it's back now in full force. I'm not sure what changed but this is definitely going the wrong direction!! All that to say that if the next few posts come slower than you'd like, that's probably why.

Take a picture!

2009-12-24T13:16:00.006-06:00

Merry Christmas Eve - or Christmas 'Lite' - as my sister in law called it this morning! For Christmas this year Frank got me a new point-n-shoot camera, but I got it a few weeks early since I guessed what he was going to buy me (unintentionally) and had set my mind to buy it for myself. :) He hates it when I foil his plans, but it worked out well because I've been able to capture sweet little Allison more than usual this month.

Don't think that me having this camera has gone unnoticed by my curious toddler, either. More than ever, I've seen her start to imitate me - and that's a little scary! A few nights ago she was sitting on my lap and I held the camera out in front of us to snap a quick photo. I pointed to the camera and told Allison 'lets take a picture!'. She totally got it! I let her hold the camera after that and she kept holding it at arms length and cheesing really big. But the best part is that she thinks she has figured out how to smile. It looks something like this:

Since then, that's the face I get when I ask her to 'take a picture' or simply to 'smile'.

Later that same evening we were headed out to go visit my mom in the hospital after her knee replacement surgery. I got a picture of her with Frank and Papa complete with her new look.

The rest of the visit, Allison spent her time wreaking havoc on everything in the small room. She was busy pulling cords, pushing buttons, dragging around my dad's laptop bag, and begging to be held.

These last two are my favorite (taken by Frank with his iphone).

Luckily, my mom is home now and feeling better so we can visit without so much stress!

So much news!

2009-12-17T12:37:00.015-06:00

I keep telling myself that I need to take on a blogging technique that consists of daily briefs instead of trying to tackle huge monthly updates. My friend Tiffani does this, and it seems so much more effective. I think I'll give it a try after this post where I need to get everyone up to speed on the Barnetts.

The biggest piece of news is that I'm 11 weeks pregnant, and expecting Allison's brother or sister in early July! The kids will be around 25 months apart. The due date is actually my brother-in-law's birthday! This pregnancy has been tough so far because I've been much more sick this time than I was with Allison. Unfortunately, the nausea meds aren't working this time either. I've got my sights set on week 14 in hopes of some relief.

I have been extremely lucky, though, that my back has held out so far. I got a steroid injection in my spine at the end of June, and I was told that it could last for months or years. I was hoping for the latter (obviously), but in early October I started feeling a lot of pain again. Right before I was about to start another round of steroids I found out I was pregnant! I figured that meant that I'd be on bed rest for the whole pregnancy, but my back miraculously started feeling better. I have no way to explain it other than maybe there is a hormone that's keeping me from feeling pain? God only knows, but I really appreciate it! I can't expect that my back will hold up during the whole pregnancy, though, at which point my doctor said I can take Tylenol 3 (vicodin) for the pain. It's not my favorite plan, but I don't have any other options.

Cravings have also been a big part of this pregnancy so far. I'm hungry every 2.5 -3 hours, and there is never any telling what I'll be in the mood for. At first, I couldn't get enough scrambled eggs, then I wanted ham sandwiches, now I love chili (even though it makes me feel sick for hours after I eat it!), and I LOVE ice water. I have no desire for sweets like cakes, cookies or brownies, but if you bring me sweet tarts or gummi bears I'll eat the whole package. I can't believe I've only gained a pound! Whoever said that you only need an extra 300 calories per day during pregnancy was obviously a man.

Allison news:

She officially hit the 18 month mark about a week ago, and I can't believe another 6 months have passed. Each one comes faster than the last. She's growing up right before our eyes! Every day she learns something new.

The biggest change has been her verbal skills. Our pediatrician said that from 12-18 months kids tend to focus on perfecting mobility, and from 18-24 months they work on language. He was SO right! It's like a switch has been flipped! She went from saying around 30 words that took her 6 months to accumulate, to adding 2-3 words per day! Just this week she's learned: feet, toes, hands, sun, moon, star, santa, maggie (she says the whole words now instead of 'Ma') clock, boots, door, barn, and duck. On top of that, she has started copying what I say (or trying). She used to just listen to me, but now she is really making the effort to communicate.

One thing I love about Allison is that she is very mothering. She takes care of her sheep and her babies every day. She consistently will hold her juice or food up to their mouths and make smacking noises. She also puts bibs and diapers on her baby. They get kisses and hugs throughout the day, too. I also caught her feeding a banana to a stuffed bear ornament on our tree this morning (then she gave him a kiss). Those are supposed to be 'no touches', but how could I possibly tell her no when she's being so sweet and nurturing?? I think she's going to make a wonderful big sister!

Allison has a HUGE crush on her Uncle Eric! She wants no one else when he's around! :)

Another cute story. Allison has learned to blow her own nose! Now, I'm not saying she does a good job, but she gets it. I leave kleenex where she can reach them, and if I see that she has a runny nose I can tell her to go get one, and she'll take one out, hold it up to her nose and blow really lightly! I have to help her wipe her nose after that, but she's much more willing after having the chance to fix it herself.

Yesterday, we went to visit my friend Kelly. Her step-daughter is in FFA, and is raising bunnies at her house so I took Allison over to see if she'd like to play with them. I got one cute picture of her with the bunny in her lap, but that was all she wanted. She thought they were fun to watch but I was surprised that she was afraid to touch them.

Today, we finally made it to see Santa. We stood in line last weekend one freezing night for 30 minutes and the line barely moved, so we gave up and went for some hot chocolate instead. But today was beautiful outside and there was basically no line. Frank met us on his lunch break, so as not to miss her first encounter with Santa. I was really sure she was going to scream and refuse to sit on his lap, but she surprised us, and went to him willingly and sat on his lap and posed for the camera! It's the cutest picture!!

We happened to be there at the same time my sister Amy took Drew (aka chunk chunk) to have his picture taken with Santa. We did have a picture made with both of them and santa, but I don't have the digital copy.

So lets go way back to mid-November (because these pictures are too cute not to post). Allison went to her friend Ellie's three year birthday party. They had a horse for all the kids to ride up and down the street. She had sooo much fun!

You'll be hearing more from me soon! I'll leave you with a picture of our Christmas card. Merry Christmas!

Things I don't want to forget

2009-11-11T12:59:00.003-06:00

When I wrote the last blog I knew I was leaving out some really adorable things that I had intended to write down simply because I never want to forget the way she was at this early stage in toddler-hood.

1) The other day I was visiting with my neighbor in the front yard while Allison entertained herself with leaves, flowers and acorns. Then I hear 'weee! weee!' over and over. I turn around to see her seated on our driveway (that has a fairly steep slope) and she is very slowly scooting her way down. Then I realized that she is pretending that the driveway is a slide at the playground because that's exactly what she says when she goes down it! Weeeee!

2) She discovered airplanes yesterday. I heard a loud one fly over our house when we were outside and I pointed it out to her. She was VERY excited and spent the rest of our time looking for them. At one point she pointed to one passing by and said 'PANE!"

3) She is learning to build with legos. At first she was only interested in taking apart anything that was assembled, but she has begun experimenting with putting them together herself. She has finally figured out that both pieces have to be facing up, but her alignment is still off. Instead she compensates by just pushing as hard as she can (which obviously doesn't work). Her arm will actually shake from the strain! When she gets it right she claps for herself.

4) A few weeks ago she was watching football with Frank and she noticed the refs giving the signal for a touchdown so she put both arms up by her head. Then the TV panned to some fans clapping and going nuts so she started clapping. That's been a favorite ever since. We say 'touchdown' and her arms go up, followed by clapping and 'yay!'. Fast forward to last Monday night. We were driving home from dinner at my moms and she was really fussy in the back seat and I figured she was just ready for bed. Then I look back and realize that she's got her arms up in 'touchdown' and was just mad that we weren't playing along. We had about 10 rounds of 'touchdown - yay!'.

5) She also is learning 'peek-a-boo'. The cutest thing though, is that she doesn't understand that the point is to cover your eyes, so she covers either her mouth or her cheeks. Then she throws her hands back with a great amount of enthusiasm. Sometimes she will cover my face and do the same thing. :)

6) She is learning to sing. Back when she was really young I remember asking Frank to put her to bed and sing to her. 'What should I sing?' he asks. I blanked on a lullaby and just suggested he sing the ABC's. He's been putting her to bed with that song ever since. Now when she knows it's time she will start singing before he does. It goes 'Aaaa Ccccc D'. She doesn't have the letters perfect but she's right on with the tune. She also tries to sing the 'D-D-D-D-D Dora' song, which comes out as just a bunch of D sounds.

7) Her new dance move reminds me of Ray Charles. She sways really big from side to side using mostly her head.

8) She past the stage of not wanting something on her head few months ago, and will now bring me a bow and put her head down and wait for me to put it in her hair.

9) She can now walk backward, and is pretty proud of herself for that.

10) She got a pack of stickers about a week ago from a friend of mine. I started by putting them on the back of her hands so now she assumes that that is the only place a sticker can go. She will point to them and hold her hands out palms down waiting for one on each hand.

I think that does it for now. Sorry, no pictures today. :(

Beep!

2009-11-09T09:49:00.003-06:00

If you keep up with me on Facebook, you know Allison was sick all last week. She ran a 103+ fever for 4 days, had swollen lymph nodes, wouldn't eat, and she was so miserable that she ended up sleeping with me and Frank for a couple of nights (we NEVER do that!!). The doctor told us it could be the flu (even though she tested negative), mono, or tonsillitis, but without blood work we couldn't confirm. Once her fever went away she was still very tired, but we assumed it was because she had had such a long week battling the fever and not eating. She is also cutting two molars, so we factored that in. But now she's sleeping around 17 hours a day or more, which includes a morning nap that she hasn't had in about 2 months. This kid has mono. I'm totally convinced. I was baffled at where she could have contracted it until I read up on mono on Web MD and found that since I had it in HS, I can still be a carrier of the virus the rest of my life. It has active and dormant periods, and when it's active I have the chance of spreading it. I also learned that up to 50% of people are immune to the virus - which explains how I've never given it to Frank. Luckily, you will only ever display symptoms of mono once in your life - so I'm safe! I say all that so people don't feel like they need to stay away. In another week Allison will be less contagious, but even then you're fine as long as you don't let her lick you! No need to quarantine the family!

Now that that's out of the way, here is all the cute Allison news. When she was sick last week I was checking her temp every couple of hours, and she didn't like to be bothered with the big beeping thing in her ear so I made a game of it, and made a big deal when it beeped. She caught on and started taking the thermometer and putting in either her ear or her sheep's ear and saying 'beeeeep!'.

She's picking up new words all the time, but she doesn't repeat them often. Some of her new words are: puppy (which she says very clear), baby, socks, cookie, cracker, Dora, eye, nose, flower, cheese, and papa. I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting. It's strange to hear her talking a little. She usually surprises me with her words. I'll have no idea she can say something and one day she'll just point and label something out of nowhere. We are trying to teach her a few words for bath time - faucet, shampoo, and fish (one of her bath toys). So far she's only attempting shampoo. It always comes out either pey-pey (??) or pooooo. Maybe I should have called it soap. :) When we were at the grocery store a couple weeks ago she saw the shampoo on an isle and started telling me 'pey-pey! pey-pey'!

She is also finally beginning to adopt the new sheep we got her about 3 months ago (there's apparently a very long probation period). We bought it hoping she wouldn't notice that it wasn't her favorite sheep since it is EXACTLY the same minus all the wear. Nope, she knew immediately and the new sheep had been shunned. Recently though, she's been carrying both of them around the house and seems very proud of her flock.

She and Maggie continue to be buddies. She likes to pet her while telling her 'puppy' over and over. This morning she tried very hard to cuddle with Maggie, but Maggie was confused and bolted before Allison could finish leaning on her.

In not so cute news she is really discovering her opinion and how to express them (fits). I'm a little overwhelmed to see her act that way sometimes, and hoping I can be consistent enough to teach her correct behavior. I'm reading a book right now called 'Parenting by the Book', and it's giving me a lot of perspective on how to parent her 'God's way' and to always keep in mind the goal of raising a godly woman of character who is independent, selfless, and humble. That feels like a tall order in our society, but the tips in the book are very helpful. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a child around the age of two since the book suggests that about that time (maybe sooner) is when parenting takes a new turn and should be WELL established by age three. Just my two cents.

Cutest Ever...

2009-11-01T14:33:00.009-06:00

We took Allison trick-or-treating last night for the first time! She was dressed as a fairy using a bunch of random things I had collected over the last couple of months. You'll recognize the tutu from her first birthday. Anyway, needless to say she was adorable!! The outfit turned out better than I had imagined, and I think she really liked it too.

Our neighbors were taking their daughter Ellie out at the same time, so we all went door to door together. Allison watched Ellie very closely as she dug into bowls of candy and put them in her bag. She caught on right away and started reaching for the large quantities of bright colored wrappers. Seriously, SO precious! I think we hit about 6-7 houses and then decided the girls had more candy than they'd ever be allowed to eat so we spent the rest of the evening handing out candy from our neighbors garage. I let Allison have a very small dum-dum (sucker) but I don't think she'll have any more candy.

These pictures are going to make you melt!!

These were taken at our house right after I finished getting her dressed. She was so busy watching Elmo, though, that she hadn't noticed the outfit. :)

Still focused on the TV.

That's the best her wings looked all night. They were way to big for her!

Now she gets it. She's really digging her costume at this point!

Prancing around the house. She was very proud of her pumpkin bucket.

Cant you tell? This is my favorite picture, by the way.

Showing off for dad.

This is her racing out of the front door to meet Ellie.

Now she's off to hunt acorns. It didn't take her long to stash a few in her bucket.

Still looking for acorns. This is what we do on days that are pretty. I sit in the front yard and she entertains herself by collecting acorns in a cup. Why should this night be any different?

Ellie hugging Allison

Ok, enough with the acorns.

Her first piece of candy! She was too excited to put it in her bucket at first.

But she's got the hang of it now and she's off to the next house!

Trick or Treat!!!

Punkin at the Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-31T12:12:00.007-06:00

Frank and I took Allison to a pumpkin patch this morning, and she had so much fun! There were lots of goats, cows, and sheep for her to feed, a hay ride, and of course a lot of pumpkins to take pictures with. I didn't get any pictures of her feeding the animals b/c I was working the video camera instead - sorry! There were some goats to the right as we entered, and Frank showed her how to feed a pellet to one. She really enjoyed that, but apparently had only bonded with that first goat and refused to feed any others. She was also happy to feed the sheep (which I thought were quite agressive) and they looked to me like they might eat her tiny hand.

The smell was a bit overwhelming, and I wasn't crazy about all the dirt and mud (it's been raining all week). So any notions I've had previously about ever having any farm animals just went right out the window. Although I can't pretend that any notion ever existed.

We skipped the hay ride b/c Allison was getting tired, but did manage to get a few pictures of her before we left. She was uncooperative like most 1 year olds. :) She really wanted to pick up all the pumpkins so I had a hard time getting her to sit still long enough to snap a photo. We are taking our family portrait tomorrow, which I'm sure will be just as interesting.

I know I've been remiss at blogging lately so here are some fresh photos of Allison. Soak it all in!

Allison Update

2009-09-24T13:14:00.011-06:00

I'm so long overdue for an Allison update. She had her 15 month well visit two weeks ago, and I meant to do it then, but time gets away from me somehow.

For all of you moms who are interested, she is 33% in weight and 83% in height - long and lean! She totally didn't get that from me! However, she did get my long torso and short legs (I'm so sorry, baby!). This percentage ratio plus my body type have made it extra challenging for me to find clothes that fit her. She needs 18M tops to fit her torso, but since she is so skinny they swallow her. But she wears 12M pants for the waist (and some of those are STILL to big) but they are the right length. I laugh when I see 18M pants and hold them up to her. The hem of the pants go past her toes when they are pointed. There's just no way those are going to fit anytime soon. That's why I put her in dresses so often - no worries about length or waist size! However, she now wears a size 5 in shoes, which I think is either big or average for her age.

Allison has also gotten her 8th tooth this week. She now has the top four and bottom four. I'm convinced that I will see more though very soon. Today she was running a low fever and is very - I repeat, VERY - grumpy. She's been on a one nap schedule for a few weeks, and we've been very successful at it. Today, though, she really needed some extra rest (or maybe that was just me!) and so I let her take a 30 minute morning nap with the assumption that she would wake up maybe not happy, but at least content. Boy was I wrong!! Almost from the moment I took her out of her crib I could tell that she was in one of her moods. That's also when I noticed that she felt extra warm, so that may have something to do with it. So I started to think of things that make her happy. First on the list - a Ritz cracker and some juice. The juice was rejected but she held onto the cracker like it was a lifeline. I sat her on a chair to eat the precious cracker and went to put something away in the kitchen and she immediately starts wailing. So I pick her up and rocked her while she sobbed. At some point she drops her cracker and I pick it up and take a small bite of it to show her how good it is which was the WRONG thing to do apparently because that bumped up the crying to screaming. Ok, so what else does she like? Baths! I start running the water and try to take off her shirt but she is still clutching the cracker which wont fit through the sleeve so I have to take it away very briefly, but you can guess the reaction. Once the tub is filled, I put her in and start showing her toys, but she continues to cry and just wants to get out so I grab her and hold her again, but this time my shirt gets all wet! Plan three - Praise Baby! After the failed attempt at a bath, I wrap her in her duck towel and put her on the couch (cracker in hand!) and I turn on her favorite Praise Baby DVD. She looked so cute in her duck towel, though, that I couldn't resist snapping a couple of pictures before I ran to get her diaper and a change of clothes. At some point between the time I took the picture and got back with her diaper she managed to pee on my couch (sigh) but she HAS started eating her cracker finally! This day is not over, and I fully expect more drama tonight. In fact, she's crying in her crib right now - just an hour into her 2 hour nap time.

Allison is also talking more than I expect her to. Her favorite thing is animal noises. She currently knows: cow, dog, chicken, monkey, duck, lion, snake, and sheep. I haven't managed to get it on video yet, but about once a day she'll actually perform and do all of them when asked. As far as actual words, she says: sit down, cracker, Maggie (Maaaaa), shoes, no, yeah, baby, diaper, kiss, ball, wow, and of course mama and daddy. She is starting to imitate words now, too. Last night I was babysitting for a little girl named Rylee, and I asked Allison to say her name and she responded with "ReRe". So cute!

Watch out! She can also find her belly button, and YOURS! She likes to lift her her shirt and peek at her belly-b, and then lift yours up as well! Or, if you're really lucky like me, she'll pull out the top of your shirt while you're holding her to see if she can see it from that angle! :)

Lately she has gotten much pickier about what she will eat. I sooo miss the days that she would cram anything into her mouth that I put on her tray. The child wont even eat mashed potatoes! That's not American! One thing that I've discovered that really helps is ketchup! She LOVES to dip about anything in it! It's messy, but at least she eats!

No more time for updates, since she is now up from her nap and banging on my keyboard! Sorry I don't have more pictures!

2009 Book List

2009-09-13T20:28:00.001-06:00

I've always loved to read, but this year I can't seem to get enough. Here are the books I've read so far this year (in no particular order). After I finish the one I've got, I'll have finished everything in the house that I would find interesting. I've got some gift cards to Borders, so if you have any suggestions (based on what you can see that I like below) I'd love to hear them!

1. Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
2. Emma - Jane Austen
3. Persuasion - Jane Austen
4. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
5. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
6. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
7. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
8. The Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
9. The Memory Keepers Daughter - Kim Edwards
10. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
11. About a Boy - Nick Hornby
12. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
13. To the Golden Shore - Courtney Anderson
14. The Testament - John Grisham
15. Same Kind of Different As Me
16. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading now)

Holiday Card Designs

2009-09-08T21:34:00.006-06:00

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had some fabulous holiday cards lined up for this year, and they are now ready to be debuted! Take a look at your amazing selection! What do you guys think??

The "Divine" collection comes in either a fresh look with greens, blues, and browns or I can change them to a more traditional red and green design. The possibilities are endless!! The rest of the patterns are in a classic vintage style that is very popular this year. This is going to be a tough decision, but you can't go wrong.

Each style is printed front and back on a nice card-stock paper (envelopes included). The gray area represents where a photo will be placed. Book your holiday session soon and take advantage of these amazing designs!!

www.kristinbarnettphotography.com

p.s. - take a look at my site to check out my new logo!!

My First Boo Boo :(

2009-09-02T20:27:00.007-06:00

Last night Allison took her first really "bad" tumble outside. I knew it would happen eventually since she inherited my grace. She does not do very well with steps, so it's no surprise that a step was her downfall - quite literally. She was attempting to step up onto our brick porch and only got about half of her foot up so her foot slipped backward and she slammed her forehead on the ground. Ouch! I didn't witness it (thank goodness Frank was with her), but I heard the "I'm hurt" cry all the way from the other side of the house. I took some pictures of her owie while she bathed. I promise it looked worse in person, and that I'm only over-parenting a little. You may have to enlarge the image to see it. She's still pretty cute, though, and not worse for the wear!

New topic. Allison is now cutting another tooth - maybe more than one. The last two nights she has gotten up crying multiple times, and that is SO unlike her. We have to go and sit with her for about 30 minutes, give her warm milk, and some more Motrin in order for her to calm down (Motrin only once a night). She'll be exhausted and asleep on my shoulder but the second her head hits the mattress she starts screaming again. On top of that, today she came down with runny nose that resembles a faucet. I'm sure all of this is related to teething, and Frank and I have decided that we hate this particular tooth. None of her other teeth have given her this many problems, and quite frankly, we miss our sleep. I think we are both having flashbacks to about a year ago. Does anyone know how long before the mystery tooth will appear? Is there an average time between when these symptoms start and when we finally see it? I'm dying to know what I'm in for. So far tonight has not been any better. We finally put her down at 9:00 (an hour late) and she's been in there crying for about 20 minutes now. I'm guessing this is going to be another long night. *sigh* I better be off to bed if I'm going to be of any use.

The Sleeper Tent

2009-09-01T08:37:00.003-06:00

Emily has requested more info on the sleeper tent, so here you go! A friend told me about these (thanks, Shannon!) so I can't take credit for the great find. They fold down into a small circle and only weigh one pound! They also come with a matching bag that all the pieces fit in. We like it better than the pack-n-play because it's going to be SO easy to travel with. It also has an inflatable mattress that zips into the bottom of the tent, so it's really comfy! I'd say the only drawback is that it's a bit expensive (I think), but it's worth it if she'll sleep out of her own crib. It's made by Kidco for those of you interested.

A Date with Papa and Grandma!

2009-08-31T19:32:00.008-06:00

Last Saturday, Frank and I went to a Rough Riders game with our Sunday school group. We had a blast because a) it was GORGEOUS weather, b) We love our group (half of them are our neighbors!), and c) we were childless that night! The last part of that equation was made possible by my parents who jumped at the chance to spend an evening with Allison. They took her to the park, to Chick-fil-a, and then back to their house for some more fun.

We gave them her sleeper tent to try out for the first time in hopes that she would sleep a little there. My parents have a crib, but she is terrified to be left in it for some reason. She eventually slept in her tent after thrashing around for an hour, but that's progress, right?? Frank and I are taking her with us to Phoenix this October to visit her Aunt Jen and Uncle John, and I wanted proof that she could be induced to sleep while we are there!!

Anyway, they took about 100 pictures at the park, and it is incredibly hard for me to pick so you get all of them! (or at least as many as I can upload before I get tired of waiting for blogger to import the images). Isn't she the cutest?? You don't have to think so, but I sure do!

Holiday Card Time!

2009-08-27T13:25:00.006-06:00

Can you believe it's almost September? This month has flown by! In photographer terms, September is code for "holiday season", so here I am announcing my holiday card special.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in booking a session! I won't be accepting sessions for Christmas cards past the first week of December - and that's cutting it pretty close! I will have about 20 different Christmas card templates for you to choose from, and they are all SO cute!! I'll post those as soon as they are available.

All of my contact information can be found on my website.

Holiday Card Special - $125*

30 minute session
8-12 proofs on secure gallery
25 Holiday cards and envelopes
20% off print prices

Tell your friends!

*Price quoted is for a family of 4. For each additional person, please add $10. Session must be held in Collin County.

A Kiss

2009-08-25T09:31:00.008-06:00

Allison just did the sweetest thing to date, and I just have to share. Of course, I've been meaning to blog for days now anyway, so this works out.

She was sitting on my lap holding her favorite sheep while I read her "Are You My Mother?". Side note - I learned yesterday how much she associates reading with being in my lap. I was at Amy's house sitting on the floor reading to her while she played and she walked over and stood next to me and pushed the book away and said "sit down" while trying to crawl into my lap. I pulled her in my lap and we finished the book together. Isn't that precious?? Every time I read to her now when I finish the book I sit and wait, and sure enough she will start the book over herself and "read" to me out loud! Anyway, I digress... back to the sweetest thing ever. So I finished reading her the book and instead of her reading to me, she turned over and said "a kiss?" and planted one right on my lips. This was followed by her laying her head on my shoulder and cuddling up with me and her sheep. I seriously melted right there. I had to say a quick prayer thanking God that I have the best little girl.

We are currently trying to reconfigure nap-time because she has recently been trying to drop a nap. I think that with a little effort on my part she could make a full transition in a couple of weeks, but I'm honestly not ready to give it up. I feel like I depend on her morning nap so I can get ready for the day and do some work around the house. I also know that if I let her take just one nap a day then I lose any chance of ever getting one myself - unless I want to blow off my to-do list. I was actually planning to really try the one nap today and we were going to hit the grocery store so she would be stimulated enough to stay awake. I had everything ready to go and was in the process of putting on her shoes and I lost all energy. So here I am blogging instead while she naps. Yes, I see I'm the problem here. I have to say, though, that I'm sure part of my resistance on this occasion is resting on the fact that I loathe the grocery store. I would rather do just about anything then go shopping for groceries.

I have a lot of fun pictures to share. I'll start with the ones from a couple of Friday's ago. Allison's Mimi (Frank's Mom) finally made it to the Heard Museum. It looks like they had a great time! There isn't much Allison loves more than having freedom to run and explore. Here are the pictures she took for me...

My mom got Allison some pink Ug (sp?) boots for the winter. I tried them on her yesterday, and she LOVED them! She went stomping around the house in them. We couldn't get her to stop roaming the halls. She has never worn anything with a thick rubber sole, so this was a whole new experience. So I know the outfit doesn't go with the boots, but maybe that makes this moment just bit cuter? :)

The rest of these are just fun pictures of her around the house. The first picture is of a new game she plays where she leans on her head and looks at me upside down. This is apparently really funny to her!

I'm not sure what she's doing here. Maybe checking to make sure I didn't stick a bow in her hair. That's not allowed, you know!

Allison has figured out how to climb into her stroller. She can even pull the tray down in front of her. Problem is, she is stuck once she gets there. I often find her whining in it because wants me to rescue her.

I'll leave you with the infamous "scrunchy face". It had taken leave for a few months, but it has returned! I can't figure out which emotion deserves such an expression, but she uses it often!

Oh! One more cute story before I have to go do actual work. We were house sitting for our neighbors last week while they were in Mexico. They also had a cat named Cricket that we were asked to visit and check on. One day I went over there to make sure he had food and water, but he didn't greet me at the door like he normally would. I started calling out "Cricket!, Cricket" and while I was waiting for him to show up I hear Allison saying "E-it! E-it!". So cute! That was the first time she has copied my language. Obviously she says stuff already, but she usually hears it a few times first and processes it. This time she just went ahead and took a stab at it. I'm such a proud mom!

Picture Post

2009-08-13T14:46:00.008-06:00

It's been so long since I've posted pictures of Allison! Franks mom was missing the pictures on the blog so she has loaned us her point-and-shoot till we get our own. Since last Friday we've taken about 100 pictures! I would love to post all of them, but that would take forever. Here are the highlights.

Every Friday Frank's mom (Jackie) picks up Allison and takes her on an adventure. Last week they had plans to go to a museum, but got turned around and ended up at Chuck E Cheese instead. Allison loves watching other kids play so she had a blast! I asked Jackie to take the camera along so I could see some of the fun, too. They turned out great!

Here she is staring at people...

Checking out the games...

Pushing buttons.

Now this looks like fun!

Hold on, sir, this could be a rough ride.

Blow!

Taking a break for a good snack and a book. That's my girl!

Those big brown eyes are my favorite.

On Tuesday Shannon brought Christopher over for a play date. They had a great time together!

The rest of these are from last night. Frank put Allison's shoe box on her head and she thought it was big fun. She walked around with it on her head for a while and then would pull it off and want us to put it back. She would try to put it on herself which consisted of holding it up next to her head! So cute!

I think for once I posted enough pictures to rival Emily Malone! :) I'm pretty proud of that!! I'll post more after the weekend!

First words!

2009-08-03T20:09:00.004-06:00

Allison has gone and changed again. Didn't we just go through a new phase like last week? I'm constantly amazed at the things she is learning, and more than that - at the speed that she acquires this knowledge. God has given kids an incredible capacity for learning and growth, and it's so fun to watch.

For starters, Allison has finally said her first word! As a girly girl through and through, her first word is appropriately "shoes" - although she pronounces it 'shuce' (very close but a cute distinction) . It's so cute! I thought it could have been a fluke the first time I heard it, but the second time she said it was while I was putting her shoes on her before a trip to Target. That night I told Frank what she had said, and he asked her 'did you learn to say shoes? Can you say shoes for me?'. She didn't repeat the word, but she did go and find her shoe on the floor and bring it to him!

Her next word (and one that I think every parent dreads) came just a couple of days later. Yep, you guessed it - she can say 'no'. She was carrying her beloved sheep around the kitchen and saw daddy sitting at the kitchen table eating a snack. She is always up for some social eating so she was immediately interested in making sure daddy was going to share and lost interest in her sheep. I was watching the whole thing comfortably from a chair in the living room when I realized that she was about to drop her sheep in the Maggie's water bowl so she could reach for a bite of food. I yelled 'no, no, noooo!' (the last one said in defeat since it had already hit the water) and as if she had been saying it for a month, she turned to me and said 'no no no!' in her sweet little voice. Frank and I just stared at her amazed. Ever since, 'no' has been the response to every question. At least she says it nicely for now. :)

She also says 'sit', which I believe explains what I thought sounded like the 's-word' in the past. I have to tell her sit down a lot while she's in the bath tub, so now when she stands up she instructs herself to 'sit'.

I also must note that she is a big fan of one of our engagement pictures that is framed and sitting on a side table in the living room. She frequently goes up to it and points to me and says 'mama' and then points at Frank and says 'da!'. She checks my expression for affirmation and then goes about her day like it's no big deal.

The next biggest change in Allison is that she learned to climb on one of the chairs in the living room last night. She was so desperate to sit with Frank that she used every ounce of her energy to hoist herself up there. I was hoping she would forget the new discovery after a night of sleep, but she quickly piled herself back up on the chair today. It's currently surrounded by a bed of pillows for her to fall on since the chair is conveniently next to the brick hearth. I'm terrified of her falling and busting her head on it! So far she hasn't learned to jump off the chair, but she thinks its fun to slide face first into the pillow waiting for her on the floor and then climb back up and do it again.

Again, sorry for no pics of my baby. We still havent replaced our point-and-shoot and I hate to lug out my big camera for the candid things during the day. Not to mention Allison and I are currently sharing a nasty cold, so that has zapped my energy for the moment.

That's it for now!

Check again!

2009-07-26T13:57:00.002-06:00

I know I already sent you to my site once (see below) to brag on my nephew, but I must do it one more time because I shot a family session of the Dollyhigh's on Friday that I just love (I wonder why!). Anyway, have a look! Go to my site, and use password 'drew' in the proofing section.

Just a side note - people have always told me how much Amy and I look alike and I thought they were crazy, but as I was editing these images I really started seeing it. So weird!

Sweet Nephew

2009-07-22T19:54:00.003-06:00

Today I took newborn pictures of baby Drew. I'm so proud of my handsome nephew! Take a look at his pictures!

Go to www.kristinbarnettphotography.com. Click on 'proofing' and use the password 'drew'.

(Don't worry - Amy has already sent these pictures out to the world so I'm not stealing her thunder!)

Genius Baby

2009-07-21T19:26:00.007-06:00

My baby is officially smarter than yours.

Haha, j/k! ...Or maybe Apple is just such a great company that they made iPhones easy enough for a one year old to use. She's always liked walking around shaking it - and occasionally dribbling it - while it played music (which accounts for the industrial-strength protective case Frank put it in), but now she's taken her iPhone experience to a whole new level. I'm going to teach her how to do our taxes next.

Check out this awesome video. You may even pick up some sweet dance moves, too. (This is her favorite song, btw.)

Presenting...

2009-07-17T14:56:00.003-06:00

I've been working on my photography website for a while now, and I'm finally ready to give it a proper debut! Visit www.kristinbarnettphotography.com to take a look!

Also, to kick off the new site I'm offering 50% off of everything (sitting fee and prints) to the first 5 people who book a session and mention this blog post!! Feel free to send this to your friends if you think they'd be interested! Thanks!!

-kristin

Poopy Week

2009-07-09T10:07:00.002-06:00

And I mean that literally! Last weekend Allison pooped in my bath tub. The next time she had a bath Frank pulled off her diaper right before putting her in, and didn't check the diaper. Yep, it was dirty and so was her rear end. So we had 'floaties' round two. Of course all this makes Allison really upset because she loves her bath and she was taken out early the first time, and was stalled for 10 minutes the second time.

Yesterday I wanted to take her to the pool. It was a beautiful day, and we were bored so I set my mind on it. Getting her ready is not an easy task either. I have to put her in her swim diaper and then squeeze her into her 12mo swimsuit. It's honestly a bit too small, but Target was out of 18mo last time I checked so she's just going to have to wear what she has. Once she's all suited up I have to chase her around the living room while trying to apply sunscreen evenly. After that I have to get myself ready as well as pull together all the toys, towels, keys, phone, etc that we need at the pool. Once we were finally packed and dressed I scooped her up to head for the car - and that's when I smelled it. I was SO hoping we had all of our bad poop luck out of the way! I seriously almost gave up on the idea all together. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that she was so greasy from the sunscreen that I had to choose between a bath or the pool. So I pull off her swimsuit, and peek into her diaper. It's a mess, and at the time I didn't know that you could rip the sides of the diaper to get it off. (I just read that on the package this morning). So I pull it off as gently as I can and it still gets all down her legs. Of course she's kicking and squirming because we've already done this once and her patience is totally lost. Ugh!

We had a good time at the pool, though. I met another mom there and we are going for a play date tomorrow morning! Yay! I'm also convinced that Allison got her daddy's skin tone! I'm SOO happy for her! Now she won't have to go through life with pale skin and a very likely sunburn every summer. In fact, I came home yesterday with my back as pink as my hot pink bath towel. Awesome.

One more update - my baby has six teeth! I was holding her upside down and tickling her this morning (she loves it, I promise!) and while she was laughing I saw four teeth on the top! Three of them are just barely poking through, but they are definitely there! She's also running now. Who knew she would learn so fast?

Ok, that's it. Sorry for the lack of pictures. We seriously need to invest in another point-and-shoot.

Miss Independent

2009-07-04T15:14:00.010-06:00

Yesterday Amy and Eric came over to go swimming and then for a small cookout afterwards - because swimming makes you hungry! We were anticipating a very crowded pool because of the holiday, but there were only a handful of people there, thank goodness! We had the whole kiddie pool to ourselves! We opted out of bringing the huge float, so Allison was on her own. We were only a splash away, so she was in no danger, but there were many inevitable falls. The first time she went under was funny and a little scary because she makes no attempt to bring her head back up above water. She just lays there submerged very still with her eyes wide open. I was prepared for her to get really clingy after that, so I over-mothered by holding her, patting her back, and telling her it was ok. After all, that's the response she needed after our last trip to the pool. But not this time! Noooo sir. My little 13 month old promptly pushed me away and took off again as if nothing happened. She was walking all around the pool, and basically trying to get as far away from us as she could to prove to us that she didn't need our help. I tried following her around, and when I would put my hand on her to help her stay steady she would grab my finger and throw my hand off of her!! Her attitude was very fitting for the July 4th outfit that her Aunt Jen sent her. It appropriately says "Miss Independent" on the front of the dress.

On dry land, she is hitting speeds comparable to a half-run. Frank caught her rounding a corner this morning at top speed and she nearly took him down. Instead, she looked up with her devilish grin and then took off again. Something else new she is doing is trying to share things with us. She will try to feed me food from her tray, or she will bring me books to read. I am totally in love with this stage. Most nights we just sit and watch her play and listen to all of the crazy things that she babbles about. She is learning new sounds every day, it seems so I think we may be on the verge of a true first word - other than mama or dada.

To celebrate the 4th we went to the local Melissa festivities because we heard there would be a petting zoo. It was insanely hot outside though so we only stayed for about 30 minutes. The petting zoo had lots of little animals, but Allison was too young to be let loose in the pen. A lady picked up a rabbit for her to pet, but she wasn't to sure about that. She pointed at it, and was done. We also ran into our friends Marcus and Tricia with their son Malaki who is about 3 months younger than Allison. They looked so cute decked out in their red, white, and blue. Other than in these pictures, Allison was running around outside getting into everything within reach. Here are some more pictures!

Trying to stay hydrated with some apple juice!

Some of the animals at the petting zoo

My little girl and my very good looking husband.

She loves her daddy!

Greeting Malaki and Tricia

Cute kiddos!

Couldn't resist just one more!

A New Phase

2009-06-22T13:57:00.012-06:00

Since we are about to enter a new month, it seems like time to update you on Allison. She has changed so much in my eyes even since her birthday just a few weeks ago.

Frank and I decided that we have recently entered a new phase with Allison. It literally seems like she changed from a baby to a little girl over night, and it all started with her walking. Even though she has been able to walk for a few weeks, it wasn't until last Thursday that she finally decided to give up crawling. Thursday night we taped her walking around the house for about 15 minutes, and we were both amazed because before then she hadn't walked much more than across the living room. When did she learn that?? She was sooo proud of herself, too. She walked anywhere she could get to just because she could. She has only picked up speed since then. I think she'll be at a run in another week. I can't think of many things much cuter than the way she walks. I love the way she very deliberately picks up her feet, the way she sticks her chest out to balance, and how she likes to take things with her when she walks because it's something she couldn't do before! She always has her lamb in one hand, and either a book or a favorite toy in the other (or sometimes Maggie's favorite toy).

Allison is also starting to communicate more with me. She still doesn't talk, but she is just now learning to point at things that she wants. Every time she points at something to show me she says 'dat!'. I don't know what that means, but I believe the closest translation is 'that!'. She has a couple of words that are real words, but just baby babble to her. She says 'yeah' and 'wow' a lot - wow is said with much enthusiasm. Today she revealed another new babble word that unfortunately sounds very much like the bad word for 'poop'. Frank and I don't use that language, so I'm not worried about it sticking, but I had to laugh when she said it because the first time I heard her say it was when I was changing her dirty diaper. Ha!

This is fun - she just got her fourth tooth today! I'm so ready for some more of those to come in so she can eat more foods!! We are entering a time where I want to give her more and more table foods, but I have to hold back on so many things because she doesn't have enough teeth to chew! I'm still buying some of her veggies in the baby food tubs, and I'm so tired of those! I can't wait for the days when I can just make her a sandwich and fruit for lunch instead of having to get very creative with mushy foods. Not much longer, I hope!

What else? She is now mainly using her right hand! We were so sure she was going to be a lefty, but I guess she had other plans. I'm sorry I don't have many pictures. Our point-and-shoot has died and I hate lugging out my huge camera for the candid pics around the house.

Here are some pictures from the weekend of her birthday party. Frank's dad, step-mom, sister, and brother-in-law all came in town for the event. We loved having everyone here to celebrate with us!

The first picture is my family because they were the first to show up at the party. My Aunt Susan (far right) surprised us and drove in from College Station for the party! We have great families!

Amy and Eric got her the cutest purple tutu!

The rest of these are from dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Just thinking about that makes me hungry!

That's all for now! It's time for bed!

I'm an Aunt!

2009-06-13T14:28:00.003-06:00

My nephew Drew was born yesterday, so I'm finally an Aunt! He is such a cutie! Since he is 7 weeks early he will need to stay in the hospital for a little while, but I'm looking forward to holding him soon. Congratulations Amy and Eric!

For all the details you can visit their blog that is linked to your left. :)

First Birthday

2009-06-05T11:26:00.012-06:00

Today is Allison's 1st Birthday! I can hardly believe that an entire year has passed since she was born! Happy Birthday, Baby!

I must say that I feel like my life has been made more complete by having Allison as my child. I always knew that Frank and I would have a family, but I never could have imagined how much we would be given in return. Weekly, Frank and I will ask each other, "Can you believe we get to be her parents?". I'm addicted to her smiles, her laugh, and her chubby fingers that she tries to stick in my mouth. I really can't get enough. Hitting this milestone is bittersweet, but I'm thankful that we have a happy and healthy little girl that we get to take care of and love. I can't wait to see what she'll learn in the next year!

Today is a busy day. We've already taken family pictures, and finished Allison's smash cake session. Frank has family flying in for the party tomorrow, and they are due to arrive around 5pm. I'm planning to clean my house and pretend it's always in great shape, but I also plan to cuddle with Allison as long as she'll let me. She only turns one once right?

Please be prepared to view probably the most pictures I have ever posted in a single blog. Her smash cake was a great success, and had too hard of a time narrowing down the pictures. Enjoy!

The rest of the pictures are from her smash cake session. I'll narrate for you since you weren't there.

"OOOh! A cake!"

"Wow, Mom - good job on those pink sprinkles!"

"...just wait till I get my hands on this!"

"This feels a little strange..."

"It tastes pretty good though."

"If I could just pick up one sprinkle..."

"I'm still not completely sure about this."

"...but since there are apparently no rules, I'll just draw on my leg."

"Mom, I told you I don't like things on my head anymore."

"This piece looks tasty."

"Mmmm. It was!"

"Just one more bite."

"Is that powdered sugar I taste in the frosting?"

"Lets see if they'll let me stick my foot in the cake."

"This is gross. I'm leaving"

"Wow, check out my toes!"

"I mean it - just one more bite."

"Dad loves this picture"

"Its ALL mine!"

I hope you've enjoyed the ridiculous amount of pictures! Her birthday party is tomorrow, so I'll post more pictures from that, too! Check back soon!

Baby Steps

2009-06-01T20:14:00.002-06:00

Frank and I have been watching Allison learn to walk for the last week, and we finally caught it on video!! I very rarely post videos on my blog, but this is a special occasion. I'm so proud of my little girl! Just 4 short days till her birthday, and she's walking!

Growing Up

2009-05-28T13:26:00.014-06:00

I certainly don't mean to leave so much time between each post, but things are busy around here! I can't point to anything specific or reoccurring, but each day gets filled up very quickly.

Allison will be turning one a week from tomorrow, and it still makes me sad. I haven't cried yet, but I think that's coming. I sent out her birthday invitations this week, and I'm making all of the party plans. It's a small party, but the planning keeps me distracted enough not to think about her growing up.

I've noticed some changes in her lately that I don't like, and I attribute it to her getting older and wiser, as well as finally realizing her true potential as a fallen sinner. :) She has begun to follow me around the house crying because she wants me to hold her all day. I don't know where this is coming from because that has NEVER been a habit of mine.

She is also testing the boundaries of how far she can push the "no touch" rule. Frank and I decided not to baby proof our house (other than cabinet and light switch proofing) because we wanted her to have these lessons. She definitely understands what 'no touch' means, but she will eye me and put one finger on something she knows isn't hers! When that doesn't work, she'll touch the same object with a toy because that isn't actually HER touching it. Can you believe her?? I've tried a myriad of things to 'punish' her for these lapses in judgement, and so far swatting her on the back of her thigh is the only punishment that doesn't elicit a laugh and then turns the punishment into a game.

We found out a few weeks ago that Allison really likes apples. She still only has her bottom two teeth (yes, believe it or not) so I was surprised at how well she could eat a sliced apple. She'll work on one slice for about 15 minutes and eats most of it. I got some pictures of her eating it last time. Look at those big brown eyes!!

We are still working on walking, but she is not that close yet to having down a repeatable technique. When we set her up to walk she leans forward like she would if she were pushing her walking toy. Obviously that does nothing for her balance. I'm going to put up her walking toy, though, so she can learn some new walking habits.

We took her swimming for the first time at the community pool on Memorial day. The water was definitely colder than I prefer, but we had fun. We started out in the "big pool" with Allison in her raft, but ended up letting her play in the kiddie pool that is only 1' deep. She had fun for most of it, but she never liked her head under water. The first time she went under Frank dunked her intentionally and she came up sputtering and choking. Whoops. The next three times she fell in the kiddie pool and we let her face get wet again just so she could learn, and we had the same results. By the fourth time she was crying and ready to go home. Mean parents, I know.
We took a picture of her with each of us, but neither of us want to be on a blog in our swim gear, so you will have to be satisfied with pictures of her at home wearing her swimsuit.

One of Allison's favorite games is peek-a-boo. Frank and I will hide behind anything and pop out and yell 'boo!'. She thinks it's SO funny. Last weekend she was wearing a dress, and I was using that to play the game with her as she laid on the floor. I would pull up her dress and hide behind it and then pull it down real quick. Again - hilarious to a one year old. So my smart kid figures out that she can play this, too. She grabs the bottom of her dress and raises it enough to hid her face and then drops it quickly while squealing at the same time! She really gets it! We probably played that round for 10 minutes. I wish I had gotten it on camera. She was so proud of herself!

Finally, Allison hates things on her head now - including bows. She pulls them off immediately, so if I need her to wear one for a picture I have to distract her for a while to make her forget that she's got it on. She never forgets for long, though. Give her about 20 minutes and she'll be feeling around on her head to pull it off. I guess this means no birthday hat! Sad!

That's all for now. I'll of course post something next week about her party. Check back soon!

Sick Together

2009-05-13T06:23:00.003-06:00

Baby Allison turned 11 months over a week ago now, and we broke our tradition of monthly pictures! That day, Allison had a runny nose and it was raining and foggy. The next day it was pouring outside and she was feeling even worse. The story continues in the same fashion for a few days, and by the weekend she was on antibiotics and I was sick as well. We are both STILL fighting this nasty cold! We've spent the last couple of days in the house bumming in our PJs.

One good thing does come from Allison being sick - she lets me hold her! A couple of days ago I was sitting on the couch watching something on TV and she crawled over to me wanting to be picked up. This usually means that she wants me to hang on to her while she wreaks havoc on everything around me, but this time she sat there and leaned her head on my chest! I pulled her close and rocked her, and she just cuddled up to me and sucked her thumb. She must have sat there for over ten minutes! I was truly in heaven!! Since then she's continued to want to be cuddled, and I'm hoping she learns to like it enough to keep it up once she feels better.

We are now just three weeks away from her birthday, and I have to say that I never thought she'd grow up. It can happen to other people's kids, but not mine. We are getting so close that I am forced to give serious thought to the plans for her party, and I need to send out invitations very soon. It makes me sad, but it's also so fun to watch her change. Ever day she displays new parts of her personality that bring never ending joy to Frank and I.

Here are some of the new things she's up to.

1. She is fluent in opening cabinet doors. I found her quietly taking all of my cleaning products out of the cabinet under my kitchen sink this morning. yay! I'm making a trip out tonight to purchase baby proofing stuff!

2.She is still not interested in walking, even though I fully believe she could if she wanted to. She would much rather crawl around - even bear crawl! I'm ok with her putting that off though because she does an adorable strut when she crawls that I will miss. If you can picture as much bounce, sway, and attitude as possible you will see her crawling technique. I have no idea where she got her style, but it's hilarious!

3. She loves food. It doesn't matter what it is - she wants some.

4. Whenever I use the vacuum or my hair dryer around her she yells as loud as she can to compete with the noise level. She thinks it's big fun!

5. She lets you know when she's ready for a nap. I was in her room this morning putting away laundry and she crawled to her crib and held on to the bars crying. I put her in there and she cuddled up with her lamb and waited for me to finish my chore. Five minutes later she was asleep.

6. In the last 2 weeks she has started being more apprehensive about strangers. She will no longer go willingly to our neighbors, and she definitely didn't want to go to the nice lady at the church nursery. She doesn't cry when she's handed off, but I think that's probably in our future.

7. She recently learned to wave 'bye-bye'. She doesn't actually wave, but she holds her arm in the air and babbles to us before heading off down the hallway.

8. She just switched over to her 12 month PJs. I tried them on her sure that they would be too big and they fit!! I was a little sad, but she looked so cute!

The pictures below are are her in her first 'big girl pjs' cuddling with her fat sheep in the living room. Doesn't she look huge??

DTS Grad

2009-05-10T16:22:00.008-06:00

My brother-in-law Eric graduated from DTS yesterday, and the whole family showed up to celebrate! Eric spent 5 years taking classes to complete his Masters of Theology - including Greek and Hebrew (ouch!). Amy threw him a graduation party yesterday afternoon, complete with a HUGE tray of nuggets from Chick-fil-a. If you know Eric, that is very fitting. Congratulations, Eric - we can't wait to see where you go from here!

Walking Tall

2009-04-22T07:00:00.005-06:00

I think sometimes as mom's we end up putting our children in boxes, and deciding for them what they can and can not do. Simply by spending a lot of time with Allison I feel qualified to determine her skills even before she's tried them out.

On Easter Sunday Kyle and Andrea stopped by, and while I was doing dishes Kyle was playing with Allison in the living room. I heard him mention her trying to walk, and then noticed him getting out her walking toy. "She can't do that yet", I told him. I went on to explain that she has hardly any interest in walking, and that if you set her up on that walking toy she will promptly lean on it (causing it to roll forward) and then bump her head on the handle.

I was ignored, and Allison was set up behind her toy and asked to come toward Frank. Sure enough, my baby started taking steps and was able to walk directly to him! I was in shock, but happy to be proven wrong. I got her on tape that day "walking" with her toy. Since then she has picked up speed and now she will go find her toy, climb up it, and take off!

She doesn't steer very well, which is understandable since the wheels only go straight. I walk along with her and readjust her direction when she needs it. If she ever gets enough confidence to let go, I think she'll be walking by her birthday! Anyway, from all this I've learned to let her try things even if I "know" she can't do them. It makes for a nice surprise when I'm wrong. I'm so proud of my baby!

My Fat Tree

2009-04-16T13:22:00.006-06:00

I haven't had a chance to post as often as I would like lately, and I feel like I've missed sharing some of Allison's moments. I don't necessarily share them for your enjoyment, but more to help me remember. You forget the little things among the big ones, and I want to capture as much as I can.

One of the things that Frank and I laugh about the most regarding Allison is how much she hates being cuddled. She has to be REALLY tired to lay her head down on your shoulder or allow you to cradle and rock her. I want her to crawl into my arms and just let me love her so bad, but that's just not going to happen. Frank loves the irony here because I'm even more anti-mushy than she is, yet I want the one thing from her that I refuse to give.

Before we had Allison, Frank and I were talking on IM while we were at work. Somehow we got on the subject of my "anti-mushiness" and Frank told me to "put my quills down". I knew he was trying to call me a porcupine, but I didn't know how to spell it so I used my phonics and got "porkypine" - as in a "fat tree." lol. Anyway, that term stuck and I've been a fat tree (instead of porcupine) ever since.

Now I've got my own fat tree, and it's not so much fun. It's not as easy to be on this side of the quills! I really hope she'll grow out of this stage, but I'm not so sure. My mom says I had the same temperament as a child and Frank will tell you that it stuck.

Other things about Allison.

I've mentioned before that she loves music, but she now dances to it! We were watching American Idol this week and she had pulled herself up to get a better look at the tv and was standing at the couch watching with us, and anytime someone sang she started bouncing up and down and making noise as though she were trying to sing along. She does that with any toys that have music too.

She understands the phrase "show me how you bounce". When you tell her that she'll start kicking her legs at the same time very quickly. It's so cute!

She can say 'da da' and 'mama', but we don't think either mean anything to her. Mama usually comes out while she's eating as in "Mmmmmm-aaaa Ma". Although at other times she'll crawl in my direction, look right at me and say it very clearly. We're pretty sure she's behind linguistically. That's ok, though. Frank's Dad jokes that he thought Frank was retarded as a baby, and look how he turned out. LOL.

Books are her favorite toys. She loves to sit alone and turn pages while "reading" to herself. I've read them to her so often that I have a few of them memorized. I know she recognizes the words in the book because I can say "Hello, sheep in the pen. Hello, Duck. Hello, Hen." and she will go get THAT book. I'm not at all exaggerating. She's a genius.

She's not that interested in walking. When I try and stand her up and get her to come to me she implements her "noodle legs" and then crawls to me. I think she realizes that she has some good speed at crawling and sees learning to walk as a hindrance to her exploring. She has a push toy that she can kind of walk behind. She leans on it heavily so I have to hold it to keep her from falling on her face.

That's all for now because she just woke up from her nap! The pictures are of her at the park last week! Daddy got to go with us for the first time! She loves that swing! Check out her Keds!! (Thanks Grandma!)

Baby Dedication

2009-04-07T14:13:00.005-06:00

Two Sundays ago Frank and I joined a few other parents in dedicating our little one to the church. We do not personally believe in infant baptism, but this is the Baptist equivalent. It's basically stating that we as parents promise to raise our child in church and teach her Biblical principles.

We were asked to choose a verse for the dedication and we selected Deuteronomy 6:5-9.

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (NIV)

Allison was given a certificate and a really cute pink Bible from the church that has been put in her box of baby keepsakes.

Ten Months!

2009-04-06T16:23:00.012-06:00

Yes, I know this is late, but I did actually take these pictures yesterday. However, I took them in the evening and by the time I got Cranky to bed it was too late to blog. Sorry, Serra! :)

The shoot didn't go very well, because I live in Texas so therefore of COURSE it was cold and windy in April. I wasn't about to put her in winter clothes though, and my neighbors felt sorry for her and insisted that she wear the colorful leggings which actually ended up being really cute in the pictures. Allison did not want to be there. She was tired, cold, and mad that I wouldn't let her lick my reflector.

Here are the ones where I got a decent expression.

And here is how she looked in the other 100 or so pictures I took... (lol)

Ok, she just woke up from her nap so I don't have time to elaborate any more!

Allison Update

2009-03-31T12:28:00.010-06:00

I know everyone pretty much visits my blog to get their Allison fix and I have been neglecting my responsibility of posting more pictures of her than you care to see. She's changing every day, so I have a lot of new things to share.

These first pictures were taken in early February and I never got around to posting them. Right after she got her first two teeth she changed her smile to what we called "Scrunchy Face" - I think she did this to show off her teeth. She doesn't do it anymore so I'm glad I got a couple of them on camera. About that time she also learned how to feed herself small things like Cheerios. Since then she's been eating dinner with us every night and I feed her whatever we're having in small pieces. She loves bread, chicken, potatoes, veggies, and rice. She'll try anything and usually likes it all. We also have picnics on the floor while I eat breakfast and lunch. She has learned to expect to be part of meals so I try to share with her whenever I can.

Here are some pictures of Allison with her best friend Ellie (our neighbors daughter). We got them matching t-shirts for St. Patrick's Day. They were so cute!

I love this picture of her sleeping. This is pretty much how I find her most of the time, but Frank was the one brave enough to risk the picture. He was going to pay if she woke up!

Another thing we can thank Frank for is her love of door stoppers. In the evening you can hear the sounds of the vibrating springs echoing through the house because he encourages her fascination with them. Here she is with one right outside our kitchen.

This next picture is hard to see, but it's hilarious. One day last week I was laying in bed reading while she napped, and she woke up happy and was content to play in her crib, so I decided I could probably get away with finishing the chapter I was reading. All the sudden I look over at the monitor and see a huge face looking right at me. It had finally happened - she found the camera we put on her crib. I didn't think she could reach it so I went and got my camera to get a picture of her face in the monitor. Right after I get my picture I see a hand coming at the monitor and it's getting bigger and bigger. I ran for her room and as I rounded the corner to her hallway I heard the crash. :) Strange thing is that she has forgotten all about the camera and we haven't had any more incidents.

Allison and Maggie are still buddies. Since Allison has become mobile she is all over poor Maggie, and Maggie just takes it. I've seen Allison pull out large chunks of hair, poke her in the eye, and pull too hard on her ears, but Maggie just licks her.

Finally, Allison is completely mobile minus all out walking. She can crawl almost as fast as I can walk and she likes to follow me from room to room. She also does laps around the kitchen. She pulls up on everything and can stand on her own once shes on her feet. She doesn't try to walk much yet, but I don't think it's too far off. One of her favorite things to pull up on is the dishwasher. I think she likes her slight reflection. Isn't she cute in her brown pants??

That's about all for now, so I'll leave you with the most recent pictures of her - from today! Correct me if I'm wrong but she is totally starting to look like me. :)