12 Weeks Pregnant with C2

Today I am officially 12 weeks pregnant with Baby C2. To start from the beginning, we found out we were pregnant on June 5, 2012. At the time I was 5 weeks pregnant. I had to do the "New Parent briefing" again before I could get my first appointment date, so a week later I did that. Then two weeks after that "briefing" we had our first appointment with our first ultrasound. We took Baby A with us and at the time she had not mastered the word baby (Now, she definitely has!). She kept pointing to the screen saying, "Ba-ba, Ba-ba". It was beyond cute. Baby was measuring a tad smaller than we had expected, by 2 weeks just like with Baby A. They changed our due date from January 23 to February 7, 2013.

As far as symptoms, there is nothing really there other than some nausea here and there, exhaustion from chasing a toddler around all day, motion sickness when in a car, and a big ole round belly! Yesterday, I had a friend tell me I popped already. I can post a picture soon. I didn't have many symptoms with Baby A either. My biggest one was the smell of chicken, but this time it is not bothering me at all. I can tell that food tastes change from day to day, definitely. I always hated that. But other than that, it is pretty easy going and enjoyable (for now).

Baby A has been such a good sport. At first she started being really demanding and needy, which is SO unlike her. That is actually one of the reasons I decided to test. She got out of that after two weeks, and now she is so sweet about "new baby". She always wants to snuggle my belly. She gives it kisses. And she "tells secrets" with new baby all the time. She's a little sweetheart!

Next post will be about breastfeeding Baby A. I've had a few comments about that, and I never updated so I will do that one next!

Thank you!

Thank you for all the congratulations and well wishes during this time of our lives. We are super excited, and everything just seems to be falling into place. I have been looking for houses and areas to live in. I have even started looking at Italian schools for Baby A. They won't accept her until she is 3 years old, but I thought I could never start too early. I only want her to go part time until she starts Kindergarten because, after all, I will continue to be a stay at home wife and mommy during our time in Italy.

I have also already started planning new trips. We have nothing set in stone, but we have a list of adventures that we would love to get through during our stay in Italy. After all, we never know where we will be sent next.

Thinking about all the fun things we have already done here really excited me to do even more.

Not sure if any of your remember back last October when we went to Wales. I was 15-16 weeks pregnant with Baby A, and we climbed Snowdon. It took us 8 hours, but we had such a fun time. Even the pup did it with us. Well, I have decided I wanted to do it again with this baby. So as soon as we get to Italy, we are on a hunt for a mountain to climb. We hear there are several in the area. We still haven't been able to take Baby A on a nice long hike. We have taken her to some small ones, like the one in Germany. But nothing large and super duper awesome! Our plan is to do just that.

We also found the largest amusement park. They say it's like the "Italian Disney". Not sure what that means exactly, but we thought we could take A there before the new baby arrives as her last big adventure as an only child.

We have less than 2 weeks until our house gets picked up, so that is what we have been spending our weekends and evenings working on. It's such an exciting time in our lives!

What did you get from this post? It was a rambler. See what happens when you don't blog for so long and feel like you need to catch up. Then you have no idea where to start with catching up and you get all overwhelmed and frustrated. Well, I'm not frustrated but I am overwhelmed because there is so  much I want to discuss! :)

Until next time...

Busy And Announcement!

Life has obviously been super busy. I think it's time that I catch up on the everyday life adventures. Then I can (as I have time) go back and add the moments that I was hoping to do before these updates. This will be our last few months in a nutshell.

On April 5, 2012, Baby A turned 1 years old. Her party was fantastic, and my family was here to visit. They stayed for two weeks, and we went sightseeing and did all the fun stuff that we do while family is around. Once they left, life went back to normal.

Mr. Man works long hours with his new job. We had just gotten orders out of cycle (to Italy), so he was having to do the briefings and meetings and such to make it happen in such short notice.

Then came the time that we would find out if he made Tech or not. Just one week before finding out, we got some exciting news.

We ARE pregnant with Baby C2!! I know. I should have announced this forever ago, but I wanted to make it a memorable post that I would look back on, but it looks like life has other plans in store for us.

A week later we found out that Mr. Man missed Tech by just a few short points.

A week later I found out I passed my teacher's certificate test with flying colors! I was able to send my records to the Louisiana Department of Education.

In between then and now, it has been appointments after appointments. PCSing, well checkups for Baby A, allergy appointments for Baby A (allergic to egg), and so forth.

We are two weeks away from packing up our house. 3 weeks away from taking our leave in Louisiana before heading to Italy. And 50 days away from starting our journey to Italy.

This is where we are at the moment. Life continues to be busy and hectic, but it is just that time of year with PCSing and Summer time all in one.

Hopefully I can break some of this up into different posts. We also recently went to a really nice air show right outside of Cambridge. It was amazing. Baby A LOVED it! Lots of pictures from that.

Baby A also models now for some small town boutiques, and she has been featured in a magazine twice already. This is the route I chose over pageants because pageants (to me) have gotten a bit out of hand. I would love to show ya'll some of her photos when I get the chance.

I also have decided that I want to do more studying in photography. After taking her pictures and pictures for other people, I have found that it is a passion of mine. Along with fitness... so I plan on going back to school to get a personal trainer certificate after Baby #2 arrives, and take some mentorships for photographing when I get settled in Italy.

That's where we are at. I am happy to say that things are great! Everyone is excited and happy over our upcoming adventure.

Until next time...

1 Year Pictures of Baby A

12 Month = 1 Year

Baby A is almost 15 months old. I don't want anyone to get confused by the updates. I wanted to show her birthday party pictures and her one year pictures since I did some of the planning process through my blog.

When Arianna turned 12 months, we through her a small birthday party since we had family in. The theme was "Pink Poodle in Paris" because we originally planned on taking her to DisneyLand Paris and Belgium for her first taste of chocolate. However, once we found out we were moving to Italy, we decided to not take that trip and save it for when she was a bit older since we would be spending another 4 years overseas.

Here are a few pictures from the party.

As you can see, we ended up keeping it simple. It was rainy that day, so we only got to enjoy the bouncy castle for about 30 minutes. We had a few friends show up and my family. It turned out to be a nice day.

I will do the 1 year pictures next!

Happy 4th of July! (This is a scheduled post.)

Life Update

Things have been so hectic lately. I finally have some time to sit down and write a blog post. It has been over a month since I have posted anything here. I never even showed Baby A's birthday party, her 1 year pictures, and there has been so much more going on since then. She is a busy body and all over the place. She is almost 15 months old. I will write more updates now since I have some time. 

We are also still working on our PCS. As of right now, we will leave here the middle of August. We will go to Louisiana (our home town) for 3 weeks, then back to the UK to pick up the dog and drive to Aviano, Italy. We are beyond excited about that. Which reminds me.... my husband needs to work on getting himself an international driver's license. 

There has been so much going on. We are in a new adventure, new world. We just celebrated 6 years of marriage and I had Mr. Man show me his work portal so I could see how many days he has been TDY, how many deployments he had been on, and so forth. It was fun to look back and see all that we have done and accomplished in these 6 years. 

So, I know this is a bit boring. Not much to say. I really want to break everything down with a more broad explanation of each area and what is going on in our lives now. So much has changed in such a short amount of time, and I can't wait to share it with all of you! 

A Month? Really?

It has been a WHOLE month since my last post, over a month. Really? Where has time gone, what has been going on? How did this happen?!

So life has obviously been busy and hectic. We have been being parents, doing school work, working, taking small breaks, celebrating Baby A's first birthday, and spending time with family. Over the last few weeks A LOT has happened, many new things.

Being a parent, as many of you know, is a busy job in itself. As a military wife, it is even busier. I have had to have appointments for myself and Baby A to get ready for PCSing, plus one year appointments, dental appointments, and all the other fun things that must happen in order to PCS. Baby A is so active and such a busy body that she just wantst o be outside, in rain or shine, and constantly on the go. I try to give her just that because I love that she doesn't watch TV or play on games all day. She loves to play in the water, at the park, and chase the birds. It adds for way more excitement and fun! We do spend a lot of our time outside playing until recently. It's been raining every day and all day for the past week.

Baby A is 12 months. Can you believe how fast time has gone? I mean seriously, it was like just yesterday we were sending Mr. Man off to Korea. It just doesn't seem like a full year has passed us by. But reality strikes... and it has. We had family come into town last week, and they left this morning. During their stay, we threw Baby A a small, but very fun, birthday party. Seriously, this little lady is spoiled. The family brought a whole extra suitcase of stuff just for her. From toys to clothes. Our house is overloaded, but I couldn't be any happier. I will post pictures of the party and do a whole separate post on the event.

Mr. Man and I are both in school. He decided to try and knock out his last two classes before we PCS this summer. I thought it would be a great idea.... but I really wasn't thinking. I am doubled up on classes, and want to stay that way so I can get my Master's while in Italy. But doing that, being a Mom, and trying to be crafty really puts a lot on my plate. But it is worth it and we are making it work.

I will do a 12 month update on Baby A, too. She has learned so much in the last week with new people around, and she is simply amazing. So smart! She says so many words now, and plays so many games. She loves to dance, loves hair bows and sunglasses, and loves to play with tutus. But her favorite toys are boats, race cars, and dump trucks. She is one well rounded little lady! :)

So here's an update. We are alive. All is well. Just busy. Hope everyone is doing good and enjoying this time of year!