My Big Kid is 4!

This is over due, but Kaylee turned 4! She's such a big kid, especially now with Hazel for comparison, but I love (mostly) every minute!  She's independent and strong willed with a mind and opinions of her own. We can have crazy conversations and discuss quite the range of topics.

The other day she told me she wants to be a Doctor Astronaut Paleontologist.  I was totally on board with that.

Her birthday was a Dancing Princess Party. She was so excited to help decorate. We had 'pearl' necklaces to give out and while only one other kid came to the party, I made sure everyone could dress up if they wanted. My parents also came to town for it and it was a great time.

Just Born

1 Year Old, her first camping trip. We went to the Olympic Peninsula and took her to Beach 1!

2 Years Old. Studying fish flies in Michigan

3 Years Old, just moved into our house in Michigan!

4 years old, loving dress up, being outside and eating too much salt.

You can buy a kids science kit. She LOVES doing her experiments (mixing different colors of water colored with food coloring)

And she's the big sister I knew she would be. I mean that honestly. As a little kid I always thought she should have been the little sister, with how much she would hang onto the bigger kids. She needed another kid in her life. And she's taken to Hazel like Hazel has always been a part of the family. Who knows what they'll be like when they're older, but it's a perfect dynamic currently.

Even Gwyn knows that Kaylee's her kid.

Happy 8th Anniversary!

We did not get each other traditional gifts. I'm likely getting a lilac bush at some point and I bought REALLY nice steaks for dinner for us since there's no way we're going out to a nice dinner as has been tradition.  Usually this tradition also involves us discussing the State of the Marriage and future possibilities. We've agreed to rain check the discussion, especially now that we're near a Melting Pot again (the majority of our State of the Marriage Addresses have taken place at Melting Pot)

But on this day, 8 years ago, we were married* in front of our friends and family on the water in Connecticut. It was a perfect day.

All our guests and wedding party

Branford House at UCONN Avery Point. That's my brother playing the trumpet.

Our Reveal. 

My flowers were the bomb-diggity. I was not a hands on bride. I told the florist our colors and general theme and said "I'd like it to be like I went out into a field of wildflowers and collected a ton. I trust you. Surprise me." They were perfect. I don't think I could have described this exact thing and gotten it.

That attitude was how I approached wedding planning in general.

Notice the feet? I ditched the shoes VERY early on. Like before the ceremony.

So a general State of the Marriage

In 8 years we have:

Lived in 3 states (Florida, Washington and Michigan)

Had 2 kids!
Bought a horse

Bought 2 houses

Sold 1 house

Acquired 2 donkeys (and given away 1)

Had a fucking blast!

Here's to many more!

*Technically our legal marriage date is sometime around January.... shhh, neither of us remember the exact date, lol

Big sister and little sister!

We had our gender reveal party yesterday since my Mom was in town for her consulting job. I don't expect to get a baby shower but I did want to celebrate in some small way that I could organize, so gender reveal it was!  I provided all food and onesies and fabric paint to decorate, the same as I'd done for my friend Cheryl's baby shower a year ago.  Plus, for this baby we have family and friends who care about kids, unlike last time, lol, so it was nice to have a party. It was a small get together, my mom, mother in law and her husband (step father in law), sister in law and her husband and our friends with their two kids. 

My awesome cake that I ordered from a local bakery. It was only $20 and was absolutely delicious!!

Strawberry flavor for the pink!  Everyone's reaction when I lifted the slice out was just perfect! 

Decorating onesies!

Drying and 'curing'

And now individual photos of each, some have a front/back. It's such a great activity and you get some really personal touches from friends and family!

My supplies included a spray fabric paint, thick fabric markers and narrow point fabric markers and various stencils.  I had a plastic lined tablecloth to protect my table and cardboard to slide between the shirts so the paint wouldn't bleed through.

One of mine, done with the spray type paint and a stencil

Top is front, bottom is back. Made by my mom friend that I met through a reddit group when we were both pregnant with our first kids at the same time.  The paper airplane is the group's logo.

Another I made that I'm not happy with. I should have verified a good flesh tone....

Made by my friend's three year old. I love it!

Top is front, bottom is back. Husband made this one. He was aiming for geekier but couldn't condense the message, lol

My final one. It says WILD at the top

Sister in law made this one. She did an excellent job with the stenciling!

I think Kaylee made this one with help from Nana

This I know that Kaylee made with assistance from me and Nana to work the spray. She chose the colors and the stencil.

Step father in law made this one.

Top is front, bottom is back. My mom (Nana) made this one. She knows kids. LOLOLOLOL. We will forever do double takes when Babydos wears this onesie because of diaper blowouts. She nailed the color.

Sister in law's husband did this, but I did the lettering at his request.

Mother in law (Grandma) made this one. She runs. I like the idea she used with the starfish!

Top is front, bottom is back

Sister in law also did this one. She's a big MSU fan and alumna

I loved how we were able to introduce Babydos, Hazel Ophelia, to our family this way. It was a low key, low stress, no obligation kind of party for a second kid. I stressed that no one needed to bring anything in the invitation.

We had polled family at Thanksgiving to get their prediction and Boy was the majority winner for guesses (from myself and Eric too!) Our clothing choices for the party were under intense scrutiny, and the fact that even my hair elastics were both blue and pink was a cause of great distress, much to my amusement.

A day of adulting!

Spine and head, profile

Foot

Grandma (Eric's Mom) took Kaylee this morning, leaving Eric and I a blissfully childfree day. We started things off with a trip down to the hospital for the anatomy scan for Babydos! Things went well, though I do find I'm constantly comparing experiences between pregnancies. This ultrasound was much more business like and we really didn't get as many images as we did with Kaylee.

We had an excellent view of the heart beating and my placenta is nice and high, in a perfect position! So no previa for me!

Babydos was HIGHLY uncooperative. S/he had her legs crossed nearly the whole time AND had both hands up by his face, effectively blocking the awesome voldemort view. We did finally get an in between the legs shot for hopefully definitive sex announcement, which will happen Saturday, so no spoilers :P

Afterwards, we went to Buy Buy Baby and picked out the appropriate Little Sister/Little Brother onesie as well as some blank ones for our name announcement party this Saturday.

Then we headed out to one of the malls in the area and grabbed lunch at a Hibachi steakhouse, walked around the mall, and caught "The Martian" in theatres before it left. We were the only ones in the theatre, which was awesome. I had read the novel, Eric had not but had expressed significant interest. We thoroughly enjoyed our private showing and agreed it reminded us of when we lived in Florida.

We took back roads home because I was hoping to catch the local bakery before it closed but alas, it was not to be. I'll go first thing tomorrow.

Eric has been feeling a bit down about Michigan, but declared that he was feeling much better. I think we really needed this all day date. It was one of the things we were hoping to have by moving here, more child care from family and that just hasn't happened until now. It was sorely needed. We are in such good spirits for having 'us' time as a couple where we don't have to be Mom or Dad.

So now I have a party to get ready for! My mom will be flying in Thursday to do her consulting work for the textbook company in Lapeer, a nearby town. This gig was entirely random and she jumped at the chance to have someone else pay to fly her out to see me. She'll leave Sunday. It's not going to be a baby shower, I've expressly stated it's just for fun to decorate onesies and have cake and announce name and sex of Babydos. Just an excuse to have everyone get together.

But as for babydos? Kaylee is going to be thrilled!

April!

Last spring my Mom volunteered to go on the 8th grade trip to Washington DC. While there they went to the Air and Space Museum. She asked me if I wanted anything in particular since it was basically a clone of the KSC visitor center souvenir shop. She also asked if I wanted an astronaut suit for Kaylee.

I, of course, said YES!!!!.

She also bought one for an infant. She knew we were trying to conceive at the time and jumped the gun but I honestly don't mind. It meant we got to make this awesome announcement!

Goals Update

In addition to trying to conceive I've also been focused on losing weight. It's obviously a good idea in general and can help with fertility. About three months ago I started tracking my calories on MyFitnessPal. I set my goal at 2 lb/week loss and stated that I was sedentary. It gave me a daily goal of 1500 calories.

Since then, I've nearly lost 20 lb! I added in bike riding, horse riding (of course), Daily Burn cardio, and now that we're moved in, Couch to 5K (C25K). I'm on week 2 of C25k. I'm not specifically limiting myself on food, except for portions, so I'm able to treat myself once in a while so long as my calories allow for it.

Previously, I had set rewards for myself for every 20lb of weight loss. I'm revisiting that here since I'm at an award point!

20lb lost:  Go crazy purple with my hair

40 lb lost: BtB tattoo of a paper airplane (previously this was a new piercing but I'm not as thrilled as I once was )

60 lb lost: This was previously new geek shirts, but I might change it

80 lb lost:   Cross country safety vest

100lb lost: TALL BOOTS!!!!

120 lb lost: A SUPER expensive pair of show breeches, like pikeurs, or something, I dunno

140 lb lost: TBD.  I'm not sure I could get here. This would put me at 140 lb lost and I would be half the person I was, quite literally. Maybe plastic surgery to remove loose skin?


Obviously a lot of my goals are horse oriented, and not without reason. It's nearly impossible to be a fat girl in an english show world. In fact, there is no way I could even compete in cross country right now because they require competitors to wear safety vests not only to compete but also to school. This is different from when I was growing up when it was just suggested. I've got to slim down to be safe and be healthier for my horse.


So yeah, expect purple hair pictures in a bit. I still need to find a place to do it, but I'm definitely doing it.

Before Pictures of the New House!

I like to document everything and show where we came from and where we end up! So here are photos of the empty house!