Experimenting...

I ordered a new lens for my camera, based on the experience of my friend Kim, so I have been taking random Rachel pictures to see if I can figure it out. However, Rachel rarely looks at me when I have the camera out, so I don't know how impressive they are.

In other news, I am starting to feel Baby Bean moving around in there. I couldn't tell if it was baby or gas at first, but tonight it was definitely Baby Bean. I am excited to feel that connection already! It will be odd going through the pregnancy without knowing the gender this time -- not being able to call Baby by his/her name. But I can't change my mind because I really want to experience that moment of surprise when he/she comes into this world.

12 weeks down, 28 weeks to go!

I think the first trimester might be the worst trimester in pregnancy. Some women will tell you the third trimester is the worst, because of the swelling, the big belly, the discomfort, the contractions....but I have to say that none of that compared to the my first trimesters. The first 5 weeks are pretty much uneventful for me. I find out I am pregnant and then hope that everything is okay as I anxiously await my first appointment with the OB/GYN. Around week 6, the morning sickness kicks in, which for me consists of constant, ravaging hunger. With Rachel, it was a bit of a surprise, but I learned to carry a granola bar with me at all times, and I was good to go. With this child, I found myself waking up at all hours of the night, STARVING. I would go downstairs and eat a piece of toast and drink some milk, only to find myself waking a couple of hours later STARVING again. I also find myself falling asleep at 8 o'clock every night, but I never feel like I have slept well by morning. I also HATE pre-natal vitamins. They make me nauseated beyond belief.
Now that I am almost a third of the way through my pregnancy, the hormones seem to have balanced out, and I am getting back to a better place. I feel queasy first thing in the morning and after I dinner every night, but even those moments are getting easier to handle.
And with all the crazy eating I have had to do to keep this baby happy, I only gained about 3 pounds at the doctor between my first and second appointments, and the doctor didn't give me a hard time about my weight for once. I am really struggling to be healthier with this pregnancy, which is difficult when you have annoying cravings for tacos and french fries! My goal is no more than 30 pounds, but it would be better to stay around 25, if I can. The baby was healthy at the 12-week check, with a heart rate of 154 bpm. The doctor asked Rachel if she wanted to listen to her brother or sister's heartbeat and she flatly replied, "No."
Oh well, we'll get there.
My energy is starting to come back a little bit, and I hope to get to the gym soon. I aim to be one of those crazy women with the huge bellies going nuts on the elliptical machine. =)
I don't have a feeling about the gender one way or another, but I am excited to start thinking of names in the coming months.
I would also like to send out a HUGE congratulations to my friend Carie Adams and her husband, who welcomed their daughter Norah Lane on January 19th. She is absolutely gorgeous, and I am very happy for all of them. I can't wait to hear all about her!
Hopefully next blog I will be feeling perfect again. The second trimester is definitely my favorite!

Big Girl Bedroom

It took us about 4 months of gradual work, but we finally got Rachel moved into her big girl bedroom last week. The transition was pretty seamless. She slept straight through the night the very first night she slept in her new room. She seems to think she isn't supposed to get out of bed without us, which makes me feel better that she won't be wandering around the house in the dark.

All we have left to do is some of the detail work in painting stencils on the wall. My brother designed some flower and bug stencils for us to use on the walls, and I need to get the paint matched against the bedding, and we will paint those on the walls. I also have some of the wall phrases that a friend gave to us when Rachel was born, and I have been saving them for her more permanent room. And obviously some window dressings. But this is the incredible transformation from a blue room with airplanes to a pink room with flowers and butterflies!

Happy Holidays!

I haven't blogged since we made our major announcement, so in case you don't know, The Wood family is expecting a new member in July 2011! We are NOT finding out the gender until the baby is born, so until then, we will affectionately refer to him/her as Baby Bean. My pregnancy has been quite different from the last one so far. The morning sickness was vicious at first, but it leveled out and has been far more predictable since. So long as I keep the baby fed, it doesn't bother me much. I also am surprised that with as much as I have been eating, and as big as my stomach is already swelling, I haven't gained much weight. I have basically gained back what I lost when I started Weight Watchers a few weeks prior to getting pregnant. I am aiming for a lower weight gain this time, but we will see where Baby Bean takes me!

That was the major news from November, although we did have a lovely holiday season all around.

Winter came early to Ohio, which I love. Though my dear friend Kim isn't too fond of the white stuff, I enjoy the 3-4 months a year where I can bundle up and see the beautiful snow on the ground out there. I am by no means a hot weather person. It will be interesting to see how I do with this pregnancy, which goes much farther into summer than I did with Rachel.

Rachel actually began to understand Christmas this year, though I had a difficult time explaining the difference between Santa and Jesus. The two seemed to intermingle in my Christmas talk. She loves the lights and the decorations, and she now requests Christmas songs with her normal lullabies (which include Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; the Alphabet Song; the OSU fight song; and Carmen Ohio). She had a great Christmas overall. Santa brought her a lot of learning games, a new Toy Story pull-out couch/bed, a motorized Quad (that goes a whopping 2 mph), and some dress-up clothes. She also got a lot of stuff for her new room, which I am happy to say is almost finished. We have her bed in there now, and she has been sleeping in there the last couple of nights, with no major episodes. The coolest "decoration" she received for her room was a new aquarium with two goldfish, which she decided to name "Dora" and "Boots."

Duane and I both have been off this week with Rachel, and we have really enjoyed the extra time with her. Duane especially enjoyed being able to take her to the doctor with me on Tuesday for her 6-month check-up. She went from the 10th percentile in weight to the 50th! She now weighs 29 pounds and is 34 inches tall. The doctor was really impressed that she knows all her letters and colors. In the car yesterday, I was amazed to hear her counting from 1 to 9...in SPANISH!

For NYE, we decided to stay in and relax. We had the hooplah last year, and although it was fun, it seemed more appropriate this year to kick back and be lazy without all the fuss. Next year we are trying to organize something kid-friendly, since most of our friends will have two kids by that time!

Happy 2011 to everyone! I am really looking forward to a new year!

Scenes from a Two-Year-Old's Life

Rachel got ahold of my small digital camera a couple weeks ago, and it has become her favorite hobby to take pictures of everyone and everything. It is actually really cute watching her, because she will tell you to smile or say cheese, and yet the camera is pointing in the complete opposite direction from you as she takes the picture. Sometimes I try to dive into the picture at the last second so she will get a picture of me, but she usually dives when I dive, so that hasn't worked out too well!

In addition to that hobby, Rachel started her gymnastics last Thursday. For the first week, it was a challenge getting her to understand that she needed to listen to the instructions and do the activities that the instructor was telling her to do. With all of the different activities in the gym, she wanted to do what she wanted to do -- not what the instructor wanted her to do! However, when I took her back the second week (this Thursday), she did SO much better at listening and following instructions. She still gets a bit restless, of course, as most 2-year-olds do when being asked to follow instructions, but I was very happy with how she did. She loves to do anything involving flips and sommersaults. If she seems to continue to enjoy it throughout the next 5 weeks, I will probably sign her up for another session in January, since the weather will still be cold and she will need a good outlet for her energy. I also realized I haven't had many pictures with Rachel lately, so I tried to snap a quick one with her, but she wasn't happy I borrowed "HER" camera.

Looks like we have some ideas for Santa Claus already!!

Speaking of the big guy, I was trying to explain God and Baby Jesus to Rachel yesterday to prepare her for the holiday season. Duane and I really excited this year, because she seems to be able to understand more abstract concepts now, so we are excited to watch her open her presents and realize what she got! However, I don't want the meaning of the holidays to be completely lost on her, so I have been trying to explain the extremely abstract concept of God to her. Not much luck there, but she very much enjoys the choir singing in church, and I am really excited to teach her some Christmas carols!

Today, I am headed to my second Buckeye game of the season with my mommy! We are going down to do a bit of pre-game drinking and then going to cheer on our Buckeyes! College GameDay is down at the 'Shoe this week, so it will be a madhouse, but I am really looking forward to it!!

October!!

I love October. Not quite as much as I like November and December, but it sure beats August and September. I am definitely a fan of the cooler weather, and even though I never particularly cared for Halloween (at least not since I turned old enough to stop trick-or-treating), I am starting to enjoy shopping for pumpkins, buying costumes for Rachel, and all the fun stuff that comes with this very odd holiday.

Duane bought a 50 cc dirt bike from a friend of his, and he took Rachel for a ride a couple of weeks ago. She LOVES it. She is definitely her father's daughter. We had to go out and buy her a Dora the Explorer helmet because whenever Duane has that thing out, she wants to be on it with him. Duane is determined to get her into road racing.

This weekend, we went to Pigeon Roost Farm to take Rachel pumpkin shopping. This was our second attempt, but it was definitely a beautiful day to go. It was cool, but not cold, and the sun was shining. Rachel seemed to enjoy all the pumpkins, but she especially loved the animals. She stared at the billy goats for a long time, and I think we will have to take her back so she can go through the fun center and play on all the slides and interact with some more animals.

This week, I will continue working too much (freelance) and my best friend is having her second son on Monday!! I am taking Tuesday off to visit her in the hospital, and then Friday is another day off to go to the Circleville Pumpkin Show! I remember going to the Pumpkin Show when I was pregnant with Rachel. I was so excited to think that one day I would be taking my children to the Pumpkin Show and sharing the excitement of Fall with them. I hope she enjoys it!

We also get our new carpet in the next week or so! We ordered new carpet for Rachel's new room (pictures to come soon!) and our family room, which has had the same dirty white Berber carpet for far too long. Given the fact that we have a messy child and a dog that tends to pee a lot, we ordered longer shag carpet to hide the messes. I am so excited to be getting some of our house projects done!

MY GIRL!

From the moment I found out I was having a daughter, I wondered what I would do when her hair got long enough that it would need to be styled. I am a bit bit handicapped when it comes to hair. I have just never had the skill to style my own hair. So I was a little worried about doing Rachel's. And until recently, that wasn't much of an issue, because her hair wasn't really long enough to style! But I decided a couple of weeks ago to try to put her hair in twin pigtails, so I asked her if she would like that and she agreed.

The first attempt was a challenge. The pigtails weren't even, and her hair is still too short in some spots, so she had a lot of bangs. I ended up buying a new brush for her, as well as a bottle to spray her hair and wet it down before pulling it back.

The latest attempts are pretty impressive! Rachel actually has become quite interested in styling her hair. She tells me, "I look pitty momma." I let her choose one thing at Target last Thursday because she was well-behaved, and she chose headbands. I guess her cousin Caden was fighting over those today.

And speaking of Caden, he is going to have a little sister! My sister-in-law Jen and brother-in-law Phil got confirmation yesterday that their baby is a little girl! We are so excited for Rachel to have a girl close to her age now. I have been teaching her how to say the name, and I am excited to go through all our baby clothes to see if anything will work for them.

This weekend I am looking forward to relaxing and watching football on Saturday. The weather has started to turn toward Fall weather, and I love that! There are good things in store for this Fall -- I can feel it!