January 2012

I cannot believe January is already over! I feel like we spent the first 3 weeks of it sick. We haven't been able to work on any of our goals yet for the year really. We have started going to the gym more this last week which has been great but I'm having a hard time watching what I eat at home. I need to lose weight this year. I'm dying for a 2nd baby and this feels like our one chance right now.

On another note changing Ava over to a toddler bed has gone great. No big deal now :) which makes me happy when we go to Arizona she will be able to sleep on her own twin bed and I won't have to worry.

We also took Ava to see her first movie this month :) She did great until the very end when she just wanted to clap and sing but the guys in front of us didn't love it. But it was the Muppet movie.

Here are some pictures from this month:

Big Girl Bed! Part 2

Well Ava had been in her "big girl bed" for 1 week now! The first night she got up I think 5 times before she finally fell asleep, not bad, took an extra 2 hours for bedtime. The next night she got up 1-2 times and then went to sleep. By the 3rd night she just stayed in bed but it took her about 20 minutes of chit chatter before she fell asleep...

then on the 3rd night she woke up with a fever of 102 :( so that wasn't fun. But after she was feeling better she went back to sleeping great! She goes and gets in bed now when she wants to go to bed!! Big plus she is staying in bed!

Naptime was a bit different. She hadn't been napping, her room was just too fun. But the last 2 days we have put her in a sleep sack and she has stayed in her bed and just taken a nap!!!

SO happy it turned out to be an easy transition!

Big Girl Bed!

Tonight is Ava's first night in her "big girl bed" OH wish us luck!!
We decided a month and a half ago (well at Thanksgiving) that it was getting close to time. She weighs over 32 pounds now and lifting her out of her crib has been causing my back pain to be excruciating. We ordered the little toddler rail for her bed since it was 50% off on amazon and decided around new years after family had left we would give it a go.
Well new years came and went and since Ava and I both got sick we didn't change her bed over. Since we decided we are heading to AZ in a few weeks I realized I either needed to switch her now or buy some sort of "toddler tent bed" for our trip because shes way too big (tall and heavy) for her pack n play, it was a stretch to use it 6 months ago but now we definitely can't use it.
We did our usual bedtime routine (after I spent over an hour setting up her bed and baby proofing the room) and got her to bed around 7:30 (2 hours ago)... She stayed in her bed for 50 minutes! I thought we were home free but since then in the last hour shes gotten up 4 or 5 times and came to the door trying to open it. We have the baby monitor on as well. I hope we some how get some sleep tonight and we figure this thing out. I'm giving it a few nights and if it doesn't work we are going back to the crib.

Arizona!!

I am beyond excited! We have decided to come to Arizona for Ava's 2nd birthday!! We weren't going to come down again till the last week of May but we talked and I felt that was just too long! By March it will already have been 7 months since our last visit.

Ava and I are driving down on the 5th and Dan is flying down on the 14th. Ava's birthday is the 15th and we are having her party on the 17th and all drive back together on the 19th! I hope it will be a fun filled 2 weeks :)

Asher's Baby Shower

Lisa was the mastermind of this baby shower (for Caroline and Asher) and boy did she do an awesome job!!! She designed everything, down to the invitations and it was beautiful! I was hoping to help a LOT more than I did because I was sick during the week of the shower :( But I did take these photos to remember the shower by :)
I cannot wait for Asher to get here! He is due on Feb 22nd!! Just a little more than 6 weeks max till we get to finally see Dave and Carolines cute baby! From the moment I found out about Dave and Caroline (4 1/2 years ago when I met Dan), I was told that they had been trying to have a baby. At that point it had been a couple of years with no success. I remember feeling very emotional about this because of my own issues with PCOS and a very strong attachment to the idea that they needed to have the first grand baby in the Calkins family.

Fast forward to now, Asher may not be the first grand child but have we all been waiting faithfully for his arrival for a very long time! I'm also so thankful to have Caroline in my life, even more so now that we have been going through infertility for over a year now. She gave me quite a few words of wisdom as we talked over the Christmas break. Having children has not been easy for any of my sister in laws. Not a single one of us has had it "easy", I'm not thankful for this fact but I'm thankful to have women in my life who understand the pain and joy that comes with bringing children into this world.

New Years

So we are 1 week into the new year and so far we have been sick the whole time :( Ava got sick right before the new years and I got sick right after her. Boy has it been an eventful 2012... not how I like to start off a new year but OH well, I'll pretend tomorrow is my real new years start :)