Week 14: The FIST?

It feels good for the news to be out and to be able to admit to people I'm exhausted and emotional. The holidays were kicking in right around 14 weeks, and I was all in on bringing the holiday spirit to our house!!

We giggled for this chalkboard, looking back at the "fruit/veggie" updates.... why in the world did we choose FIST for this week? Regardless now, we committed to doing the same updates that we did with McKenna! :)

One thing we've had fun doing it including McKenna in a picture for the updates.. I think there's a couple that were missed, because, #toddler, but they have been fun to include her!

Cravings: Daddy has done a pretty spot on job of keeping my sweet tooth satisfied! The single serving of chocolate cake from Publix is AMAZING. I'm salivating thinking about it.

Movement: I've definitely felt movement pick up a bit by this point. Most often right after dinner and early evening time.

Weight:  I still have not gained or lost any weight since our initial visit.

Energy: It's slowly coming back! MK has been motivating me and we've been doing workouts from YouTube while she stacks couch cushions and avoids an Emergency Room visit.  ANYTHING for mama to burn some calories!!

Looking forward to: McKenna and Kevin feeling baby move!

First Trimester Shenanigans

It's amazing how different the pregnancy experience can really be from kid to kid.  To put it simply, I had not prepared myself in the slightest for the nausea that I have experienced during this pregnancy. Called "morning sickness", I was typically OK during the first parts of the day as long as I ate steadily.  It wasn't until right around the time I would start thinking about preparing dinner, my witching hour.... aka my body bitching hour!  The time I get nauseous is the time I have to cook food that I was more likely not even going to eat. Another difference this time around, having another little human that still needed to be fed regardless of whether you were going to eat or not.

I will try to roll through these chalkboard pictures quickly! For the most part, my symptoms remained constant: nausea, exhaustion, and periodic indigestion.  My nose has been pretty sensitive to food smells, so I spent most of the trimester downing Saltines like none other. My weight has pretty much remained constant throughout thus far.

It was nice to have a chalkboard handy this time around thanks to our toddler.  These first few weeks she was completely clueless to what we were drawing and why we were taking pictures!

One thing different this time around was me wearing the same clothes for every weekly chalkboard. I did try to pick some more forgiving fabrics.... only time will tell if they will survive!!!

We told McKenna about the pregnancy around 10.5 weeks. We were surprised how well she kept our little secret, and she was absolutely over the moon with the news. You'll likely see a subsequent post for that experience :-)

It might seem insanely early, but I was most definitely feeling flutters around 11 weeks! I felt movement relatively early with McKenna, and they say that you can feel movements earlier with subsequent pregnancies.

We found out it was a BOY right before 13 weeks. It was awesome to be able to share the gender of the baby at the same time we announced the baby!

At the beginning of the first trimester, I thought there was no way that I was going to be able to make it without letting the cat out of the bag.  We were just around way more people for this pregnancy, and my little bump was definitely showing earlier this time around.

Energy:  Low.  Exercise was very difficult to come by, especially with a toddler that really doesn't want to hang in the stroller anymore!

Looking forward to: McKenna and Kevin feeling the baby move!

Baby P #2 Set to arrive June 2018

It's been 11 months since I posted an update.  Life happens, and you have to make priorities, and unfortunately blogging about "life" did not come in at the top.  But I'm here for a very important reason!

We are expecting our SECOND baby! I would love to keep it at a simple "We are all thrilled," and we ARE, but the amount of joy that McKenna has for her future sibling is indescribable. Literally no words. To the point of almost bringing me to tears daily because of how much the emotions well up in me. She kisses my belly, hugs my belly, listens to my belly, talks to my belly, blows raspberries on my belly. She's even gone through toys that she's going to let her baby brother have.

THAT'S RIGHT.... IT'S A BOY!

We were given a hard time that it was likely another girl because at our first ultrasound Baby's heart rate was 190 bpm!!! (The wives tale is high heart rates are girls, which was certainly true for MK who peaked at one point at 200!)

We did the genetic blood testing again this time around and were able to find out the gender right around 11 weeks. No special gender reveal or anything for us, a phone call from the nurse saying our results came back low risk for everything, and oh yeah it's a boy.

I really want to do my best to do pregnancy updates like I did with my pregnancy with McKenna.  Things might be different, but I want them both to be able to look back and see what Mama endured to bring them into this world! Maybe even compare who was rougher on me :P. Luckily we started our chalkboard updates the same week that we started McKenna's, and we will be doing the exact same fruits that we did for her :).

As I type I am 14 weeks on the dot. Today is the first official day of the Second Trimester.  Granted all of my struggles of the first trimester began to improve a couple of weeks ago, it's been a slow progress. I'll write a separate post to recap my first trimester to help split this up.

But I'll end this post with a family shot of us.

Halloween 2017: The Three Caballeros

2017: The McKenna Update

You might be wondering to yourself: WHO IN THE HADES is this person taking over a dead blog??
Well, it's me. Elyse. Mom of McKenna, Chief, & Boogs. Wife of Kevin. Stay a home mom turned small business owner! Yup. A lot has happened. I feel ashamed that I have not kept up with milestones and life, but the adjustment of moving, toddlerhood, a husband working endless hours hit me hard enough to set it aside for a while. I'm not committing to anything so don't get too excited, but I did want to come and chat with you (aka Myself).


Two years old held quite a bit of "lots" for McKenna.. let's just say she's officially an independent human being with some very independent views and opinions on life.  I didn't even check to see when the last time I made a post was, but we've had some significant things happen like potty training, weaning, and starting school to name a couple!

McKenna took on Potty Training herself not long after her second birthday last February (2016). We did a lot of naked time in front of the tv with the small potty, lots of ooopsies, and lots of excitement for forward progress. Truly, I believe it was going out of town that pushed her to consistency. I actually hadn't really intended to potty train when we went to Miami for a couple of days because it was so early in the process so I didn't even bring her little potty.  Lo and behold, even while wearing a diaper she informed us when she needed to go and we just plopped her on the big potty at the hotel. Upon our return, she was no longer interested in a baby potty and wanted the seat for on top of the toilet.  There really wasn't much looking back for her. She even night trained within a few months on her own.... we have had a setback recently and decided to just start wearing dipeys again because having accidents wasn't waking her up anymore.  I guess she sleeps as heavy as her daddy does!

Speaking of sleep, McKenna was down to nursing at bedtime for several several months.  We were very grateful that any changes to her "routine" (aka removing nursing sessions) were met with an understandable and manageable amount of an adjustment period. Even experimenting with that last session was trial and error, but she seemed to know and understand that she was OK without it anymore.  We spent several weeks working toward no longer nursing to sleep and I would spend extra time reading/rocking with her or we would have daddy come in to the helm.  Then, one day, it was just the day it didn't happen. No dramatic ending, no sadness. We just went a few days without (as she had done before) and then she never asked again.  It wasn't until a couple weeks later I looked back at some of my "final" nursing selfies to realize that it was over.  The beginning was a tough journey for us, but if you asked me that I would nurse a child until they were 2 years, 4 months old I would have told you you were crazy! Funny, I could say that about a lot of parenting decisions! :)

Potty Training and nursing are covered. I need to get back to Momming and hopefully I can come back and update more on school and just McKenna's incredible personality in general.  Good chatting with you again, hopefully we do it again soon ;-)

Quite the "toddler" week! -toddler bed

It's official! McKenna sleeps in a "Big Girl bed" as of Saturday!! 

We spent last week explaining a toddler bed to McKenna. We describe how she would be able to come and go from her bed as she pleases. She showed incredible excitement, and even decided to use her crib to experiment my description of climbing in and out. 

I had kinda regretted describing it in those words. Before this discussion she had never shown any interest in scaling her crib. Luckily we didn't have any escape attempts in the interim period. 

Bedtime went about as usual. We rock her to sleep, so bedtime wasn't a huge concern.... she likely wouldn't notice her bed unless she woke up in the middle of the night. My prayer was that she would sleep through the night and not wake up afraid. Come 7:15 am......

Not much movement from the night before!! I would say that was quite the success!!! I think I even slept through the night! I as more concerned about myself that first night than I was for her. 

Flash forward to today:

First nap in her own room since she was like 6 months old! It was a transfer from her stroller, but hey, I'll take it.

We did some simple proofing before that first night. Moved the monitor to a wider location where the cord would be hidden. Put a lock on the closet. Also we decided to put a gate at the door. My worst fear would have been a stumbling McKenna tripping over one of the dogs in their dead sleep. As sweet as they are, no one wants to be startled in the middle of the night. 

I think McKenna has been ready for this transition for a while. I'm confident this will be a positive change for all of us! 

Quite the "toddler" week! -multivitamin

2016 is already turning out to be super eventful for us. McKenna must know she's turning 2 in less than a month so she needs to squeeze a bunch of Firsts before she officially turns TWO!!

McKenna still to this day does at least one thing everyday that amazes me. But this week was particularly big for "milestones" (if you can even call them that at this age). I'll split this up into multiple posts. 

First off, McKenna started taking a daily multivitamin! Extended breastfeeding has really made me not prioritize finding a vitamin because breast milk has filled in the deficiencies. But with that down to the occasional nap and before bedtime, I thought it was probably about time to find one that she would take. You can tell a child that doesn't eat much sweets when they LOVE a chewable vitamin! Lol. I give her her "kitty" and she asks for more for the rest of the day! Kitties:

 I hope the enthusiasm sticks around! Though sometimes she cries because I can't give her another lol. 

I have put it off for so long because I just couldn't decide what to go with. I officially decided to just pick one to get started and then we can always change it up. We went with Whole Foods brand Chewable Multivitamin. 

I was satisfied enough with the ingredients, and my shopping partner was over my vitamin indecisiveness. This is only 1.5 month supply so we'll motor through it soon enough! She likes it, and it's adding a variety of vitamins to her diet so I'm happy for now. 

Christmas Season 2015

Wow. I can't believe how fast December flew by.  It feels like Thanksgiving was last week. And tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  I am speechless.

We have had an incredible Christmas season. The moment the tree went up, "Tree is Booo-tiful" rang throughout the house.  Our little helper was incredible helping put ornaments on the tree. And she really didn't mess with the tree all that much over the last 4 weeks or so.

She has very discretely taken ornaments off and attempted to put them back on.  Usually ended with me re-hanging and then needing to vacuum! But this little lady is officially obsessed with all things Christmas and all things Santa.

She has been such a little joy throughout the holiday season. She also got to ride her first train... to which she yelled " Choo Choo!" and "All aboard" the entire length of the trip. I never knew free roaming mall trains were a thing!!

She was incredibly excited to go to Christmas Eve service. Luckily we decided to attend the Children's/Family's service, because McKenna was her typical talkative self.

She was over the moon opening presents.  Ya know, the type that tore each piece slowly and delicately, making sure ever stitch was off before unveiling the gift. To which she was determined to take out each toy as she went along... let's just say, she sure made the gift-giver feel very happy! Every gift was loved before we had to coax her to move onto the next present.

"My present. McKenna's present." Mine mine mine. is the name of the game now.  HOWEVER, she is incredibly understanding and giving when you explain that a gift is indeed not hers but so and so's. Here she is helping the Boys open their bones! "Here you go Chief. Here you go Boogs." [Heart melts].

I regret that I have not been blogging through this wonderful month (quite honestly I regret it's not easier to upload pics/videos)..... because the amount of joy McKenna has brought to me and our family I wish I had been sharing with you! I can easily say, without a single doubt, that this was the most wonderful Christmas holiday I have ever experienced.  We managed to celebrate with both sides of the family (with a lengthy road trip to SWFL on Christmas Day), but also were able to have a wonderful, quiet Christmas morning for just the three of us.

From our family to yours, I want to wish you a Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!!