Enjoying the long weekend

You have to love long weekends - so yay for Labor Day weekend. I had another trip to Boston this week for a meeting on Wednesday. Once again we were delayed on the trip up there but fortunately while stuck on the plane I sat next to a nice gentleman (Jeff) who is a VP of Mergers & Acquisitions with Johnson & Johnson. He has a grand daughter who just turned 1 so we spoke a lot about Amy and his grand daughter Mackenzie! It was good to get home though and know that it would be my last trip before I go out on maternity leave.

School went back this week in San Antonio and Amy was supposed to start at Mother's Day Out. Unfortunately on Thursday we found out that there had been an error made and the class she was enrolled in was overbooked. So she didn't get to start there. Jerad and I will keep looking to see if there is a similar program at another church nearby. Amy did however start in the Beast class at The Little Gym. It's the next class up which includes children 19 months to 3 years. The class is much bigger than her Birdies class but she still seemed to have fun and does know some of the other kiddies already.

I spent yesterday putting together the crib, change table and chest of drawers for baby #2 - so the room is coming together. I also am in the process of sorting through Amy's old clothes she wore as a newborn and getting some of those ready too. Amy and I had a big shopping day yesterday too. After Little Gym we went to Best Buy to pick up Daddy's birthday present (TomTom - GPS navigation for his car). We thought he would appreciate it when he has all those deliveries to do out to the middle of nowhere. After that we stopped in at La Cantera and using some of Mummy's birthday money from Grandpa Jeffrey we bought some Clinique cosmetics. Then on Sunday morning Jerad went to play golf so Amy and Mummy went out for breakfast before we did the grocery shopping. Amy enjoyed her raisin toast and cup of milk while Mummy essentially had the works! The funniest thing happened after grocery shopping as we were loading up the car though. There were 4 teenage boys collecting all of the grocery carts - Amy thought she would be cute and wave to them. They were all smiling at her and waving back until a group of teenage girls came by - I guess it wasn't too cool then to be waving and cooing at a baby.

Well not much else happening - just catching up on jobs around the house and will be enjoying the day off tomorrow. On Tuesday I have my next follow-up with Dr Washington and have another ultrasound then.

18 months old

Our little girl turned 18 months old this week!! She therefore had another visit with her doctor and another vaccination. She wasn't too happy about that part of the visit! She has now broken the 20lb mark and is 21lb 8oz / 31.5 in tall. So she is average height for her age and in the 10th percentile for weight.

Mummy also had another doctor check-up this week and things are going well. I did pass the 3 hour glucose test (in fact all 4 samples were within normal range). Dr Washington is still wanting me to gain more weight (well the baby really - I am measuring a little bit small). At the next visit they will do another ultrasound so I guess we'll have some more measurements from that.

This week I ordered the new crib, change table and chest of drawers. I was going to get cherry colored but decided to get white (mainly because we have the plantation shutters in the room and they are white - so this will be a better match). The furniture should arrive in 7-10 days. We also all went this morning to have some photos taken since Miss Amy is now 18 months old and also had some updated family pictures taken. We didn't get as many shots as we would like since Amy was not too impressed today with posing for the camera (very unusual for her :-)) But we'll get more photos taken later in the year when the new baby arrives and hopefully she'll be more into it then. Other than that it has been a quiet week - Jerad had a few long distance deliveries to do so Mummy stayed up and watched the Olympics during the week. It was fun last night seeing some of the swimming finals and see Australia win the women's relay. Also very impressive seeing Michael Phelps win 8 gold at 1 Olympics. Of course I say all this while I eat my bowl of chocolate frozen yogurt on the couch!!

Bikini Babe

The weeks seem to be flying by. I had an uneventful trip to Boston (well actually Framingham) in the middle of the week. There were some delays on the trip up so I had an extra 5 hours to kill. I ended up buying a book and so far am really enjoying it - The memory keeper's daughter. I probably won't get to finish it until my next trip to Boston in 3 weeks time.

While I was away the new stroller arrived so we put it together on Thursday night. Amy seemed to really enjoy riding around the kitchen and living room in it. Hopefully she'll enjoy it just as much when there is a second little person in there with her.

Well the weather is still very hot here in San Antonio and not expected to change any time soon. So yesterday I went and bought myself a maternity bikini so I could go for a swim with Amy. Don't you love the picture of her in her little swim suit scrunching her face up for the camera! My mum had sent me a birthday card with a picture of me at about the same age in my pink bikini and I guess she is right - we look similar. Amy and I also went shopping yesterday and found her the perfect little pair of red shoes to go with her dress I bought for next week when she has her 18 month photos done. I'm sure we'll see a big difference between her 12 and 18 month pictures. She also has her 18 month doctor appointment this week too. So we'll have to see how much she has grown. Nothing much else happening the rest of the week - Jerad and I are just enjoying watching the Olympics on the big screen TV. I have to say it is pretty awesome and there are so many channels to choose from here to watch the games that it is hard to decide sometimes what to be watching.

Another busy week

It's been another busy week for us. This week we enrolled Amy in the Mother's Day Out program at Helotes Hills Methodist Church. Starting in September she will go there on Friday's from 9-2. It will give Jerad a little break and when baby #2 arrives it will give him some time just with the new baby. It will also be good for Amy to interact with other kids and adults (who are not her parents). We didn't want to put her in full time day care so but wanted to have 1 day a week in a more structured environment. So this should be the perfect solution.

I also got the results of my 1 hour glucose test back and failed it by a few points so had to go for the 3 hour test on Friday. Hopefully I will pass that - the same thing happened with Amy, so I guess I just don't do well on the 1 hour test. It has also been a week for healthcare issues......I had an eye exam during the week and need glasses. So Amy and I went out today and bought a nice new pair of glasses. We'll see how I do with them and whether I decide to get contacts later. I then spent part of the afternoon (while Amy was napping) downloading songs to my iPod. Jerad had quite a few deliveries to do this afternoon so it was pretty quiet this afternoon around the house. When Amy woke up we went and checked the mail and her little Halloween costume had arrived - it looks so adorable, I can't wait to see her in it :-)

Next week I am heading up to Boston Tues-Thurs, at least it won't be as hot up there as it has been in San Antonio. Hopefully there'll be no travel delays and I'll be back on time Thursday afternoon.

11 weeks to go

Another busy week for us. Thankfully we got some rain this week in San Antonio (which was very much needed - but I'm sure those on the TX coast didn't need Hurricane Dolly). The rain really brought our lawn back to life. On Tuesday we had the front and back aerated and compost/top soil put down. So the rain on Thursday and then fine weather since that has really made a difference.

We have also cleaned out the upstairs guest bedroom and sold my old computer desk and the queen bed we had in the room. So within the next month we will go and buy a new crib and change table etc. During the week I also bought the Cadillac of all double strollers - a Phil & Ted's Dash with the double seat. It is way more than I thought I would ever spend on a stroller but I was dead against buying a side by side one and I hate the idea of having a double length. So the fact that this converts back to a single stroller once Amy is walking everywhere was very appealing to me. This one is also very light weight. I was going to hold off until the baby was born to see if we have 2 girls (in which case I was thinking of getting a pink camo one!!). However, this is a newer model with various extra features and for the introductory week it was $100 off - it only comes in red or black so we chose the red.

I had another regular check-up with Dr Washington this week and everything is going well. I didn't enjoy having to swallow the glucose stuff for the 1hr glucose screening test so hopefully I pass that and don't need to go back for the 3 hour test. I only gained 1lb in the last month and Dr Washington would "like to see if I can grow a bigger baby this time." I guess he's concerned because Amy was less than 6lb at full term and based on my weight gain with this pregnancy and the fact that the c-section will be done at 38 weeks. I'll have to see what I can do - but given the fact that I was only 6lb 4oz and Jerad was under 7lb it's not likely I'm going to have a big baby.

Today while Amy was taking a nap I also went online and bought her a costume for Halloween (I really have had a shopping week haven't I?). I bought her a cute Little Red Riding Hood costume. Now I just have to get her a little basket and I was going to try and dress Buka up as the wolf to go trick or treating with her :-)

Back home and back to reality

The Clay family reunion on 4th July was a success and I think everyone had a good time catching up with each other. Jerad, Amy and I stayed another few days with Traynor and Donna-Ra before heading back to TX. The picture I have included is Amy sitting out Donna-Ra's garden near the fountain. On the way back we decided to take a different route home and do it over 3 days rather than 2. The first day we just drove to Albuquerque (so only about 3 1/2 hour drive). We checked into the hotel and then headed to the Old Town Plaza for lunch and look around the shops. I of course found something to buy! While in Durango I had bought some sterling silver and amethyst jewelry (ear-rings, ring, pendant and necklace) and in Albuquerque found a sterling silver bangle to go with it all. The second night we stayed in San Angelo - it was a long drive that day and we came to the conclusion that the rest of New Mexico was not that exciting and we especially would not recommend Clovis!! We had trouble even finding something to have for lunch. We made it back to San Antonio by lunch time on Thursday so it was nice to have time at home before going back to work. It was also a pleasant surprise to find that there had been some rain in San Antonio while we were gone so our lawn had not completely died as we had expected but rather there were a lot of patches of new green grass.

Summer vacation '08

Once again I have not done well with my plan to update this blog each week. Initially I was having problems uploading video to this website so I haven't been able to add the video of Amy when she first started walking - I'll keep trying though. Then I just seemed to get too busy. We left last Saturday to head to Durango, CO - Jerad, Amy, I and the 2 dogs. We took 2 days to drive there and stopped overnight in El Paso. We arrived at Grandpa Traynor and Granny Ra's on Sunday afternoon. It's certainly nice to have a break from the constant 100 degree weather in San Antonio.

On the 4th of July is a Clay family reunion and there will be about 60 people here to celebrate. Yesterday Amy helped Jerad mow the lawn using the ride-on lawn mower and she loves playing with all the puppies here. Poor Buka didn't have such a good time on Tuesday when she thought "playing" with the horses would be fun only to find out when they kick you in the mouth it hurts! Yesterday I went shopping with Donna-Ra and she bought Amy a pair of pink cowgirl boots. They are a little big right now but she will grow into them.