It's a Girl

How Far Along:  20 Weeks on Wednesday (Half-way there!!)

Size of Baby: About the size of a cantaloupe (6.5 inches, 10.6 oz)

Gender: GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Name:  Sariah Summer 

What's changed in the last weeks:  We found out we're having another baby girl!  Also, I feel her kick all the time now.  We're planning on having a scheduled c-section on January 5, 2011 (2 days after our anniversary)!  I decided to go with another c-section instead of a v-bac (vaginal birth after cesarian). The risks in a v-bac were just not worth in to me (I have a 3% chance of my uterus rupturing with a v-bac).

What I look forward to: Decorating her bedroom! We have an office upstairs that will be transformed into another baby room. The office is getting kicked downstairs by the playroom.

Ashlyn is now 9 months old! 

Height, Weight, and Head Size- She had her 9 month check-up a few days after she turned 9 months. She is in the 63% for height (28 inches), the 48% for weight (18lbs 6 oz--she actually lost a pound in the last month), and is in the 27% for head size.

Eating and Teeth- She eats pretty much the same amount as she did a month ago but eats a lot more table food and can feed herself finger foods. A few new things that she's tried in the last month are white turkey meat hot dogs and tacos (ground beef with soft flour tortilla).  There hasn't really been anything that she doesn't like except yogurt. Just in the last week, she's been cutting her first tooth on the bottom middle. It's barely poking through now!

Talking and Mobility- She is "talking" a lot more now. She will sometimes repeat what you say, like "dog" or "cat", but mostly she just talks in her own language. The day after she turned 9 months she took 3 steps by herself. She's trying to walk and will take a step here and there on her own.

Here's a few updated pictures of Ashlyn:

 Feeding herself turkey dogs. She loved them!

 She absolutely LOVES the piano! When she's at her Grandma's house she will crawl into the other room to the piano. She will sit there and listen or play for 30 minutes or more most of the time.

 She also loves playing in water. She has a blast in the bath splashing and playing with her toys. These pictures are her playing with my friend Ivy's kids.

A Few Updated Pics of Ashlyn

 With her second cousin, Athena, at a baby shower.

 Waving with both hands.

 Showing off that she can stand and wave at the same time...she is SO proud of herself.

 Standing without pulling on anything to stand herself up. She's getting super close to walking. She can walk if I hold one of her hands but she's too scared to do it on her own (she's gotten hurt several times from trying already).

Showing off her big girl outfit.

Baby Onion

How Far Along: 17 Weeks Tomorrow

Baby’s Size: About the size of an onion (5.1 inches long, 5.9 oz)

Symptoms: Just very exhausted all the time, nauseous every now and then but that’s mostly gone, and headaches. I’ve been getting a lot of those, but it’s manageable.

Milestones: I have actually felt the baby a few times now! Every now and then I’ll feel a little kick or something but it’s not very strong yet. Also, the baby’s heartbeat is found every doctor’s visit on the Doppler. It’s always comforting to hear that every time I go. The heart rate was somewhere around 155 bpm, which is normal. Ashlyn’s was always close to the 160s when I was preggy with her.

What I look forward to: On August 15th we’ll find out the gender (hopefully)! We’re dying to know! The wait is killing us (especially Ramon)! So only 1 week and 6 days left...and counting.

p.s. Updated pictures of Ashlyn soon! She’s almost taking a few steps!

8 Months Old

Ashlyn is now 8 months old! Time has flown by.

She eats two big meals a day (level 3 baby food at lunch) and usually will just eat whatever we’re eating for dinner with the exception of meat or something to hard for her to break up. Some of the regular food she’s had that we’ve just cut up into tiny pieces are steamed broccoli, peas, green beans, rice, bread, spaghetti with tomato sauce, oatmeal, bananas, and watermelon. There hasn’t been any food that she hasn’t liked so far. She also usually eats a couple of snacks during the day, like the Gerber puffs, half a banana, or a level 2 jar of baby food. She drinks from a sippy cup (only apple juice or water) at dinner time and sometimes throughout the day.

She had a little cold that just kept lingering a couple of weeks ago so we took her to the pediatrician on a Sunday. She ended up just having a cold…nothing more, but I was a little shocked that she weighed 19.6 pounds! She has still has her little leg rolls!

Ashlyn also stands alone quite a bit now, really in the last few days. She would stand by herself for a couple of seconds a few times a day but now, she tries to do it quiet often. The babysitter said that she was constantly trying to catch her because she would stand by herself and try to walk, but she obviously can’t do that yet so she would just fall. She’s a little dare-devil so it’s a little scary for mommy and daddy but we accept that she’s going to have to get hurt sometimes and learn from it.

Two new “games” that she does very often are pick-a-boo and what we call “indian”. I know this probably isn’t PC…but who cares. Indian is when you open your mouth, pat your hand over your mouth and make a noise. Like an Indian war cry thing…don’t really know how else to explain it. But she really likes doing that herself and for us to do it for her (we put our hand over her mouth and she makes the noise). It’s pretty funny. She LOVES pick-a-boo. After her bath, we wrap her in a towel. She’ll put the towel over her face and we’ll say, “Where’d Ashlyn go?!” then she’ll take the towel off her head and we’ll say, “There she is!!” This will go on and on for a several minutes. She’s thinks it’s so funny. When I was getting ready for work on Friday, I put her in bed with Daddy since he was just waking up and she took the covers and put them on her head and daddy played the game with her for a few minutes. It’s really cute.  Here are a few pictures of her this weekend.

4TH OF JULY

My grandpa, aunt, and cousin came to Houston for the 4th of July weekend. It was great to see them and they had fun with Ashlyn. We went out to eat a couple of times, went to Old Town Spring and other shopping, watched a movie, and went to The Foundry UMC's 4th of July service. Here are a few pictures from the weekend and some other random ones thrown in.

 My aunt Lynda, cousin Amanda, and Ashlyn

 Enjoying her green bean dinner.

 Bath time! She loves splashing and eating the rubber ducky.

Shopping with Mommy.

Her poor little head! But it's so cute! This is what I see when we get home from daycare.

 Yay for Independence! For our country, that is!

Ashlyn and her Great-Grandpa.

  

 In one of her little dazes.

 Her other 4th of July outfit. Ramon said he didn't get the sholder thing, haha!



Baby Lime!

How far along: 11 weeks preggy


Baby's size: About the size of a lime!

Symptoms: Still pretty nauseous, especially during the evening. I’ve been getting several headaches a week, acid reflux, really sleepy, and having to go to the bathroom several times in the middle of the night. I’m also now wearing maternity clothes…I started showing a lot faster this time. They say you show faster with your second because your uterus didn’t shrink all the way back down to the size it used to be, your abdominal muscles were stretched, and I never lost all the baby weight from Ashlyn (my uterus is a little larger than a grapefruit right now---normally the uterus is about the size of a small pear). I can still fit in my regular jeans for now, but I’m not comfortable in them.

Cravings or Hatings: My cravings pretty much change all the time, but one thing I absolutely can’t stand to even think about without wanting to gag is guacamole or avocados! YUCK! I liked guac before, but now, I HATE it with a passion! This stupid commercial keeps replaying in my head about the new Subway sandwich with guacamole….ugh!!!!! I feel like I could throw up every time I see that commercial.

What I miss: Being able to do things…I feel somewhat helpless. Ramon has to help with A LOT in the evenings since this is the time I feel the worst. He’s such a good husband! He’s continually reminding me that I am doing something…I’m processing a baby!

What I'm looking forward to: I’m almost in my second trimester, yay! So I guess the thing I look forward to the most right now is not being nauseous and having more energy.

Swimming, Choking and Cuteness

We took Ashlyn swimming for the first time at my friend Ivy’s son’s birthday party in a baby pool. She loved it! So we bought a baby float and went over to my in-law’s house to swim in their big pool. She really liked it also.

Ramon had a good 1st Father’s day! We went out to eat at one of his favorite places, BJ’s, on Saturday and he went fishing with his dad most of the day on Sunday. I had a little scare with Ashlyn when he was gone. I gave her some of these little freeze dried yogurt treats for babies and she got one stuck in her throat, to the point that she wasn’t breathing! It scared me to death! I saw her leaned over in her high chair with her eyes wide open, face red, and holding her mouth open but she wasn’t making any sound. I ran over to her as fast as I could and pulled her out of her high chair, threw her across my forearm and started hitting her back. (I've never taken any class, just went off of what I've read online.) After about 3 hits to the back she started coughing and then was screaming. It was all a very scary experience but I thank God that she’s okay. She definitely won’t be eating any more of those treats.

Here’s some updated pictures of Ashlyn:

 Ashlyn Clapping

 Ready to go swimming! This is really a hand-me-down size 12 month swimsuit. We bought a 6-9 month size swimsuit but she only wore it once and got too long so it didn't cover her chest (daddy wasn't going to have that!)

Milky mouth. She was in the middle of saying "dada" in this picture on Father's Day.

Ashlyn is now 7 months old and doing great! She now eats twice a day; 1 jar of fruit baby food at lunch and 1 vegetable jar at dinner and has graduated to the level 3 foods since she was getting way more than enough of the recommended formula intake. She also has been eating more regular food, like little mashed up pieces of fruits and veggies from our plates.

She had her first ear infection when she turned 7 months (about a week ago). She had a fever over 101 several times throughout one day and that night. We thought she might be teething since she was drooling so much and put everything in her mouth, but we decided to take her to the doctor to be on the safe side. We’re glad we did because she had an ear infection and a soar throat (her throat was red, but no strep).
She’s getting faster and faster at crawling and it looks effortless for her to pull herself to standing now. She recently started clapping her hands a lot. If we say “Yay!!!” then she’ll smile and clap even more. I’ll have to try to get a picture of that. But for now, here’s a few pictures of Ashlyn (some of these are about a month old though).

 Chillin' at Grandma's

 Trying to drink from a sippy cup.

 Playing in her kitchen.

"Excuse me...I'm trying to fix dinner, mom."

Standing, Standing, Standing! And Friends.

  All Ashlyn wants to do is stand...and stand...and stand. She can now stand and hold on with only one hand. She also likes to do the squats (stands up, squats down, stands up, squats down), and "dance". When music is playing she holds on to something while standing and bounces up and down with the music (not necessarily on beat) :)

 Trying to escape!

 Grandma and Ashlyn

 Her best friends, Shipley and Emma. Oh, and Shipley's best friend, Ashlyn. (Emma's best friend is still her mommy, which is me)