My baby turns 3!

Hannah turned 3 on May 22nd! I can't believe she is already 3 years old, where has the time gone? I swear that every year of my life gets faster and faster. In just a mere 2 years, I will be sending her off to Kindergarten...how crazy is that?!  We had a great weekend celebrating her special day!

She woke up on her birthday super excited to go to school...I let her take doughnuts (I never buy them, but know she loves them) for breakfast, it was show and share, AND she was taking a cookie cake to share with her friends at school.

After school when Tony got home, we let her open some of her presents...

We got her a Dora puzzle, a new Dr. Seuss book, a baseball glove/ball and a new Dora fishing pole...she'd been asking for all of these things for a while now!! We were saving her "big" bday present for her party on Sunday evening.

After opening presents, we decided to go celebrate her birthday by eating at TGI Fridays!! Hannah had never been there before. Hannah picked spaghetti to eat! By the way, I LOVE it when restaraunts have pictures of the food items on the kids menu, that way she can pick it out all by herself!

Our waitress asked us if we would be interested in a birthday sundae...typically we turn down desserts when we go out to eat, but today was special, so of course we let her get some ice cream!

Overall it was a fun day for her...but the birthday festivities weren't over yet!!

We had planned her family party on Sunday evening. We were planning on giving her big present then...it didn't quite work out that way.  Sunday morning we went to the grocery store in the rain.  When we got home, Tony backed the car up to the garage so we could unload without getting drenched (we have a 2 car garage but never park in it...it's mainly our storage room)!! We let Hannah out first and we heard her exclaim, "A bike for my birthday"!! Shoot, darn it, oh man...we didn't cover up her bike to hide it yet (we were keeping her out of the garage) and we totally forgot about it with the chaos of the rain.  She spotted the bike and was sooo excited! As she checked out her new bike (which I was hoping to video tape her seeing it for the first time), I ran inside and grabbed my camera to catch these cute pics...

She LOVES her new bike, and is getting better at pedaling every day!!

That evening we met my parents, sister-in-law and nephew at Tumbleweed (one of Hannah's favorite places to eat). 

After eating we headed back to our house for presents and cake!!

She got lots of great gifts: TONS of clothes, pajamas, dresses, a babydoll, a ball, roller skates, a piggy bank, a Dora blanket/snuggie, a zoo membership, helmet and more!!

I think her favorite present was the skates...

After presents it was cake time!! Hannah wanted an ice cream cake with pink on it...easy enough!!

She had a fabulous birthday and she said she got everything that she wanted!! I still can't believe she is 3!!

Here are the birthday party guests...

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, spunky 3 year old!!

Check-up Time

This past Tuesday I took both girls for their check-ups: Hannah had her 3 year check and Gracie had her 2 month check...overall we had a good visit!!

Hannah, with a little coaxing, finally got on the scale to see how much she weighed (last time I took her she hit the nurse that was trying to weigh her)...27 pounds.  She is also 37 inches tall.  The doctor informed me that she is still pretty petite, and will probably be the point guard on the basketball team since she is on the smaller side (I'm ok with that)!! Tony and I aren't very big people, so I didn't imagine our children being any bigger! Developmentally everything seems to be on track with her.  There was mention of a possibility of speech therapy because she has some pronunciation problems, but after talking to the speech-language pathologist at the school where I teach, she said that Hannah is still pretty young and her speech will most likely correct itself...
Hannah brought her doctors kit along to the check-up, but purposefully left the shot at home!! HAHA! Luckily she didn't have to get any shots, but they informed me she will got 4 shots when she is 4...
I was more worried about taking Hannah to the doctor because she is terrified of them: I think because when she was little she went ALL the time for her ear infections. But this time she was awesome!!

Gracie's 2 month check-up went well.  She is now 9 lbs, 4 ounces (up 1.2 lbs from last month) and is now 22.5 inches tall (grew another inch).  Everything developmentally seems to be going well with her as well!! She has rolled over several times (not consistently yet), she smiles, coos and tracks well! Now we just need to try to get her big sister from smothering her all the time!!

 For those of you who don't know, we've been having a hard time with Gracie's digestive system.  At about 3 weeks old she started crying ALL day long.  We figured it was really bad colic, and just dealt with it.  Several weeks later at 6 weeks old she was crying all the time still AND became extremely gassy, spitting up and wouldn't poop without assistance (suppository, kayro syrup, anal stimulation).  After talking to the doctor she suggested I change my diet and not eat any gassy foods or dairy since I was breastfeeding.  I did that and there was still no change.  Then she suggested I try a lactose-free formula.  I was very leary about doing this because I REALLY wanted to continue breastfeeding, but then again, I also wanted my baby to not be miserable all day long.  I tried the formula and within 24 hours her gas was gone.  Needless to say, my breastmilk was hurting her digestive system :(  So I started weaning  myself...and Gracie became a formula baby (at least I had 6 solid weeks of breastfeeding...hopefully she got the benefits from it).  She was on soy formula for about 4 days and then the gas crept back up and the spitting up was bad.  Next we tried Similac Sensitive R.S..  Once again for the first couple of days, it seemed to do the trick, but once again she started spitting up and being gassy and not pooping, are you seeing a trend here?  At this past weeks appointment they gave Gracie a prescription for Zantac, which will hopefully help with her spitting up/reflux (so far I have NOT noticed  a difference).  Starting today we are trying Similac Alimentum, a hypoallergenic formula for sensitive babies that have reactions to everything else...she's only had 1 bottle of it so far so I haven't noticed a difference yet....all I know is that it smells really bad!!
Keep your fingers crossed that this will do the trick for a happier baby (and mommy)!!

On another note, Gracie has slept 8 hours through the night twice this week!! Let's hope this trend continues!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my beautiful Hannah Marie!! I can't believe she is 3 already...where does the time go?! Will post more after this weekend to share her birthday with you!

Tony turns 30!!

My husband turned the big 3-0 on May 4th!!! 

We spent the weekend before his birthday at the lake with my mom and dad. Friday when we got there it was gorgeous, and we spent the evening on the deck....

It rained the rest of the weekend, so we ended up staying inside for most of it.

Sunday night after the lake, we went to my mom and dad's house for Tony's bday dinner.  In my family, whoever has a birthday gets to pick the menu for dinner that my mom will make for everyone.  Tony chose BBQ, cole slaw and corn on the cob...it was delicious!!

After eating and hanging out for a while, it was time for pie (Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen's Dutch Carmel Apple Pie...a definite favorite of ours and if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it...especially warmed up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to go with it)!!

Tony had lots of help from Hannah and our nephew, Jacob, when it was time to blow out the candles...

He also had help opening his presents....he received lots of giftcards, shirts, ties and tires (for his boat trailer).

Tony had a great birthday celebration (and it still wasn't even his birthday yet)!

Tony was off of work on his actual birthday thanks to Indiana election day!! We had an extremely busy day together as a family.  We started off by going to Home Depot to get parts so our friend, Adrian, could fix our leaky pipe. Adrian came over to fix the pipe and then we headed out to the zoo.  Hannah was so excited about the zoo, we hadn't been since the end of last summer!!  It was also Gracie's first trip to the zoo as well (she slept the entire time)!

The zoo was fairly crowded, but not horrible.  It was a gorgeous day and it is rare that we all get to go together to the zoo. 

After the zoo we grabbed some lunch from Wendy's and headed back home for short naps..

When everyone was awake, Tony wanted to head to Bass Pro, so we went and then ate dinner at Tumbleweed afterwards.

Tony also got to open his presents from me, Hannah and Gracie!! We gave him 2 T-shirts (fishing and Boston Red Sox), a new hat and a pair of crocs! Once again, he had lots of help opening his presents..

We had a wonderful day together celebrating Tony's 30th birthday!!

Happy Birthday to my best friend!!

We Love You!