Very last Christmas photos!!!

I did it!

Merry Christmas.

Waiting patiently

Another new Christmas tradition:

Pepere reads "The Gas We Pass"

The girls and their Abuelita

<3

(and their Parmesan??)

Yay!  Perfect.

(too bad it took 10 minutes to get one with Hollie's thumb out of her mouth!)

...and by that point they were leeeeaning!

So after all that, gift-opening commenced, and the camera was set down somewhere and forgotten about.  You can imagine.  Hollie had to play with each gift before opening another, so it would have taken all day had we not helped her along!  And we really didn't have all day, because that same afternoon we hopped a plane for...

...Phoenix!  Quite a change of scenery.  As we stepped off the plane, I think all three of us took a simultaneous deep breath of the cool, dry air, and our lungs cleared as the allergies we'd been battling the past five days just disappeared.

But not really.  While we were there, we would occasionally have a good cough, and say, "Sorry, I'm still getting Portland out of my chest!"  We loved Oregon, but we're just not used to all that green-ness.  

PHX kept us pretty busy, as usual.  It's still home to us in many ways, so over our four-day stay, there were a million restaurants to revisit (a few, twice - In N Out!), thousand friends to catch up with, and beautiful warm weather to enjoy, not to mention Christmas dinner, which was postponed a day just for us (thanks again Mom!) and Daniel's birthday (24 - holy moly!).  Poor guy had to make his own cake: tres leches (yummmm)! 

Okay, no more parentheses (I promise).

Unfortunately, the camera got taken out a grand total of ONE time while we were there.  I took what would have been a beautiful photo of my dad and Hollie lying outside in the hammock, but it just didn't turn out.  Sorry, Dad.  :(

So, by the end, we were ready to be home.  Hollie did great on all the flights, even, I might add, on the way home when Mr. Grinch's nasty-wastier twin sister happened to be sitting in the row in front of us.  I'm not gonna give you the whole story here.  Got a little bruise on my mama heart, and someday when I can stop kicking myself for not giving that woman a piece of my mind, then we'll be able to laugh about it.  And maybe wonder if she regrets what she said - who knows?

Sorry to end on that note!  Really, we brushed it off and we're okay :)

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In other news...we did Hollie's FIRST HAIRCUT last night and it was a beautiful success!  There are pictures, but I hear little lady waking up from her nap, so watch for those...later.

Snow baby (or not)

One morning, a few weeks ago, we woke up to this:

It was so darn awesome, we ate breakfast at the window...

Ready or not, here we go!

Helping Mommy shovel the driveway...

Nah, Hollie want big shovel!

So, being out in the cold was fun for about ten minutes, and then someone (not me) was at the door begging to go back in.  

We spent the rest of the day staying warm and taking silly pictures...

...and being silly in general.  Look at these two goofs...

I love that last one.  And yes, that's Hollie's hair in a little ponytail.  She needs that first haircut, and I'm leaning toward doing it myself.  If it happens, there'll be pictures, I promise.

Pregnancy update + ultrasound photos!

I am 18 weeks pregnant today.  The ultrasound looked great...baby sure is movin'!  Measurements were a little small (closer to 17 weeks) but not enough to officially move my due date.  Of course, because of that, in the back of my mind I'll be expecting the baby to come late, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I covered my eyes when the time came for Daniel to find out the gender.  It turns out we are going to have a...
...
...very modest baby!  The legs were crossed, Indian-style, very firmly over the, umm, area in question, so the technician just started jiggling my belly all over the place, trying to get him/her to move!  Gently, of course, unfortunately I am very ticklish...and had a full bladder!  Not cool.  So, they eventually got a good guess, but nothing definite.

We are sooo lucky that this office gives out CD's of the pictures, so I don't have to take photos of the printouts this time!

Here you go:

     This is the face, from the front.  A little creepy, maybe, but in a cute way :)

Also, belly photos from the last few weeks are up, in a spiffy little slideshow!

I'll let you know when there's a new one.

Enjoy!

More Christmas photos

I think one more post after this one will just about "wrap up" (haha!) the Christmas photos.  If I get it done before the end of January, that's still respectable, right?

So, we had a belated birthday celebration for Daniel's mom, Abuelita, which consisted of an original song written and performed by her three sons...a complete surprise - for her!

They came up from the basement one by one...

(this is how they normally dress...I promise)
 

 Our favorite...but we're biased.  :)

Somewhat nervous (but intrigued) audience.

 

 

Solo!

The birthday girl herself!

Soliciting donations...typical!

One of them was a little more peristent!

 Afterward, as per [new] Christmas Eve tradition, the girls each opened one gift...

 

 Christmas pj's...to be worn the next morning!  Thank you Aunt Bekah :) 

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Sorry for the absence of pregnancy updates.  Over just the last few days I think I have felt a few little kicks!  I feel like since this is my second pregnancy I should remember exactly what it feels like, but at this point they are so few and far between, and nothing more than tiny nudges, so I have to wonder if they're not just gas.  I know that if it's the real thing, it won't be long before they're unmistakable.  I'll be at 18 weeks tomorrow, so it's about time!

I love the second trimester.  :)  Nausea disappeared after Christmas, and my appetite is great.  I'm a little tired, and my back hurts, and I haven't been sleeping well, but all "minor" complaints (haha...minor as in baby...is that too much of a stretch?).

We have an appointment with our OB and our first ultrasound tomorrow!  I'll be letting you know how it goes...

"Ummo's nummers"

We may have a future accountant around here.  Hollie's been learning been learning about numbers (nummers) out of an Elmo (Ummo) book, and lately she's been pointing them out everywhere - on everything from phones to food packaging.  It's usually just nummers, but occasionally she specifies: Ummo's nummers.

To clarify, she does not actually know the numbers.  However, sometimes she sings to herself, "One-two-one-two-one-two!"

She sings a lot, and I love it.  Her songs usually go something like this:
"Mommy-daddy-baby-mommy-daddy-baby"
or
"Baby-doggie-nummers-baby-doggie-nummers"
or
"Sah-shoo-sah-shoo" (see below)
or
any combination, in a little sing-song voice.  I wish I could catch it on video, but you know how tough that is.  By the time the camera is out and turned on, she's moved on to something else.  You never know, I might get lucky!

Socks and shoes - sah-shoo.  Heard when we're getting ready to leave the house (or if she wants to leave (usually right before bedtime)).  Also heard around the same time...

Jacket - jack-ah
and
Hat - at! (always with a !)

Her pronunciation of water had slowly evolved from woggy,
to woddy,
to wah-doh,
and finally to wad-dah , which sounds pretty close to the real thing, just with a bit of an accent.

Her month-old obsession with lotion (show-shah) continues.  The definition has been expanded to include hand sanitizer and chapstick.

She is saying more foods, like...
Orange -  ornge (one syllable).  I feel so bad, because she loves them and asks for them constantly but gets an awful rash if she eats more than two or so a day!
Apple - appo or appah
Banana - mana
Sandwich - sammich
Water and juice - She knows I dilute her apple juice, so she usually asks for waddah-juice.

There are probably a few more, but I can't think of any at the moment.  I hope all of you don't get tired of reading stuff like this.  I read a quote recently, something to the effect of - You have to accept that no one else in the world thinks your child is as fascinating as you do.  I don't care if that's true, this is mostly for me anyway, because I just can't stand the thought someday I won't remember all these little things.

So, bear with me.  I know the real reason you keep coming back...photos like these:

  7:30 pm

This is what happens when you miss naptime!

Gender dream

This weekend I had my first dream about the new baby's gender!  I don't typically take dreams all that seriously, but every once in a while I'll have one that's eerily pertinent to something going on in my life and it completely weirds me out.  So this is just kind of fun and exciting.

I'm getting an ultrasound done at the OB's office, but Daniel and Hollie aren't there, so it's just me and the ultrasound tech.  She sets everything up, turns on the machine, and then remembers something she needs, and leaves the room.  For some reason she leaves the little wand (?) thing just sitting on my belly, so obviously I pick it up to see if I can get a look on my own.

It is weird.  It looks like an aquarium, complete with rocks on the bottom and a castle and little fake plants.  And there's my baby, just swimming around!  And he is wearing little blue sandals.

In the dream, I wasn't at all surprised by the fact that a baby would be wearing shoes in there, or by the fishbowl style setting.  I really just wondered why there weren't any fish?

Not the first crazy dream I've had lately.  Another good one: my whole family plus Daniel and Hollie go on vacation to London, only to be told upon arrival that we had two hours to see everything before we had to get back on the plane and go home again.

Oh, pregnancy hormones.

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Hollie is a word-learning machine, so I'll be doing an update on that soon.  Plus more Christmas photos on the way.  Stay tuned!

Christmas travels: part 2

So, more story.  I guess it was the next day, Daniel and I had to see this place called Voodoo Doughnuts that we had seen on TV, and first - make sure it exists (I always still feel a tiny bit of surprise when I finally see places in person that I had only previously seen on TV.  Isn't that weird?), and second - get some doughnuts.

 
Oh, baby.

On the left is the Voodoo doughnut, complete with pretzel-stake through the heart.  The next one has maple icing and bacon (better than it sounds, whether you think it sounds good or bad!).  The next one, called the Old Dirty Bastard, has crushed Oreos and peanut-butter (this is my heaven).  And for Hollie, a plain cake doughnut.

But wait, there's more...

 
The biggest apple fritter I think I've ever seen.  All four other doughnuts fit in there on top of this one.

Fortunately, it took us two days to finish all this.

Next, the cousins looked out the window and got into an adorable game of hide and seek...

 Wait a sec, where's Juliet?

There she is!

Hollie says, hmmm, I'm pretty sure she was there a second ago...

Pepere, is that Juliet in there?

A-ha!

 I found you!

To be continued...

Also, fair warning - you can see the Voodoo Doughnuts website for a list of all their wild and crazy pastries, some of the names are fairly (ahem) explicit.  The O.D.B. above is relatively tame.  Just so ya know.

Quick story

In church earlier this week, while rummaging happily through my purse ("burse"), Hollie found chapstick.  I took off the cap, and showed her how it just goes just on your lips.  That translated to "lower half of the face" in toddler-ese.  I let her go, since she still had a bit of a runny nose, and her poor nose and lips were pretty chapped.  It was also adorable, and she was having fun with it - including putting some on my face, too.

Anyways, before this, she had been holding on to her Alvin the chipmunk doll, so he was still sitting out on the pew.  And he had some chapped lips, apparently.

Then things evolved from adorable to very cool...she would put chapstick on herself, then on Alvin, replace the cap, take it off again, and repeat the whole process...over and over and over.

I knew that this kind of repetition is normal for lots of toddlers, and I had seen Hollie do it a few times before, but never with this many steps, and never with a toy/object that she had never used before (the chapstick).

It was funny and fascinating and baffling at the same time. What in the world is going on inside her head?  Why did she have to take the cap on and off every single time?  Of course, we will never know.  I hope I see it again, because it was awesome.

It was one of those vacations...

...that you need another vacation afterward to recover from.  Don't get me wrong - it was great!  Nothing beats getting those cousins together in Portland, OR with Daniel's family, and also going down to see my family in Phoenix!

But the trip had its other moments.  Allergies, pinkeye, fever, and runny eyes/nose all made an appearance.

But still, overall we were lucky.  The weather was cooperative, even at home while we were gone.  We'd had a dry winter so far in Wichita (unusual), so we were pretty sure that after nine days away, we would get back and have to dig our car out of a snowdrift in the airport parking lot (at 9:30pm).  But amazingly, it was actually raining the night we got back..that's right, warm enough at 9:30pm to be raining!  And yeah, we've been home six days now and still no snow.  I'm convinced we're going to get the whole winter's worth at once, in like, April.

I had my last week of my first trimester while we were gone, and wow, this is the best part of pregnancy!  Energy!
Appetite!
I almost forget I'm pregnant sometimes, except for this little growing belly.  Yes, I'll start taking pictures soon.

Speaking of pictures, I took quite a few, so I think I'll split them up, with stories from the trip, over several posts.

Starting from even before we left...

Lights on the house!  Didn't get put up until the night before our departure, but that's okay.

 For the sake of time, mess, and a queasy stomach, I decided to just cover things in chocolate in lieu of making cookies.  Pretzels are as far as I got.  I tried one Oreo but it didn't really work out.  These were pretty good though.  And also just pretty.  :)

I opened one gift before we left on our trip.  My new sling - a mei-tai!  It's may-tie.  I was looking for something more versatile (front/back/hip), and this is it!  Here's a link: www.meitaibaby.com.  I didn't order from this site (muy expensivo), but it gives you a good idea of what it's like.  

I opened it early because I intended to use it during our trip, especially getting through the airports, but that didn't happen.  The day before we left, Hollie squished a banana all over it.  I washed it, hung it up to dry...and there it stayed.

We have used it a few times, using the back carry in my photo, and I think Hollie likes it!

The whole Leger clan came to meet us at the airport!  Hollie insists that everyone hold hands.

     

The same day, we took the girls up to ride the tram, and got a great view of the city.  There are two trams, which people ride to get to Oregon Health Science University, which is up on a big hill.  You can also drive, but why would you when you can ride one of these? ...  

This is the other tram passing us, going the other direction.

 

Looking back up at OHSU.

 

Hello Portland!

Later the girls chilled out...

...and had a snack.

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More pictures on the way!