Happy Birthday to Charlie (almost!)

Yup, can you believe it? Charlie is already just days away from being the big 2! How time flies!! And Charlie is such a big boy now too! He's still on that potty training road, far from accident free but he's making progress. We had a little snag when he suddenly wanted nothing to do with the potty, but with a little encouragement he's back in the saddle again (so to speak). Charlie also LOVES drawing now-a-days. He got into my art supplies boxes and loves to draw with everything he can get his hands on! He makes some pretty fun drawings too! I'll have to get some framed :) Charlie is also my big helper he's so good at helping me put away his toys and crayons. He's also found a new love for the show Blue's Clues! If it ever gets mentioned then you better be prepared to turn on an episode! HAHAHAHA It's such a cute show I don't mind at all watching it with him! So for his birthday we've planned to go to the Halloween party at the San Francisco Zoo! Charlie has his Robin costume (as in Batman and Robin) all ready to go! And we also have some fun presents waiting for him! But shhhh it's a secret :) I'll have to tell you what they are later ;)

As for Chloe news things are still going great! ....well not great great but overall good.....ok I'm miserable, she's good :) I've hit that not so fun last month like a brick wall! The migraines are back, and I'm SO tired but I can't get comfortable to sleep anymore! I think it's setup this way so that you really look forward to the baby getting here! Which I am SO ready!! I want to meet her already and be done with all these aches and pains and headaches! Blech! But through all the complaints my doctor says this is all normal and everything else health wise is absolutely wonderful so there's nothing wrong. I'm also still doing the weekly testing which monitors Chloe's heart rate and movement and all that and she's still doing so well that I'm in and out of there in 20 minutes! And they also do a quick ultrasound to check the fluid levels in there and usually it's just a quick look, nothing really special, until last week when without even trying the nurse got an AMAZING view of Chloe's face!! Even the nurse was surprised! She also said that she thinks Chloe already looks like me. Well she definitely has the chin! I think she looks like Charlie personally :) The pictures aren't nearly as clear as the screen was, but you can still get a good look!

if you still can't tell what you're looking at, it's just her face here in the picture, off to the left. And her mouth at the time was this adorable little pouty mouth, for some reason it came out as a big shadow on the picture. Really when I saw this my mind immediately said "Alright! She looks like a baby! I'm done! Let's get this over with!" But sadly no, I still have about another month to go! It'll be the longest (and shortest) month EVER I'm sure!

~Karen

Baby Shower and Reunion Fun!

Hello!!!

So last weekend was the much anticipated Baby Shower and Family Reunion in Reno!! It was put on by Fabulous Aunt Cathy and Uncle Paul and we had SO much fun!!! From gabbing it up with the family, to tasty food, and goofy nights gambling on Wheel of Fortune and Indiana Jones slot machines, to an RC car derby, HUGE bubbles, cake cake and more cake, adorable baby stuff, exploring Virginia City and it's crazy graveyard, and SO much more!! We had so much fun that I didn't want to come back to real life! Charlie also had so much fun that he was talking talking talking after we got home! I have no idea what he was saying but I'm sure it was all about how much fun he had in Reno. He was a little overwhelmed with all the new people when we first got there, and he had a couple of rough nights due to the elevation difference, but after a little time warming up to everyone then he couldn't get enough! He loves playing with his cousin (and second cousins, and third cousins, and second uncles once removed etc etc etc) Charlie was also a hugging machine, everyone got hugs :) It was adorable! He also showed off his skills saying "I'm Charlie" or something to that effect. He was a great little guy and he did great on the drive which was beautiful! A little creepy though when we went over Donner Pass (we'll have to stop and check it out next time we go out there). Overall we had an amazing weekend and we can't thank Aunt Cathy and Uncle Paul enough for putting on such a fun party!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!! And thanks to everyone that came out it was great to catch up with everyone, I just wish I had more time to talk with everyone individually. And the gifts were SO cute! Chloe will have the most adorable outfits (especially her feet!) and it looks like we're going with a ladybug theme for her room (adorable!) I can't say enough good things about the whole weekend!

As for an update on day to day life the weekly monitoring at my Dr's office has been going great!! Chloe has been moving and kicking like crazy which is what they're looking for. At one appointment they used a small buzzer like thing (like a back massager that buzzes) to wake her up and it worked like a charm! They buzzed my tummy once and she jumped like crazy and kept kicking! And last week they didn't have to do anything at all Chloe was a mover and a shaker and I was done in no time! Go Chloe go! This weekend we plan on going and getting the last of the baby stuff that we need and finally get Chloe's room setup (I hope!)

And Charlie is officially on the road to becoming a Big Boy! We've started planning for potty training and next weekend we're dedicating the whole weekend to potty training and get the whole process kicked off! We've already got the toddler potty and he does sit on it but he doesn't really know how to tell us before he goes, he just gets angry once he has gone so hopefully everything will click soon and he can start sporting his awesome super hero underpants!

Well that's all the updates for now! Here's some pictures from the Reno trip! If you have any I would LOVE to get some more!