Some more updates!

So after talking with some people I realize I haven't really updated everything :) So here we go, a little Q&A about how things are going on with Baby #2

Q. How do you feel about having a girl?
A. Excited! This will be a fun experience :) Both Bill and I are super excited to try things out with a girl this time. And we're sure that Charlie will be a GREAT big brother to a little sister :) And we have a ton of girl clothes from my sister when she had Maggie so either way we were set!

Q. How are you feeling?
A. MUCH better than I was! I'm so glad the morning sickness has passed! But now I'm hungry like crazy and SO tired, and my back hurts too!! It's either one extreme or another it seems. I have had some bouts with heartburn though, which isn't fun at all. But what is fun is that my ankles aren't swelling like they did with Charlie! Woohoo! But I know the swelling may come later. But I'm enjoying it for now :)

Q. Are you showing?
A. Not much really. Bill says I'm showing more than when I had Charlie. But I'm still at that stage where unless I'm wearing a maternity shirt then someone just looking at me wouldn't really know if I was pregnant or just ate a lot at lunch ;)

Q. How's Charlie doing?
A. GREAT! He's such a great little guy :) He loves to draw and to run around and kick or throw the ball around. But his biggest love is with books, either looking at them himself or having us reading to him he loves books of all kinds. He's also doing great with pointing to different things when we ask. We finally got all of his space stuff put up in his room and he loves to point out the planets and the rocket ship :) It's so much fun :)

So there you go! An update to an update :D

Until next time!

~Karen

IT'S A GIRL!!

That's right! We found out that Charlie is going to have a little sister!! We're so excited! And our appointment today makes for a pretty good story :)

So we get to the place where they do the ultrasounds and I'm an anxious wreck. Not nervous but the kind of anxious where you know something exciting is coming and you don't like to wait. Like on Christmas Eve or the night before going to Disneyland. Well they take us back and the technician starts doing his thing looking at the baby, measuring the head and taking different pictures and all that standard stuff. The whole time I'm trying to get a look and see if there's any "goods" or not :) And no dice. She's being shy. Apparently she was all curled up in a corner with her legs crossed and her arms over her face. The technician tried different angles and gives it a few goes and he says he has no idea because she's just too curled up. So he says he'll show the Doctor his pictures and then maybe the Dr. will give it a go and see if he can find out. So we wait....what felt like an eternity....and the Doctor came in and said everything health and size wise on the baby looks great and he says he'll try to see the gender. I've already given up on finding out this visit and in my mind I'm planning one of those 4D ultrasounds because I'm finding out dang it!! Well low and behold he turns on the machine and he says "Oop! You ready to find out?" And I do everything I can not to explode "YES!!! TELL ME ALREADY!" And he says we're having a girl! And then I did explode because I finally knew! And for the rest of the day we've been soaking the news in. And the more we think about it the more excited we get because we think Charlie is going to be a great big brother to a little sister :) Good times are ahead for sure!!! As for names we're throwing around some possibilities but our favorite so far is Chloe Elizabeth. Here's some ultrasound pictures to check out;


Thumbs up!

Crazy view of her skull and hand

Her leg!

Until next time!!

~Karen, Bill & Charlie

Almost 16 weeks. Chugging right along!

Hey all,

So things are still moving right along. I had a doctor appointment about a week ago. Everything looks great! The heart rate sounds perfect although when the doctor was trying to listen the baby rolled over which made it like a scavenger hunt to find the heart beat again. Such a shy baby :) As for me I've been feeling better than I was before, but still not great :P During the day I feel pretty good but at night I get all tired and gross feeling and usually camp out on the couch. But I can eat more now and don't feel as nauseous as before. Hooray! And for more exciting news we have the ultrasound scheduled to find out if we're having a boy or a girl! We couldn't wait, we want to find out :) So stay tuned because on June 29th we'll find out!

As for Charlie he's such a great little buddy :) He's really getting good at pointing things out when we ask, I was especially surprised when we asked "where's the ceiling?" And he pointed right up! Such a smart boy! :)


Until next time!

~Karen, Bill and Charlie

Ultrasound take 2!

So since we were off with the due date at the first time around, they wanted to take a look again 2 weeks later when the baby was bigger. So this morning we got even more ultrasound pictures! Yay! And it's crazy how much bigger the baby has gotten in only a couple of weeks! From 1.5 inches to 4 inches! And the baby was bouncing around and moving and it even swallowed! Bill thinks the baby already looks like me and he thinks he or she might have the signature big bottom lip :) As for the baby everything looks wonderful! Things are formed like they should and nothing looks out of the ordinary at all! We'll get another ultrasound around 20 weeks or so (and I think that's when we find out if it's a boy or a girl!)

Hello baby Drastal! Look at those tiny arms and legs!


A tiny little foot!

They even took a 3D picture! The head is on the top there at a 3/4 view. And you can see the torso and arms!

The due date is still at November 19th for now! And I'm still feeling pretty sick a lot. It seems like every evening I feel awful and I even still have whole days when I feel gross :P I won't miss this stage at all!!

Well I have a doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks so I'll be sure to update you then!!

~Karen

It's true! We're doing it again!!

So here we go again, baby #2 is on its way! Charlie's going to get a new brother or sister sometime around November 19th! Our little peanut is 10 weeks and 3 days old and got its first pictures!

You can see the little arms and legs and head. And this little baby is just as much of a mover and a shaker as Charlie was! Rolling around and getting it's little arm in the way when they were trying to take head measurements :) Little wiggle worm!

As for us we're super excited! We were hoping we could have them close together so we can get all this baby stuff out of the way in one shot and so they can be buddies together :) But aside from being excited I've been feeling sick like crazy! It's been worse than the first time around and I've also been getting migraines (not fun!) which is nothing more than hormone stuff so nothing to worry about.

So in 2 weeks I get to go back for another ultrasound because we were a bit off with the dates and this baby is a tad too small to see everything they're looking at. So we're going to try again when this baby is a bit bigger.

As for Charlie he's getting SO big! He loves to run around like crazy and go on adventures, especially to the Zoo. He does say some words but only when he's in the mood. His favorites are "tickle tickle" and "uh-oh" so far :)

So I'll probably update again in two weeks with more info!

~Karen :)

So little Charlie has now hit 11 months! I guess it's time to start planning that first birthday (which is going to be on Halloween, how cool is THAT?!) And our little buddy is growing by leaps and bounds too! He can now stand all by himself (not for very long but he does it!) and he crawls like a pro all over the place. He even chases the bunny around whenever we let the bunny out.

September also brought a lot of adventures too. First we headed down to Oceanside on a whim because we were just so dang sick of all the smoke from the fires! So we went to a fun little Labor Day celebration at Great Grandma Holly's where Charlie had fun in the sun dancing, playing in the grass, and hanging out with Grammy;


We then went down to the Oceanside pier so Charlie could see the beach for the very first time!


Here comes the water!!


He was not amused...maybe next time!


Then we had Charlie dedicated at our Church over at the First Christian Church of North Hollywood! A dedication isn't a baptism really. At our Church it's more like a chance to introduce Charlie to the rest of the Church. And he did so good! Charlie was adorable with his little zebra buddy (the zebra is his new travel buddy, he loves to take him everywhere!) He charmed everybody in his handsome little sweater. How dapper :)


Then Charlie became Bat Man...just had to add that one in here :)


And last but certainly not least! We headed down to Knott's Berry Farm to meet up with Aunt Tami, Uncle Chris, Cousin Maggie, and Grammy and Grampy for Knott's Chicken Dinner! Yum!! Charlie always loves hanging out with his cousin but he was also getting impatient for his chicken dinner! Well for the part of a biscuit and a little bit of chicken soup that he had ;)


Here we all are;


Except Maggie was too busy waiting for the roller coasters to go by so I had to ambush her for a picture :)


Then it was time for some Maggie and Unkie Bill fun time!!


So that's all the excitement and adventures that came with September, who knows what milestones October will bring! Time to get that first birthday planned though, where did the time go?!?!

Lots of love,

Karen, Bill, & Charlie

Standing, Smiling, Uncles and Fires...

Well our little buddy is now 10 months old! Such a big boy! The month of August brought us a lot of surprises, such as Charlie pulling himself up to stand on his own! He is quite proud of himself for this, as you can see;


We're so proud of our little guy! Except this really puts a damper on bed time seeing as he never wants to lay down anymore. :)

Charlie also crawls now too! Finally! Well, he crawls in order to get to a place where he can stand up :) He also loves to hide under his Jumparoo, like it's some little fortress or something. I was going to take a video but the camera's battery died! Boooooo!!!

August also came with the arrival of many many new teeth! He has four top teeth and three bottom teeth (and probably more that we haven't noticed yet!) Which Charlie loves to show off with cheesy grin, I love that face!


And Charlie finally got to meet his Uncle Alex for the very first time! Alex was in town on vacation for the month of August all the way from Japan, and he came up for a BBQ with us;

We had a great time hanging out, having BBQ and swimming. Charlie is still a little timid of the pool, not so much of being scared, he just hates being cold.

But on another note Charlie has made amends with the bunny and they're friends now! Hooray! Instead of crying whenever the bunny gets near he giggles. But he doesn't giggle nearly as much as when there's a puppy nearby! Even if there's a dog food commercial on TV Charlie will laugh! He also loves whenever the Backyardigans comes on (that's a kids TV show on Noggin) Thank goodness because that's a show that we all enjoy to watch. We've also found that Charlie loves to play with pillows. He's a little daredevil and plows right into them and laughs and laughs! We got Charlie one of those kid sized bean bags and it's shaped like a bird and Charlie will go to town smashing it and bopping it around. It's so adorable! I'm hoping Charlie will be my roller coaster buddy when he gets big enough (which at the rate he's growing should be in a couple of weeks now).

August for us parents was very busy too. The company I do work for told me they needed more help, so I dropped Bill's name and they sent him an art test to take and he got the job! Hooray!! Bill is still working his full time job too because we need the benefits, so he'll be doing this on the side. Also this month Bill has been helping out a studio that we found at Comic Con. He had to cut back on that though because he got the Slide job (it's a very small studio and currently they can't pay until their show gets picked up) but we might be able to participate in their art show coming up in September here in LA! I'll let you know if we get in! Overall August has been very exciting but also a lot of hard work. *whew* And I'm sure you've also heard about the fires going on practically EVERYWHERE. Well they're a bit of a ways away from us but last night the wind changed and we woke up to smokey air! Normally I love a good BBQ but having it smell like the world's biggest BBQ is a bit much. So we have the AC on and we're staying inside until this all blows over. Keep a good thought towards everyone that is being affected and let's hope the firefighters get it all under control soon!


Until next month!

~Karen, Bill, and Charlie