Look what I discovered!

The Dog Park

Jolie

Bandit

It is somewhat sad how far on the back burner the dogs many times get placed due to Kendall, however yesterday we decided to take ALL the kids to the dog park. The trip there seemed to take longer than the stay, although the dogs did try their best to speed things along by pulling with all their might...the whole time...in different directions.

We finally arrive and Trenton takes Bandit inside the gates of the dog area - I kept Jolie with us since she is a little aggressive and cannot be trusted without a leash around other dogs. Some may attribute this to her breed, although I still think her aggressiveness was caused in College Station. When she was only a puppy, I was walking her around my apartment complex when another dog (not on a leash) came barreling down the way and went straight for her throat. Fortunately, the owner was not too far behind and was able to pull their dog away. Jolie came away basically unscathed - although now she believes all dogs are trying to kill her.

Back to the present - Bandit is now free to roam and takes off straight for a crowd of people. He weaves in between them, wagging his tail and staring up at them with those big googly pug eyes with a look that seems to say "my mommy and daddy don't love me." At least a few around stoop to pet him and immediately his loyalities to us vanish. In fact, it isn't until his luxurious back scratching is complete and another dog moment passes before he remembers who always - if not sometimes a little late - feeds him.

Jolie, still on the outside of the dog park, paces back and forth, scoping out the threats to her immediate territory. Every moment or two, she jumps up and puts her dusty paws on my light khaki capri pants, which begins to frustrate me. After a few more jumps, I tell her "no" and "stop it or I might just let you off this leash forever." I'm sure the people around me overhear in horror thinking about how quickly people with babies forget their original babies.

How true that is sometimes! All and all, we had a fun time, and the dogs will be making a return trip back.

Interesting Surprise

We are expecting baby #2! The expected due date is July 18th - which would make Kendall just under 18 months...yikes! It was slightly planned but very unexpected, if that makes any sense at all. The mission for Kendall was in the works for quite a while, so imagine our surprise when the first month of "not trying but not trying not to" results in baby #2!

The pregnancy seems to be progressing normally so far - I will be 15 weeks (3 months) as of Saturday. I had a sonogram during my 12th week and everything looked healthy - heartbeat was strong and there were already little fingers and toes waving at us.

There are some differences between this time and the not so distant first time - I must have had the easiest pregancy with Kendall: no morning sickness, no swelling, no breakouts. This time hasn't been so uneventful...morning sickness is just starting to die down and so are the breakouts. I do feel a LOT more tired this time, but probably because I know I won't have the time to do anything about it.

Some fun facts - my sister's 2nd 'set' of babies were born 2 days after her birthday, my sister-in-laws 2nd baby was born 2 days after her birthday, and my expected due date for baby #2 is also 2 days after my birthday :) Something else - Kendall was born 6 weeks after my sister's twins and our 2nd baby will likely be born 6 weeks after her little boy cousin on Trenton's side.

Our 5th anniversary is this Saturday - we are going to our favorite restaurant Reata in downtown Ft. Worth. Oddly enough, the last 2 times I have been there I was also pregnant (our last anniversary and the previous birthday). I suppose no blue cactus margarita for me ;o)

Kendall's New Toy

Kendall already knows how to slide down by herself on the new birthday toy from mommy and daddy!

Happy Birthday Kendall Bee!

Tomorrow is Kendall's actually birthday however I have a free moment tonight :) I thought it would be fun to remember what was happening a year ago to date. I pulled this from my pregnancy website:

Rough Day...
January 19, 2008
Yesterday I started having very light
Braxton-Hicks contractions throughout the day - it didn't hurt at all, just felt
tight on my tummy. Well, I woke at 2 this morning with what felt like the
most horrible menstrual pains I have ever had - my lower back hurt like crazy as
well. I wasn't sure what it was exactly so I looked on the internet and
they seemed to be legit contractions - they have a definitive start and stop
point, every 4-5 minutes for about 45 seconds. I finally woke Trenton up
at 4ish and he started helping me count. He called the hospital and they
told us to come in when the contractions were 2 minutes apart and a minute in
duration. So we waited...and waited...and waited...and still the pesky
little things kept coming every 5 minutes until about 7 and then they lengthed
out to about 10-20 minutes.
So now I think I'm heading for the longest "pre"
labor of all time! My doctor mentioned inducing on Thursday and I have my
next appointment on Wednesday. If I'm still getting these contractions -
or whatever they are - every 5-20 minutes I think I will BEG to be
induced. It hurts just enough to keep me from falling asleep and they seem
much more intense during the evening.
Well, I hope everyone is having a good
MLK weekend...please pray that we will have a quick and speedy delivery...I
wasn't made for this type of pain!!!

As it turns out, my water ended up breaking at 1am the morning of Sunday, January 20th. I was so relieved because I knew that I could now go to the hospital and they could give me drugs! For a time period, I had considered the no drug route, but after a couple days of off and on contractions, I knew that natural would not be for a wimpette like me. Our sweet little princess arrived at 11:13am and our lives have never been the same :)

We love you baby bee!

The Big Day is coming quickly!

Well, two big days are coming quickly actually...Kendall will be turning the BIG ONE this Tuesday January 20th. But the BIG DAY I was refering to here was her first day at 'school' - February 4th. Kendall will be attending day care two days a week starting in February and above is her new backback we just got in the mail yesterday. She seems to sport it well!

New Year...New You

I'm not really a big fan of resolutions - don't tend to make them - however, I was thinking over random thoughts while changing Kendall's diaper for the 15th time in an hour (poor baby has a tummy virus). These aren't really resolutions - more like thought process changes - and I hoped mentioning them here would hopefully make me more accountable.

1) Stop complaining - either fix it or shut it (bluntly put)
2) Be a better example to Kendall - she's actually starting to imitate - scary!
3) Stop hiding behind behaviors because "that's just the way I am"
4) Stop trying to understand why people are the way they are...because they just are and usually you aren't going to change them.
5) Act with love even when I don't want to - I can be the adult in situations even when I'm not the eldest involved

Happy New Year!