Adventures of Evangeline & Soda: April 2009

Monday, April 13, 2009

It's a...

I will post pictures of our sweet little one soon, but the sonogram revealed an obvious BOY baby. We are super excited! The sonographer said he looks very healthy and was VERY active during the sonogram (and I wasn't even feeling kicks right then, so I can only imagine what he's doing at night when I feel all his punches and kicks quite plainly). He is also measuring big, so the technician put my due date at around Sept. 7th (rather than the previous Sept. 15th). For anyone wondering, the doctor had predicted a boy at 14 weeks, so he was right. I knew saying that would make it seem obvious that it was a boy, but I have heard that girls can actually be easier to identify, contrary to how it might seem. Other good news: the placenta previa is completely resolved! I got to pick my daughter up again after the appointment...Yay!

Praise God for all that wonderful news! Thanks for the prayers!

Easter Family Pictures

Here are a couple of photos of our family in our Easter get-up. My mom made the matching dresses. Evie kept playing with Richard's tie because he NEVER wears a tie! :o) Happy (belated) Easter, everyone! Of course, it's never the wrong time to celebrate the Resurrection! Thank You, Lord!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Boy or Girl: What do YOU think?

We have Soda's "big" sonogram on Monday at 2:30 so we are hoping s/he gives the tech a nice open view of "the parts" so we will know if Soda is a boy or a girl. Before we find out I thought it would be fun to hear from you all about what you think we are having. People have all sorts of theories about guessing gender so here is some info for you regarding this pregnancy and my pregnancy with Evie:

Here I am pregnant with Evie and I think I'm actually more like 20 weeks along (It's kind of funny to not only compare bellies, but also decor...carpet and paneling compared to painted walls and wood flooring. I think Richard was actually just doing a test shot here and had the fancy equipment set up for a later photo shoot)

And here I am with Soda at 17 weeks, 3 days:

Evie: I had a very easy pregnancy. I got queasy at times and actually threw up twice but if memory serves, the times when I threw up were my main times of major queasiness, rather than weeks and weeks of it. Overall I felt great outside of the usual tiredness. I had marginal placenta previa with her which corrected by 28 weeks. Food craving: citrus, particularly lemon.

Soda: I was MUCH more nauseated with Soda (weeks and weeks of it!), although I am past it now and never threw up. Of course you all know about the complete placenta previa which we HOPE to find out has already corrected itself. Food craving: Soup!!! Good, salty soup!

So, tell me if you think I'm having a boy or a girl, and why. If you don't do comments, feel free to email me. Please be praying that the sonogram reveals: corrected placenta previa, a clear view of the parts so we'll know gender, and MOST OF ALL a sweet, healthy baby Soda!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Fun in the Sun

*Catching up time: I'm catching up on lots of blog posts. Later I will go in and change dates to get them in the appropriate order, but for now I can't stand to put the work in and then have the posts get lost in the shuffle and go unnoticed by Evie's "fans." ;o) So, enjoy what we've been up to these last several months...

Although Spring can't seem to make up its mind to stick around, we have had quite a few gorgeous days.

A play date at the park. None of these boys were in our group but Evie decided to try to climb with them. It does my heart good to see her trying more challenging things like this.

Still one of her favorite things:

I wanted to buy Evie a sandbox but a lot of the ones you see are over $100. No, thank you. I wanted to find one of these turtle sandboxes which are cheaper and easy to find on Craigslist. My mom actually found this one in someone's bulk trash and snagged it. It has the cover and everything and just needed a cleanup. Another treasure found in bulk trash! I had just cleaned it up and Evie was playing with spray bottles and such. She poured a bunch of water on her self and soaked her clothes so, on impulse, I decided to strip her down, stick a swim diaper on her and use the sandbox as a pool. She loved it!

As a side update (seeing Evie's patch in these pictures reminded me of it)...Evie's glasses broke so we had to order more. Since we were only 2 months shy of the appointment to dilate her eyes and check to see if her prescription had changed we had to take her to the ophthalmologist early. Turns out, the doctor said her crossing had improved enough that we do not have to patch her AT ALL!! Yay!!! Her glasses are still necessary but her prescription is weaker than it was before. In the future he might see more crossing and want her patched again but for now we are really enjoying the reprieve.

Shamrock Snacks

For St. Patrick's Day Evie and I made some shamrock snacks. They are super-easy to make and she had lots of fun "cooking" them and especially--sampling them!!

Ingredients:

white chocolate morsels

pretzel knots

pretzel sticks

green food coloring

green sprinkles

Melt the morsels in the microwave and stir.

Add green food coloring and stir til smooth.

Spread out waxed paper.

Dip the knots into the melted morsels one at a time and stick them close together on the waxed paper. Break a pretzel stick in half, dip it, and add it to the bottom (I sometimes added a small dollop of white chocolate to be sure it would stick together once it hardened).

Sprinkle with green sprinkles.

Let harden and enjoy!

Evie stirring:

This is fun!

Evie's special job: Adding sprinkles!!

Let's try these suckers out...

Sugar! Yummmm!!!

But we need more sprinkles...

Potty Training...sort of

Evie will possibly be late to potty train due to her hemiparesis (the fancy term for those with strokes who have weakness on one side of the body--Hemiplegia is total paralysis on one side), but she had shown some signs of readiness so we figured we'd try it out. I thought it was before bedrest, but I think that's me on the couch in a maternity top, so it must have been after I was already on bedrest (That feels like forever ago!) She successfully went pee pee in the potty twice. Once I was restricted from lifting her we decided to wait on the potty training for a while.

Reading books on her potty:

Music Class

I decided to enroll my little music lover in a music class at a local church. It's similar to Kindermusic, but MUCH cheaper. Evie is crazy about it. I just mention something about going to music class and she starts bouncing with excitement. It's been really neat to see her progress because when the class first started she was barely walking and by the end I could just hold her hand and walk in circles with her for the marching songs.

Evie's fabulous teacher, Miss Hollie (and Evie playing with a frog puppet):

Checking out a book with Miss Hollie:

Richard joined us the first week after I got off bedrest since the class can be pretty tiring for me (run! jump! march!):

Play those bells, Evie!

Evie and Daddy

Evie LOVES her daddy!! She's becoming quite the daddy's girl, especially since I've been limited in how much I can pick her up. I've developed a "cheater method" for getting her into my lap (Don't tell my doctor, cuz technically I'm still lifting, but I think this takes some of the pressure off, but I mean, REALLY, how can I not pick up my girl to cuddle!?!)...I have her step on my foot, then I kick my foot up to sort of propel her off the ground and into my lap. But I digress...she is really a daddy's girl!! And her daddy sure does love her back! I'm so thankful to have a wonderful husband who is also a magnificent dad!!

Evie reading books with Daddy:

Piano time:

Getting ready for church...Since Richard is into different kinds of knots, he's actually MUCH better than I am at tying nice bows on Evie's dresses so they'll stay tied and lay straight, so that has become his official job. I love their method: Evie stands on the changing table, turns her back, and grabs the wall for stability while Daddy fixes up her bow. So cute! (By the way, this is another one of my mom's smocking creations. It has adorable beaded and embroidered cupcakes on the front)

I'm not quite sure why Evie is eating in the recliner, but I have a feeling she was under the weather that day and this was Richard's best way of getting her to eat. Don't they look cozy?!

NOT a Happy Camper!

This was taken on a day when Evie was not in very good spirits. I just thought it was cute. (If it's cruel to sing songs to a troubled heart, it's probably even worse to take pictures of it, right?)

Birthday Boys!

Evie went to a triple birthday party...Gabe was turning 1, Luke was turning 2, and Louie was turning 3. There was a bounce house, which Evie loved. Gabe and Louie's aunt (who needs to give me some of her energy!) was in there with the kiddos and helped Evie get more bang for her bounce. I had lots of sweet helpers that day since I had just gotten off bedrest and wasn't allowed to pick Evie up.

Gabe, Luke, and Louie getting ready to blow out the candles on their choo choo train cake. 1-2-3 Blow!

Evie enjoying the bounce house:

Look at the pure joy on that face!

Evie playing in the sandbox with her buddy, Luke:

Bedrest in a Hammock

While I was on bedrest we had some very beautiful days and I had major cabin fever. My wonderful husband set up our hammock outside so I could enjoy the beautiful weather while still following doctor's orders. (As a side note, this is a hammock that Richard brought back from Venezuela for me while we were still dating. He had gone there to visit his old boarding school which was shutting down). Here's a shot of Evie pushing Mommy in the hammock:

Family Time

My mom, Evie, and I met up with my grandmother and Aunt Donna for lunch. Donna had just gotten a new puppy which Evie really enjoyed.

Evie with "Gigi" and Aunt Donna:

Evie petting Oliver:

A little unsure of Oliver's big kisses:

My mom has made Evie several beautiful smocked dresses. Here's a closer view of one of them:

"Grandmama" has become "Momo." I actually like this name better. For one, Evie made it up herself since that's the way she pronounces "Grandmama" so that makes it special. Plus, it just seems a lot less formal. Here's Evie walking with her Momo and her Gigi:

Adventures of Evangeline & Soda