Playing with Daddy

Just a few cute pictures of Whitney over the last couple weeks. She just recently got over her first bout with pink eye and double ear infections. Just a couple of cranky days and a massive diaper rash from the antibiotics, but we won! We've started experiencing a couple terrible two tantrums, but nothing major, just a battle of wills. She started doing somersaults all by herself this last week and that seems to be one of her favorite things to do right now. It's hard to believe she's about to be 2 years old!

Tea anyone?

The princess in her crownLounging with her "mealk"
Weeeee! Daddy is so much fun!

April 7, 2009...

That's the date this little baby girl is going to be here! Hooray! Unless, of course, she decides to come before that, but I can't imagine that happening. I was just looking at my pictures when I was pregnant with Whitney, and I have ALOT of growing to still do. I guess I forgot about that. As of now the c-section is scheduled for 5:30 pm, which is fine by me except the surgery scheduler informed me that I may want to keep checking back to see if we can change it because I won't be able to eat ALL DAY LONG! It's just a minor wrinkle...we'll make it work. She seemed more concerned about it than I did. I kinda think it will be nice to just have a laid back morning and afternoon, get a nap, etc. before heading in...we'll see. I still don't think Whitney really knows she's about to have a baby sister, but she knows my big belly's is name "baby stister". She will lift my shirt and hug and kiss baby sister, then pat her. It's pretty cute! Baby girl is moving around much more and getting quite violent at times. The room is set up, as well as the pack n' play and swing in the living room. Now all we need is the baby. I'm glad to have everything ready so that we can relax during March. On Monday I'll be 34 weeks, so only 5 more weeks from then...hard to believe!

32 Weeks and Counting

I was 32 Weeks on Monday. I go to the doctor on Thursday. Hopefully we will nail down a c-section date then. We'll keep you posted!

Next time won't you sing with me...

Here's a beautiful song by the one and only (23 months)...

My hubby...

Ok, so I have to brag on my husband for a minute. He, of course, has always been spectacular, but he really came through for Valentine's Day. He surprised me with a trip to Savannah for a couple days, not only for Valentine's Day, but just for a trip to get away before our new baby gets here. We've been wanting to go there to see the city in general, but my main reason to visit was to eat at Paula Deen's restaurant, The Lady and Sons. We had heard rumors of how difficult is was to get in there, no way to make reservations in advance, only waiting lines starting early in the morning, wrapping around the block to make a reservation for later that same day, whenever they could fit you in. We were prepared to wake up early Friday morning to go wait in line to get a spot. However, when we rolled into town Thursday evening, we thought we'd just check to see if there was anything available that night...and there was! Certainly it was meant to be! So we enjoyed our Paula Deen buffet on the first night. There were so many tempting things on the menu as well, but we chose the buffet to get a variety of Paula's best, fried chicken, ribs, mac and cheese, brunswick stew, corn on the cob (swimming in a pool of butter, of course), baked beans...it was really good!

The next day we took a trolley ride around the city to learn its history. It was a 90 minute ride commentated by the driver, then we picked a few places to get off and explore ourselves. We toured an old home that was said to have had the first plumbing in the US, walked through many of the "squares" throughout the city, visited Forsyth Park and an old, old cemetery. Most of the squares had monuments commemorating founders and other important people of the city. One of the squares was where the movie Forest Gump was filmed, where he was waiting on the bus the whole movie. Forsyth Park is known for a pretty significant fountain that was really pretty. The cemetery had stones dating back to the civil war and we noticed that there were a bunch of stones of young children all around the same time. We later found out that there was a break out of yellow fever at the time.

Later that day we drove out to the beach, Tybee Island. Apparently, I had never mentioned to Ben that I had always said I wanted to go to a beach in Georgia. I don't really know why, I think because you never really heard of anyone talking about Georgia beaches and there's such a small amount of land that would even have beach. At any rate, he allowed me to fulfill that lifelong dream! We ate at a little seafood restaurant on the beach that night too.

We left the next morning after grabbing some breakfast at a little diner. It was the perfect time to get away and the perfect amount of time to get rested and rejuvenated. Kudos to you hubby! I love you!

By the way, cupid brought Ben a paint ball gun. Needless to say, we have a few trees in our backyard that have some mysterious yellow spots on them! Boys will be boys...maybe that's why we have girls? Hmmm...

Waiting to go into "The Lady and Sons"

The square where Forrest Gump was filmedThe fountain in Forsyth ParkOn Tybee Island

Whitney's First Trip to the Zoo

Last weekend was a georgous one here, so we decided to venture out to the zoo in Atlanta. It was Whitney's first trip to a zoo and she loved it. She identified most animals and of course got a few confused. I think she called the flamingo a goose and an antelope-looking thing a goat, but how many times do you run across those things! She especially liked the monkeys, elephants and kangaroos. She insisted on showing us what exactly a kangaroo does by jumping around and saying "boing, boing, boing". So cute!

One Week in a BIG GIRL BED!

Well, after MUCH deliberation Ben and I finally decided that with this new little girl coming it was time to move Whitney into a big girl bed. Some of you may know that we had been going back and forth with the idea for a few months now. Our main hesistation was out of pure sefishness, you see, Whitney has been such a wonderful sleeper in her crib and showed no signs of wanting to leave it. What would happen to OUR sleep if Whitney didn't adjust well or even worse, decided to journey into our room before we were ready to wake up!? Oh, and safety was an issue too. I could only imagine waking up to the cries as she was tumbling down our wooden stairs...not good at all! At any rate, last Wednesday night was her first night in the bed and she did great! We opted to skip the nap that day so she would be really tired at bed time and it seemed to work, she fell right to sleep. The nap was skipped the next day as well, just by chance, so that night too, was a success. We thought for sure the first nap would be an issue since in the daylight she could actually see around her room, but up to this point, it really hasn't been a problem. She does get out and look around her room, get her books and throws them into bed, only to climb back in and have a quick read before drifting off to sleep. We've been quite amazed at how easy the transition has been and thank God for blessing us with such a wonderful little girl! Now, we must confess, we do lock her into her room. Some may say this is a form of child abuse, and again Ben and I went back and forth about this decision as well. But ultimately she is safer being locked in her room than being able to roam about the house, which this little girl would definately do! In our research to figure out what to do about roaming children, we found out there are many of you out there that lock your children in. It's like the non-discussed topic of parenting, the question no one wants to ask for fear of being judged, but we all do it! So lock on, all you closet-lockers, LOCK ON!

Whitney's First Haircut

Our once extremely bald little girl had her first haircut on Saturday. She obviously didn't need much taken off at all, but the mullet just wasn't working for her anymore, so we just got it trimmed up and I must say, it looks much better. Maybe, hopefully now it will just start growing like a weed! We went to a (overpriced) place called Pigtails and Crewcuts, but every girl deserves a little pampering every now and then. They pretty much had every gimic and trick to make it a pleasurable experience. She did very well, was a little apprehensive at first, but once the sucker came into play she was really good to go. We can't believe how fast she is growing up!

Getting ready...

Yummy! Sucker!

Sucked in by the televsion...

All done big girl...So pretty!

Trip to Ohio

We went back to the O-H the last week of January. There was lots to do and lots of friends and family to see. We finally got to have Christmas with our families in which Whitney got a TON of stuff. Santa certainly found her in Ohio! It took three large boxes to get everything shipped back home. We got to visit with our friends the Fraser's and Krenzel's and celebrated Ben's Grandpa Walter's 98th birthday! Best of all Whitney got to experience her first snow, although she didn't get the "full" experience since she doesn't have proper snow attire and until the day we were leaving there really wasn't too much snow. She at least got to kick around in it some and get her hands on it.

Whitney looking glamourous in her new dress up clothes

and Grandma Hartsock's new necklace.

Whitney lounging in her new lawnchair.

Whitney on her new and first tricycle, complete with the Dora helmet.

Whitney with mommy and Great-Grandma Edna.

Mommy, Whitney and Grandma Lykowski.

Whitney out in the snow for the first time. Whitney meeting Grandma and Grandpa
Lykowski's horse, Cabeza.
Whitney and Brayden Krenzel getting ready
to enjoy a romantic dinner.

Grandpa Walter's 98th birthday party...98 years!