LA trip...LOTS of pictures

LA Trip

We took a family vacation to visit my brother, my sister in law and niece in LA. My mom, sister and grandparents went too. We had a wonderful time and the weather was beautiful! The highs in LA were our lows here at home. It was nice just to get away and enjoy time with the family.

 

The week we were supposed to leave for our trip Nathan got quite sick.. He had high fevers for 4 days with no other symptoms. We took him to the pediatrician and she said it was probably roseola or hand/foot/mouth disease and that we should expect a rash to follow the fever. His fever finally broke the day before we left for LA however, he never had a rash. We were more worried that he would get his cousin sick, but the Dr. assured us he was not contagious if he had been fever free for more than 24 hours. Needless to say, with Nathan not back to 100% he was a smidgen fussy the whole time we were visiting.

 

IN the bucket at the airport ready to go through the x-ray machine!! At least all the TSA workers had a good sense of humor that morning!

 His cousin was very excited to see him again.....Poor Maeva, Na

than was just not feeling the love!

 ON Saturday morning we took the kids to Griffith Park. they had Pony rides and a train ride. The park is beautiful and it was so nice to be outside past 9am without sweating to death!!

I know what to get Nathan for Christmas....a Pony! HE loved it! they had several different types of pony rides.. 1) for little toddlers - it had the pony's in a corral and they just went around in a circle.
2) slow walking pony's for age 3 and under that were not attached to anything, they just walked slowly around the designated trail. 3) fast pony's for the older kids.

  We started him out on the circle pony. He kept trying to make it go while they were waiting for the ride to start! He seemed so at ease and content!

 He looks like a true equestrian here as he is leaning forward!

 Next we put him on t he free walking pony. He loved it more than the first pony. He just seemed to be soaking everything in.

 He wasn't scared at all when the strange man picked him up from Dan and carried him to the pony and strapped him in. I was proud of him for being so brave!

                                               

We went on a little train ride 

           

                                          He sure does love his great Gram and Pop!
IF ever Nathan was fussing or we couldn't get him to smile, Pop always had the magic touch!!

 After the train ride we let him ride the pony again.

Funny story...... Dan wanted Nathan to be able to ride on the faster pony's but it was only for age 3 and up. So, my extreme sport husband went to the counter and tried to bribe the man with money to let Nathan ride the faster pony! Needless to say, the man did not go for it. Dan was convinced Nathan needed to ride the faster pony to get the full experience. Actually, as shown in the above picture, Nathan would look longingly at the kids on the faster pony's every time that went by him!

Maybe next year.

 Saturday night we went ot a fancy restaurant. Dan and i are not fancy restaurant people and the last restaurant we have been to with Nathan was Jason's Deli. All of that to say, I was a little nervous as to how Nathan would behave. It did not go well but it could have been worse. My sister and I spent a lot of time outside with him and his cousin during the meal.

The picture above shows a "good" moment were he was eating in his own big boy chair with a knife and fork for his prime rib!

 We all tried desperately to get a picture of the 2 cousins after dinner, since they looked so cute, but it did not work out. They would not hold still or stay close enough to each other and of course they wouldn't dare look at the camera at the same time!

 We spent alot of time each day and evening playing outside. I can not tell you how wonderful it was to have the temperature be in the 60's in the evening's instead of the 90's. It sure makes me ponder as to why I still live in Texas when I abhor the heat so much.

Sunday morning we went ot the beach. I wish we had allotted more time to stay and play. This was Nathan's first trip to the beach and he was a little unsure of the waves at first. Dan and I were playing "don't let the wave get you" and towards the end he started to warm up to the whole beach idea. In his defense the water was pretty chilly. However, he loved playing in the sand! He could have stayed all day digging and dumping the sand out of his bucket.



Sunday afternoon my brother and sister-in-law had a photographer come over to take come family photos. That was Nathan's low point. He was a awful child for those 2 hours. It was really stressful, because he would not cooperate at all and would started crying and throwing a fit when we wanted him to look at the camera or stay in a certain spot.  It was interesting, when we got home from the pictures, I just put Nathan in the pack-n-play and left him there for 45 minutes while my sister-n-;aw took Dan, Cheryl and I to look at the ever tourist spot of Hollywood Blvd.. My mom and brother stayed behind to cook dinner and my grandparents were in the same room as Nathan watching the Olympics. When we returned I had a different child. He was happy and had stopped fussing. My grandparents said he just played in the crib by himself the whole time, never squawked or fussed.
        Dan and i think he was just overstimulated, plus being out of his schedule and in an unfamiliar environment, that he just needed some alone time to reset his batteries!

Dan and Nathan on the bus ride from the car rental to the airport. Nathan loved riding in his daddy's lap and being able to look out the window like a big boy instead of stuck in his car seat. He was so good too, it was like he knew this was a special occasion.

              We knew we were back home when we walked out of the airport into 108F temperature. At least we got a weekend of respite from reality!

I am so thankful to my brother and his wife for being wonderful hosts and letting us all stay at their new home!

More than half way!

UPDATES

Pregnancy update:
             I have been horrible about documenting this pregnancy compared to Nathan's. I have not taken a single belly picture yet and I am over 26 weeks! i also have not spent as much time journaling about this pregnancy.  Time has just gone by fast this pregnancy with a toddler in tow!

                   This pregnancy has not been roses and pumpkin pie like it was with Nathan. I had nausea for the first 16 weeks and could only stomach carbs.....hence, earlier weight gain. I also was very tired all the time up until about 23 weeks. I have had more back pain and all over pain (round ligament pain, discomfort when I bend over ect).  However, I feel like I finally turned the corner a few weeks ago. I have had more energy and have just felt good. I think some of that good feeling is from my intent to get exercise most days. With Nathan I ran or swam almost everyday (well, until I had premature contractions at 26 weeks and couldn't run anymore) but then I walked and swam. This time, I did not exercise much in the first 14 weeks because of the fatigue and nausea. Then we hit our nice Texas summer heat making it difficult to walk or jog unless it is before 7 in the morning. Also, Nathan is not fan of the gym daycare and cries the whole time. They come and get you from working out if your child screams for More than 10 minutes. SO, I have had lots of excuses from being as active as I was with Nathan, not to mention just finding the time with  a toddler! But, 3 weeks ago I started having more energy so I vowed to get up early to jog or go to the gym on days Dan is home from work. I miss exercising as much as I used too and I know it will be a while before i can really get back into the training and racing of my days of the past! Exercising is just a part of who I am and I get very depressed and sullen if I go for long periods of time without being able to run,swim or bike. I am glad I have made the effort the past few weeks, I really feel happier and not as short tempered! I just wish it wasn't so blasted hot so I had more time options to go outside. Oh well, at least means I will have the cooler temperatures after the baby is born, and that is when I will really NEED to exercise!!

                  We have been enjoying putting our new house together and making it "ours". Nathan has adjusted quite well and really loves haing his own little playroom!

Nathan update:
      He is 16 months old now. He runs everywhere, I don't think he know how ot walk! HE falls all the time from tripping over things, including his won feet. He just doesn't look down to see where he is going. His face always has a bump or scrathc on it. Poor thing.

     He still does not talk, but I ma not worried. He babbles all the time and understands what we say. We tell him to go get his shoes, he does. You can ask him if he is hungry and he goes into the kitchen and hands you his bib (so cute), he understands when we tell him "step", which means to stop and wait for our hand to help him up or down a step. We let him watch Veggie tales a few times a week and you can be in another room and ask him if he wants to watch veggie tales and he will run  into the family room, point to the TV and go get one of his movies. He knows to
look up in the sky if I say airplane and much more. So, I feel he will talk when he is ready!

      He loves to swing and play on the playground. He and I go to our favorite park on days I'm off work and he loves it! He finally can "play" on the play ground instead of just swinging. He likes to climb up the slide over and over again!

        Surprisingly he seems ot have lost his interest in water, which makes me sad. They opened a splash pad at our favorite park and I was so excited about it. However, he did not want to have much to do with it. He played for about 5 minuted then wanted ot go to the regular playground instead.  We walk by the splash pad every time we go to the park and he watches all the kids splashing and then he goes to the "regular" playground. Maybe it is because it is not a pool of water b/c I just took him to the pool and he loved it, but he used to love playing in the sprinklers and that is what the splash pad resembles. Hopefully it is just a stage and he will find his love of water again!!






      He loves to play hide-and-seek. He will go into the closet in the study and close the door while we hide, then he comes out to look for us! HE also plays hide-and-seek around the couch with his daddy! He just laughs and laughs. I love seeing his face when he is "looking" for us and then the big smile when he "finds" us! We tried to teach him to be the hider but he only understands how to "seek" right now.

       
     He does very well with structure and schedules. He does not stray to far from us and likes to keep us in sight, which I am very thankful! He is not a risk taker either. He loves to play in the dirt, we have a big flower pot in the backyard full of dirt for him to play in and he will spend lots of time pouring the dirt on the ground, digging in it and eating it!
    
He really is a good boy (except for at the moment he is trying to help me type, despite a warning tha Mommy does not need help!)  We read somewhere that you can only expect a toddler to be "good" 60% oft he time and so we always joke around about what percentage of a day it has been! I enjoy spending time with him and watching him learn and comprehend new things each day!

  The only family picture I have taken in awhile.










And acute picture to end on. He found my QT water cup and was so proud of himself for drinking out of it!

Moving

The last few weeks have been quite busy in the Hill household! We said goodbye to the house we started our married lives and family in and said hello to a lot more room and a giant backyard!!

Here is our old house (I know this is a winter picture but it is all i had of the house)

We did not move far from where we lived previously. When we found out we were having a2nd baby we knew we wanted more room as Nathan's stuff was slowly infiltrating every inch of our old house! We searched for a few weeks before we found the house we were interested in.

the new house

What attracted us to the new house most was the:

1) the 3 car garage, which was the only house in our price range with one. Dan's dream has always been to have a real shop and the 3 car allows him to do that.

2) huge walk in upstairs attic. this thing is huge and you just open a door and walk in!!

3) the massive backyard with covered patio. This was the true selling point for me. All the other house we had seen had no backyard at all. 

The covered patio is huge and has ceiling fans on it! We are so excited about being able ot sit on the patio and enjoy the outdoors!

We were very blessed to sell our house the 1st day it was on the market! We also got a wonderful deal on our new house, God has really blessed us with so much more than we would ever need.

IT took us a while to move everything the few miles over. Dan did it all by himself, well, I did some but I am not allowed to lift anything to heavy, so he gets most of the credit!

We decided to redo the maser bathroom before we moved in. The master bathroom was outdated with brass fixtures, brass shower door, and had carpet. We took out the carpet, put in tile, then tiled the shower and put in a new glass door with nickel.



Before

After

We also decided to re carpet the whole house as the old carpet was 15 years old. We figured this was the time to do it, while the house was empty. That was our plan anyways. We had the tile and carpet scheduled to be done before we moved in, but Home Depot messed up our carpet order so we had to move into the new house, then move everything back out for them to put the carpet in...such a pain, but that was the only glitch in our move, so I can't complain too much!

We are slowly getting the house put together the way want it, but we already feels like home!



                                                                             

Nathan was helping his daddy put his crib together in his new room!

Nathan and Dan in one of our last days in the old house.



 

That's right! Nathan is going to be a big brother around October 17th! 

This was sort of a surprise. We had difficulty (well, not as difficult as some couples) conceiving Nathan. We tried for over a year and then we were successful after 2 rounds of fertility drugs. All of that to say,  I was convinced there was no way we could conceive again without the help of fertility drugs.

Dan and I had talked several months prior and had decided to try to have another baby, knowing we would need to give it several months before we went back to fertility drugs (Also thinking this would take another year or so before we conceived again). In January, I called my OB and received a prescription for Clomid (fertility drug). I bought it and just had to wait to start my next cycle to start taking it. I was worried about taking it this time around because of the high incidence with twins, which would have made me a single mom in a hurry if I gave my husband twins!! While taking the drug previously, I had to go into the Dr's everyday for a sonogram to see when, if and how many eggs I was ovulating, thus reducing the chance of having multiples. However, this time it was going to be a logistical nightmare to make it the Dr's everyday when I am not  allowed to bring Nathan with me and without the freedom of my old job. So, my Dr. had said I did not have to have the sonograms and we could leave it up to chance (well, she did not say it like that !!). Again, all of that to say, I was not sure how I was going to tell Dan about all of this. Yes, we had discussed having a second baby and he new going back on Clomid was probable, but I had no discussed all the logistical details with him yet. I knew he would not want to chance having twins at all which would mean no Clomid without sonograms. My plan was to put off talking to him about it until I started my cycle and  i was forced to have to talk to him about it (*yep, that's me the avoider of unpleasant conversations!!)

About 5 weeks later, my cycle had not started yet, but this was not too unusual for me. I thought nothing of it. I was pretty cranky so  Ithought it would be any day. Another 2 weeks went by, again I was in total denial. I had previously had a cycle last me almost 8 weeks so  I thought that was just happening again.  I was getting anxious,  I wanted to start my cycle so I could talk to Dan about starting the Clomid.  I planned to call my OB that day to see if she would write me a prescription for Provera (a drug to induce menstruation). However, I knew from my previous 8 week cycle issue, they would make me take a pregnancy test before they prescribed it. I bought the cheapest pregnancy test, since I knew it was negative! Took the test, left it in my bathroom while it was "timing" and ended up forgetting about it because I was playing with Nathan. IT was an hour later when I remembered. Imagine my shock! Positive. What? Oh, well, I guess if I think about it.........crankiness, wanting Hot Tamales the last few days (the candy- I'm not a big candy eater), back pain, constipation, fatigue...hmmm, my symptoms sounded like I had googled early pregnancy symptoms!! Well, it all made sense in my head right then. I went from doubting there was any possible way I could be pregnant to "Wow, I'm 7 weeks pregnant". What an amazing God we serve!

I have to confess, Dan had told me several times over the past 2 weeks "your pregnant", but I just brushed him off. I hated to admit he was right all along!!

This was God's way of saying "I am in control Diana, not you". In my sin nature, I find myself doubting God, even though He reveals Himself to me ALL the time.  He had total control over the situation. All those wasted hours I spent on worrying how the logistics of getting to the sonograms everyday were going to work....God had a plan for that.

Wild Life Park

                                                    

First of all, I like the new blogger, it is much easier for me to add pictures. However, I am still pretty basic when it comes to computer and so I can't figure out how to write on top of the 1st picture. I've tried several times and it just deletes the picture. It is sad to think my son will blow me out of the water with computers and electronics in just a few years!!

It has been awhile since I updated, I feel like so much has happened! Hopefully I will get more posts out soon for all of our "goings-on"!

The pictures start with Easter. My mom and I drove down to Houston for a quick visit to my grandparents for Easter. Sadly Dan had to work. We had a small egg hunt for Nathan, not sure how putting eggs in the middle of the grass is a "hunt" but it was still cute. Of course I did not get any pictures of that ! He got a rabbit balloon from his G-Gram which he Loved! He also got some books and then his eggs where filled with goldfish and animal crackers! Hopefully next year we can do candy, because I sure like having candy in the eggs instead of goldfish!!

Here he is with his balloon!

The table was all set for Easter. We each got a few eggs with some jelly beans! I hardly ever eat jelly beans but they sure do taste good at Easter time.

The day before Easter, My mom, grandparents and I took Nathan to the Wildlife Park in Alvin. We have been several times, and it is so fun, even if you go without children!

You pull into the gate and the animals come right up to your car for you  to feed them. My grandpa was in the front seat holding Nathan (disclaimer, we only had him out of his car seat for the less than 500 foot drive from the front of the park to the parking lot and the speed limit is 5 mph, because the animals are walking around, he goes alot faster than that when he is on the bike with his daddy!!) Anyways, this giant antelope sticks his head in the window and is inch's fro Nathans face. I could not believe it, it did not even phase him! He looked at like" oh, do you want to ride in the car with us?" I think Nathan is so used to my mom and grandparents dogs (which are treated and spoiled like family members) that he just assumed the antelope was an over sized Labrador!

One you park, you get to take a tram ride throughout the park and feed the animals. they come right up to the tram and eat out of your bucket.

Again, he was not phased in the least! He was very pensive during the tram ride, just watching all the animals. He sat still in my grandpa's lap for over 30 minutes...ummm...who is this child? He never sits still (unless your reading to him).

It was so enjoyable just to watch him and his reaction to all the animals. You could see his little brain just trying to process it all. I love watching him see new things and get exctited!

I was proud at how "brave" he was too! there was another boy on the tram and he would cry every time an animal would get to close.

Look at hose pink cheeks, he is definitely my child! Poor Nathan, you will never know what a tan looks like on you.

I love this picture! He was holding on to Papa's shirt, not for "dear life" but more for security. A boy and his Pop!

After the tram ride we got out and went to the petting zoo, where we did not stay long. It was a bunch of goats but there were animal droppings everywhere (and flies...yuk). Then he went to "hang out" with some deer! He was petting the deer like it was one of my mom's dogs!

Just a cute smile to end on!

Even though it was a quick trip it was a fun Easter, expect Dan was missing.

Coming soon......Blog on selling and buying a house!!!

1st Haircut

The 1st haircut is a sign my baby is growing up. I have been putting off cutting his hair for awhile (despite pleads from Dan, b/c he thinks Nathan was growing a mullet). I know, in 16 years I will be begging Nathan to get rid of all his extra hair, but right now he is still my baby.

I could have just cut his hair myself, but I thought going to a kids salon, where he could sit in a rocket ship or something, was just part of the experience of a baby's 1st haircut. Exactly how I thought about the prenatal class I made Dan attend with me. I knew we would not get much out of it, but it was part of the whole pregnancy and child birthing experience!

Oh, how I wish i had researched it better (umm..like the price!!!)

Here he is in his little fire truck! He loved turning the wheel and clanging the bell!

He was such a good boy! He never made peep. Both hairstylist commented on his good behaviour!

We were not in there that long. She sprayed his hair with water and then took a few snips off and he was done.

I went up to the register to pay and pulled out a $10 bill, thinking his haircut would be $8 or something.

Stylist: " That will be $18"

ME: Umm.. Excuse me, did you say $ 18?

Stylist: yes, aht is the price for the haircut.

ME: All you did was spray his head with water and make few snips, why is it so much?

Stylist: that's just the price.

I bit my tongue from saying things like" that's 1/3 the cost of my haircut and I get a head massage, Paul Mitchell shampoo and styling" or "don't expect us to be regular costumers".

I was flabbergasted!! $18!!! for a baby who hardly has any hair on his head anyways.

So here, my baby's 1st haircutting experience was ruined in my mind. From now on, he will go to "Mommy's barbershop" in our kitchen!!

despite everything, he does look very cute, and more grown up!

On a different subject, TV watching. Research all points that is best for baby's development if they don't watch TV until they are 2. I was really going to try my best to follow that rule. However, 1 day back in November, I was at the end om y rope with my sweet baby (gasp!) So, I turned on Veggie tales for 30 minutes to give myself a break to make dinner. He really like it (of course) Since then, we let him just watch a 30 minute Veggie Tale video every now and then. HE loves the music and singing on it. We have tried short kids video's but he really only likes Veggie Tales. Here is a picture of him watching it with daddy. HE just laughs ans sways to the music, it is so cute! Hopefully I am not delaying his development to much!!Nathan also loves to be outside. The weather has been nice the last few weeks (since we did not get a winter this year) so we have been outside most evenings.

His favorite thing is to swing! He will just kick his legs and grin as Dan throws him around in circles. It still makes me nervous /c he comes close to the tree, but i know from high school Physics, there is no way he can hit the tree.