Birthday Cake, Santa, Skating etc.

 Ok, last one. Three posts in one night! This is what I get for leaving it a while. 

As you all know, Evie's birthday is on Tuesday.  Sadly, Nana will be away visiting Evie's new cousin, Baby Isla, in Tucson.  So, even though we will be having a party with her friends later in December, we decided to have a birthday party this afternoon.  It was a very exciting day all round. He's Evie anxiously waiting to see Santa.

 

 

Since Evie's dairy problem presents us with something of a cake problem, I usually make her cakes.  She had asked for a pink cake with lots of flowers on it. I think this just about fit the bill. I have a whole new respect for the strength my Grandad had to do lots of these cakes. I had "claw" hand by the end of it (should mention here that Auggie did offer to help but because I'm suborn I refused his help. Mistake). Anyway, Evie liked it and the cake didn't taste to bad either. And Auntie Jill, in case you were wondering, the ballerina on the cake is in fact the same one I used to have on my birthday cakes. I should also mention that there was a green jelly that Nana made.  

 Evie got some fantastic presents. As you can see, I am just as excited as her as it means I get to play with ponies.

 And huge kudos to Uncle Chris for the amazing dress!! Evie was SO excited. She can't wait to wear it.

 As I mentioned at the top, we saw Santa today.  Evie and Daddy are ready!! Both have been very good this year.

Sweet Evie asked very nicely for what she would like this year. Santa said he would do his best. he then mentioned that she has to keep being good. At that point Evie looked slightly less sure about the whole thing.  It was cute though. Not sure whether Lelly was given the opportunity to ask for anything.  I think had she the chance, a bath would be top of her list.

 

 And of course we spent some time skating.  Evie is getting better at going solo on the ice. She still favors holding Daddy's hand though.

And these are just some cute pictures. We found Lelly a new outfit in San Angelo. Evie was very excited. And last weekend we saw our lovely friends who are sadly leaving the US in January. Evie has known Lauren and Sarah her whole life and we will really miss them when they go home to Australia. A good reason to go and visit I think!

 

 

As for baby, he's kicking like CRAZY and squishing my breathing a bit because I'm carrying him so high. But otherwise he is well. I have an appointment this week with the glucose test (yikes). Hopefully since I have been tracking my carb intake on an I-phone app I don't be in quite so much trouble with my doctor! I will keep you posted :-)

 

 

Happy Sunday

Jane xxx

San Angelo Baby Shower!

 

On the Friday after Thanksgiving Auggie's Mum - Grandma - and his Granny - Great Granny - hosted a baby shower for baby boy in San Angelo.  It was a very fun afternoon with lots of nice presents for baby and yummy food. There were also so fun games.  Baby now has a bath, some new clothes, some bubble bath, the most cuddly dog ever in the history of the world, a second car seat base, some plates and cutlery made from potatoes (who knew??) and some spending money. Evie had a good time opening all of the presents and entertaining the crowd.

 

Here we are with Grandma and Granny

 

Ma and Pa came too!!

 

 And so did Uncle Thad. Evie was especially pleased to see Uncle Thad.

 Granny thought that Evie should have a present too so here she is with "Princess Flower" her new doll. Evie also got a princess dress up set from Connie, Pat and Rachel. I'm fairly sure Evie thought that it was all for her!!

Hugest thanks to Grandma and Granny for hosting! Baby is a lucky boy

Jane xx

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

 

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Paint Rock and San Angelo with many member's of Auggie's family. There was lots of tasty food and good company.  We travelled up in Tuesday night to take advantage of lighter traffic (if not fewer deer).  We managed not to hit any Bambi relative thankfully.

 

On Wednesday we had lunch with Great Ma and Great Pa at Lowake Steak House.  Evie pies was a bit sleepy after feeding the cows and Sugar the horse but managed to pose for a few photos. 

 

Thanksgiving lunch was at the Paint Rock ranch. Auggie's cousins were also there with their kids. Evie and Sophie had so much fun neither one wanted to leave.

 This was also the first time Evie met baby Rollins. He is a very sweet baby.

 

 

 And we got to spend some time at Ma and Pa's house. He's Evie looking very thoughtful. I did not think there was so much to think about in an episode of Baby Bear but apparently I was wrong.

Baby boy update!

Since I am approaching 25 weeks it is time for another baby update. I had an appointment last week and he was trying to dodge the Doppler heartbeat monitor again but we found him! He has a nice healthy heart rate of 157 and is wiggling around a lot. Evie has felt him a few times which she was very excited about.  We have also stopped being completely bad parents and made some more progress on his room.  We have a paint color!! A miracle descended upon our house yesterday when Auggie and I picked the same colour of those we splodged on the wall.  I also hung up his clothes in the closet and finished the new guest room. We even hung curtains. No big step for normal people but for anyone who knows us, this is quite impressive for the Campbells :-)

24 1/2 Weeks

Weight Gain:  Depends upon who you ask. The scale at the doctors is ancient and the nurse didn't wait for the needle to stop wibbling and recorded my weight pretty high. Nana's digital scale says I'm just fine (and for the record, I've been using Auggie as a "control" so I know the scale is not under weighing!). So I'm going with "fine"

How big is baby? 1.5lbs - head to bottom just over 12 inches! The comment on my most recent babycenter update was "looks like a baby." Thank goodness for that is all I can say.

Maternity Clothes? yes for trousers. Mixed bag for everything else. I am trying to avoid "tent" maternity dresses.

Stretch marks? Not yet

Sleep? Good. I have enlisted "snoogle" again and he is making a big difference.  So far Auggie has resisted stealing snoogle from me.  

Best Moment of the week? Hearing his heartbeat :-)

Movement? lots and lots and lots. Still practicing his rugby technique I think. Either that or he's thinking of playing trombone in a marching band.

Labor signs? none

Belly button in or out? in

What I miss? Not sneezing at the smallest amounts of dust. Garage clearing has been fairly miserable

Milestone: None really.

So there you go.

Evie went to her second skating lesson yesterday. She was very good and skated backwards a little as wells as doing some other moves. Auggie took her today for the public skating and Evie had a GREAT time. She likes to go as fast as possible.  I will post some more pictures later in the week.

Jane xxx

Halloween and other fun

Another week, another load of fun.  It started with last weekend.  Evie was allowed a lollipop for some excellent toilet behavior. I think you can guess the colour/flavour! Rest assured we only give Evie healthy, all natural foods :-)  To be honest, given the toilet training nightmare that was, I was willing to offer almost anything as a bribe.

 

On Saturday night Auggie and I were off at a Democrats fundraiser so Evie got to live one of her favourite dreams of having a sleepover at Tori's house. She also got to see the very end of a Rice football game with Uncle Robbie, Auntie Elisa and Tori.  We went over the next morning to collect her, and the girls were dressing up. I'm not entirely sure what is going on here but Tori doesn't look to sure about it at all.

 

 

 We also thought it might be fun to make an apple and cranberry crumble.  Evie likes making these because she can get her hands in the mixture and get all gooey.  For those lucky enough to have a piece, at least you know all the germs were cooked out at a very high temperature! I think this was one of our better efforts - Papa definitely agreed! Evie did manage to fall of the stool and almost took the mixing bowl with her but luckily I caught it in time. I told Evie we would have eaten Evie Crumble had it fallen on her.

 

  Finally we got most of our Christmas shopping done last weekend, along with some fun time on the carousel.  Yes, we are feeling very pleased with ourselves for being so organised!!  

 

and then of course there was Halloween. Auggie calls me the "Scrooge" of Halloween as I turn off all the lights, and don't allow the TV on in case anyone knocks on our door. To be honest, I HATE it. I don't want to be bothered by rude children in weird costumes.  Sadly, Evie thinks it is wonderful so we got a costume and participated in the "trunk or treat" at school.  This is much more like it. You play a few games, then go around to a few cars and get some sweets. Then you go home. Perfect.  Tori came along too!  Pies came up to my office to get changed and found a pink mirror so naturally wanted a photo of the mirror.  Also therefore is a rare glimpse of my soulless work office!

Skating anyone???

This weekend was the highly anticipated event of Evie's first skating lesson.  We figured that this would either be highly successful or a complete nightmare. We arrived at the skating place and disaster threatened when all the other little girls had white boots and Evie had rented brown ones. Luckily she didn't really notice until the end.   We had signed up for two classes and the first class was for the end of year show (the Nutcracker).  It turned out Evie was the only beginner in the show. Yikes.  So, we sent her out on the ice anyway (great parenting) and a kind older girl took her by the hand. So, they were then put into groups and Evie had to skate with a zimmer frame while looking enviously at the other.  She actually did very well. So well in fact . . .

She quickly progressed to no zimmer frame! When she did fall down it turned out that Evie is fairly dreadful at getting back up again.  You shouldn't laugh at your own children quite so uncontrollably but it REALLY was funny.  Overall though, she did very well.

And was very tired at the end of it all!

 

 

I have a doctor's appointment this week so I can give you another exciting baby update, hopefully not one that starts with being in trouble for being a heifer again!! Sadly no ultrasound but hopefully a nice heartbeat.  I will also add some stuff from the Daughters of the British Empire Christmas Bazaar that we attended today. Punch and Judy anyone??

 

 

Janexxx

Building stuff

 

This weekend we got all organized and decided to do something about baby boy's room.  The first step is moving out all the crap from his room into another room.  So, of course, we needed more furniture.  Auggie practiced building stuff with Evie and her log thingies that Ma and Pa bought.  As you can see it was a serious business and Lelly was exhausted by the whole thing.  It did result in a nice looking house though!

 

 Deep thought and concentration while the architects consider the design.  Actually, I think at this point they were lining up the "babies" which Evie insisted upon. It very regimented; Nana would be proud.

 Then came the serious building upstairs. We needed a bookshelf/cupboard for the zillions of books currently in baby's room. Here is Auggie hard at work. To be fair to me, I helped. And to be fair to Evie, she wanted to help and was certain she knew more about hanging the cupboard doors straight than either of us did. In the end we were relieved to get it built without too many mishaps or injuries to small children.

This is Evie being "helpful"!

Taking advantage of some very nice weather, Evie went out for a bike ride on Sunday morning looking tres chic in her hood and sunglasses. We also fed some very fat ducks.

 And this is just cute. Evie is modeling a new number we bought a couple of weeks ago.

 Last but not least, baby boy. He is currently practicing drop goals. Probably something to do with the mincemeat I just had as an evening snack.  But he is definitely wiggling a lot. He is also partial to peas. I hope he likes them as much as Evie who for dinner yesterday had pea sandwiches.  I also feel like he is massive. I guess we will find out in two weeks when I have my next appointment.  Hopefully I won't be in trouble for being a fatso again :-)

Jane xxx

I am biased but this is far too cute not to share!

Twinkle in Spanish!

Big girl getting bigger

Well, this week we went to our first school open house.  We are ever so slightly in denial that Evie could possibly be old enough to go to school.  We took Evie with us though and on the way she announced that she can only go to a school with bikes.  Thankfully Auggie found a large stash of bikes in the playground so all was, apparently, well.  We liked the school and have applied there and one other place. Fingers crossed she gets in. 

 

Today was my fabulous 9/80 Friday off so I got to play with Evie, Nana and Tori.  Evie wore the boots that I bought her AGES ago in a second hand shop. I've been dying for her to fit into them so it was an exciting moment. Excitement was hampered slightly by her refusal to wear socks and subsequent blister (which would have been avoided had Evie been willing to listen to my suggestion that she wear socks but what do I know??).  But thanks to an emergency sock purchase from GAP clearance bucket complete disaster was averted. 

 

 

 

And on that note . . .yee haw  xxx

Snakes, spaceships, skating etc

Excuses, excuses - but we really have been busy! Auggie wrote a paper and gave a speech at the Texas Water Superconference and I organized a large offsite meeting at work so our time has been zapped.  There has been plenty to fill you (all two of you who read this) in on too.  So I will do my best!  We've had a visit from Ma and Pa (back in August!) which was very lovely. Evie wanted to make Pa a birthday cake so we worked some dairy free magic and make a double chocolate layer cake. It was rather nice if I do say so myself.  Grandma came to stay a few weeks back and to continue the baking theme, we made rhubarb and cherry crumble with custard. also yum.  And if you read the previous post regarding pregnancy weight gain, this series of events may explain the answer to question 1 . . .

 

So here's what you really care about:

 

 

 

 Evie  being cute. She wanted a photo snuggling with Daddy.

 Evie being a classy bird. Nana just happened to have this hat in the back of her car!

 Auggie had a meeting in Galveston this past weekend held at the Moody Gardens Hotel.  So Evie and I decided to go along for the ride and spent the night at the hotel and the day at Moody Gardens.  First of all, Pie and I got room service Friday night which she thought was quite the thing. I had to explain that we couldn't be doing that EVERY time we stayed at a hotel.  I am fairly sure she doesn't believe me. The next day was a lot of fun too. Evie liked the pink birds in the rainforest pyramid.  Luckily we avoided getting pooed on. Some of our fellow attendees were not so fortunate.

The discovery pyramid is currently home to a music exhibit.  There were TONS of fun things for kids to play with. This was one of her favorites. Billy Joel/Elton John eat your heart out!

On Labor Day we went to NASA and as you would expect at a Space Center, there were snakes to play with.  Evie liked these rather a lot. That bad-boy they are holding weighed in at 80 pounds.   There were also lots of other fun things to do including landing a space shuttle and going to look at rockets. I think Evie left with lots of good memories but a small, albeit serious, regret that we didn't actually get to go into space.

 

While Ma and Pa were here we took Evie ice skating. And by "we" I mean Auggie took Evie skating while the rest off us watched from the bleachers. Evie enjoyed this rather a lot so we have signed her up to start lessons in November.  Assuming she is willing to cooperate (and let's be honest, this is Evie so you never know), she will make her ice debut in the "Nutcracker" this December as a Gingerbread Girl.  I will have the video camera at the ready!

 

 



 And last but in no way least, here is our alien baby.  He would not cooperate at ALL for photos at our scan last week so I am putting this one up despite it looking less than human.  The good news is that all of his measurements are normal and so far he is measuring as he should. Good boy.


Enjoy the pictures! I will try not to leave it so long next time

Jane xxx

Poor, already ignored, second baby

I was looking back at some old blog posts and realized that by this point in my Eviepie pregnancy, there were a great many blog posts about it. Poor baby boy is lagging behind. So, here's a small update . . .

19 1/2 Weeks

Weight Gain:  According to my doctor, too much.

How big is baby? 8oz - head to bottom the size of an heirloom tomato. If only one knew how big one of those is

Maternity Clothes? Definitely for trousers. Still squeezing into some other non-maternity stuff. Avoiding the maternity wear price monopoly this time though by buying second hand on ebay and purchasing some slightly larger regular clothes on clearance. This is the big advantage of living in a "fat" city - lots of larger stuff to choose from ;-)

Stretch marks? Not yet

Sleep? Pretty good as long as baby is not dancing a jig

Best Moment of the week? Buying boy a nice new toy

Movement? lots! I am convinced that he is either 1. practicing his bowling action for a future career as captain of the England Cricket team OR 2. practicing his drop-kick action for a future career in helping England beat Australia at rugby. Either is permissible.  Daddy would prefer Rugby.

Food Cravings? None! yay!

Labor signs? none

Belly button in or out? in

What I miss? Honestly? Gin

Milestone: None but looking forward to a scan on Thursday!

So there you go. We have not cleared out his room yet, neither have we picked a colour. I have found the most AMAZING chair though so perhaps I will just plan it around that. All babies like grey velvet with sparky trim, right? 

I promise more photos of Evie soon. I know that's what you really logged on for . . .

Jane xx