Miss Elizabeth Turns 1

I have so much to catch up on! I've been a slacker. Sorry everyone. I know you check this site daily to see what fascinating new stories I have to tell. (Ha ha)

Anyways, this past weekend was our very good friend, Ellie's, 1st Birthday Party! As you know, Pippa, Ellie, and Connor are all friends of the same age and they were all born about a week apart so each weekend this time of year we will be celebrating a Birthday. Fun! Ellie's party was a great time and the kids had so much fun playing together. Pippa loved playing with a whole new set of toys, especially the electronic keyboard and microphone. Santa might just bring that for her this Christmas. (It has a volume and an off switch, so it's mama approved). Ellie's father, Dave, is a great photographer and was nice enough to post some of his great pics!

Where Pippa was a little delicate with her cake, Ellie did not disappoint! It took her a minute to realize she was allowed to go to town on it, but then she dug right in! By the end she even had it up her nose! Hilarious! Love that girl!

Next weekend: C-man's party. Can't wait!

1st Birthday Bash!

Pippa is officially 1 year old! I'm pleased to say I made it through her party without breaking down to a crying mess. The day before, however, I was quite emotional on and off all day long. I'm so proud of how my little daughter grown! My obsession with her has definitely now faded over the year. (Not that I thought it would.)

The party was a huge success! I have to give abundant thanks to my mother for coming down early in the week to help me get things ready. I would not have made it without her in my 1st trimester haze! We had tons of food, half Filipino and half American. Thankfully my mother in-law took care of arranging all the Filipino food because, as it turns out, I would not have ordered enough. Wow did our guests eat! We set up 2 banquet tables in our mud-room-turned-banquet-hall full with good eats. The island in the kitchen was full of yummy deserts including the most adorable cake you've ever seen. Props to our family friend, Bea, for making that! To top off the provisions we had tons of drinks and a big urn of coffee set up complete with flavored syrups and biscotti. On the back patio we kept the adult drinks and everyone enjoyed the smores making station set up next to the fire pit. I was worried earlier in the day that it was going to be too cold and windy, even with the fire pit and 2 heaters I rented. But I threw a few blankets out there and it was down right toasty! (Thanks to my Dad, the master of the fire pit.)

It was really nice that all corners of my big house were used for the first time. We set up the front 'formal living room' so that the little kids could have a safe place to play without getting tramples. That room later turned into the Mahjong room entertaining folks for hours! Every seat in the dining room was full, as was the kitchen table, and those who like college football hunkered down in the family room. Even the basement was getting used. I hear Sto didn't let anyone else win at the pool table and the older kids had a great time just running around in the open space. I even had a couple of large boxes outfitted as houses for them to decorate and play with. Success!

Pippa loved her party, too. She was all decked out in her party dress and looked adorable. She was happy to be passed from person to person with just a few short breaks with mama. Then it was cake time. The most anticipated moment of the whole party. I made her a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I wasn't surprised that she didn't smear it all over the place. She's always been rather neat. But she certainly did enjoy it and even made sure that mom and dad got a taste.

I love that so many people came to celebrate Pippa's first year. We had friends and family from every part of our lives which is a really special to us. We spent the end of the evening opening gifts, mostly after all the guests had left. Funny how many we ended up with even though I put a not in each invite not to bring a gift! But Pippa ended up with some very nice stuff and we are very thankful for every one's generosity.




And just think, in another year and a half we get to plan another 1st Birthday part all over again!

Sandbox

 It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm day yesterday so Pippa and I took advantage. We headed to the park down the road, which is about a mile walk with a rather large hill. Normally, a very enjoyable walk for me but in my knocked-up state I felt like I was running a marathon! Wow, have I lost all exercise tolerance! That is one of my least favorite things about pregnancy.

Anyways, once at the park, I decided to brave the sandbox for the first time. I saw another toddler in there around Pippa's age and the mom just brushed him off when they left and acted like it was nothing. So, not to be shown up in the cool mom department, I let Pippa play around for a while. She loved it! It was like playing in the flower pot, only I wasn't yelling at her! She still tried to eat the occasional pine cone, but we have to choose our battles. In the end, I just brushed her off and headed home. True, she probably consumed a little sand along with her Cheerios's on the walk home, but that's just good for the immune system, right? Ha! Go sandbox.

Questionable Karma

Sometimes I think I must have some bad karma coming my way. Its the only explanation I can come up with for why I get cancelled on so often. I mean, probably 50% of the time I have plans with friends, particularly for play dates, they get cancelled at the last minute. I'm almost starting to expect it.

Now, I don't want any of my friends to get offended. I'm not talking about anyone in particular or any one event. It just happens. And its always a good reason, too, so I feel guilty about getting upset over it. Someone is sick, someone's car broke down, someone's kid fell off the changing table. It happens! I've had to cancel too. I guess I just get so excited about these play dates that I'm really disappointed when they don't work out. I really really love my friends. I know some really great women! I'm not sure what it says about the rest of my everyday life that I so 'live' for play dates. As you might figure, I get a little bored. (Secretly, I wish I was still working. Well, I guess that's not such a secret) But I'm a social person and I have to get my fix from somewhere! And I'm getting bored with Facebook (gasp!).

So please, universe. Be kind to me. I promise I won't cancel on anyone unless its absolutely necessary!

Sleep? Who needs it.

It is not quite 3 in the morning and I'm wide awake. Seriously. I don't feel this awake during the day half the time anymore. Why, you ask? Well, if you haven't already heard, I'm pregnant! We are super excited but I am now being reminded of all the joys of the 1st trimester. I had my first ultrasound yesterday in the office and it looks like my due date is actually about a week later than I thought. That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it because last week I was still feeling pretty good and thought I was going to get off easier this time around. Nope! As it turns out, it was just because I'm only now in my 6th week. I know. This is super early to be announcing, but the cat's been out of the bag for a while so who cares.

So now, in addition to reading all about mine and Pippa's (oh yeah, and occasionally Sto's) escapades, you will get the blow by blow of my pregnancy. Lets see. Where should I start. Oh yeah. I'm nauseous! And tired! Well, except for at 3am apparently. I now have a prescription for Zofran which really helps but nothing can take that nausea away altogether. And I get really annoyed when Pippa doesn't take a good afternoon nap because I could use a solid 2 hours every day. I've found that if I don't start cooking dinner by 4pm, I'm too tired to do it by the time we want to eat. Thank goodness for the Indian restaurant down the street!

My milk supply has all but dried up too. That was a challenge a few weeks ago. We had to start supplementing with formula and it took us a while to figure everything out. But now Pippa gets a bottle in the morning and at night of Earth's Best formula with other things sprinkled in during the day. I still nurse once or twice, but I don't think she gets more than a couple of oz a day. She gets some water or rice milk in a sippy cup during the day and I recently discovered (thanks Mary) that she really likes Hemp milk. I had never even heard of it but apparently its a very good source of protein and essential fatty acids. I haven't tried it myself (too nauseous) but she chugs it down like it came from my breast. Hallelujah!

So Pippa will be a big sister sometime at the end of June or beginning of July. Official due date still pending. She will be awesome at it. I know it will be hard for the first year or two since we will have 2 under 2, but worth it in the end. I'm glad they will grow up close together and always have each other around.

Well, I guess I'll try to go back to sleep now. Wish me luck....

Oh So Proud!

As I plan Pippa's first birthday party for the end of the month, I am forced to reflect at how big she is getting. She really is such a big kid! Here are a few of the things I am very proud of her for:

*  Learning to go down the 2 stairs between the kitchen and living room backwards.   (Sigh of relief!)

*  Blowing bubbles in the tub. She figured this out all by herself.

*  A total mimic. She loves to copy just about every sound we make. Her current favorite is Ah-Chew! But she hasn't quite figured it out yet.

*  She isn't walking yet....but we're getting closer....

Restoring Sanity

Ok, this is an overdue post. I was waiting to download a picture to add to it, but I'm just going to post it as is and move on!

If you haven't heard already, Sto, Pippa, and I went to the Steven Colbert/John Stewart rally last weekend. We were really looking forward to it even though it was turning out to be a very busy weekend. We had the RWJ Hamilton Hospital Annual Gala to attend on Friday night preventing us from leaving a night early and staying over at Jen's. We didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but in hind site, it was a huge mistake. We were out of the house by 7:45am and hit very little traffic so we thought we were doing pretty good for a noon start time. We picked up Jen and went to the metro stop near her. It was packed! We ended up waiting an hour and a half in line just to buy tickets! It wasn't a bad experience, though. There were some very interesting characters in line to keep us entertained. Once we got into the city, we realized just how popular the event was! We couldn't get close enough to even hear anything, much less see! But we milled around the crowd for a while and soaked it in. Then we found a place for dinner to try and let some of the congestion dissipate before getting back on the metro. In the end it didn't matter, though. It was even worse getting home. At one point we even gave up and tried to get a cab, but that was going to take about an hour too. At this point it was already past Pippa's bedtime and I was on the brink of tears. Sto took control (God bless him!) and we ended up riding the metro a few stops in the opposite direction in order to cross over and get on board the correct train before it got too crowded. No matter that I almost got into a fist fight with some guy over proper metro etiquette. I wont dwell any longer except to say that D.C. is clearly not NYC!

All in all the trip did not do anything good for my sanity. Though it's always good to see Jen and at least we can say we were there...Now can anyone tell me where I can watch it on-line?