24 Weeks - Name

YIKES!!!!  Already?!

My goodness this pregnancy is going so much faster then my first.

We have decided to turn the guest room into this babies room that way should one of us need to get a good night sleep one of us can sleep with her in her room.  Plus my Mom is coming to help out and where the baby will be in my room for the first few weeks it won't matter if my Mom is in the guest room.

We have a name but I have not told all of the family yet as I have not had a chance to.  So maybe next post I will tell you.  But it is super cute just like Annabelle is.

I have put on 10 pounds this time around but I started with an extra 10 this time.  I think I am doing well and I am hoping to keep it in check this time around.  I still don't really look pregnant and that is always the hardest part for me.

I have got my morning sickness in check and discovered it was my medication that was making me ill so now I just wait to take it until lunch.

I am currently working on fall photo sessions and working on a queen size quilt for the queen bed in the babies room.  Boy a queen quilt is so much harder then a baby size quilt!  lol

Happy Halloween from myself and my crazy toddler

What I have been up to!

So I have not been posting on here as much as I did with Annabelle and that's because I have my hands full.

I revamped my photography site and I am in my busy session for Christmas fall photos.  Plus my husband has to do a lot of traveling for work this month so it's just me and the very active 18 month old Annabelle.

My Web Site: http://www.rachelwarrenphotography.com

I am now 22 weeks along and I have started to feel the little baby girl (still can't agree on a name) fluttering away in there.  I have managed to keep the weight gain to 9 pounds so far but I was hoping for less.  Because I know come the end is when the real baby weight comes.

Annabelle got here first real boo boo today.  She was made at me because I wouldn't put Sesame St. on because frankly Mommy had had enough Elmo for the time being.  So after her attempts to climb over me to get to the remote failed she went running off into the front room.  I must of forgot to latch the gate to the stairs and the next thing I hear is a thud and then her crying (really crying).  So I run into the room to find her coming from stairs area crying so hard.

She must of only gone up a few steps and then lost her footing and fell because other than a knot on her forehead (thank god for bangs) and a little redness near her eye she was ok.  Yes I know the Mother of the Month Award goes to ME!  Well like Jerry said this won't be her last boo boo in her life either.  I'm just grateful she didn't make up further.  Honestly I don't know what she did because she is very good at crawling up the stairs my only guess is she tried to stand up or something.  Lately she has wanted us to hold her hand so she can walk up.  Poor thing she was so upset.

Mommy fixed it though with a messy lunch of yogurt that I let her feed herself and a nice warm bath before nap time.

Ahhhhh my days are an adventure at times.  I hope everyone is doing well.

It's a.........

We found out on Tuesday at our level two ultrasound that not only is baby healthy but we are having another little girl.  We would of loved either a boy or a girl but I think it is special for Annabelle to have a little sister.

Annabelle is 18 Months Old

Yes they will probably fight like cats and dogs as teenagers but for now I live in my bliss that they will be best friends.

18 weeks already!  Can you believe how fast this one is going?  I don't feel as though I have anything lined up to be ready at all.  I mean my house doesn't even get fully clean these days with a toddler running around and getting into everything.

The half way mark will be here before you know it.

Funny thing is I am 18 weeks and Annabelle just hit 18 months old.  She is a little ham and growing so fast.  Today while I was getting sick (as usual) she came over and rubbed my leg and said ahhh as Jerry rubbed my back.  She is such a cutie pie.  When I was blowing my nose she came over and gave me a kiss because she knows I have been sick with a sinus thing and plus the nausea from her sister.

She is working on trying to talk more but Cheese sounds like Cheeeeezeee and Tubby Tuuuuubbbbyyyy.  But she can say Hi, Bye bye, Daddy, Book (booook), Ut Oh, Shoes and a few other small things that are just not coming to my head right now.

She has 4 molars in and her top and bottom front set of teeth are in.  She seems to be working on some more teeth too.

Oh my gosh I forgot (how could I forget) her obsession with Sesame St. and Elmo (Emmoooo).  She will run and get the remote and bring it to me saying Emoooooooo.  She is an addict!  LOL  We even had to get a DVD player for the car so she would stop whining during our 8 hr road trip last weekend.  Toddlers + Car Seat + Long Drive = Frustrated Parents

I can't believe in a few short months we will have 2 little girls!  But I am excited about it and I look forward to watching them grow up.

Annabelle's Walking - Garden Update

Annabelle has been walking a lot more now.  She still likes to crawl or knee walk as I call it but she is getting a lot more confident with her walking.  I would say around 15.5 months her confidence kicked in.  She is almost 16 months now and she is getting so big.  I hove lots of pictures to share!

We moved the bath outside for a little pretend pool time

She loves checking on our plants.  This is her tomato plant that has since died :-)

"Oh I am so darn cute!"

Just hanging by the pool with my buddies having a snack.

"Heyyyy!!!!!"

She is a nut!!!!1

Again a nut.  We had to remove all books because well other wise she would do it for us

This is what happens on a hot day when we water the garden and the mister is on the hose.  LOL She loved it!

Happy Daddy's day!  Let me squish you for your present.

Yes I am a diva and I know it.

At the park with our friend Nathan and his Mommy for a walk.

Drinking and driving... LOL... Milk that is.

This is now what my formal living room as resorted to. It's cute though.

I turned some old windows I had into playroom picture frames and used scrap paper for the background.

GARDEN:

1)  We lost our beans to a wind storm.... Ugh I will need to replant them.

2) We lost our just starting to produce Zucchini and Squash to a squash vine borer bug :-( we still have time to replant but it makes me sad.  

3) Everything else is doing very well other then the mildew I can't seem to kill on the cucumbers but they are still producing.  

Gardening is so tricky who knew I needed to wrap the stem of the squash plants to keep a moth from laying an egg of a nasty creature that would bore into my plant and eat it from the inside out.  Darn it!

I hope everyone is doing well!

15 Months Old

Our little munchkin is going to be 15 months old in just a few short hours.  Oh how she has grown.  Over the past month she has started to get more confidence in walking and now she can stand up and walk from one thing to another.  She isn't confident enough to try to go for long distances.  Soon enough she will be though.

She loves climbing the stairs and she can go down the stairs too.  She is a sesame street fan and loves Elmo.  She has one molar through in the upper left and she is working on 3 others (OUCH).

She can say Mommy and Daddy but usually only when the other one isn't doing what she wants.  She can do things like go get a specific item if told to or show us she is hungry or thirsty by getting our attention and going to the fridge.  She loves to say "HI" and now she has started saying "Bye" any time we kiss her.  She seems to think being in the living room and kissing her means so one is leaving.  She will wave bye when people come and go but she really doesn't like when Mommy leaves without her.  She is used to be my shadow now so Mommy leaving alone is unheard of in her mind. :-)

She is a very happy little girl who makes us laugh.  She has her bad days though when she whines mostly because of her teeth or boredom because she is a true people person and loves to be around her friends or out and about getting smiles and attention for her pig tails.  At a restaurant she will smile continually at each person that walks by in the hopes that one will smile back and oh boy when they do she turns on the charm.  It breaks my heart when some people don't look at her, I mean how could you not smile at that big grin.  If you don't have a child just know that when you stop and smile at a baby it warms the heart of the Mommy and Daddy too.

She is our little princes, silly girl, poop poop head and little Annabelly.  We love her with all our might and I couldn't imaging our lives without her.

Today at the park

Happy 15th Month Baby Girl!

Trip to Club Med FL

Last week we took our first real family vacation in a long time.  We drove to FL to stay at the all inclusive resort Club Med.

I must say this place was great for Families!  They had a Baby Club for Annabelle to go to so we could go lay in the sun or go to the spa.  All the staff was out of this world!

The rooms came with a changing table pad, baby bath, bottle warmer, pack-n-play, and stroller.  Had I known I could of left our things at home.

We did drive there and with a  one year old a 10 hour drive turned into 14 hours but all and all it wasn't all that bad.

My big complaint was the WiFi there SUCKED!  They wanted you to pay $50 for the week and then I couldn't get on most of the time or when I did it was one bar.  We wanted to use it to watch Netflix at night while we sat in our room because of Annabelle's early bed time.  They did let us keep our internet key and they refunded the money.  Also, even though the resort was updated I still think some of the resort could use some TLC.

Jerry was very frustrated with the meal situation because it was cafeteria style and not organized well and everyone was walking around like zombies not paying a mind to where they were walking.

Besides what I mentioned above I would go back for the child care programs they have and the fact we can drive there and it wasn't overly expensive.  Plus you don't have to worry about paying for meals.

Here are some pictures from our time on vacation.  Annabelle is not walking yet but we definitely have a strong minded toddler on our hands.

"Smile?  Like this?"

"Daddy this mesh is cool!"

After a couple days she finally started to enjoy the pool.

Our last day there. 

Kisses from Mommy

Cheese!

"GIVE ME THAT"

Cake Smashing Fun!

11 Months Old

So I'm a little late ok 9 days late, but hey better late then never.

Annabelle is 11 months old now and has 4 teeth and one ready to come through any day now.  Her hair is long enough to get in pigtails now and let me tell you she is so darn cute.  She is pulling herself up and walking while holding onto things, it won't be long before she is walking.

We finally baby proofed the kitchen and put all the locks on the cabinets because it was becoming impossible to get anything done because she would either open the cabinets or stand and yell from the other room because she wants to be with you.

She is starting to eat more finger foods and she tends to waste the baby food though she still loves her bottle.  Lord help us I hope she starts eating more so when she comes off the bottle it is easy.

I'm started to notice her playing with other kids now and it's so cute.  Here are some pictures from her 11 month mini shoot we did (taking these alone is pretty darn hard these days).

"Ummm excuse me, give me my book back."

"STICKER!!!!!"

Being a model is so hard!

9 Months

Annabelle turned 9 Months on Dec. 3.  She is growing so fast.  Slow down little angel!  He can now wave Hi and Bye and she goes "HI, HI, HI, Heyyyyyy"  LOL I am not sure if she really knows what she is saying but she tries.  Today she was playing with her little people toys and I watched her crawl across the room to get the little farmer then crawl back to the barn to play with him at the barn.  This little girl has got to be above normal when it comes to intelligence.

She had her 9 months appointment and she is about 50% for height and weight and her head is 80%.  The Dr. said that she is right on track for what she was at birth.  We also had NO shots at the 9 month.  Pheewwww that made me happy.

Here are some pictures:

The photography business has been really good and I have my last session for this month on Tuesday.  It was a very busy week trying to get all the Christmas photos taken and done but I did it.  My last session is a ONE year old session which are always fun.  

I hope everyone is doing well and having fun getting ready for the holidays.  We are going to be in a sea of plastic after Christmas.  LOL

Merry Christmas to all!!

It has been so long!

I feel like I have not written a post in so very long!  In fact November has now come and went and I didn't post a thing until now.  So some updates... Annabelle now has two lower teeth, she can wave hi and bye, she tilts her head to the side when we say "So Cute," and she can play pick-a-boo.  She is still doing her army crawl like crazy and we are now moving to eat purees 3 times a day.

For Thanksgiving we went to Maine to be with my family and this was Annabelle's first flight.  She did well and even slept through one of the flights.

She did very well with all the new family she met and though her first couple days there she was cranky she soon got over it.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Holidays.  Our Elf on the Shelf showed up a little late but he is now here.

He left her a nice note.  We still need to name him.  Annabelle wanted Da Da Da but Jerry said he is DaDa so we are back to the drawing board.  LOL

Happy Holidays Everyone and I wish everyone luck with all their Holiday shopping!

Busy Mamma

Oh my god I am so behind in both my blogging and reading blogs.  As I mentioned I started my own photography business and last week was the push to get the website done and out there for everyone, because as of this past weekend I am pretty busy taking pictures and processing photos.

We did get the website done and I must say I am very proud of it.

http://www.rachelwarrenphotography.com

Today is Halloween and I wish I could say I spent the night handing out candy but instead I spent the day at the Dr. and now the night resting.  My good old upper respiratory infection as come to see me again.  She never really tells me what it is all we know is the Z-pack makes it all better.

I have two photo shoots this week and I need to be feeling better for them.  One is Friday at my friends home and the second is on Saturday at the park.

Jerry bought me a new cart for pulling around all my props while on location and it is pretty cool but pretty heavy.  Man I am so out of shape I was sweeting walking back up hill through the park pulling that thing.  Note to self pack lighter.  LOL

Annabelle is growing like a weed and she is so darn cute.  When I sing "Dancing Dancing Dancing Machiiiiinnneee, She's a Dancing Queen" to her she starts rocking back and forth dancing and smiling. She now has two of her bottom teeth in and she is getting around very well in her army crawl.  She started that at 7 months I think that puts her ahead of the curve there.

She is mostly still eating formula but she get puree 2-3 times a day depending on what is going on.  I have even tried giving her little pieces of broken up puffs and she is getting better at picking them up and getting them to her mouth.

I hate being sick because I can't hug her and kiss her good night.  I miss my mini me.

Last week we had our family pictures taken for the first time.  The photographer did a great job but Jerry and I are not pleased with how we look but there is nothing she can do about that.  We need to get serious about losing this baby weight.  It's just so hard to do anything when you have a baby because everything revolves around nap time and feeding that we find it easier just to stay home.

I will leave you know so I can write a post on my photography blog and then try to get some sleep as I have not slept in two nights because of this illness. I hope you are all doing well!

Stopping by for an update

Wow do I win the slacker award or what?  These days my days are consumed with baby and when she is sleeping I am either cleaning, editing pictures or working on my website.  Crazy crazy busy....

So Annabelle went for her second flu shot this past week and she is now 18 pounds Can you believe that, my little 6 lb. peanut is now 18 pounds.  They grow so fast.

Maria this ones for you - I'm up very late blogging :-)  Earlier I was exhausted after a very trying visit to the hair salon with a 7 month old (not so happy) baby, and I passed out after putting her to bed.  I slept on the couch for about 2 hours until Jerry got home from teaching his night class.  Then even though I was tired I kind of woke up and here we are, 1:30am and I am awake.

This up coming Tuesday we are having our family pictures taken!  This will be the first good family picture we will have of us, since she was born and I am very excited.   Hence the need to get my hair done even though I had no one to watch Annabelle.  Ughh I swear I will never do that again if at all possible in the future.  She was not a happy camper, it was her cranky time of the night and we got home well passed her bedtime.  But my hair looks good :-)

Annabelle is also getter her first little teeth on the bottom.  She has done pretty well with it but when she gets cranky we give her advil and orajel.

Last weekend I had the chance to take pictures for a couple good friends of ours.  I really think I am getting better every time and I learn something new about taking pictures each time I go out.  Here is a few from the session.

On another note.  We tried to take Annabelle to a pumpkin patch last weekend.  I think she hates pumpkins. See photo...

She does not like sitting on the ground and she hates pumpkins.

Later that day at the park after taking Jonathan and Nora's pictures I tried to get some of Annabelle and her pumpkin....

"ahhhhh what are you?  Get away from me!"

"Take that pumpkin I am bigger than you!!"

"Ok I guess you are not going to hurt me so we can be friends for a minute until I start crying again."

This up coming weekend will be my last weekend without taking pictures before the Holiday rush starts and I am booked every weekend until we leave for Thanksgiving.  Wish me luck!

7 Months - No Words Just Pictures

Yes she is on the move

Testing out the new back drop for cake smashing pictures. 

Coming to get my camera