Quick trip to Nebraska

Marc had to travel to Denver for work all last week so I decided to go back home. My father had back surgery a few weeks before so it was a good time to go back and provide some much needed grandson excitement around the house.

My Aunt Sally had us over for dinner one night. She lives on a lake and I knew Caiden would have a blast down there. He loved playing in the water. He only gets in about knee deep but he does NOT want to get out when we are all ready to go up. He would put up quite a fight but he got Sally to stay with him down in the water longer than anyone else.

We went to the Children's museum one day and Caiden had a blast. I've been wanting to go to the one here in San Diego but their hours are from 10-4 and Caiden's nap is right in the middle of that time. He's actually able to push his nap to about 12:30 now so it might be possible to go right at 10 and stay for a couple hours before I get him in the car and I have to pull out all sorts of tricks so he doesn't fall asleep on the way home and ruin his nap.

We kept him on west coast time while we were in Nebraska so he didn't nap until 2'ish so we were able to get a visit in in the morning.

Caiden and my Dad had a tea party in this micro sized kitchen and Caiden couldn't get enough. He would have sat there all day long if we let him. 

Feeding the chickens some grass

Playing fetch with the dogs. He would throw it about five feet and would get such a kick out of the dogs fetching it and bringing it back.

We even let him check chicken eggs for the first time.

He was so proud of himself and did not want to give up holding the egg

25 Weeks

24 weeks, 4 days

How far along? 25 Weeks

Total weight gain: 12 pounds

Maternity clothes? Lots of tops and I busted out my one pair of maternity jeans that I bought from the first time around. Boy, those are comfy...what am I going to do with them after this pregnancy?

Sleep: Ok. Each night is different. Like this morning I woke up at 4:30 to use the bathroom and couldn't fall back asleep. I was thinking about ALL the stuff we have to do and buy before this baby comes and then I got the wild idea in my head to go to a 6am yoga class. Marc thought an alien took me over in the middle of the night because I've never in a million years thought that a 6am yoga class was a good idea. But I went and it felt good! Fat chance it will ever happen again.

Food cravings: I'm definitely finding myself snacking more throughout the day...I'm not going to comment whether it's good or bad snacks.

Best moment of the week: I had an appointment today and heard baby girl's heart beat. Always so cool to hear. She was in the 140's today.

Miss anything: I'm not really missing anything. I haven't really changed much of what I eat and drink with this pregnancy. Since I've had Caiden drinking a glass or two of wine is more than enough -knowing what I have to wake up for in the morning -and I'll still drink a glass of wine now.

Movement: They are all over the place. One day the kicks will be in my ribs and the next down low. Dr. Riley said it's another month or more before she quits doing flips every minute and he can say that she's in the right position. 

Road Trip

We took a road trip this past weekend up to visit Sara. She lives on the north side of LA in Westlake Village. With no traffic it's about a two and a half hour drive (but no traffic is hard to come by in LA). On Saturday morning we actually split it up into two drives and stopped in Long Beach to have a late breakfast with my cousin Jody and her husband Chris. They live on the east coast but were in town for a couple of days on their way to New Zealand! It was so great seeing them and we had a delish breakfast at a place called Starling Diner. Chris picked Caiden right up and threw him on his shoulders. Caiden was pretty cool with it for a few minutes then kind of looked at us like, "Why are you letting this stranger pick me up. I'm ready to get down."

After breakfast we finished the rest of the drive up to Sara. What should have been about an hour took almost 2 hours. Caiden was so ready for his nap by this point and fell asleep about one minute in. He only slept for an hour which was a bummer but when he woke up he was really good and kind of in a daze sitting quietly in his car seat.

Sara and Dustin met us at our hotel and we headed to Underwood Family Farms. They have all kinds of farm animals and acres of land that you can pick your own fruits and veggies, whatever is currently in season. Caiden was really in heaven with all the farm animals and hearing all the sounds in real life that he's been learning.

There was an animal show where you could pet the animals they brought out. Caiden touched the rabbit and sheep.

They built a slide in the center of this combine. Dustin and Caiden went down it together!

This was the front of the combine. Caiden would have stayed in there forever if we let him, he had no desire to get out when it was the next person's turn.

On Sunday morning we went to breakfast at a place called Old Place, in the Malibu hills. It's an old cabin in the woods, off the beaten path, with superb food (I had the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had). You'd never be able to find it if you didn't know about it in advance. It's actually one of Sara's accounts so she knew we needed 9am breakfast reservations. There are only 6 booths and a bar to sit at and it's always packed. 

Sara is here about once a week and sees a celebrity or two pretty frequently....Orlando Bloom, Sean Penn, Rebecca Romign. It's one of those places surrounded by secluded multi-million dollar homes in the Malibu hills and canyons (the Bachelor house is just a mile down the road) but you'd never stop in if you didn't know about it. We had our own star sighting when we were there -Sean Penn! When we were getting up to leave he was waiting for our table at the front door. My sis was already at the door with Caiden when he walked in and she said that Sean and Caiden had a quick conversation. Sean said something like, "Hi buddy", to Caiden.

If you're a celebrity junky like me then you'll know that Sean is currently dating Charlize Theron and Charlize has an adopted son. The below pic is Sean holding his hand. Charlize wasn't there, just the two of them. I'm way too much of a chicken to ask for a photo and Sean is actually quite a rugged, "not friendly" looking guy, so this was as close as we'd get to a picture. ha.

After breakfast we went to Paramount Ranch and took a walk through Western Town. This place was in its prime in the 30's, 40's and 50's to shoot western movies. It's now a public park but you can still use all of the buildings to shoot movies.

By noon Caiden was ready for a nap. He was actually ready by 10, but I'm trying really hard to forget the terrible night of sleep we all had in the hotel room the night before. Reminiscent of when Caiden was a newborn -it was that bad.

We hit no traffic on the way home and made it in record time. Bonus -Caiden slept the entire time! He even propped his foot up on the passenger seat for awhile.

24 Weeks

23 weeks, 4 days

How far along? 24 Weeks

Total weight gain: I'm guessing around 13 pounds 

Maternity clothes? Some maternity tops, some large size regular tops, leggings, yoga pants and the belly band. But surprisingly nothing from the above outfit is maternity and I didn't even need to wear the belly band with the pants (because they are very low rise)!

Sleep: Pretty good, some minor lower back pain that start around 4 or 5 in the morning which makes me toss and turn for a couple hours before Caiden wakes up.

Food cravings: Chocolate...oops ;)

Best moment of the week: The foot massage I received at yoga. I went to yoga for the first time since I've been pregnant and it was a great, great thing. I'm starting to get some lower back pain around 4 or 5 am after I've been sleeping for awhile and I'm also just really tight in the neck and shoulders so I really need to do this at least once a week. Anyway, the teacher last night also happened to be pregnant (about a month ahead of me) and at the end of class while we were in corpse pose she gave me a 20 second foot massage....ahhhhh, it was wonderful. 

Miss anything: My rock hard abs!  I keep telling myself that after I'm pregnant and finished with the hardcore nursing phase I'm going to get them back...we'll see ;)

Movement: Baby Girl actually kept me from falling asleep one night. I was laying there waiting and waiting while she was kicking away for a good 15 minutes before she fell back asleep. 

Happy Easter!

On Saturday morning we went to the neighborhood park. They had bounce houses, face painting, balloons, a DJ and an egg hunt. I find the egg hunt a bit of a joke, as it's just a bunch of eggs thrown in an open field...there's no "finding" involved. It makes sense for a 2 year old...but really -a 6 to 10 age group area?...it can't be a pretty site in there. I had a mom knock me out of the way in the 0-2 age group area while she was shoveling as many eggs in her kid's basket.

Caiden wasn't really understanding the concept of picking up eggs and putting them in his basket. He just wanted to take them out of his basket and put them on the ground. He also couldn't eat anything in the eggs because it was all chocolate so I'm not sure how much he really enjoyed this holiday -or is going to enjoy it in the future if he still has this dairy allergy ;)

He wasn't really scared of this Easter bunny, he was more kind of laughing at it.

We did run into our neighbors. This is Aria, Rohan's sister. Caiden really likes her. For the past few weeks he says, "See Aria", all day long. We usually play with them a few times a week in our front yard. It's funny though, because all Aria really does is take anything Caiden has (which is because that is what her older brother does to her). And I don't think she gets near as excited to see him as he does her. ;)

My Aunt Sue sent over a very traditional Easter gift, a chicken. Caiden loves the stuffed chicken. It's very soft and he hugs on it and says, "baaaaaawk, bawk, bawk."

My parents sent over some Easter goodies too...more farm animal toys! He's learning Old McDonald Had a Farm from this toy.

Sara and Dustin came down for the weekend, too! They were watching a video of Caiden blowing a duck call from a few weeks back. Caiden was getting such a kick out of watching himself blow the duck call.

On Sunday we went to Chad and Liz Taylors. We've been going to their house on Easter for 4 or 5 years now. I always bring the same thing -a roast, roasted carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy...it's always a big hit with the guys since people out here don't eat that kind of food very often.

The sweetest thing was that Liz was so thoughtful and made a couple of eggs just for Caiden that had non-dairy goodies in them. We hid Caiden's eggs in a different area of the yard so the big kids didn't get to them.

Caiden loved their dog, Dakota. He would chase it around and pet it and try to give it hugs.

Happy Easter, everyone!