Spring Sprung!

Spring showed up a couple weeks ago! Spring is very anxiously awaited around here, so it's refreshing to finally see all the buds, blossoms, leaves, and flowers. It's fun seeing everything come to life again. I always look forward to springtime, but I've never fully enjoyed spring in Chicago because the weather is so unpredictable! A month ago we had several warm sunny days suitable for shorts and flip flops. Yesterday I needed to bundle up in a scarf and mittens to take these pictures! And we have been getting April Showers. Oh well, it still beats winter!

Feeling Grown Up

We recently spent a week in Albuquerque house hunting. For a long time we assumed we'd just rent a home during residency, but then last minute we decided we'd try to buy a house since we were preapproved for a loan through a special state-sponsored program. And thank goodness the first-time home buyer tax credit was extended because it's really the thing making this possible!

Since this was our first home buying experience, we really didn't know what we were doing. In some ways the process felt easier than I imagined, but also more complicated at the same time. We learned a lot in the process, and Josh and I both said we have a deeper appreciation for what realtors have to do!

We spent 4 days looking at houses. Owen just loved looking at all the homes. Seriously. Each new home was like a new playground to him, and he especially loved the houses with stairs. I appreciated when the homes were vacant because then I didn't have to worry about Owen breaking things or trying to steal food. :) He did really good on the trip and on both flights. Oh, and flying to Albuquerque was great! Guess Albuquerque isn't a super popular destination city, so we got an entire row to ourselves and Owen had his own seat. We've always had full flights to and from Phoenix, and even our return flight back to Chicago was full. This was probably Owen's last free flight though. Not looking forward to when we have to pay for him! The portable DVD player did wonders on this flight too. It was our first time using it, and now we are sure glad we got it for Christmas!!

Anway, back to our house story. We found a house early on that we really liked and put an offer on it, but the sellers accepted another offer. I was initially bummed, but then we found a house we liked even better and we signed on it! We'll close the first week of June, so I'm going to wait to post pictures until after then. It's on a nice quiet street in a nice neighborhood close to the freeway (for Josh's sake) and some shopping (for my sake). It's 1 story, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, backyard with covered patio, and my favorites: a garage, dishwasher, and washer and dryer! Typical house amenities but pure luxuries when you've gone without for so long. :) And now that I think about it, I've never had a garage in my whole life! (well except when we stayed at Josh's parents). I'm excited.

We'll see how long it takes us to fill up our garage and house. It seems like we'll have so many things to buy for the house at first! We're grateful that we will be able to own a home, but with a new house and a baby on the way and a meager residency salary, we're going to have to really pinch our pennies. Guess big expenses are a part of growing up! I know I'll be 30 before I know it (*gasp*), but I think this is the first time in my life that I'm finally starting to feel grown up. It's scary and fun at the same time!

First Trimester Reflections

I'm am officially into my second trimester, and boy am I happy! I have felt more sick this pregnancy than I did with Owen, and I don't know if I really was or if I just noticed it more because I wasn't distracted with work. I don't get super sick- I don't throw up, I'm not stuck in bed, I don't have to be hospitalized for dehydration, and I don't even need prescription medications for my nausea. I feel really really bad for people who are absolutely miserable! I don't know how I'd handle it. But, I have been nauseated enough to be uncomfortable, and I've also felt drained of energy and pretty cranky and irritable.

The first few weeks of my pregnancy I actually felt pretty good- I still had energy and I was hungry all the time. I especially craved salty foods, so I ate lots of crackers, cheese, pickles, lunch meat, eggs, etc. I also craved junk food and admit I ate at McDonalds a few times, which I normally try to avoid at all costs! At 8 weeks I suddenly started feeling miserable when I ate anything, and salty and really sweet foods like fruit made me feel the worst! I'd end up with a nasty taste in my mouth that made me feel awful so I started eating a lot of mints which helped a lot. I also started taking B6 vitamins and ginger root pills. These also helped so much! Especially the ginger- it made eating bearable. When I was pregnant with Owen eating usually made me feel better, so it I thought it was strange that eating made me feel worse this time.

Around 8 weeks is also when I started feeling so tired all the time. I'd either take a nap during the day or fall asleep at 8:30 at night. I'm not normally a nap person, and I disliked falling asleep so early at night so it was hard for me. I also felt like a monster had taken over my body! I often had very little patience and little things would irritate me, and I felt like I couldn't control my feelings or emotions. I couldn't listen to music in the car because it would annoy me so much, and it was the same way when I was pregnant with Owen. I felt really bad for Josh, but he was so helpful and he tried his best to be understanding!

I think the worst is finally behind me. I have most of my energy back and I feel like my normal self again. I think the beast is gone. :) Every once in a while something I eat won't settle right with me, but it's not nearly as bad as it was a month or two ago. I am enjoying fruit again, which is nice! I'm glad my energy came back around the same time the weather got nice because we are spending a lot of time outdoors now. I had been exercising 2-3 times a week the entire pregnancy, and I think that helped me feel better. My gym membership expired, but I'm hoping to continue with an exercise routine.

I am starting to show a little now. I think I'm showing sooner than I did with Owen, but if you didn't know I was pregnant you probably wouldn't be able to tell. I am still wearing all my normal clothes, but some of my pants are starting to get a little tight. I'm excited for the fun second trimester!

Twenty Months

Today Owen turned 20 months old, or 1 2/3 year. The first year it seems like babies develop and change so quickly, and now it seems like Owen isn't much different than he was a few months ago. But really, he can do so much now compared to when he turned a year! This is what he's up to now:

* Last week he had a dr. appointment and weighed in at 23.5 lbs. He's still a skinny bean pole with little chicken legs, but it also makes him quite fast and agile! Plus, it means I can still easily hold him (when he lets me).

* He loves shoes. His shoes, my shoes, Josh's shoes, it doesn't matter. He'll put them on and walk around in them. I try to let him pick out his own shoes to wear, and he always picks matching shoes.

* He can't stand being inside our apartment for very long. Every morning he expects to go somewhere and is of course thrilled when we do. If I don't have any plans to go out in the morning, he still gets his shoes and jacket and tries to get me to go. He'll knock on the door or climb into his stroller. Thank goodness the weather is nicer now!

* He just learned how to open doors with round doorknobs this week. Guess that means no more shutting him in his bedroom to play while I shower. I'll have to get those doorknob guard things.

* He's still a somewhat picky eater and I still have to make him a separate dinner from what Josh and I eat, but he's gotten much better. He still won't eat much fruit (he'll only eat apples, pears, canteloupe, and honeydew). He LOVES gree beans and cucumbers and ate an entire cucumber by himself last week. He now eats peanut butter, and LOVES it! PB on bread, crackers, and fruit are a favorite. And we've learned the power of dipping....if he can dip his food in PB, ranch, ketchup, or salsa, he is 10 times more likely to eat it.

*Another tactic to get him to eat: distraction. We let him watch Micky Mouse Clubhouse and Special Agent Oso during his breakfast, and with the distraction we can usually get 50-100% more food into his belly.

*He's now starting to enjoy watching videos. I'm sure it's because we encouraged tv watching during breakfast. We're bad parents, I know. His favorite video is an Elmo video I got him for Easter. It's 50 minutes long, and one day he sat through about 40 minutes of it! Incredible for Owen to last that long.

*He loves the camera. He'll usually smile big while I get ready to take a picture, but even more he loves being on the picture taking side. He also loves to watch videos of himself. He'll watch the same video over and over and not get bored of it! (does this mean my child is vain?)

*He'll show you his muscles. One day he found one of Josh's muscle magazines, so I told him to show me his muscles and he tightened his fists, flexed his arms, clenched his teeth, and went "rrrrrr!" It was hilarious.

*He loves trucks, buses, trains, and airplanes. There's a fairly busy street that runs right next to our building, so all day long Owen wants to climb onto the windowsill to look down at all the vehicles driving by. Seeing the garbage truck stop out front is the highlight of his day. He'll hear an airplane way before I do and always waves bye bye to it. And he loves to hear sirens driving by and he always makes his own siren sound. I don't know what he'll do when we no longer live in a busy neighborhood!

*He loves singing action songs. His favorites now are the itsy bitsy spider, 5 little monkeys, and head shoulders knees and toes. He gets all the body parts right too.

*He recently started walking down stairs. Not crawling or scooting, but taking actual big steps without falling. It took him a while to muster up the courage to do it, but now he loves it and plays on stairs as often as he can.

*He can wash his hands by himself. The other day I said "we need to wash your hands, go wash your hands" and he proceeded to run to the bathroom, climb onto the toilet, reach over to the sink, turn it on, and wash his hands. He couldn't reach the soap or I'm sure he would have used that too.

He does a lot more fun stuff, but this is all I can think of right now. Owen is so much fun, and it is so fun to be his mother! We've been blessed with a really good and super cute kid. I know he is going to be a great big brother!

Patch Eye

I had eye surgery today. It was minor and quick, but it still means I get to wear an eye patch.

I only wish I could look this cool wearing an eye patch.

Instead, mine is white and huge and takes up half my face.

Why did I need eye surgery? I only wish I could say it was vision correction surgery, but it wasn't. While we were living in Ecuador my eye started growing some funny looking blood vessels. I figured it was from wearing contacts too much and/or living in the high, dry, dusty, sunny environment of Quito. It didn't hurt but I stopped wearing my contacts as often and figured I'd get it looked at back in the US.

Back home I wasn't able to see a dr. right away because we were traveling to Arizona and New Mexico. In the mean time it started to look different- the blood vessels shrunk but a blood clot looking lesion appeared right next to the cornea. I went to an optometrist as soon as I could, they didn't know what it was, so I was sent to an opthamologist. Even he had never seen something like it before and didn't really know what it was, but knew it needed to come out. So, that brought me to today.

What did I have done? Excision of a "non-uniformly pigmented conjunctival/corneal lesion."

(I know this picture is not attractive, but hey it's my blog and really my personal journal.)

It was about a 5-10 minute procedure but I was awake since it's best I don't have anesthesia being pregnant. He did numb it up, but it was still super uncomfortable having my eyelids pried open, having to stare at super bright lights, and having him touch my eyeball. I was afraid I'd move my eye too much, but I was somehow able to zone out, and I really didn't feel anything. I'm glad it was a quick procedure.

Under my eye patch I have a big, in my opinion (small in the doctors opinion), crater in my eye now. And my eye stings and burns when I move it under my eyelid. My eye should heal in about a week, and I should get my eye patch off tomorrow. Until then, I can say "Arrr, Matey!"

Park Weather

We've (finally) had a good stretch of enjoyable weather, which means we've been taking lots of trips to the park. Though today is colder and rainy, we've had lots of warm weather and sunshine this past week. These are some of the pictures I took on an outing last week.

I was trying to catch a picture of the train (hidden behind the trees). Owen loves the trains and gets super excited when one goes by.

One of our favorite nearby parks

He likes the swing but usually only lasts about 30 seconds. He's such a busy body that after 30 seconds he's ready to move on to the next thing.

Owen is quite a good climber now. Last fall I felt like I had to follow right behind him and constantly be on guard, but now he is much more independent with his play and so far hasn't taken any major tumbles!

His favorite thing by far is the slides. He'll go down over and over and over again. Just yesterday he learned how to walk up the slide and also how to slide down on his belly. He really watches those bigger kids closely!

Easter

We had lots of Easter fun this year! Owen helped me color eggs and was good at carefully putting eggs in the cups and putting stickers on the eggs.

Here are the end results

Then later in the week I decided to "tie-dye" eggs. I heard about this last year and really wanted to do it then, but had no clue where to find old silk ties in Ecuador. So I was excited to try it this year! (here's a tutorial)

What you do is get 100% silk ties,

wrap them around raw eggs,

boil them in water and vinegar,

and voila!

'

It's such an easy way to make eggs look so cool!

Two of my ties didn't transfer the pattern very well, but oh well.

I made Owen and Easter tie using an old tie, and Josh wore a similar colored tie. Owen didn't want to take picturess, so this is the best I got. And imagine me wearing yellow and white. Nothing extrodinary, but I want to remember that I did try to have us coordinated this year. :)

Easter morning Owen found what the Easter bunny left for him! Then he had to find all the eggs that were hidden around the room.

Owen didn't hesitate to dig right in!

We watched General Conference during the day, ate a yummy lamb dinner with some friends, and had a little Easter lesson. It was a nice Easter!