Christmas!

Christmas was pretty nice. I couldn't sleep the night before which pissed me off and then we woke up early and the girls saw this.



The girls pulled in a nice haul! Only a few of those aren't theirs.






Playing with Elmo's Restaurant.



My sister got me Monty Python and The Holy Grail killer rabbit slippers!



The bunny ate Kylie's foot.



The haul. Lucky girls!

Here are some more pictures that I love.



Kylie and I



Alana being a ham for the camera.



Kylie's puppy dog eyes.

ETA: Kylie is pulling up to stand now! She's also crawling like a mad woman and keeps trying to get our shoes at the door. I make a barrier out of toys and toy boxes, but Alana keeps taking it apart! Alana is also talking a lot. She seems to have a great memory. She'll watch a new show and by the second time she watches it she's saying the lines right along with the show! She also seems to be getting taller. This girl will be huge!

I will try to get better at this...

I keep forgetting about my blog! And of course, the times I do remember the girls need me 1 minute after I start typing.

Kylie is screaming (playfully) right now and Alana is drawing. I'm trying to squeeze in some blog time!

I took some Christmas pictures and FINALLY sent out my cards yesterday. I loved the pictures.








I am also very happy because we received the crib we ordered for Kylie the other day! It took a LOOONG time to get here (don't order from babycenter...) But I love it! I'm not sure if I mentioned before that we lost the old crib in the move, but we did and I was really upset about that. However, this new crib is gorgeous!! Kylie seems to like it a lot and Alana keeps pointing to Kylie in the crib saying she is stuck. It's cute.




Oh and Kylie is crawling!!! She is a master at it! I also think she'll be pulling up to standing soon. She is really trying.



I almost forgot to mention that it's my husband's 22nd birthday tomorrow!! I'd write what I bought him, but I'm not sure if he can find the blog or not! We're going to go out to eat at a Steak house and then get some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream!

I'm back!

I've been gone for about a month, huh? Moving has been crazy and I still don't have my laptop hooked up to the internet and need to steal my husband's haha.

So we are in Wisconsin now and my husband has started his new job (the reason we came out here..can't remember if I said that or not)

Alana is speaking so many sentences now. She really is such a big girl. It's fun to watch her as she watches TV shows because she really gets into it now. She'll dance around during the songs and do what the characters ask (Stand up and jump!!). I think it is so cute.

Kylie is almost crawling. She is up on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth. I think she'll start any day now.

Anyway, Thanksgiving is tomorrow so Happy Turkey day everyone!! Alana's 3rd Thanksgiving and Kylie's 1st. Kylie isn't big on baby food yet so she probably won't eat any of the goodness, but Alana will have her first Thanksgiving where she will actually eat the food! (she wasn't eating much table food last thanksgiving when she was around 1 year 4 months) It's exciting!

I hope everyone has been doing well. I don't know if I'll be able to catch up on a months worth of posts from you guys, but I'll try!

Funny

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I do not update this thing enough...

Here's some crazy news! We are moving to Wisconsin. Our apartment is awesome! 2 bed 2 bath. Jacuzzi tub and large standing shower. The kitchen is pretty large and so is the living room. There is a washer and dryer as well. There is also a garage, which is nice. My favorite part is that there is a free gym for tenents! I am so PSYCHED about this! I am so motivated to get healthy and stop being fat! I can't wait. Oh wait, I lied, my favorite part is that everything is so much cheaper in WI than CT!!! This apartment is costing the same as crap apartments over here. It's great!! I'll be sure to take pictures once I set everything up.

Anyway, we have booked our flight for Nov. 1st. We are just working out details on moving our stuff. Its actually pretty complicated to transfer Jimmy's car in his name and move states...so annoying.

Kylie cut her first tooth yesterday. I'm glad she finally did because she's been uncomfortable for days. Orajel has been our best friend. I don't think I mentioned that Kylie has been sitting up on her own for a while either. She's getting so big. I've kinda started her on solids. I'm mostly waiting for the move though because I want to make her food homemade for her. It'll be better...jarred baby food is so nasty.

We had to give away our cat Wiley. A bit of backstory on Wiley. He is my cat Chibi's brother. My brother owned him since he was a kitten for 7 years and then Wiley got beat up by their younger cat and he was given to my mom (I wouldn't keep the aggressor...poor Wiley). Then all the divorce stuff happened and my mom moved out of the house into an apartment. She was only allowed to have 1 cat and Gilly (whom we've had since 1999) went because she was also very fond of my little brother who still lived with my mom. We took in Wiley because he was Chibi's brother and I felt bad for him. Well he annoyed the crap out of us for the longest time and we never really bonded with him. Now with the move we can't have any cats. Luckilly our Panda and Luna are at Jimmy's parent's house living the good life and my mom says that she could take one more cat at her apartment now (the 2nd floor tenant flooded the apartment and the Landlord isn't doing anything to fix the damage so she doesn't care anymore and says the Landlord owes her some leeway). She is also just found out she got approved for a house and will be buying one soon and Chibi will live with her since he's my baby and I couldn't bear the thought of not having him..he is my best friend. Well we didn't have anyplace for Wiley so we had to find him a home. We lucked out BIG TIME! A nice family contacted us because their cat died in June and they wanted an adult, not a kitten. The woman works at a school and we were able to look her up and confirm her identity. I feel really good with this choice. She's going to send us pictures and let us know how WIley is doing. I feel so bad about giving him up (I always said I wouldn't do this...) and felt even worse as Alana was sobbing as we drove away yelling "Wy Wy!" (her nickname for him) when she saw him go in the lady's car. That made me cry. My mom is sad that she couldn't get a house sooner because she really liked Wiley and would have taken him (her apartment is WAAAAAAY too small for 3 cats). It's sad...I wish it didn't have to happen. I really think he'll be happy though...

Wiley (left) and Chibi (right) 7 year old brothers.

JUMP JUMP!

She can sit!!














When Alana was around 10 months old or so I went to visit a friend who had a niece a few months younger than Alana. She had a Rainforest jumperoo and let Alana try it. She played happily for the longest time and I told myself that whenever I have another kid, the jumperoo is a MUST!

Well...I just bought Kylie her Rainforest jumperoo! She is in love with it! It is so cute to see her bouncing around in that thing. We got an awesome deal on it too, about $20.00 cheaper than buying it in the store. I am extremely happy with it!

We also decided to get Alana some Dora the Explorer dvds and she is crazy about it!! When I shut it off she goes "My Dora!" it is so adorable. Alana is getting so big. The sentences are all over the place now and she's getting better at her Alphabet and Numbers everyday. She knows all the letter and numbers, but hasn't learned the order of the letters yet. She'll get it quickly, though. She seems to learn very quick.

Pictures

Not much to update lately so I'm just going to do a picture update!




Jimmy and Kylie



She is always smiling like this! It is great.



Alana helped me make a personal pizza for her!



So big.



My husband ready to go off to his softball game

Eating your winnings

My husband and I are silly. We play the lottery in the hopes of a better life. We've won $50, $100, and $500. We've just never won a jackpot.

However, today I thought I'd won something. You all know those sweepstakes right? Find this symbol on one of our candy bars and you win? Well I had the bat symbol on my KitKat bar. I was happily eating away at my chocolaty delight when I saw the bat symbol. I thought it was cool and I showed my husband (at this point I had eaten almost half of it). I kept eating and as I was getting toward finishing it I looked at the wrapper "FIND THE BAT SYMBOL AND WIN!" I dropped my candy. All this time of playing silly games trying to win something and what do I do?? Eat away my proof the one time I win! I couldn't believe it.

So I frantically try to do some research into the game. I still had some bat symbol so maybe it would still count? Well my research revealed something to me...I hadn't won anything! As it turns out, finding a bat symbol means you can enter the sweepstakes for a CHANCE to win! Oh and you can enter for free online. Hershey...you tricky little devil you.

I guess we are back to the occasional lotto ticket here and there...I mean, who knows, right? Somebody wins, it could be us!

Missing Camera

I haven't been able to find my camera for a few weeks now. I think my husband put it somewhere. I am NOT happy! Anybody with infants knows it is important to capture a lot of pictures because they are changing all the time!

I want to take pictures constantly, but I can't. Today I had my girls dressed up in matching polka dotted pajamas and matching pink slippers and I wanted a picture so bad! It was adorable!

...guess I'll just have to force my husband to remember where he misplaced it...drives me crazy!!

The car

So the other day I was at my Mom's house because Jimmy had a softball game and needed a shower after (We don't have hot water anymore, but that is a whole other rant) and she decided that she wanted Taco Bell. I offered to pick it up for everyone and so I took off and while I'm waiting in the drive thru for my food my car looks like it is smoking a bit and is making funny noises. My dashboard says I need oil, but I had just filled it up a few weeks ago and didn't drive so much that I'd be out, so I figured the warning light was broken (the car is 20 years old)

I got my food and headed back to my mom's house. As I'm taking a sharp turn up a hill, my car dies. It has never done this before and the car actually has a good engine so I don't understand it. I tried turning the car back on and it worked. My car stalls out 2 more times on the way back, but I make it!

After we eat, I decide to try driving home because I thought my car was just stalling out when I stopped and I could start it back up no problem. Well it stalled 3 times on the way home and wouldn't start up after the 3rd time just 1 minute from the house! Did I mention that this was midnight? Luckily we had both cars (my crappy 1988 Camry and my husband's nice 2004 Matrix) because I wanted to go to my mom's before his softball game was done. So I went to his car and we called my mom to let her know what was going on. She said my brother had jumper cables so I try calling. No surprise, he was asleep. So I try to start the car over and over, not knowing what to do. We were concerned that if we left the car there it would be towed and I'd be fined...I can NOT afford those kind of fees!

So a couple must have heard us (my car was making funny noises) and came out. The man said he had jumper cables and so he went off to get them. While he was doing that my husband drove back to the house to get a container of oil. We open the hood and see that my oil cap is missing. This confuses me because I did NOT forget to put it back on. Not to mention that even if I had, I had driven around enough that something would have happened DAYS ago! It just doesn't make sense why it is gone! Anyway, we fill up the oil and jump start the car. It sounds normal now and I drive home. I was so nervous driving home! It was all uphill with no streetlights and a bunch of trees...so it would be creepy if I stalled there. My girls were so well behaved. My car was probably on the side of the road for half an hour and they didn't complain once.

Well...I don't know what what to do now. I can't afford to fix the car if there are problems, not to mention repairs would probably cost as much as the car is worth. I am scared that I may have damaged part of the car and am scared to drive it even though it starts now. I also was about to go look for a job...now I have no ride to work!

This is a nightmare.

Here are some nice pictures to lighten the mood...

Random Fun

I really have to try to remember about this blog! I keep forgetting to come in here and update...I'll try better!

Here's some random info

HowManyOfMe.com

There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

There is only 1 other person in the U.S. with Kylie's name, according to this.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

There are 2 people with Alana's full name. I checked this after she was born and it said 1 for the longest time...so she was the first!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 70 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

70 people with my first and last (married) name...let me check my maiden name.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 27 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And my husband's name.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 26 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Back to the Start.

I was just thinking that I should probably post some more details on my life!

Back in 2005 I got pregnant for the first time. I was 18 years old and felt so ready to take on the world. My then boyfriend, Jimmy, and I were going to celebrate our first anniversary together on October 25th. We had planned to go to the same restaurant that we had our first date at. It was a very nice dress up type restaurant. Japanese cuisine. He had planned on proposing to me here, however it didn't quite go as he had planned.

A few days before our anniversary we had both gone out to get our gifts. I kinda knew the engagement ring was coming and so I headed to the mall for Jimmy's gifts...one being an engagement ring of his own. It was a gorgeous (in a manly way, of course) gold band that cost me over $100 (a big deal to me at the time). I also got him a sword. Sure it sounds random, but he's always liked those swords you see in those Asian stores in the malls. It was a good gift for him.

I don't think I've mentioned at this point that I hate to wait for things. Waiting is one of my pet peeves. It seems that every year for Christmas or birthdays I give Jimmy his present before the actual day and talk him into giving me my presents early. This is exactly what happened. The day I got him his present I wanted to give it to him. I was still nervous that maybe he wouldn't propose and I also didn't want to take away his moment by proposing first. So what I did was tell him I wanted to give him his presents so we should just exchange that night. We'd take turns and I'd go first. Of course I gave him the sword first. He loved it. He then went into the nightstand and pulled out a box and proceeded to propose. The ring was beautiful. After I calmed down I went and got his ring. I explained how I didn't think it was fair that only a woman got a ring to show off the engagement. Needless to say, he was happy. It has been so long that I don't remember every detail, but I'm sure we had a happy ending to our anniversary because my first daughter, Alana Amber, was conceived around that time.

Alright...I'll continue on with my story next time. I'll leave you all with some pictures.



the ring




June 2005. My senior prom.

Birth Aftershock...How long will this go on?!

It would seem as if I'm still suffering an aftershock of birth...Post-partum depression. This is a very difficult illness to handle. I felt as if I couldn't deal with it on my own and spoke with my obgyn about getting help. She perscribed Zoloft. "Great", I thought, "I'll get better". Not so much. It seems as if this medication does NOTHING! I keep wondering how likely it is that I was perscribed a placebo...I'm not sure how else to explain the lack of...ANYTHING from this medication!

I hope that I can either get some help that actual works or have the strength to ride this wave till it is done....I know I'll be Ok...I just keep saying that.


Here is a picture of the beautiful baby that created this stress...




I would rather deal with 100 years of feeling like I am today than never have her. She really is amazing.

-Sarah

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

The start

So I've decided to start a little blog here. I'm not sure how often I'll remember to update, but I'll try to be around pretty regularly.

Anyway, a bit of an introduction;

My name is Sarah and I'm a mommy to two wonderful girls Alana (23 months) and Kylie (2 months) My husband's name is Jimmy and we live in CT.

Kylie Birthstory

I had my baby! So here is how it all went down!

On Sunday my husband and I decided to go over to my Mom's house to visit. We went over sometime after 4:00p.m. and I started to get some contractions around 5:00pm. I seriously thought that it was just false labor because I hadn't felt ANY before that! They got closer together and painful *really* quickly. I figured that it was probably time to call the Dr., but I hadn't packed my hospital bag yet! So we rushed home to get the bag ready as well as everything that Alana would need (she stayed with my mom). I think I got to the hospital around 8:30 or 9:00p.m.

Once I was in the hospital they checked me and I was 5-6 cm dilated. I had a fast labor with Alana so I was concerned that would happen again and the first thing I said to the nurse after she checked me was "I want the epidural!" I had natural childbirth with Alana and was terrified of doing that again! So I kept progressing rather quickly and luckily we were able to get the anesthesiologist in there to get my epidural going! The contractions were so painful...I am such a weakling and couldn't handle it! Within 10 minutes of putting the epidural in, I was numb. It was wonderful! I was able to smile and talk and relax. I was seriously freaking myself out before because of the pain.

Anyway, at about 1:00a.m. the Dr. decided that it was time for me to push. I couldn't feel the pressure at first because of the epidural, but after maybe 10 minutes of pushing I could tell when the contractions were coming again although I still didn't feel any pain! I pushed for about an hour and I was so frustrated! Alana came out in 3 pushes and silly me thought I could do that again! I was so determined, but it still took too long. Well...the Dr. and nurses said that I did awesome and most people would have my 1 hour of pushing be 2-3 hours! I couldn't imagine pushing that long...I was so worn out from 1 hour! Well Kylie Alexa was born at 2:00a.m. on May 5th. She was 9lbs. 5oz. and 21 inches long. She was also facing up so I guess that is why pushing was so difficult.

She has been a really great baby. She eats very well and will sleep for a good amount of time between feedings. The only problem with that is that I still have to be up with Alana while she sleeps so I am still so tired!.

Alana has been adjusting really well to having a little sister. She likes to wave to her and kiss her. She has acted up a little bit, but that is normal. She just really wants her Daddy all the time now! I think she's a little angry at me, but I'm sure we'll be cool soon!

I think that is it...I'm not sure if I left anything out..I am still so tired!

Kylie and Mommy

Baby Kylie.

Not a great picture, but look at all that hair!!!!

And here's one of Alana!!! Big girl, huh?

I'll take some more pictures soon and post them up!