Merry Christmas in July!!!

It feels like Christmas around here because today I redeemed my gymbucks at Gymboree--I had $125 to spend! For those of you who don't know, my name is Melissa, and I'm a Gymbo-holic. These are my treasures...

I love love love this for Ty for this winter. There's a little weenie dog in the pocket which is perfect for us since we have weenie dogs.

And these are his sailboat outfits, some for now, and some for next summer.

Of course, Miss Emily had to try hers on right away!

And Emily follows the trends because as you can see, she is displaying her price tag proudly!

This is a dress that she will wear to a wedding this weekend.

These were so cheap that I couldn't pass them up even though they weren't Emily's size. So they will go in my ebay store.

Why is it that after you have kids shopping for them is so much more fun than shopping for yourself?

Imagine That!!!

Emily is developing quite an imagination. She does have imaginary friends, but for the most part, they seem to be Disney characters. I just want to share a few stories from the past week...
We walked in the house one day, and she said "Hi Uncle Ben, Hi Aunt Amy, Hi Baby Carter!" Then she started talking to her new baby cousin. And no, they were not there, they were at their own house in Searcy, AR, but she didn't seem to realize this!

When we went to play on her swing set the other day, she was playing with an imaginary "Donald Duck." She was pushing her little friend on the swing, and she was helping him climb up to the top of the fort. She even helped him slide down the slide. When we played on the swing set today, she added to it by first going to the imaginary "water" to get Donald Duck before bringing him to play with us.

Last week, she was playing in the house with another friend named "Fairy Godmother." I accidentally squashed her when I was talking on the phone--I sat down in the recliner, and Emily ran over to me and said "Oh, no, Mommy, you sat on Fairy Godmother!"

A few days later, when I clicked Ty's carseat into the base, she started screaming "Get OUT Get OUT Baby TYYYYY!!!!!! You are sitting on Cinderella!" I calmed her down, took the car seat out of the base, took "Cinderella" to the other side of the car and buckled her in the empty seat. Then I put the car seat back in the car. All better!

And then there are the bugs...she doesn't have monsters in her closet or under her bed--she has bugs in her room. We spray them with "bug spray" (a water bottle--got this idea from Supernanny). Then I get her stuffed animal Mr. Racoon and show her how if any more bugs come into her room, he will eat them up! This usually calms her down.

I totally encourage this imaginative playing; I think it's precious, and hopefully she will become a creative person like her Mommy tries to be. But in the meantime, I must be careful where I sit.
Here are some pictures of Miss Em playing on her swingset.

San Antonio Vacation Part 1

Well, we just got back from our short vacation to San Antonio. With a baby who hates the car, we didn't want to go too far or stay too long, so 3 days was perfect. We went to the zoo on the first day, and we went to Sea World the second day. Here are some highlights from our trip. Emily loved it, and Ty did very well. We came back to the hotel for naps in the afternoon, so we didn't do everything there, but for what we did do, our kids were in good moods ;-)

Thanks Dawn for the stroller! We got to see the Clydesdales--they have one named Melissa.

This is Emily and Dee at the dolphin feeding. Emily liked it, but she didn't want to stay on her tummy like she was supposed to, so we weren't there too long. I was outside the railing with a sleeping baby in the stroller, so I didn't get very close either.

Here you can see a dolphin going right by them. Emily is in a yellow shirt, and Dee is in a straw hat.

Dee got a great shot of this lionfish--I actually learned something while I was there--I never knew they were poisonous.

Look at the beautiful colors in this picture! The aquarium was one of the best parts of the trip. But with all of the exotic fish, sharks, sting rays, etc., Emily's favorite thing was the poison dart frogs. Every time we tried to leave the exhibit, she ran back to the "froggies."

Here is a decent shot of a dolphin from the Viva show. It was a combination of divers, acrobats, dolphins, and beluga whales. Emily had a blast at this show. She told me like 15 times "I wanna see the dolphins again."

Here are the stars of the show--I think our pictures turned out well considering we were in the very last row of the stadium. We did that in case Ty started crying or Emily needed to go potty. Also, Emily was able to stand on the bleachers and see over people's heads.

This was Emily's first amusement park ride. She wasn't scared at all. When we started going, she said "Mommy, we can fly we can fly we can fly." When we got to the top, she said "we're in the tree tops." I loved sharing this moment with her!

Of course, we had to wave to Daddy.

And it wouldn't be Sea World without seeing Shamu. Again, this picture was taken from the top row. Emily laughed and danced to the music. She loved the Shamu Rocks Texas show. But all of the loud music made Ty cry, so Dee took him shopping for Shamu gear.

Isn't this fun!

Someone gave Ty a Shamu sticker for the Baby Bjorn. He loved spending time with his Dad even though they missed Shamu.

Well, thanks for sticking with me through all of these pictures. I am going to post our zoo pictures tomorrow hopefully. And here's my good news--in spite of being on vacation, I lost 3.8 lbs on my first week of Weight Watchers--YAY me!

Guess Who Is 3 Months Old...

I took some pictures yesterday as my baby boy turned 3 months old. Check them out...


Here is our big boy at 3 months old--I can't believe how much he's changed already.

This is Ty at 2 weeks old. We are using a baseball glove and baseball to document his growth through the year.



Precious feet

If you look closely, you will see lots of drool!

I really liked this shot without the props as well. Look at his left hand. He's saying "I love you!"

Happy 3 Month Birthday Baby Ty!

Time to Get Healthy

With Ty reaching the 3 month milestone tomorrow, I am realizing that this baby weight is not coming off on its own, not even with nursing. I gained SO MUCH weight with him. And the sad thing is that I had such bad heartburn throughout the pregnancy that I rarely enjoyed eating. It's not like I was devouring my favorite comfort food all of the time. But the weight managed to pile on somehow (probably due to the convenience food we ate so often because I was too big and tired to cook).

So I started weight watchers last night. I have done it once before (online only) when Emily was about 6 months old, and I was struggling to lose the last 10 lbs. They came off so easily when I did just one month of weight watchers. But this time, I have much more than 10 lbs to lose, so I am doing the meetings since statistically speaking, I should lose more weight that way. I really want to get back to my cute old self asap! The meeting was really quick and fun because they gave us 2 simple recipes, and don't you know I love getting recipes!

I will now show you how huge I got because I had a picture taken of me the day before I went into labor. We had taken Emily to have her pictures made in the bluebonnets, and I ended up in a few of the shots. Keep in mind that I was ONLY 36 weeks, 3 days in these pictures!




And just to compare, this is me with my "basketball belly" at 39 weeks with Emily.


Soooooo as you can see, having a son did a number on my body, but I am hopefully on the right track to getting back to normal! Wish me luck!

Follow-Up to the Post Below

Emily just walked up, saw the pictures in my post, and said "That is soooo cute! Baby Ty is sooooo cute!" I have to agree with her!

Good Morning

I decided I should make a post about something that Ty did to balance things out. This morning, he woke up at 5:55 a.m., and I was very tired, so Dee brought him to me, and I nursed him in bed while I continued to sleep. So at some point, Ty must have fallen asleep because I didn't wake up again until 7:30. Do you know what woke me up? It was not the sound of either of my kiddos crying--it was Ty laughing! I opened my eyes, and he was staring at me, laughing. How precious!!! We just laid there and had a little cooing conversation. He was laughing and smiling the whole time--it was adorable. He didn't even want to nurse; he just wanted to talk to his Mommy. How can you have a bad day when it starts out like that?

Super Mom

Guess what I did today--I took our dogs to the vet. I know what you're thinking--Melissa, that's not really a big deal. But take a minute to think about it. I was by myself because Dee leaves for summer school @ 6:30 a.m. And I managed to get 2 dachshunds, a baby, and a toddler out of the house, in the car, driven to the vet, out of the car, and into the vet's office to drop Toby and Tina off for spaying/neutering. I ROCK!!!

Happy 4th Of July

So what if it's one day late! These are pictures from the 4th of July Parade. Emily loved dancing to the bands, and Ty was just chillin' in his stroller or his Daddy's lap. We went to the fireworks at Ft. Hood, and Emily loved them. Ty was also watching them from his MeMe's lap. Everytime my Cinderella-obsessed daughter heard a BANG from the fireworks, she would say Bibbidi--Bobbidi--BOOM while waving her hand like a magic wand. We had a great time and got home just as a huge storm rolled in.

Tee Tee Time

Em has done great with her potty-training. She's been potty-trained without pull-ups (except for night) since early February. The past month, we've been putting her to sleep without pull-ups, and she wakes up dry 80% of the time. I can handle that. But she has tee-teed in her (expensive Britax) car seat 3 times in the last 48 hours. I can't handle that!

It all started yesterday when we took a trip to Austin to get membranes for my breast pump. You can't find membranes here, so we either order online or go to Babies R Us in Austin, and I couldn't wait for delivery--I needed them asap. Anyway, when we were on the road, Emily kept saying she needed to go potty, and we would take her, and she wouldn't go. She thinks it's fun to go potty, especially with all of the "magic" hands-free features in many of the restrooms. On the way home, when we were 5 minutes from our exit, she said she needs to go potty, and we assumed she was faking us out again. We told her just wait until we get to Luby's. Bad call, Mommy and Daddy...because I hear her say "I feel my accident," and sure enough, I see the wet spot on the car seat.


Luckily, we had bought her a new outfit while we were out, and I had a spare pair of Tinkerbell panties in my bag (my mom made fun of me for this a few weeks ago), so we changed her, went to eat, and everything was fine. We were too tired when we got home to wash the car seat cover, so we decided we'd just use the other (expensive Britax) car seat in Dee's truck if we needed to go somewhere.

Flash forward to today--When Emily was taking her nap today, she fell off of her bed, so I used the opportunity to try to get her to go potty, and she didn't go. So when I hear her 10 minutes later saying she needs to potty, I assumed she was trying nap-delaying tactics. Well, I assumed wrong! You can hardly blame her for not asking to go potty when we were driving to the furniture store later this afternoon. That's right, she peed in the other (expensive Britax) car seat on the way to the furniture store which is 10 minutes from our house. Oh, it gets better...

Dee went to a nearby store and bought what he thought was a dress but was actually pajamas and some Elmo panties (since the day before, she has used my emergency clothing stash). And we went furniture shopping. And she wouldn't pee in the furniture store restroom. But on the way to the next furniture store, she would pee in her car seat again. And if that's not enough, when we got to El Chico's, I tried to make her tee-tee in the potty, but she didn't need to (after all, she had already done it once in her bed and twice in her car seat). However, her dress/pajamas did manage to get dragged into the toilet when she was sitting on it. By the time the evening was over, it was raining, and I was crying in the truck. My sweet but tricky husband stopped at Walgreens because he said he needed something for a science experiment for summer school, but he came out with some relaxing bath foam stuff instead.

So that is why I am now going to take a long, hot bath. And we are presently washing both car seat covers. I hope I didn't scare anyone from potty training their kid or from having them in the first place. Some days are just like this...but then (after your relaxing bath) you just have to remember how sweet they can be. See?