Elise's BFF

Elise has this adorable BFF who lives in our neighborhood and ward.  Her name is Charlotte- every time Elise sees Charlotte, she runs over to her and yells excitedly, "Char! Char!".  Charlotte is such a sweet natured little girl that I think she is a good match for Elise's feisty nature.  They are both very active girls, too.  They are in a tumbling class together and we also have play dates together every week.  There are some other cute little friends that come to our play dates, too.  Next time I'll have to get some pictures of these other kids.

Quite a few of my friends in my neighborhood are pregnant like I am, or had a child recently; it makes it so fun, since we all have 1st children around the same age and our 2nd born children will be around the same age, too.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Charlotte and Elise from today's play date:

I told Charlotte and Elise to say "Cheese"- Elise must have thought I said "teeth", so I guess that is why she is pointing to her teeth in this picture. 

6 months!!

I have a hard time taking pictures when I'm pregnant, since honestly, I really don't want to remember what it feels like to be pregnant.  I figure that if I'm going to add a few more children to our family, I need to forget in between pregnancies just how sick I am during the pregnancies.  Now that I'm just about in my 3rd trimester, I am definitely having decent days, but there is always a period in every day where my body reminds me why I am unable to eat what I really want and exercise the way I'd love to.  I guess the best way to describe it is a constant, underlying feeling of ick. 

With Elise, I didn't start to feel like myself again at all until about 4 days after she was born.  The doc told me that with my HCG and progesterone levels being so high, it didn't surprise him that it took that long for them to level off after she was born.At least this pregnancy isn't as bad as my pregnancy with Elise. 

Of course I am grateful to be pregnant and to have the opportunity to bring a son into my family.  (I wouldn't put myself through this if I wasn't.) But that feeling of gratitude really gets overshadowed every time I find myself laying next to the toilet on the bathroom floor, nauseated on my couch, or when I sit and look at my meal, wondering which food will be the least offensive to my stomach.  It wouldn't be so bad if this lasted only a week or two, or even a month . . . but the whole 9 months?!  Seriously body, what did I do to you to merit this vengeance?  The one benefit is that my pregnancy makes the newborn, up-all-night stage feel like a piece of cake.

Anyway, the point of all this ranting is to explain why I avoid taking a lot of pregnancy pictures.

But, for posterity's sake, and for the baby book I plan on making Jaxon, I figured I'd better start taking a few shots before he makes his appearance.  So here I am, 6 months along with the little Jax man:

For the record, I really am so grateful to be pregnant and am so excited to meet my baby Jax Man, I just needed to vent for a minute.  Sorry about that- but I do feel a little better now. I promise my future posts won't be like this one :0)

Baby News and Morning Sickness Tales

I am 20 weeks pregnant today with our second baby, whom we just found out is a boy!  Tyson and I are pretty excited, mostly because the ultrasound showed everything to be normal and healthy at this point.  This will be the 2nd grandson on the Walker side (with 9 granddaughters) so Tyson's father is excited that at least one more grandchild will carry on the Walker name.

We're pretty sure we are going to name this baby "Jaxon Tyson Walker".  I will most likely end up calling him "Jax", (for now though I call him my "baby jax") and Tyson will probably call him "J.T".

Jaxon is due on July 22nd--- so he will be exactly 2 years younger than Elise.  Tyson, Elise and I also have July birthdays- we'll just have to plan on lots of partying in our family during July.

I'm over the worst of my morning sickness--- but I definitely am not feeling great.  I still have nauseated days-- sigh.  I also pay the price every time I eat anything sweet, so I am sticking to my high protein, low sugar pregnancy diet.  Yet, with Elise I never even felt this well all 9 months, so I'm feeling blessed in that way.

Quick morning sickness story:  One day, I had to go throw up with such little notice, that I didn't have time to shut the bathroom door.  So, Elise came running in behind me.  She saw what I was doing and got EXCITED!!  Throwing up over the toilet looked like so much fun to her toddler mind, I guess.  She quickly came over to me, and opened her mouth over the toilet in an effort to throw up like her mom!  Are you kidding me?!  Some day Elise will realize just how gross the whole experience is, but for now, she thought it was the most fun game ever.  She thought it was so fun that when I finally flushed the toilet, she started crying because our game had ended. . . .

To add to it, the next day she did the same thing again-- this time she tried to shove me over since I was taking up too much room in front of the toilet.  I never thought I'd have such an enthusiastic audience to my morning sickness hurls.  Needless to say, I managed to get the door closed for the rest of my throwing up incidents-- for the sake of both of us!

18 Months

 

Elise's favorite place to play: our shower

Fortunately our doors are not nearly as easy to open as these doors were in Arizona, (over Thanksgiving weekend) at my brother's house. 

Thanksgiving Day picture in Phoenix, AZ at my brother Mike's home

I think it took Elise about 33 seconds to create this mess she is playing in

Elise is 18 months- wow this baby girl has grown quickly! 

Halloween 2012

For Halloween this year, we decided to dress up as Islanders.  Thanks to Aunt Tori, Elise already had her costume and thanks to some friends of mine, I was able to put together mine and Tyson's costumes.  I love Halloween when it's on a cheap budget!!

Shockingly, the weather on Halloween was beautiful and clear.  I'm not sure I've ever gone trick-or-treating when it wasn't cold out, especially growing up in New York. But here in Utah, it was perfect outside. 

These are Clare's beautiful girls.  We all went trick-or-treating on Main Street with some other friends of mine.  Anna is a fairy and Misha is Snow White.

This is SO NOT a flattering picture of me on the right but I feel it represents one of my favorite aspects of Halloween: eating the chocolate!

Walker Family Photos

This summer, the Walker extended family had a photo shoot. There are a lot of people and a lot of grandkids, so it took quite a while.  By the time our photographer was able to take Elise's individual shots, her hair was messy, her clothes were dirty, and she was definitely tired and hungry . . . .

 . . . . as demonstrated in this "Grandkid picture":

But in spite of all of that, I think I like how these individual pictures turned out.  Elise's personality seems to be captured, and let's be honest, in every day life, Elise's hair and clothes are usually messy, and she is frequently tired and hungry.

Oh how I love this little girl.

Visiting "D"

This past summer, I was so lucky to get to visit my parents in New York.  Elise loved my parents and called both of them "D", as if they were a unit in one.  Both Elise and I were spoiled while we were there.  

Elise LOVED this rocker from the moment she saw it- it was her perfect size. 

I was also doubly lucky because I also got to then visit my sister, Debbie, in West Virginia.  Again Elise and I got so spoiled.  Debbie's children, Alex and Jospeh were so sweet and cute with Elise.  I loved watching the tenderness of these two boys with her.  Elise and I soaked up every minute of our trip back east. 

Joseph (8), Alex (12), Elise (1)

The dress Elise is wearing in these pictures was given to Elise by them- it is from Guatemala, where Debbie's husband, Otto, and his family grew up.