What are Those Flutters I'm Feeling In My Belly?

Recently I've begin feeling little flutters here and there. I know it's kind of early but I felt the same thing early on with Baeleigh. Sometimes it's just like a tickle, other times it's like something just scrambling around inside me for a couple seconds. It just feels like there's a little action going on in there.

So, Tommy sent me this little video to explain exactly what's going on in there. Leave it to Tommy. As if one little race-crazy daugher isn't enough.. :)

Guess What?!..... Baeleigh's Going to Be A Big Sister

It took two positive (though I'll give him somewhat faint) pregnancy tests and one visit to the OB/GYN for Tommy to believe that I was pregnant with our second child. And, whether he wanted to believe me or not then, I knew I was even without those tests. This is a sonogram of Baby at about 9 weeks. Kinda looks like a little dinosaur with a big round belly. The heartbeat is strong and every thing looks great. Baby is due to arrive July 16. Of course, we'd like to have a little boy to complete our family, but we'd be just as excited for a healthy, happy baby no matter if it's a boy or girl.

We almost feel as if this'll be like our first experience with Baeleigh. We've sort of forgotten about the sleepless nights, frequent feedings, and endless diaper changing. Diapers seem like so long ago, even though we only gave up Pull-ups back in February. I'm sort of looking forward to it though. It isn't often that I get cuddle time with Baeleigh any more. Miss Independent is "a big girl now". I never really minded the late night feedings anyway. We're crossing our fingers that we're as lucky with this baby as we've been with Baeleigh. She sleeps well, has a great personality, is very social and has really turned into my little sidekick. We're very fortunate. We wonder will paybacks be in the next child? Naaahhhhhhh...

Santa Comes Down the Chinimey

This is really the first year that Baeleigh has really understood the concept of Santa Claus. But ask her what she wanted this year and you'd get quite an interesting response. It might consist of one thing she might actually want like a baby doll, then it would quickly switch to things like "a car, a truck, a house, a tree". In other words, whatever she passed by...say, in the car. Hopefully, this means she'll come to appreciate what I like most about Christmas - spending time with family, celebrating our health and happiness together.

Last year, we had four houses to knock out in one day, including our own, which was very trying for us, especially with a 3-year old. There's only so much Christmas you can take in one day you know - at least the gift opening part. We never really felt like we could relax and enjoy being around our friends and family. It was more just a mad rush to get to the next house. So, this year we decided to have my parents and Shaun join us for Christmas morning at our house. And, although this only cuts out one house for us, it made a world of difference. Tommy and I still had our sanity intact by House #3 - my Aunt Vickie's - and Baeleigh was still raring to go. Granted, she's one year older now to and that helps too. I hope we can continue this tradition next year. I'll just have to take over the hash brown duties until my Mom masters the non-stick pan.

I thought I'd share a little video of Baeleigh tutoring us on how Santa gets the gifts in our house, "Santa Comes Down the Chinimey". I can't seem to figure it out though. Her version of "chimney" reminds me fondly of my Grandma's Southern "Chimley" pronunciation. Love it. I wish I could also share Baeleigh's version of "Okey Dokey" but unfortunately we didn't catch it (though I think Pop-Pop did). It was "Dokio". Hilarious.

As you can see, the child could not want for more. I think she got all she wanted and more. (Yes, it was a requirement to wear her pink boots with her pj's through the entire Christmas morning.) And, as for Tommy and I, we got want we wanted to, some cherished time together and enjoying family and friends.

P.S. Notice Maximus is already eyeing Baeleigh's stocking as she digs into it. I guess instead of sugar plums, he's dreaming of all the chocolate that might be left on the floor.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

NMRA Factory Stock Champion AND Rookie of the Year

Tommy and I flew down to Orlando to the 2007 National Mustang Racer Association's Award Ceremony for him to accept his award as NMRA's Factory Stock Champion. I think this is the first time I've had Tommy in a suit since our vacation to the Homestead. It was also the first time that I've seen him nervous in a long time. This would be his first speech in front of a very large audience. And, although he unexpectedly won Rookie of the Year as well, he did a great job on both speeches. It's a huge accomplishment to win both in the same year.

He thinks I don't know what I started, but I have a better idea than what he thinks -- as if he hasn't raced for the last seven years that we've been together. I'm glad I could be there to experience this accomplishment with him. I know how important this is to him and I'm excited to see him chasing his dream.

Here's to a new race season, which starts in just three short months.

ChuckaCheese, Where A Kid Can Be Kid

When I asked Baeleigh what she wanted to do for her birthday, her response was "ChuckaCheese". I had no idea she even knew what this place was, she'd never been there. I followed up with, "What do you do at Chuck E Cheese?" "Play games and eat pizza, silly!" Excuse me. ChuckaCheese it is!

With about 9 kids to help Baeleigh celebrate her 4th birthday, I had originally thought this would be easier than holding it at our house. I mean the birthday slot was from 2pm - 3:30pm. An hour and a half of pure chaos and it was all over, no clean-up! The older, wiser Crissy now knows better.

Mistake #1: Smartly avoiding the lunch hour, only to instead overlap the party with nap time (at least for Baeleigh).

Mistake #2: Thinking I could smoothly coordinate nine kids and parents through a well-choreographed 1 and a 1/2 hour party. Itinerary, i-shiminerary. I think that went out the door at minute 5 of the party, when I had about 2 kids actually in attendance.

Mistake #3: Assuming that my husband, the boy that never grew up, would be there to help me through this without running off to play video games himself (excuse me: winning tickets for Baeleigh). I think he played basketball for like 2, maybe 3, hours straight.

Mistake #4: Dreaming that I would get out of there in 1 and 1/2 hours.

I may have lost my sanity in the process, but in the end all that matters is that Baeleigh and all the kids had a blast. Baeleigh was DRAGGED out of ChuckaCheese around 5:45pm.

I'll note one last thing though: I commend Chuck-E-Cheese on their hand stamp system. Baeleigh and I were both marked with a invisible stamp so that if she left with someone she shouldn't be, the stamps wouldn't match and therefore she wouldn't be allowed out. If I had known what they were doing going in, I think I would have saved myself a lot of energy in worrying where my daughter had run off to next.

The Lost Photos

Some of you may know that I've just heard back that the files on my old PC's hard drive, which apparently imploded about a month or so ago, was not recoverable. (I'm hanging on hope that a second company might prove them wrong.) I was extremely upset since being the moron non-backer-upper that I was every picture that I had ever taken of Baeleigh resided on that hard drive. Spare me the "Crissy, what were you thinking?" I wasn't, clearly. Every moment in Baeleigh's life, every trip we've ever taken, all my files from my master's work....gone. Since then, I've been trying to scrape together what few photo albums I have, skimming Snapfish.com and Facebook to find what I might have uploaded onto the web. (Turns out this blog has another perk to it...if I had only done it five years ago.) In digging through the few photos that I happened to have on Facebook, I hit the jackpot. A picture that I took of Baeleigh in the hospital. One of my most treasured pictures of the lot. You can bet I've backed this sucker up a few times in several places by now.

Any pictures that I might have sent you over the years that you may still have, please send'em my way. Meanwhile, I'll be furiously saving all files that my mom's saved over the years on her computer. I think Baeleigh's photos might require a safety deposit box...

Monkey Princess

In typical Crissy fashion, I managed to make it to Baeleigh's Halloween Parade at her daycare about five minutes before it started. I raced into the school to find her, sad face and all, already lined up with just a bag in hand to begin parading through the office park. As soon as I saw her, "MOMMY!" she shouted and pointed at me. I've never done a changing so fast in my life. She made it just in the nick of time to join her friends in line and roll out the door! Sheew!!

She had the trick-or-treating deal down this year. And, with one more under her wing, she turned into a pro at it, running from one door to the next to get more candy. She had a ball! And, as you can see, it was difficult for me to get her to stand still long enough to take a picture! "Mommy, I gotta trickortreat!". Ok, sorry.

It was hilarious to watch her in that monkey suit. She had this way of walking, sort of leaning forward with these big heavy feet. Hiney sticking out. The added padding around the middle of the suit didn't help in trying not to laugh as she walked. Other parents were commenting, "Look at monkey, isn't she funny? Too cute!" Of course, few of them recognize me as her mom. So, I feel a little like I'm eavesdropping, but I get the impression that she's the social butterfly with all of them. The few that do know who I am have told me that Baeleigh hands out hugs every day when they come to pick up their own child. Only Baeleigh.

Anyway, with the majority of the girls dresses as princesses, I was worried that making my daughter a monkey for Halloween wasn't very feminine. When she saw it at Old Navy, I thought, "How perfect!" I mean it's her nickname afterall. I asked her in the car, "Baeleigh, would you have rather been a princess or a monkey for Halloween?" "A princess, Mommy." I can't win. Maybe next year. But she's my Monkey Princess.

We finished up the night trick-or-treating in my parent's neighborhood. Sitting on my mom's lap, we went down a few of our neighbor's long driveways. Although she probably only went to about five or six houses, she made out like a little bandit. Mainly this is because not many trick-or-treaters come around anymore in this neighborhood, yet they still all have bowls of candy awaiting the masses. Baeleigh, in turn, gets the motherload since she's the only one showing up. My parent's house included. I've got enough candy to stuff ourselves until Christmas! Some will have to go to the office!