Another Ultrasound

So...last Thursday, I had my 14 week check up with Dr. Lerberg and this baby is proving that it wants to hide. We started looking for the babies heartbeat and after about 5 minutes of trying without hearing anything, the Dr. called for an ultrasound machine. So, once the ultrasound machine the Dr. started looking for the baby and it really was trying to hide. Finally she was able to find the baby and see the beating heart. Unfortunately, since we didn't get to hear the heartbeat, she wasn't able to tell me were the heartrate was at. Hopefully the next appointment in Dec. the baby will be too big to hide.

Josie is doing great. She is teething like crazy, as she still only has 5 teeth. So a lot more for her to get. She is starting to run all around the house. Her newest thing is that she loves to spin. She has made it up to 3 full rotations before she falls like a log.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

Kisses

So, on Sunday night, Josie was sitting in Luke's lap while he was eating supper. Right as he opened his mouth for a bite of food, Josie leaned in and gave him a big ole kiss. Ever since then, she is ready and willing to give just about anybody a kiss.

Josie enjoyed trick or treating, except the part about wearing a costume. She wasn't so sure about the Hunny Pot costume. Hopefully next year she will enjoy it a little bit more.

I received a call from my Family Medicine/OB doctor, Dr. Lerberg. She was calling about the ultrasound that we had done last week. She confirmed that everything looked good and she moved up my due date to May 15. Yeah, I am officially in my second trimester!!!

Bad Blogger...Lately!

Well, It appears to have been a while since I have blogged last. As many of you know we have had a great deal of things to deal with lately. So I'll attempt to recap the last 5 weeks or so. We put our trailer up for sale and we were lucky enough to sell it within a week of it being for sale. This is also a bad thing since the big house wasn't exactly ready to move into. We still need to complete a final coat of mud on the new drywall and paint the entire main floor. We also have not had any heat in the house. Hopefully by the end of the day we will have heat though. So, we've all been camping out in 1 room at night and running a little heater, provided by our friends Doug and Julie.

We took Josie to the Vernon County Fair and she absolutely loved it this year. She walked around almost the whole time. She really loved the Dairy cow barn. She is fascinated by cows. We also took her to the Retreat's Worlds Fair and she had a blast.

In the midst of moving to the big house, Josie came down with an ear infection and an eye infection. So Luke had to stay home part of the day with her and then I had to come home from work. Luke got all of the combining of corn completed which was a huge relief to have completed.

And lastly, we are going to have another baby. According to an ultrasound that we had this last week, I am due May 23. Everything looked good with baby and the heartbeat was 160. We are so excited to be expecting another baby and providing Josie with a play mate.

Also, Happy Halloween to everyone. Josie is going to be Hunny Pot from Winnie the Pooh. I'll post pictures later as she is currently taking a nap and hasn't had the costume on yet today.

Birthday Parties and... the Flu

Well, the last several weeks have been quite eventful. To start, Josie had her 1 year check up with the doctor and her are her stats.

Height - 2 ft 6 in - 85th percentile

Weight - 21 pounds 6 ounces - 54th percentile

Head circumference - 46 cm - 76th percentile

Next, Luke and Josie came down with the flu. Luckily, Josie only was sick for a day, but her daddy was sick for about 5 days. I thought I was going to get lucky, but unfortunately I came down with the flu the night before Josie's party. We decided to still have the party, but it had to be outside. We didn't want to take any chances of getting sick. So far, nobody has come down with the flu.

Josie got lots of great gifts and truly enjoyed her cake. Griffin got into the cake as well and helped Josie dig in. If it hadn't been so cool outside the kids probably would have had more fun with the cake. There's always next year though. Here a few pictures of her party.

Birthday Girl

Well...I can't believe the day is here but our little girl has turned 1. It's amazing to think of all the milestones that have come and gone in the last year. She is now walking like a pro. Of course, she has to carry something at all times too. She is even starting to try and run. So to recap, at age 1, she is walking, talking like crazy, and has 4 teeth. We have her 1 year appointment later this week so we'll find out then how she is doing growth wise. Her words consist of momma, dadda, hi, done, thank you, please, and it sounds like "what's this". The last one we are for sure about but every time she goes digging into her toys and pulls one out it sounds like she is saying what's this.

Last weekend her Auntie Becca came down and took her one year pictures and they turned out better than expected. We decided to take some outside around the farm. We really wanted some by the cattle, but with two bulls running around(with pinkeye, of course), we couldn't take the chance. Maybe next year. Attached are a few of our favorites so far, granted, I love them all.

On the house front, not much has changed, it's amazing how when Luke finally has some time, the weather turns nice and it becomes haying season. Oh well, the hay has to get made when the sun is shining. Our plan is still to be in before it gets cold and we have to turn the heat on.

Walking!!!

Well today seems to be the biggest improvement day for Josie. She seems to be walking so well!!! She's even figured out how to steady herself before she starts to walk and once she's walking. She is really into walking all over the place now. She seems to be crawling less and less and walking more and more. Just wait until we get over to the big house, she won't know what to do with all the space.

On another front, she doesn't seem to like bedtime anymore. She has to cry it out for a few minutes. Maybe that's because she's still trying to prove to mom how much she misses her. She is now fully weaned and doing well.

Steps and Construction

Well, I can't believe how long it's been since the last post. Josie is starting to take steps by herself. She has taken up to 6 steps. Her vocabulary is begining to grow as well. Her words thus far consist of mama, dada, hi, done, and thank you. She also has said grandpa, but she was looking outside when she said it, so she really doesn't seem to know what it means.

On the construction front, we have started to remodel the farm house. I can't believe how much it has changed. Here are some before and after pictures of the process this far.

Kitchen closet and hall to bathroom

Entry door into the kitchen

Kitchen cupboards

Old header from the kitchen to the living room

New header from kitchen to living room

Old steps that went up from the kitchen

Chimney will come out and entry to the steps will be through the living room

Old living room

New living room

Upstairs landing

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #3

Chimney coming down

Swimming

Well, this last Saturday night we were invited over to Ron and Betty DeGarmo's, with the Garvalia's, of course. We had a wonderfully warm evening and got to spend some time in their very nice pool. This was the first time that Josie got to experience a real pool. I mean she has a little kiddie pool that she can splash around in but at DeGarmo's, she really got the full swimming experience. And she LOVED it. Here are a few pictures of her in the pool.

Here she is sitting on the edge of the pool, feeling the water with her toes.

She seemed to like the water.

She seems to think this swimming thing is pretty nice.

She's watching the Garvalia boys, thinking she should stay away from there splashing.

Here are a few pictures of her in her pool here at home.

Butch also got in on the action, he thought Josie's pool was a good place to get a drink. Josie didn't seem to think that Butch should be drinking from her pool. So, she splashed him.

Josie has also now started to climb up on anything she can.

9 Months Old

Well, we have hit the 9 month milestone. Josie seems to be doing excellent. She had her 9 month well baby check up earlier this week and she weighed in at 20 pounds 2 ounces and measured just shy of 28 inches long. She is still falling into the 50-75th percentile range. She is slowing down in her weight gain but she has become a very active little girl. Here she is showing how active she is both crawling and standing up, walking along things.

Needless to say she loses her pants easily.

And when you play hard, you crash hard too. Doesn't take much to relax and fall asleep when Daddy is holding you.
Here she is showing how much she likes to eat. One of her favorite foods is spaghetti.

This last weekend she was able to enjoy playing all day with her cousins Griffin and Finley. Here is a great picture of her and Griffin. I think Griffin is trying to show Josie how to drive.

Here they are several weeks ago and Griffin is pushing Josie around in his new toy. They were having a blast.

I hope those of you reading this enjoy. I keep asking myself if I should keep posting, any thoughts?

Bye, bye Bottles

Well, as many of you know, Josie has decided that she no longer wants the bottle. She will go all day without drinking anything but water. Atleast she is eating table food, like it may disappear any minute. We have tried every trick that people have suggested to us. Even the doctor doesn't know what to think of Josie not taking the bottle. One good thing is that Josie still nurses morning and night. We were just starting to wean her to formula when this bye, bye bottle started. We do think that she is starting to get some more teeth, so hopefully they poke through soon and she will start on the bottle again. She has started drinking some whole milk now, only several ounces per day, as we don't want her to have too much too soon. With all of this going on, I also came down with Mastitis earlier this week. I know have a new found pain, that I hope to never have to experience again. It was a good thing that we recognized the symptoms fairly quickly and went in to the doctor right away. Thank goodness for good drugs!

Luke also got his brand new discbine last week and was busy all weekend with hay. We are also up to 25 calves born, but unfortunately we lost 1 calf due to the heat. We still have 3 more cows that have not had calves, but we have have another month to go.

Our garden is doing wonderfully. We've even had to pick all of our radishes already. And yes I did try them, although I didn't really care for them.

Josie is still walking along everything and climbing off of her toys. Almost every morning we find her standing in her crib waiting for someone to get her out. She is such a joy and we are so very lucky to have such a wonderful little girl that is always so happy.

Walking...with help!

Well Josie has definetely reached another milestone. All of a sudden in the last week all she wants to do is stand or walk. She really likes to walk around things. She does a great job bending over and picking things up as well. She also likes to get mad when you force her to sit down. She will then proceed to scoot over to the nearest thing that she can stand up next to. She still needs some practice getting up but she is cruising along nicely in the bumps and bruises section of childhood.

She is also still trying to recover from the never ending cold that can't seem to leave her or me alone. Luckily, Luke has been able to avoid the colds and he is over half way through getting the corn in. Then he'll get to spend a little more time with his baby girl. The plumbing business is also doing great. He already has a lot more jobs than he originally expected. Yeah!!

Spring time = BUSY

We'll again it has been too long since I have blogged. So just to recap here is what has happened in the last 2 weeks.
-Luke and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary, where he sent me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers to my work.
-I celebrated another birthday, where Luke sent another gorgeos bouquet of flowers to my work. I am such a lucky girl!!!
-We weeded the garden where we have potatoes, onions, radishes and peas poking up out of the ground(hopefully they don't get hurt by the frost that we are expecting tonight).
-Luke has gotten our farm almost all the way planted with both alfalfa and corn.
-We are up to 5 baby calves born, and they all came just this week! Wait... I just got to watch number 6 be born while writing.
-Luke's plumbing business is coming along great and he is getting a lot of jobs, thank goodness!
-Josie is starting to try and crawl and also starting to pull herself up onto things. Mostly she likes to crawl over mom or dad.
-Josie also is loving to talk "dadadadadada." That is what we hear throughout our days. Of course Luke loves to point out that she said dada first.

Josie is also still just doing to the army crawl to move around, although she has moved a little more towards crawling. Hopefully she starts crawling soon or she'll be walking before she crawls. We'll just have to wait and see what she does. Now this weekend we are going to celebrate Mother's Day, boy I sure am lucky, all the celebrations for me in the course of several weeks! We hope all you Mother's out there have a great day!!!

The Last Several Weeks

We have had several busy weeks since Easter. Between Josie and I, I'm not sure which one of us has been sicker. We thought Josie had pink eye so we did the whole drops routine but after a week her eyes are still slightly weeping and she now has a full blown cold. Then a week after her eyes started weeping mine started in too. Needless to say the girls at work were having fun calling me "Pinky". I don't know if they were trying to insult me or not. :)

Josie got a wonderful playset for the yard from both sets of grandparents. She definetely has room to grow into this. Here's a few pictures of her and the swingset.

We also had a wonderful evening with the Garvalia bunch. Tony really enjoyed holding Josie.

Josie has also become a real pro at the army crawl. She has found that she can get into places that she's never been before. She found that she doesn't have to be in her bouncer to have fun with it. Being underneath can be just as fun.

Her hair has also become long enough to put it into pig tails. I love it!!! It really has helped to keep the hair out of her eyes, especially the way they have been weeping lately.

Josie's cousin Alyssa also gave her a little scooter. Here's Josie trying out the scooter.

Overall, we have had a very busy few weeks. Hopefully everything slows down a bit.

Let's not forget to wish Grandma LeJeune a Happy Birthday!

Easter

Well Easter was a great day this year. We had a wonderful time with Josie and the rest of the family. We were able to spend time with all three family groups. We started the day with Josie getting her Easter basket from mommy and daddy. She got a mirror for the backseat of the truck(yes it was more for mommy than for Josie, but she didn't need any more toys).

Now a picture of Josie, butch and her Easter basket.

Then we went to Great Grandma and Grandpa Graff's were she had presents from several people. She had presents from Great Grandma and Grandpa Graff, Grandma and Grandpa LeJeune and Aunt Kim and Uncle BJ. She had lots of fun opening these gifts and then playing with them.

She also got to sit and swing in the kitchen of Great Grandma and Grandpa's house.

If only she knew that this would only be a tast of the swinging that she would get to do at cousin Jason and Tracy's, on the LeJeune side.

She also enjoyed a small swing with Jason and Tracy's girls, Cadie and Alyssa.

Then she finished this party off with the first of two Easter egg hunts. This one she got to hunt with her Fairy Godfather, Uncle John.

Next we were back to the farm to celebrate with the Hanson's where she got to visit with her cousin's Griffin and Finley. Here's a picture of Josie and Finly, Josie saw Finley on the floor and rolled across the room to get closer to her.

Here a picture with Charlie, Casey and Ryan's dog, and her last Easter egg hunt.
Overall, this Easter was great! We hope everyone else had a good Easter.