Updates

On the baby front, I am now 34 weeks and everything is still going well. I am measuring 1 week ahead, although I look well beyond full term. My doctor advised that at this point everything is good to go and if I go into labor, she will not try and stop me. Yeah!!! Let's just hope I make it atleast a few more weeks first! Since Luke finished the drywalling, nothing more has completed. Hopefully, we will get started this weekend. Josie is still doing great in her big girl bed. She is even napping in her big girl bed now. She still has her pacifier for naps and bedtime, but it's getting to be less and less during the day. We're taking 1 thing at a time. She seemed more interested in the big girl bed, so that's the route we took. I took her with me to my doctor's appointment yesterday and she had another ear infection. This was her 4th ear infection since the end of January, so we have been referred to Ear, Nose and Throat for tubes. Luke and I both had tubes when we were little, so we are all for Josie getting them. Especially if they help! Here's a few cute pictures:

Josie loves to eat!!!

Being Cheesy!!

Playing with daddy is always fun!

Griffin holding Josie back from getting in the way.

Telling each other what their dad's are doing!

The 3 cousins watching the action!

Big Girl Bed

Well, Josie has gone 4 straight nights now in her big girl bed. Last Thursday night, when Luke went to put her to bed, she crawled up in her big girl bed, like every night, but when he tried to move her to her crib she started screaming and kept saying NO. So, Luke figured he would just put her in her big girl bed and close the door. Well, what we also figured was that we would hear the pitter patter of her little feet on the floor over to the door, but we never did. About 45 minutes later we went in and checked on her and she was fast asleep in her bed. Ever since then, she has been sleeping in her big girl bed. Luckily, she hasn't fallen out yet either. Granted, last night she did run in to the wall a couple of times, enough to slightly wake her up, but she put herself back to sleep. The last month has been very busy for us as well. Josie, has had problems with ear infection and has been to the doctor every week for the last three weeks. Let's hope that it doesn't continue this week. When we were there last week, her ears looked good. But, this weekend, I have caught her digging in her ears on several occasions. Hopefully it is just her teeth bothering her. She's becoming familiar enough with the clinic that we just have to pull into the parking lot and she knows where she's at. Let me tell you, she does not like seeing her doctor either. Josie has gotten to spend quite a bit more time outside in the last several weeks and On the baby front, I am 32 weeks along, only 8 more weeks to go!! My last checkup was with Josie several weeks ago and baby's hearbeat was at 12o. This baby is sitting very low and the heartburn is far worse than what I had with Josie. I'm also tired all the time and feeling very clumsy. On a brighter note, Luke and his uncle Carl spent the weekend finishing the drywall and priming it on the main floor of the house. Which means, I can finally paint and start decorating. Yeah!!! Now all we need to do is put in the ceiling before baby comes and the house will start looking more like a home!

Long Awaited Pictures

I know, I know, I haven't posted pictures of Josie in quite awhile, so here is a mix of pictures.

Josie, after playing in the garden all afternoon while everyone was digging potatoes.

Josie figuring out how to slurp spaghetti noodles. She sure ate way more than she normally does. I think she was having too much fun slurping.

Josie brushing her teeth after bath time.

Playing in the first major snowfall of the year.

Terrified during her Christmas program at daycare. She didn't do anything but stare like a deer in the headlights the entire time she was onstage. She was supposed to be shaking a shaker throughout their entire song.

Continuing to scream since she was back onstage trying to get her picture taken with Santa.

With all of her Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa LeJeune, and from Uncle John and Becca. She really loved her coach, although the favorite was her rocking horse that Grandpa got her. Unfortunately the only picture I got on my camera was very blurry.

Josie opening her presents. She still seemed more interested in the paper, unless it was a toy. The she wanted the toy out of the package immediately and she had to play with it for awhile. It took several hours to get through all of the presents in the picture above.

Posing in her Christmas oufit from Aunt Casey and Uncle Ryan.

Eating like a big girl.

Being a big girl playing in the snow. Waiting patiently for her daddy to take her to the barn to see all of the cows and cats.

Walking with her daddy up to the barn.

Attempting to beg for more food.

Ultrasound

Several weeks ago, I had my 20 week ultrasound. Unfortunately Luke was out of town and was not able to make the appointment. My mom came with me. But since Luke couldn't be at the appointment, I figured the least I could do was not post the pictures until he was back in town and able to see them for himself. So here they are:

Arm

Spine

Foot

Leg

Face(Can you see it's nose?)

Trying to hide it's face

Not hidden anymore. This was the best 4D shot that they tech was able to get. Baby was trying to hide.

Baby was sucking it's thumb. We have almost an identical picture of Josie sucking her thumb.

Josie has started saying baby and when we ask her where the baby is she will point to my belly. She also loves playing with her baby dolls. We are starting the weaning of the Nuk. We now have her weaned of it from the car, and basically all day. Hopefully this weekend, we will stay strong and break the Nuk from bedtime and naptime. We want it gone sooner rather than later so that when the baby comes she won't try and steal it from the baby, if the baby takes a Nuk. From the looks of the thumb sucking in utero, like Josie, baby will want to suck and hopefully we will be able to push the Nuk, rather than the thumb.

We also have her bedroom arranged a little bit. We have her big girl bed on the floor. Now I just need to get a plastic sheet for the bed. I also need to wash the bedding yet, but that will probably wait until we are a little bit closer to putting her in her big girl bed. We'll make sure she has a couple of good weeks without the Nuk before transitioning to the big girl bed. She sleeps in a sleeping bag at daycare, so hopefully she will transition easily to the big girl bed.

What's new...

Well... there has been lots going on in our world lately. Over Thanksgiving, Josie came down with the flu, which unfortunately lasted for over a week. Needless to say, 2 weeks later, both Luke and I came down with the flu. Luckily Josie did not get it again. During her flu stint we took her to the hospital 2 times and a 3rd time, which was technically her 15 month well baby check. She is doing great on the growth charts. She was up in the 90th percentile for height and about the 50th percentile for weighy, although she had lost over a pound since coming down with the flu, so I'm sure she would have been bigger than that.

We finally got heat in the duct work in the house. Yeah... It is finally warm on the second floor of the house. This was a huge relief as that has taken up a lot of Luke's time. Now we just have to put a ceiling up, finish the sheetrock, paint the house, and put trim work back up. Needless to say we just left this until after the holiday's.

Josie has cut more teeth. She has cut 2 molars and has a total of 9 teeth, with plenty more coming. She loves playing outside in the snow, but with it being so cold out, we haven't been able to get her out more than a couple of times. She got to go sledding with her cousin Griffin in front of the shed on Christmas Eve. She seemed to really like sledding and didn't mind getting snow in her face.

Christmas was great with Josie this year. She really liked the wrapping paper. But if there was a toy wrapped up inside, she wanted the toy immediately. It seemed like she was unwrapping presents all weekend. She received all kinds of toys that really likes, but her favorite came from her Grandpa LeJeune which was a rocking horse. She just loved this present, and got slightly mad when we had to wrap it back up to take it home. Pictures will have to come on a later blog.

This last week has been fairly quiet as we are getting ready for Luke to head out of town for several weeks for work. He will be down in Indiana for about 3 weeks. This means it will be just Josie and I at the farm. Luke's brother, Brett, lives just down the valley from us and will be coming over daily to feed the calves, check the cows and fill the boiler, so that I don't have to worry about this. When Luke was working in Milwaukee, 2 years ago, I did chores every night with the occasional help from his dad, my dad, my brother and sometimes even the neighbors. But this time I am 20 weeks pregnant with a 16month old, last time I was only 6 weeks pregnant with Josie. I definitely do not have the energy this time to do chores... or the time. Hopefully the cows and calves behave themselves over the next several weeks and everything goes smoothly. Otherwise, it may get a little interesting on the farm.

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!!!