It's finally starting to sink in that a little boy will be joining our bunch here in a few weeks. My friends threw me a baby shower a couple weekends ago and everything turned out awesome!! I am very blessed to have the most amazing friends here in the area. There are quite a few of us in the "student wives" group and we have all gotten pretty close over these past months/year.
With the gorgeous hosts, Amanda and Diana. These girls mean a ton to me. I feel very lucky to have them in my life and for how much fun we've had getting to know each other over this past year. Love you two so much! (Oh and I swear there is a belly under my shirt. For some reason I chose a rather loose top that day, lol)
The set up... I thought the yogurt bar was such a great idea! And delicious. (also note the chocolate milk per my request, haha. Definitely a pregnancy craving):
Navy blue/white m&m's as the favors:
Lovely friends!
Jennifer (far right in this next pic) is my voice student. She was actually the only non-student spouse there but she had no problem fitting in with the girls. :) I was so happy that she was able to come:
The whole gang (minus a few that came later)! I just love all of these girls! Each one of them is super special to me and it has been amazing getting to know all of them and to have such a great support group while living here.. I'll never forget the love and support they have shown my little family. Awesome, awesome women.
Our baby girl is 2 1/2 this coming month and she has really grown up these past few months.. Just wanted to do a fun update on her with some videos..
I guess the biggest update is she is finally over her social anxieties that she had back when she was two and all through the summer. She no longer gets nervous or upset around a lot of people or unfamiliar places. I think the time we realized she was finally growing out of it was back in September when we took her to the very busy county fair.. I was a little hesitant on how she would do but she absolutely LOVED every bit of it. From that time on, we never worried about taking her places.
She loves all things crafty, including crayons or pencils, watercolors, and play-do. Other favorite toys right now include books, her little people, stuffed animals, dress up jewelry, her car and bumblebee, and the past few weeks- her halloween pumpkin, lol.. She also loves singing with the radio and songs at home- ABC's, I am a child of God, Bushel and a Peck, do as I'm doing, Ivy come out and play with me..
Ivy really is the biggest goofball and such a tease. The other day, I got her out of bed and she ran off into our bedroom, I wandered off to the kitchen and Sam got out of the shower and was in our bedroom.. He said he had no idea she was in there until he heard a giggle come from our covers. She had hid under there and was completely quiet until after she knew he was there. It was hilarious. She loves silly faces and being completely obnoxious with friends her age, growling like a monster or laughing hysterically at nothing at all. Gotta love this age.
She's always been an independent girl and that has not changed. Loves to put her own shoes on, eat with her own silverware, even asks for napkins when something spills so she can wipe it up. Tries to put on her own clothes (and take them off, haha).. She also follows directions fairly well and can be reasoned with when she gets upset about things, most of the time... Her stubbornness does come out every now and again but let's hope she keeps her easy going personality a while longer (we'll see what 3 is like, haha)...
She's really become a great talker. putting more words together every single day. Most of her phrases are actual sentences now. And it's adorable to hear her really try to pronounce words correctly. For a while "store" and "door" sounded the same but now she tries really hard to say "ssssstore" when she is telling me she wants to go somewhere.
Last month a good friend started teaching gymnastics to some toddlers in the area and Ivy has been loving it! She catches on pretty quick to the things Miss Jill teaches. Her attention span starts to wane after 20 minutes and she starts to get restless but as far as ability and coordination goes, she keeps up pretty well with the 3 year olds. And it's just so darn adorable to watch.
Here she is practicing her straddles and tucks.. Short but I thought it was cute to see what the class is like. Oh and she's the one copying everything Jill is saying, it's hilarious:
These last two show her cute little personality.. In this one she is singing the "clean up" song (randomly while playing with blocks, lol). Her phrase "help you" is what she says when she wants me to help her with something.. most of the time she figures things out though:
This last one is my favorite. I had no idea she even knew numbers 11 and 12 until the day before this video. Not sure where she picked it up but it totally cracks me up:
Other facts:
-no potty training yet! I can tell she's not ready so I'm not going to push anything until after this baby comes. She likes to sit on the potty but hasn't quite gotten the concept of why we sit on it yet. haha
-loves playing instruments or pretending objects are instruments. Also loves when we play the piano for her. I guess this combined with her obsession for Little Einsteins makes it fairly obvious we are raising a little music nerd, hehe.. it was inevitable.
-favorite color is most definitely green.
-very aware of emotions lately. describes things like "happy spider"or being scared, or a crying baby
-recently was gifted a wonderful glider rocking chair and it has made bedtime so much easier/ way more enjoyable. Never ever cries at bedtime since we've had it.
-still a picky eater but not much of an issue anymore. I just rotate the meals I know she will eat and throw in some random stuff from and every now and then she'll give things a try but wont eat it.
I can't wait for Ivy to become a big sister. I'm fairly positive she will be great with her baby brother and will love him. I've never seen her become jealous or possessive of me or Sam and I think she'll love being able to help out when he's finally here. I'm staying realistic and not forgetting that patience will run thin from time to time, or even lots of times, lol.. but I am excited to see how she grows as our family grows.
The last weekend in September, Sam had a couple days off from school because there was a medical school conference out of state that many of the students and faculty went to. The conference was optional and Sam opted out so he could spend some time with me and Ivy. Love him! So we looked at our options and it turned out we had quite a few Southwest points that we hadn't used that could be applied to a nice hotel in Gatlinburg, TN (SW doesn't fly to Knoxville so our points are sort of useless for flying these days). We've been meaning to check out the Smoky Mountains for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. So off we went, just a two hour drive south. We stayed one night in an AWESOME hotel and tried to jam pack as much as we could in an afternoon and a day....
Our hotel was up on a mountain, just a mile or two away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, with a killer view. It was amazing!
Stopped by a fun indoor water park at a nearby resort for the afternoon/evening.. So much fun! Ivy was in heaven with how much there was to do. This place would be so much fun to visit again during the winter:
The next morning, sunrise view of the Smokies:
Most of the parks/city stuff didn't open until around 10am so we decided to check out the pool at our own hotel for an hour or so that morning (because toddlers don't sleep in, even on vacation, lol).. It was practically a water park itself! 2 slides and a kiddie wading pool. Super fun. Can't ever get too much swimming in:
Next stop was Ober Gatlinburg, the town's ski resort.. They had a really fun Air Tram that you can ride up to the resort on the mountain. I think this was Ivy's favorite part of the day. She kept asking to go back on the "ellgator"(elevator). Haha!
Once we were up there, we rode even higher up the ski lift (pretty nerve racking with Ivy but she did fine) to do the alpine slide. So fun! I was especially happy they let pregnant women go down it, hehe:
Don't be fooled by her face, she loved it! Lol:
View on the tram ride back down:
Ivy made friends with a sweet older lady who let her sit next to her on the seat, hehe:
We stopped somewhere for lunch, then walked around town a bit. There were so many German influenced little shops everywhere. Lots of bratwursts, schnitzels, kase (cheese), and tons of fudge shops. It's such a cute town, lots to see and do:
Our favorite little cove of shops:
Aaand finally, our last stop of the trip... we left Gatlinburg and headed a little further south to visit the tallest peak in the Smokies. It was just a half hour drive and poor Ivy was so exhausted. She fell asleep about 3 mins into the drive and was NOT ready to be woken up when we got there. We would've let her sleep a little while longer but she woke up when we pulled in to the parking lot.. So we just threw little miss cranky pants in the stroller and started up the "short walk" to the peak. It was NOT short, and it was NOT a walk. Yes it was paved but the incline was insane, more of a hike, haha. And not to mention, it was only 55 degrees when we got out of the car! So it took us a little while longer than we originally assumed to get to the top but it was worth it. And it was some good exercise for this mama..
Cranky pants in all her glory... and the lookout at the top:
It was pretty overcast so the view wasn't the greatest but still, VERY cool.
I think this might have been our first little trip together with just us, no other extended family or friends, and it was a good one! It was soo nice to get away for a couple days and just spend some good quality time together. Especially before our lives get even crazier with baby boy coming soon. We figured we better take advantage of the little free time we have together and I'm so glad we did. Love my little family!
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