Weekend in Review

We had a really fun weekend this week. On Friday, we had some friends over, Carrie, Kevin and Jeff. I love having them over. Its so nice to have friends that don't mind just coming over and hanging out. They liked playing with Steven and that's fun too. The forecast was calling for warm and sunny earlier in the week but it ended up being rainy and dreary that day. We had planned to BBQ and went ahead with the plan and it turned out well. We decided to BBQ pizzas on the grill for a change from the normal BBQ routine. If you haven't tried it, its a fun thing to do in the summer. I buy premade pizza crusts and just brush olive oil on one side, grill it for a few mins, then put the toppings on that side and grill with the other side down for a few mins. I do like to precook the toppings such as the sausage or peppers because they won't be on the grill directly. I didn't take a picture but our pizzas looked something like this:

Yum!

I also attempted my first ever fruit pie for dinner. I ordered a basket from the Co-op and it contained strawberries and rhubarb. So I thought why not make a strawberry rhubarb pie! I was nervous but my good friend, Jenn, had just made a rhubarb pie that turned out great so I thought maybe I could do it too! It turned out really great! And the recipe was super easy. Here's the one I used:
Ingredients: 2 cups chopped rhubarb, 2 cups sliced strawberries, a generous cup of sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1T zest of orange,
Directions: Mix together, place in crust, top with 2T butter cut into small pieces, put on top crust, slit for venting, bake 425 for 40-45 minutes (until fruit is bubbling through the vents and crust is lightly browned) with the rim crust covered for all but the last 10 minutes.  Here's a before pic:

Ready to go into the oven!

Easy peasy! I also used an egg wash, thanks to a tip from Jenn. Here's the finished product.

Gotta have ice cream too!


So first attempt at fruit pie was a success!

Carrie and Kevin brought over this really fun game Cards Against Humanity. We played it for hours. Very fun! Its sort of like raunchy Aples to Apples. It was pretty hilarious. Of course now Steve HAS to have it. :)

So it was really fun and yummy night overall. I love hanging out with them!

Saturday we went to a birthday party for Steven's friend, Nathan. Nathan's parents, Matt and Sharon have been Steve's friends for a long time and I really like them too! Nathan's birthday is almost exactly the same as Steven's just a year ahead of him. It was really fun, there was a ton of good food, ton of kids, they have every toy you can imagine! And...then Steven threw up, twice. So we went home early. But not before Steven was SO adorable with this tiny baby that was there. I was holding her and he just wanted so badly to hold her too. I let him sit next to me on the couch and he just wanted to stroke her face and belly, hold her little hand. It was truly adorable. I wish I would have taken a picture. (Gives me hope for this big brother thing.)

Steven took a 4 hour nap that afternoon then got up, ate some, watched a movie until about 7:30pm and said "so tired, mommy". So I put him to bed. Poor kiddo. Must have caught a 24 hour bug because he was better by morning.

Sunday we had Steven's 2 year pictures with the amazing Kelly Reinholz. She is such a great photographer and always is so personable with Steven. She makes him laugh so much and us too! We decided to take the pictures at the Museum of Transportation because Steven is really into trains, trucks, planes, etc. right now. It was a bit more chilly than we expected but I think it turned out great considering we had a sick kid the day before. Steven had a great time running around and cheesing it up for Kelly.  I can't wait to see all the pics! She put up a sneak peak already. And they look great!

So big!

 After that we all took a big nap. It was a great weekend! Hope you guys had a good one too!

 

 

2nd Time Around - Gender Reveal

This time around we thought it would be fun to do a gender reveal party. Well actually it was a compromise between not finding out the gender (Steve's idea) and finding out. But I digress. So on Saturday we had our family over to reveal the gender of the baby. I thought about doing some games and stuff but ended up just keeping it low key with dinner and did the gender reveal with the cupcakes. I put blue icing in the middle of the cupcakes so everyone had one and could find out at the same time! Here's how they looked:

It was really nice to have both grandparents over. Steven loves it when they are here. He's so lucky to have 2 sets of amazing grandparents.

 After dinner we let everyone open their cupcakes. The sun was shining on my dad, lol.

I think Grandma Riegerix beat Grandpa Riegerix to the center of her cupcake so he was cheating! ha ha! But he looks excited, doesn't he?

Tim and Jordan were able to make it on short notice so that was really nice of them! Tim's excited for another boy!

Steven was just excited to get to eat a cupcake! Funny story, I made the cupcakes the night before and left them on the counter. I was gone during the morning at a bridal shower. Steve said he was in the living room and heard Steven scooting one of the chairs across the kitchen floor. He said he asked him what he was doing and Steven said, "cupcake Daddy!". Ha ha! Stinker.

So another boy for #2 for us. Yay for the Riegerix men! 

2nd Time Around - 16 Weeks

Four months of pregnancy down already! This was a good week. My rash is gone, I'm still on steroids and other various drugs but at least I don't have that horrible rash anymore. I hope I won't have to be on these drugs the rest of my pregnancy. So cross your fingers for that!

This week my good friend Julie had her baby! She had a boy, Nicholas Anthony last Monday night. He is SOOOO precious! Steven and I went to see him in the hospital last Tuesday. That was so great! It was so sweet to get to love on a brand new baby like that. Just look!

What a precious baby! Steven was really excited to get to see the new baby. He wanted to hold him and kiss him the entire time we were there. It was really sweet. Look at how good Julie looks too! So happy for them!

So that was a great start to our week. Then on Friday, Steve and I had an appointment with the OB. We got to find out the sex of the baby! If anyone knows us at all you've heard by now its a BOY for baby #2! We are really excited, Steve more than me initially but I'm coming around. It really will be awesome for Steven to have a brother so close in age. I'm looking forward to that for sure. And the baby is looking very healthy so that's great too!

After the appointment, I went up to Springfield (ish) with my mom to have lunch and shop with my Aunt and cousin. My cousin, Kris, is actually pregnant too and she is due only a week before me! Isn't that crazy? I was WAAAAY more excited about this than she is but oh well. Maybe I'm excited enough for the both of us! I should have taken a picture but she's really not looking pregnant yet. (Bia :)

We had a really fun Saturday too. We had family over to reveal the gender. I'll put up a separate post about that. So overall it was a really good week!

2nd Time Around - 15 Weeks

Well updates are going to be sporadic looks like. I have some stuff to say at 15 week so here we go. I almost can't believe that I'm 4 months pregnant already. It's crazy how fast its going this time.

I finally got some relief from that horrible rash I've had. Thank GOD. It went away with the steroids and now I just have normal dry skin going on. I had that last pregnancy too so I just make sure to put extra lotion on, it can get itchy but its not horrible. Poor Steve has to do my back in the mornings. I tell him, "It's just another day at the beach!". ha ha!

In other good news I got a chance to play volleyball this week for my old team I played with last summer. It was actually on their indoor league and it was a double header! I had a lot of fun! I was nervous I wouldn't be able to keep up or would get too tired but I had no problems. I just sat down between games and drank water and I was totally fine. I had so much fun doing it too. It felt good to play again! They asked if I'd play a sand league starting in a few weeks and I think I'm going to try to play. It will be on Thursday nights, which means I can sleep in sometimes the day after so that will help. It would put me up to about 7 months pregnant when the league is over so we will see how that goes. Hopefully it will be fine!

In other good news I found a maternity swimsuit that I really like. I got one at Target, actually my awesome dad got it for me. He's so sweet. I got this one:

It's really cute on and its very comfy with room to grow. Its got that maternity panel underneath so that will stretch. The swimsuit overlay is loose too which is good. I tried on some tankinis but I was just worried that my belly would start to stick out the bottom as it gets bigger and I wasn't down with that. I signed Steven up for swim lessons later this summer and the parents have to swim too so I'll need it for that. I'm glad to have found something that wasn't skin tight and will hopefully work all summer. (yay Target!)

Speaking of summer, man that is a sucky time to be pregnant. I thought about it when we were trying to get pregnant but I just thought it would be sucky because of the heat and I'd get through it (like my mom did, love you) and be ok. But really summer is like such a fun time and I'm realizing all the fun stuff I will miss out on being pregnant. Like baseball games (ok I could go but drinking is half the fun), happy hours on patios with friends (again drinking makes it much more fun), BBQs with friends (again more drinking). Wait I'm sensing a theme here...I miss drinking, specifically summer drinking! Wah. ha ha! I know I'm whining but I really don't remember missing drinking that much last time. Last weekend we had some gorgeous weather and we were outside on our porch and I really could have used a cold beer. Sigh. Oh well. The only consolation is that my wonderful hubby is not drinking either. Strength in numbers!

I got out my old maternity clothes this week to go through them. Well bad news...they are HUGE, like way too big for me since I've lost weight. I guess that's also good news but now I have to buy new clothes (yay for shopping, boo for spending money). I kept most of them because I don't know how big I will get this time (hopefully not THAT big) but I thought it was smart to keep them. In other good news, I got out my regular summer clothes from last year and those actually fit due to the weight I lost. So yay?! ha ha! I'm going shopping with my mom, aunt and cousin in a few weeks so that should be really fun and hopefully I can pick up some things.

In related news I haven't gained any weight yet...I think that's a good thing. Everything online says I should have gained 5lbs by now but I think my OB only wants me to gain 15-20 lbs total this time so the longer I can put off gaining the better probably!

We got back for another ultrasound next Friday and we may be able to find out the sex at that appointment. I.cannot.wait!! Stay tuned!!

2nd Time Around - 14 Weeks

I think posting every week was a bit ambitious so I'm going to try for every 2 weeks. The past two weeks have been overall really good. I was feeling a lot better energy-wise and didn't have much nausea at all. I had some energy back to exercise and actually cook dinners and make better food choices. So that's been nice. I think the belly is definitely growing....

Steven has been amazing too. He has been doing the cutest things lately and I've just been really enjoying my time with him. We went through a rough patch a few weeks ago so it's been really nice to have my sweet, cuddly, silly buddy back.

The only bummer was last week I started to develop a rash. It was really weird because I don't get rashes really and I moisturize and use moisturizing body washes, etc. Steven had a rash for a while that they gave him some cream for and basically said it was really dry skin. I wondered if that was what I had too so I just kept putting more moisturizer on it and didn't think anything of it. After about a week it started spreading and getting like unbearably itchy. I didn't know what to do so I went to the DR. She saw me before it really was bad so she said it was probably an allergic reaction to something. Well the next day it broke out like crazy all over my body and was horribly uncomfortable and itchy. I couldn't even wear jeans because they hurt so much. So I called my OB (who is wonderful) and he called me in a round of steroids to knock it out. They helped but not right away. It was pretty bad. I finally went to a dermatologist a week later who said I have Pupps. Its a disgusting rash you can get when you're pregnant. (Don't google that, its so gross). I was really surprised she said that because my OB said it definitely wasn't Pupps. Everything I read online said women who get Pupps get it late in their pregnancy and it doesn't show up on their arms or legs (mine was def on my arms and legs). So weird...but either way its going away finally so THAT is great!

As far as the baby goes, things are going great! We had our 12 week appt. and everything looks perfect. We should be able to find out the sex at the next appointment so that's VERY exciting! I cannot wait to find out. I think I'm feeling baby flutters. It seems so early but I'm definitely feeling something. That's very exciting. I can't wait till Steve and Steven can feel them too!

Steven is being super cute about the baby. We put a picture of the ultrasound on the fridge and he knows that's the baby. He will give the picture kisses if I ask him to. One night we were reading books laying in bed and he lifted up my shirt and yelled at my belly, "I love you baby!!". I about melted!

So except for crazy rashes things are going great the past 2 weeks. Can't wait to find out the sex. Steve wants to find a creative way to tell our family so we are thinking about that. Stay tuned! We are also getting really excited for our first family vacation in a month. We are going with my parents to Gulf Shores, Alabama. BEACH!! I'm so excited! I can't wait. Next priority is to find a maternity swimsuit (that isn't hideous). Wish me luck!

Easter 2013

I hope everyone had a great Easter last weekend. We had a pretty good one. True to form, we all got sick and had to miss out on some family time. Why do we always seem to get sick during the holidays? Boo to that.

 

The weekend before we dyed Easter Eggs for the first time. It was pretty fun. I guess they really mean to only had the 1/2 cup of water to the dye because our dye got really diluted and didn't show up. The only color that would show up was the red/pink. Steven liked it at first and then got bored I think when none of the other colors were working. Oh well, there's always next year.

 

Using the wisk really worked well. We didn't drop any eggs. Woot!

The Saturday before Easter we headed over to the Riegerix's for their big Easter celebration. Of course Steven started having a horrible cough that day and was throwing up from coughing so much. But we still went! The party must go on.

This year was really fun because all 4 of my husband's siblings were in town for Easter. That has never happened before since I've been around. Also there was an extra kiddo. Steve's youngest brother, Matt and his girlfriend were in town. She has a 7 year old son, Eli. Steven and him got along great. Willow was also there. Those 3 had a blast. I had to corner them to get this photo.

Jordan prepared an egg scavenger hunt for the kids with clues. That was super cute. Here they are looking for a clue in the fridge.

Of course their family was way too generous and got Steven a crazy amount of candy and fun toys.
He is so loved. He has been really into suckers lately so he busted this one open right away.

Take a picture with mom! Have to hold him down!

Here is Matt and his girlfriend, Rudy. They are having a baby in July! Steven is also being goofy. Love that face.

On Easter, we opened Steven's basket from us. He did his typical, picked out 1 or 2 things and ignored the rest. He was excited about a new movie though. "Elephant" he calls it. :)

He was also super psyched about that pez dispenser. It's the small things.

My parents came over and brought more treats! I tell you this kid is s.p.o.i.l.e.d! They also brought food for us so maybe we are a little bit too. :)

I hope everyone's Easter weekend was wonderful. We finally had some good weather but we were all to sick to enjoy it. Immediately after my parent's left we all took a 3 hour nap! ha ha!

Steven at 22 Months

March 2013, 22 Months

Favorite Things:

• You love to sing and dance still. This month it has definitely increased though. You will sing along with the radio or your kids CDs we play in the car. You will jump up and dance whenever anyone turns on music. You have some pretty good moves too!!
• You started wanting to play ring around the rosey this month too. Its really cute (and annoying after 10 times, love you).
• Stuff hoarding has started at this age. You have to have all 3 of your blankets from your crib and your Barney and Santa stuffed animals before bed. For a while you were wanting to have your pop-pop with you everywhere. That thing is not easy to try to cuddle with before bed!
• Your grandparents got you a red car to play with. You are obsessed with it and call it "my car". Here you are putting Barney and some other stuffed animals in the car to that them for a ride.

New Skills/Tricks:

• This month has been a trying one for us, buddy. You're definitely getting into the "terrible twos" of behavior. The beginning of this month you were really trying our patience with biting, hitting, etc. You are such an angel at daycare and with other people but for some reason you decided to test mommy and daddy at home with these behaviors. It was tough but I hope we've made it through the worst of that.
• Towards the end of the month our sensitive, fun, outgoing buddy was back. You have such a sweet personality and you will talk to anyone and give hugs to strangers. You love to cuddle with me on the couch reading books or watching a movie. 

• We also had some success with potty training this month. You started to go pee regularly in the potty and some #2. You are officially diaper free for almost a week as I type this at the end of the month (with a few accidents). I hope that you continue to have success with that!

Vocabulary:

• You've really gotten much more demanding this month. You like to boss people around for sure. "Mommy, sit down NOW!" "Daddy, close door NOW!" are common sentences you say. We don't abide and make you say please instead of now which you sweetly do.

• This month you really have taken to expressing what you want. You will say "so tired" or "more sleep please" when you first wake up. You'll say "food please" or ask for the specific food you want when you get hungry. (Lately its been a lot of Peanut Butter Crackers...lol)
• You've gotten really curious about the world around you this month. Whenever we drive in the car you want to know "what dat?" and you love to shout out things you do recognize. "Balloons! Truck! Big Truck!!"

Big Events This Month:

• We spent Easter with family this month and that was very fun!
• We also had the family over to announce you becoming a big brother soon! I don't know how much you understand yet but you are so sweet. You will kiss the "baby" which is the ultrasound picture on the fridge. One time we were reading stories in bed and you said "I love you baby!!" to my belly! So I think you're starting to get the idea. I love you so much buddy!
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