My baby girl is 3 today! My toughest labor, my easiest baby.  She has grown up so much since 2.  Her personality keeps growing and keeps us on our toes! 

Briana has grown an amazing heart, and it warms mine everyday to see how encouraging she is to Mikey, and her little friends!  One of my favorite things to do, is watch her share her favorite snack as Mikey is usually wrestling her for some–she’ll make him say please, and then nicely hand him some.  Each night she sweetly gives kisses out–first to Mikey, then mommy and daddy. 

I’ve really loved watching her knack for music lyrics grow (sounds a lot like she got Steve’s genes there!)–she’s got over a handful of Bible songs on that mental list, and have her watch a show once and she’ll be singing you the theme song later that day!  She’s also got quite the sense of humor, whether she realizes it or not, and can make us laugh by some of the silly little things she does:

She has grown from a timid little one, to quite the adventerous toddler!  She may still be the shortest of her buddies, but she’s now jumping and climbing all over things that she would never have given a second look to before! 

If you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t seem to own any pants because her favorite thing to do is find the perfect dress in the morning!  She sure has a knack for the pretty things, the princesses, the ponies–all dragging me back into that world with her

But we are so delighted by her everyday, even the tough ones.  All it takes is for her to come up and ask if we’re “sad” and say that we should all be happy again (this is usually after one of HER time outs!).  Hard not to resist that precious call to leave troubles behind.  We look forward to many more years watching her grow!

Happy 3rd Birthday Briana!!

Only 3 more to go before Baby Girl arrives! Wow, time really flies when you’re chasing two toddlers during pregnancy!!  For the past five months of my pregnancy, Steve and I have been eating a Primal food lifestyle.  It’s been a very eye opening way of eating (no processed foods, grains, and legumes to describe it simply–there’s much more), but the more we eat like this, the more we’re seeing health benefits!  I’ve even been reading more on how this way of eating improves health for those with autoimmune diseases (an unknown added benefit!).  I’ve definitely had my moments of pregnancy induced weakness–i.e. finding a package of Oreos that never made it into the trash during the big purge in January, craving a Dr. Pepper and Chick-Fil-A, etc.  But despite how yummy those moments of indulgence have been, I feel how crummy that food makes me feel for hours after!  If only I had the willpower to resist at the moment now that I know how I’ll feel later!

But the biggest change has been my lack of excessive weight gain during this pregnancy.  With Briana, I gained about 40 pounds by my 6th month:

With Mikey about 25 pounds by the 6th month

and with Baby #3 I’ve gained 4 pounds.  I’ll tell you, with Briana, I had a few Dr. Peppers every day and my office was across the street from a Jimmy Johns, Qdoba, and Chipotle.  I ate whatever, whenever!  I ended up packing on 65 pounds by the time Briana was born!  With Mikey I “tried” to do better, and only gained about 40 pounds, but still was not very healthy during or after pregnancy.  Granted, I’m currently chasing around 2 toddlers and usually carrying one of them throughout the day, so there’s an added exercise benefit to this pregnancy!

One more benefit I’ve seen with Primal eating (pretty sure it’s the low sugar and not drinking pop part too!), is that I’m getting some awesome sleep every night.  Well, Mikey still wakes up about once a night, but my sleep is SOLID when I do get to sleep through!  I’m not dragging in the mornings like I used to, and I’m not seeing any sleepless pregnancy nights (yet).

I think it will be interesting to see what my glucose tests reveal in 2 weeks–I failed the preliminary ones with both Briana and Mikey’s pregnancies, so I’m hoping that I’ll pass this one with flying colors

Mikey is growing up too fast–it’s official.  He had his 18 month check up this week, and he’s catching up to his sister in size! He currently wears 18m clothes, though, most shirts are getting into the 2T sizes because he’s inherited my long torso, as well as my little butt. 

He’s 24 pounds and 32.5 inches long–such a big boy!!  He loves to climb on anything these days–tables, chairs, random boxes. You name it he’ll try to climb it!  He also loves to try to get Briana to wrestle with him, and thinks it’s hysterical to sit on her head if she’s laying on the ground.  A true little brother!

We’re back! We survived!  We had a wonderful past week in and around London, England visiting our friends and local attractions.  Many said we were brave for taking two toddlers, but I think we drank a bit of the crazy juice–at least that’s what we felt like once we got on the plane and realized Mikey wasn’t fond of being strapped in for 6 hours and didn’t sleep!  But all in all, despite a few tantrums here and there, we had a great time with two sets of friends who took us to places like London, Hampton Court Palace, Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and more.  All the pictures are loaded on to our family site HERE; but here’s a few highlights!

The kids were great waiting for the flight to board and get ready–our plane “mates” happened to be the Royal Marines Shooting Team! Talk about feeling secure!

Once in London, we headed to Guildford, where our friends the Sauters are stationed (attending the University of Surrey for his Ph.D!).  The first day was a bit of a blur, but we walked to High Street and saw the castle in town, had some “tea” (aka a late lunch), and looked around town.  The next morning, we all awoke fresh and rested and ready to spend the day in London!  What an amazing time–we saw all the main sights: The Eye, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Big Ben, Parliament, Trafalgar Square, and Buckingham Palace.  We paid to visit inside the Tower of London and see the Crown Jewels, and other great collections!

On Saturday we braved the cold, rainy weather to go see Stonehenge.  We nixed further outdoor plans after that and went pubbing instead–a great decision!

Sunday we heading to South Downs before Hampton Court Palace–both truly remarkable places!

After the Palace, we  parted ways with the Sauters and headed west to Binfield to my dear friend Kate’s house to stay a few days with her and her family, including the 12 day old newest addition Abigail!  Briana and her buddy Bethany reconnected quickly and played princesses for most of our indoor time!  We toured LEGOLand, Windsor Castle, and enjoyed some good old downtime catching up and enjoying watching our kids play together again!

We were so grateful to have friend’s open up their houses for us to stay and visit, but also to take their time to tour us around amazing locations!  We had such a blast, and despite rough planerides there and back, we count this as a fantastic family vacation!!

We had a really lovely day! I normally don’t get up before the kids (they’re my alarm clock most days because they’re early risers), but today I wanted to try making gluten free cinnamon rolls/biscuits, so I knew I needed the time and hands to do so.  They turned out to be pretty good, though I think we still have the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls engrained in our taste buds, so maybe just a bit disappointing.

The kids then opened up small gifts in their Easter baskets (some Veggie Tales movies and a small toy for each kid), and then enjoyed playing with Mikey’s new Mr. Potato Head before church. 

We enjoyed a really great service at church full of worship and reading of Scripture of Christ’s redemption and salvation the was accomplished on this day!! Briana was excited to show us her coloring page of Jesus appearing to the disciples, and talking about her lesson.  Mikey was just happy to see us pick him up–he’s still getting used to being dropped off.

We then had our great friends, the Cottles, come over for the Bulls game and dinner!  They were great sports and thankfully love their veggies, because we made a primal Easter dinner–lots and lots of ham, salad, brussel sprouts and cauliflower, mushrooms (Briana ate most of those!), and some simple bread.  I was even more pleased that they enjoyed my first venture into delicate baking of a gluten free cake–German Chocolate!  It was pretty good–especially the frosting! Briana agreed

(from Elana’s Pantry website)

Well behaved kids, great company, and a wonderful day to celebrate our Lord’s defeat over sin and death! Happy Easter! He is Risen!

I keep a notepad on my computer screen of important dates, trips, etc., that are coming up, and it’s been getting longer and longer, even as events pass!

In a few short weeks we’ll be heading to London, England to visit friends of both Steve and mine, and to take the kids properly pub crawling

Once we get back, our spring may be the only down time we’ll get for the rest of the year!!  In June, we’ll drive back to Chicago for Mike and Joe’s celebration of their civil union, and I’ll stay a few extra days.  Steve’s going to fly back, and my MIL Jo will drive back with me! Phew!  She’s going to then ditch us (just kidding mom) for a luxurious trip to Hilton Head full of golfing and beach time, but then come back to stay with us again!  We love having people visit–especially grandparents!

The flow of visitors won’t stop there! In July Mike and Joe will make their FOURTH trip out here for a wedding, and stay with us, and hopefully get to be around for the birth of baby girl!!  The kids love hanging with them, so they’ll be excited to hear M&J might be watching them (if they’re up for the challenge) while mommy’s off on vacation…I mean, giving birth!  Grandma Jo will be back in town for baby girl too shortly after (good thing we’ll have her during summer break!).

It’s funny how after you have one kid, your methods of “recovery” are completely different.  With Briana, I was technically in the hospital for 6 days.  I was home in 2 days after having a c-section with Mikey (there were hundreds of babies born that week, so if I wasn’t going to sleep because of noise, might as well be in my own bed!).  This time, I’m sure I’ll be home just as quick because I think we’ll have the largest flow of travellers coming through than ever before, and I’m more excited since many of these friends and family won’t get to see the baby unless we go to them–which will be fewer times now with 3 kids, and Briana in pre-school this fall. 

Labor Day will bring back these fantastic folks who crazily drive from Wisconsin to Florida for vacation, and then up to stay with us in Virginia, and then back home to Wisconsin.  Yeah, I said they were crazy–but super cute, and one of Briana’s best long distance buds (they’ve been friends since inutero).

After that visit, it’s time for us to make our own crazy trip–Steve’s 10 year USAFA reunion is the end of September, and since he’ll most likely be on his paternity leave from work, we’ll be driving the 1600+ miles to Colorado Springs.

  I’m really excited for this trip because we’ll stop over halfway and visit my dear friend Angela whom I haven’t seen since our wedding–AND she’ll have just had her baby too!!  These two baby girls are future cabin mates at Lake Geneva Youth Camp; I’m not sure they realize they’ll have no choice   But I’m really looking forward to seeing my Colorado family as well, so this trip is going to be jam packed with long last seen friends and family members meeting for the first time since 3 kids will have been born since we’ve last been there!  We’ll come home in October…and I may be taking a trip solo with baby girl to see my cousin Jimmy wed in Vegas!

Maybe around Mikey’s birthday, things will settle down. So if you’re planning on coming to visit–plan soon!  We’ve apparently become a vacation destination (new babies will do that I guess!).  We love visitors, and so do the kids, so we’re really excited for Baby girl to come and all the visitors soon after!  I’m not going to remember much of this pregnancy since we’ll be so busy!

Back at the end of January, my blog got hacked. Worse, the hacker started sending out so much spam, the host server shut down my blog. The hacker also deleted most of my photos–we stopped him around March 2010! Boo.  Anyways, busy schedules and the Bulls season going exceptionally well kept Steve away from working on reincarnating my blog until recently (when I got the itch to write again and began my “soooo, when are you going to fix the blog?” quest.

But I’m back baby!

The weather’s been exceptionally warm this “winter”, and so the kids and I have been outside a great deal.  We’ve also had some visitors that have never been to D.C., so trips to farms, the National zoo, and other great places were to be had!!  We also went to our first birthday party of the season (we know a lot of spring babies!)!

Also in the news, we found out just last week that baby #3 is indeed a girl!!  Briana is super excited to share her room (ask her this question again in 10 years and that feeling might change!), and Mikey’s not sure about all these girls, but he knows where “baby” is located.  In fact, both kids like to lift my shirt and show others the baby…um, we’re working on ettiquette with  that one as I’m often caught by surprise!

So for those who read to keep up with the kids, here are a a few photos of our outings since the blog has been at the doctor:

Steve and I have made a pretty drastic change to our eating habits the past 3 weeks.  Shortly after the New Year, we started eating Primal or Paleo.  Long story short, it basically cuts out all grain, corns, processed sugars, junk, etc.  The only way we get our carbs is via fruits and some vegetables.  Steve’s on the “less than 100g” carb program to lose weight; I’m getting between 100-150g of carbs to maintain my weight because I’m pregnant.  Although, I’ve lost a few pounds in those few weeks probably because I’m not drinking pop, eating sugary foods, downing a ton of vegetables, etc.  Steve on the otherhand, has lost ### pounds (click on his name to read his blog later on Monday to find out!).

One great thing that’s come of this change to eating is that we both find we’re not snacking as much, we desire a lot more fruit goods to dessert on (although dark chocolate almonds are a new treat!), and dinner has become very fun to make!  Here are a few of my recent creations!

Tonight was Salmon Chowder–bacon, salmon, leeks, carrots, coconut milk and broth. Delicious!!

Dinners usually inclue a couple different vegetables, and a meat.  This flank steak was great, and it was our first venture into brussel sprouts:  not too shabby!

Breakfasts for Steve are almost always eggs and avacados.  I venture between high fat yogurt with honey/agave and fruit (also a favorite of Mikey’s!), or an egg as well!  But on weekends I’ve been trying some fun family yummy recipes like Mexican Hash Egg bake.

The kids are even eating what we’ve been eating–Briana’s been into new veggies, and loves the new breakfasts on weekends!

We’re pretty happy, and I’ve even found some yummy, grain free (gluten free I guess!) baked goods recipes that have satisfied my desires for sweet things  

Mikey had his 15 month appointment this week, and has jumped up dramatically in the past few months since his birthday!

He is currently 24.1 pounds, just shy of 32 inches, and his head is measuring in the 91% percentile…big head seem to be a common theme in this family!  There’s a reason we call him the big guy!

He is happy and the doctor was happy with his progress, his walking, and his health!  Check out how he compares with his sister here!

Now if we can only get him to sleep through the night…we’ll be all set to start our sleepless nights all over again in a few months! 

I’d say another big change in Mikey has been his ability to not have to be around mommy 24/7.  He’ll finally walk away from me and go explore, and as I learned at the mall today, he’s got no qualms anymore being held by a stranger, or making a break for it out of the playground area!  My biceps did a leap for joy at their ability to rest a little more these days!

I had my first trimester screening today, and Baby Taylor 3 is doing well!  No one can seem to agree on a due date–it keeps getting later and later, so we’ll just have to wait until I’m 20 weeks to make a better assessment!