January to April

Wow...I'm getting really bad at updating this blog. I really have to start working on it! Well, here is a basic rundown of how things have been going for the Snavely household since January. Sorry for taking so long to update everything!

January

So, January 18th we found out we are officially having a baby boy! We will be calling him Logan Blaine Snavely, and things with the pregnancy have been going very well (I'll update more in the April paragraph). We really love the girl doing our ultrasounds, Marlene Diaz, she's a lot of fun and always willing to stretch out the appointment whenever she is able. Chad had a lot of fun once we got our shot of Logan's little boy parts, he was so proud that he'd gotten it right again according to his theory of how to get a boy/girl. I am ecstatic that we are having a boy, although I'll admit that it makes me a little nervous since I know so little about boys, my family is a family of girls! But I am really glad that we'll be having a family with one of each gender of child.

February

In February I came upon a really fun and creative idea that I'd like to make for all the kids in our family. My great-grandmother has hand-knit a Christmas stocking for everybody, and I would like to continue in having a keepsake that is made for each family member as kids are added to my extended family. I made some picture frames for Dakota and Logan, and have made one for my cousin who is also having a baby girl in June. They are super simple, and don't cost me much to do, and I really enjoy it. It will definitely keep me busy until I get all caught up (I have a lot of first cousins once removed), but I'm more than glad to make them. That way each kid has something that is just theirs, and it is something they can keep for years to come.

This month we also took Dakota to her first big show. Disney on Ice came to the Selland Arena, and we decided she was big enough that she would really enjoy the show. And boy did she ever! Chad and I had a good time too, it's been a long time since we've been able to do something like that as a family, and it was really fun to see how excited Dakota got when she saw her favorite characters. She's a big favorite of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, so she was calling out to Mickey nearly the whole time, telling him to come back. It was really cute. And I was so proud that she was able to be a big girl and sit there and watch the entire show without acting up. I really enjoyed watching all the scenes change and how they incorporated all the Disney princesses. It's something I remember my parents taking me to see when I was little, and I couldn't help thinking how much Mom would have enjoyed the show too, especially with Dakota.

March

March was pretty quiet for us. The main thing that we had was our 2-year wedding anniversary. We just celebrated by going out to dinner and relaxing. But it was nice to just spend that time together and remember the day we married our best friends. I can't believe it's only been two years, and I mean that in the very best way possible! We've had such a fantastic relationship, and I am so blessed to have the life we have together. We have our own struggles, just like any other couple, but it's all been worth it, and we've come a long way. I can't wait to continue to share my life with such a wonderful man who loves me and our kids so much.

March also kept me busy getting things put together as much as possible for baby Logan. I did my baby registries at Target and Babies R Us and starting making plans for a baby shower (yeah, I know, tacky that I'm doing my own!) on May 7th. Originally it was supposed to be a surprise, but it was kinda hard for Chad to know what I wanted to do, so he clued me in. Then, the plans for it to be thrown fell through with the girl who had wanted to do it, so I took over and now we're just planning a simple get-together with our friends and family. Much easier that way.

April

April has been a busy month for us. Our first major event was the wedding of our good friend, Dan and his new wife, Diane. It was held in the backyard of a friend of theirs, and it was just beautiful. I dressed Dakota up in a cute little dress and she actually was very well behaved. She got a little loud during the ceremony, but nothing bad overall. The weather was beautiful, which was lucky since we'd been experiencing some hard weather that week. It was a lot of fun to watch her dance with her daddy out on the dance floor. She just wanted to spin and dance with him most of the time they were doing the dancing.

Then, we did some travelling. First, Chad and I took a box of Dakota's old clothes up to my cousin Taylor in Santa Cruz. Taylor is expecting a little girl just a few days after I'm due with Logan, so we took her a large box of clothes from 0-18months. Hopefully it will come in handy for her. It was nice to visit with the family while we were there, and then we took Dakota to the Boardwalk. We were a little disappointed that most of the rides for kids her size were closed, but she did get to ride on the carousel with me. She seemed to really enjoy that.

The week afterwards, my sister Chelsea and I went up to Sacramento to visit our grandparents for four days. We had a good time and got to do a few sewing projects. I found a really cute design for some baby burpers, and so Grandma showed me how to make them and now I have 5 really cute burpers for when Logan arrives.

Then we had Easter, which was fun because we took Dakota up to Modesto and had her play with all her second cousins. She had a great time, and made out like a bandit when it came to Easter egg hunting!

And finally, we get to Logan and the pregnancy! I am now 33 weeks and 2 days along, just a little over 6 1/2 weeks left until he arrives! I have put on a total of 32lbs and am glad it's not the 50+ I did with Dakota or I would be truly miserable. As it is, I feel like Logan doesn't have anywhere else to go! I've had a lot of pain in my hips and especially my right leg, but I cannot wait until he is here. I'm going nuts not being able to "nest" but we're hopefully going to be moving back into a house at the beginning of June, so the very first thing I'll be doing is getting his room all set up. I've been really leaning toward a jungle theme, even though we had originally planned for cowboy things. There's just so much cute monkey stuff out right now, I can't help myself! (Note: I just got notice that we'll be able to move into the house in the 2nd-3rd week of May! YAY! 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a pool, backyard, and we can have the dogs, house...here I come!!!) But anyway, I had an appointment this morning and the doctor says that Logan is already in the head-down position and in my pelvic bone, so now it's just a growing and waiting game. I'm rushing wanting to get everything ready, I just have a gut feeling that Logan will debut a little early, and I want to be all set up, but I am trying to be patient and trust that everything will be ready. The best part about this pregnancy has been that I switched doctors and hospitals, and I am so glad that I did. My old doctor (Dr. Lichtenstein with Fresno Community Hospital) was the one who was our doctor for Dakota, but we seriously only saw him 3 times during the entire pregnancy, and only because we asked for him directly. My new doctor is Dr. Lopez with Clovis Community Hospital, and he is wonderful. I see him at every appointment, and we get along wonderfully. Both Chad and I are so much more comfortable with him. So now I'm hoping that I deliver at a time where he's available so we can have him deliver Logan. It would be so much more relaxing to have somebody I'm familiar with there. And I love Clovis Community's birthing facility. It's so clean and quiet, I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, the next post should have the baby shower and moving featured, so we'll try to keep on top of things and have a post up before Logan arrives!

Thanks for reading so far! Take care all!

Catching Up August-January 9, 2011

Let's see...where to start...?



AUGUST

Well, August was the month after we moved into our house. Things were pretty nice once we started to get settled and comfortable. We had a few little things to fix, and the yard clean-up was ridiculous, but overall it was a lot of fun to finally be in a house! We spent a lot of time that month just getting set up and adjusting to everything. A quiet month really.



SEPTEMBER

September was a really exciting month. We'd gotten the yard cleaned and grass was planted and had started growing. Not an easy thing to do in hard-pan, by the way! It took us a lot of hard work getting grass in the yard. Chad made me a promise to have the yard looking nice by Dakota's birthday, and he kept it! We had a decent lawn (we mowed it the day before her birthday party), and Chad went and got gravel and woodchips and got the walkway and planters all set up before the party started. It looked so pretty! I was really grateful for the fantastic husband that Chad is and all the hard work he does for us.

Dakota officially turned 2, and had a lot of fun with all the family and friends around. She got a whole My Little Pony collection from Aunt Courtney and Aunt Chelsea, she loved that! She got to brush their hair, dress them up, and she even got one that she can take a bath with! I loved My Little Pony as a kid, I have to remember to find all my ponies and give them to her soon.

We also found out in September that we were pregnant! Of course, Chad knew before I did, it took me awhile to want to take a pregnancy test.



OCTOBER

Halloween was the big excitement this month! We had a busy holiday for Halloween too. We were invited to go to a birthday party on Halloween for our friends' son, and then the kids would go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Dakota had so much fun, and it was so cute hearing her say "Trick-or-Treat!" She got to dress up as Tinkerbell, and she was absolutely adorable. Everybody loved how cute she looked. Chad and I went to our traditional party the weekend before Halloween. It's always a lot of fun. Our friend, Debbie, has a huge party (last year 300+ people went) out at her house, with a haunted house, decorations everywhere, and good food and drinks. No worries! No alcohol for me this year, but we had a good time still. It was cold so I decided that rather than go as a fairy, I would go as a nurse and just wore my scrubs and thermals. It was so much better than freezing half the night. With my pregnant brain, I can't remember what Chad wore. :) I know we had a good time though, we always do.



NOVEMBER

I really wanted to do Thanksgiving with my family this year, so we did. We went up to my Aunt Serelle's in Modesto, and ate some of the most delicious food it's making me hungry right now just to think about it. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli casserole, cranberry sauce, cooked carrots, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, fresh rolls, salads, and veggie trays. Yummy! Then we had pumpkin pie, chocolate mousse pie, apple pie, and fruit/custard trifle. Oh, that was the best part. I was so full by the time I was done, but it all tasted soo good! From there, we drove up to Sacramento and stayed at my Grandparents' house. We went up with everybody to cut Christmas trees at our traditional tree farm in Placerville that weekend, and hit the market they have up there. We love their apple cider and other yummy things. Chad and I did a little wine tasting (I'm allowed!) while we were there, and it was delicious. They had a sparkling apple wine that we really liked, it was really sweet and light, something that we love in wines. It was also great to see all my cousins who had come to visit. They go to school either in Utah or Idaho, and it's closer to come see us for Thanksgiving, so it's always fun when they come.



DECEMBER

Last month was extremely hectic. We did a lot. We had been doing a lot of fighting with our landlord, the original agreement had been that we were going to do a rent-to-own deal. He was going to carry the deed for us for 5 years, so we could save up and get our credit in a better place, then we would buy the house from him for $225,000. He'd had an appraiser out, and that's what they had told him the house was worth. Problem was, we'd never been able to get him to put it on paper. He always said, "We'll take care of that when the time comes." We really should have pushed for it. We had also agreed that we'd be working with him and doing work around the house/property to work off some of our $1300 rent each month. We were never able to get that in writing either. Long story short, we ended up moving overnight on December 15th. The stress of everything was just getting to be too much on us (especially me) and so we decided it was best to move out before we lost the baby due to all the stress. We got all moved in and mostly settled though just in time for Christmas. That was my one condition, I wanted things to be comfortable for Christmas. But we got our tree all set up, decorated, stockings out, and gifts wrapped, just in time. It was rushed and everything, but we had a good Christmas anyway.



JANUARY
This month has so far been very nice. We love our apartment, and plan on being here until the baby is born in June. We don't have the dogs here, but they are doing very well at my father-in-law's house. Lucy is gorgeous and sweet as ever, and Sierra is growing so much it's amazing. She's going to be a truly beautiful dog, and once I'm done with her training, she'll be a great dog, just like her mommy. She's my girl, and I love it!
My birthday was ok. We went to a New Year's Eve party and had a quiet and relaxing time. It was actually kinda nice, not too big and crazy. I got pretty tired soon after midnight, so it was really nice to be able to just come home and fall asleep. Then, my dad took us out for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory on my birthday. It was really yummy. I had the tiramisu for dessert, and it was delicious. We ate so much, it hurt by the time we were ready to get up and leave.
Right now we're just waiting until the 18th, when we can find out what the sex of our baby is. We're pretty sure we're having a boy, so I'm going to laugh really hard if this baby is a girl too. I have to admit though, I'm gonna be really disappointed if it's a girl. I really want this baby to be a boy. I've always wanted a boy, and since this is going to be our last...it'd be really great if I got my boy. We haven't been able to settle on a name yet, which is a little frustrating. I thought we'd agreed on Logan Blaine, but Chad doesn't want to use it now because it brings up bad memories of a girl he can't stand. Her son is named Logan. It's just been a lot harder to come up with a boy's name. For a girl we like Kenna Marie/Nicole, or I also like Mikayla Nicole, Chad really wants Nicole for a middle name. He wants to honor me in some way I guess. So, now I'm 16 weeks and 5 days along, and just trying to hang in there. I hurt everywhere, the cold is getting to me really bad. Tylenol isn't helping either, but I try my best to just stay warm and be patient until it starts to warm up again. I cannot wait though to have this next ultrasound. I want to know so badly what we're having.

Anyway, that's about all we're up to right now. Until next time! I'm gonna go eat! :)