2019 Colorado Visits

Documenting events that happened a year ago. Whoops haha.

I was so lucky to be able to visit Dustan's family in Colorado twice last year! Similar to my family, the Krauses don't like to go more than a few months without seeing Eloise, haha. So as an early birthday present for me, they flew out Lou and I at the same time as Dustan's sister Taylor and her daughter Elodie (who is the same age as Lou) at the very end of February. It was so wonderful! Unfortunately, I was terrible about taking any pictures and don't have a lot to document this visit. But the main highlight was going to see a fiddle concert just us girl adults! It was so fun to have a night out, eat Texas Roadhouse, and listen to some good music from Natalie MacMaster and her family.

And in June, Lou and I headed back! We flew to Colorado and stayed about a week before Dustan drove up and joined us for a second week.

Even before Dustan arrived, we still partied a bit! The weather was so nice, so we spent a lot of time outside. At the Kraus house, the girls loved jumping on the big trampoline and playing in the pool and eating so many snacks.

We also did a whole day at the nearby lake and hung out at the beach. The weather was so beautiful and the water (though a bit chilly) was so refreshing. Eloise loved sitting in the shallow water and playing with toys especially. And that girl loves sand!

We also spent an afternoon on the Kraus boat. Most everyone water skiied (except Taylor and I, who were both pregnant haha) and we snacked and swam very briefly in the chilly water. At one point, Eloise had a bit of a meltdown while I was swimming--we're still not sure if she was worried about me or if it was just some separation anxiety.

We also just did some fun little outings like shopping for flowers, out to dinner at Cafe Rio for Taco Tuesday.

 

Then Dustan was there! He had stopped for a day in Moab on his way over to mountain bike, and he got up early and mountain biked most days with his family (brother and parents) while we were in Colorado. Here are a few pictures from mountain biking.

These are from Moab:

These are from riding with his family in Colorado:

We did some more boating while Dustan was there, and it was so fun to see him slalom ski. We spent most of the day on the boat. We packed cards, played games, ate snacks, and just hung around. I tried to keep Lou up on the drive back home afterwards, but no luck haha.

One of the highlights of the week was doing a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a bit of a drive (almost two hours one way, if I remember correctly). The little town was quaint, I wish we'd had more time to check it out. But we drove straight up to a hike! We packed a lunch, then began a hike up to Bierstadt Lake. It was only about four miles roundtrip, which once again was great for us pregnant girls haha (Taylor was like 37 weeks pregnant if I remember correctly, and I was still sick from being in my first trimester).

The hike was beautiful and a wonderful change from our Tucson climate and scenery. We had some grand mountain views as well as a winding stroll through pines.

Bierstadt Lake was beuaitufl!! It was surrounded by mountains and trees. The weather was windy and chilly and just perfect. We enjoyed a picnic lunch of PB and Js while the girls chased around (and were terrified of) a duck that was hanging around. Lou loved putting her feet in the freezing water. It was perfect!

It began to sprinkle on the hike back down, but thankfully the rain held off until we made it back to the car. In true Eloise fashion, she refused to nap on the entire drive back to the Kraus house. But it was a wonderful little day trip!

Soon after, sadly, it was time for Dustan and I to make the drive back to Tucson! It was a bit of a long drive (about 14 hours) to make in one day with Eloise, so we stopped in for the night in Alamagordo, New Mexico. It was definitely a little bit ghetto, but we chose it so that we could visit White Sands National Park the next day. It was pretty cool to just be driving through a bit of a desert landscape like Arizona (dirt with sparse plants and trees) and suddenly be surrounded on all sides by huge dunes of white sand.

We rented a sled from the gift shop and spent an hour climbing up dunes and sledding down. It was so fun and so hot! We were all red and sweating in no time.

And then, it was time to finish the drive back home. It was a wonderful couple weeks!

Eloise at 18 Months

 

WEIGHT: 22 pounds
HEIGHT: 30 inches

LOVES:
 - Reading books
 - Milk
 - Fruit (especially berries and citrus)
 - Stuffed animals
 - Climbing on everything
 - Music and dancing
 - Talking on the phone
 - "Little Baby Bums" on Netflix
 - Sensory bin activities
 - Ball pits
 - Playgrounds and parks
 - Pools and baths
 - Yogurt
 - Playing hide-and-seek
 - Hikes
 - Animals
 - Disney music
 - Peek-a-boo
 - Pushing strollers, carts, etc.
 - Sweeping

DISLIKES:
 - Vegetables
 - Not being understood
 - Not getting what she wants when she wants it
 - Nursery

NEW SKILLS:
 - Says (hi, mama, dada, hot, uh oh, wow, no), ball, help, nose, banana, baby, tree, cheese, car, Mochi (her stuffed panda), feet, shoes, knock knock, excuse me, hat, airplane, bath, panda, crocodile, elephant, eyes, hands, and probably a handful of others I've forgotten about :)
 - Signs (more, milk, hot, cold, cheese, book, all done), water, tree, car, hat, airplane
 - Added many more animal sounds to her repertoire
 - Can locate many body parts on herself and others and dolls/stuffed animals (nostril makes me laugh the most)
 - "Folds" her arms to pray
 - Climbs unto chairs and tables
 - Feeds herself most foods

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Now has 11 teeth, 3 of which are molars. She got a LOT of teeth in the last few months!
 - Still wears a size three diaper during the day and size four at night, and is mostly in size 12 to 18 months clothes size, with a few random things larger or smaller in size.
 - Her hair hanging in her face actually bothers her these days, and she often tries to pull it out of the way with minimal success.
 - Has discovered that she can do more with her legs and feet than just walk around, and now does all sorts of funny shuffling, stomping, and dance-like movements all the time.
 - Throws hilarious and ridiculous tantrums over little things. Where do kids learn to throw tantrums?! She will throw herself on the ground, stamp her feet, clench her hands, yell, everything!
 - We've tried nursery (church daycare) only a couple times, and so far she is terrified. Hopefully this improves! Fingers crossed.
 - Has a little bit of stranger danger, and is a total and complete mama's girl.

Eloise is just more fun every day, which I know I will be saying probably the rest of my life! Except maybe through the terrible twos and threes...? Who knows, haha. But Lou is learning so many new things all the time, whether it's new words, actions, goofy things that make us smile, etc. I genuinely enjoy spending time with her during the day. I loved being with her as a baby, of course. But now I actually have fun and laugh too! It is wonderful! Her personality is really starting to shine through. She is curious and determined and loves to smile and laugh. She is soooo high energy and never stops moving. I sure miss those baby cuddles sometimes, but this is more fun.

I'll try to write a bit more next time I update on Eloise. But since I wrote the majority of this before Lou was 18 months old and now is 21 months, I can't remember exactly what she was like a few months ago, haha. But I hope this update is good enough for my records :)

First Trimester with Baby #2

WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!! We can't wait to add another sweet little babe to our family :)

I have been pretty bad at blogging in the last year-ish, so I know I won't be tracking this pregnancy month to month like I did with my first pregnancy with Eloise, but I hope to track each trimester! I love having this record, and I have already looked back at my other pregnancy blog posts to remember what to look forward to. So, here is a short record!

The due date of our baby is December 9th, 2019 (Lou's was December 1st, 2017--so close together). 

Once again, we realized I was pregnant fairly early on and I had already been feeling a little bit nauseas on and off the week or so before finding out, so I was suspicious. Like with Eloise, I was feeling constantly nauseas within 6 weeks. But unlike last time, I am also EXHAUSTED. I was tired with my first pregnancy, but this is so much more! I literally will fall asleep while reading Eloise books. I will fall asleep laying on the floor when a bout of sickness hits and Lou plays around me. I'm so tired all the time, which is not a great combo with the nausea. Silver lining though, the nausea hasn't been quite as bad this time around. Constant from 6 weeks to about 15 weeks, but only throwing up about 3 to 6 ish times a week, whereas with Lou, is was that many times a day at the beginning. Such an improvement.

I've had many aversions again, mostly towards meat and veggies. For the first couple months, I basically lived off of cereal with milk and bagels with cream cheese and fresh fruit. Poor Eloise and Dustan also ate rather poorly this month, thanks to all my aversions to food and lack of cooking. But we've all survived, haha.

I started showing a bump (read: chubbiness) much earlier this time around as well, which I was expecting but not really wanting haha. Though during this first trimester, it hasn't ever really looked like an actual baby bump, especially to those who don't know. So I decided to just hide the chub and wait until it was round enough to show off.

We used the pictures above to announce my pregnancy to the world. The pictures below are the ones we used to announce to our families beforehand. We sent them these pictures and the message, "Find the difference!" We thought we were so funny, reusing the same picture from when we announced our pregnancy with Eloise because their due dates are in the same month.

Though I'm a little terrified at the prospect of having an infant around the house again, we can't wait to meet our baby!