Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

Happy Birthday to the BEST daddy and husband in the whole world!! Hope you had the best birthday! We love you so, so, so much! Thank you for all that you do for us!

Daddy with his girls on their favorite toy--the golf cart. They go on golf cart rides every single day to one of their favorite neighborhood parks or to the creek to go "fishing" and the girls LOVE it!!!

La La Photography

Check out Kelly's photography blog for a sneak peak at the awesome work she did with the girls this morning. I love, love, love the pictures!! Kelly, thank you so much! You did an awesome job...as always!! I can't wait to have them hanging in our house!

http://lala-photography.blogspot.com/

HANNAH

Since I am the world's worst at putting together baby books, this blog is our girl's virtual baby book. I plan on having it printed and bound every year to keep for the girls. I started this after both girls entered our lives and I want to at least include their birth stories, highlights of Hannah's 1st year and pictures. I'm also going to try to come and do a post for Hannah's 1st birthday. So, you might want to skip this post...as I am simply posting for my documentation.

Hannah was born on December 20, 2006 at 7:04 p.m. and weighed 7 lbs 11 oz. She was a perfect little baby and I loved every second of labor! Although my pregnancy wasn't an easy one, I loved being pregnant...loved it!! After having a miscarriage before Hannah, I was so fortunate to be introduced to my doctor, Dr. Ehmer. He is one of the only doctors in Dallas that will do certain testing on you after only one miscarriage. Most doctors wait until you have 3 failed pregnancies to do the tests. Luck for us, he did the blood tests and quickly discovered that I have antiphospholipid syndrome, a disorder that causes blood clots and pregnancy-related complications such as miscarriages and stillbirths. So, I was put on a blood thinner and had to give myself shots in my stomach twice a day through the entire pregnancy-something I was more than happy to do! Due to the syndrome, I was scheduled for an induction at 38 weeks. So, the day came and we showed up at labor and delivery at Baylor Hospital in Dallas at 6a.m. Brett was THE BEST "labor coach" I could have ever asked for!!! He was awesome!!! Everyone came for our sweet pea's birth...Jammy, Papa, Gigi, Grandpop, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Mary. After she was born, she had some trouble nursing and screamed and screamed for the longest time. I remember looking up at Brett and he had this look on his face like, "what have we gotten ourselves into!" She finally got the hang of it and we were able to cuddle with our sweet little baby. We went home on the 22nd and had a couple of days to adjust before having all of my family and Brett's family over for Christmas dinner. It was so much fun!! It was such a fun Christmas with a sweet little newborn!

Much to our dismay, we discovered at about 3 weeks old that Hannah had colic!!! After trying to diagnose her with acid reflux and everything else we could possibly blame her uncontrollable crying on, my pediatrician said she thought it was just colic and there was nothing we could do about it. I remember I just sat there and cried and cried!! Did I have it in me...was I going to be able to handle a baby with colic? Brett had a very demanding job AND was right in the middle of going to school full-time to get his MBA. He was in class every Friday and Saturday and had to study at nights and on the weekend when he wasn't working, so, until graduation, I was pretty much on my own. I was ok with that, because I knew it was temporary, and I knew he was doing it for his family...but I also knew it would be a challenge!! Looking back, I'm so glad that he did it when he did because Hannah didn't know the difference. Now both girls have their daddy when he's not working now and they adore him!! I was in Waco many, many weekends during that time!! My mom would take over and walk the crying baby around and stand in front of the running faucet with her!!! The day time was fine, but around 4:00 was when it all started. We lived in a 2,400 sf house at the time and there wasn't much room to go and hide a screaming baby from a studying daddy. But we managed and just laugh about it now. The colic subsided at around 6 months, although we still had a high maintenance baby until 11 or 12 months. I wouldn't trade a second of that tough year for anything...if that's what it took to get the sweet, loving, caring little girl that we have now, it was worth every penny!!

I nursed Hannah until she was almost 7 months. I loved feeding time, as it was our quiet time together. Once she stopped crying at night and went to sleep, she was a great sleeper, but an early riser. I can't really remember, but I think she started sleeping through the night at about 2 months and then she would wake up between 5:30-6:15 and get in bed with us and play. We loved that time in the morning when she was so happy! When she was about 6 months old, I started making oatmeal with peaches in it every morning and Brett and Hannah would lay in bed and eat it together. Hannah was a great eater! Tomatoes were always her favorite and she loved any kind of fruit.

Hannah had her fair share of ear infections as a baby. By 14 months, she had had 5, so in April of 2008 we had tubes put in. Those tubes are miracles!!! She was a different child and we never had an ear infection after that! Hannah started walking when she was 15 months but it took her several weeks for her to become confident on her feet. I wish I had more documented on when she started talking and what she was saying because I really can't remember specifics.

During Hannah's first 1 1/2 years, Brett and I were fortunate to have great parents that kept her while I tagged along on many of Brett's business trips. Hannah got to spend a lot of time in both Waco and Graham while Brett and I went to California, Paris, London, Portugal and China. It was a great time for us, but I remember leaving her for the 1st time when she was 6 months old and we went to a wedding in Tahoe. I didn't think I was going to make it to the airport...I just balled my eyes out...and it didn't get any easier telling her good-bye on any of the other trips either. Going to China was the hardest because we were going to be gone for 2 full weeks and we wouldn't be able to call home very often to get updates.

I'm going to have to come back and post her birth pictures. They wouldn't load for some reason. I've posted several from her 1st Christmas and then 1 from each month up until I started the blog.

Hannah's 1st Christmas

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

April 2007

May 2007

June 2007

July 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008
July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

Back to Normal

The sweet baby is back to her sweet self!! One of her teeth cut through Saturday night and she woke up yesterday morning a new baby!!! And, she decided a few days ago that she was going to like whole milk...she had been rejecting it for weeks and I had tried everything and I was really getting stressed about it! Finally she gave in! My life today was so much easier!!

Sitting outside in the HEAT drinking a smoothie and watching Hannah learn how to skate.

We got Hannah some roller skates this weekend. We are determined for our girls to not get my coordination!! Hannah thought she was pretty cool and kept saying she was an "ice skater"

We had a few falls but she didn't seem to mind

Tomorrow morning my friend Kelly is going to photograph the girls. It will be Alice Anne's 1-year portraits and I wanted to get a few of the girls together. I can't wait...Kelly is SOOO good and I love her style!!! Check out Kelly's photo blog at http://lala-photography.blogspot.com/

WEAK!!!

Ohhhhh...this little baby is making me so weak!!! This is what I've seen ALL. DAY. LONG. for the past week if I'm not holding her.

She has 2 teeth that are really trying to come in but they just won't! Please tell me that these teeth are the problem and that I don't have a child that's changing personalities on me!! And, when she's not happy, she's not very nice. I know, I shouldn't complain because the majority of the time she's the sweetest baby on the block, but...

No one believes me either, because she ONLY acts this way around mommy and Hannah. The second daddy comes home, she's a perfect angel...ahhhhh!!! She has been hitting and pulling mine and Hannah's hair all week. Poor little Hannah just looks at me and says, "mommy, what's wrong with her?" Teeth...please come through so we can have our sweet girl back!!!

Has anyone else experienced the same frustration in their baby when they're teething? Tell me I'm not the only one!!!! Really, I'm just weak and worn out!!!

On a side note, this is Hannah's new favorite thing...

Hannah and Mommy Dates

Since Alice Anne is such a fabulous napper, Hannah and I have taken advantage of it and when Hortencia comes to clean, we sneak out for a little 2 hour "date." Our dates usually consist of running errands that are just so much easier with one, and then Hannah always gets to pick some sort of "treat" errand. It is usually a Sonic Lemonade, the Ice Cream Store or the Toy Store. Today she wanted to go to Chick-fil-a with her friends, so we arranged for that to happen, but we had to wait until Alice Anne got up. It's a little something that Hannah and I both look forward to each week. We don't turn the car tv on, we just talk, sing, play the "Red Car/Yellow Car" game and act silly. Things have changed a lot over the past year for sweet little Hannah and she has adjusted perfectly, but it's still fun for us to have some one-on-one outings and I look forward to being able to do the same with Alice Anne. On the days Hortencia comes, Hannah comes downstairs and sees her and says, "Yeah, mommy, are we going on our shopping errands?"

Alice Anne and Carter's 1st Birthday Party

Alice Anne and Carter's 1st Birthday Party was a success! These two lucky 1-year olds had a pretty nice party!! They were so much fun to watch as they dug into their cakes. The older kids placed bets on who could eat the their cake 1st...I think Carter won the challenge! Way to go Carter!!

Alice Anne singing "Happy Birthday" with everyone!

Here goes Carter...Alice Anne's not quite sure about it yet!

There she goes...

She had her eyes on Anders the whole time as he cheered Carter on!

Hannah couldn't WAIT to get her hands in that cake! She showed Alice Anne how to do it!

Cake for Daddy!

Kisses for the Birthday Girl!

Our failed attempt at a family pic with the Birthday Girl!

Sweet Cousins!!

Jammy and Papa with the grand kids

Grandpop and Gigi with their girls

Every one's happy as long as there's a party!

Mary, Sarah, Emily and Mom

The boys manning the grills...they did an awesome job!

Gigi getting some food down our starving little baby. We had sliders, mini corn dogs, fruit kabobs, potato salad and broccoli/craisin salad.

Alice Anne was so hot after being outside, Daddy shot water in her mouth out of a water gun. She thought it was pretty funny...and she was soaking wet!!

Digging into their presents. I think Hannah had the most fun opening the presents!!! She has definitely become a present opening pro!
Carter showing off his hard hat, tool belt and tools!!! I know what he should be for Halloween!!

Kisses from daddy!