Much to Do!

Now that I"m officially in my second trimester and know the gender of my baby (I still can't believe it's a girl!!) I'm starting to think of the many, many things that need to get done before February 15th (and preferably before my third trimester begins in November!) Making check lists always helps me to get more motivated to accomplish a huge list of tasks, so I"m going to post my list here as an inspiration to get my rear in gear =)

Here's what I need to get done that's at the top of my head:
*Finish unpacking our boxes that are stored in Baby's room (Yes, 1 1/2 years later we are still not unpacked!). Figure out what we are keeping and get rid of the rest!
*Purchase and assemble a storage shed for our back yard. Transfer all holiday decoration bins out there
*Figure out how/where to store my boxes of scrapbook supplies.
*Go through Jeremiah's baby clothing bins. Sort clothing according to type and size. Separate what can be saved for Baby (lots of gender neutral 0-3 month clothing!)
*Have another yard sale. (or two or three). Donate to Good Will what won't sell.
*Move Jeremiah's changing table into Baby's room
*Shop for a twin sized bed for Jeremiah (Closer to birthday- Dec. 2).
*Shop for a love seat or comfy couch for Jeremiah's room to replace the glider/rocker
*Move glider/rocker into Baby's room once couch has been purchased
*Move Jeremiah's crib into baby room once bed transition has been made
*Shop for a dresser for Baby's room
*Shop for crib bedding for Baby (and sell Jeremiah's old bedding)
*Shop for curtains or blinds for Baby's room
*Paint Baby's room. I know we recently painted it white, but I am leaning more towards light yellow. Something to enhance the walls!
*Purchase a new Exersaucer; sell old one
*Purchase a play mat/ play gym (we actually never had one for Jeremiah!)
*Continue purchasing 1 box of diapers and 1 box of wipes per month
*Make a final decision on if I"m going to register for my baby shower, and create my registry
*Buy Baby her first doll. I want to be the first one to buy her a dolly =)
*Figure out financial responsibility for hospital stay not covered by insurance and set up monthly payments. Make it a goal to be payed in full come January 15th (one month before due date)

That's about all that I can think of for right now. I know there is a lot more and I will be adding to my list as things come to mind!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

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That's right, we're having a little GIRL!!! Louis and I went for a 3D ultrasound yesterday because we just couldn't take the wait any longer, and much to our surprise we found out that we are adding a little princess into our family! Louis and I both had a hunch that we were having another boy, and I was mentally preparing myself for that announcement all day long. Well, our modest lil lady decided to keep her legs crossed for most of the ultrasound, so I didn't even think we were going to find out the gender that day after all. The ultrasound technician had me to empty my bladder a bit to see if that would help the baby change position, and I was praying the entire time not only for the baby to uncross its legs but for it to be a girl. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later we got confirmation that indeed we were having a girl! I started to cry (and I think Louis did, too- he was sitting on a couch watching the ultrasound on a projector while I was on the examination table watching from the monitor. I'm so excited!! I already went to Wal-mart this morning and bought a few of those cute outfits I saw last week, and I plan on doing a lot more shopping tomorrow =) We're not going to disclose our name choices just in case they change at the last minute like they did with Jeremiah. I can't believe I'm getting my girl!! Hurry up, February!!

No More Patience

The day after I found out I was pregnant with Jeremiah, we made the decision not to find out his gender during our pregnancy. I left the decision up to Louis, and was completely, 100 percent okay with it. Yes I was curious about his gender, but there was no moment that I can remember where I regretted the decision or became excruciatingly impatient for him to be born simply so we could see what we were having. (Our family and friends were another story- I think the waiting was harder on them!) Deep down in my gut I knew he was a boy, anyway, so it was absolutely no surprise to me when he was born, I asked the doctor what he was (because I was concentrating so hard on pushing that I didn't hear the announcement!) and was told "It's a boy!".

We were debating on whether or not to find out the gender this time around, because it was fun having the mystery throughout the pregnancy, but pretty much decided that the suspense is only fun one time around. I was excited at the prospect of finding out the gender of this baby, and pretty much figured that a 16-20 week wait would fly compared to the 41 1/2 week wait I had to find out Jeremiah's gender. Oh was I wrong!

I got myself all geared up earlier this month for finding out the gender on August 31st. This month has dragged by. And now that August 31st is just 5 days away, and I cancelled that appointment at the suggestion of my nurse practitioner, I"m kicking myself. Several times a day. I even went so far as to call up the office yesterday to see if I could reschedule, but all the ultrasounds in our office our booked through September 14th, which is roughly 2 weeks before when my 20 week ultrasound will be. I'm going nuts. I NEED to find out what I'm having right now!! Maybe I"m just going crazy since my cousin Tiffany finds out what she's having on Friday. Maybe it's because I saw the cutest little girl clothes at Wal-Mart last week and I"m dying to buy something personal for my baby (okay, preferably something pink and frilly versus blue and sporty!) . I thought I was okay with the possibility of this baby, our second and last child being a boy, but I was wrong. I want a little girl SO badly. Someone to bake cookies with. Someone to buy dresses for, play dolls with, and curl her hair. Someone to watch all of my favorite Disney movies with (because, face it, Jeremiah probably won't be into The Little Mermaid and Cinderella). I know deep down that if this baby is truly a boy that I will love him and I won't care one way or another, but since I don't know what I'm having yet, I can still hold out hope that I'll get my little girl- and if it's a boy, well I'm going to do everything in my power to convince Louis in 2 or 3 years to give it one last shot! (No matter what I want to be done after 3 kids).

I think tomorrow I"m going to be scheduling a 3d ultrasound somewhere......

I'm really going to make a conscious effort to blog more than once a week (or less)! So here we go, a rare-for-me-lately Thursday night post =)

It looks like I"m not going to be finding out the gender of my baby on the 31st after all. The nurse practitioner that I"ve been seeing (she sees pregnancy patients until the last trimester) has no clue why the nurses at the front desk would schedule a gender peek ultrasound as early as 16 weeks, so she suggested I cancel it. And, because my friend Nicole's baby didn't cooperate for her last month at 16 weeks, I took her advice. The way things are looking right now, we're going to be waiting until the end of September for my 20 week ultrasound (although Louis was making noise about wanting to splurge on a 3D/4D ultrasound this time around, so possibly earlier!) To say that I'm bummed is a huge understatement. Marissa and Shiloh were really hoping I would know the gender before my trip to Colorado (September 9th!) so that we could go shopping while we're there, but that's going to have to wait. On the bright side, I got to hear the heartbeat on Monday! A perfect 153 beats per minute.

Yesterday afternoon my friend Melissa and I took Jeremiah to Disneyland! The last time I went was 3 months ago before the summer rush began. It's the last week of the night shows and I really wanted Jer to see the Electrical Parade. We arrived around 3:00 pm, had lunch and went on 3 rides- Pirates of the Carribean, Winnie the Pooh, and It's a Small World. Jeremiah went absolutely bonkers when we approached Small World; it's a favorite of his! I hope he enjoyed the parade; he fell asleep for about half an hour before it began and woke up shortly before it started.. He sat in my lap and just looked at everything wide-eyed. I certainly had fun =) And I can't wait to go back again next month when everyone's back in school!

Loving Summer

This pic was taken on Thursday after my cousin Rebecca (left- she was the photographer), Jeremiah and I spent an hour or so swimming in my grandma's pool. Have I mentioned how much Jeremiah loves swimming?! He gets so excited every time we even walk by a pool. Put on his floaties and he's good to go, only staying on the steps for a moment or two before flinging himself into the shallow end. He is quite skilled at maneuvering himself around the shallow end on his own and has absolutely NO fear. He's already getting good at moving his arms and kicking his legs. I'm kicking myself for not signing up for mommy and me swimming lessons this summer- definitely next summer. Perhaps I'll be heading to the Summer Olympics in 18 or 20 years as a proud mother of an Olympic Champion? Watch out, Michael Phelps, Jeremiah Castillo is a champion in the making!

One of our home improvement projects this summer was having a sprinkler system installed in our front yard (our lawn is enormous and Louis was getting tired of spending 2 hours watering it with his hose). Our neighbor/gardener installed it last week and today I thought it would be fun if Jeremiah and I played in the water while the sprinklers were going. After the initial shock that water was coming out of them and knocking him down on the grass, Jeremiah had a ball. He loves getting wet and my little investigator had such fun figuring out exactly how the rainbird sprinklers worked, and playing with the mister sprinklers that were installed by the small patches of grass on the other side of our sidewalk. I wish my camera was working so I could have snapped some pics of him- he was holding onto this huge stick the whole time, and it reminded me of Moses with his staff, before parting the Red Sea. So cute! (Note to self: invest in a new digital camera before going to Colorado in 3 1/2 weeks). We played outside for an hour, gettig wet and eventually splashing in the puddles on the sidewalk and squishing our fingers in the mud. I really wish we had the sprinklers installed at the beginning of the summer rather than towards the end so we could have been doing this more often.

Jeremiah had his first checkup of the year on Thursday. I know, I was sitting on finding him a new pediatrician once we got our new insurance. I was getting so frustrated calling up new pediatricians only to find that as a new patient, we would have a 1 1/2-3 month wait before being able to get an appointment. A nurse at my OB's office reccomended one to me and we were able to get an appointment within 2 weeks. I LOVE our new pediatrician, she's so nice, so wise and has Jeremiah's best interest at heart. And she also understood completely when he flipped out as soon as we entered the examination room- my boy has good memory and HATES going to the doctor! He's the perfect height and weight (25 pounds, 32 inches). Dr. Ali recommended that he begin speech therapy because, at 20 1/2 months, he's saying less than 5 words, and mostly just says "mama," "dadda", and "go." Every once in a while he'll say another word, such as "amma" (grandma) or "abba" (grandpa) but he only says them once in a blue moon and then forgets about the word for quite some time, or never repeats it again. She knows that some k ids blossom at 2 years old, but there is a free program that gives children less than 3 years of age free speech therapy up until their third birthday,a nd she'd rather start it now than wait til his 2nd birthday in order to make the most of it, just in case. I'm hoping the Regional Center is able to fit him in fairly soon because I"m anxious for all the help we can get getting him to talk!

... and eat normally. She also is referring us to a nutritionist that will hopefully get him to eat something other than bread and cereal products, cheese and bread. My boy can't live on carbs alone... and he also can't push away new foods forever! One glance at something "different" and he throws a fit and pushes it away. Although Louis said he did eat a bite of bacon today at Ihop...

That's about all for now.! thanks for reading!

I'm back!!

I honestly have NO clue where the past few weeks have gone. It seems like this summer is just flying by... is the first week of August already over?!

Anyway, things have been super busy over here at the Castillo household, which partly explains my absence from blogging. Louis and I went away last weekend to Coronado just for one night rather than 3 nights, but we still had a blast =) In a nutshell, here's what we did:
*Stopped at the Carlsbad outlets on the way down... Louis surprised me with a new Guess purse and wallet
*Our room at the Best Western was complimentary upgraded to a suite rather than a standard room because there were only really bad-smelling smoking rooms left- we jumped at the offer to have our room upgraded, even though we had no use for the extra bed or kitchen =)
*Sat. afternoon was spent hanging out at the harbor beach and marina area. We saw several weddings and quincaneras (Mexican Sweet 15 parties). I wasn't feeling well at ALL that afternoon; the long drive down wore me out and gave me bad leg cramps, even though we stopped twice- to eat and shop.
*Evening: I was still feeling like crap but we wanted to go out and have a nice dinner. We went by the Hotel Del Coronado, this extremely fancy resort that we wanted to stay at (until we found out it was roughly $500 a night for a standard room). We couldn't find anything there that we wanted to eat.... but we did meet a celebrity! We met Ben Weber, who plays Molly Ringwald's fiance on the "Secret life of the American Teenager" (which we watch eagerly every week). He has a very small part; only on air for maybe 5 minutes per episode, tops, but it was still fun to meet someone famous! He was playing with his kid by the pool when we spotted him and went to go talk to him. I think he was in shock that someone actually recognized him, since he usually plays small parts in shows, and that people our age are huge Secret Life fans. We ended up dining at a fancy little Italian restraunt down the street, but absolutely NOTHING there appealed to me. Louis even sent my meal back and ordered me something else when I thought I was going to be sick... darn pregnancy... but they didn't charge us for the sent back meal, and gave me unlimited virgin Mojitos to drink =)
*Sunday: Slept in, then went Kayaking after checking out of our hotel. We will N.E.V.E.R be doing this again. It's exhausting. And not much fun. But it was an adventure. Then we went to Old Town San Diego, had lunch, walked around and went home!!

I'm starting to feel better as my first trimester is winding down. I'll be 13 weeks pregnant on Monday! I'm feeling the baby flutter around a lot lately,a nd I cant' wait for those first kicks to come. Or for my "find out the gender" ultrasound on August 31st!! My doctor seems to think that I'll be able to tell at 16 weeks what I'm having. Personally it seems a bit early to me, but I'm eager to find out what we're having,a nd if nothing else, we'll get a clearer picture in four more weeks after that for my 20 week ultrasound. I can't wait, I can't wait. I'm beginning to feel that I'm having another boy... and honestly, I don't mind one bit. I thought I would be so sad if I found out that we're having 2 boys and that's it, no daughter- but I swear, last weekend I saw SO many families of all boys. It's like God was trying to tell me something. The brothers seemed so happy playing with one another, like true pals- not like myb rother and I. Yes we played together but it was definitely not the same thing as what I saw between the brothers. And the mothers seemed to love having their boys. So, either way I know I'll be happy. I've already bought 2 huge boxes of diapers and wipes, a fun musical rattle (that Jeremiah is obsessed with), and a new pump- the top of the line Medela one, Pump in Style. I decided to invest in something more sturdy and stronger than the dinky one I had before, which ended up dying right around the time I had to stop nursing (3 months, so sad).

Tonight we are hosting a UFC fight night party at our house. I hate UFC. And boxing. And wrestling. But I love hosting get togethers. Unfortunatley, just about everyone in attendance are Louis's pals, employees and customers. His auntie Sabrina (who is my age) is coming with Louis's uncle Emmett (also our age) but she's really into the whole UFC thing so I know we wont' be just hanging out and chatting. I'll be doing the whole Suzie Homemaker thing, refilling drinks, serving appetizers and my taco soup that Louis promised our guests.