Busy, Busy, Oh So Busy !

I feel like Lilas due date is fast approaching and Avas "ONLY CHILD" lifestyle is going to be gone before we know it. Ive been making up for it in taking her places almost EVERY day.
Last week consisted of a Pull Up Party Dance at the Mall Of America where she dressed up with Boas, bibbity boppity booed Addison with a star wand, and of course Shook her GROOVE thing to the band that was playing.  This will FOREVER be known as Ava's first concert. Apparently the guy that sings the potty dance song is a real touring artist.. who would have thunk it?!?!  She was so funny doing her dancing and clapping.  It took her a bit to get in to it but once she was going she was hard core ;)

We hit up the Childrens Museum.. which is ALWAYS a hit. Im SO happy that I purchased the yearly pass. I found a great steal on it on savvy source I believe last September?  I think it was 50 bucks.. well when you pay almost 10 bucks a person per time it QUICKLY paid off.. I am SO purchasing another one regular full price or my favorite more then half off when I need to renew it.

Aves played in the Lego room with the big blocks and found a new friend that was her same age. It was sooo cute to see her play with someone her exact age.  We went to the "craft" room not sure if that's what its really called but they always have crafts going on.. it was cut and paste this week.. she didn't cut anything but I did load up her paper with a bunch of glue and they had tons of stuff pre cut of different textures that she made a collage with.  She also did her favorite, easel painting.

Cut and Paste

Then we ventured to the gears and water table, ALWAYS a hit. Followed by a quick stop on the "city bus" and the grocery store. And we even sat through storytime until I couldn't sit on the floor anymore, and she made a mad dash to the fire pit room, not sure what room this is but that's what I am calling it this month because the fake fire smells like a real fire!

 I think this was decorating a corn stalk?!?!

Tony finished up a really awesome shelf in the garage to hold all of our garage items. It was supposed to be warmer then what it was this last weekend so we were a bit disappointed when it really didn't get above 20. Which made the project that longer then expected.

23 feet of already used up AMAZING storage!

Ava and I did some returning of items and scoped out some fish and pets and a pet store near Rosedale, and used our GREAT 25 dollar of 50 dollar coupon text code from the gap.  I love their toddler jeans and when you are paying 10 dollars for a pair AND you get to use them through 2 kids you feel better about it! HAHAHAH

Today we had Avas "little" girlfriends over , the ones that are younger then her, for lunch.  Ava plays REALLY well with most age groups and its interesting to see how giving she is to others.  She seems to adapt really well to older and younger kids, at this point.
She shared her baby snow white then quickly realized later she didn't want to share it any more. She liked giving the girls Mister Potato heads to play with and they all did really well giving and taking.
Ava was chasing Greta and vice versa around the kitchen island it was SO cute. Greta would crawl away and Ava would crawl after her or she would run depending which mode of transportation she chose at that time.  We made a light lunch of salad and lasagna :D mmmmmmm Lasagna! And just had playdate/mom talk.

Oooh I also forgot we did some threading of breakfast cereal and finger painting with shaving cream.  The cereal didn't last long, she figured out she could eat it. We only got 4 circles in :D

Snack time?!?!?

29 weeks and my birthday!

WOWZERS! Some how I got behind. Between work and then my husbands unplanned WHOLE birthday WEEK I just got swamped.
Last Friday Lila turned 29 weeks in my belly ;)
Shes pretty crazy in there... Much more then I remember Ava being
::Im scared already::  Ha! But in a good way. Promise.
Of course I got stuck in Las Vegas for an extra day, and DIDN'T get any In N Out. How horrible is THAT?!?!
Tony cleaned the house from top to bottom, which is nice to come home to since I did the same before I left. However it just gets trashed the next day with toys, sippy cups and snacks. Ehh whatever.
So Monday was shot.
The week consisted of a pedicure and a gyro, my Clarisonic facial brush landing on my door step, daily family outings, My mom and sister in town and getting to do baby shopping with them, not for me, for her, and my friend Cyndi surprising me with some flowers, yaaaaa flowers since my other ones were slowly dying anyways, some homemade maple syrup (I think her dad? made it), the clarisonic facial wash ANNNNNNND a Blizzard... what?!?!? THANKS SO MUCH. It was crazy I totally wasn't expecting it. The whole week was great!

Saturday after the girls afternoon out, Tony and Ava purchased some crafting supplies and we made family bracelets or necklaces.
Ava made her own necklace.. she got to choose her beads in any order, I put them on the string since it was kind of tedious and her chubber little fingers probably couldn't get in there anyways HA!

3 of my favorite people

Tony looooves family crafts!  He smiled the WHOLE time
there was a ton of laughter by all!!

Everyone crafting and laughing at me...  Im glad Tony loves my family
as much as I do

Ava took a quick color break

More bead picking

Putting on her necklace for the first time Hahahah

LOOK MOM!

Showing dad

Mine is the TCAL one hahah Avas is well the ava necklace..
and Tonys is the one with all our names. He wears it daily ;)

So needless to say it was a fun time! Lots of laughter, mostly them laughing at me ;) but it was all in good times!

Tomorrow I have my 3 ( really its 4-5 hour) hour glucose test, where I will sit in a chair as they pretty much give me syrup to drink hourly with a blood draw hourly. So I have to fast tonight ::BAH HUMBUG: I hope I don't get the fat girl no food shakes tomorrow after all the sugar drink like I did last time. HA! I almost passed out in the cafeteria.

I guess I will work on recurrent and some magazines I have piling up.

Weekend Recap. (I guess thats what we will call this)

I went to work on Thursday with little to no drama getting to New York, I LOOOOOVE little to no drama commuting!
2 PHX and a fake 3 day with a layover in Boston!  Almost NO drama.
Of course it HAD to be drama filled on MY last leg. I say my last leg because I was getting off in Las Vegas as the 2 guys I was working with continued back to JFK. That morning BOS got some snow. My favorite pilot EVER (I say ever because I have known him for about 13 years now I worked with him at RIA before B6) reassured me everything would be cleared up that evening AND IT WAS (again he IS my favorite) of course the flight was a titch late probably due to routing or something, I have no idea I was eating a burrito. The winds were bad, as they had been all week going west bound, and our Capt for the night told us to prepare for a possible landing in DEN. Ummm really?!?!  If you cant make it from BOS to LAS without a stop (stopping for extra gas) then you probably shouldnt be a captain... just sayin'  However we ended up making it without an extra stop! YAH!!!!
But the push back was far from eventless... apparently there were some words exchanged in the middle of the safety demo with a co-worker/friend and these two DBs NEEDED to get off.. and after I heard what was said and what he was called... there was NO doubt these two got off.. Of course you never know how that will go so when in the middle of the demo he called to prepare for arrival I was kinda annoyed (I was trying to catch a flight and all) but it went off without a hitch and like I said after I found out what happend I was happy they got off.
Of course I missed the 1155pm from LAS to MSP on Suncountry and got bumped from the 1am from LAS to MSP on Delta. Only to be sad and tired in the airport and be picked up by a family friend who brought me to my moms house for a quick nap and refresh and she also dropped me off at the airport in the morning to try and catch other flights (THANKS BONNIE! ) I ended up catching a 10 am but by the time you get home and settled its way passed 4 pm due to the time change and Ive lost the whole day.
- So that was my uneventful, for the most, part weekend-

Friday, Tony was incharge of bringing Ava to her 18 month check up.. She's still a nugget for height at 30.5 inches and 25 lbs for weight. Dr Mark is not concerned with her ANYTHINGs because she follows her "line" as she should. Her vocabulary is good and right at par with her age group as well as skills. If shes not at par shes above in skills, either way she is a healthy toddler :D

Smiley Ava at 18 months

My mom came over today for a hair cut and to visit Ava, and to see me :)  She agreed I finally looked pregnant which Tony summed up with its only just come to finally looking pregnant about 3 weeks ago... I agreed.  Tony went back to bed after Ava had an early awakening 5:15am :/ and I resentfully stayed up.. Honestly after only 8 hours of sleep in 2 nights I think I deserved to be a bit annoyed. (He did say he would stay up but I figured he needed a break after his weekend "alone")
So I was so happy that grandma wanted to visit. We went to walmart, to get a potty teaching chair for Ava and look for a baby doll for the bath. Well between Grams and Ava... they had about 25 MINI babies in the cart and all these random balls. Ava made out like a bandit, I wont lie, and I said NO, to tons of other stuff she wanted to spoil her with, but it was SO much fun.

Packing the cart with babies. There was about 25 mini babies in the cart prior to this picture

Balls Balls Balls... we got the Green ball for St Patricks day

Bathtime Baby

Other things on our agenda this week range from amazing things like sewing new velcro on our diapers, to Auntie Kate coming to visit and a possible Home and Garden show outting ( I decided I wanted to go) and hopefully SUSHI  in Minneapolis, kid free ::crosses fingers::

Oooh and I got the cutest flowers from Tony for birthday week!

Yep I still havent decorated my shelves... UGH!

27 weeks! 3rd and Last trimester! EEEkkk

*Haven't taken a picture yet, Ill get around to it later*
How Far Along: 27 Weeks


Size of baby: Cucumber

Average size: 15 inches 2.2 pounds

Total Weight Gain/Loss: 8lb weight gain in 5 weeks to make it an even 10 lbs total

Maternity Clothes: Still in regular jeans some maternity tops

Movement: Daily

Sleep: I wake myself up from snoring.. WONDERIOUS and I am tired come 11 and 2 hahah

What I miss: consistent sleep

Cravings: French Fries

Symptoms: Other then weight gain and some one kicking me?!?!?  Tiredness

Best Moment this week: Blood pressure is still good.. but hes going to keep watching it, because of the pre eclapmsia from last time. Dr has been checking for swelling already so I feel he is SO much more competent then my last dr.

I failed my 1 hour glucose test so I have to go in for a 3 hour. Why they call it a 3 hour when it takes 4 and a half I will never figure out but.. yes that should be fun. (SARCASM)  I had to do it with Ava so I am not super surprised, even though every pregnancy is different.  However I would have rather passed (under 130) or Failed (over 200) I came in at 142.. so my GUESS is i am going to piddle around for the 3 hour and pass it like I did with Ava.

Valentines Weekend

We don't FULLY celebrate Valentines day but we do kind of acknowledge it.  Since it is on Monday, and chances are we wont see much of each other tomorrow, we did all of our LOVINGNESS this weekend.  Friday we went out to dinner at Red Lobster. HA!  I really wanted to hit up Old Spaghetti Factory in Minneapolis, I hadn't been to one since 2000 when I lived in California but I knew it would at least be kid friendly. Either way we didn't go there and Tony suggested RL so we went. Well Ava was being a "toddler". This has only recently started. She used to be SO good in restaurants and now its a disaster. Tony obviously hadn't seen this side of her and didn't know what to do. Basically she was kind of loud.. I say kind of because she wasn't screaming or crying just TALKING to herself, AND the baby Snow White.  I took her to see the lobsters in the tank, that lasted 3-5 min. Her food was there when we got back. She was NOT interested so we ate as fast as we could and kept her as quiet as we could.
Then if you think our classy night couldn't get any better.. we decided to hit up the kind of sketchy mall by the RL to look at the puppies. There is a pet store there.. and they have all these sad puppies playing around in the glass windows. Once in a blue moon we stop in to see them and Ava gets a little chuckle. However she really likes the fish.  Maybe one day her and daddy can have  pet fish. I say her and daddy because I REALLY don't want to clean up/feed a fish AT ALL. So that can be their fun! :D  We came home and she passed out. I think we watched a movie that night?!?! or Maybe CSI I cant remember now.
Saturday we had another family day. Tony hung the chair rail in Lilas (lie-la)bedroom and Ava and I gave dad her gift to him.

Cellphone picture of Lilas Room

A new ceramic teapot. Its a Bee House Round Teapot. He had mentioned he was interested in a new pot so this seemed like the perfect time. We don't really purchase gifts during Valentines day but this was something he would get anyways so we paired it up. We decided on the ceramic pot because we weren't only going to be brewing one type of tea. The ceramic pot doesn't hold in the other flavors like other pots will. So I let Ava pick the color she picked this taupe color which I was happy with because it matched our dishes. And we got him a few ounces of tea so he could try some. Oh! Our purchases were made at the St Anthonys Village TeaSource! I was super happy with this store and the knowledge of the lady that helped us!  We will bring Tony so he can pick out his next few ounces.
Sunday we kind of lounged around and played. Did some marker drawings and then when Tony went in for some overtime we went outside to play. It was 47 here today.. that's CRAZY for February. The news reported that is 20 degrees above average. Its probably good to get some of the snow melted in a slow way because it will help bring the flooding down that is going to happen this spring. Ava splashed in puddles and I shoveled out the gunk from the garage. Then we went on a walk to the next block up. Played in some more puddles and made our way back to the house. We took note of the airplanes and some of the birds, as Ava LOOOOVES to point these out to us. And the whole time she was yelling WAAAATER WAAATER because it was running everywhere.. then she would go run to that puddle and splash in it.. Needless to say when we got home we were wet.  We finished up the afternoon with some finger painting and making daddy a Valentines card for when he comes home tonight. 

Apparently we like to face paint?

"Roaring" like lions

It must be starting to dry and start to itch heheheeh

Our Ava!

Daddys Valentine

 Oooh and I have to say while I am writing this I am enjoying some AMAZING caramels from the Caramel Jar in PA. Mmm Mmm Mmm! (my Valentine)
Hope you all got to spend a bit of time with your Valentines.

26 weeks!! 98 days left!

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 26 Weeks

Size of baby: Eggplant

Average size: 9.2 inches 2 pounds

Total Weight Gain/Loss: 2lbs

Maternity Clothes: Still in regular clothes -But Cyndi told me my sweatshirt didn't cover my belly yesterday.... :/ (I had a tank on underneith) guess its time for the tops to become maternity

Gender: Girl! Lila Rose Murphy

Movement: Daily. A lot at night, or maybe its just more noticeable because I am not tackling a toddler

Sleep: Im ALWAYS hot at night now.

What I miss: Nothing in particular

Cravings: Dr Pepper

Symptoms: How do my boobs KEEP getting bigger? seriously?

Best Moment this week: R&R for March Heck Ya! Oohh and Ava and Lila are going to be big cousins!  Baby Davis is due in August.. I think its a girl :D
And Some how I missed my appointment.. I rely TOO much on the night before calls.. so now I have to call and set up another appointment.  I swear the receptionist lady is NOT very good. With Ava she never actually entered me in to the computer and I would show up and I wouldnt have an appointment. I stopped making appointments at the front desk and just called. Now I get no call the night before. Ugh

Double Digits & The Childrens Museum

Today we arrived in the double digits on Lila's ESTIMATED arrival.
I wouldn't mind to go early. . . Just Sayin'!
It makes me feel better that her room is painted.. because, not that we are procrastinators- because we aren't-, we/ TONY just works a lot of overtime when its offered so we still haven't put up the chair rail. Avas dresser still isn't painted (that has more to do with the SUPER cold weather) and the furniture still isn't set up (again, more to do with the fact we don't want Ava to see the crib and revert back to it) but STILL.  Adding to the things we would like to do.. we want to decorate / paint our bedroom... I have a few ideas but nothing I ran by Tony yet I figured this weekend would be good to talk about it.
So with 99 days left on the clock-which seems like a lot but its not- and things piling up...  we really need a swift kick, some rest and a prayer ;)

Ava and I met Cyndi, Makena , and Cheeks (Matthew) at the Childrens Museum today. And when I say met .. I say saw each other in the lobby.. then dispersed then saw each other for 4 min then chased our kids then rolled our eyes at the kids attacking our kids.. then saw each other for lunch.. Let me tell you.. if you are looking to catch up with someone the Childrens Museum is NOT the place to do it.  We usually go on No Group Tuesdays.. that means NO school groups can come.. I figured we weren't doing anything Thursday how bad could it be?  Let me tell you I will NEVER go again when its NOT a Tuesday.  Pretty sure Ava got poked in the eye with a jousting stick in the Lego exhibit, had her red rake ripped out of her hands at the sensory table, got attacked, yet again, in the Lego exhibit, ran over, straddled.. you name it, it happened.. WOWZERS!  I am so worn out from this morning.. and to top it off apparently the "nap" she took in the car for 20 min on the way home was enough for her??!  Well not enough for me.. Mama needs a nap.
I was really happy to see the Japan exhibit gone... and the Lego Kingdom moved it. I felt it was more kid friendly. Things to do etc. I think its great to learn about other cultures but honestly that Japan exhibit wasn't amazing.
So we usually start off in the habitot area.. I feel Ava is kind of out growing this area, we used to be in there 30 min now it was like 10. However she climbed this netting.. I was nervous the WHOLE time!

After this we pretty much went to the Lego room.  It was great. They had a toddler area to play with Lego's (ones that they couldn't swallow)

They had a "mini castle with a slide"  She made her way up the stairs and slid down, all by herself, when did she become so adventurous?
Played at a build a castle display, and then RAN out of that room it was getting CRAZY!

Digging for pieces for her castle

We had then ventured in to the art room.  She played in some Lego Color sensory tubs and painted a picture, which I forgot to pick up before we left, it was drying on the rack :(

Playing with the red sand, red legos and red items

Blue & Water tub

She enjoyed painting






She looks so old here.. (tear)

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

We skipped the normal water tables since we spent so much time
in the art room and played with water (it was packed back there)
So we played with some gears, had a snack and went to lunch.

I was surprised, she really got what was going on and was even
trying to show an older kid what was happening. Now I am
pooped and we are having "quiet time" since shes not  napping.