Ready to do it all again???

So . . . are you all ready to do this all again? More like are "WE" ready to do it all again! We better be - because baby #2 is on the way! We are 13 1/2 weeks along as I am writing this and there is no stopping now! We will be due on September 27, 2011. (And yes to those mathematicians out this - this IS a New Year's Baby! - LOL).

Here is our first sonogram (at 9 weeks). I turned it sideways so the little one would be head up and drew a little sketch for those that are not so sonogram-savvy to show the orientation. The key is finding seeing the head and seeing the 4 little brighter white spots (sort of circular) below the head - 2 for hands and 2 for feet.

As far as I go, I have had the typical early pregnancy symptoms - morning sickness and exhaustion (especially being dragged around Disney for 8 days by a 2 1/2 year old! ha ha!). However, this time it all started earlier and has lasted longer! I am pretty sure I was done with the nausea by about 11 weeks with Olivia and here it is halfway through the 14th week and I was feeling icky this morning! But I think it is at least easing up a bit! With Olivia my next big symptom was migraines for a couple months - yep, already had my first yesterday! Hopefully that won't be as severe.

I did get to hear the heartbeat again this Monday at a checkup. It was in the 160's and sounded good!

I have also realized that you start showing a LOT earlier with the 2nd one. I wasn't really showing until at least 3 months - if not 4 with Olivia. With this one, I was starting to show at 8 weeks! Here is my 10-week belly shot - see what I mean:

We have already told our families and a lot of our closer friends - that we see on a regular basis. My boss and co-workers know (but not the owners in NJ yet). So once I heard the heartbeat again - to get some extra reassurance, I was ready to tell everyone and share our happy news on the blog.

Olivia knows and seems happy, though she doesn't entirely know what it all means. She knows that mama has a baby in her belly and that she used to be in my belly, too. But, since she has found out, she has been acting more like a baby and has really refused to potty train. uh oh! Looks like we'll need to come up with a new tactic for that. She wavers between wanting a little brother and a little sister and we really have no preference.

So, our Baby Nelson Blog will now be about Olivia and Baby #2. I'll keep you updated on how Olivia is doing and how I am doing with the new little one on the way.

Cinderella

I finally got a chance to scan in the picture of Olivia with Cinderella from the castle that they took and gave us a hard copy of in a nice (cardboard) fram with a picture of the castle. It came out pretty good. Here are the 2 princesses:

Disney World - Day 8

So it was a sad, sad day . . . our last day at Disney World! We had a breakfast scheduled in Animal Kingdom - so we spent our last half-day there. We started out getting early to go check our bags for our flight (at our hotel - very convenient!), then had them stow our carry-ons for us, then we headed off to our early breakfast at the Tusker House with Donald, Mickey, Daisy and Goofy in their safari outfits:

After breakfast, we headed out to Rafiki Island since we had not been there yet. You take a train to get there and there are all sorts of things for the little kids to do there. We did a scavenger hunt when we first got there and saw some animals. Then went to the exhibitor area and met a couple more friends. Here she is with Rafiki himself (from the Lion King):

Then we met Jimminy Cricket! (While we were waiting in line, she found a poor unsuspecting older lady and talked her ear off! The lady did very understanding her 2-year old talk - she said she had a 2-year old granddaughter!). It was pretty funny!

They also had a little petting zoo. Here we are petting a goat that thought he was safe from us on top of that rock! Ha ha, little did he know!

When we got back to the main part of Animal Kingdom, we wanted to ride the safari ride one more time (and we had fast passes, so we *had* to!). Needless to say, Olivia didn't make it very far past the boarding area!

Then it was time to head back to our hotel to grab a quick lunch, pick up our carry-on bags and catch the Magic Bus back to the airport. It was an uneventful ride home until we got there and Grant's bag did not! The only time I have ever lost a bag flying has been the couple times I'm with Grant and it is ALWAYS his bag! He really doesn't have the best luck. The problem this time was it was filled with all our dirty clothes that I was planning on washing the next day(Sunday). They didn't bring it to us until 2am on Sunday night/Monday morning! Needless to say, the laundry didn't get done until much later in the week and we still haven't completely unpacked! We're just now recovering from going! ha ha!

Olivia and I did come back with a couple unwanted souvenirs, though! She caught a cold toward the end of our trip and gave it to me. I lost my voice most of the following week (last week) and we thought she was over it until this weekend. Saturday night we had another Croup incident and were very close to heading out to the ER again! Luckily the shower steam worked for the first time with her! Thank goodness!

She was doing pretty good by morning, but we still took her to the doctor's call in hours on Sunday morning to give her an oral steroid - just in case! Then last night (Sunday night), she spiked a low fever (99.4) and we gave her some Tylenol. About an hour later she came down soaked - the fever had broken, but she still wasn't feeling all that great. After some milk and more vapor rub, she went back down and woke up great this morning. I was going to keep her home, but she told me she was fine and wanted to go to Ms. Angie's! No more fever, so I let her - and let them know to call if there are any concerns or she starts not feeling better. But she really did wake up in a great mood! We'll see.

Anyway, it was a fantastic trip and I wanted to thank "Santa" for getting it for us. We have some great memories and some great pictures - I think this will be my next scrapbook since I finally finished Olivia's 1st year one!

Disney World - Day 7

Day 7 was a pretty busy day, as well! We had 2 character meals to go to and some more running around to do. We started out the day with a breakfast reservation at Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios with the Playhouse Disney characters. Olivia had a great time and even did a little dancing. She got to meet Handy Manny:

Special Agent Oso:

And a couple of the Little Einsteins:

June even pulled her up to the front for some dancing:

Then she went to dance with Oso and was pretty funny (after a little encouragement by me):

After breakfast, we got her some Mouse ears - a Disney Requirement!

Then we headed over to see the brand new Disney Junior show - it opened that same day!

She was at it again - dancing, dancing, dancing . . .

That was a busy morning, so as we headed out to hit Magic Kingdom one last time - she took a little snooze:

We got there just in time to check out their afternoon parade for one last time. We made sure to get good seats for our last Disney World parade:

Then we got to ride the train around the park. Olivia had really wanted to ride it the whole time we had been there, but we had not had a chance until today.

A family shot from up on the train deck:

After the train ride, we rode a couple other rides, then tried to get a ride in on the Dumbo ride. We had not done this one yet because the line had always been so long (and it still was). We wanted to get it in before we had to leave so this was our last shot. It was already going to be a close one since we had dinner plans coming up pretty soon, but Daddy and Olivia got in line to give it a shot. I was the designated photographer since the ride wouldn't hold the 3 of us.

Unfortunately, just as they were next in line to ride it - the sky completely opened up into a huge downpour! We all got soaked (not quite as bad as the poor people on the ride, though!). So we aborted ship and headed out (already late for our dinner plans!).

We had to leave Magic Kingdom and take a tram to the Grand Floridian Disney hotel for our reservations. We were running about 30 minutes late, soaking wet and headed to the nicest hotel on the Disney property! Ugh! We did get there and they did take us after a short wait. This dinner was a Cinderella character dinner. We met her whole family!

Here she is with the Stepmother (She told us that her and Cinderella were getting along much better these days - since she moved out! ha ha!):

Then we met Grisella and Anastasia - the two step sisters:



And we met Prince Charming. It was really cute. He spoke to Olivia like she was a princess and gave her a big hug and we swear that she actually blushed! She got all giggly and blushed! It was hilarious!

Then we got to meet Cinderella again!

It was another good day! Only a half-day left before it was time to head home! Back at the hotel, after Olivia's bath, she was being pretty goofy singing and showing off. Here she is singing the "you've got a friend in me" song from Toy Story:

What a ham!

Disney World - Day 6

On Day 6 we headed off to Epcot for the morning because we had lunch reservations there. We wanted to make sure that Olivia was able to meet Snow White (since we missed her at the castle and she was at Epcot) and Tinkerbell - one of her other favorites that we had not seen yet. So when we first got there we went to check out where Snow White was supposed to be. While over in that area we found a silly foam crown for Olivia that she really liked - so since we were already spoiling her to death, we got it for her.

Then we headed over to our lunch reservation at the Coral Reef restaurant. This restaurant had a HUGE fish tank along the entire side of the restaurant with sting rays, sharks, sea turtles and all sorts of fish in it. One of the LARGE sea turtles came right down to the glass to pose for pictures and we were able to get a picture of Olivia with him. He was bigger than her!

After lunch, we headed over to Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell. We had her in her Tinkerbell shirt, shoes and socks for the occasion! When it was our turn, Tink told us that she had spotted her coming in line and had been waiting for her.

There was a fairy garden behind the area that we met Tink in and we got our picture taken in front of the Tink topiary, too.


Then, it was time to head over to meet Snow White - after a wardrobe change back into our Snow White dress. (I had to hand wash it in the hotel the night before after a pee pee accident the day before!)

Snow White even gave her a nice smooch on her cheek!!


After we met Snow White, we decided to head over to Hollywood Studios again to catch their Fantasmic Show later that evening. They only do it on Sundays and Thursdays and we didn't get there in time to see it on Sunday night. On the bus on the way over there, Olivia was her usual "ham" self. If she's awake - she's got to meet EVERYONE on the bus and entertain everyone. She met 14 people (I counted) in the 15-20 minute ride. She asked each of them their names and chatted with each of them. Pretty much everyone within range of her. When we got off the bus, a huge group of them all said "Bye Olivia" at the same time - it was pretty funny!

The first thing we did at Hollywood Studios is go try to meet Woody and Buzz Lightyear since the line was so long last time we tried. It was still a long line, but there was lots to look at and do in the line - so it went pretty quickly. Here she is cheesing behind one of the picture spots in the line:


She did pretty good meeting them. She even gave them both hugs - and Buzz was really big!

We wanted to make sure we got in line really early for the Fantasmic show - like an hour and a half!! Fortunately it is in a big arena with food vendors and stuff inside the stadium, so once we got in, we got some hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy . . . etc. and waited for the show to start. It is a pretty amazing show - The stage is on the water and they use fire, fireworks, lights and the characters to tell the story of good versus evil - basically Mickey versus the dragon that one of the evil witches turns into. They actually spray water up in the air outside the stage and project parts of the story onto it. It was really neat!

At the end, once Mickey defeated the dragon, a big boat came out with almost all the Disney characters on it:

It was a late night - but a lot of fun. We were really surprised when Olivia was still awake once we got back to the hotel. But she was looking pretty silly by the time we got back. She still had her Snow White dress on, but we put her jeans underneath to keep her legs warm at the Fantasmic show. She also had her sweater and crown on. It may have been silly - but it worked on her! ha ha!

Disney World - Day 5

So Day 5 was our busiest day and I have a TON of pictures and videos for you guys to see. We started out the day with a breakfast reservation at Chef Mickey's and got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Donald.

This first video is Olivia getting excited because Mickey was about to come see her:

And here she is getting to meet him:

Here's just a cute picture of Olivia I wanted to throw in:

Here is Olivia waiting to meet Minnie and getting SUPER excited!

After Chef Mickey's we headed over to Magic Kingdom because it was CASTLE DAY!!!! We had a lunch reservation with all the princesses at the castle. But when we first got there we saw Daisy at the entrance and she was the only one of the main characters we hadn't met yet. So we hopped in line and got to meet her.

Then it was time to prepare for the Castle lunch - so we had to put on our Snow White outfit and turn into a little princess!!

Then it was off to the castle. There was a line to meet and greet Cinderella when we first got there and they gave us a nice picture (8x10) of Olivia and her to take home with us. It is a really cute picture and if I get a chance to scan it, I'll post it. Here is Olivia with each of the princesses from the castle. Unfortunately, Snow White was the only princess not there. We were a bit disappointed with not getting to meet her there, so we would just have to track her down in one of the parks some other time.

Princess Jasmine gave Olivia a little smooch mark on her cheek:

Princess Aurora really spent a lot of time with Olivia (again) and told us how beautiful she was. (we actually had a couple different random people come up to us telling us how beautiful Olivia was while we were there - it was very flattering!)

Then, because of no nap yet and all the excitement of the day - poor Olivia passed out on my shoulder right as the dessert was brought out.

After we left the castle (and Olivia woke up), we saw a chance to go meet Peter Pan:

Then it was Parade time again! Here is Olivia eating her grapes waiting for the parade to start:

We did get to see Snow White in the parade and she saw Olivia in her Snow White outfit and her and her prince (can't remember his name) both waved and blew her a kiss! Olivia just loved that!

Here is a little video of Olivia twirling after the parade had just ended. She was pretty excited!

We had a little potty accident, so we had to change back into her regular clothes. Then she got to ride the teacups with daddy!

And Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride:

What a busy day it was! We had a fantastic time and LOVED meeting all the princesses. Hopefully we'll be able to track down Snow White tomorrow!