36 Weeks

I am officially in my last month of pregnancy #2. It has sped by, and I can hardly believe that we will have this new little girl in our arms so soon. I am so excited to experience giving birth again (maybe that's weird?), and I can't wait to meet her and hold her. I have pretty high expectations since Maya's birth was so fantastic, but I'm aware that things could go differently or worse. 

The pregnancy is still a breeze, with just a little discomfort because of the huge ball in my belly. Running has turned into brisk walking, but it still feels like I'm getting a good workout. Ryan says anything I do to exercise from now until the end is a bonus. 

The nursery is nowhere near finished. I keep telling myself that it will get done, but my nesting instinct is going completely bonkers. Poor Ryan is getting nagged about it a lot. I'm sure he will be glad when it's done so I will finally stop bringing it up!!

We have chosen a name! It will be revealed after she is born. :)

Now I better go get some sleep while I can....

Maya - 18 Months

Maya is 18 months now - and just 1 month from being a big sister!!

She has tons of personality and is usually quite fun to watch and play with. 

But with all that personality has also come a few hardships for me. Temper tantrums are starting to make their appearance, she's getting picky about food (super bummer), and she's testing other limits in general. Nothing too horrible yet, but it's definitely a change. 

She is starting to enjoy coloring, which I find very cute!

She's also having fun exploring food textures. 

She loves going to the park to swing. We have a park not too far from our house and if I head towards it to check the mail she exclaims, "Tick tock!" so that I know she is expecting to get to go swing. And we usually do. Which sometimes leads to a temper tantrum when we leave. :)

She is understanding the beauty of nature. She likes to smell and pick flowers, as well as play in the dirt and lay in the grass in our backyard. 

She loves animals and can say a whole slew of animal noises. 

She is getting bigger and more independent. 

And brave!

She loves to wear jewelry and always asks for her own necklace when I'm putting mine on. 

This little girl loves her dada. She asks for him during the day and is thrilled when he comes home. Her little voice saying "Dada!" makes me so happy. 

She likes swimming! We have only gone once this summer, but she had a blast. She yelled and splashed and laughed the whole time. I thought it was really funny but the other pool-goers might have been annoyed. :) My favorite was when older kids would jump in the pool and Maya would throw her arms up and yell, "BOOM!" 

Maya now weighs 19 lbs (below the charts still)! Gained only 1/2 lb since her 15 month, but doc isn't concerned at all. She is 30.5 inches (10-25%), so she's getting taller! She is right on track with developments, and even ahead in some. 

She is such a joy in my life. She's growing up fast, and I'm both anxious and excited to see her be a big sister.

Las Vegas Getaway

The first week of June we escaped to Las Vegas for 4 days with our friends who were moving there. 

Originally I was going to go with Raime alone to help her make the drive with their baby because Phil had work in Colorado until the end of June. But then he got a different job so he could leave earlier. Then it became a decision of either being a third wheel, not going, or having Ryan come too. We finally decided to both go the day before We had to leave, so it was a busy day getting lots of laundry done, packing, and arranging for a sitter for Maya the whole time instead of just part of the time (thanks, Mom, Dad, and Holly!!). 

We left at about 5 PM on the 4th and drove through the night, arriving in Vegas at 4:15 AM. Ryan was a total stud and drove the entire time (on the way home too!). It helped that we had a good book on tape for him to listen to, but I still hardly slept. 

The next 3 days were great. We slept in as late as we wanted to. We ate lots of good food. We had no baby's schedule to work around (well, Vaughn was there but he's totally chill and can adapt easily). 

And I even took a few pictures!

It was really fun to get to go on a vacation so last-minute. It was made even better to get to spend it with friends (and who knows when we will see them again), not to mention that a newborn means no more chances to go away just the two of us for a while. 

It was a great last hurrah with the Cendomas! 

Memorial Day

I FINALLY have a few minutes to spare to post something! Yay! (Keep napping Maya...)

Memorial Day weekend this year was really nice. Maya stayed with my parents Friday - Saturday, so Ryan and I spent Saturday working on the new baby's room. We moved all of the furniture out, and put it in our room. Thank goodness our master room can hold it all, or else I'm not sure what we would have done with all of the office furniture. Then we painted the first coat of the main color we chose for her a room. It is a very light girly pink and I LOVE it. We haven't had time to work on it anymore since then, but my self-imposed deadline to have everything ready is the end June, so hopefully we can bust out the rest of it in the next couple of weeks.

On actual Memorial Day we went to Golden with our friends. We went on a hike, that turned into a walk. It wasn't supposed to rain, but as we were hiking, dark clouds started coming in and we could hear thunder. I was a little nervous, but everybody else was acting like it was no big deal so we kept going. And then we ran into some EMTs bringing a woman back up who had sprained her ankle and they told us to turn around because of the storm (an answer to my prayers!). We were all pretty bummed by our hike being cut really short, but it was still nice. And Maya loved riding in the HUGE backpack on Ryan's back.

After our "hike" we got something to eat and then walked around downtown.

There was a large green area and folks were playing frisbee. Maya thought it was pretty great.

And of course, Vaughn was very happy!

I got a couple of cute shots of Maya running towards me. I love the look on her face.

I love this family picture!

A great reaction to seeing her first cowboy!

At the end of the day Maya was tired of Ryan and me, and only wanted Phil to carry her. So he got double baby duty.