My baby turned 3!?!?

I never thought she would grow up so fast, but she has. Who can complain, though? She's so fun and full of excitement and life that I would be crazy not to enjoy this stage of her life. She's such a sweetie! For her birthday she said she wanted a Dora cake and a Dora party, so that's what she got. I decided to do a little adventure for the kids at the park we had her party at, and it turned out kinda fun. I didn't want to wear myself out doing all sorts of crazy things, but still ended up being exhausted when it was all over. Lance says it's a good thing that birthdays only come around once a year, but I can't imagine having 4 or 5 birthdays to plan a year. We'll think about that when we get there, I guess.

The Dora adventure started out with Swiper the Fox taking the candles for her birthday cake. They had to go to three places to find the candles, and Lance was their tour guide. He was originally going to be Swiper, but got stage fright when he saw all the parents there. He did a good job being the guide, anyway. Their first stop was Lollipop forest. They got to cut suckers down off the branches of a tree.

This is Jaycee's friend Caleb, and they were so cute just standing there. He's got the cutest laugh, and it's so readily available. He will laugh when I look at him sometimes.

This is the beginning of the second adventure, the Rainbow Tunnel. We just put some picnic tables together and covered it with tablecloths. Some kids were scared to go through, but most of them braved it out.

The last stop was the Balloon Garden, which contained the birthday candles. We stuffed the candles in the balloons, and them blew them up. Then just taped them to knives and forks and stuck them in the ground. Unfortunately, I blew up all the balloons, and was left with no backups. Just our luck that the wind came up, and popped one of the balloons holding a candle. I just stuck it on top of a knife and called it good.

Do you see Jaycee holding her ears? She was quite scared when they started popping the balloons. Good thing we had the older kids to help us out with the popping.

For Jaycee's first two birthdays, I made her a cake, but got scared away when she said she wanted a Dora one. I decided to order one, and I'm really glad I did. Maybe I'll make one next year, though...we'll see. She loved her cake, and was so excited to go pick it up from the store.
I just happened to snap the picture at the right moment. She really wasn't that excited about any of her presents. I just found little dollar store presents for her. She didn't need any more toys, really.

After she took a very needed nap, Andy and Omar (introduced in the previous post) came over and gave her this present. It's a Maltese dog with its own carrier. She has named the dog Tinkerbell, and just had to take her to church today.

A big thanks to everyone who came to Jaycee's birthday party, and to those who gave her presents. She had a great birthday, and enjoyed all the excitement. I have to apologize to the grandparents for not putting pictures up of their presents. Lance's mom sent a whole box full of adorable new clothes to Jaycee, and I actually recorded it. Lance just said that I can't post it on the blog. Jaycee was kind of very unappreciative in the sense that she said, "Ooh, clothes! There's something in the bottom." She proceeded to pull all the clothes out without even looking at them until she got to the bottom and said, "Oh." That was it. Not the best way to react to a present, but it was way funny. The worst part of the video is probably that I was laughing so hard. Oops. We appreciated the clothes, and she really does love them. My mom also bought her some new dresses and shoes (proxied by me, and she supplied the money). It's great having friends and family.

Baseball!!!

On our golden weekend we decided to go to a minor league baseball game in Brewers stadium. One of our friends was giving away free tickets, so why not? The game was the Appleton Timber Rattlers vs. the Peoria Chiefs. The significance of it is that they are the "farm" teams for the Brewers and Cubs, meaning that some of those players someday have the potential to play on those Major League teams. The game was not dull, but not anything like a Brewers game as far as crowd excitement goes. Hence, the reason for showing this picture:


Jaycee was less than thrilled to be watching the game, and finally gave up. It was also past her bedtime, and she had not taken a nap that day. Anyway, Lance and I have disagreed on the final score of the game, but it was either 4 or 5 runs for the Rattlers, and 3 runs for the Chiefs. I still need to look that up to prove that I'm right, but have had a lack of time lately.

Then, on Tuesday night of this past week we decided to go see the Brewers play the Pirates. From left to right in the picture below (minus the baseball players): Brad, Andy, Omar, Jaycee, and Lance. Andy and Omar are friends and fellow classmates with Brad and Lance, and we actually have them over for dinner every Wednesday. Jaycee loves both of them, and they are so sweet to her.


This slide is obviously Jaycee's favorite part of going to the baseball games. She was even given the glasses and a bracelet by Associated Bank, and was thrilled to have some sunglasses.

We got to the game a little early, and went to the right field home run fence to see if we could get a ball from batting practice, but no luck. We even had a few people hollering at the fielder to throw a ball to our little girl. One time the fielder did throw us a ball, but ended up throwing it way short. This is Lance in his element at a baseball game.

The famous Klement's Hot Dog actually came up to us when we were trying to get home run balls. You can see how excited Brad was to see the Hot Dog. This hot dog is actually the one that usually wins the races in the famous sausage race at Miller Park. They have five different kinds of sausages, or whatever they are, and they race from dugout to dugout. When we were there, this guy's record was 6 out of 9 races that he had won. He's a stud! I'm sure it's not that easy to run with a costume like that on.

Another favorite thing to do at a baseball game for Jaycee is to suck her thumb. I am trying to break her of that habit, but have realized it might be a longer process than I thought. That's Omar's Brewers hat she's wearing.

I just had to put this picture in because it's so cute. Austin, Devenee, Drey, and Gabi showed up, but were not there earlier for all our photo ops. I did snap this picture of Drey and Jaycee intently watching the game.
Actually, Jaycee was bumping heads with Drey, and I just caught one with her not being mean.

This is a fake sausage, but Jaycee wanted to give him a hug.

The Brewers played a good game, and came out on top with a win 6-5. We had a great time, and will definitely be there again. Hey, if we can get tickets for $1.00, sometimes it's hard to resist.

30 weeks and counting!

So...I tried to take a picture of myself to post on my blog for hitting 30 weeks, but look way too awkward taking pictures. I immediately deleted them, and will maybe be taking some in a while. I really haven't had anything eventful happen pregnancy-wise since our flight home in March, which is really good news. It just makes for boring updates. I love this stage of pregnancy, though, because when the baby moves, it makes my whole stomach move. It's hard to miss any movements. With this little guy, he can definitely do some cool moves, too. Sometimes I wonder if he's having a seizure in there because it's so fast. I'm pretty sure he's going to be a tough one.

We are almost done with another test week, and then Lance only has one more block of classes to take tests for. Those tests are at the end of May, then we are headed home for the summer. This first year has gone by so fast. It will be so great to be able to say we are M2's next year instead of M1's. It takes me back to high school days and being a Freshman. It's always better to be a Sophomore. Every test week I'm amazed at how much they have to stuff into their brains to cover all the material they have learned about.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went to this cute park and the girls had so much fun playing. Jaycee went over to the sand and played there the majority of the time. She found some new friends with sand toys and went over to play with/steal those toys. One of the little boys threw a little truck at her (from where I was sitting it looked like a ball) and she came to me sobbing. It was a really sad cry, but I couldn't see where it hit her. I just figured it scared her since she didn't know them. Later on I discovered it had hit her eye, and she has a bruise right on her eyelid. No wonder she cried. She wasn't too traumatized, though, because she went right back and played with them until they left.

Chicago

Over Easter weekend we decided to finally drive down to Chicago. We'd been planning on going there since Christmas, but kept postponing it. It's only a two-hour drive from Milwaukee. For all of you Bear Lakers, we met Hannah Belnap (now Porter is her last name) to hang out with her and her husband. He's going to medical school there, and she's working as a Physician's Assistant. It was good to catch up with them, and they were great hosts. Jaycee started out seeing Chicago by climbing up one of the trees outside Hannah and Brian's apartment. Then Hannah sent us on the blue-line train to downtown Chicago. We've never really gone on a train before, and it was definitely Jaycee's first experience.

We just went and hung out at Millennium Park for a couple hours. This is the famous "Bean" in Chicago. It's so cool how it reflects all the buildings.

This is my attempt to take a picture of our reflection in the "Bean".

This is what you seen when you stand in the middle of it. It's so weird.

These are the face fountains (we never found out if there was an actual name). The people smile at you and just look all innocent, then close their eyes and start spitting water out.

When that sun disappeared behind those buildings it turned very cold, and near the end Jaycee was crying because she was so cold.

Hannah and Brian took us to their favorite pizza place, which was Girodano's. Jaycee tried Hannah's glasses on, and thought she was pretty cool. I should have got Brian in the picture, but didn't for some reason.
This is Jaycee eating the inch-thick layer of cheese. It was such good pizza.

All in all, it was a good trip, but very short. We were glad we had someone to show us around.

P.S. I did a few posts today, so keep going down the page.

Easter at the Zoo!

On Friday, April 10th, we went to the zoo to celebrate Easter with the animals. They had cute little coloring activities, token hunts, and programs--all sorts of fun. Jaycee has a fetish about pushing other kids' strollers, especially Eliza's.

This was so cute when Katelyn and Jaycee were holding hands.

Jaycee had to give the Easter Bunny a hug.

Aren't those the cutest bunny ears? She wore them long enough for me to take a picture.

Thanks everyone who went to the zoo with us. We had a great time!

Cute pictures!

These are just pictures that I thought were cute of Jaycee. She finally doesn't squint or cheese-it when I tell her to smile. The first two are of the presents Grandma Jacobson sent her. She went to Disneyland and bought Jaycee the Minnie Ears headband. She also sent the pom-poms and completed the outfit with the beautiful high heels (Jaycee has fallen numerous times while walking around in them).

For the grandparents!

Beware--These videos are meant for the grandparents since they didn't get to see Jaycee open their presents they sent in the mail. They really aren't that exciting unless you're the ones that sent the wonderful Easter packages to Jaycee. She really did get spoiled this Easter--thanks to grandparents. You also don't want to have to listen to my voice, either, because it never sounds good when recorded. No wonder every salesman asks for my mom or dad when they call.

Baseball memories

When I was growing up my parents got me onto a softball team, and my older brother played baseball. I did not enjoy it at all--one of the main reasons being that it was so boring that I had to do cartwheels out in the field to make the time go by faster. I lasted one season, and can't remember much more than the cartwheels. My brother, on the other hand, loved playing baseball and was naturally good at it. That passed on down to my two younger brothers, and my sister as well. I was doomed to a life of watching baseball game after baseball game (and softball, too). I really didn't enjoy watching baseball games, and was even more disgusted watching professional baseball on TV. When we moved to Bear Lake, Idaho, my brother played on the high school baseball team, and my attitude immediately changed. I was a freshman, and all his studly friends that played baseball were very entertaining to watch. Not to mention that I had a crush on Lance at that time, and he played on the team as well. Needless to say, I have boys to thank for finally opening my eyes to the amazing sport of baseball. It really is an awesome sport, and I have sat through the games of all three brothers playing baseball from Little League to high school (two brothers went to Junior College to play, but I didn't get to any games). Lance's family is no different. All three brothers played baseball, and were very talented. His dad has coached countless teams in Little League and Pony, and has put a lot of sweat into making the baseball fields at the high school look as great as they look today. I don't know if I should mention this since we do live in Milwaukee, Home of the Brewers, but the Cubs are both our families' team of choice.

To show you how devoted our families are to baseball: we had to plan our wedding around the baseball schedule. I will admit that with Corby, Chase (my brothers), and Chase (Lance's brother) playing and my dad coaching JV, it was quite important to work around it. We did end up getting married on the weekend of Districts, which wasn't very popular, but it was our only option. We also went on a trip to Boise (5-hour drive) two weeks after Jaycee was born to watch those same brothers play in the State tournament. It was quite painful for me (if you want to know the truth), but worth it since they took the championship. We even had the principal of the school ask if we had brought Jaycee right from the hospital after she was born to the games. I felt like a terrible mother, too, because Jaycee ended up getting heat rash because it was so hot.

If you know Lance, you know he's got baseball down to a science, and knows every trick, every rule, and every play, etc.. Hence, the video. He's already taught Jaycee to tap the plate with the bat (the coke bottle is all we have for a bat), to bat left-handed (which is apparently better in baseball) and run the bases. At the end she says, "Safe!" if you can't tell. She enjoys playing this game, and Lance is, of course, a very proud father. He claims he doesn't want a softball player because he hates softball, but he might change his mind eventually. Sorry for the novel, but I liked reminiscing about the good old days.

Bath time

I don't know if it's just genetics, but when Jaycee gets out of the tub she has the most wrinkly hands. The pictures don't do it justice, but they get so pruny. It could be attributed to the fact that she won't get out of the tub. I have to keep turning the hot water on for her so she doesn't freeze. Her bathtime easily lasts an hour. Anyway, I just think it's funny, and I have the same problem. I can't stand washing dishes without gloves for that same reason. I hate pruny hands. You might find yourself asking (if you've known me for a while) how I used to stand teaching swimming lessons, or swimming for that matter. I guess you do crazy things for love. Just kidding--it drives me crazy swimming, too, but the fun of swimming outweighs the pruniness. There's no fun in washing dishes.

Pregnancy update: At thirteen weeks I started having random contractions (Braxton Hicks). They have not left me since, and when we flew back to Milwaukee from Utah (on March 23) I had 12 contractions within an hour and my stomach was cramping. My doctor had told me that having 4 in an hour would be something to let her know about. Anyway, we were worried that I was maybe going into labor, but I wasn't. After the twelve contractions they stopped and we made it home without any further incident. When I went to my doctor's appointment a week later, she checked me and found I am dilated to a 1, and also thinning (effacing). Not an extreme cause for concern, but she did want to make sure that I wasn't dilating for a reason. I had also been sick for the past couple of days, so I was dehydrated and malnourished. On top of that I was measuring a centimeter small. Because of all this, she decided to do a fetal fibronectin test, which would tell them if I was going to deliver in the next two weeks. That came back negative, thankfully, and that is where we are today. I still have random contractions, but nothing painful or worrisome. Apparently, it is not uncommon for women who have had a baby before to start dilating this early. The only thing all this did is make us nervous for the flight home on May 30th. Luckily, we did decide to fly instead of drive home. When we can fly all three of us home for $500, it's hard to say we should drive. Especially when it's around 7 hours of travel compared to 20 in a car (if you don't have to stop every hour for an 8-months pregnant woman who has to go potty or walk around to prevent blood clots). Now we just have to hide how large my belly will be when we go to board the plane so they don't ask any questions.