Hailey's big girl room

Hailey was so excited to have a big girl bed! We have been telling her all about it in order to prepare her, and it seems to have paid off because she had no problem adjusting to it. She thinks it's really neat that one day Madeline will be able to sleep on the pull out trundle portion of the bed one day. She keeps talking about how Madeline is going to sleep in her bed, and she is going to "pet her gently" to go to sleep. Haha. She loves to have us lay in bed with her to read books, or just to play.

Jeff putting together Hailey's new trundle bed.

New owl bedding from Papa Mac

New owl lamp, which she is scared of, so every night we have to put it on the floor so she can't see it.

Sound asleep after her first night in bed.

Random summer fun pictures

My dad enjoying the Children's Museum

Papa and Hailey working the crane

Sandy face

Riding her new balance bike

Ski to Sea parade

I love this picture!

Relaxing while camping

Hailey's cute little crack. Now that she is wearing underwear, we need to cinch up her pants!

Hailey's 3rd birthday celebration

We celebrated Hailey's 3rd birthday at Whatcom Falls Park on Saturday. We rented out a little picnic shelter near the toddler play ground and were lucky enough to have perfect weather. Hailey wanted to have a princess themed party, which is what she had last year too. She was excited all day for her party, especially for the cake! She decided she wanted to dress up as Tinkerbell for her party, which I wasn't excited about at first, but she was adorable so I couldn't say no.

We had such a great time celebrating with family and friends. The party went great, we had pizza, fruit, and sherbert punch, yum! Hailey got so spoiled by everyone and she got some really fun new toys including Squinkies (which she is obsessed with), a baby Ariel doll, Strawberry Shortcake toys and a car (which she also went crazy for), puzzles, new jammies and clothes, and an adorable bedding set for her new BIG girl bed. We had to do an overhaul on the house to accommodate her new toys :-)

Our sweet little fairy princess

Ashley, my lovely neice

Bubbles!

Lincoln, my nephew cruising on the Plasma car

"Please can I have some cake?"

Hailey's 3rd birthday

On July 6th, our little princess turned 3! She was soooo excited about her birthday that I'm surprised she slept the night before. After she woke up in the morning, she got to open her gifts from us. She got the Bullseye character from Toy Story that she has been asking for since Christmas and boy was she happy!! She also got the game Candy Land and a new alarm clock that looks like a monkey. She did a great job opening the gifts all by herself. After presents, we went out to lunch at Billy McHale's and they put Hailey's name on their train that goes around the restaurant. Every time that train went by, she would point up to her name with excitement! She also got a huge ice cream sundae as a birthday treat.

After lunch, it was time to enjoy the sunny day by doing some splashing at the splash park. It took Hailey a little bit to feel comfortable playing in the water (there were tons of other kids there), but after she warmed up, she enjoyed herself although she still stayed close to us. then it was home for naps, and Jeff had to head to work. After dinner, I took Hailey down to the toy store to pick out a birthday toy. This toy store sent Hailey $2.00 in birthday bucks to spend so I told her she could pick out anything she wanted. What did she pick? She went straight for the .99 cent table and picked out 2 princess figures. Since they were so cheap, I told her she could get 2 more of them, so she picked out Belle, Ariel, Snow White and Cinderella. I even tried to get her to pick out something more expensive, but she wanted those princesses so badly. They were a great pick too, because she hasn't put them down yet.

We are doing a family and friend birthday party this weekend at Whatcom Falls Park, it should be a good time!

1st visit with Children's

What a long day! Jeff, my mom and I all worked graveyard on the 4th of July, and got just a couple hours of sleep before heading down to Seattle to meet with some doctors from Children's Hospital. We started off with an ultrasound that lasted over an hour. The room we were in was SO warm and the lights were dim, we were all struggling to stay awake. It didn't help that the ultrasound tech wasn't very talkative, so we had no idea what we were seeing on the screen most of the time. The tech took all of Madeline's measurements to make sure she is growing and gaining weight. Which she is, so that is great news.

Next, we met with Edith Cheng, who is the Director of the Prenatal Genetics Program. She went over some basic information regarding Gastroschisis and what to expect with upcoming appointments, and what would happen in the event that I went in to labor early. Shortly in to our meeting, a pediatric surgeon joined us and went through a power point of what we can expect with pregnancy, labor, delivery, and surgery. He also explained different levels of Gastroschisis (simple and complex), and the different surgery options that will be considered. Basically, we won't know until Madeline gets here if she will need surgery right away or not. It all depends on how much of the bowel is outside the body and what condition it is in. The surgeon said that Madeline will most likely have to stay at Children's for 2 months, possibly up to 4 months, depending on how she responds to surgery and how quickly she learns to eat and gain weight.

Our next ultrasound will be at our OB's office in Bellingham in about 4 weeks, and they will take more measurements of Madeline, and then send them to UW and Children's. We will meet with doctors at the UW in late August for another ultrasound.

Overall, we learned a lot, but there are still so many unanswered questions that can't be answered until Madeline arrives. So we will continue to wait!

Hailey is finally feeling better, and we can't believe that she is turning 3 tomorrow! Where has the time gone? She is such an amazing little girl and she continues to surprise us each day with her knowledge and humor. Life is good!

Our first trip to the ER

It started last Tuesday when I picked up Hailey from Preschool. She looked really sad and cried when she saw me, which was unusual. The staff said she had been complaining of her head hurting. When we got home we took her temp and it was 101 F. No wonder her head hurt! So we gave her Ibprophen and figured she would be fine by the next day. The fever continued to linger, but we were able to keep it down with Ibprophen. By Friday, her fever had gotten up to 103 F, so I made an appt. to have her looked at. At the doctor's office they checked her over and collected a urine sample (which was really fun), and said that she probably had a viral infection.

On Saturday, Hailey woke up screaming at 6am, which is not normal. She was SO hot but strangely not sweating at all. Jeff checked her temperature and it was 104 F, and Hailey seemed totally out of it. I called my mom at work for her opinion. She suggested going to the ER, which is what I thought, but I didn't want to overreact. So we quickly loaded up and flew to the ER. There were some shady characters in the ER, but it was quieter then expected. They got Hailey checked out quickly, and gave her Ibprophen. Then we took a seat and waited to be called back. After about 30 minutes, they called us back to the exam area. We had to wait another good 30 minutes before we saw the doctor, but in the meantime, Hailey made friends with her nurse named Lucy. Hailey asked her lots of questions about her cats, who her cousins are, and even got to play with her stethoscope. Finally the doctor came in, and Hailey told him she was hungry and wanted cereal. He asked her what her favorite cereal was and she said "Raisin Bran!" It was really cute, and I was so glad she didn't say "marshmallow cereal" which she gets occasionally! The doctor took one look in her throat, and said "Wow." Then he had her open so we could see her throat, and it was so swollen and red, and covered in white sores. Which can signify strep throat. The doctor said he wasn't going to test her for strep, because the results are often inconclusive, and that regardless of the results, he was going to put her on antibiotics. Poor Hailey! We couldn't believe after seeing her throat that she never once complained about it. So after 4 hours at the ER, we went home and Hailey ate some otter pops, then it was nap time for all of us. Poor Jeff had only slept for 2.5 hours, as he worked the night before.

It was hard to spend the sunny 4th of July weekend holed up inside, but Hailey's fever was still coming and going, so we laid around and watched Snow White and Toy Story 3. She is finally starting to feel better, but is still taking Ibprophen every 6 hours to control her fever.

Hopefully she is feeling 100% by Wednesday, her 3rd birthday!

Her name is....

We chose the name Madeline for our little princess. We originally thought her middle name would be the same as mine (Renee), but I wasn't dead set on it. Then one day Hailey randomly said that Madeline's middle name should be Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). I laughed about it and thought it was cute, but after some deeper thought and help from my friend Michelle, We realized how beautiful the name is, and it makes it so much more special that Hailey helped pick out her name. We can't wait to meet our little Maddy Belle!

Zoo trip

On Monday we went to the Zoo. We were hoping it was going to be hot, but we settled for it being warm with a few sprinkles here and there. On the way home, we stopped at Babies R Us and shopped around for things. Hailey picked out a little pink doggy for her sister...although she has been sleeping it with it since we bought it so I'm not sure it will end up being the baby's afterall. Then we headed over to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. It was such a fun family day.

She LOVES this fox!

Hailey liked petting the goats.

Our beautiful almost 3 year old!

We got to feed an elephant named Chai. Hailey thought it was really cool!

22 weeks and feeling huge!

Hailey always loves feeding these birds, thankfully they were hungry today!

Could she be any cuter?!

20 weeks

Birch Bay fun