15 weeks and Mommy's Birthday :)

So here we are another busy busy week later, and baby girl is another week older. I wish so badly I could stop time for a bit. My baby girl is not so baby anymore. She is still in 3 month clothes and size 1 diapers but she is really advancing in her skills as we will see in this post.

So she turned 15 weeks old on Sunday~~

but she had to share the day with Mommy, as it was my 36th birthday!!
It was one of the more low-key birthdays but it was also nice to just relax with my two loves (Sweetness and Chloe) and enjoy the day.

Then I let Chloe know her Grandma and Great-grandma were coming over and we all were headed to my fave spot, P.F. Chang's for a nice birthday dinner!!! As judging by her reaction below, she was pretty happy about that news! LOL

After we completely stuffed ourselves on the best Chinese food in the land, we had our amazing waitress Holly take our picture. She was such a good waitress, it just really makes your dining experience so much more enjoyable!!!

and Ms. Party pants hit a milestone while sitting in her car seat getting ready to leave the restaurant!!!! She actually began to reach and touch for a toy on her own!!!! That is the first time she has done that without any help!!!!

And of course I had my camera to capture it !!!! :)

We then rolled home and they surprised me with cake and ice cream and singing!!! Best part was we tried baby girl in her high chair for the first time since in 2 weeks she will be starting her on her solids and she needs to like her highchair anyway.....well ......

Judging by her sweet expression, I'd say s a success!!!!

And earlier in the past week, other random cuteness was sure to be found.....

everywhere you look in my house........

But we love it......

because, this happy, fun atmosphere that now invades our house;

has taken over us too!!!! Mommy and Daddy are full of unspeakable joy and full of smiles just like baby Chloe!!!!!

We were both talking the other night, and we realized that finally

we really DO have everything we have ever dreamed of when we dated and planned our little lives together. And MAN THAT FEELS SO GOOD!!!!!

All because of the miracle of one special, perfectly-made-for-us amazing little girl, who has changed us in amazing ways, and best of all- brought out the HAPPY that is out to stay, as we celebrate the life our beautiful baby girl.

14 weeks.... and other cuteness

I can not believe it has already been 14 whole weeks since I became a mom, and my life changed so much. I really feel like we have fallen into a rhythm and typical daily pattern for us from waking and leaving the house by 7am getting her to her sitter's house, to our night-time bedtime routine of a bath, a book and snuggle time. It's partly because we have been blessed with such an incredibly good baby that is so easy to care for.
We went back to the doctor last Friday evening and she put us back on the liquid Zant.ac and she showed us a study that had just been published in which those expensive Pepsid Solutabs we were tying to get the insurance to approve, were no more affective against reflux in infants than placebo. So we decided to up the dose again (within safe limits) and keep her on rice cereal in the bottle and wait until she is 4 months and start with the solids finally which will help also!!!
So in 2 short weeks we will be starting solids and he will love that!!!. I can't wait to expose her to new flavors and take pictures of all the funny faces!

She is becoming harder and harder to pose for her weekly pictures! Ha! She wants to fall right over. Its almost as if she sat up better when she was younger....it's really odd! But she can turn on the charm when you talk to her, and smiles smiles smiles when you talk to her. But as soon as I hold up the camera- nothing! She looks right past the camera and will NOT look at me. So it becomes a TWO man job to get these precious smiles she so easily gives if you have no camera. Little Turkey!
But that smile above is what I live for- its the very thing that makes my bad days okay and makes the good days even better! I had my yearly review at work, and my boss said she can see a total change in me since I have become a mother. Like a total 180. I wanted to say really? After the absolute hell I was living in for so many years in infertility treatments, hormones all over the place, and then have your miracle just placed in your arms....... would'nt you be just a bit happier too???? But it's not as if I was ugly or rude to people before Chloe either- so you almost don't know who to take it when people make comments like that.

And as the Valentine's Holiday approaches, Chloe is breaking out her appropriate attire. I love this onesie. The heart is actually hot pink ribbon roses all attached to the fabric in the shape of a heart and she looks so pretty in black. I have never put her in this color before, as everything is all pinks and purples, but she just melted my heart the other day in this outfit!!! And I love washing her clothes too, and cleaning out the lint filter, it's just a wad of pink fuzz LOL :) I know just call me weird....:)

But that's about it for this week, my birthday is Sunday and I will be the big 3-6, so not excited about getting that old but I am excited to celebrate with my two favorite people in my life Sweetness and Chloe Bug. I will let you know how it turns out!! Until we meet again may the Lord bless you and yours!!!

Our 3 year Wedding Anniversary!!!

January 17th, is a day that is always the most special day of the year for me; even more so than Valentine's Day or Christmas. Why? Because it's OUR DAY..... It's the day we picked to celebrate us. And every year when that day comes around we get to remember the love we share and the wedding we had. Furthermore we get to celebrate the past year of memories that is Heather and Sean!!!

And wow what memories we have this year!!!! This could arguably be the best year yet of our three married years. It only gets better and better, right?. Of course THIS HAS TO BE the best year. We became the parents of the most amazing baby girl any one could ever ask for and for that alone, no other year could top it-- could it???

But just reminiscing to the day I promised my heart and soul to the most amazing, fun-loving , kind-hearted and Christ-like man I know........, I get teary eyed looking at all the beautiful pictures of that day.... January 17th, 2009.

All our friends prayed over us, asking His blessings and boy has He ever BLESSED us!!!!

We celebrated with the most amazing cake, and boy did we do some celebrating this past year!!!!

We smiled with joy as we pulled away from the church, and we smiled as we pulled away from the hospital this year with our new baby in the car!

As we walked through the doors as the new Mr. and Mrs. Marsden not at all like we were when we left. This past year we walked into our home with a new baby in a baby carrier and as new parents we crossed the threshold, not at all like we were when we left!!!

So now here we are the new family of 3. Our first Christmas together this year. Oh the fun living and watching life through Chloe's eyes!!! All because I made that promise on January 17th, 2009

And here we were last night, before we left to go on our anniversary date, Grandma was over to watch our sweet girl, and I had to take a picture of our sweet family of three, that exists because I made a promise on January 17th, 2009.

This man I made that promise to has shown himself to be the most AMAZING father to our baby girl and always knew in my gut he would be but it is so awesome to see it in action. It all started when she was 1 day old in the hospital with this love......

and then adding more of this............

Until today, our baby girl is wrapped tightly around her Daddy's finger and he loves every minute of it. He and he alone gets up in the night if she needs a middle of the night feeding and it has always been that way since I went back to work when she was 4 weeks old. He says it's his "special time with his baby girl." Awwwwww

And here is our precious little girl this morning in just one of her "I love Daddy" outfits. She and me sure do love Daddy. Somehow I think that all future January 17ths are going to be super fun as we show our Sweetness/Daddy how much he means to us, as she grows up and can help me celebrate and voice how much she loves that Daddy of hers.

But for now, I will have to be the only one that tells him, and Sweetness, if you are reading this..........

Yeah...... that January 17th- 3 years ago was with out a doubt the best decision I ever made. You make my life worth living and I am a better ME because of YOU!!!

Love you to the Moon and back baby--

Reflux and other accomplishments this week!

Well this week we have had a lot of activity going on. First of all my baby girl is just getting cuter and cuter if that is even possible. I mean look at this picture..... Can she get any more beautiful??? This is up there with my top two FAVE PICS OF ALL TIME NOW. Sweet precious face.

All snuggled up and headed off to her sitters house, which I will be doing a post on soon. She just loves it there and we are so thankful for Ms. Sam!!!

It has been so cold here this week, and so rainy and my precious little one has been having a very tough time dealing with her reflux. She has been on Zan.tac since she was 4 wks old, and its only been getting worse. So then we moved to thickened feeds with rice cereal 3 weeks ago and that has helped some. But nights are the worst and she is just drowning in the reflux, and some of her crying fits are breaking my heart. So we are fighting my insurance company to get them to approve for her to have the new medicine her pediatrician prescribed called Preva.cid SoluTabs. But they are just idiots.

They just keep saying she has to take all these other meds before she can be approved for Prev.acid, when none of these are appropriate for her age, she cant take Proton.ix or Nex.ium!!! these people have no idea what infants can take and just make blanket decisions because they don't want to pay.

So I just said we were going to pay cash for them because I cant stand to see my baby crying like this. Anyone who has had reflux for just one night knows how bad that it hurts. So we called to get the price.....yes...wait for it.....$237.00 for 30 SoluTabs!!!! Seriously!!! So we purchased 15 to see if we see a big difference and that was Friday night. Hopefully after a week we will see her have some relief. But as of right now, Sunday night, not much difference.

So another milestone we have accomplished of late, is our big girl has fully transitioned in just 2 nights from her PackNPlay next to our bed to her beautiful crib in her Nursery. The Pics below were the first night we put her in her bed to sleep. We gave her a nice bath and put her a new fleece "sleep sack" since you are not suppose to have any blankets in the crib with her. I wanted to make sure she was warm, so I put a onesie and socks underneath her sleep sack.

To our amazement, she slept so well, and all night!!! She was not comfortable in that packNplay I don't believe. She was always squirming and looking like she was uncomfortable. So we are so happy she is comfortable and at peace in her pretty bed we spent so much time making for her. I just loved her smiles this night as we laid her down for her first night. **Sweet memories to treasure**

Then as I KEPT checking on her during the night, I took this picture.... this is what Sweetness and I call her "touchdown" pose. She does this all the time, even when she is awake, and since we are huge football fans, it really cracks us up!!

And one very minor but other accomplishment this week, was the first time she wore tennis shoes!! I LOVED Keds when I was a kid. And I could not wait to put those shoes with the little rubber bumper over the top on my baby. Well the time came this week. I bought her some tiny little Size 2 Keds from Stride Rite and she was not sure what to do with them. But since she can't stand yet, they felt heavy on her feet. I always love a nice pair of good ole white Keds!!!

Sorry about the blurry picture.... but you gt the idea!!! All in all a great week. She has changed my life and I am living it to the fullest!!! Until next time..... She will be 3 months old on the 16th!!! Sooooo hard to believe!!!!!