Updates

It's been awhile...yet again. The Hunt family's been pretty busy lately! I'll try to update the best I can.

Well, we took our vacation to the Outer Banks the week of September 6-13. We rented a beach house with a few friends of ours and their little boy. And it figures that right before we go, "Hurricane Hanna" (which luckily ended up being a tropical storm by the time it hit) was headed toward the Carolinas. We left home the night of the 5th so we wouldn't be driving the WHOLE TIME in the rain. Plus, we didn't know how Alyson was going to take her first long road trip. We figured it would be easier to do half the trip one day and the rest the next morning. WRONG. We ended up getting a late start the night of the 5th, so we only got about 4 1/2 hours away to Frederick, MD before it got too late and we decided we'd better get a hotel room. The hotel gave us a portacrib to use, which unfortunately Alyson wanted NOTHING to do with. We decided to try and let her sleep in bed with us. Another bad idea. We've never had her in bed with us and it's not something we wanted to start... so she had no idea that she was supposed to fall asleep, and she just thought the bed was a big trampoline for the next hour. It was 2:30am and we were all SO TIRED. I put her back in her portacrib and THANK GOD she fell asleep. For a whole THREE hours, waking back up bright and early at 5:30am. We wanted to get an early start Saturday morning, but not THAT early!!

Anyway, we got ready, ate breakfast and started driving again. Basically the whole six hours was spent in pouring rain as a result of the outer bands of Hanna. It was a mess... I think we saw about 10 wrecks on the way to NC.

We got to NC about 2pm, and thankfully the weather had cleared up by that point. THe rest of the day was just overcast, and the following 3 days were BEAUTIFUL-- blue skies and sunny. Wednesday was our only rainy day, so we all took the kids to the NC aquarium over on Roanoke Island. Thursday and Friday were beautiful, so all in all it was a great week.

Alyson absolutely LOVED her first beach experience. At first she was really hesitant to step on the sand since it was a different feeling to her, but once we took her down by the water and let the waves crash over her feet, she was IN LOVE. She would no sooner get back to the beach blanket and then she'd take off again, wanting to go explore. I took lots of pics, and will put them up on here in a slide show.

Before we left, we stopped in at the place we rented the house from, and booked it for the same week next year. Yeah, it's hurricane season, but it was such a great week to be down there... it was so peaceful and relaxing, and not so hectic like during the summer months. If we had the option, I'd LOVE to move down there :-)

I'll post pics as soon as I put them in a slide show.

As for updates with Alyson, she's doing great. SHe's a little over 15 months old now, and had her 15 mo. checkup last week. She's 26 pounds 8 oz. (92nd percentile) and is 32 inches tall, or 90%. Her head is still off the charts (big noggin like her daddy but doc said all is normal!) She's talking alot more now...still mostly babbling but some new words too. She says mama, dadda, dody (which is either 'doggy' or 'cody', i haven't figured which...), yeah, hi, uh-oh, dop (for 'stop')and she points her finger and shakes her head while saying "no no no no no." LOL. She's repeating alot of words now (well, trying to) so I told her daddy he'd better watch his mouth a little more these days!!!

Well, I'd better go...Alyson is getting annoyed that her mommy is spending time on the computer and not with her.


Alright, better go play with Alyson before her naptime. Later on we're gonna have girly time and go shopping... Aly needs some more cold-weather clothes. And so does mommy :-)

Weekend update

Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend :-) Mine ended up improving, thank goodness. Alyson is doing alot better now, which I'm SO happy about. It was so hard seeing her hurting like that! Her teeth are still bugging her, I can tell...so I've just been keeping up with the Ibuprofen.

We ended up going to our friends' son's 2nd birthday party on Saturday... it was a good time. Alyson plays SO well with other kids! The only thing, she thought she could eat what everyone else was eating... she was trying to pick up a whole hotdog and huge pieces of fruit and stick them in her mouth..lol. All the kids at the party had ice cream cones, and there were baby cones for the little ones. The tiniest little baby cone I've ever seen. Alyson THOROUGHLY enjoyed her first taste of ice cream...even crunching the cone. It was too cute.

One thing I've realized now... there is NO relaxing at events we go to anymore. Whether it's a birthday party or a family gathering, I am CONSTANTLY chasing after Alyson. Russ just 'happens' to head outside with the guys so that he doesn't have to be the one to look after Alyson. So HE gets to relax and kick back while I'm watching to make sure Alyson isn't falling down stairs or shoving something she shouldn't into her mouth. Then Russ doesn't understand why I come out to him and say, "Can you puhleeeeeeeeeease help me watch her?!" LOL. Ugh.

As for yesterday, we went to church, then out to breakfast... then my parents came over later with dinner. My dad made AWESOME beer can chicken and baked potatoes on his grill, so they brought that over for us. All I had left to do was make a veggie and that was it. Oh, and we had some banana cream pie too :-) Nice easy dinner for me! But OH MY... if you have not had beer can chicken, you're missing out. It was even better than the rotisserie chicken they sell in stores. YUM.

So that was the weekend. Glad things ended up working out.

Well, Alyson is getting fussy so I'm gonna end this here. Have a great Monday!

Baby butts and babbles

Post about baby problems and poop ahead... just a warning for all those without kids.

Yesterday with Alyson was a repeat of the day before. I've finally figured out what ALL the problems are due to.... TEETHING. Ugh. I remember hearing about all the side effects of teething, and for some reason I didn't put two and two together the other day and realize, "So THAT'S what the problem is."

Not to be TMI, but Aly's been, uh, "going #2" ALOT lately, and it's causing MAJOR problems. Her stomach was rumbling and making all kinds of crazy noises yesterday, and she was NOT a happy camper. She was crying and screaming and kicking her feet. Ibuprofen and Mylicon didn't seem to help. And everytime she would dirty her diaper and I'd go to change her, she'd just scream and cry big 'ol crocodile tears. Her poor butt is so red. She's never had any kind of diaper rash up until now, so I've never had to deal with her being in pain like this. It sucks, because my little girl is in pain and I feel helpless that I can't do more for her. Yesterday she didn't even want to sit down on her butt. She just stood by the couch and leaned against it, then layed her little head on the cushion. I wanted to cry! Things finally settled down last evening... the stomach pains went away and she was *almost* her usually peppy self. She went to bed close to 9pm and slept through the night, so that was a relief. I thought we were going to be up half the night.

Today she's doing a little better... she had a little episode this morning when her diaper was dirty... her little butt is still hurting her. She cried for awhile but then settled down and was totally fine, and has been since. So I'm HOPING AND PRAYING that the rest of the day goes smoothly. We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow and other plans this weekend, and I just hope we can make it to them... I'd hate to take Alyson if she's still having 'poop problems.' I don't think people at the party would want her running around with her bare butt hanging out... lol.

But enough talk about my daughter's butt. I just had to get that off my chest... this is the first time I've had to deal with this, and it's just frustrating. As a mom, you want to think you can just wave a magic wand and everything will be all better with your child, and it sucks when you have that helpless feeling, ya know? *sigh*

Anyway... I have a funny story to share about Alyson. Last night I had her in her highchair, trying to get her to eat something before bed. While I was getting her food ready, she sat there playing with her pink Barbie cell phone. I just about lost it when I walked back in the dining room and saw her... she was holding the cell phone up to her ear and babbling into it. At first I thought it was just a fluke and that she just happened to put it there... then she put the phone down. When she picked it up again, she did the same thing. She put the phone right to her ear and goes, "Yeh? Neh. Na Na. Ya." LOL. I was cracking up. I put the phone up to my ear and said, "Barbie? Oh.. you want to talk to Alyson? Ok... here she is." Alyson watched me do that and was smiling, then took the phone and started babbling again.

Here are some pictures... she has the phone backwards, but she has the idea!







Guess she watches her mommy and daddy's actions a little more than I thought!

Glad I don't have many days like this...

Ok... I just looked in the mirror and yes, I still DO have hair. I've felt like pulling it out all day long!!!

UGH! It's been a crazy day with Alyson today. One of those days when I have NO idea what is going on with her. Usually it's one of 3 things... either she needs a diaper change, she's hungry, or her teeth are hurting her and she needs Ibuprofen. Today she's just been fussy ALL DAY LONG.

Like right now... she's been walking around whining for the past few hours despite my attempts to meet her every need!!! Her diaper's changed, she just ate, I gave her ibuprofen, and I've tried to put her down for a nap with no luck. She just stood up in her crib and cried until I brought her back downstairs.

So we walked around... we played and played and played some more.... and she's still fussing. I just feel helpless because I have NO IDEA what she wants and it makes me want to cry.

*sigh*

Update: Ok, so about 5 minutes after I posted this, I was holding Alyson on my lap and she majorly spit up all down my leg. Now she seems quite content with things and is running around with a pillow, laughing her head off. Guess her stomach wasn't feeling so well.

Now I'm off to do damage control in the kitchen... I hear her trying to stick SOMETHING out the doggy door. *sigh* I just LOVE days like this...

One month... I'm getting WORSE!

I've successfully gone one whole month and only posted ONE time. Not that I meant to!!! Blogging's just been on the back burner for me lately... things have been really busy! And to think, I thought that being a stay-at-home mommy would give me lots of free time... HA! Yeah right.

Anyway, there aren't a whole lot of things for me to update about, surprisingly. At least not many I can think of right now. Oh... the house thing. We're still considering that house I talked about last post... we did end up putting an offer on it, but the couple had just lowered the price by about $25,000 and it turns out that what they lowered it down to is basically exactly what they owe on their mortgage, so they aren't willing to budge AT ALL. Our offer was the highest one they received so far, but they didn't take it. Not even a counteroffer. The guy just told our realtor, "Nope... this is what I owe, this is what I want for the house." So whatever. If it was meant to be, it would have worked out. I mean, it STILL can work out, who knows. It's just a waiting game now. It's not like we HAVE to move, so we're just taking our time. Russ keeps telling me, "Just be patient." I tell him patience is not one of my strong points!!

So once the house thing didn't work out, we looked into building one. We spoke with a couple builders, got some price quotes... but decent home lots are so hard to come by around here right now. Plus Russ goes, "I don't know if I have the time to deal with all that right now!" He's so busy these days, and I highly doubt he would want to meet with the builder to discuss things like lighting and bathroom fixtures. But that might be good... he'd just tell me, "Do what you want." LOL.

Before I end my boring post, I just want to say CONGRATULATIONS to all your blogging ladies out there expecting again!! I have been so bad at keeping updated with blogs, so I was very surprised when I checked in on blogs and found out all the great news! WOW!! Around Alyson's 1st birthday, I mentioned to Russ that I'd like to start trying for another baby around her 2nd birthday, June or so. I said, "It might not happen right away, but if I DID get pregnant quickly, she'd almost be 3 by the time the baby was born... that'd be a great age!" Russ just kind of gave me that "deer in the headlights" look because the conversation took him by surprise, and his response was... "Um, can you bring this up again NEXT year then?" Men. He told me the other day that Alyson is getting so much more fun the older she gets. He goes, "I didn't know what to do with her when she was so little. Boy, if you could pop babies out at a year old, I'd say let's have 5 of them!"

Whhaaaaaaaaaat???!! The boy cracks me up sometimes.

But yeah, I AM ready to have another baby... I'd like to have at least one more before I'm 30. If it's a boy, I think we're gonna be done, but if it's a girl, we'll probably try ONE more time and see if we have a boy. I just definitely want more than one child since I'm an only child. While being an only child has its perks, it sometimes got lonely and I always wished I had a brother or sister. I just don't want Alyson to feel that way. So while ULTIMATELY we're waiting a year to really start trying, if it happens it happens... that's the way I see it. I definitely wouldn't be upset if it happened sooner than later :-)

Alyson's 1st Year in Pictures

I recently made a photo montage of Alyson, from birth to her 1st birthday... here it is if you want to check it out! It's lengthy though, about a half hour long. I ended up putting it all on a DVD and got one for me, my mom and dad, and Russ's mom and husband. It'll be nice to have for years to come! Alyson will enjoy watching it in the future, I'm sure :-)

Let me know what you think!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Have a great weekend!

1 year ALREADY?!

Well, my baby is officially 1 year old as of June 21st. Boy, how time flies!!

We had Alyson's birthday party at our house on Sunday the 22nd... everything went great. It was supposed to rain that day, but thankfully the rain held off. It just sprinkled a little bit later in the evening, but most of the guests had left. We had about 40 people there in all. The biggest hit of the party was the new swingset we got Alyson for her birthday (mostly for the baby swing--she'll have to grow into the rest of it!)... alot of people had kids there, so they all played on it while the parents had time to themselves!

Here are some pics from the party. Like I said last post, the theme of her birthday was the "1st cupcake" theme... cupcakes and party hats, with the colors red, purple, lime green and yellow. :-) I was surprised she didn't get messier while eating her cake... she just took her time and ate it like a little lady...lol.

My cousin Brenda bought Alyson a Dora the Explorer Pop-up tent (Aly LOVES Dora!), and I took some pictures of her with it the day after the party. Cody got a little curious and decided HE wanted to go in the tent... I think he likes it more than she does!









Alyson's 1 year doctor's appointment was yesterday... she weighs 24 pounds 6 ounces (92nd percentile) and is 31 3/4 inches tall, which is taller than 100% of kids her age...lol! Her head size is still off the charts, but is progressing normally... doc said everything looks fine. He goes, "She IS tall... she looks 2!" She still had the stranger anxiety and didn't want much to do with the doctor... she cried most of the time in the exam room. Once she settled down, it was time to get 3 shots...poor girl. She was fine afterwards though, thank goodness!

So those are the updates with Alyson. It's just so hard to believe she's 1 year old already... seems like just yesterday all of us blogging ladies were finding out we were pregnant and sharing all those miserable and not-so-miserable moments with eachother!! :-)

Anyway... the only other thing to talk about is the fact that Russ and I MAY be moving... we went to see a house close to where we live, and we actually BOTH LOVED IT. Usually, one of us loves a house and the other doesn't, but we actually agreed on this one. It's a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with about 2800 square feet, on an acre lot in a GREAT kid-friendly neighborhood. We're thinking about putting an offer on it within the next few days...hopefully we get it! It's been on the market for about 9-10 months, and the people have already reduced the price twice since the housing market is so slow around here lately. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed things work out! If things are meant to be, they'll find a way of working themselves out!

Well, Alyson is awake, so I better go upstairs and get her! Have a great week :-)