The Pezzente's: February 2014

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

sneak peak photos...

Here are a few photos from our maternity shoot on February 14 - Valentine's Day with oohlalaphotography.

We managed to get some cute shots, even though Skye wouldn't sit still for longer than a few seconds and she had to be bribed with a sucker...oh well.

Good thing it was a quick session!

Thanks Karina!

Monday, February 17, 2014

well...only 6 more weeks to go, give or take! Time has been passing very quickly since Christmas and I am frantically trying to get things in order...as well as updating my blog...as one of my friends reminded me that I haven't been posting nearly as many pregnancy updates as I did with Skye :-(
yet another thing to feel guilty about - thanks! ;-)

There are too many things happening all in one time frame - new baby, Skye's birthday, my sister Cora having her baby, etc. So I find myself going from one thought or plan right into a different subject and back again a million times a day, trying to prioritize.

We finally got some old furniture out of the spare room this weekend and moved in the crib and the "new" dresser I painted. I quite like how it turned out - it will add some color to the room (I'm kind of tired of just dark brown furniture...).
I still have some items that I would like to find for the room and then of course finish up a few more projects for it. I have on my list a lot more DIY projects for this room than I did for Skye's room. Which is more crazy since I have less time! I am trying to be more "money conscious" :-) but we will see if the projects actually get completed. My goal is to be on time with them so I won't have to worry about them after the baby is born.

All my checkups have been good so far, which is a blessing. This little boy is super active...just like his big sister!! so I have a feeling they will have much of the same personality and temperament. Is that a good thing?? I can foresee plenty of butting heads as they grow up together. But I think that happens even if they aren't similar?

I am definitely starting to slow down in my movements and am feeling the fatigue a lot more. I feel like I am carrying super low this time and it contributes to the previously mentioned. People will say that it is a boy and that's why it is lower, but it is also probably because it is a second baby and I don't have the same muscle tone. So I don't really buy into all the old wives' tales too much. It's funny how adamant some people are with their predictions ;-) Especially when I was pregnant with Skye and we KNEW it was a girl (Dino & I only) and yet about 98% of people still strongly stated that we were having a boy because of certain old wives' tales.

Photos to follow in a posting soon, as we had a little "family" photo session last Friday on Valentine's day (in keeping with tradition when we did Skye's maternity session 2 years ago on the same day).

Viva Las Vegas

Dino & I took a mini vacation (if you can classify Vegas as a vacation spot??) at the beginning of January. It was our first trip away from our little snoof - and we all survived :-) We were gone from the evening of Jan. 1 to the evening of Jan. 5.

Skye got to spend those lucky days with my cousin Niki and her family (including 2 puppies), here in Calgary. I'm pretty sure she got spoiled and had a lot of fun at "Niki Momma"s house!

Dino & I had a good time too. A nice hot beach somewhere would have been great, but this was a good second place ;-) During the day it was around +18C with sunshine, but in the evenings it was pretty chilly. Still better than Calgary at that time.

We stayed at the new Cosmopolitan and it was beautiful. Very luxurious!

And we had great views from our window. We looked out onto the water at the Bellagio and got to see the fountain show from our balcony. The buffet at the Wicked Spoon was awesome for breakfast!

Gold & Silver Pawn Shop- Pawn Stars TV show

We did quite a bit of walking our first couple days and were paying the price by day 3 - VERY sore feet. But we also rented our own car so we could do some touring off the strip. It was quite easy to drive there as long as we had our GPS. A few of the places we went and saw were sites where they film the TV shows Pawn Stars, Rick's Restorations & Count's Kustoms. We were at each site for 30-45 minutes, as they were all pretty small.

They gave us a mini tour of the shop at Rick's Restorations and we managed to see Rick out in the yard (thru a window) while they were taping the show. I wasn't really supposed to be snapping at that time, but I only read the sign after...oh well. And we were out of luck at the other two stops, but it was still neat to see where the shows take place.

Rick's brother was just bringing in a load of "junk" that he had picked

You can see Rick in the distance...

Count's Kustoms showroom

supposedly Danny was around in the shop somewhere, but he keeps a low profile

We also did a bit of shopping and took advantage of a few left over sales from Boxing Day. It's probably a good thing I'm pregnant or I could have spent a LOT more money on regular clothing.

HUGE tree!!

And we took in two shows - both Cirque de Soleil shows, but each quite different from the other. We saw "O" at the Bellagio and "Zumanity" at NY, NY. While I have to say that "O" was amazing with all the water acrobatics and stunts, I had booked us into the late show that started at 10pm and I was having a REALLY hard time keeping my eyes open!! I was a zombie by the end. I booked the Zumanity show earlier and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone that might be interested in that, um, sort of thing. It's the "sensual" Cirque show - as they classify it. And it was awesome! We laughed thru the entire show! They really involved the crowd (thank gawd it wasn't us - haha) and the host(ess) in drag was very entertaining. And it still had amazing acrobatics and stunts like the other Cirque shows.

We did gamble a bit, and probably lost a little more than we won, but we did okay. Enough to maybe get a few "free" meals.

All in all it was a pretty good trip and a nice break to just get away. And did we ever get BIG hugs from Skye when we got back ;-) Mommy even got a break after that during dayhome pickups! Usually I have to wrestle her to leave at the end of the day, but for a week or two I got a running leap into my arms with a giant hug. It was awesome ;-)

I'm predicting it might be a long time until we get to go on another vacation...

big girl bed update

So it's been almost 2 weeks since we set up Skye's new bed. It was a little bit of a struggle at first. I started with laying with her to go to sleep, which was probably a mistake...but I felt bad just throwing her into a giant bed all by herself. She would sleep part of the night and then wake up crying. One of us would go in and snuggle with her and then end up staying for the rest of the night.

So since we had the long weekend this weekend, I decided we needed to make some changes before it got too bad. So on Saturday I put her down for a nap and was insistent that she fall asleep by herself. It took a little bit of work to try and get her to stay in, but she did! And she had a pretty good nap (for Skye). I think it helped that I told her I would be out in the kitchen when she woke up and that she could come out and see me :-) Plus I found that once I closed the door (I leave it open a crack), I would stand outside and make the "shhhhhh" noise about 10x until she calmed down and it works? Dino thinks I'm a little crazy, but whatever.

So that evening at bedtime she wanted me to lay with her again, but I kept telling her that she slept all by herself for nap, with all of her animals and that I would see her in the morning when she wakes up. I repeated the steps above and she fell asleep after about 20 mins of tossing and turning.

We have since had success and I am crossing my fingers. She seems to be sleeping better during the night as well, with less crying wakeups (maybe 1 per night). But she is easily settled if we go in and readjust her, cover her back up and find her soother. Tonight she made a few noises but was quite after about 2 mins :-) (I hope I am not jinxing myself...).

We still have to go in to get her in the morning, but it is the cutest thing now when she wakes up from her nap. I can see her on the monitor and I know she is awake. But instead of laying there whimpering for me, she now slides out of bed and creaks open her door (it is REALLY noisy) and then patters down the hall, sleepily, with bad bedhead, to come find me in the kitchen. And when I ask if she had a good nap she says "YA" very happily, and jumps into my arms for a big hug. :-)

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

big girl bed!!

Eek! Skye is now in her big girl bed!
We set it up yesterday and it was a rush to get it ready last night in time for bed. But we did it.
And Skye was very excited about it :-)
hopefully she remains excited about it and it helps with her sleeping issues...

Night #1 went pretty good. I laid with her till she fell asleep and then snuck out (after I awoke from my own short nap). She tossed and turned, but that is normal for her. Around 1am she woke up and I went in to give her "sooey" and lay with her, but she didn't even fully wake up which is rare. I don't think she even knew I was in bed with her. I stayed for the rest of the night just so I could see how she slept. She awoke a few other times just whimpering a bit, but stayed sleeping till I woke at 6:10am.
I saw that her "clock" was green (and green means go!). She was squirming a bit so I woke her to show her that her clock was green and it was okay to wake up now :-) I'm not sure if it registered, but we will keep at it.

Tonight she went to sleep just as well, so I think tomorrow we will try it without me laying with her at the start. She seems to curl up in the corner by the wall, facing the wall, and doesn't even realize I am there anyway...which is a good thing! ;-)