halloween: a monkey and a princess

halloween 2008 - drew was a great sport putting on his monkey costume (at 6 months old, you really don't know enough to be embarrassed, even when walking around with a squashed banana on your head!). celia could not wait to be a beautiful princess. this was the first year she was actually excited about putting on a costume. we trick or treated with all of her cousins in aunt jacki's neighborhood.

celia turns 3!

can't believe my baby girl is 3!  we had a typical little family party at our house with all of our cousins (which actually adds up to be quite a houseful!) celia was super excited of course, as the girl loves a party! she couldn't make up her mind what kind of a cake she wanted me to make this year, so we ended up with a butterfly. it turned out pretty cute :)

at the end of the night, as I was saying goodbye to everyone, Celia had snuck onto the kitchen island and, unbeknownst to me, began finishing off her birthday cake and stamping up her arms until she looked like a little tattooed woman.  so funny!

paci fairy

Celia turns 3 in a month - high time to get rid of the paci! We decided to write a letter to the 'paci fairy' and put all of her paci's in the mailbox for her to come and get for the new little babies who need them. Even though she is extremely fond of her paci's, Celia did surprisingly well. Had a great time gathering up all of her paci's from their hiding spots,

writing her letter,

and taking to the mailbox.  I was so proud of her! She only had one sad moment when she had to go back out to the mailbox and "see her paci's one more time" - then she leapt into daddy's arms and sobbed (drama!!).  I had a special slumber party with her that first night since I knew that's when she'd be missing her paci the most.

In the morning, she was so excited to run out to the mailbox and see what the fairy had left her (in this case, it was a spongebob balloon, make up kit and a stuffed dog she named 'jackpot').  There were a couple of rough patches after that, but all in all, not as bad as we had thought it would be. Goodbye, paci's!!!!

growing up so fast....

the next months flew. celia changed every day - you were hitting all your milestones and amazing us along the way. teeth, scooting, rolling over

, sitting up on your own, sleeping through the night (FINALLY at 6 months!),

eating cereal, baby food and your first steps at 11 months. You became a more easy going girl (or maybe we just relaxed a bit as parents) and we got into a routine. By the time you were a year old, you were walking around,

saying your first words (dada, kitty, uh-oh, no-no, mama), loved clapping and dancing to the wiggles and your favorite game was playing ring around the rosy (in which you would direct everyone in the room to join and throw a fit until they did!). Did we really have a life before you came into ours?? Couldn't even imagine.....

life with baby

wow - what have we gotten ourselves into??? that's what we were thinking for oh, about the first 3 months of our lives after bringing home little miss from the hospital. celia was a very very spirited infant - I had heard many people talk about how much the baby sleeps for the first few weeks, having to wake them up to eat and such. Not ours! She was awake and ready to go from the beginning!! What did I ever do with all the spare time I had before having a baby?? She also liked to test out those lungs, spending what felt like hours on end crying. Gradually we learned little tricks to calm her (vacuum cleaner, standing in front of the stove fan at 3am in the morning, running water) and got in our own groove, growing more confident in ourselves as parents.

We were lucky to have so much support around from my mom and Joe's mom, plus our siblings who were all more than willing to come over and take turns holding the baby when our arms (or eyes) needed the rest, as we weren't allowed to put you down very often!!

Even with the lack of sleep and frustrations of not being able to calm your needs, we were head over heels, smitten in love with you. You were a gorgeous little baby, and those little baby smiles made us forget that we had only gotten 8 hours of sleep combined over a course of 3 days. It was so worth it.

welcome celia shae!

I went into labor early on Wednesday - or so I thought. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I awoke to some light cramping that somehow felt different than the times before and told Joe that he better call in to work that day; I had a feeling this was it!! After contracting all day, taking numerous walks and putting in lots of impatient, nervous calls to the doctor, they finally OK’d me to come to the hospital around 7pm that evening when my contractions were consistently every 6-7 minutes. Grandma and Papoo were waiting for us there, and Grandma Sandy arrived shortly after. Since I was only 3cm dilated, they could not give me an epidural right away. I thought I could handle it; they made me and Dad walk the halls, and the pain became worse and worse. I would cry with each wave (I don’t know how women do it without drugs!) Finally around 1am I got my epi, and was able to rest peacefully. Dr. Adams arrived around 6am to break my water, and started me on a pitocin drip since I was not dilating as quickly as I should be. I was ready to push by 9:30am, and at 10:15am our sweet baby girl was here (with a full head of the most beautiful auburn hair!!) We were instantly in love.

babymoon!

joe and I decided to take one last guilt-free vacation before baby girl gets here in October - so we treated ourselves to six nights in Maui!! It was WONDERFUL. would have been better had I been able to enjoy some mai tai's, but well worth the sacrifice. We explored the island (did all the touristy things including trekking up Haleakala at 3am in the morning to catch the sunrise, touring the road to Hana in our Jeep wrangler, and did some snorkeling and deep sea fishing). And we ate and ate and ate. we couldn't get over how beautiful the island was, and already dream about returning someday.