8 years ago today...

chuck and i got married and drove off in the back of a white cadillac together!
as it looks right now, this baby will not be sharing her birthday with our anniversary date. she is officially tardy!

cole st fair

here our some quick photos of fun at the cole st fair with the ricci's. our last weekend as a family of three!


click here for the full set.



click here for the full set.

jumpy castle

we hit sladie's b-day party, had pizza with the ricci/godbold's, and enjoyed the cole street fair this weekend... we just got a new camera so chuck has been snap happy all weekend. it is going to take a moment to go through the pictures but in the meantime, here is a cute one of dottie in the jumpy castle at lemos farms celebrating her friend sladie's 3rd birthday.

check out the full set of photos from sladie's b'day here

(2 days and counting til the due date and still no baby!)

ladybug girl

dottie had been very into the book ladybug girl since her grandma gave it to her in may so i couldn't resist purchasing this little outfit at old navy yesterday.

she loved checking out her shadow today on the way to the coffee shop and even wore it to the doctor's office with me. she got loads of comments everywhere she went.
(fyi...it's not her halloween costume!)

the final countdown

well, we officially have 7 days to go until our due date. last week it was looking like my amniotic fluid was getting too low so i was sent to labor and delivery to get checked out. they sent me home and said to assume that i might not make it to my due date. low and behold, yesterday i went for my bi-weekly non stress test and everything is looking great again! no signs of going into labor anytime soon so now i am assuming that this baby is gonna be late. time will tell i guess. in the meantime, we are checking things off of our to do list!

the potty

i feel like i can safely say that dottie is just about 95% potty trained which we are quite excited about!!!!!! we had been kind of putting it off for the past couple of months and then one day she woke up in her diapers, said she wanted to go on the toilet, then decided she wanted to wear underwear for the day (specifically her ice cream undies of course), and that was that. it has been a work in progress over the last 3 weeks or so and she still has the occasional accident here and there (like a recent incident at the zoo on sunday) but i feel like she understands the whole process. she gets into trouble when she is playing with friends and doesn't want to leave the fun. we have been putting pull ups on her for naps and night time sleep but again, she wakes up about 95% of the time and declares that her pull ups are dry when we enter her room to say good morning.

the one thing that we have gotten very used to is the sudden urgency of having to use the potty. you can ask her over and over again if she has to go and she responds, "no, i do not have to go to the potty mommy" and then 2 seconds later she is running to the bathroom. this makes for and interesting moment when we are out an about with no public restroom around. all i can say is thank goodness for the potette!! as they say on the packaging, it a "potty on the go". when in dire situations, we find a private spot pull out the potette. surely she will hate us for this picture later in life... it's from a recent visit to golden gate park.

burritos!

one of dottie's favorite foods as of late is a bean, cheese, rice, and avocado "buweeto". for some reason or another, even the "baby burritos" (as they are listed on the menu), are always huge...

38 1/2 weeks

several people have asked to see pictures of the belly...
OY!

santa cruz

on a perfectly perfect sunny friday afternoon with kim and frannie.
fun in the sand on the beach, rides galore, french fries, ice cream, face painting, ... what more could two little girls ask for?

to see more pictures of our day, click HERE.

still pregnant but fully cooked

as of today, this baby is full term at 37 weeks. the pregnancy has flown by! honestly, i don't think it has hit us yet that any day now, we will have an addition to the family. we are still having much debate over the names we are trying to decide between. this past weekend, we pulled out the newborn clothing (it is so teeny tiny!) and i am in the process of washing everything. for now, dottie will be staying in her room in her crib and the baby will be sleeping in a bassinet in a part of our room that is in my walk in closet. when dottie makes the transition to her "big gril bed" (as she likes to call it---not a typo) in the next couple of months, we will be moving her upstairs to her new room and the baby will be moving into the crib in what is now dottie's room which is just off of our room. other than the clothes and a big box of newborn diapers that i just purchased, we need to dust off the baby carseat, i need to pack my bag for the hospital and we will hopefully be set to go! i am so interested in seeing just how big this baby is going to be. i was induced at 9 days past my due date with dottie and her size was a shocker at 9 lbs 1 oz. the doctors told us before she was born that they thought she would be a little under 8 pounds. how wrong they were! i unfortunately ended up with a c-section so we are really crossing our fingers that this birth will go a little more smoothly. we will see!

a reminder of what dottie looked like at 3 days old...

family!

this past weekend, dottie was surrounded by lots of love! her grandma cam, grandpa bill, aunt stephanie, uncle paul, and best of all, her cousin eli came for a visit in celebration of chuck's dad's birthday!!! we had a blast and were on the go for most of the weekend. we checked out the ferry building, tilden park, rockridge, china town, north beach, of course walked around bernal heights, hung out at several playgrounds, did a little bit of shopping, had a birthday celebration night out at chez spencer without the kiddies (thank you allie), ate lots of good food,...... we haven't seen eli since this past christmas and he has changed a ton. he is now 18 months old it was amazing to see him walking around and interacting with everyone (especially milo!) so much. dottie had so much fun with him and so did we!

to see more pictures from the weekend, click HERE.

bay area discovery museum

with dottie's buddies sam and tai last week...