2010 Year Review

Since basically the entire year of 2010 I was pregnant we were a bit on the slow side for happenings in our family. That is until August 6th came around and we found ourselves w/ one more family member. Like years past I’ll do a quick little 2010 review.

January
I came out of the baby closet and shared my news with the interwebs that we were expecting little nugget late July.
Kara and Todd got engaged! Yippee!

February
We worked on getting the house ready for a baby. Painting, building and installing. Fun and exciting stuff!

March
Went wedding dress shopping with Kara and she found the perfect dress!
Found out nugget was a GIRL!
April
Finished up our garden in the back.
Celebrated E’s 30th birthday at Stellas.

My grandpa passed away. Miss you Paps. :(

May
Participated in the Des Moines MS Walk.

Family came up to celebrate Wade and his MBA graduation.

We remodeled our shower.
I got pregnant fat face and turned 31! Ahhh!!!
We went to our first Twins game at Target Field.
June
Drove to Indy to celebrate Shannon and Derik’s wedding where I raised the roof.July
Wade broke his wrist racing his motorcycles and had to have surgery to repair it. Todd broke his dancing at a wedding reception (numerous drinks were involved so we'll let it slide... I guess.)

We finally finished the nursery just in time!
Remodeled the rest of our bathroom (halleluiah!)
My due date came and went and no baby!

August
Nugget (aka Charlie) is here after 16+ hours of labor that would not progress and ended in a c-section!!!

The rest of August is a blur. :)

September
Road trips to Des Moines and Galesburg so that Charlie could meet more family and friends.

October
Charlie attended her first ISU game!

Kara had 2 bridal showers that Charlie and I went to.
My maternity leave ended and I went back to work part time.
Charlie’s first Halloween and she dressed as a cute bee.
November
Charlie started daycare.
Kara had her bachelorette party and I had a 2 day hangover.

Wade and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary.

December
We said goodbye to our wonderful neighbors, the Bormann’s, who moved back to Iowa (we miss you guys!)
Charlie learned how to roll over front to back like a champ and is SUPER close to going back to front.
We got 17.1 inches of snow in one day which was the 5th largest on record! We were stranded in!
We celebrated our 1st Christmas as a family of 3 (+ Kobe). (Now if only I had a picture of all of us together...)

All in all not a super eventful year unless you count the birth! But you can’t do much when you’re pregnant! And through the ups and downs of the year we realize we are very blessed. What a life we have!

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011 to you all!

Cheers!

Charlie’s Christmas Gift to Us

Charlie loves her doll from her daycare workers
She seems to be a fan of her new pj's

Well Charlie’s 1st Christmas did not go off as planned which is probably something I should get used to. Instead of having a fun Christmas Eve drinking, eating and opening presents Wade and Todd came down with the flu. Not more than a few hours later it hit my mom and then a couple hours after that I was the lucky recipient followed closely by my dad and then lastly Kara. That’s right. Not a single one of us was lucky enough to avoid it. We think Charlie gave it to us as a Merry Christmas suckas present! :) Luckily Charlie had it first and easiest as she only threw up once and had a couple not so solid diapers, but other than that she was just a little more quiet and solemn than usual. (Also, she can wear diapers and puke where she wants to and not worry about a thing. Adults aren't so lucky in that aspect.)

Wade feeling like shit and still opening his presents

Paps, Charlie & Kobe prior to the flu

Wade trying to act like he doesn't feel like death warmed over

So needless to say Christmas day came and all you would find at the Allen household is a bunch of sickies trying to stay upbeat and not puke. Not exactly the 1st Christmas I had envisioned for Charlie. She got a lot of fun presents from her Paps and Omi and Aunt Kara and Uncle Todd though. She is very excited to get to play with all of them!

After finally feeling like death had passed us we decided to make the trip to Galesburg a day later than planned and headed there Sunday morning. Grandma B, Z-pa and Grandpa Gary were thrilled with the news that we would still be making it. They were bummed when we originally thought we'd be too sick to come. We went straight to Gary’s house where Charlie was bombarded w/ love (aka: cousins and aunts). Let’s just say she was not lacking in the attention department! She was loving the attention and picture taking (she’s a total ham for the cameras). She even got her first saddle. What other 4 ½ month old can say they already have their own saddle!?! Spoiled much? I think so! We spent the rest of the night playing Just Dance 2 (super fun!) on Wii and blackjack (I won!). So it all ended up a great vacation just with a little interlude of sickness thrown in for the fun of it.

A big fan of her new rocking horse!

We are so thankful to have such wonderful family who are so loving and giving to Charlie. We are truly blessed!

Up next, New Year’s Eve. I’m thinking it probably will be the 2nd tamest I’ve ever had. Last year would be the tamest due to me being pregnant and not able to drink. We aren’t really sure what our plans are exactly but at least I can imbibe if I want to this year!

Happy New Year!!!

Reindeer Kisses

Charlie wants to wish you all a Merry Christmas and joyous new year! Happy Holidays!!!

Get down w/ the sickness

Home sick today for the first time in almost 2 years. I guess this is what I should start to expect now having a baby. She gets sick, I get sick, we all get sick. Even Kobe is sick today w/ something. Weird! Unfortunately this happens on the worst day b/c tonight was supposed to be my GNO at Frenchman's. So it totally sucks since those are my few nights I get out for.


To brighten up my day I thought I'd share some adorable pictures of Charlie and some pics from our neighbor night out (that turned to night in due to 17.1 inches of snow!) We are so sad to be losing 1/3 of our neighborhood trio. We totally lucked out when we bought this house w/ the best neighbors you could ever ask for! But the time has come and the Bormann's are moving back to Iowa and so we had scheduled a night for us all to go out for their going away party. Unfortunately the snow hampered our night out and the restaurant actually called us to cancel our reservations b/c it was so bad! We recorded the 5th largest snowfall on record and were pretty much stuck in our house the entire weekend. But at least Charlie got some great quality time in with her Paps and Mimi. All the more time to be spoiled!


Now, onto the pics!

4 months!

Happy 4 month birthday Charlize Ann! You are beautiful!

Turkey Time!

Charlie’s first Thanksgiving was a success. Despite Charlie having her first cold she was a champion traveler! We drove down to Waverly on Thanksgiving morning for Thanksgiving with my parents, Kara, Todd, Aunt Ranee, Uncle Ken, cousins Cody & Kris and Kris’s girlfriend, Morgan. It was Charlie’s first time meeting them all except for Aunt Ranee and she seemed to love them all which was no surprise to me! We ate some delicious food, played some pool, had floor play time w/ Charlie, watched some football (which Charlie loves!), drank some wine (Kara drank a little too much wine, as did I, oops) and enjoyed the family.

Football fan!

Friday morning after a tasty breakfast we headed south to Galesburg to meet up with Wade’s family. We got there just in time for another delicious meal courtesy of my MIL, Becky. It’s no lie that these holidays are going to be the death of my weight loss goal (I gained 2 of the stubborn 4 pounds I’d lost back, gah!). Charlie got to meet two of her uncles, Adam and Aaron for the first time and was finally held by her grandpa Gary. I guess he deemed her big enough to hold finally and wasn’t afraid of breaking her. :)

I felt like doing this after all that turkey too.

Her grandma Becky bought her an inflatable ducky tub and we had fun bathing her in it. She really enjoys bath time for the most part and I can’t wait until she can sit up by herself and play in the water which won’t be long as she’s getting to be a pro at this sitting up assisted thing. I think she’s going to be a water lover! (Beware below: Baby nudity w/ gratuitous big baby belly included!) :)

All in all it was a ton of fun getting to see everyone and enjoying our first Thanksgiving as a family of 3! Oh and don't worry. Kobe came too and got plenty of leftovers and loving as well! And yes, he's still stealing her Boppy.

Now we're really looking forward to Christmas! Can we say spoiled? B/c Charlie is definitely going to be one mega spoiled little girl come Christmastime.

Some fun updates on Charlie:

* She is the drool queen which means she will be found w/ a bib around her neck 99% of the time. So much for her cute outfits!

* She's starting to grasp her own bottle and hold it although if it falls out she can't get it back in so we still have to help.

* She's mastered grabbing her toys!

* She loves to be stood up and put weight on her feet. We may have an early walker, who knows!

* She still hasn't rolled over but she's gotten very close and she is much better at tummy time and will tolerate it for more than 15 seconds now!

* She squirms and moves around so much in her sleep that she has done a complete 360 rotation in her crib. It's hilarious to see what position she ends up in when I go in to get her in the morning.

* She is sleeping through the night about 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time she wakes up once to eat and then we can usually get her right back down. Usually. :)

* She's a talker!

* We've finally gotten more giggles out of her and they are the cutest sounds my ears have ever heard! :)

* She loves it when her daddy swings her from side to side in his arms.

* She also loves foot rubs. What a pampered baby girl!

* She's getting good at sitting up w/ a little assistance from a propped pillow or her Boppy.

Coming up next week: Charlie’s 4 month birthday (I can’t believe she is 4 months old already!) and her 4 month check up appointment (yikes, more shots!) as well as her first night with a babysitter! Yes, I’m already nervous about it. No need to tell me I'm paranoid. So we’ll have some fun updates for you then!