It's a New Car!

So our poor Toyota is dying. It's a 2002 Toyota Camry with about 130,000 miles on it and it needs a new transmission and intake manifold. We just put a new carburetor in it and new tires. It's sort of a money pit. 

I was driving along a main road and the car stopped in the middle of the street. The engine was on and vroom vroom but no go. It was like the car was in 

neutral. I had Mary with me and I finally got the car to a side road. I called AAA and Enterprise rent a car, and then went home. 

We're still discussing whether we should buy a new or used car and what kind of deals are out there right now. Rich wanted to fix the Camry and drive that, but I'm thinking it's a money pit. And it'll always be in the shop. I wanted a more reliable car.

So if we get a more reliable car then rich says he likes minivans. I wanted an SUV. But I did see this new minivan from VW. I like VW. I might go for this one. Or an SUV from like Hyundai or something.

So it'll be my job to test drive cars and narrow them down and then Rich has drive it to make sure he fits. When we figure it out we'll let you know. Good luck I say!

Bedtime!

Ok so we changed the bed thing again in Mary's room. We put the side back on her bed and turned it back into a crib. You can't really see it in this picture but the mattress is actually still on the floor. We didn't put the springs back in and took out the bumper so it'd be harder to climb out.

Then we started a different kind of sleep training. One for Mary now that we know what she wants from us in the middle of the night. We put her down at bed time and let her scream. At first if she woke up in the middle of the night we'd sit with her til she fell asleep again. Then that stopped working so she would keep herself awake so we wouldn't leave. Smarty pants.

So then now we let her scream for a few minutes every time she wakes up and if it's longer than 5 min we check on her. Pick her up and check her diaper and say "we love you" then put her back down. Then she screams till she falls asleep and we don't go back in there.

Last night it worked and she woke up at 930, 10:30, 3:30, and 6:30. She went down at 8pm. And she put herself back to sleep every time but at 10:30 where she cried for a little bit and it turns out she had a poopy. So Rich changed her and then she went back to sleep. Other than that we didn't have to go in there all night! How about that. Her voice is a little horse right now from screaming, but she really only screamed for like 2 min at a time.

I hope this means that she'll begin sleeping through the night. Because with the new little one on the way. I'm not rocking 2 kids to sleep, that's for sure.

From Christmas Time

We celebrated Christmas eve at my mom's house and we had Christmas at Rich's parent's house. Mary had a good time and unwrapped some presents. But by present 5 she was pretty overwhelmed and tired. At this point she still wasn't sleeping through the night (more on that later) and she hadn't slept well Christmas eve. But as you can see, she was a little excited about the new toys.

She got an Elmo Live! and a ball popper. Those were her two favorite toys. We got some Pooh movies and lots of clothes for when she gets a little older. We had a great time and we'll hope to be seeing the family again later in the year.

Eating Spagetti!

A week ago I wanted pizza. So we went to Oggi's pizza. It's a pretty good place and they serve ittalian food too. Mary loves spagetti so we had pizza and we ordered Mary a kid's meal of spagetti and sauce, on the side, with one meatball. She ate all her meatball and a lot of spagetti.

Then she ate all the chicken off of the BBQ

chicken pizza and then some ice cream from our dessert. She likes ice cream too. But who doesn't.

Toddler Bed!

Here's how we have the bed situation in Mary's room. Now she's been having sleeping problems forever

. (As most everyone knows.) And she still doesn't sleep through the night. We've done everything, but this might work. We switched her to the toddler bed that the crib can turn into. But, it's a little high for her to get in and out of so we put the mattress on the ground. We're going to take out the springs so the mattress can actually go into the bed frame.

Then when she cries in the middle of the night I go in and lay down on the floor next to her bed and she goes to sleep. It's actually amazing because she gives me a hug and then lays down in bed on her own and lays quietly until she falls asleep. So I'm hoping that I can lay further and further from the bed until she doesn't need me in the room anymore. I think it's working.

And soon we'll have another one so we are going to need to buy Mary a bed. We have a few months before we have to make the switch but we still have to decide between a bunk bed and a little toddler bed. And we're definitely going to IKEA though. :)

Sonogram

Last Thursday we went for a sonogram to confirm the pregnancy. It went well and we could hear the babies heartbeat. That was pretty exciting. I'm not very far along but so far so good.

I asked Mary if she wanted a baby brother or sister and she said, "Nooo." We'll give her some time to warm up to the idea. 

I haven't been feeling 100%. But so far I haven't been as sick as I was with Mary. And I haven't been as tired either. I think this pregnancy will be a lot better than the last one. Now we just have to figure out how to fit two kids in Mary's tiny bedroom.

Time for another one!

So we're expecting another little one on August 29th, 2009. I guess we'll have to change the website to say Our Kids or something instead of Mary Pie. We don't know if it's a boy or girl yet but we'll keep you all posted. We just had our first sonogram and we heard the heartbeat! So that's a good sign. The kids will be a little over 2 years apart, which is pretty good. It wasn't very long ago when we welcomed Mary home. It'll be good to have another one. But being an only child myself, I'm not sure how to make it so Mary always feels included, even when I have to spend time with the baby. I'll post pictures too as soon as I'm showing.