Teething Already

Arianna has been drooling like crazy since she was 3 months old. She has been wanting to chew on everything! Well, last Sunday I had my finger in her mouth letting her suck on it (yes, it was clean) and I felt something sharp. I took a good look in her mouth (which was very hard to do because everytime I opened her mouth she would stick her tongue out and cover up her gums) and saw not one but two teeth on the bottom. What the heck! She is only 4 months old and already has two teeth. And, she is not done! She is still drooling and Steve and I think she has two on the top coming in soon. !
Look at her beautiful smile

Thanksgiving 2009

For thanksgiving this year, we decided to meet up in Harrisburg, PA and spend the holidays with the Vancena's. Steve was going to join us from Syracuse, NY and I was driving up with the children from Knoxville. It was great to be with Steve again for a few days and we even got Jeanie back with us for a few hours on Thanksgiving day. Thanks to Denise's great cooking, Thanksgiving dinner was AWESOME! There were tons of food and I believe everyone got their fill plus some. It has been a long time since I haven't had to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I loved just spending the day with friends and relaxing with my family.

While the family was back together again I decided that we needed to get a family picture. But when I called Portrait Innovations to schedule an appointment they were all booked up for the week. I was so upset that we would not get a family picture made. But, Juli Newill, who is an excellent school photographer, came by to visit and graciously offered to take our picture for us. They turned out really good! Thanks Juli!

Although we enjoyed ourselves a lot (thanks to Denise!), I decided to never, ever travel with the baby alone in the car again. She hates the car seat! I thought that maybe she would get used to it and not cry so much. When we first started out on the road she cried for almost 2 hours. I got so desperate that I called her doctor to see if there was something I could give her to help her sleep through the trip. The nurse told me that she was too young and that I would have to just let her cry. Well, as you can imagine, my trip to Harrisburg, that is only supposed to take 8 hours, took me 12 hours. By the time we got to Denise's house, all of us was pretty miserable. I had to stop for an hour every 2 hours to give the baby a break, and she still cried! Never Again!

Halloween 2009

Halloween was a little miserable this with the cold and the rain. It was good weather for the trunk-or-treat at our church but Halloween night was very wet and cold for the kids. Christian picked a really evil costume, Demon of War. It kind of looked like last year's costume except for the horns. I found a cute little bumblebee costume at BabiesRUs for Arianna. She was sooo cute. Her big cheeks matched her poofy bumblebee costume. She was adorable. We didn't do much this year for halloween. I just didn't have time with Steve getting ready to leave and me going back to work to do much. I think Christian was able to carve a pumpkin with his friend Hayden. He is the sleek stack from the movie "Lost". I can't believe it is all over and now it is time to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Blessing Day

Well, I think it is about time that I post a blog about Arianna's blessing day. We decided to have her blessing on the first sunday of September, which was September 6th. A lot of my family came down for the special occasion. My mom and my Aunt Judy (AJ to her great nieces and nephews) had gone shopping and found the most beautiful blessing gown outfit along with a hat and bloomers that had her initial on it. They all showed up on Saturday and was able to stay until monday. Steve worked really hard on his blessing and did an awesome job. Arianna looked so beautiful in her blessing outfit and was the star of the day. We, of course, took lots of pictures. I still can't believe I finally have my little girl to dress up and show off to people.

Science Project

Christian had a science project to do for school and we really got into it. He was supposed to make an animal or plant cell. He decided that he wanted to make it edible so we chose to make it out of sugar cookie, jello, candy and frosting. He really got into and wanted to do a lot of it on his own. We made the sugar cookie together, cut out the different pieces we needed and then got to work decorating the thing. He was so very proud of the finished product and although we haven't gotten the grade back yet, he thinks he got an "A". Here are some pictures of our finished plant cell project.

Arianna's First Bath

It was time to give Arianna her first bath. She was getting kind of crusty and smelled like formula and pee. I was kind of afraid to do it though. I haven't bathed an infant since Christian so I was a little apprehensive about it all. But, Denise and Julie were there to help and Christian wanted to help also. So, there was the four of us in the bathroom getting ready for the bath. Of course, she cried almost the whole entire time! And needless to say, the bath took a little longer with the amateur mom trying to be careful and thorough. From the pictures, though, it looks like she calmed down a little bit when Christian was bathing her. I think she already loves her big brother!

Welcome Arianna!

I guess it is about time for me to post some pictures of my new little girl on my blog. I can't believe how time flies. She is 3 weeks old today but it just seemed like yesterday that we got to hold her for the first time. I still think back to the day and it seems like a dream. Sometimes I feel like I am going to wake up and find out that everything has been all a dream and none of it happened. I will say this, if it is a dream I hope to never wake up!

Well, back to August 12. We got up that morning and got ready to go to the doctor's office. I had an appointment for the amniocentesis at 9:45 am. If the lung came back mature, than I was to go to the hospital right afterwards for my scheduled c-section. Steve's mom had come into town to stay with Christian and help out (although that didn't work out very well considering Christian and her did not get along at all and bickered the whole time!). After the results from the amnio came back and we were good to go, Steve and I was escorted over to the Labor and Delivery. Steve went downstairs to register me in while I got settled into my room and got prepped for surgery. Steve came back to the room and realized that he forgot the camera in the car so he had to go back to the car and almost missed the whole thing. I was already in the OR and had my spinal block and was good to go when he finally walked in. Everything went really well and Arianna was out at 1:21pm. She had a big set of lungs on her because she cried so loud I bet everyone outside the hospital could have heard her. But, for Steve and I it was music to our ears. We loved it that she cried because it let us know that she was well and alive. Steve got to hold her first since I was still kind of out of it and they were still stitching me up. Afterwards, we went back to the room and Christian got to see his baby sister for the first time. He wanted to be the third person to hold her and he was. He was so happy and proud to finally have a baby in our family.

The nursery came and took her around 3:30pm to give her a good check up. That's when we found out that her blood sugar was really low and they had to start feeding her every couple of hours to keep her sugar up. It took almost 2 days to stabilize her enough to stop checking her levels. The poor thing had so many needle pricks in her heel from where they kept having to poke her. She was also a little jaundice so we had to take her on friday to the Children's hospital to get her bilirubin checked, another heel prick. The bilirubin wasn't too high so they didn't have to do anything further.

She has been a total angel of a baby. The first couple of weeks she slept a lot, even sleeping 8 hours between feedings on one night. Now that she is 3 weeks old, she is awake a little bit more and getting a little fussier. I kind of find myself wondering to myself "Now what do I do with her?". But, overall I can't complain. I got what I always wanted, a baby girl and she is extremely easy to take care, so unlike Christian. My dreams did come true! LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!

DOLLYWOOD

Christian finally got to go to Dollywood this summer. Believe it or not, we have been here over a year and have not gone. Although it is further away from us (about a 45 minute drive) than Hersheypark, we thought this would be a nice replacement for Hersheypark. NOT!! I talked to Christian on the phone while they were there and he matter of factly told me that this was not Hersheypark and that Hersheypark is soooo much better. I was a bit surprised though when Steve told me he could not get Christian to ride the roller coasters. He finally got him on Thunderhead one time and that was it! No more rollercoasters for the rest of the time. Here is the picture of the one roller coaster ride that they rode on. Christian really did look terrified so maybe that was why he would not get on another one!

How Will Arianna Come Out?

Well, one morning when I got off work I came home and laid down with Christian in his bed. He had to get up for Scout Camp this week and was just waking up. This was a nice time to cuddle with him. Those cuddle times are very few and far between now that he is older. Anyways, we had the following conversation and I thought it was quite funny. It is a bit graphic for those of you who are squeamish about childbirth. Now, I need to mention that over a year ago (we were still living in Harrisburg, PA) Christian asked me how babies came out and I told him that the come out through the stomach or between the legs. He then asked me how he came out and I told him between the legs. He was not too happy about this. Now here is the recent conversation about the baby:

Christian: "Mom, how is the baby going to come out?"
Me: "I think that the baby will come out through the stomach."
Christian: "Ahh, man, she's lucky! I had to come out through the butt."
Me: "Yeah, and that was very difficult for me so that's why I think Arianna will come out through the stomach."
Christian: (pausing for a moment) "Well, I hope you cleaned yourself really good before I came out through your butt!!!"

THE END

Christian Being Tortured by Parents

Okay, I just had to post this. It was too funny not to tell everyone (well, Steve and I thought it was funny but I think Christian would have a different opinion). For those of you don't know, I am diabetic and have been for a very long time. I have been quite concern about Christian becoming diabetic so I wanted to test his fasting blood sugar. One morning this week, I found the right opportunity to try testing and he went balistic. He absolutely refused and ran up to his room and hid in his closet. Steve and I discussed the matter and decided that it was important to us that we know what his fasting blood sugar level was so up to his room we went. Steve had to hold him down, grab his arm and point it towards me so that I can prick his finger and get a very small blood sample, which was very difficult to do with a wriggly, moving finger. Christian, by this time, was so upset that he was crying and screaming. You would have thought we were torturing the poor boy. And it isn't like he hasn't had needles stuck in his skin before. He just had a doctor's appointment where they got a whole tube of blood from him without a problem and a few years ago the doctor did allergy testing on him and stuck his arm like 50 times. Afterwards, he was so traumatized by what we had done to him that he decided to draw a picture. Later, he showed us the picture and Steve and I had ourselves a good laugh. This is the picture he drew of us and the episode. I have to say, he did make us look very evil!!!

Easter 2009

Easter was great this year. Aline and Dwight decided to join us for the weekend. They were actually here to pick up Christian's bunk bed and it happened to fall on a holiday weekend. It was so nice to have them here to enjoy Easter with. I don't think Christian would have had half as much fun if he was by himself. How boring it would have been to have just one child coloring easter eggs and doing the egg hunt! Thanks, Aline, for coming and bringing your kids. I enjoyed hanging out with you Prouses!

EGG HUNT

Early Easter morning I woke up early to find that the Easter Bunny had visited and left a bunch of eggs filled with candy in our front hard. The kids were sooo excited to see all the colorful eggs laying everywhere in our yard. They each got a basket and went hunting and came back with their baskets full.

COLORING EASTER EGGS

Saturday night, we decided to do some egg coloring. The kids had tons of fun coloring and decorating their eggs. Bella decided to use a little paint and got a little messy but she had a blast. Aline looked like she was having just as much fun as the kiddies.