Happy Day!

 

What great news we have from the Witte household!! We have a new little one joining the family sometime in March 2015.  We find out next Friday our due date and exactly how far along I actually am.  The nurse says 8-10 weeks based on my lab results (that look awesome so far!) but I say 7. We'll see who's right next Friday.  :)

 

We are super excited and having fun already planning ahead.  I feel different than I did with Emma.  I actually have some bouts of nausea throughout the day, which I never had with Emma.  That's been weird to get used to.  But I welcome the blech-ies.  That lets me know that everything is growing as it should!  We feel so lucky.

 

I had a feeling we might be expecting so I went to the dollar store and bought three tests, thinking that I would need about 3 for the next few months to "check".  I took one, saw it was positive, and thought, "Crappy dollar store test."  So I took the one good test I had left from before and it was positive and I was shocked.  We were blessed in our first month, without even "trying".  How awesome!  Zack happened to be home the morning I found out and I put Emma in a "Big Sister" shirt, Zack looked at it and asked, "Really?!"  Yup. Really.  Shocked the pants off of us!  How AWESOME!

 

Our best guess is March sometime so we can't wait for next Friday to see the little one for the first time and to figure out how far along I really am/due date/etc.  I'm so sad to no longer have my old doctor in Fort Wayne, but am hopeful that the new one I'll meet is good as well. 

 

Say a prayer for new baby Witte- that he or she can grow happy, healthy and strong just like her big sister.

 

Oh, happy day!

MawMaw Came To Visit!

Post wake up from her nap I handed her off to MawMaw... she wasn't too happy.  She was just wanting her mama and I was happy to oblige.  Smiles were soon to follow.

Well... smiles-kind of.

 

MawMaw came today for a visit with us.  Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! We are so incredibly, massively blessed.  We also had a quick talk with Mamaw Paula today, too. What a lucky family we are!!

Bookworm

   

 

We have had a wonderful few days at home.  The weather has been cool, calm, and comfortable which has made our morning walks much more enjoyable!  Emma has been getting more and more courageous when climbing on the playground equipment and much steadier on standing.  Any day now I'm waiting for her to take that first step! 

Emma has really been enjoying her reading lately.  We've had to bring quite a few books out of the bedroom and into the living room so that she can read throughout the day, too.  We still do our 4 or 5 books at nap/bedtime, but it's nice to see that she wants to read other times as well.  Smart girl!

She had quite a bit of fun with our Kleenex box the other day.  I could basically hear her cheering "Wheeeeeeee!"

Typhoon Tessie

"Mama, seriously?  I haven't even gotten on the plane yet and you're already mamarazzi-ing me."

Our first dinner at McGuire's

Emma touching one of many taxidermied critters on the wall in McGuire's.  This one was a moose.  You can also see all of the dollars on the ceiling. The color in the photo is true- this room (the Notre Dame room) has really red lighting.

This was our first attempt at the beach.  You can see the stormy weather behind us.

First time with toes in the sand

First waves

 

We were given a huge treat this week!  MawMaw and Pop gave Emma and I (unfortunately Zack had to work) a trip along with them to Pensacola.  What a gift!  We had a wonderful time.  Emma was amazing on her first flights.  She enjoyed being the welcoming committee- waving at everyone on the plane while boarding and once they were sat.  She munched on snacks and drank from her cup, which I am assuming helped with the ear-popping.  She did fantastic!

We were able to relax, eat at McGuire's everyday, swam at the pool, and even got to go to the beach for a quick visit.   She loved the pool, which was warm and fun to play in with her new floating palace (a super cool collapsible, inflatable floatie that she can be submerged safely to her armpits in and it has an adjustable cover to keep her out of the hot sun.  Awesome buy, MawMaw!).  She also liked going out to eat.  There was lots to see and taste and listen to at McGuire's.  The ocean was a treat for me, as I really wanted her to be able to experience it.  Unfortunately, the only day we could go was on Wednesday and there were big storms in the afternoon.  We went to the beach anyways and when we got there the lifeguards were of course herding everyone off of the beach due to the lightning.  Pop drove us around for a while and was able to get us back to the beach in between storms so that we could run down and get Emma's toes in the waves.  She didn't like the ocean as much as the pool (cold and unpredictable is my guess), but I was tickled to at least get to go for a little while.  Pop knew I really wanted to go and he made it happen!

Our last night there we were actually eating at the hotel (gearing up for our 4:45am wakeup to fly the next morning) and Emma decided to have a grand time with her dinner.  There was food EVERYWHERE!  On her, on her highchair, on the floor.  Everywhere.  I was occupied with making sure she got a full belly, as everything can be cleaned.  Pop was mortified at the mess and dubbed Emma little "Typhoon Tessie".  Such is the trial of a mama and her baby.  They're messy.  And unpredictable.  Typhoon Tessie, indeed.

Thank you, MawMaw and Pop, for gifting us with two fantastic days in Pensacola!

Emma still isn't walking, but is saying Mama and Dada and is working on "book".  She is a rockstar at standing and stands without hands and balances well and even dances and does baby jumps in place.  That's right- she'll dance and hop but won't walk.  She claps, loves putting items into containers and pulling them out, and lovessssssssss reading.  We go through 15 or so books a day, depending on the length of the books.

Stair Climber Extraordinaire

 

We had a whirlwind week.  MawMaw came to visit for a few days at the beginning of the week (which feels like a month ago).  It was lovely to have her here but I swear the time simply fell through our fingers.  It went too fast!  Emma and I drove back home with MawMaw for a two day trip so that we could buy Grandpa's old van from Grandma.  It's nice to have car.  It was a doozie not being able to go anywhere! I wish that my old car would have worked out for us longer, but such is the recipe of life.  Tough times make you tougher, right?  Our sacrifices now will only help to make us more thankful for our blessings later on. 

 

Speaking of blessings, Emma Kate also learned to climb the stairs when we were home this week in Indiana.  She has been climbing up the playground equipment when we go for our walks, but as we don't have stairs at our house I figured she wasn't quite ready for the task.  I was wrong! :)  My little stair climber loved going upstairs whenever she could.  What a strong, smart girl!  

Clap Your Hands!

Looking  up for more bubbles.

Her new friend kept trying to pluck her headband off.

Emma was waving hello!

 



You can't tell, but Emma is standing on her own now for extended periods of time.  We were able to get her to take one step on her own.  She is getting there!  It's so much fun watching her grow.  We've had a busy week.  MawMaw came on Sunday and we also had a picnic to go to on Sunday as well.  We've ran errands (catching up since I don't have a car) and gone out to eat.  It's filled up all of our time!  I sold my car on Saturday.  Whew... Filling out the paperwork was a lot more complicated than I thought that it would be.  It's not as simple as it is in Indiana, but we got it all done. 

 

We went to Chuy's last night to celebrate Zack's last night as an intern.  He's 1/6th of the way through!  Whoo hoooooooo!

 

Emma also learned last night to clap her hands.  She figured it out on her own (no surprise here- she learned it as we were trying to rock her to sleep).  It is adorable to see how happy she is when achieving something new.  I am so proud of my little girl.