Welcome baby!

Ethan John Inzana

October 21, 2011 at 11:46 am

8lbs, 5oz, 19 ½ inches.

Ethan was not due to make his big appearance to until the 26th, but at my 39 week visit to the doctor’s office, she recommended getting induced the next morning since in her words, “I don’t want you to go into labor and not make it to the hospital.” (in my words: “eek!”) AJ and I got to the hospital at the ungodly hour of 5:00am on Friday. Up until the contractions started I wasn’t worried about giving birth again, but Annaleigh’s birth (2 hours of pushing and an epidural that didn’t work) suddenly was very vivid in my memory! Luckily this time everything was wonderful – the epidural was awesome and Ethan was born very quickly. Of course we are head over heels for our little guy. His big sister calls him “braba” (brother) and hates when he cries. She is very interested in everything that we do with him, and each time she wakes up she immediately asks “Baby? Braba?” Let’s hope she stays interested and doesn’t get too jealous!

It’s the great Pumpkin (Farm)!

Once again we went to the Silo Christmas Tree Farm for their fall pumpkin patch. Even after 6 years in Texas it is still weird to go do fall activities in short sleeves!

While we were there Annaleigh painted a pumpkin to take home, fed the goats, llama, and sheep and went on the hay ride. We had a great time!

First Day of Preschool!

Annaleigh had her first day at St. Richard’s Episcopal Preschool today. She is in the “puppies” 18 month to 2 years class, but is the only kid until after Christmas when the rest of her classmates finally turn 18 months! In the meantime she is with the 2 year old class, so most of her ‘classmates’ are a little older than she is. We have been talking a lot about preschool to get her excited for this very new experience (she has never been with someone other than one of my family members for an extended amount of time). We recently made a trip to Barnes and Noble and picked out a new book for the occasion, Maisy Goes to Preschool, and read it every night. Now whenever we mention preschool Annaleigh says “Saisy!”, her version of “Maisy”.

Since I had to work AJ is in charge of preschool drop off and pick up. I was a bit concerned about this since he is so softhearted- I thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to leave if she got too upset, but he said that she was very excited to play with all of the toys and start on the morning activity when she got there.

It is hard to believe our little girl is so big!

Port Aransas

I never imagined that going on vacation could be so stressful! About a week before we were supposed to leave my car broke down and required way more work than I even want to get into here (or know how to explain). AJ finally got finished fixing it on Sunday just a few hours before we wanted to leave, so we packed up and headed out. Everything seemed fine until we pulled into a Wendy’s for dinner and the car died the moment we got into the parking lot. AJ looked at it and tried to get it started again abut after a few hours we realized that it wasn’t going to happen. We ended up calling a tow truck to tow the car up to Round Rock and had my brother go get our other car to meet us on the way there. Unfortunately the tow truck was a three seater and we had Annaleigh in the car seat so lucky AJ got to have me sit in his lap for an hour (remember that I’m pregnant – I thought his legs might fall off). Chris met up with us quickly, we moved our stuff into the Jeep and got back on the road while Chris rode the rest of the way to our house in the tow truck. We ended up getting to Port Aransas after midnight, with a very sleepy kid.

After exciting start, our vacation got a lot better! We had a great time at the beach, jet skiing and just relaxing. Annaleigh was awesome the whole time! She loved the ocean and especially playing in the sand, and had no problem sleeping in a strange place.

We also went to the aquarium while we were in Port Aransas.  We got to see one of the aquarioum employees feed a sting ray by hand, and got to touch some ourselves.  Annaleigh loved all of the fish, and especially the otters!

What started out the most stressful “vacation” ever turned out to be great- hopefully we will be able to do it again next year!

Busy, Busy

Funny how everything seems to happen at once – it seems like lately we have been encountering changes everywhere we look!

As you know from our last post, we are put our house up for sale a couple weeks ago, and we already accepted an offer on our place! We are thrilled that it happened so fast – with a new baby coming I was afraid of being 9 months pregnant and trying to move too! If everything goes as planned we will close by August 12, which means we have to start looking for a new home immediately. Ideally we are trying to find a place that has at least 3 bedrooms plus a living room, loft or other room we can use as an office/music room. We are also hoping for a lot big enough to eventually build AJ a nice workshop and put in a pool. (Obviously in the distant future!) There is one place that is just about perfect, so after we look at a few more houses later this week, we will make a decision.

I also am officially the new librarian at Deep Wood Elementary! I started my master’s degree last summer, and decided not going to look for a new job this year once we found out I was pregnant. However the librarian at my school retired at the last minute – it seemed like too good of a chance to pass up, so I interviewed and got the job! I am so excited for this new change. It will be great to be able to work in a place I love in a new capacity. Getting ready for this job will require lots of extra staff development, plus I go back to work a week earlier than the teachers, so I will be very busy getting started in the new job!

This summer AJ has also had the opportunity to teach guitar summer camps at the school he works at, so he has been gone most of the day getting home in time for Annaleigh’s bedtime. It hasn’t been an issue until this week when my car broke down. Now he gets to work from 10:30-8:30, then get home and work on the car, lucky guy. Being stranded at home with no car is about to drive me crazy too.

On Sunday we leave for Port Aransas for a quick vacation. This will be our first vacation in Texas, and our first vacation ever with Annaleigh. We can’t wait to get out of town and relax before moving into a new house and heading back to work.

Moving on up!

With our new addition to the family due in October, we are in serious need of a bigger house! AJ has been very busy working to get our place ready to sell, and we finally put it on the market last week. We had a showing the next day, so keep your fingers crossed that it sells soon!

Here are some pictures of our place , both before and after.

The living room when we moved in:

And after new paint, hardwood flooring, lighting and skylights.

The master bathroom before. The vanity area was open to the bedroom, but the toilet and tub area was so gross we never used it until...

AJ and my dad did a complete tear out and remodeled the whole thing. This was a huge project but it turned out beautifully!

The master bedroom before...

...and after new flooring, paint and light fixtures.

Annaleigh's room (the before pictures are so nasty I won't post them here.)

The second bedroom which we use as an office when we moved in...

...and after new flooring, closet doors, paint, and lights.

The hall bathroom.

This was the last project that we completed - new tile flooring and tub surround, counter tops and fixtures.

The kitchen before (complete with floor to ceiling mirrors and a screen door into the garage.)

After new flooring, sink, light fixtures, bead board on the ceiling as well as a laundry room that we added on (thank again Dad and AJ), which is through the pocket door at the end.

18 months!

It is so hard to believe that our little peanut is already a year and a half – the time has flown! Annaleigh is able to do more and more by herself everyday, and we see more of her personality too! (She may look like Daddy, but acts more like Mommy!) Annaleigh loves to make decisions for herself – what blanket and stuffed animal to take to bed, what toys to play with and which snack to have. She is also starting to talk more, with her most recent addition to her vocabulary being “no”. She likes to tell the dogs “no” when they try to eat her snack, and she also says no when she knows that she is doing something that she shouldn’t. (I found her playing in the dog’s water bowl recently and as soon as she saw me she stood up and pointed at the water and yelled “no”, like the water was misbehaving). Other words she can say (or we can decipher): Kitty, David (from her favorite book), snack, no, banana, mommy, daddy, quack, yucky, and bubble.

She now has a favorite TV program too, Bubble Guppies, a cartoon on Nickelodeon. It is one of the only things she wants to watch – she even gets her blanket and sits on the couch with the remote asking to watch it!

Some of Annaleigh’s favorites at 18 months:

Eating anything with a spoon

Playing in the laundry

Putting bowls on her head

Playing in the empty bookshelves

Dipping her food ( in BBQ, Ketchup, Jalapeno Ranch…whatever- this is her licking the ketchup off the plate.)

Escaping from the bathroom at bath time to run around naked

Sitting at the table in a big chair

Reading books (Especially No David)

We are so lucky to have such a great kid!

It's a ...

Boy! I think that we were both expecting a girl, and were surprised to find out we were wrong! I can’t wait to see him “helping” Daddy, just like Annaleigh.

Daddy's Little Helper

Annaleigh loves when Daddy works on a project, and loves to help even more! Projects she has helped complete so far:

Baseboards

Putting bumpers on the car

The list may be short, but that may be because all of her “help” makes each project take a bit longer than intended.

What do you mean, "Bath time?"

This is what happens when Annaleigh helps plant flowers.