Fall Fun

We have all been enjoy the crisp Fall weather and taking advantage of the local Fall festivals, apple orchards and pumpkin farms. At the beginning of the month we went to the Hidden Lake Gardens Fall Foliage Festival. Carys enjoyed a hayride, corn maze and various crafts using all natural elements. She thought all the different scarecrows were really interesting.

Friends of the family have a Llama farm. My mom has taken Carys there numerous times. I thought I should take a turn. She loved being with the animals and seemed to be a natural in the barn and in her interactions with the animals.

The Lashes had a baby Llama that was only one week old. Carys kept asking to pet it, but the baby and the mama Llama wouldn't come close to anyone.At Flavor Fruit Farms they had pony rides for the kids. Carys was so excited to see that when we arrived, asking right away, "I ride the ponies, pleeeeease". I think the guy leading the pony scared her a little, but one daddy walked beside her she was fine.

She had fun searching for the perfect pumpkin. Carys kept getting caught in the dried vines. It was a big laugh for Tim and I. We ended up leaving with a small green pumpkin. Ms. Wraiya slept though all the festivities!!

Wraiya's Room

Here's a little sneak peek of Wraiya's room. The white and pink flowers are painted on the wall is a few spots around her room.

Carys has to hold Wraiya every morning before school. When Wraiya and I drop Carys off at school Carys has to give her a hug, kiss and "noses". Since Wraiya has been born, Carys seems to be such a big girl now. Gotta love these two girls!!!!

WELCOME BABY!!!!

Welcome to the world Wraiya Ryan Davis

Wraiya was born kicking and screaming on September 17, 2008 at 3:52pm
She weighed 5 pounds 6 ounces and she was 18 inches long

Carys loves being a big sister and wants to help with everything. The day after Wraiya was born Carys went shopping with her daddy and picked out tons or toys for "baby sister". She likes to play with her toys too.

I'm really enjoying my new family of four...even the tired, sleepless times. Faces like this make those tired, sleepless times worth every second!!!!

First Day of School

Today Carys started preschool!!!! She was very excited to meet her new teacher and to make new friends. Tim and I both took her and exited her classroom in shifts. She was sad to see us leave, but that was to be expected. She has never been left in a strange place with people she didn't know. Her teacher said that she did very well for her first day. She has already made a new friend, Olivia!! She was also very excited to show me what was in her backpack!! She and I looked online and chose a backpack together. When the package arrived in the mail she was so excited to open it. Carys wore her new backpack on and off for days, filling it with anything and everything.

Baby Update: I'm currently 33 weeks+ and doing well. Only 2 more shots left!! This little princess is weighing around 4 lbs 8 ounces. She hiccups several times a day. Tim painted her room this weekend and in a few weeks a friend will be coming to paint some flowers on the wall. When the room is complete I'll share a photo.

28 Weeks+

I had my check up this week and another ultrasound. This little girl is growing as she should. I'm measuring 27/28 weeks. My weight gain is a little hard to cope with, but it is for a good reason. My ribs are really expanding too, which is uncomfortable!! Tim had to be in New Jersey this week for work so my Mom went with me to the ultrasound. She was so excited to see her second granddaughter before she is actually born. Carys continues to enjoy the ultrasounds as well. I had my glucose screening on Friday. The stuff you have to drink really wasn't bad. It tasted just like flat Faygo Orange.

Pool, Frogs, & Cupcakes

The weeks are just flying by this summer!! We continue to enjoy the outside, even on the rainy days. A few weeks ago we had a huge thunderstorm with hail. We opened the door and picked up a piece of hail, larger than a quarter, and gave it to Carys. That wasn't good enough. She ended up standing on our front porch getting struck by the hail and drenched by the rain coming sideways. She loved it!!

On the weekends the three of us have been spending time at Grandpa and Grandma Davis' pool. Carys loves the pool. She has learned to only enter and exit the pool at the ladder, despite what she sees her cousins do. She's doing the doggy paddle, kicking her feet, putting her face in the water to blow bubbles and laying back on our hands to float. We put a small blow up pool in our back yard that she loves just as much as the "big pool". Our neighbors that have two little girls just put up a little pool and invited Carys over for a swim. The girls were having a blast splashing each other. We have been doing a lot with the Drew family and really enjoying ourselves. Their daughters are Lana and Chloe. Carys and the Drew girls could pass for triplets as they are all the same size with light hair. Carys asks everyday to go play with them and their mom says they do the same.

On one Sunday Tim and Carys went out to the neighbors woods to look for frogs. They were able to find some but unable to catch them. Carys would call "here froggie froggie, here". Tim was saying how excited she got when they saw one. Well, Carys and I were outside playing on her playground and saw a tiny frog in the grass. We caught the frog and placed it in a bucket with a little water. Carys pulled some grass and put some small rocks in the bucket too. She would reach right in and pick up the little frog and just look at it. She called it the baby frog. When it was time for her nap she gave the bucket a hug and blew the frog a kiss after telling it to "go to sleep". When she woke up from her nap we went out to check on the frog...it was asleep for good. She had no idea and I just told her it jumped out of the bucket to go find its mommy and daddy. She was fine with that explanation. When Tim got home she told him all about her little adventure with the frog.

This past Saturday we were planning on going to Hidden Lake Gardens for the Children's Garden Day but were rained out. What a better activity to do on a rainy day than baking. We made cupcakes and my favorite butter cream frosting. We broke our my cake decorating bags with tips, sprinkles and candies. Carys could hardly decorate more than one because she just wanted to eat the frosting and candies...that's my girl!!

Now, baby update. I will be 27 weeks on Friday. Carys was born at 27 weeks. We are all praying that this little girl decides not to follow in her big sisters footsteps. My every other week doctor's visits and ultrasounds are a bit wearing...we have to drive the 50 minutes to either U of M hospital or to our OB. Carys continues to love going to hear or see "baby sister". This week she decided she would carry around the picture frame that holds the baby's first ultrasound photo (the size of a bean). Here is a photo of my belly at 25 weeks.

Gymnastics Class

Tonight marked the start of our Parent/Tot Gymnastics class. Carys was so excited to go. Unfortunately, Tim couldn't go with us as he is in New Jersey for work. We purchased the smallest leotard we could find. They are very difficult to find considering she wears 24 months. It's pink! She looks so cute in her. Her butt doesn't fill it out with little panties on, which makes it all the more cute. At the start of class she wasn't so sure that she wanted to be there. As class went on she just shined. Of course, she didn't want to leave. She just kept pleading with me, "more nastics class mom, please". This is what I heard all the way home.

Sand Play

We have been enjoying the weather outside every day. Our little princess usually wakes up at 7:00am and asks to go outside right away. I try to hold her off until the grass is dry. Carys loves her new play set and playhouse. She has also been enjoying driving her jeep and playing in her sand-n-water table. We have even went to Grandpa and Grandma Davis' pool a few times. Carys loves the water!We have taught her to only enter and exit the pool at the ladder and she has been pretty good about wearing her life jacket in the pool. She likes to tell us she's a fish or turtle. We have even taken a lot of our indoor activities outside...painting, play dough, baby dolls, lunch and dinner. I'm sure breakfast on the deck isn't too far away. Her independence is really shining through. The second week of June we started potty training. She is doing great with it. I found it stressful the first few days. We have to explore the potties everywhere we go. I ended up buying a portable, folding potty that fits on public toilets. This thing is great!! I don't have to hold onto her, which means I don't have to hug the public toilet. It stores easily in a ziploc bag and cleans easily. Carys has been taking her clothes on and off all the time. She is even getting them back on correctly, tags in the back. We're still working on shoes. She can get one pair of her sandals on, but the rest are pretty tricky. Every day she talks about her baby sister and tells me she's sleeping or that she wants her to wake up. It just melts my heart to hear her. She loves all the prenatal visits we have which are starting to be every other week. Friday will mark my 24th week!! Yeah...I'm trying to find the confidence to share a photo of my belly!

Pigtails & Smiles

Finally...I can put full pigtails in Carys' hair. She must have felt so cute because she just kept shaking her head and saying "cute tails mommy, cute tails mommy". I asked if I could take her picture and she yelled "YES" at me. They lasted all day, even through nap time.
Friday we had an ultrasound. We found out we are having a little girl!! We are all very excited. I must say that my first reaction was `what am I going to do with two teenage girls'!!??!!?? We haven't decided on a name yet. We may just keep it a surprise until she's born. She keeps developing right on track. I am finally just starting to get the baby bump!! I'm now in searching mode of how to decorate a second girls room!! If anyone has cute ideas, I'm open to them!!

Baby Davis

This is an ultrasound photo of our little bun in the oven taken at 16 weeks 1 day. It scanned a little blurry on my computer...sorry. The baby is developing on target and is weighing 5 ounces. I started weekly shots today to hopefully help prevent another preemie. I only have 19 more shots to go!!

Help me reach my goal!Sponsor Me at March for Babies!

Big News

Our little girl is quite the girly girl. She is so into playing dress up, playing mommy to her babies, cooking for us in her kitchen (or our kitchen), getting her fingernails and toenails painted and wearing "pretties" in her hair or things on her head. I am really glad that she is such a good mommy to her babies. I hope that is an indication of the type of big-sister she'll be...especially since we are going to have another baby. I am still early in my pregnancy, just 10 weeks. We are having lots of doctor's visits and going to the Perinatal Assessment Center at U of M. Carys loves to show off the ultrasound that I had at 7 weeks. She likes to even show the baby picture to her babies. Overall I'm doing pretty well. I have days of feeling really yucky but then days of feeling great.
Our little Einstein had to have testing at the U of M developmental clinic as part of her being a preemie. She was tested for 2 hours putting puzzles together, building blocks, coloring, identifying pictures, climbing stairs, pretend play, etc. She scored really well. In one of the major areas, I think it included cognitive ability and problem solving, she scored in the 99.9% for children her age. That means only .1% of children do better. The doctor administering the test even tested Carys on things that 4 year-olds should do and Carys could do some of them. She really impressed us. In all the other areas she was in the 88 to 98%. Over the weekend Carys was coloring on her dry erase board and we had asked her to draw a face. She did. You can see it in the photo. I'm sure it was a fluke, but nonetheless, she did.

Color Me

Our child has been a coloring machine today. Tim has spent most of the time coloring with her as I color with her all week long. When it became my turn again I had to figure something else to do that involved coloring. So, I taped paper together and traced Carys. We then taped it to the wall and she's been happily coloring on the outline by herself. After she colored on her face she just kept saying "uh oh". This child of ours loves crafts...I really need to utilize the activitiy books that I have purchased over time so we all don't become burned out by the time she turns three.

Sesame Street Live

Sunday our family went to the Fox Theatre in Detroit and watched Sesame Street Live. This was a very fun musical for Carys to see and it was very fun for us to watch how excited she was. The show with intermission was 90 minutes long. It was about the new music teacher on Sesame Street, Jenny, waiting for the truck to arrive with all of her instruments. In the meantime, all of the animals and monsters that lived on Sesame Street found items to use to make music, the trash can, their feet, their voice, etc. It was a great time.When the music started Carys started yelling "Elmo". She didn't really become interested in Elmo until our trip to the Anthony's. Since then, we watch Sesame Street on PBS, bought a video and play with the Elmo dolls at the store. We were going to buy a souvenir at the show and I presented Carys with a choice of the big Elmo doll or the little Elmo doll. She saw that ball and it was all over. So we have added one one more ball to our huge collection.

Glamour Girl

"I love my new jewels. I look and feel so G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S!!"

Back to December

Sorry it has been so long since there has been an update. December was crazy and full of a lot of fun things to do. The best was Carys got her cast off of her arm!! YEAH!! Her arm is 100% back to normal use. She never missed a beat with her cast. Carys continued to color, paint, bake and build. Right before her cast was removed we had a huge snow storm. We all bundled up to go out and play. No mittens would fit over Carys' cast, so we improvised. Her mitten consisted of two of my thick footies. She loved to climb up the snow mound that her daddy shoveled and tried to make snowballs. After playing in the snow we came back inside to have some hot coca...hot oval-tine and milk for Carys. We spent a lot of December baking. We made our first gingerbread house. Carys enjoyed eating the candies that were meant to decorate the house. We also baked and decorated tons of cookies. She was so cute to watch putting on sprinkles and the colored sugar.

Carys also enjoyed her second Christmas and her second birthday. Both of those events deserve their own post with photos. So...please keep reading.

I'M TWO - my birthday in review

My Puppy Pinata

My Puppy Cake

My Puppy Shirt

Carys' 2nd birthday party was as fun to plan as her first. We had a puppy theme because our little princes LOVES, LOVES, LOVES dogs. We had puppy invitations to get people ready for the puppy themed party. Tim and I made the puppy pinata...only because two other people...you know who you are...said it was easy. It really was easy and was so fun. Tim and I also made the cake. Some food items for the party were hot dogs, corn dogs, hush puppies and puppy chow. Carys received lots of puppy related items as gifts, books, craft items, kitchen items, homemade blanket, and a jeep. She also received things for her baby dolls, which she also LOVES, LOVES, LOVES.

Our Christmas in Review

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!! Carys' big gift was her kitchen. She has always loved to play with her cousin's kitchen and most recently her friend Taylor's. We had her kitchen set up and ready to play Christmas morning. Carys came out and noticed the presents under the tree. She picked up a few and moved them out in the middle of the floor...then it happened...she noticed her kitchen. At that point any hope of opening gifts was over. She played with her kitchen until we had to leave for Grandpa and Grandma Davis'. She opened more gifts there and then we were off to Grandma Barb's and Grandpa Greg's for more gifts. Later in the afternoon, after her nap, she finally opened a few gifts here at home. It wasn't until the day after Christmas that she opened the remainder of her gifts and her stocking from Santa.