Leila Turns 2yo

Leila turned two years old on April 10. I still can't believe it has been two years since I was hugely pregnant with her. I can say that she has been nothing but a joy to have. She is the one that keeps me on my toes.

She brings so much laughter, mischievousness, and fun to our family. She knows just how to push all of our buttons and does not hesitate to do so. It is just so hard not to laugh at her even when she is making us crazy. It is part of her charm and hard for most everyone else to pull off.

We celebrated her birthday with a small party with us, my parents and a friend of mine, her husband, and her son. We had everyone over to the house for pizza, cake, and presents. Leila was so thrilled to open her gifts. I had set them out the night before knowing they would taunt her all morning until it was time to open them during the party. She just kept eyeballing them the whole time. Once we gave her the go ahead, though, she went right at them. She knew exactly what do and that cool new toys for hiding beneath the paper. She got some great toys including an inch worm, her very own backpack, and a water table.

Then, it was cake time. She did a great job singing "Happy Birthday" to herself along with the rest of us and even managed to help blow out her candles. Now, Leila really has not had a lot of sweets in her short life because she has, well, a mean mommy. My mom likes to hassle me over the fact that "it won't kill her". Anyway, Leila was more than thrilled to bite into her puppy dog cake. She finished almost the entire piece. She left it for a bit only to return back to it with as much joy as the first bite she took out of it. I think that was the highlight of her day. I am still hearing about the cake from her.

Overall, it was a great day with her. It was not as hard as her first birthday, though, when I thought that would the very last first birthday we would be celebrating with any of our kids. It helped knowing there would be another baby coming along that we would be celebrating a 2nd birthday with in less time than imaginable.

Here are few more pics from her party.

Second OB appointment

We have a heartbeat! I am so thrilled things are going smoothly with this little baby. I had my second appointment with the OB today to check for the heartbeat. We found it right away on the ultrasound. The girls were both so thrilled to see the baby again, and they were even more thrilled that it is actually beginning to look like a baby.

My dr is so wonderful. She printed out a copy of the picture for both Ava and Leila to bring home. I can not tell you how excited they are to have their own picture of the baby. Leila actually demanded to nap with it after I had taken it away from her when I was putting her down. It was too sweet.

The dr also asked us if we wanted to do the blood test for down's syndrome and spina bifida. We declined it. We know that we would never terminate the pregnancy despite the test results, so there was really no reason to take it. Plus, the chances of it happening are so low considering my age. Why put ourselves through any of that?

Anyway, everything is looking fantastic. I took a moment to reflect today given that it is the last day that Leila will be a year old. This time two years ago, I was so pregnant and bloated waiting to have our c-section and meet our precious little girl. Now, I am at the beginning of another journey in parenthood. It is amazing to see how quickly they grow.