Bumpdate? ok!

we made it to 28 weeks! baby g3 is doing so well. thanks for asking.

baby is measuring right on. so she's about 2.5lbs, and 16 inches.

her favorite foods are ice cream, cucumbers with ranch and peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

her favorite activities are quiet time on mommy's left side, doing the dishes and bath time.

as you can tell from the photo, i am oober tired. like two oobers, i think. i have never been more thankful for a weekend, and am ever so happy joseph is actually off tomorrow. i could use the company and help.

my heartburn is awesome. zantac is delish. the back pain is terrible, so much worse than either previous pregnancy. i can't wait to see what it's like over the next 12 weeks!

the snow is finally almost gone here, and it's warming up. i am enjoying no more winter boots, i've worn a skirt once, and i've been outside without a coat on. things are looking good here. 

i am looking forward to my glucose test on monday and our 29 week appointment on thursday. hoping they will schedule another ultrasound, given that our gender ultrasound at 20 weeks was fairly inconclusive. (though we've been referring to baby g3 as a her.)

and now, i am going to fall asleep to the dodger game on tv as we snuggle under the electric blanket, for perhaps one of it's last nights on our bed. come on, spring!

xoxo, al

CeCe Pants

cece fianlly made it to her 9 month appointment! her last appointment was cancelled due to the level 3 snow emergency. 

this adorable babe is 10 months and 7 days today. she's gained about half a pound since her last well visit, so as you can see, shes right on track with hadley. teeny tiny.

she's crawling like crazy, of course, and walking along furniture, between furniture, and now squatting on her two feet. in no time miss caroline will be standing unassisted. way to go, girlfriend.

cece's favorite foods are ritz crackers, grillers, yogurt, applesauce, and anything off mom or dad's plates. and she is really looking forward to peanut butter soon.

our little lady does not enjoy the snow, or cold. she hates socks, shoes, coats, and cold. bummer for her, living in ohio. she is looking forward to spring soon.

but aren't we all?!?! it. is. cold. 

xoxo, al

CeCe is 5 months!!

i haven't had a chance to break out the big camera to get our monthly shots yet. but i totally missed month four while we were gone on our west coast trip. so i'm posting without that one special 5 month photo in the pink diaper on the special back drop. i'll get to that soon;)

hey! cece is five motnhs now! 23 weeks today. shes doing very well. just a few weeks ago, she weighed 14lbs 6oz, and was 24 inches tall. she's our growing girl!

our smiley girl is happy most all of the time. she cries the most when we leave the room, or if she accidentally becomes over hungry. 

she is sleeping through the night still, but wakes VERY early. how did we get a morning baby? hadley sure isn't.

this babe enjoys her excersaucer, and loves to slap at the little piano keys to make music. cece also mastered rolling over both front to back and back to front. however, she can only do this in one direction, and enjoys rolling from one side of the room to the other. then i turn her around and she goes back!

she just picked up on the rolling around all day thing this week. here she is!

cece enjoys baseball, long walks, rice cereal and her sister. she thinks she enjoys coffee like mama, but don't worry, she wound't actually know!

see? this is cece hoping for a drink of my white mocha right now.

and there you have it. cece in a nut shell. she's awesome. stayed tuned for more awesomeness on the blog soon.

xoxo, al

fossil fest!

one of the greatest things about toledo is that it is also a metro area made out of a lot of amazing communities. or, you know, small towns. just like the one i grew up in. 20,000 residents, a main street with an adorable downtown, and really neat local businesses. and in these adorable little towns are adorable little markets and festivals happening all the time. 

well, not all the time. i'll be real with you. it's freaking cold here in the winter. so when i say all the time, i mean between like may and october. you can count the rest of the year out and stay home sipping tea and watching netflix.

anyway. 

today was fossil fest in sylvania, which is just down the road from us. it's all about fossils, as you can guess. there is a sweet hidden little historical area in downtown that is home to this fun activity. people bring amazing fossils and rocks to share or sell, volunteers run great games for kids, and best of all, KIDS CAN DIG UP THEIR OWN FOSSILS! there is literally a pile of fossils in the parking lot, just waiting for kids to dig in, chip away, brush of and clean up these finds.

 

so, moral of the story is, don't pass up the opportunities to get out and explore and get to know your community. it probably rocks, even if it's not toledo;)

xoxo, al

 

aquapocalypse 2014

for those of you who are wondering what the heck is up in toledo, this is a pretty good link to fill you in on our state of emergency. 

this weekend, while many toledoans were heading off to find cleaner water with friends or family, we headed straight to the lake. 

lake erie, the source of our water, is less than 30 minutes from our house. we have frequented there in the 2.5 years we've been in toledo during snow, sleet, rain, wind, sun, ice, and now, ALGAE!

joseph and i are known for exploring, adventuring and checking out all things interesting, and the scary water here is no exception. we'd seen a few photos on the news or social media, and wanted to see for ourselves what exactly was out there in lake erie, from where toledo pulls our water.

joseph was brave enough to get down and dirty to check this algae out. it was nasty. it looks very thick, like odwalla superfood. in hand, you can see that at this spot, it has no thick layer on the top to stick to his hands, but the water clearly (hahah!) is appalling. 

  we have seen the water in many seasons, but this is by far the nastiest season yet. 

in case you were wondering where CeCe was all this time...as for hadley, her photos show her at her worst, so i'll save them for another time.

disclaimer: no children touched the water for the purposes of our adventure.

xoxo, al

Baby g2

Given that CeCe is one month old today, I find it entirely appropriate to drop everything and take the time to introduce her to the blog!

Likely, if you read this blog, you've already been informed of Sweet Caroline's arrival, either by Facebook or intsagram, or even call or text. But here's the little story of our teeny new baby. 

And a few photos. 

On the 18th, I woke up to contractions around 2:30 am. After a couple hours, Joseph finally woke up enough to figure out something was up. 

We put the finishing touches on our hospital bags, showered, and dropped Hadley off at my sweet friend Marcy's house. 

Upon arrival to the maternity unit, I thought for sure I'd be sent home. After my long, long experience with Hadley, my expectations for this delivery were somewhat the same. 

But they kept me. I was so miserable that I didn't even have the energy to be upset my mom wasn't arriving until that evening. However, I was worrying about who would get her from the airport. When my friend Tammy volunteered a ride, we jumped on that;) 

Anyway. I was out of triage and into a labor room by 9. By 12 I had my epidural. And at 16:16, Caroline Claire Gilbuena made her appearance. We were so tired and relieved, and I was just ready for my mom and Hadley to arrive to meet her. 

This is all a long story short, and I am happy to share a birth story soon, I've had a lot of fellow moms and friends asking if I'll jump on the bandwagon and share. 

Now on to the last month of our life;)

Hadley was instantly in love with her little sister. Here's to hoping that lasts forever. 

My amazing friend Marcy hosted a baby shower for CeCe. It was orinigally scheduled for the 19th, but Cece's early arrival had us otherwise engaged. But this way, everyone got to meet her!

I don't know if you can tell, but my mom enjoyed her time here with us. Or rather, with them. 

Schlumpy baby visits Daddy at the office. 

CeCe goes to coffee. 

CeCe got her first bath. 

CeCe attended her first baseball game, at 9 days old. 

Miss tiny bum tried cloth diapers, three of four leaked. Will try again soon. 

CeCe got Daddy snuggles. 

CeCe got glasses. 

CeCe went to the zoo. 

CeCe went to Katie's birthday party. 

CeCe went to te beach. 

CeCe napped in our bed. 

CeCe held all our stuff while we played at the park. 

CeCe joined us for brunch. 

And now CeCe is alseep. 

You are all caught up. 

Thanks for stopping by! You can look forward to many more entertaining baby posts soon. 

Xoxo, al

a little of this, a little of that!

as you all know, i don't always blog when i say i will. i have dry spells. then i have the spells where i blog every day. that's what i like best. unfortunately, life is a priority, and blogging comes second. this time, though, we can honestly say poop has hit the fan...

baseballcation was an amazing trip, once in a lifetime experience, awesome roadtrip. but holy cow, 8 games in 8 days, almost 2,000 miles and around five hours driving each day can really take a toll on you. i will get caught up with our trip soon, i promise. but i thought i'd offer up my excuse for dropping off the face of the blog world

(for regular updates on what's up with the Gilbuenas, follow me on intsagram! i don't think the button on here works, i will have joseph fix that. meanwhile, we are fromholytoledotoyou.)

so, when we arrived home from our trip, i was dead tired. our house is already in a state of chaos, since we were waiting on a house for nearly months, that then fell through. so, i came back, tried to pack a few more boxes, do a dozen loads of laundry and catch up on life. i was also excitedly planning a baby shower for my toledo and 31 bff, marcy.

meanwhile, our freezer stopped working, and i shuttled most the frozen food into the fridge. but i had a bad feeling about the fridge as well, which was more or less ignored by maintenance. so, we ended up losing all our food, and eventually got a new fridge. 

MEANWHILE, my eye started to bug me just a little. looking back, i was having some trouble focusing while we were on vacation, but i thought i was just tired. but it got progressively worse, although not bad enough for joseph to diagnose pink eye or uveitis. after some ups and downs, it got bad enough he was able to get a clear look at the problem, and diagnose uveitis, which more or less is swelling in the cells or tissue in my eye, in the muscles that allow me to focus. it hurts like snitch. well, my super fabulous dr fixed me up pretty well now, but my left eye is dilated, to help relax the muscles that need to rest to ease the pain. so, i can't focus. the left eye is just a blur. i am typing this with that eye all scrunched up. i am hoping that we are on top of this, and can see great improvement and maybe stop the dilating medication in a few days, and get back to normal. i feel half worthless. 

and in the midst of the eye stuff, hadley got another cold, followed by me. my cough is awful. and i am so bummed that i won't be able to see marcy's sweet 11 pound baby for a few extra days. 

this all sounds pretty terrible, right? i am not being dramatic.

the good news is, we somehow manage to get out once a day, in the evening to go get our precious geocache for the 31 days of geocaching we are doing this month. not only is it so necessary for hadley to have this fun trip out, but it's good for me to, even if i am a hot mess!! today is the 23rd, so today will be our 23rd day in a row of geocaching. yay! i know, we are nerds. 

we are looking forward to hadley's first day of preschool in a week and a half, and also a long overdue trip from my auntie jewel. in just under a month. 

i'll just dump some photos so you know we are still alive and happy, after all that complaining i just did:) 

hadley's invitation to preschool orientation. 

out geocaching

and geocaching

and geocaching...

more geocaching!

geocaching:)

hadley loves to try on glasses.

if my eye hurts, so does bizzle bop's.

we love albuterol, yes we do.

check out hadley's new fishing pole!!
(excuse the ghetto blanket over the window,
i really, REALLY need darkness.)

the dodgers got brian wilson, my least favorite player in major league history.

xoxo, al