Friday, April 30, 2010

What's up with us?

Here's the update for our future:

My handsome and intelligent husband has gotten into two medical schools, SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, and Eastern Virigina Medical School in Norfolk, VA. Of our two available choices, we choose Syracuse (for several reasons, cost being a major factor). While we make plans to move to Syracuse, we will continue to hope to hear positively from either UT Houston in Texas or USC in Los Angles, CA.

For now, though, our best option remains Syracuse. We found a wonderful place to live when we took a trip there almost 2 weeks ago - God really blessed us with a fruitful, quick, last-minute trip. It was a bit emotional for me, reality beginning to hit that we really are moving. It is going to be tough at times, but I know that we'll be joyful overall.

So the current plan for the move is that we pack up and have our stuff shipped just before we go to the 40th Annual Up Yonder Alston/Dollahite Family Reunion on Pickwick Lake in Alabama (at the tri-state area of Mississippi, Tennessee & Alabama) for the Fourth of July and the week following. Then we'll travel up to Syracuse where our stuff will be delivered with about a month before Andy's program starts to get situated, do a little sight-seeing and prepare for Baby #2!

Today, I am 17 weeks and will hopefully find out boy/girl at my 19-week ultrasound. So far I am doing really well and have gotten to hear the baby's heartbeat three times so far. I haven't been sick, mainly just tired, but has not been bad. God has really been faithful to remind me, often through Andy's gentle reassurance, that He (God) will take care of our needs, even when I feel like I don't know all the details... Thank you, Lord!

Annaliese is currently under the weather and was very attached to me today. I pray that for a quick recovery for her! Recently though she is quite a ham. She scrunches up her nose and makes funny noises to make us laugh. She has learned a lot of new words and uses them frequently to tell us what she wants. My favorite new word is "Mae" which refers to her two blankies. I'm not sure how she got that one. She loves patting and carrying around her dolly, giving her kisses, putting her in and out of the dolly stroller, and putting her dolly "Nigh Nigh." She has also started pretending or joking with us, when she sometimes will lay her head down at random times and say "Nigh Nigh... shhhhhh!" and then pop her head up with a smile, as if to say "Just kidding!" She continues to be a great sleeper, napper and milk-drinker, but is fairly particular when it comes to food. She occasionally has a difficult time when we don't understand her or when things don't go exactly her way, but for the most part she is a very happy and obedient toddler. She just moved over from the infant (0-18mo) to the toddler (18mo - 3 years) side of the church nursery and she absolutely loves to play with all the big kid toys. I realized I could go on and on, but I should really get to bed now, so I'll just say that she loves to play with crayons (mainly putting them into and out of the box) and get to bed.

I love my family and I'm learning to embrace this adventure that we're on!

Muddy girl

Classic. Yes, there was originally a shirt on this child. Then she got dirty and I took it off before taking her inside. When she escaped and began to rub mud on herself, I had to grab the camera!

Showers in SLO


Technically, this was March, but now at 17 weeks along I'm playing catch up. I would say that I'm no longer napping daily, but I took two naps today. That is because my sweet toddler (can't really say baby anymore since she's just shy of 18 months) has hand foot and mouth disease and would only sleep ON me today. Normally she will NOT sleep on me, so I just treasured it and we sat around watching Elmo (her favorite) and napping together all day. I felt so horrible that she had a temp of 102-103 and couldn't hold food down for a while. I think we're through the worst of it though and tomorrow should be better. Anyway, the point was to tell you a bit about a fun weekend we had about a month ago.

We went to San Luis Obispo for two sweet baby showers, one for Jaime Lewis and one for Donna Templeton, and stayed with our friends the Dave & Sharon Cumberland. (I'm not sure why I didn't take a single pic at either shower; I must have been just enjoying myself and catching up with old friends the entire time.) We really are in that time of life where there are babies everywhere! The Cumberlands' son Ian is about 3 months younger than Annaliese and they had a fun time together.

Thanks to all the dads who stayed with the kiddos so that the mommies could enjoy the showers!

Andy took even more pictures of Annaliese that weekend, all of which are adorable, of course.

Easter in the Garden Isle

Lest the entire month of April pass by without me posting a few little nuggets about what we've been up to, I'm keeping these short & sweet with WAY fewer pictures than I'd love to share.


We were so blessed that my parents took us on a family vacation to Kauai, where we enjoyed family time with her side of the family that still lives there and relaxed while enjoying watching Annaliese really discover just how much she really loves sand and water.

It was such an amazing and wonderful trip; words really don't do it justice. Thank you Mom & Dad (aka Nannie & Opa) for such special memories!