Merry After Christmas and Happy Before New Year!

Well this post is LONG overdue! I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas & is excited for the New Year that's just around the corner. Kerri did really well ripping the wrapping paper off once she got the hang of it, especially for a 9 month old :) Patrick and I snuck Kerri over to the Glendale galleria and took some awesome pictures of her on Santa's set while he was on break. Take a peek:

She absolutely loved crawling all over Santa's set and even drew quite a little crowd. Since Santa was on a 2 hour break, we didn't feel that bad ~ little Kerri would be fast asleep with her afternoon nap before he put down his McDonald's cheesburger and fries :).

Her big present from Patrick and I was Elmo Live! and while she was super excited to rip off the wrapping paper and play with him a little bit, she's moved onto other toys such as mail, toilet paper rolls, Cheerios and Christmas cards that play songs. So Patrick and I think we just might wrap that up again for her second Christmas? See ~ here she is with the mail today at lunch:

And Kerri is expected to have a very big upcoming year where she'll soon become a big sister near the end of February to Jacob James Davis. I've always loved the name Jake so that will be his nickname & also professional football name. Here's the little man at 20 weeks:By now we're 29 weeks and counting. Both Patrick and I are soo excited to meet Jake. At this point, the doctor estimates him at about 4 to 4 & 1/2lbs and I seriously believe it; he's running a little larger than Kerri did at the same time. I feel just about as big as I was when I delivered Kerri last year. I have 3rd trimester pants from Kerri that I can't get into now. Nope, not even if I jumped from a 2 story building into them, they're soo not going to fit. Patrick's been running early in the morning so while he's getting inshape, I'm getting super far from out of shape! I'm more and more excited to get my two little ones in the jogger and get working as soon as I get the all clear from the doctor. And since we're lucky enough not to be in the middle of 3 feet of snow, Patrick and I took Kerri out for a 3 mile walk around Burbank this morning. It was about 50 degrees or so but can't complain. Jakey seemed to be very happy with our pace so we kept going :)

Well, its time to get Kerri down for a nap... hope all is well and we'll post again soon!

Laundry

Ohh and here's Kerri helping me do the laundry...she takes her clean clothes

very very seriously!

(we're moving clothes from the washer to the dryer ...)

Lobster Kerri

Because Patrick and I are Mainers, we decided to dress Kerri up as a lobster for her first Halloween. Both Patrick and I were chefs (thanks to Salvation army!) and we carried her around in a lobster pot (side note ~ if lobsters are $3.99/lb in Maine, why are they still $18.99 at Ralphs grocery store out here?? That's such a crock, they must be Canadian lobsters!) Kerri was such a good sport in the lobster outfit, but it must have been like wearing 10 super-down sleeping bags because that thing was puffy & thick! She toured around my work here starting at 3:30, and somehow got me out of work completely by about 4:30 - very good job, Kerri!

Halloween night we definitly got some treaters, but saw that a house up the street was all decked out with grave stones, life-size aliens, Freddy's... so we decided to take a walk down there at about 8:30. These neighbors ROCK! They made a haunted house/maze in their backyard, everyone was dressed up, and they had dry ice fog everywhere. We asked if it would be okay to take in Kerri & they said no problem, if she should get spooked, we'll just take her out fast. But I have to tell you, nothing spooked her ~ she laughed and laughed the whole way. Patrick and I were freaked, but she just cracked up. It didn't matter if it was a bloody Pig, a mummy, a monster, everything made her laugh and she wanted more and more. There's nothing like seeing the texas chainsaw guy jump out and try to scare us, then see Kerri, and all of a sudden he'd just melt ..."Oh my... she's SOO cute! Hi little baby! What's her name??" Then others would be behind us and he'd have to break with the chainsaw and go back to spooking. But overall, it was a lot of fun. Thank God we didn't have to pick up their house after that! I can't wait to see what they do for Christmas! Patrick and I are SOO going to Griswald out our house this year! I hope everyone had fun & I'll post the Little Guy pics next.

Candy Corn Kerri

Kerri is ready for Halloween ... I can't reveal the costume yet (Patrick will kill me) but it's really cute. So today she's dressed up in her pre-halloween outfit & looks like a little piece of candy corn. She keeps tugging at the little owl though so we'll see how long that lasts ...

Yesterday Patrick bought a big pack n' play off craigslist so we can somewhat trap Kerri and not have to chase her all the time. She seems pretty amused that all her toys are around her and its worked out so far ... but it's less than 24 hours since she's inspected on it... I'm hoping she doesn't start looking at it like a Kerri Jail? It's almost like a little vacation when she's in it and flopping around.

Tomorrow there's a little work-Halloween party for kiddies so we'll bring her in & take pictures for the blog. Not soo sure how much candy-snagging she'll do since she hasn't quite figured out if she likes applesauce or not, but we'll have fun. Okay, happy Thursday and the week's almost over!

~ Kristin

Laughing

Okay, Kerri has been an absolute riot lately laughing at all kinds of things and crawling like mad across the floor. Since our house is a whopping over-priced 865 square feet, its not too likely that we'll lose her, she can't escape too far. I think she's very excited about her new mode of transportation and is getting faster and faster every day. Quite often she skedattles over to Patrick's entertainment center, licks the glass and leaves her fingerprints on the XBox 360 game she picked out. She pulls herself up standing, giggles, tumbles, yells, then books it for the kitchen. We have quite a few squishy blocks that she throws and goes after too. She's getting ready for her first marathon ~ she has quite a process going on. Attached is a funny video of her when Patrick had a ducky puppet and she went crazy ~ hopefully this cracks you up as much as it did us!

As for Little Guy #2, well we're a very excited 21 weeks along and about 17 weeks left to go (I know, that only adds to 38 weeks instead of 40, but for my sanity reasons, I have to count to 38! The doctor did a c-section w/ Kerri at 38 so I'm hoping for the same for this little guy!) I'm definitly bigger than with Kerri, so I won't scare you with that picture, but he's tapping and knocking all the time and is very active. I can't believe they'll be a little less than 11 months apart... Patrick and I will be total zombies once the Little Guy arrives. I thought I might be smaller than with Kerri where I lost 6-7 lbs in the first trimester, but even Patrick will agree, my appetite snuck up on me in full force. I now inhale food. I've even scared myself that I finish before Patrick does. Hopefully I'll night-sweat it all off after I deliver the Little Guy like with Kerri.

Okay I hope you liked the video and click when you can.

~ Kristin

Well! It's been a while since I've posted so lots to update you all on.

First! Patrick and I got a sneak peek last week at Baby #2 and the doctor has a pretty good suspicion that he located 2 golf balls and a golf club ... so it looks like we just might have a little boy on the way! We are soo excited (and happy we have lots of yellow and green stuff from Kerri!) but keeping our fingers crossed until the BIG ultrasound on October 20th. This pregnancy has flown by ~ we're just about 18 weeks now. I can say its a bummer to get back into the maternity clothes, I came SOO close to getting back into my jeans after Kerri, but not close enough. I'd still have to jump from a 2 story building to get into them (fully pregnant I estimated an 8 story building... so I got closer).

Our due date is March 13th, but the doctor said he'll probably schedule a C-Section 2 weeks early like Kerri, which would put us at about February 27-28th. They'll be exactly 11 months apart, and their parents will be going totally insane :). Thank goodness Kerri has been sleeping through the night since 3 months ... I'll need to store up once the little man arrives.

Kerri is now 6 & 1/2 months now and just the cutest little thing. She's crawling now, and getting closer to lightning speed as well. I'll turn around and she'll zip her little diaper buns from the livingroom all the way to the bathroom, turn back, wave her little arm and book it. She's quite a traveller! She's been through all of her vegetables now, carrots and green beans are her favorite by a mile. Fruit will be very soon. Now I learned why most kiddy-clothes after 6 months don't really get passed down, and that's because they get stained to crap even if you use a bib and wash it right away! Well, I'm the first to admit, I'm not the best pre-treater,...okay I never pre-treat, or separate whites, darks, lights ~ that seems like a distant thought in the past when I actually had time to daydream doing laundry ... but atleast I use soap!

We've learned too that swapping new vegetables will somewhat ... bind Kerri up. So it had been about 2 days since the little bunny went #2. (Now this little story isn't for the weak at heart so I'm giving you the chance to opt-out and go to the next paragraph below...) Still here? Phew! Today I ran home for lunch like I do every day to feed Kerri veggies with Patrick. And we noticed that she was happy in her high-chair, but started leaning to the right as we were feeding her carrots. And then her face turned BRIGHT PINK, and we were soon to see the Sweet Potatoes from yesterday and the day before. This went on for atleast 5-7 minutes, inbetween gobbles of carrots. After she was clearly finished pooping, she never straightened up ~ but just kept sitting tilted to the right? That's when we realized after we pulled her out of the high chair, that she left a nice softball size of poop for Daddy right there on the seat. I also need to mention that Kerri is now in size 2 Diapers. She's too big for the 1 Diapers, but the 2 Diapers are pretty big for her. SHE DIDN'T MISS A SPOT in the big diaper! And any possible opening, it was escaping. And Kerri's new trick once we change her diaper is to quickly try and flip over and crawl away, which she did and landed her knee right in the middle of the diaper. Needless to say, I accidently took more than an hour lunch. Cleaning up poop.

Patrick and I took Kerri Sunday up into the Angeles National Forest to try and get some fall pictures with maybe a pine tree or something. (I suggested sticking her in the pumpkin & gourd section at Ralph's Grocery store but Patrick said nooooo). Apparently there are two roads you can choose, the Angeles National Forest Road (which we completely overlooked and drove by) or the Angeles National Forest Cliff Drive which we retardily took. So every possible "picnic" place was basically a man-made rock wall, no more than a foot wide, with a 900 foot drop on the other side. I was SOO worried about Kerri falling over that it was just a mess! California rarely RARELY has any leaves that change a pretty color red or orange ... its all poop-brown & dusty everywhere with specks of green. So it was a fruitless mission! I'm going to sneak her into Ralphs and prop her in the pumpkin bucket.

We're searching for a cool Halloween outfit for Kerri, we have a few top contenders (I'm personally tossed between a lobster and a peanut) but not sure yet. Well I hope everyone has a great October (its 95 degrees here - BLECK!) I'll be searching the internet for fall foliage pictures of Maine since this is my all-time favorite season (minus it happening in CA, since we have only green and brown ... and spiders). Take care!

Kerri & Baby Davis #2

Well, Kerri is now 4 months old and just the sweetest little girl ever. Today she laughed and laughed with Patrick when he changed her diaper ~ apparently she grabbed his hands, stuck them in her mouth, and just cracked herself up. Which is really good considering just 24 hours ago she had 4 shots at the doctors & screamed like crazy. She's such a squirmy-worm and squirmed herself out of the bouncer this morning to land right on the rug, so now we have to start strapping her into things! Her favorite by far is the Rainforest Jumper, we stick a little cardboard box underneath so her little feeties can touch the ground. She's been a great sleeper for the past few months, almost always konking out at 10 and waking around 8. YAY!

Both Patrick and I are excited and super-cautious to report that we're also almost 7 weeks along with Baby Davis #2! We're keeping our fingers crossed until we pass the 12 week mark, especially where it's only been 4 months since Kerri checked out of the "mommy-hotel." We heard the heartbeat this Tuesday and were soo excited. So we're optimistic! Our due date would be March 17th according to the ultrasound on Tuesday. So the little bean is getting bigger!

I'm back to work now as of the 7th of July. It was surreal to come off Maternity Leave ... pregnant? I don't even want to know what my bosses think of this...I'm just not going to make eye contact.

I'm going to seriously train for a marathon next year after all of this :)

Kerri Svea is 11 weeks tomorrow!

We're 34 Weeks!

I wanted to send a quick update for everyone and even include my 33 week mugshots taken in my office last week. We go every two weeks now to see the doctor. So far Kerri is very busy flip-flopping around and has the hiccups all the time. Patrick gets quite a kick out of it.

Knock on wood, the pregnancy hasn't been bad at all, but it's getting harder and harder to flip over in bed. It's my beached whale-syndrome :) I even outgrew a pair of my maternity pants, which how is that possible where they have major elastics & sliding buttons? That just seems like it shouldn't happen. I have 4 pairs of pants to last me for the next 42 days. So far at our doctor's appointments, he's measured me a week or two ahead & last estimated her at about 5 lbs - I swear, she's going to be a bowling ball! Course they can always be off with the measurements and things could change, but apparently she's in another big growth phase.

I'm soo feeling it, especially in my back, and I'm getting a little forgetful ... Thankfully Patrick's also a half step ahead of me & has read all the husband chapters on when your pregnant wife goes nuts in the third trimester. He's not shocked when I say, "Patrick, want to watch Survivor on tivo?" "Sounds cool." Suddenly, I get up. "Kristin, where are you going?" " I need to dust the top of the bureau." "Now?" "Yep." I'm hoping this wackiness ends after Kerri's born.

This past weekend we made major progress on finishing Kerri's room. The crib arrived at the Panorama City Walmart so we picked that up early Saturday morning. It was the closest store we could find to deliver to, but I'd like to recommend everyone to not take a vacation to this town! There is nothing panoramic here. Patrick and I were wondering if we accidently stumbled into Tijuana. Westbrook, Maine is Beverly Hills compared to this town. Not to mention the Walmart was a 2-story madhouse ~ I think people used shopping carts there as weapons. Both Patrick and I got plowed over atleast 3 times each. Plus who has ever seen a tan/brown camoflauge Walmart? Shouldn't they be blue, white and happy?

So we picked up the crib and ran. While Patrick put the crib together, I became Electrician-Kristin & hooked up the new ceiling fan for the room to repace the gross spray-painted black one that was in there before. It was my first fan ever & I even surprised myself when it worked perfectly. Then with Nils & Sven's help (Thank God for free cell minutes and they had their coffee), I swapped out the black electrical outlets & fan switches for new safe ones in Kerri's room and ours as well. Talk about the moment of truth when you slap the power back onto the house & hope stuff works. No smoke! Yay! We also put up new curtain rods (still need curtains) and carpet cleaned.

Well I hope everyone is staying warm that's up in Maine, take care & write soon when you can!

Love Kristin, Patrick and Soon-To-Be Kerri Svea!

Well, first off, I apologize for posting soo late! Patrick and I are freaked out that we've made it to the 3rd trimester! Lots of things have happened since our 20 week checkup. We revealed our little girl's name to Mom, Nancy & Larry on Christmas and our families are just excited as we are. She'll be Kerri Svea Davis, a name Patrick and I found to be filled to the rim with our family & heritage. It was super important for us to look beyond the top 50 trendy names, and find something that has an incredible meaning to the people we love & we think we did just that.

Kerri is after Patrick's oldest sister that he never got to know where she passed way too early but Patrick's always felt to have a very close kindred spirit to her. We're soo excited to name our little girl after her. Svea (pronounced "Svey-ah") was the Swedish name my parents always loved, and would have matched with my two older brothers, Sven & Nils. However the more traditional Kristin won over with the grandparents & aunts from our English side of the family, so Mom & Dad took their opinion to heart. Dad always told me growing up that Svea was one of his favorite names for me & I'm thrilled to carry that on as well. I think both my Dad & Kerri are looking down on our little girl and are just as excited about her arrival as we are in less than 90 days! Well ... lets hope I don't have to over-cook a week or two...

In the first picture, Kerri Svea is waving to Daddy. What an awesome shot! The second picture is a sweet one, she's covering her face with her little arm, this is her shy side. We probably won't have any more ultra-sounds now until delivery from what our doctor says. Trust me, we're totally having ultra-sound withdrawls. We have another checkup January 29th, and then we go every two weeks from there.

Since the 24th week, Kerri Svea has been crazy active. She learned her first trick this week though, which is to kick Mommy right in the ribs. No matter which side I laid on last night, she was busy. She had places to go but wasn't getting farther than that. She's nicely set up for me to take about 18 trips to the bathroom each night (which by the way, I hate tiled floors! Why are they soo 'in'? My feet are soo happy with fluffy rugs, then at 3am they turn to little icecubes on the cold bathroom tiled floor...)

I finished working at the restaurant (the extra night job...which turned out to be about 5 shifts a week too many) at around 22 weeks and am on leave there. One Saturday night, as a closer, I was in a rush to buff the red wine glasses and throw them on the shelf before going home. Of course, one teetered ... and my instant thought was to save the glass! With a quick wacky back-swing-grab, I caught it in mid-drop. Saved it. But...

I should have let it just crash; but my thought process instantly was - if that stupid thing crashes, it's going to shatter; then I'll have to go out back, get the broom, find the million slivers & shards of glass, yada yada yada ... I've taped Survivor at home, it'll then be another 5-10 minutes before I can hit the couch and watch it ... MUST SAVE THE GLASS.

So that 50-cent piece of crap wine glass glass ended up tearing my lower back muscles and shredding my right-side round ligaments, giving me major back spasms by Sunday morning, and finished off with my doctor at 7am with, "Get your butt to labor and delivery now! They need to stop it immediately! How long ago did this happen?? Since last night? Are you kidding me?"
I just kept hoping I could get Patrick home before the 10am football games...

After about 2 hours there, a sweet heating pad, and some monitoring, the spasms/early labor weird stuff, finally ended. And we got an early tour of the hospital, kind of nice?

When your round ligaments pull out of whack as bad as I did, and your little bean keeps growing, I've learned it's impossible to ever give them a rest and repair. It's been about 5 weeks now and I seem to have alot more popcorn (that's Maine-talk for 'energy') and can actually walk 20 feet without feeling like I need to pull over and pass out.

So all in all, Kerri and I are doing really well & getting bigger and bigger... we're over 27 weeks!