4th of July

The main reason we traveled to New Mexico was to celebrate the 4th of July birthdays. I was born on not only the 4th of July, but also on my Papa's birthday. The night of the 4th, my parents always have a big BBQ, with plenty of cake and ice cream to celebrate with. Greg and I try to take off on little adventures during the day. Last year, we went on a Breaking Bad tour and visited a bunch of filming locations of the show.

This year, we played Tourist and went for a ride on the Sandia Peak Tram. Its a 2.7 mile long cable stretching from the base of the mountain to the summit, and takes about 15 minutes to ascend the mountain. The views are amazing and you can see almost all of Albuquerque while suspended high above the city. When you reach the top, you are at an elevation of over 10,000 feet. During the summer its cool and breezy and a nice change from the hotter temperatures at the base, and as you can imagine, its cold and snowy during the winter. Since the fire danger is too high this summer, the backside of the mountain, ski area chair lifts and hiking trails were all closed.

Once we were done on the Tram (and stopped for frozen yogurt) we headed back to my parent's house to get ready for the BBQ. All of our family and a few friends stopped by for dinner and cake. The weather was perfect and only started to rain at the very end of the night. Kennedy stayed up the latest she has even stayed up, and I found her devouring chocolate cake at nearly 10:00pm.

I had such a fun (and exhausting) birthday and ended the day looking forward to celebrating Kennedy's birthday in the morning.

Top of the Tram. 

High above the Sandia Mountains. 

Firecracker Princess

Kennedy loves to play dress up, and most recently, wedding. 

 Happy birthday to us. 

23 and 32

The Hunters have returned from our annual 4th of July Birthday Trip to New Mexico and are enjoying a quiet afternoon at home (where we are fresh out of cake and cupcakes...kind of a relief!) We had a wonderful time and got to see lots of family and friends. This week, the numbers 2 and 3 happened to have a lot of significance for us. Kennedy turned 3. I turned 32. And this week marked 23 weeks in my pregnancy with Boo.

Pregnancy wise, I'm still feeling really good. The altitude bothered me just a tad - found my self a little winded and huffing and puffing at times while we were there. But generally still feeling pretty good. Boo is roughly the size of a large mango now, and weighs just over a pound. We have a chocolate lover on our hands. Boo literally bounces around like crazy after I have a few bites of a chocolaty sweet treat. There was no shortage of opportunities to test this out on our vacation, and I kind of can't wait to get back to the gym this week!

Greg and I took a ride on the Sandia Peak Tram on Thursday (more on that later) and snapped a pic of this quickly growing baby bump.

My Mini Stripe

We have a thing for navy and white stripes in this house. Its sometimes embarrassing when I look in my closet and a good portion of my shirts/dresses are navy and white striped. I'm projecting this pattern obsession onto Kennedy as well, and about died in GapKids when I saw their current summer line. Its navy. Its striped. And its adorable. I love kid clothes that look like mini versions of adult outfits and we could not pass up this dress. Here we are having some super matchy-matchy pictures taken to mark our upcoming birthdays.

Mommy Stripe and Mini Stripe

Princess of the Potty

Kennedy up and decided she was ready to say bye-bye to diapers this weekend. We tried this a few months back, and I just don't think she was ready yet. So we didn't make a big deal about it and let her sit on the potty whenever she felt the need. Which was occasionally through the day and before her bath. But Sunday morning, she requested panties and gathered up all her diapers (on her own) to leave for the Diaper Fairy. It wasn't really the day we had planned to start, but I didn't want to squash her enthusiasm, so we just went with it.

She is doing amazingly well! I can tell she is definitely ready for this big step. #1 has been no problem at all. I even took her to the Y and summer camp in her big girl undies and there were no accidents. I thought we were going to be sort of tied to the house, but she has been doing really well out and about with public potties. At home, she no longer sits on the potty chair, but on the regular potty with a little seat adaptor on it. #2 has been a different story, I will spare you the details and you can just assume were workin' on it.

Yesterday she put all her diapers out on the front porch so the Diaper Fairy could gather them and leave her a special Big Girl surprise. This worked so well when we ditched the paci so we thought it might be effective with diapers as well. When I asked her what sort of surprise she wanted, her answer was simple and direct: diamonds. Keep dreaming sister. If anyone is rewarded with diamonds for potty training, it should really be the trainer and not the trainee. This is a lot of work!! But the Diaper Fairy really came through. You can see her new "diamond" earrings and crown. And she got some "glass slippers" which help her fully transform into Cinderella.

We are so proud of how well she is doing and she tells me often how proud she is of herself. Can't believe this sweet little lady is going to be 3 in a few weeks.

No pants, no problems. Makes potty breaks a little easier at home. Opening her special surprise from the Diaper Fairy.

Sporting new fancy jewelry. 

Princess Kennedy

Little Mermaid

Summer is officially here and we have been spending a ton of our time at the pool. We are lucky enough to have a pool in our neighborhood, and a ton of neighbors who don't use it! Kennedy absolutely loves being in the water and I love the long naps she takes when we get in from swimming. She definitely feels comfortable in the water and I am anxious to see how she does in her lessons in a few weeks.

Her favorite thing to do is jump in and pretend she is Rapunzel coming out of her tower. She can play this for hours. This week she was brave enough to try the water slide at the Y. It took a little encouragement from a friendly lifeguard, but then it was Love at First Slide.

A little sampling of our recent pool play dates. 

19 Week Update

I had my 19 week check up and ultrasound on Friday morning. Typically, this is when you can find out the baby's gender. And the night before I did briefly toy with the idea of finding out this time. But we didn't. Boo's gender remains a surprise. The sonographer let me know at the beginning of the exam that she would refer to the baby as he and not to take that as an indication of gender, she universally calls all babies he during ultrasounds. We are happy to report that everything looked great! Boo is weighing approximately 10 oz (about the size of an heirloom tomato) and was quite active. I had a contraction during the u/s which prompted a couple questions with my doctor because I have been feeling them in the evenings. All is normal and well and I will probably continue to have them sporadically throughout (this was the case with Kennedy as well).

Greg and Kennedy came to the appointment with me. We had been preparing Kennedy that the doctor would use a special machine to see inside my tummy and she would get to see pictures of Boo on the screen. She was pretty excited leading up to it but she was more confused than anything at the images on the screen. I think she thought it was going to be more like seeing a baby on TV, you know, like Baby Einstein. Which is pretty funny now that I think about it.

The two questions I get the most, after OMG I can't believe you're not finding out the gender, are do you feel like its a boy/girl, and do you have names picked out? The only thing I can say I am feeling, for sure, is pregnant. I have some pleasant and some not so pleasant pregnancy symptoms and depending on which website and whom you are talking to, they can mean boy/girl. If you ask Kennedy her thoughts on Boo's gender, all she tells me is that "he" is her "baby sister." So, there you go. As far as names, well, we are sticking with Boo. Boo Hunter. Just kidding, we will name the baby when he or she is born!

19 Weeks, almost halfway there!