Redesigned with Renewed Intent

The blog template I had been using was about to expire, so that motivated me to make a few changes and post an update:

I haven't posted since October, and I guess I never got around to announcing that Brett & I are expecting to welcome our second child at the end of April! We know the gender, but I will refrain from posting that here since I know of at least one close friend who wants the birth to be a surprise. Corinne is excited to be a big sister and seems to understand much more about the concept that a baby is growing in mama's tummy than I thought she would. She is not quite as excited about the fact that my growing belly means that I can't/won't carry her around as often or that I am not willing to participate in more physical play with her - daddy and Uncle Scott are filling her rough-housing quota so I'm not feeling very bad about our calmer activities.

Some of Corinne's favorite things to do right now include playing with play-doh, reading and doing the activities from her Highlights for Children subscription, painting with watercolors, going on pretend vacations in airplanes and doing creative imaginary play with Baby Stella and her stuffed animals. With play-doh we have a "one color at a time" policy that Corinne happily adheres to - I get a little OCD about cleaning up all of the tools and the play area before we move to a new color and I was heartbroken when a little bit of brown got mixed in with the white, but now we have tan so Corinne is learning new colors!

For a week in January we were able to escape the frigid temperatures and get away for a vacation with Brett's family in Hawaii. Corinne was a trooper on all four flights, she is such a great little traveler. I, on the other hand, had to wear compression hose due to my pregnant state of being and was not entirely amused with the experience. While we were away Corinne slept in a portable toddler bed (thank you Aunt Tina!) which I was worried about since she has always slept in her crib - recently modified to toddler bed - at night, but she never questioned her sleeping arrangements and slept soundly the entire trip. The weather was a huge improvement over what was happening in Ohio while we were gone and we were able to spend time in the pool, at the beach, exploring farmer's markets and Brett & I even got away for a day of whale watching while Memaw & Papaw babysat. We had a great time and now Corinne like to get out our luggage (which she likes to call her packages), pack up her toys and take an airplane to Hawaii. Our pretend plane rides are complete with overhead bins, tray tables and turbulence. Love that kid!

She was very excited to return to her normal schedule, go to school and see her teachers & friends and sleep in her room. However, after about a week she came down with a pretty serious cold/virus and was out of school for 3 days - throwing her schedule off again and surrounding her with people willing to cuddle her all day. The transition back to school has been a little bumpier this time, but we're getting there. She is definitely happy while she's at school, she just doesn't want mama to go to work during the day. I'm guessing that by the end of next week she will be back to her normal departure; a hug & kiss for mama after removing her coat and then picking out a book to read with her teacher...never looking up to see if I have left. I love that I feel so great about her care during the day!