Ouch!

Last night when Valerie came down the stairs after lightly bumping her head on a chair, this is what we saw. . .

Needless to say Caleb and I had a great laugh. Valerie on the other had was so proud that she was able to put the band-aid on "All by myself".

Henry Max Tracy

Here are a few of the pictures of the newest member of our family, Henry Max Tracy.  He was born December 3, 2009 at 1:51pm and weighed 8lb even and was 21 inches long.  He is doing GREAT! He has 10 perfect toes and fingers on long skinny feet and hands, and has lots of hair that is tinted red.  As soon as we are home we will post the details, but for now here are the pictures we have so far.  Enjoy!!!

Our Little Princess

For Halloween Valerie wanted to be Princess Aurora (a.k.a Sleeping Beauty).  She got her wish, not only once but 3 times due to all the parties we went to.  She loved dressing up, putting on the makeup and having her hair fixed. But if I had to guess her most favorite part was trick-o-treating. She had a blast running from door to door until she told Caleb she was to tired to walk any more, which only took 1 1/2 hours for her to tucker out.

Eight More Weeks?!

For all you curious people out there here is a prego picture of me. In this picture I am 32 weeks or 8 months.  I only have 8 more weeks until my due date and boy does that seem like it won’t come fast enough.  I remember when I was pregnant with Valerie my mom told me I would get to the point where I was so miserable giving birth sounded like a great option.  I never really got to that point with her, but with this kid I am beginning to understand what she means.  At 29 weeks I had another routine ultra sound.  As the ultra sound tech was doing her measurements she asked me if I had passed my glucose test, I said yes and then she asked if I passed it on the first try and again I said yes.  I had to laugh because I knew even before the ultra sound that this little boy was a bigger baby than normal.  First off I knew this because he has been constantly measuring 2 weeks ahead for the past couple months.  Secondly, I can feel his head as far down as he can go and his legs are still in my lungs and rib cage, or as the Dr puts it, “You have a long torso and this little boy takes up all the room!”  When ultra sound tech was done she said he was measuring about 2 weeks ahead (which we already knew) and that he weighed at that point of time about 3 1/2lbs, which is what a normal baby at 32 weeks weighs. So we know for sure he is going to be bigger than his sister.  Oh well, at least he is healthy and in reality 8 weeks really isn’t that far away, that is unless you are pregnant. . . ha ha ha.

Forgotten Summer Adventures

~if you want to see the pictures better click on them and they should get bigger~

As I was looking at our blog I realized there were lots of fun things I never got to blogging about. So thanks to Picasa I was able to collage my pictures into groups and in one post you will be able to see the adventures our family had this summer.

To begin with, in July we went to see my family in Victor New York. This first set of pictures is us having fun at the local park with my family, my brothers and some of my cousins. Afterwards we went to a mom and pop ice cream shop where my mom and my aunt got Caleb to order a large ice cream cone. Lets just say Caleb’s eyes about popped out of his head when they brought it to him. The ice cream cone was at least 18 inches tall, packed full of ice cream. Wouldn’t you know it Caleb ate it all!!! After ice cream we went with my mom and my brothers to see the Palmyra Temple. Later in the week we went to the Hill Cumorah pageant and the Sacred Grove, but we didn’t take any pictures, sorry :(

While we were still in New York we had lots of fun and lots of firsts. We went to see Niagara Falls, which were my and my moms first time ever seeing the falls. We went to the Rochester Children’s Strong Museum of Play, this was a first for Caleb going to this museum. Don’t let him fool you, he loved playing with Valerie and my little brothers Phillip and David. And last but not least we went to a local amusement park which was a first for Valerie, and she LOVED riding all the rides!

On our way home from Victor we decided to drive down to Kirtland and see some of the church sites. We only spent an afternoon visiting. Caleb and I both have been to Kirtland before but not since the Church rearranged everything. The Church did an amazing job. Everything is much more family and visitor friendly.

Finally here are some of the random happenings we had going on this summer. We got to see caterpillars turn into butterflies. We got to watch and are still watch our pet banana spider build webs, and catch bugs (the spider is as big as my palm!). Valerie had her first smore, and loved every gooey moment. Valerie also decided one day to try and paint her own toe nails with bright hot pink polish. Lets just say she got a bath in nail polish remover, I have pretty pink spots on my carpet, and the master bathroom floor has a beautiful hot pink accent spot! Valerie also had lots of fun mowing the lawn with daddy and playing in the rain. For Labor Day weekend we went to Morris Island Lighthouse and Angel Oak. Angle Oak is a beautiful 1500+ year old oak tree that stands 65 ft tall, measure 9 ft in diameter, and shades with its crown an area of 17,000 square feet. Its longest limb is 89 feet in length. So needless to say it is a massive tree. We had a great summer and hope you did too! Now we are excited for fall and all the fun activities autumn brings.

The Super Duper Vivacious 2 Year Old Is . . . .

POTTY TRAINED!!!!!!!!!!! That’s right folks my not quite 2 ½ year old is potty trained. I am so glad. We are a diaper free home until the very beginning of December! We had a little bit of a rough start the beginning of the week but by Wednesday morning we were using the big potty all by our self. We have had no accidents since Wednesday, including during the night, and she is able to tell us when she needs to go and she can do pretty much everything by herself we just have to stand by and supervise. Hopefully in a week or two we can stop using pull-ups (our special night time undies) at night and then we will be completely free and clear of anything that resembles a diaper!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have a sticker potty chart, and every 10 times she goes on the potty she gets a reward. The first one was a big box of candy she got to choose. This is a picture of her showing it off. Today she got her 20th sticker so we are going to McDonald's for lunch so she can play in the play place and have chicken nuggets. And the the final reward, 30 stickers is a new toy. This is the one she cant wait to get. She talks about it all the time.

Is It A Girl. . . or A Boy?!

Over a week ago I had my 20 week ultrasound and found out we are having. Both Caleb and I had a feeling we were going to have a boy but Tracy tradition said for us to expect otherwise. On Caleb’s side of the family you have the same gender twice, and then you get the next gender twice. So as an example you would have two girls then two boys. Out of Caleb’s 3 brothers that have kids this is the scenario for all three of them. So odds were against us. Guess what we broke the tradition! We are having a BOY!!! We are so excited. So far everything is going well, we both are healthy, and our little boy is right on track for his growth. We are going to name him Henry Max Tracy. He is going to be named after my Great Grandfather Henry Max Reinhardt who was a very special man. We are so excited and can’t wait to finally meet him the beginning of December!

*4th Of July Happenings*

I know it is a little belated, ok a lot belated but Happy 4th of July. Our 4th was lots of fun and has become very meaning full to us as a family since Caleb has been serving in the Navy and is planning on staying in and going career. I guess the best way to describe it is we have a new found love, honor and respect for our country and those who defend and defended it. We love you America!

Friday night July 3rd we had fun going to the Navy’s 4th of July celebration. While we were there we had snow cones, visited friends, played on a big blow up slide and watched the fireworks. Valerie was so excited about the fireworks but ended up falling asleep before they started and slept through them. Poor girl :(

On the 4th the festivities kept on going. That afternoon we had a BBQ with friends. Then later that night we were able to meet up with Caleb’s Uncle Brian, Aunt Sheri and their kids from Atlanta. Valerie loved all the attention. That night we went and watched fireworks that where launched off the USS Yorktown off one of the many piers in Charleston. While we all were waiting for the fireworks to start we decided that nowhere in the world could you watch 4th of July fireworks in such a historic place with so much meaning. The fireworks were coming off an aircraft carrier that fought in WWII. To its left you had Fort Sumter which was a pivotal place in the Civil War, and you also had Fort Moultrie in the back ground, which protected our troops in the Revolutionary and Civil War. It was a really neat experience with a beautiful background. P.S Valerie stayed awake and was able to see the fireworks and she loved them. She kept on saying "Fireworks say Boom Boom".

Having Fun : )

Here are some of the fun things that have happened around our house the past few weeks.

Here Valerie is having fun dressing Daddy up and dancing with him. I thought it was pretty cute. To bad Caleb's head was too big. His necklace didn't fit him. So he had to ware it as a crown.

Valerie thought that changing one of her dolls diapers would be a great Idea. Of course she chose the doll that is fabric and not plastic. Remind you I was getting her cloths when she so sneakily did this. Here is what I found, one very proud little girl and doll covered in diaper cream.

At the beginning of June Valerie and I went blackberry picking. We had lots of fun, but I think Daddy had more fun juicing the berries. It went from me doing it to him helping me to him reenacting a scene from the Indiana Jones movie "Temple of Doom". P.S If you want to juice any kind of berry and not have seeds in your jelly, use CLEAN old pantyhose.

Last but not least finger painting. Each day I have been trying to do a fun craft or project with Valerie. Yesterday we tried finger painting. Valerie thought finger painting was lots of fun, but she thought that body painting was even better!

Oh I forgot this picture. It's to cute to leave out. This was taken on my phone while we where waiting for Daddy to get in the car. I think this picture speaks volumes about Valerie's personality!

Catching Up Part 1, Lots of Pictures

I have to admit for about the past 8 weeks I have been slacker at blogging amongst many other things. There is just something about week 14 for me. It’s like the morning sickness and fatigue magically disappear and I feel like my normal self. Well I pretty much do. I will admit I am much more uncomfortable and emotional this time around, but now I have my energy back and I feel great! Enough of my droning on and let’s get to what we as a family have been up to the past few months.

The end of April we as a family flew out to Seattle to visit Caleb's family and see our Uncle Conner off on his mission to Jamaica. While we were there we had lots of fun with our Family and had lots of fun adventures. First off we went to the park by Grandma and Grandpas house.

We then went to the Tulip Festival and got to see the acres and acres of pretty tulips.

Another adventure we had while we were there is we went to the Aquarium. Valerie had tons of fun seeing all the fish. The one thing she didn’t like was the awesome touch pool tank they have. No matter how hard Auntie Kali, Mom, Dad, tried Valerie wouldn’t touch a thing.

Once we got back from Seattle we celebrated Valerie’s 2nd birthday! We just had a family celebration, mainly because I had morning sickness and didn’t have the energy to host a party. We still had lots of fun. We let her choose her own decorations and she choose a Curious George theme. We ate pizza for dinner (which is her favorite), had birthday cake, ice cream and opened presents.