Happy 4th Birthday Audrey!

My niece Audrey is now 4 years old. I remember when I first met her and she was this big. Sniff Sniff. She was such a sweet baby girl who would sit back and watch everything that was going on quietly and we all knew that one day she would be the Tesch ring leader and run the show. Look at these little eyes and tell me that you wouldn't do anything that she asked you to do. This past weekend we celebrated her birthday outside with a bin fire, bubble machine, and BBQ. It was perfect. Marc and Anna did a wonderful job putting together such a fun and relaxing party for her with really yummy food made by Anna's mom :) We got Audrey her very own hair care kit, Toy Story bubble bath, lipstick (starburst chapstick), nail polish, and nail stickers. She was really excited about painting her nails blue. Cousin Lily, Aunt Nikki, Uncle Brad, and our sweet 4 Year old niece Audrey....sniff sniff....here I go again. Lily had a great time WALKING everywhere at the party and grabbing other peoples food and drinks to chew on them..... she wasn't drinking that, just chewing on the straw :) Happy Birthday Beautiful Audrey Girl. I am so happy to be your aunt and watch you grow into a perfect little lady....but don't grow too fast okay. Sniff Sniff.....okay I have to stop now.

Holland Happening Parade

Daddy, Lily, and I went to the Holland Happening Parade with my brother-in-law Marc, sister-in-law Anna, and the kids Grace, Ezra, and Audrey, and a few friends of ours. Watching a parade with kids is so much more fun! The way they look at the things driving by, get so excited as the floats throw candy, and Lily loved to wave to the people as they went by. It was so adorable. Here are a few pictures from our lovely morning at the parade. She wasn't too fond of the stinky cows in the parade. See her funny face?

Our sweet Lily holding onto a flower for dear life, wouldn't let it go the entire parade.

Daddy, Lily, Baby Tesch at 13 weeks, and Mommy.

Lily and her cousin Ezra. He is such a lover boy....he takes such good care of his little cousin, so protective and so sweet.....he will steal little girls hearts everywhere. He loves her so much and she loves her Ezra or as she says...Eeeerrra.Lily's faces crack me up...she has so many expressions. Afterwards we went out to lunch with our friends Wil and Marcy. Wil is Lily's Godfather and Lily just loved playing with Marcy, cuddling into her and falling fast asleep.

My Mommy

I've loved my mom since the first time I met her, she's my best friend. We've taken many vacations together visiting Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, and New Jersey. She's a very protective mom making sure I'm okay and always watches over me. She is a wonderful travel buddy. We both like aisle seats and will talk someones ear off until we both get what we want. We have mommy and daughter days that I cherish.She was so helpful in planning our beautiful wedding and made me feel like a princess all day. My mom is so beautiful. She threw me a beautiful baby shower, took care of me when I was on bed rest, cleaned my home, and fed my husband. She has been by my side helping me learn to be a mom.....hopefully as good as a mom as she was to me. On top of being a great mom to me, she is an amazing grandma to Lily.

Happy Birthday to my best friend and my mommy. I love you more than you'll ever know and appreciate what a wonderful mom you've been to me.

11 weeks

Yesterday we had our highly anticipated ultrasound....is there one or two babies in the tummy?

ONE BABY!!!!The baby's heartbeat was 184 beats per minute and the little one was very active. My due date has now been changed to November 6, 2011. Wow. I'm having another baby. Time to start being Nikki and start organizing and planning. Come on baby....give me the mommy energy that I need along with some nesting please. How cool are these ultrasounds, 2D, 3D, and 4D video!!!! Technology is awesome!

The Evil Flu and First Steps

This past weekend was by far one of the hardest weekends I've ever experienced as a new mom. On Friday night I started throwing up like crazy. Not like pregnancy throwing up which is what I am use to, but insane every 10 minutes throwing up. I thought that I for sure had food poisoning. It was awful. All night I practically slept next to the toilet in tears as I was begging for it to stop. In the morning my husband and I went to check on Lily and she was covered in throw up. My poor baby was hunched over as I held her over the bathtub as she threw up. I have never felt so helpless in my life as I watched my little baby being so sick. I wanted to take all of the pain away, but I couldn't....especially since I was worse. I was freezing with a fever, shaking, weak, you name it.....I was pathetic. And to top it off....my husband got it Saturday night and now he's sick. Thankfully It passed after about 12-18 hours, but my house was chaos this weekend. I had every intention to get some projects done, organize a few things, spring cleaning....wrong. All I got done was load after load of laundry that had throw up on it. As soon as I finished one, Lily would throw up on something else. It was never ending.

My baby took her first steps on Friday April 15th, 2011. I was on the couch watching her play with her toys as she turned around, said mama and walked towards me. She has taken 2-4 steps, but fell down so I really didn't count that as "walking" yet. But on Friday she took about 8 steps and was for sure walking to her mama. I cried cried cried.

I am a mom who is working full time. Doing my best to be super mom and wife. Trying to not miss out on any of Lily's firsts.....but its really difficult. Thankfully I have a wonderful mother-in-law that watches our baby for a few days while I am working, Lily is very loved, spending time with her grandma, and loving when I drop her off in the mornings. Grandma sings songs to her, plays with her, and spoils her rotten I'm sure. Without my mother-in-laws help from the beginning I would have been a disaster to go to work after my maternity leave was up. I would have had to do daycare which was made me nervous since I wouldn't know who was watching my baby, if she would have one on one care and attention, and the cost....well we just couldn't take that on either. She made me feel at ease knowing everything was okay and she would take great care of our baby....and she did and we are so thankful for her help.

I am also blessed with a wonderful friend Tiffany that watches Lily a few days a week along with her two kids. I love that her oldest Andrew is sad that he has to go to school because he will miss Lily too much. She is so wonderful with Lily. We have been friends for a really long time and I would do anything for her. She has been so wonderful in helping us out. Such a blessing to have her as a friend and such an important role in my Lily's life.

{5th Place}

Out of 120 or so entries, I got 5th place in the Looks for spring contest with jesslc.com. Here are the results! It would have been nice to win the big prize, but I am very happy that I placed so high :) Thank you all who voted for me. I plan on using this look for our family photos this summer! I can't wait!!!!

{Exhausted}

I feel like I have a ton going on, but I'm not sure if it's just me not having ANY energy what-so-ever! I don't know what it is about this pregnancy, but I am exhausted.....all the time. I have no energy to do anything when I get home from work and its killing me. If you know me, you know I love to clean, organize, and be all wifey and mommy. Not right now. All I want to do is put jammies on, throw a blanket over me, and cuddle on the couch while I watch my Lily girl play with her Lego's. My amazing husband knew that I was so tired so he took care of dinner. He even brought it out to me with a big glass of orange juice. When I was pregnant with Lily I had a pitcher of orange juice every day! Looks like my craving is back, but this time I'll do orange juice in moderation. All that sugar made me gain 60 pounds! Thankfully I lost all but 10 pounds before I got pregnant again.

I am officially 10 weeks today and I'm feeling pretty good. I would totally share a picture with you, but like I said I am exhausted and doing my hair and make up is not a priority for me right now. See.....I'm totally not myself! I am doing better drinking water thanks to everyone who's encouraging me to drink drink drink. Yesterday I started walking at the track with Lily in the stroller and my girlfriend Nicole. We talked about everything you could imagine and sure enough we had walked 2 miles just like that! I felt great, finally I am doing something. Making time to be active, but still spend time with my baby girl even after working a 9 hour day. We have made a commitment to walking 4 days a week. If we can't walk on that day due to weather or whatever we must workout at home for 1 hour. I can do this! Having a fit pregnancy is very important to me. I want to make sure that this baby and I are as healthy as we can be especially since I've been so sick. I would love to be able to go to the gym and lift weights and do cardio, but I tried it once and I was so sick afterwards. So until my throwing up subsides a little, its going to be walking and pregnancy pilates for this mama.

This past weekend I barely peeled myself of the couch long enough to try and find something to wear. Since my tummy is poking out pretty far all of my skinny clothes that I was trying to fit back into made me cry once again. So Lily sat on the floor and watched me have a mommy panic attack as I took all of the skinny clothes out of my closet and replace it with the maternity clothes that I have. It was hard to do, but I'm happy to be growing a little baby for Lily to play with. Bigger picture right? It's difficult sometime to look at the bigger picture, but I couldn't be happier. I even managed to get an entire bag of donations together. Purging and cleaning out what I'll never wear again. Why did I hold on to so many things if I'm never going to wear them again.

My next big project is to get Lily's baby clothes organized by size. If I have another girl, everything will be ready and organized. In the meantime, my sister-in-law Jenn just had a baby girl so Lily's clothes can be shared with her! Saving money and getting use out of the adorable girly clothes that we were given.

Little projects in the hopper include making gifts for the Cooper Triplets birthday party this weekend. I even borrowed a sewing machine so that I can get these projects completed. Tomorrow I am also starting to work on a tin star that I am making for my girlfriend Valerie. She has such an adorable little family and I can't wait to make it for her.

Seriously...How cute are they!

I am also working on details for Lily's 1st birthday party! I have to make the invitations, party hats, schedule her 1st birthday pictures, and so much more......I'll tell you all about that later. I told you I had a lot going on....well I feel like it at least. I'll get it all done, I am super mom and I can totally do it all! Right?

Vote For Me!!!

I recently entered an awesome contest with http://www.jesslc.com/ to enter the design your look contest. I fell in love with this little contest and thought it would be fun to give it a try. Here's what I came up with for my whole family for our family photos that I hope to take this summer!I'm loving this maternity dress from Bella Blueand this adorable shirt from Gap Kids for Laney...very hip right?and the sweetest little dress you've ever seen for my little Lily.

Oh I hope I win! Okay......now go here and vote for me!

http://www.jesslc.com/

Voting ends on April 15th and the winner is announced on April 18th. Help me out people. I wanna win!

{11 months old}

Maybe its the pregnancy hormones or maybe its just the fact that my little Lily isn't a baby anymore....she's a toddler! She holds on to furniture and runs, stands on her own and falls over, tries to take a step and puts her hands down cause she's scared, scrunches her face and smiles big, she giggles uncontrollably at the weirdest things, and drops things on the ground and says, "uh oh!" She is so adorable. Her personality is shining through and it spells trouble for us. Good trouble though :)

Lily's last day as a 10 month old. *sniff* Lily giving mommy one of her Lego's to play with. I love putting her hair in a little ponytail, its so adorable! Falling asleep on mommy's chest. She may be a toddler, but she's still mommy's baby.

Cracking up at Aunt Anna's house. Ezra was making faces at her, she loves Ezra!

This is the scrunch nose I was telling you about. Pretty darn cute isn't it.

Now I need to get into overdrive and plan this birthday party. I have everything ready for the invites, I just need to sit down and make them. Tonight! I'll get them done tonight! Or I'll try to. I can't wait for you all to see what Lily's birthday party theme is. It's pretty adorable. Maybe my baby can stay this age forever?

9 Weeks

Well It's still early on in my pregnancy with my second baby. I am showing quite a bit so I couldn't hide it from our families and work any longer especially since I've been so sick with this pregnancy. Yesterday was a scary day. I woke up and vomited a few times before I came to work same as any other day, but this time I had blood in my vomit. Probably too much information, but I feel like maybe someone who is having a rough pregnancy may one day read this and get some comfort in knowing that she's not alone. So I'm not sparing any gory details. I went to the hospital for my first pregnancy due to dehydration, you can read about it here.

As soon as I got to work I contacted my doctor and they sent me over the the Island Hospital Cancer and Infusions Center. They apparently do IV's and fluids for new Mommy's all the time so that made me feel better. I had 2 bags of fluid since I was severely dehydrated from vomiting so much....or as my husband Brad would call it....calling dinosaurs. I sat in a recliner where they hooked my up with an IV and started fluids, on the second bag they gave me a medicine called fenegren for my nausea that immediately made me pass out. (Please keep in mind that I have no make up on and I had thrown up my guts before this picture was taken.) The nurse was the mom of a friend of mine that I went to high school with, she was so nice and put my IV in. It didn't hurt at all, I didn't even feel it! I don't remember leaving, being picked up by my parents, lunch with my parents and husband, calling my mother in law to make arrangements for Lily....nothing! My mom told me that when I got home I went on the couch and fell asleep. We got home at around noon and I woke up at 6:00pm. Those meds sure knocked me out. When I woke up Brad and Lily had just arrived and my parents were taking good care of me. I'm sure they were making sure I didn't drool all over their nice couch. I felt really groggy when I woke up, but I felt so much better. It's amazing what fluids and sleep can do for you. Now here's the tough part.....

Here are the things I'm going to do to prevent myself from getting too dehydrated:

• Drink a ton of water. I hate water. It hates me. If I could drink root beer instead of water I would be like a fish, but no I have to drink water, so I'll do my best and drink, drink!


• Eat 6 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner with 2-3 snacks a day.


• Lots of protein


• Start walking to get my energy level up


• Now here's the hardest one.....let my house not be perfect and get to cleaning when I can.


• Sleep. I need sleep. My body is making pretty important parts of a baby right now and it's a lot of work. So I'll do my best to sleep whenever I can.

Okay, now is when you come in.....Can my friends help me along the way? If you see me......why aren't you drinking water? Wanna go for a walk with me? You get the idea.