Aiden is 3!!!!!

I can't believe he is 3, I know every year I say he is growing too fast but 3 is old!!!! I remember when Aiden was a baby & I would see my friend's kids turning 3, I would think to myself, "that's really old,  I don't ever want Aiden to be that old", and here it is...3!!!  He's so independent now. He's goes potty by himself, washes his hands by himself, gets dressed by himself, puts his dishes in the sink, cleans his room...he's even going to start preschool in August!!!!!!Before I know it, he's going to be in kindergarten. Although I'm a little sad that every year goes by so fast and he keeps growing and growing, I'm so proud to be his mom. He's a thoughtful, kind, smart and funny little boy.

I feel like the decision to skip a Birthday party this year resulted in a bunch of small celebrations. Aiden had 3 birthday lunches, one while we were visiting the train museum, one with my sister yesterday before he picked out his pet fish and one today on his actual birthday. That's more ice cream than he's had almost his whole life!!!

Yesterday, my sister and I took Aiden out to lunch and then to Petsmart to pick out his pet fish. He didn't know he was getting fish, we kept that a surprise. He LOVES his fish. He picked out 5 goldfish (even though I tried to steer him towards a Beta fish) and gravel and decorations for his tank. He named his goldfish, tractor, car, gold one, tree and little tree (can you guess what he was looking at when he named them? lol) He was so excited to get them home and put them in their tank. He held the bag of fish in his lap the whole way home, every bump he would ask the fish if they were ok and then tell me, "they're ok mom!" Such a sweet boy!!! When we filled up the tank, we had to let the fish float on top in their bag so they could get used to the water temperature. Aiden decided that they would like to hear a story while they were waiting so he picked out a book and "read" it to them.
He loves feeding his fish and looking at them. I'm not sure if they feel the same love towards him as they always swim to the back corner when he peers inside. :)

Today is his actually birthday. Last night Z and I decorated the hallways with balloons and hung streamers from his door so he would be surprised when he woke up. At the end of each balloon I tied a toy animal so we could tell Aiden that his animals got him balloons. We decorated the kitchen table with a happy birthday table cloth and hung other birthday decorations up. We set up his brand new toy train on the floor in the living room so it was ready to be played with when he woke up.

When he woke up I heard some noise in the hallway then he came into our room looking a little alarmed and said that his animals were stuck on balloons. I explained that they weren't "stuck", they were giving him balloons. Aiden liked that idea but still wanted the animals "unstuck". We untied each animal from each balloon and Aiden thanked each one for giving him a balloon.

He played all morning with his train. His animals took turns riding the "Aiden Express". That train seemed to get louder and louder each hour...I'm starting to regret this gift! :) Z had to work so we met him for lunch at Red Robin. They gave him a birthday dessert and sang him a song. He happily clapped his hands along with the song.

Another great birthday for Aiden!!

Giving the fish a hug!



 hallway and door decorations

 new train

 kitchen

 playing with his train for the first time

kinda excited!

 Blowing out the candle on his birthday doughnut

Ice cream lunch



Aiden's birthday visit to the train museum

Lately Aiden has been very into trains. He loves watching trains on YouTube, playing trains and watching the trains go by in our neighborhood. He doesn't really like Thomas or any other cartoon trains, he likes the real stuff. We were thinking of things to do for his birthday and since he really doesn't have a lot of friends his age, we decided to take him to the train museum in Golden instead of having a party. On Saturdays, the museum does "ride the rails Saturdays" where they have train rides around the museum. Today they had a steam ride which is awesome because Aiden LOVES steam trains!!!!!Well, at least I think he does, he's never has actually seen one before because they are pretty rare. Turns out (big shocker) he loved it! The whistle was a little loud which scared him at first but he got used to it. We rode the steam ride three times. The first time we sat in an open car and the last two times we sat in the caboose which was pretty cool. The seats were red velvet and it was filled with character. It was even in a movie starring Marilyn Monroe which I thought was pretty cool.
All week Aiden has been looking forward to the train museum. He plays "acation" (vacation) with his toy animals and pretends to bring them to a train museum. He gets them tickets and puts them on his train like they are riding the train.
We woke up early and hit the road. We got there around 9:45am and Aiden was kinda excited! LOL!

The train museum had a model train exhibit, a train yard filled with locomotives, box cars, dining cars, mails car and every other train thing you can think of. Aiden loved going inside and pulling all the levers and ringing the bell.

 Aiden the engineer

  Riding the steam train

 model trains

 Old locomotive

 Diesel Train

Hooray!!

 Riding with Grandpa on the steam train

 Alllllll Aboard!!!

 Driving the train!

 TT & Aiden

 Pulling the levers

His favorite model train



Surprise!!!

Yep!!! We are expecting!!!! We are thrilled to be able to give Aden a sibling. We announced this to friends and family about a week ago and we've been getting a lot of the typical questions, how have you been feeling?, was this planned?, What does Aiden think about it? etc. So I decided to post about it here.

Yes, we have been trying to get pregnant for at least 6 months, since we had to see a Fertility Dr. to get pregnant with Aiden, we started there first this time. We started with the prescription Clomid (it helps the ovaries produce eggs) which was what I used when I got pregnant with Aiden. We tried that for about 4 months when we figured out it wasn't working. Since it wasn't effective they upped my dose to the highest it could go which brought a lot of side effects (nausea, mood swings. etc.) We were able to see through ultrasound that the higher dosage was working.  It was really difficult but I stuck with the high doses for a couple months. The last month, I took my first of four doses for that cycle and I decided that I couldn't do it anymore. I was feeling horrible and crying for hours so we decided to stop and reevaluate things. I struggled with the idea that Aiden might be an only child. We knew I couldn't continue to take the clomid and didn't know how much longer we could afford to keep trying and/or if we could afford to take more aggressive measures (we already racked up a pretty large bill with the Dr already since this wasn't covered by insurance).

I tried to take my mind off the baby topic by planning and booking a family cruise. I've always wanted to take a cruise to the eastern Caribbean so we thought, "what the heck? lets do it" Although we couldn't really afford it, sometimes you have to splurge!! A few weeks later (before a missed period) I decided to take a pregnancy test. I didn't have high hopes that I would be pregnant because I didn't take the necessary meds for that cycle but I had to test anyways. The test came back with a second faint line. I was literally shaking because I was so excited. I told Aiden that we had to go to the store to get a new test, his reply was "No, I want to play!" I was in no mood to reason with him so I told him, "get in the car, I'll buy you candy!" He didn't need anymore explanation, he was off to the car. lol!!

I came home, took the second pregnancy test, and there it was again!!! Two lines!!!!!!!!

Z was asleep because he worked the night shift but I had to wake him up. I woke him up and told him I thought I was pregnant. I think his first response was, "huh?" or "what?". He was a little groggy after a couple hours of sleep!! Once it sank in, of course, he was SO excited!!!!

Around week 6, the nausea kicked in, I only threw up a couple times, but I felt nauseous all the time. It was way worse then when I was pregnant with Aiden.I'm almost 12 weeks now and I still get nauseous, hopefully that will end soon. I also was exhausted which is typical but with Z working all the time training for his new positon, I hardly got any breaks to rest. I also had a lot more stress in the first trimester this time than my last pregnancy and along with the stress came bad stomach cramps which really really scared us! Luckily, because we were seeing out fertility specialist, he monitors through the first trimester and he likes to do ultrasounds every 2 weeks. So we got lots of pictures and every time I was worried by the cramps, we had an ultrasound to comfort my fears. Yesterday was my last ultrasound with my Fertility Dr. It felt so good to "graduate" (as they called it) to my regular OBGYN. It means the risk of miscarriage is diminishing greatly!! woohoo!

Here's a few of the ultrasounds pictures (sorry about the quality, Im lazy and didn't want to scan)

 About six weeks, that circle is the "yolk sac" which is bigger than the actual baby

 

 

 

 

About 9 1/2 weeks, it's starting to look more like a baby

 

 

 

 

Our last ultrasound, about 11 1/2 weeks. This is my favorite, look at that leg!

 

Also from my last ultrasound, my alien baby