2017 Wrap Up

I can barely believe that today is the last day of 2017. I was telling Eric yesterday that I am feeling so optimistic about 2018. We have so much good coming our way. I'm continuing to get better and less nauseous and sick, Eric is hoping for a raise at his job, we will hopefully be moving to a bigger apartment in the next couple of months and of course best of all our precious next baby comes this year! We get to find out the gender on Tuesday and to say I am excited is a bit of an understatement. I don't remember being this anxious/excited with Levi, probably because I really didn't care much, I didn't have a boy or a girl so I was super excited for either one. This time, because we already have Levi, there's just so much that our family dynamic will be different depending on the gender of this next baby. Do I get to go shopping for adorable baby girl things? Do I get to anticipate Levi having a best friend little brother soon? There's so much good with either option! I know that God knows exactly what He is doing and He will send exactly the right child for our family right now but I have still just been so excited to find out what it is!!

Anyway, it's crazy how the years march on without us doing anything. We can't slow time, or stop it, or speed it up or opt out of its progression. Regardless of what we do or don't do, the Earth still turns, and life moves on. It blows my mind that I graduated from high school over ten years ago. And it is crazy to me that I will soon be the mother to TWO babies. I've been dreaming of a house and making a wish list for it, and we've been planning out how we hope the next few years will go and it feels like we are starting to move into a new phase of our life. Soon to be settled for a while (hopefully) with a house of our own and jobs and kids. No longer brand new to parenthood or the workforce. Raising our kiddos, settling into our stride. It's weird really but also awesome. We have been so blessed. I am especially grateful this year for our loving extended family, our supportive ward family who has been so great at helping out while I was so sick, my sweet son who is learning more every day and surprising me all the time by how bright he is, and most of all for my amazing husband. I definitely could not do this journey through life (and especially pregnancy!) without him.

And now, for the last set of pictures to close out 2017, starting with Eric and my little babymoon to Monterey and then ending up with pictures from my parent's house for Christmas :)

Our first night in Monterey I took this shot and I just love it! It was so beautiful and perfect there. And just after I took this picture we got to see two sea otters playing in the waves and eating. So cute and awesome to see them in the wild like that. 

Eric really wanted to climb up onto these giant white rocks so we did. Turns out they were white because they were COVERED in bird poop. Haha. but it was still a great view of the ocean and there were some sweet tidepools tucked away in between the rocks. 

Perfect sunny weather

We loved getting to go to the aquarium! We spent about 4 hours there and it was awesome. I think one of my favorite things we saw was the cuttle fish. They came right up to me at the glass and were changing color like they were talking to me! So cool! 

 

The jellies are always amazing to see. 

Eric put our initials into the wall of the cliff. He wanted them nice and high up so they would last for a while :)

Levi loved playing grandma's piano. He would turn the pages of the hymnbook, point at a song and then "play" it on the piano. So adorable! 

Someone in my mom's ward gave Levi his own little Christmas tree to decorate. He had more fun taking the bells off the tree and shaking them and running around with them than decorating. 

Levi knew which stocking was his! Probably the toys popping out of the top were a dead give-away haha. 

This face. It sums up his passionate character so well! 

Levi loves his auntie Katie!

We went for a short walk up Canyon trail so I could see the edge of the burn and Levi wimped out of walking pretty quick and got Katie and grandma to carry him the rest of the way. It was so awesome to see all the new green grass that's growing where the burn was and how so many of the trees and shrubs are starting to come back now. 

This picture was a stressful one to get! Dad's camera was being super funky and not doing what I wanted it to and all Levi wanted was to play with the camera and the tripod! And also I look ginormous! But... I am happy we got a good family shot. I sure do love this family of mine! 

Christmas Bells Are Ringing

I love Christmas season. I love the holiday music and the goodies and the focus on the Savior and service. And this year I especially love the holidays because they have been coinciding with me getting better and puking less! At least, they were until last week when Levi came down with a stomach bug and then Eric got it and then I got it despite my panicking efforts to quarantine myself, not touch anyone and desperate prayers for mercy. I literally had an anxiety attack when Eric threw up for the first time. But I suppose it was just in the cards for me to get it anyway. So, I went from throwing up a total of 3 times all week the week before last (woot woot!!) to throwing up 9 times in one day on Wednesday (booo!!). But thankfully it went away relatively quickly although I'm still recovering and definitely not back to the way I was before I got it. It doesn't help that Eric, Levi and I drove through the night Friday night to come down to California. I LOVE being here with my family but turns out my body really, really does not like sleep deprivation while pregnant and responds by puking more. Awesome. But today has been better and I have high hopes that I will continue to improve.

Anyway, back to the whole Christmas thing, I love Christmas. I love surprising people with gifts and I'm excited this year to see Levi be old enough to actually get excited about the presents he is opening. Eric and I got him a play kitchen and my mom got him a shopping cart and fake food. I am so excited about it because I just know he will love it. At playgroup on Friday he had three major meltdowns because there happened to be a play shopping cart there and he was obsessed with it and having some serious difficulties sharing. So while it was embarrassing for me to repeatedly have to calm down my screaming child and talk to him about sharing because some other kid had attempted to touch the shopping cart, it reassures me that this is definitely the right gift for him! And at least he responded with crying rather than hitting or biting. Haha.

So yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to the next two weeks here in sunny California! Eric and I are leaving Levi here at my parents house on Tuesday and driving down to Monterey for a few days. I am sooo excited for some alone time with my hubby in such a beautiful place!! And then back here in Santa Rosa for Christmas and getting to hang out with Eric and Natachia and Katie. It'll be awesome :) And hopefully we remember to take more pictures than we did when we got together at Thanksgiving! Haha.

Here's some photos of life lately:

Levi's best friend right now is Lincoln, who is 4 days older than him. They've gotten to hang out together a few times in the last few weeks and every time Levi gets really excited. He will sometimes ask in the morning "Ni-con's house? Ni-con's house?" Haha its so adorable! 

They are both very much into trains. They say, "choo-choo" and "ding ding" while they make their train cars go around the tracks. 

I helped Levi put his hands in his pockets and it was soo cute! Haha. Also he still loves his dinosaur boots. 

So the other day I was dumping our recycling into the big recycling dumpster at the back of our complex and the noise startled Levi so he yelled and grabbed me and I totally dropped our recycling bin into the dumpster! I couldn't figure out how to get it out so Eric had to come help me the next day. Of course Eric got it out within a couple seconds. Haha. 

Levi loves "driving" the cars at the mall!

Light at the end of the tunnel

I can barely believe it but I'm starting to get quite a bit better! I'm 15 weeks now and according to my lovely little app baby is now the size of a navel orange! Which seems huge to me but at least makes me feel a little better about the fact that I also feel huge! My coworker was like, "Have you made your pregnancy public knowledge yet... because if not, it's probably time." Haha. I mean, I know it's normal to show earlier in subsequent pregnancies than your first but this is blowing my mind.

Anyway, so yeah, the puking and nausea have improved A LOT over the last few weeks! I was able to graduate from the IVs and I've started to drink a little bit of water which tastes sooo good. I still get nauseous at times throughout every day and a few times a week I still have pretty hard evenings, but I am hardly ever throwing up anymore and I'm starting to be able to do things like grocery shop again. It's still surreal to me because I didn't expect it to get this much better, especially this soon, and I have so much fear still that I'm going to relapse but so far so good. I still take my zofran and unisom at night and Eric lets me sleep in which makes a huge difference. I'm not looking to wean off of any of that anytime soon!

We had my family come up and visit for Thanksgiving and it was so nice to have them here. They were only here for a couple of days but we made the most of it. Levi especially loved having so many people around to love on and play with! I'm glad we get to see them again so soon for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, since I've been feeling better, I am actually able to get excited about everything to do with the holidays! I made us an advent calendar (well mostly... it's still not done. oops!) and I've been playing Christmas music in the house all the time. We set up our lights (and then set them up again and again and again because they keep falling down) and our nativity and we have been getting our super adorable Christmas cards sent out. I've got about half of my Christmas shopping done and I'm getting pretty excited to head down to California for Christmas, and also for Eric and I to do our little get-away in Monterey!

So things are going pretty well here in the Martino household. I am so grateful for all of the love, prayers and support our family and our ward family have been giving us the past few months. I really feel like I would definitely not be doing this well if it weren't for all the fervent prayers offered on my behalf and I am so grateful for them. And my heart still hurts for all my sisters in my HG support group who are still suffering. I pray for them a lot and hope that they feel as I do, the strengthening support and hope that that brings. 

I haven't taken many pictures on my phone since the last time I posted. I realized after everyone left after Thanksgiving that we didn't get any pictures of any of us together! We will have to do better about that over Christmas! But anyway, here are the pictures I do have:

Levi practicing his selfie game. Those cheeks!!

Levi throwing a little fit at the park because I had to put my real camera away because silly me I drove all the way there and took my camera out only to realize that it didn't have the SD card in it and thus could not take any pictures. Facepalm. 

I took Levi up to free Friday at the Portland Children's Museum again and this was his favorite toy of the night. He pushed the stool over there himself and climbed right up there and started pushing buttons, all the while looking very serious about his work. 

15 week baby bump. If you look close you can just see that stupid umbilical hernia I have. 

PS. Levi is talking a ton these days! Here are some of my favorite things he's been saying:

I got it!

Ta-da!

More babusauce (applesauce) please!

Feel better (while rubbing my shoulder)

Ba-babu (pineapple)

Where bibi (binkie) go?

Coat on! (or shoes on! or boots on!)

And a new word he just learned that I don't love that he now says all the time, "mine!"