UAB visit and Update on Baby D #2

We took Carden down to UAB on Tuesday, 7 Sept 2010 to see Dr. Cogen. She will have to have eye surgery since her right eye turning in is the result of a muscle and focusing problem. Surgery gives her the best option to have normal vision in the right eye. She will still need to wear glasses to correct the focus, but may eventually grow out of them. I’ve been hoping and praying that he would say that all we needed to do was keep her in glasses, but know that she is in good hands. One of the girls in her daycare had the same surgery by the same doctor and you can’t even tell that she ever had any eye problems. It has been nice having another mother to talk with about my concerns and fears. I so appreciate her sharing with me. We have to patch Carden’s “good eye” for a few hours a day to help strengthen the “bad eye” before surgery. Sunday was our first attempt at patching and to our surprise; she did really well with it. She only cried when we first put the patch on and then when we tried to remove it. Deep down I think Jason and I were afraid that she wouldn’t be able to see so it was much more stressful for us.

Jason and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary on September 1. We took a trip over to the Shoals Marriott in Florence over Labor Day Weekend and it was so nice to get away by ourselves and just relax. We were able to catch up on some much needed rest.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby D #2. We’ve narrowed down our list of names to three names—Campbell Ellis, Grayson Ellis, or Harper Ellis. We will wait until we see her before actually naming her, similar to what we did with Carden Elizabeth. We both agree on the middle name, Ellis, but have our preferences for first names. The hardest part of this pregnancy has been trying to figure out names! We would have been all set if we were having a boy! I just can’t wait to see what she looks like. I think the girls will look exactly alike or completely different. Dr. Aguayo is going to perform an ultrasound at 38 weeks to see if we can get an idea on the size of Baby D #2. If she looks like she is going to be big, we’ll induce sometime during the first weekend in October instead of waiting until my due date of the 15th. We made an attempt at maternity photos but Miss Carden was not interested in participating, so we didn't get any great ones of the three of us. She had more fun picking flowers and running around in the grass barefoot--guess we should have stayed inside for the pictures! We have not done a very good job of taking photos to document this pregnancy, so it was important to get a few decent belly shots towards the end of the pregnancy. Maybe Carden will cooperate more when we do new family photos once Baby D #2 arrives.

World's Worst Blogger

So I am the world’s worst blogger. I can’t seem to find the time to update this thing about what is going on in the Dilocker Household. It's just been too hot to do anything, including update the blog. Sounds like a pretty good excuse to me!

Jason is going to be out numbered in our house. We are having another daughter and we couldn't’t be more excited. He is such a loving daddy to Carden that it is only fitting that he’ll have another precious daughter to love.
Now starts the ordeal of trying to pick out a name. We didn’t name Carden until we saw her, but I would like to go ahead this time so we have time to get things monogrammed. We are open to suggestions!

After talking to friends that have children that are the same sex/closeness in age, we've decided that the girls will share a bedroom once the baby moves out of the bassinet in our room Jason was concerned that Baby D #2 would be cheated by not having her own nursery, but I just love how Carden’s room turned out. It is my favorite room in the house and can easily turn into a big girl room since we didn’t go with a theme and used fun fabrics for the bedding and window treatment.Now the hunt begins for two antique twin beds and seeing if Michelle will be kind enough to make another quilt for Baby #2.

We FINALLY became members of the Blossomwood Pool at the start of the summer after being on the waiting list for a year and half and it is so worth it! Going to the pool is a great way to stay cool while being pregnant during the hot Alabama summer. Carden absolutely loves the water and is now starting to put her face in on her own to blow bubbles—hopefully it will pay off that both her parents were lifeguards and she’ll be a good swimmer. I love that you can have pizza delivered to the pool, makes my life easier by not having to worry about rushing home to make dinner.

Carden continues to do well wearing her glasses. Her Ophthalmologist is pleased with how well the lens is helping to keep her eye straight. One of the little girls in Carden’s class had eye surgery a few months ago with the same Ophthalmologist that we are scheduled to see at UAB in September so talking with her has helped ease my concerns if we must have surgery.
Congratulations to Joe and Amanda Wallace on the birth of Joe “Cooper” Wallace IV, the Franklin Family on the birth of Elizabeth “Libby” Leyden Franklin, and the Carter Family on the birth of Cooper Jay Carter.

Once we found out I was pregnant with Baby #2 we started talking about getting a newer car since my 2000 Volvo S70 was getting up there in miles and starting to have minor issues that slowly add up in cost that make you question if the repairs are costing more that the car is worth. We debated back and forth as to if we needed another sedan or if we needed something with a third row. Jason tried his hardest to sell me on a mini van, but I just couldn't bring myself to get one. All we knew was that the S70 wasn't big enough to haul around two babies in car seats and all their stuff. When we finally decided that we were going to hold off on our search for a new car, the local Volvo dealer got in two XC70 wagons at prices that were too good to pass up on. The Volvo wagon has always been my mommy dream car! Thanks to my sweet husband for taking care of all the details to make this our new family car--I love it!

My last post was in January and it is already May!

My last post was in January and it is already May! Where has the time gone? Wait I know, chasing Carden Elizabeth around trying to keep her little hands out of trouble! Here’s a recap of the past few months:

•Valentine’s Weekend we found out that we were expecting Baby D #2 in October. We were thrilled and shocked by the news that I was pregnant, especially since it took so long for us to get pregnant with CE. The kids will be 22 months apart. We have no plans to take on any major renovation projects during this pregnancy!

•In February, CE was diagnosed with esotropia, where her right eye turns inward making her cross eyed. As a result she now wears the cutest little wire framed glasses to help strengthen the eye muscle. We will follow up with a specialist in September at the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital at UAB in Birmingham to determine if surgery will be a better option than having her continue to wear the glasses. At her recent follow up appointment our Pediatric Ophthalmologist could see an improvement in her eye from just the few short weeks of her wearing the glasses, so we are hopefully that surgery will not be needed.

•In April, we managed to take a short, much needed family vacation to Orange Beach. It was CE’s first beach trip and at first she wasn’t a fan. She trembled with fear when we put her down on the sand the first few times. It took her about two hours of playing on the blanket under the umbrella before she was even remotely interested in playing in the sand and it took a lot of encouragement from mommy and daddy. We had a great time—the weather was perfect, the seafood was amazing, and we were able to get plenty of much needed rest and relaxation.






•CE has now moved up to the Toddler Room at Miss Marcia’s so that means we have to get to know all new teachers and kids. I know she is going to do great! The kids just seem so much older and bigger than her—I just don’t want her to get hurt.

•Huntsville is experiencing a Baby Boom! We recently welcomed two new friends into our life—Julia Grace Moran and Hannah Ryan Pillsbury. Both are absolutely beautiful and we couldn’t be happier for their parents. Now we are waiting on the arrivals of Baby Cater, Baby Wallace, and Baby Franklin (in Nashville).

•We love watching CE learn and grow. She has mastered her animal sounds and we continue to work on colors and everyday words such as please and thank you. And boy is she curious. She is into everything, cabinets, drawers, unrolling the toilet paper off the roll, and chasing Pearl around the house. We can’t turn out back on her for more than a minute.

Year Old!

I’ve always heard people say that children grow up so fast and never paid much attention to it—not until I had a child of mine own and realized that just how fast a year goes by. So much has changed within our lives as parents as we try to adapt to all of Carden’s changes. She is no longer a baby, but is rapidly turning into a toddler. She is teaching us what it means to have patience, curiosity about new things, and unconditional love—all things that I think all too often we over look because we just don’t take the time out of hectic and busy lives to enjoy.
Carden had a wonderful 1st Birthday Party that was celebrated with various friends and family. Thanks to everyone that came out for her big day!

11 Months!

I started this posting with good intentions of getting it posted to the blog weeks ago. Instead of re-writing it, I’m going to just post what I originally started.
Carden is getting more independent by the day. Gone are the days where she will sit calmly next to Matilda for her monthly photo. She is too busy exploring to let me take a photo of her.


Just one more month to go until Carden Elizabeth turns ONE! I just ordered her birthday outfit—it was so hard to decide on something, there are so many cute things, but the prices are outrageous. The best thing about this one is that it is reversible, so she’ll get to wear it more than once! Since the outfit has a cupcake on it, I’m using this as the “theme” for the party. I ordered these invitations from a local party store.

Carden had her first trip to the Huntsville Botanical Garden’s Galaxy of Lights. She slept through majority of it, but did wake up in time to visit with Santa. Speaking of Santa, I booked Santa photos back in May at Heather Bookout Photography! I’m so glad I did. Carden’s pictures are incredible. It was so hard to narrow them down. How many photos do you really need of your child with Santa—we narrowed it down to 5 different poses. People tell me that after the first year you won’t be so emotional when trying to pick out photos and if you have a second child, you’ll be lucky if they ever get a picture taken—my problem won’t be getting the picture taken, it will be narrowing it down to place a reasonable order. This is coming from the person that still, after 8 years of marriage, has not ordered wedding photos! I’m happy with all the 4x6 proofs!

Trick or Treat

Our Little Lady Bug on her first Halloween!

Happy Fall Ya'll

Here are some fall photos of Carden. She is getting so big and so independent. I'm trying to take full advantage of any time that she is willing to snuggle, which isn't much these days! It is really starting to hit me that she will be turning 1 soon. Where has this year gone?