It's (going to be) a boy!

We had our 2nd trimester sonogram today and got to see our little one again--and we found out we are having a boy! I don't know why but we were both surprised. For some reason we both thought it was a girl. Anyway, the woman giving the sonogram said everything looked normal and that she had something very important to show us. See photo below. This is undoubtedly the last time I will be posting a photo of my son's genitalia online for the world to see. I think the arrows are a nice touch. Anyway, it's definitely very very exciting to know that Stella is going to have a little brother. Now we just have to pick a name!

Big day!

Today is a big day for the McGann family. We have a sonogram appointment at 1pm and can't wait to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. We have gone over and over all the great things that either one would bring to our family so either way we will be thrilled. We are so in love with this little one already. I just can't wait to see how they are doing and hear that all is well in there.

On a much sillier note.....Stella and I came down to play in the basement about 45 minutes ago and I covered her in stickers including this one on her nose. It is still there! TeeHee. She even let me take a picture which she never does! Thanks SB. You are going to be a great big sister and I can't wait for Gobble to hear your giggles.

Reunited and it feels so good!

YAY! Lauren is finally done with school for the year and we can resume our much needed and dearly missed weekly playdates. We got a teaser tonight since they were in the area so we met up for a quick dinner at our new favorite hot spot...The DQ Grill and Chill. Onion rings and Ice Cream available in seconds! WooHoo! Can you tell I am pregnant?
Here are a few cute shots I snagged with my cell phone.




They wanted to walk and not sit and smile. TeeHee.

In other news...well, not really new news...more like a progress report. Stella is walking like mad! She is walking 95% of the time now and only seems to crawl when she gets tired and sometimes in the playroom in the basement. She loves to walk and is getting better and faster and all that good stuff. It is amazing what a difference a week makes. You would think she had been walking for months if you saw her! YAY Stella!!!! I love the look of pride she gets on her face. It is totally priceless.

Stella walks!

Ok, so Stella's been teasing us the last few weeks with the walking thing. She's given us little hints of what is to come. We knew she was close, but today was the day. She walked like crazy! Jen had her at the pool and she walked all the way around the pool. I got to see some when I got home and it was amazing. She just stands up from a sitting position and toddles around. She's still crawling but definitely doing a whole lot of walking too. It's about time! Way to go Stella B!

Father's Day!

So, hard to believe but my 2nd Father's Day is coming to a close! It was a very nice day, a bit low key because yesterday Jen & I had the wedding photo shoot which was exhausting. We slept in a bit (thanks Stella!) and then headed out to get breakfast. Our first choice was the Americana Diner but the line went around the building. We never bothered to get out to check how long the wait was. Ultimately, we wound up at Perkins, not our first choice but it was fine and satisfied my waffle craving. After that, it was bye bye to grandma & grandpa, who were down for the weekend to watch Stella yesterday during the photo shoot. To say thanks to them isn't enough, as they have done so much for us in the last couple of weeks during the various trials and tribulations that have popped up. Stella was napping at that point, and it was ultimately a 3 hour+ nap, which probably would have gone longer if we hadn't opened her door to wake her up. She did some amazing walking while we were waiting for our table at Perkins and I think it just left her exhausted. We hit the mall for a quick trip out, then a nice barbecue and some more fun & games with Stella B. After that, she was done and went down for the night. I got some great gifts from Stella and from her mom, of course! It was a nice day and the hugs from Stella were my favorite. She's growing up so fast and she's going to be a big sister next year on Father's Day. I think she'll have her little brother or sister well trained at that point! Thanks to Jen for making the day special, I love you honey! And thanks to Stella for being the amazing little girl she is!

The good stuff!

I tried to post these yesterday about 5 times. I really am inept with this blogger thing! ACK! Anyway, we did have a nice time at Grammie and Grandpa's and Stella did GREAT! Slept great, played great, the whole thing! Although I had gone up there for a few reasons the main one was to attend a suprise birthday party for my best friend Debbie....whom I got no good pictures of. sigh. Hannah is her youngest little girl and what a CUTIE! Here are some pics from the week.

Breakfast at Grammie's!

Playing with counsin Matthew in her little house!

The fabulous Hannah Farley!

Hannah and Stella playing with the marble machine!
This is a toy we had as kids.

Still Teething!!!!

Stella meets Deb Mac and Ewan for the first time!

Enjoying her first juice box!

Having a giggle with Uncle Denis!

Home Sweet Home

I can't believe it is Thursday morning and I am just now writing this entry! It has been that kind of week and it was that kind of trip home.
I left my parents on Sunday am at 7:15am. I was a little bummed to be running 15 mins late but figured I could make that up on the raod. I stopped for gas on my way to the NYS thruway and as soon as I started the car it felt like something wasn't right. It almost wouldn't start. As I pulled out of the station I thought to myself....hmmm, gotta get this thing checked out as soon as we get home. I drove for about 10 minutes trying to determine if I was imagining a problem or in denial because I wanted to get home so badly. Finally I had to admit that I couldn't really drive the car and started to pull over....perfect timing as the car stalled and I rolled to a stop in front of the quaint Pemproke Presbyterian church. sigh.
The car wouldn't even start now so my attempts to turn around and head back to my parents were futile. They were now on their way to me. Thankfully they were only about 20 minutes from where I had ended up.
They pulled up and we transferred as much as could fit into my dad's small but fabulously sporty BMW. Pretty much we put Stella and her toys in the car. TeeHee. OH! And an order of wings in a cooler for Brian. Priorities! Then we left my dad with the CRV to wait for the tow truck and my mom and I drove back to get her car so she could come back and get my dad. Meanwhile I headed back to hit the road and be one my way to NJ....passing Goldie on a big flatbed on the way. So sad! We managed to do all of this in about an hour and a half so that wasn't too bad.
Insert a HUGE thanks to my parents here!
I had debated staying in Buffalo until the car was fixed but I have a large wedding to shoot this weekend and had a photo job to edit...not to mention a Dr's apt and a few other important commitments that I couldn't miss. I was already feeling terribly stressed having gone to Buffalo with all of that to come back to but really wanted to go and was glad I had made the trip.
I spoke to Brian and told him about driving the BMW and he begged me to drive slow and I agreed to even saying that I felt like a target in this snappy car.
About an hour after that conversation I got pulled over for going 80 in a 65. I didn't really think that was speeding ;-) but I guess it is. The real bummer was that my stopping woke Stella up from a nap she had just started and wouldn't return to for the rest of the trip. The officer could see from my face that a ticket might be the last straw for me so he gave me a break. I did however get a ticket for not having a front plate on the car. You should have seen the look on my face when he asked if I knew where the front plate was......ummmm, it's not there?
Anyway, insert HUGE thanks to that guy here!
So off we went.....just a little slower.......things were pretty good until after the lunch/gas stop in Scranton. Stella had really done very well but was fading. Thankfully I had the portable DVD player with 4 straight hours of Backyardigans! WooHoo! I mean *&%#$#!*!!! The flipping DVD started skipping about 20 minutes in and while driving just under 80mph I am trying to fix it even though it faces the opposite direction! Finally I had to pull over and switch it to an Elmo DVD I had that was only 30 mins....so every half hour I had to either pull over or practically turn around to restart it. After watching it 4 times Stella was so over it she was bleary and I don't ever want to hear about Elmo's world again! But we were almost home so that was all still ok!
FINALLY! 3 miles from our exit on the NJ Turnpike and traffic comes to a total stop. I just started to cry. I told my friend Lauren I wanted to throw myself under my own moving car! Only problem with that is the car wasn't moving! Sigh.
We managed to make it home and I have never been so happy to see Brian and 18 Uxbridge in my life. Well, I may have been happier on our wedding day when I saw him at the end of the isle and was just thrilled he had shown up...but this was a very close second!
Even better was that he took Monday and Tuesday off to spend time with his girls and even came to Stella's last swimming class. Very cute!
My parents will be driving the repaired CRV down to our house tomorrow. They were planning to come and visit to watch Stella while Brian and I shoot this big wedding on Saturday so fortunately that was great timing! Apparently there was water in the gas and that is why the car broke down. Needless to say we are hoping to be reimbursed for the charges but that is a whole different entry!
Today Stella and I are off to run errunds and meet up with the playgroup and enjoy a last zoom in the fun BMW before Goldie comes home tomorrow.
Insert another huge thanks to my parents here!

My girls are almost home!

Ok, so this has been the longest 6 days of my life! Being without Jen & Stella has totally sucked, to put it bluntly. The house is so quiet and I miss them both very much. I anticipated that it would be difficult but it's been much harder than I expected. But it has certainly made me appreciate both of them even more and I can't wait to have them home. Which, unfortunately, is going to be a bit later than expected. I got a text from Jen this morning at 7:43 AM that said "Call me car problems had to turn back". The odd thing is that I stayed up far too late last night watching bad tv and I figured I would sleep in today since it would be my last chance to do so. But for some reason I woke up right at 7:30. I think Jen was sending me telepathic messages from 400 miles away. Anyway, long story short, apparently something went very wrong with our Honda after Jen got gas just before getting on the NY State Thruway. I'll let her tell the rest of the story when (and if!) she wants to, but the outcome is that Jen & Stella are driving home in her parents' car, which is so nice of them. Hopefully they'll be home by about 4 today, or about 5 and a half hours from now.

Stella was quite a trooper for her visit with grandma & grandpa and I'm really glad Jen got to head home and see her friends. Being able to see her a few times on the webcam really helped too. Thankfully, everyone will be sleeping in their own beds (and cribs) tonight.

Classic Stella

I posted this video to You Tube a while ago but haven't watched it in a long time. I just love how she is completely losing her mind with laughter in this! She looks so little here...she was not quite 9 months old.

I already miss my girls...

So Jen & Stella are going up to Buffalo this week and I'm going to be all alone for 5 whole days! That's going to be very strange and I'm really going to miss both of them a lot; in fact, I already do miss them and they haven't left!

We had a pretty good weekend with Stella, although she has been really uber whiny lately. We can usually figure out why but teething doesn't seem to be an issue this time and we can't thinking of what else it could be. We're just calling it a phase. She's definitely in a transitional state, that's for sure. She's really trying to do the walking thing a lot, even without our prompting. Today on at least a half dozen occasions she took 2-3 steps without any support at all. I know it sounds like a small thing but at this point, we're thrilled. The best part is that she was doing it without us encouraging her and sometimes she didn't even know we were watching. Of course, we did have a couple of chances to encourage her and have her toddle over to one of us, which is always so much fun! She gets a huge smile on her face and seems so proud.

Anyway, as I said she was very whiny this weekend but she was also really sweet and fun at the same time. I knew this was the last day I was going to get to spend significant time with her for a while so I tried to play with her as much as possible and we had lots of fun. I can't wait until she and Jen come home next Sunday!