Sick...

Our big girl

Ainsley and the little piggy
At Boston's party

Boston and Ainsley looking at the chicks

First haircut

she's already driving




It's been a rough week in the Houlihan house, each of us have been feeling bad. Its as if as soon as one starts feeling better the other one starts feeling bad. We are very excited because we are supposed to take Ainsley to the Houston livestock show and rodeo tomorrow. We are still not sure if we are going to be able to go because I started feeling really bad yesterday afternoon and I've been in bed all day today. I really hope that I am feeling better tomorrow. I am anxious to see how she reacts to all the animals. She has really started to gibber jabber lately, she is now saying "Da Da" all the time and occasionally she will say "Ma Ma". She is such a happy baby she's always talking and smiling, we are very blessed. She has begun to pull herself up. I think she is still very surprised when she does it. Sometimes she tries to use "non stationary" objects to try and pull up on and it doesn't turn out good. We've had a few bumps on the head lately. That's all for now, I think I'm going to go back to sleep and hopefully get to feeling better.

I wanted to share some recent pictures, so the ones above are from her first haircut, Boston's birthday party, and a picture of her looking like a big girl with daddy.

Time flies...

Christmas morning

Too many sweet potatoes made my nose orange

My happy Girl

My little Ainsleybug driving her car

Just a few photos from christmas and the first few weeks of 2009.

So I looked at my blog tonight and realized its been way too long since my last post. One of my main reasons for keeping this blog was to post photos to share with our friends and family, but it has become increasingly hard for me to upload photos to the blog. I'm not sure what the problem is but it will take a really long time for my to try and upload just a few photos and I usually only have a limited amount of time to write and post a blog. Anyways...enough excuses.

Things have been going well for us. Ainsley and I recently went to Fort Worth for Boston's birthday party. It was a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure that Ainsley's party won't be quite as nice but I will try to make it great. On that same note, Ainsley is 8 months old today! I can't believe that my baby girl is getting so big. There is a good chance that she outweighs Boston by at least a little bit. He only weighs 21 lbs. She definitely weighs at least that much. She started crawling on her hands and knees this past Wednesday. She has been pretty mobile, but she would just roll around or turn herself in circles on her belly. I only thought that she was mobile before, now I have to get up and few seconds to keep her from getting into something. Its a whole different ball game now. We will be buying a baby gate in the very near future to at least keep her out of the kitchen.

Another big thing...

We are looking to buy our first house. It's exciting, and overwhelming and scary all at the same time. I am the type of person that likes to be fully informed and educated on something before I embark on it, because I don't want to feel like I don't know what I am doing. Buying a house is a big deal and I am trying to educate myself the best I can with the help of my parents and the Internet. I never thought that I would be looking to buy a house at the age of 24, but it just seems like the next step that we are supposed to take. Patrick is currently looking for a new job and that is why we are looking for a house. When he does finally leave this job we will have to move. We are just getting started in the home buying process and I am very excited about it. Hopefully we will find exactly what we are looking for.

I will try to post more photos soon. We love you and miss you all.

Its been a while...

Well...for those one you who thought that I forgot that I had a blog, I didn't. I've just been extremely busy with work, and baby and home. I do a brief update and let you know whats been happening with us.

October:
Back in October we went up to Fort Worth to see my Aunt Denise who came down from MN. It was the first time she got to meet Ainsley and Patrick. My Aunt Debbie was also there from CA and we got to have a great fellowship with family. It was the first time that both of my Aunts got to meet the babies (Boston and Ainsley). Oh, and Ainsley rolled over for the first time, very exciting. We also took a trip to a pumpkin patch and that was lots of fun.

November:
What can I say, November is kind of a blur. Its a busy month in our family, lots of birthdays and anniversaries. Patrick and I took our first real vacation as husband and wife for our Anniversary on the 16th. It was my first time leaving Ainsley over night and it was very difficult for me even though I knew she was in good hands. Thank you to Justin and Rachel and my mom and mimaw for watching her for us. We went to New Orleans on our trip. We went to Harrah's casino and did a little gambling, we went to the aquarium and Imax, we went on a ghost tour of the french quarter and we ate lots of good food. The ghost tour was by far my favorite thing. I definitely recommend it to anyone going to New Orleans. There are several different tours of different areas of the city. Oh, we also went on a swamp tour, which was also fun.
Thanksgiving was great. We went to my parents house this year. It was a very busy few days, but it was fun. Me, my mom and my sister did some black Friday shopping and got some really great deals. We also took the kids to have some Christmas pictures made. They did so well, very photogenic children we all have.

December:
Well...so far its just been busy busy busy. I'm overwhelmed at work because of course everything I've been working on is due by the end of the year (lots of pressure :S). Ainsley just got her first 2 teeth. They showed up last Wedneday. I can't believe my baby already has teeth. She is getting so big. She now weighs in a 17lbs and 7 oz. I think she now looks more like Patrick. Her hair is getting so long and we might need to get it trimmed soon. Its started to get in her eyes.

Thats all I can think of right now and I will try to post more often.

I'm Back

Ainsley trying on her new party dress

Cousins at the pumpkin patch

little caterpillar

Mommy's little penguin

I know it has been awhile since I last posted, but life has been crazy and busy. We had a hurricane which I am sure everyone knows about. It was very scary and I have decided that I don't need to experience anymore. Next time we will definitely be going to Fort Worth. We are all fine and the house was okay too. We did have a tree on the house, but it didn't do any damage to the roof. Life has been busy but everything is going well. I have been having these dizzy spells for months now and I was recently diagnosed with and severe imbalance of my balance system. Which basically means my inner ear isn't working like its supposed to. My left inner ear works at 100%, but my right inner ear only works at 50%. I have to go to vestibular rehab where I have to train my brain to ignore the signal from my right inner ear and only accept the signals from my left inner ear.



Ainsley is doing very well. She is getting so big. She's getting chubby little legs and cheeks. We got her Halloween costume last night and we couldn't decide so we got two. One is a little caterpillar and the other is a penguin. They are so cute. You can kinda tell from the pictures above that she was kinda thinking "What are you guys doing to me?"


This past weekend me and Ainsley went to Fort Worth for Brayden's 4th birthday party. Ainsley got to wear her cute little party dress probably for the first and last time, because it was a little snug. But it looked so cute. We also took all three cousins to the Dallas Arboretum where they have a pumpkin patch.



We're all doing well. I just wanted to update everyone since I have been MIA for a little while. I will post more soon. We are going to take Ainsley to the pumpkin patch this weekend so check back for updates on that.

Update

We are NOT moving to Arkansas. We'll just say that it didn't work out, but the good news is that I got hired full time at my job. We are now preparing for Hurricane Ike and I'm a little nervous, but hopefully everything will be ok. We are all doing well. Ainsley slept in in the living room last night and it was her first night out of our room, which I wasn't quite ready for, but she is too big for her bed that is in our room. So we had to move her into her big Pack n' Play that is in the living room. She has become quite the little inchworm. She scoots herself around with her legs while she is sleeping, so she kept waking up because she would push herself up in to the corner of her bed. I'm sure when I will be able to post again because we could be without power for awhile because of the hurricane. Please pray for us and all the Houston area residents that we will make it through the storm safely.

Big News

Well...I haven't been able to blog lately, its been kind of a crazy week. Last week, we were a bit overwhelmed by a couple of things. First of all, last Monday night, we had been out running errands and when we got home at about 8:00pm I let Maverick outside. We put Ainsley down to bed and had been doing a few things and I realized that it had been a while and I hadn't heard Maverick scratching a the door. I asked Patrick to go check on the dog, so he went outside and he was out there for a few minutes and when he came back in Maverick was with him, but he was walking really slow. Patrick said "He's acting like he did something wrong", because whenever he gets on the furniture or gets in the trash he cowers down because he knows that he did something that he wasn't supposed to. I saw him and I said "No, he looks like something is wrong with him". So he came over to him and I looked him over to see if I could find anything wrong with him. His legs and paws looked okay, so I wasn't sure. He wouldn't even lift his head up to look at me. After discussing it with Patrick, I looked him over again, and when I lifted his head up to look at him, I noticed that the right side of his nose was swollen compared to the other side. He went and laid down on his bed and he was looking really pitiful. I asked Patrick if he thought that he could have been bitten by a snake. As soon as i said it, Patrick was like "yeah, I bet that's exactly what happened". Most likely it was a copperhead, because we have tons of them out here. Mav was getting progressively worse and i was really worried about him. I told Patrick to call the vet and they said that he needed to be seen as soon as possible. Patrick asked me if I wanted to wait until the morning to take him because it would be cheaper and I said "I don't want him to die tonight because we didn't take him to the vet". Patrick doesn't understand that Maverick is very important to me and I'll do anything for him. So Patrick loaded him up in the car and took him to the vet. He said by the time they got there Mav's nose was very swollen and he was drooling uncontrollably. The gave him some shots and sent him home with some medicine. We they got home he was already looking better. The next morning he was back to normal. I was so happy that he was okay. So that was the first crazy thing that happened last week.
At the beginning of last week my dad was telling me about a job that one of my parents friends had mentioned to them. It was a job for Patrick doing pretty much the same thing he does now except for he would make 3 times as much as he does now. The catch is that its in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I listened while my dad told me about it, but I didn't really even consider it because it so far away and they need someone there in 2 weeks. On Tuesday Patrick found out that his days off would no longer be the weekends, they would be Wednesday and Thursday. Not long after Patrick found out that bit of news, my dad called him to tell him about the job in Arkansas. When I got home on Tuesday, Patrick told me about this new schedule and that my dad had called and talked to him. I was a little overwhelmed by the news, okay I was very overwhelmed. I realized that the job in Arkansas was something that we really needed to think about, because it isn't feasible for our family for Patrick to have to work every weekend. it basically means that Patrick would never see me and Ainsley, because he would have to work on the only days that I am off. This obviously is ridiculous. The longer we stay here the worse things get and Patrick finally realized that we have to make a change. So we decided that we are moving to Arkansas. Not only do they have a job for Patrick but there is a job for me and I would be able to take Ainsley with me. We couldn't really think of a reason to turn down this opportunity. Wednesday we needed to get more information before we made a real decision about it. Patrick talked to the lady and got some of our questions answered. We pretty much made a decision to just go for it and move to Arkansas. On Thursday, my office manager at work asked if I could come by and see her at some point. I knew that she was going to offer me a full time position with the company because up until this point I have been a temp. I waited to talk to her, because I needed to talk to Patrick at lunch. I needed to know what to tell her when she offered me a job. After lunch I went and talked to her and just as I thought, she offered me a job. After she finished telling be about everything, I told her that my husband had been offered a job and that we were waiting for the letter of intent before we made a final decision. If we stay I definitely want to take the position, but either way Patrick is getting a new job because this one no longer works for our family. Anyways, that's what has been going on with us lately. Oh, if we do go to Arkansas, we have to be there by October 1st. I'll keep you posted on the move, right now, its still pending. I have to give my work a decision by the end of the week, so we have to know something by then.

2 Months old!!!!

Our baby girl is 2 months old. Here are her 2 month stats

• Weight 11 lbs 12 oz - 75 percentile
• Length 23 inches - 75 percentile

She is growing so fast. I know I promised some pictures last week but I just haven't had a chance to upload them. I am finally going to be sending out birth announcements in the next couple of days. Better late than never, Right??

Ainsley got her first set of vaccines today. It was not fun for her or me. Patrick usually goes to the doctor with us, but he is out of town, so it was just the girls today. She was in the best mood this morning, just smiling and laughing. Then they gave her five shots. She started screaming, it was the saddest little cry. I almost cried. I just knew she was thinking "mommy why are you letting them do this to me?" and that killed me. Next time its daddy's turn because I don't think i can do that again.

Well I do have a little bit of a funny story that happened on Wednesday night. It has been raining down here all week, and Wednesday evening the rain had stopped and it was pretty cool outside, so we decided to take Ainsley on her first walk. We put her in her umbrella stroller since she can hold her head up now and its a lot cooler than the big one. We put her mosquito net on the stroller and we were ready to go. We walked down to Deer Lake and just hang out for a little bit. As we were getting ready to go back home, Maverick found a stop on the side of the road where some animal dug up a turtles nest. There were little baby turtles all over, but they were dead or so we thought. One turtle appeared to be moving, so Patrick picked it up. It was Alive!! Patrick took it over to the water to rinsed him off. He said that the turtle looked okay and that we could take it home. While we were focused on washing the turtle, Maverick ran back to the nest and grabbed a dead turtle and processed to eat it. Maverick has a very weak stomach, I mean very very weak stomach. Sometimes he even throws up his special dog food. He frequently leaves up little surprises all over the house. This is not a dog that can just go around eating dead things, and he ate a dead turtle. Patrick tried to get it from him but it was too late. After that we started back home. Maverick was lagging behind and I turned around to see why. I saw him pretty far behind up rolling all around on his back. Patrick went over to see what he was doing and discovered that he was rolling in a dead skunk. Yes, that's right, I said SKUNK. I was like "you have got to be kidding me, what else is this silly dog going to do". He smelled awful, that is definitely a smell like no other. I knew they had some products at Petco, but I wasn't sure how late the were open. I was praying it was until at least 9pm because it was already 8:15. We got home and Maverick decided to dart in the house as we walked in. Patrick literally threw him out the door. I grabbed my purse and headed to Petco to get some Shunk odor remover. Let me tell you, that stuff is a miracle. The smell was instantly got, once Patrick put it on him. All in all it was a pretty interesting evening.