My Baby, Baby Boy

The verdict is in:

We're having a boy!

Luke is going to have a little brother!

Here are some shots from the sonogram. He measured average in pretty much every category which is what we want. He moved around quite a bit, and I do think this little guy is more of a mover and shaker than Luke was. Luke would find a spot and just sit, but this one I feel a lot more consistently and more often.

For the most part, this has been a pretty good pregnancy. I really can't complain. And the best news is, I'm over half way through! I do feel more ready not to be pregnant anymore than last time. It's going so fast, so I know it'll be over and he'll be here before I know it!

This is actually the confirmation of pregnancy sonogram. This shows you just how far he's come!

This was our confirmation that it's another boy.

The best profile we got of this little guy. He's a mover and a shaker and wouldn't stay still to get anything better.

Another profile, but I don't think it's quite as good as the other.

You can see his leg and hang really good here.

This is a foot, or at least that's what the technician said. Looks like an awkward foot if you ask me.

 So.. now we can let the planning begin! I won't need to get much new because their both boys and born in the same season. It is kind of nice to know we won't have to spend a lot.
Now, if we'd ever sell our house, I could actually start planning a nursery....

State Fair of Texas

We took Luke to the State Fair for the first time this year!

I think he had a blast! 

What more could he want: animals, shovels, cars, trucks, pizza, lemonade, and funnel cake!

In the children's barn- you think he was intently watching the animals, but he probably had his eye on a shovel.

Yep, little man ran up to every shovel he saw.

Close encounter with a sheep!

Such a big boy here!

Cars!! He loves Jeeps :)

He has a few years to fit into this one.

We were making people wait to get in the Corvette while we took pictures of our 18 month old. Luckily, they were patient people.

Big Tex used to be right here. RIP Big Tex, but thanks for giving us a nice view of the Cotton Bowl!

Can you tell it's very hard these days to get him to look at the camera?

After dinner, we let Luke run off his pizza in the grass near the Children's Aquarium.

We considered our trip a huge success. Not too crowded, good food (Trey and I also enjoyed a corny dog and a bananarito), and a happy baby! What more could you want?

18 months old!

Someone is a year and a half old! It's weird to think that we're on our way to two!

• Luke has finally made his back into the 25th %iles in both height and weight. It only took a year....  He was 22 lbs 7 oz and 30 3/4 inches. We're back to where we started!
• This child now runs everywhere which led to his first scraped head. He tripped on the sidewalk and laid himself out on the sidewalk. His head hit and he got a scrape and a bruise which, now, due to the magical healing powers of being a toddler, is mostly gone. He also, later that day, cut his mouth somehow. So we got first bleeding mouth and scraped head all done in one day. Not too shabby.
• He talks alot! It's true- 18 months is some weird age where all the stars and the moon align just perfectly, and they really do start saying a new word pretty much every day. Granted, we haven't gotten the random word we never use- it's pretty much the stuff we've said to him a bazillion times up until now, he's just choosing to actually say it. The big break throughs have been truck, push, bus, trash, and kitty cat (not just cat) a few more that I can't remember.
• Luke is still a pretty good baby. I had a lady tell me at the car dealership the other day that he was zen-like. I guess I have myself a zen-like child- how nice :)
• He continues to LOVE cars, trucks, trains, boats. Pretty much any mode of transportation. Completely something he's just decided he likes. Again, yet another reason why boys and girls are very different. He fills baby strollers with rocks and cars- loves to push those bad boys around but could care less about the actual baby. There truly is a hard wiring difference.
• We bought him a cozy coupe for his 18th month birthday. Not really, but it just happened to work. We don't buy him a lot of big toys or really any toys. But since he's so into cars, we decided we would go ahead and do the cozy coupe and wait for other things (like a play kitchen) for Christmas. He loves it. In fact, he's sitting in it right now while I write this. He can't use his feet to go forward, but he can go backwards. Don't start to push him around in it unless you want to devote the next hour of your life to it, but he will love you for it!
• He still eats pretty well. He doesn't like things mixed up very much, so I still have trouble just feeding him what we're eating. I'm cooking him only one thing, though, and if he doesn't eat it, that's it. He does get a lot of chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and things like that, though. Which isn't a huge deal because they take all of 30 seconds to fix.
• We moved up to size 4 diapers. Go Luke! Such a big boy :) And he's wearing 18-24 month clothes but can still easily fit into 12 month pants.
• He goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and sleeps until somewhere between 6 and 7. He naps around noon until 1:30 or if I'm lucky, 2 or 2:30.

That's about it! We're having fun!

To try and get this up, no pics right now, but I'll add some this week. He looks about the same as the post before :)

And Another One makes Four

Luke is going to be a big brother!

It's hard to believe, and I'm not sure what I've goten myself into, but we're still very excited!
Some days I'm very excited about having another baby, but then otherdays I feel more along the lines of anxious and overwhelmed about having another kid. I'm sure it will be fine; people do it all the time, but it's still hard to picture. But I do know that having another little baby to love and watch grow will be a glorious thing!

I will also say that being pregnant again is different than the first time. There are some things that are nice about it, but it's just not as exciting the second time around. I know I'll still love this baby as much as I love Luke, but pregnancy has lost a lot of its glow. Maybe it'll be more exciting when I can feel the baby move more and we know what the sex is, but for now, I find myself tired and cranky way more than I ever was with Luke. sigh....

But I am extremely lucky in the fact that it hasn't been a bad pregnancy. I really wasn't sick my first trimester, just extremely hungry all of the time. It was pretty bad and kind of annoying. I couldn't leave the house without an arsenal of things for me to eat. Now, that's under control and things have become pretty good. I do try and take a nap every day, and I just can't do too much or I'm utterly exhausted.

We'll find out the sex of this baby October 24th, so I'm really looking forward to that! I'm hoping we have smooth sailing!!

This at 15 weeks. Definitely bigger earlier this time around.

He will be an amazing brother!

I love this pic.

Fall Festival at the Arboretum

Today, Luke and I went to the arboretum with our MOPS group. They currently have all the pumpkins out for the Fall Festival. We went last year, and Luke was barely sitting up. Now, I can't get him to stay still. The arboretum was beautiful, as usual. It's nice on a normal day, but they have a lot out there for the fall festival. They do all of these elaborate set ups involving all sorts of different pumpkins and other squash varieties. They also do crafts, face painting, story time, musical presenatations, petting zoo, and more for kids during this time. 

Luke and I took part in the petting zoo. He got to pet his first sheep and goat. He was very good at being gentle.

He also had an excellent time running! He ran all over the pumpkin village. It's amazing the difference a year makes.

Here are the photos I got from our morning adventure.

Luke checking out the white pumpkins by one of the set ups. All the little girls were fascinated by the carriage.

He called this a ball and continued to throw it many times.

He would stand like this for a few seconds....

... and then he was off to find another place for the pumpkin.

He ran all around this pumpkin house.

He took a little break.

I caught him in front of one of the Chihuly exhibits. Beautiful!

Video Catch Up

There are a lot of videos we've taken that I've been really lazy about uploading. I'm going to spend some time getting those updated on here, but it won't happen all at once. Hopefully, one every few days.

This was taken 4/25/12. It shows off two of his awesome skills. Enjoy!

This one was taken 8/21/12, and he does an even more awesome trick. Love it :)

17 months

Well, honestly, Luke's growing and changing, BUT it's hard to document all the little things. He's mostly just funny now and does random things. I feel like I think of things to put on there and then when I sit down to write it, it all goes 'poof'. I'll do my best!

• I'm pretty sure he just went through a growth spurt. For one, he slept until after 7 for four days in a row which is a true miracle. Now, his 12 month shirts are way too short for him and don't quite go over his head unless you give them a good tug. He's in 16 month shirts, but he still fits fine in 12 month pants. The pants do have to be pretty generous on elastic, but they're not too tight to work. I have a feeling we'll still be in the bottom percentiles at his doctor's appointment at the end of this month, but that's the story of all of our lives.
• He's also still in size 3 diapers. I think he could move to 4's, but why push it? 
• He knows the sounds that a cow, cat, duck, sheep, and a dog. But he just grunts when you ask him what a dog says; he's consistent, but I'm not sure that's totally correct. He also calls most animals a cat. Except for owls and ducks, he knows what they are.
• He also things any mode of transportation is a car. When we go for a walk he will point out every single vehicle you see and say 'car!' So I think he literally says that word on average of 75 times a day. No lie.
• He does love boats, though. He does not confuse boats with anything else at all. He also loves to ride in boats with the wind in his hair. And he totally hates the life jacket, so we'll see how that works out next summer. For now, it wasn't pushed. He will literally squeel with delight and do his happy dance (stomping his feet) when you got for a boat ride. He LOVES it! I can't wait to stick him on a tube out behind the boat! I hope that rocks his world.
• He now loves to run. I asked him, "Do you like to run?" And he nodded his head. He must love it because he runs a lot. He runs more than he walks at this point.
• He also likes to kick balls. He'll run all around a gym kicking a ball. Maybe he'll enjoy soccer- we'll see.
• His favorite books now are ones where there are just pictures and he points to them and you tell him what he sees. We can do this for hours on end. I'm still waiting to see the payoff.
• He learned to use the slide all by himself. He can climb up the ladder and slide down feet first. The only problem is he's not that careful or balanced yet, so he's fallen off the top of the slide 3 times now. The slide has been temporarily removed. We'll revisit it in about a month or two when maybe he's learned to be more careful- or not. I'm just tired of picking up a crying baby off the floor right now.
• He just got another haircut. I think he's had 5 now.
• He's still an organizer. He closes doors, he moves things to where they belong, he puts things back- it's amazing. I don't consider myself a neat person, so maybe I can just count on him to pick things up for me. Awesome. He also doesn't like for his hands to be dirty. He asks for them to be brushed off regularly. He also doesn't like dirt between his toes. He will sit down and clean his toes about 5 times a day, maybe more. It's a little weird, but oh well.
• All in all, he's still a happy kid.  He's very entertaining on a daily basis. He is a kid who loves to say hi and bye to everyone he sees. He regularly leaves the grocery store and says, "bye", to everyone we pass. It's pretty funny. He is complemented all of the time about his wonderful personality and how laid back he is which is very true. We're pretty lucky to have such a fun, cute baby.

The pictures below are from his first day of Mother's Day Out which just happened to be a few days after his 17 month birthday. He's only been once, but he did great! He even took an hour and 15 minute nap which is nothing short of a miracle! His MDO is at our church, First Methodist. His teachers are Becky and Judy. There's 7 other babies in his class. I think he'll enjoy being there! I know I will....

Shaggy hair dude

Blurry but cute- loves his bear :)

Always reaching for a book

Loves to read

Sweet face

Best pic I got with his backpack. He moves too quickly and too much

Trying to lift his heavy backpack