More Than I Can Imagine

I'm feeling more blessed than I can imagine anyone being. Nothing happened, we didn't come into any money, nobody rescued us from the brink of death, nothing like that. I was just sitting here feeling my little girl doing tae kwon do in my stomach, hearing my husband talk to his dad on the phone, and knowing my little guy is safe and happily sleeping in his room. I'm having a little time to myself, which is in itself a tiny miracle. 1. My husband loves his daddy. And I can't blame him. They are interested in so many of the same things and are best buddies. I honestly think that paved the way for Michael being such an amazing dad himself. He and Andrew are best buddies, and that is wonderful to see. 2. My husband is my best friend. We don't fight, we understand each other (typically), and we support each other. We're not perfect, but we're more than just married. We're best friends who got to get married. And it's a whole heck of lot of fun. 3. I am 30 weeks along now. We weren't sure if we would be able to have kids in the first place. When Andrew came along, we were amazed and truly humbled. After that, I thought nothing could make me happier than to be able to have had my little guy. And now we have our own little princess on the way. My sister Amy has given us some clothes (along with some other people) and I gotta tell you. I already know what I want her blessed in, and it's so cute I can hardly stand it. Can't wait to meet this active little girl. 4. Andrew is hilarious, and such a sweetheart. We got to church early today, so I let Andrew draw on a chalkboard. I drew a couple things up there when he asked me to. He then made a few marks on the board, pointed his little stubby finger at his masterpiece and said, "Turtle." He drew a turtle!!!! He was so proud, and my face broke into a smile about a mile wide. We sat with Natalie, Quentin, and their baby Brady today and Andrew went up to Brady and gave him a big hug. I'm so glad he's so sweet to babies. Now if only we could get him to stop touching their eyes... I could go on forever about the cute things he says and does, the sweet way he interacts with everyone he meets, etc etc. But I will spare you. Let's just suffice it to say, I am feeling amazingly blessed.

Helper

Andrew loves to help. Which would be really helpful, if he were taller than my knees. :) But he's a very sweet little guy who is finally starting to clean up by himself. (Sometimes.) We love our little helper.

Helping Daddy barbeque.

Vaccuuming All tuckered out. :) This is from today. He went to the doctor this morning because I was worried he had allergies. Well, he does and being outside so much has really made them flare up. He refused to nap today, so that on top of the fact that he wasn't feeling so great caused him to fall asleep at 6:00 and we couldn't for the life of us get him to wake up. Poor little sleepy guy!

Nice to see you!

Spring is here, and we couldn't be more thrilled! Andrew in particular is in love with the great outdoors, and now that it's nice out, we are really taking advantage of it!So excited to be at the park!

Putting little pieces of wood through the little holes. He knows how to have a good time.

Doing what he does best - the slide.

Riding on the big swings. He does pretty well! (And he's all boy - check out the scuffed up knees. He has some new ones from today, too.)

Riding one of the little animals. Sometimes he gets too excited and ends up whacking himself in the head with the duck's head. And, being the great mom I am, I have to stifle my laughter every time.

It's not just Andrew who's so excited about Spring. :)

Cookie Monster

Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner. Everyone was eating ice cream in the living room. Andrew was pretty interested in that, so I gave him a cookie instead. He was so excited. He went to everyone in the room and said, "I has cookie." Then he went over to his little rocking sheep and tried to share. He is sooo cute.

Productive...finally

I've had a bad sinus infection this week. I was really really feeling horrible, but today I'm starting to feel better (thank you Amoxocillin). I'm so glad. Mike, Aaron, and I decided to take advantage of the nice day off school and work to get the house in order. It had basically gotten to the point of "if-we-don't-get-this-house-in-order-I'm-going-to-go-crazy-or-someone's-going-to-call-the-Health-Department-on-us." It had seriously gotten pretty bad. So here's what I accomplished today: 1. 7 loads of laundry 2. 3 loads of dishes 3. Changed the sheets 4. Went on a family bike ride 5. Went to the grocery store 6. Swept the kitchen twice 7. Cleaned the kitchen table 8. Helped Mike make a BBQ for lunch 9. Made breakfast and dinner for Andrew 10. Cleaned Andrew's room 11. Cleaned up all the nasty tissues by my bed (I think there was a family of rats living in there) 12. Found all the library materials that need to be returned 13. Re-typing this whole blog entry when it got erased. Bah. Today I'm grateful for my family, antibiotics, and Lysol wipes. So many Lysol wipes.

Little Inventor

Andrew loves this little stool. He carries it around everywhere and has become very creative with it. The other day I gave him a little snack and when I went in to see where he was, he had made himself a little breakfast tray out of the stool. It was pretty much the cutest thing I'd ever seen. He was really proud of himself.

Did I mention he was proud? Cause yeah, he was pretty much in love with the idea.

Here's a cute picture of Mike and Andrew. They are such good friends, and it's so fun to see.

And here's Andrew feeding his little sheep, Flossie. It was just a little cup, but he kept feeding it and saying "Num num num."

So Old....and Yet So Young.

I'm 29 years old (and I just realized I'm also 29 weeks, 29 years old. Huh, that means nothing and yet is kind of funny for some reason.) I'm thinking that rambling last sentence only emphasizes my point. I am old. Here are a list of the things I can remember that will make my kids say, "Woah, Mom. You are really old." 1. When they used to pack carrots in ice. I remember going to the store and eating the carrot ice. I also remember my mom telling me to cut it out. Cause it was nasty. 2. Our very first CD player. My dad brought it home along with some classical CDs, a Simon and Garfunkel CD, and...an African chanting CD. Not quite sure why he chose the last one, but we used to dance to it a lot for some reason. 3. All Disney cartoons came in those cool plastic cases that didn't properly fit on any shelf. 4. When fast food came in styrofoam containers. 5. When we had a black and white t.v. 6. Having only rotary phones. P.S. I still refer to movies coming out "on video."

Anxiously Awaiting, Slowly Naming.

I will be 29 weeks tomorrow, and have started to dream about our little girl! Last night I had a dream that I had her in a hotel/cabin and my whole family was there. Basically, they were in the way - making apple dumplings, watching t.v., etc. How rude. :) It had apparently been 2 days and the nurses still hadn't checked up on me, so I went to go find them. Guess I won't be having her at a cabin anytime soon. The nurses there are just too unreliable.

Anyway.

She was so cute. And such a sweetheart. And I'm getting so excited to meet her! There's been a lot more baby talk around the house, and Andrew has been finding babies in all his books lately.

With Andrew, we made a list of names and kind of whittled it down to a couple names and chose one when we saw him. It worked out pretty well for us, and that's kind of what we're doing this time as well. Pretty much our three favorite names right now are Colette, Emily, and Amelia. We like pretty, simple names, and these kind of seem to fit the bill!

So what do you think? Do you like Colette, Emily, or Amelia? Or none of them? We're basically going to name her whatever we like and whatever feels right, but I'm really interested to see what you guys think.

For All the Grandmas

Since I know all of you can't stand to not have an Andrew fix (haha), here's a few funny/sweet things Andrew did today. He was playing in the kitchen today (quietly, which I know I should have taken for a bad sign). When I decided that maybe he was being a little TOO still and quiet, I went in to see him playing with the butter from the table. We had French toast for breakfast and forgot to put the butter away. The butter now has tiny little holes all in it (courtesy of Andrew's little fingers). His hair also looked like it had gel in it. No, rest assured. It was butter. Sheesh. Today was General Conference for our church. (Twice a year we get to hear from the prophet and apostles of our church. It's an amazing spiritual experience.) When the prophet came up to speak, Andrew stood right in front of the screen, smiling. He must have really liked his smile and voice because he really hasn't ever seen him before. I told him it was the prophet and he looked at the screen smiling and saying, "Poppet." He watched the whole talk, and then did amazingly well during the rest of the session (2 hours). He probably just sat and watched at least half of it. We were amazed. He loved the music and alternated between leading the music and dancing to the music. What a sweetheart.

Andrew really loves books. As in, a whole stinking lot. His favorites are currently Cookie Monster's Book of Cookie Shapes, any of the Olivia books, and The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash. He calls that one "Wash" and we read it at least 4 times a day. Tonight we were reading it before bed and had two of his stuffed animals propped up on his lap so they could see the book, too. He kept adjusting them on his lap so they could see. Then he was pointing out the pictures using his little hippo's foot. It was absolutely adorable.

I can't tell you how much we love our little guy. He is the sweetest little guy, and he makes us laugh all day. We can't wait for our little girl to come this summer. Having one is such a blessing, we can't even imagine how amazing it's going to be to have her around also. Yay for families!!!