Summer might really be here?

I think summer might be here...and if not, it's coming soon. Abby is the happiest kid on the block now that she can spend all her waking hours outside as long as we don't have music class or swimming lessons. She loves to swing in her friend Eddie's swing (Her swing set is coming soon, but we don't have it yet!) and playing in her sandbox and water table. She's so happy to be outside in the fresh air where she can ride her trike and pull her wagon. She loves taking walks down to the pond in our neighborhood to look at the ducks and geese. She informed me today that the red-winged black bird we saw eats bugs and fish when he's hungry. 

A- Momma, Birdie
M- Yes a Birdie. What do you think that Birdie eats?
A- "sthish" (fish)
M- Fish?
A- Yes.
M- and do you think he eats bugs, too?
A- Yes. Bugth. Birdie eat bugth and sthish

Smart kid.

Every day she is growing. Every day she is maturing into an incredible little girl. Every day she both surprises me and fills me with pride (when we're not having an epic battle over whether or not her scraped up knee needs a "Hello Kitty" Band-Aid or not). She has started showing me that she can entertain herself and/or stay focused on one activity for 20 minutes at a time and I cannot tell you how relieved that makes me. In two more months, she'll be even more grown up and will have even more independence, so maybe bringing home baby brother won't be as scary as I think. Because if you ask me, it's probably the scariest thing in my life since I brought Abigail home.

Tonight, as her daddy and I were playing with her in her room - reading books and doing some bouncing rhymes on our laps- she decided that she'd like to see baby brother. She can only interact with him if it's with my bare belly, so up the shirt went and down the belly band came and she promptly kissed my belly and gave "baby brofer" a hug. She then proceeded to give him head bonks just like we used to do with her when she was a baby. She said "hello" and "I yove yoo" to him and then lost interest. For those three minutes though, it was magical. I can't wait to see how much she loves him. I'm not naiive enough to think it won't be really really hard sometimes, but right now, tonight, I'm choosing to focus on the amazing moments we'll have. The moments that will probably make me cry and fill my heart with so much love that it'll more than likely burst out of my body. 

You guys, I sure was blessed with Abigail. She's an incredible kid.

riding a broom

Look at that smile!

she loves riding the duck at the park

Abby's 'at (hat)

water table fun!

making some soup while wearing Mommy's old sweater

Well, Hello There

Hi! I guess I should say sorry for leaving you all hanging like that. It's been a while since I've bothered to post...my blog even went offline. SAD!!!!

Never fear though, it's back. And this time I wanted to tell you all about the sweet little human growing inside of me. As you know, the human is a boy. Josh and I are beyond thrilled to be welcoming a little man into the family. So far, everything is going perfectly. We did have a small scare around 20 weeks when some Bilateral Choroid Plexus Cysts showed up on his precious little brain. Our Dr. Said that this is a fairly common thing to see and rarely does it mean that there will be complications or genetic mutations, but the fact that it was a possibility scared us senseless. These cysts are a "soft marker" for trisomy 18 and/or Down's syndrome. We had to go back in two weeks after our 20 week ultrasound to recheck the cysts. Like the article I've linked to the condition says, more often than not these cysts go away on their own, so we were holding on to hope that the cysts would be gone. Well, God is good and He answers prayers. At the second ultrasound of baby boy's precious, growing brain it was found that the cysts were gone. The likelyhood that something will be abnormal with our son is so slim that all our worries melted away. (Almost)

This pregnancy has been so easy for me compared to Abigail, who I thought was also pretty easy up until the end when she made me so wide and large all around that I could hardly move! It's been so completely different than Abby though, too. I knew right from the start that this was going to be a boy. It just had to be.  Now I'm looking forward to seeing his perfect little face and kiss his nose and lips and toes and to hold him in my arms. I can't wait for Abby to be a big sister. I can't wait for our family to grow.

Here are a few fun things to share with you. Baby's 20 week ultrasound photo. I'm so in love with him and we haven't even met yet. I look forward to the day.

Mommy loves you, Sweet Boy!

Sweet Baby Boy's Profile!