8th Annual Memorial Day Trip

We went to Ocean Isle Beach with our friends from college again this Memorial Day. To be honest, I had low expectations because last year was tough since Lucas was on a two nap schedule and there was hardly any time to socialize, but this year we really enjoyed ourselves. We rented two houses - there were 5 families with kids (7 kids under the age of 4), 3 couples without kids and 2 single guys. Because there were so many kids on the same schedule, it was easy to find time to hang out with our friends.

It was rainy on Saturday so we spent a lot of time on the porch in between showers. Someone brought some balloons with a pump, so we hours were spent blowing them up and then letting one of the kids hold it and let it go... it made a loud screeching noise that they thought was hilarious.

Lucas was a little hesitant at first and didn't want to leave his dada's arms...

But he giggled each time and waved, "bye balloon!"

When the rain finally let up we were able to go down to the beach. Lucas thought Carter was so cool (he's 3 1/2). He kept his eyes on him and giggled at every silly thing that he did. Carter realized this and became a little ham for Lucas...

Lucas spent a lot of time with Jeff this wknd... apparently dadas are cooler than mamas at the beach!

But I guess he also needed a little alone time...

After a long day at the beach and a long nap (by mama and Lucas), it was time to eat dinner. The kids fit nicely around this table. Lucas thought it was neat to sit in a "big" chair like his older, 3-yr old friends Carter and Lina...

And after dinner there was more fun with the balloons. Here is the turkey learning how to blow up the balloons by watching Carter...

The mamas took the kiddos to the beach on day 2 while the dadas played golf. Someone had the brilliant idea to bring this baby pool to the beach. We were able to coral all of the kids into one place and actually relax for a few minutes.

We even took a second for a photo op (Erin, Lisa, Nikki and me). Hilary was taking the picture.

Needless to say, Lucas loved, loved, loved the beach. His favorite thing to do was hold my hand or Jeff's and walk into the water up to his shins and let the waves get him wet.

One of the big toy hits was a walker that the older kids would take from the baby and push as fast as they could across the porch or along the beach... little stinkers never touched these things when they were age appropriate!

After stealing toys from the baby, Lucas and Hunter enjoyed some guy time around the pool...

All Lucas needed was a cold sippy cup...

Although Lucas spent a lot of time with Jeff on the beach, he did take a few minutes to take some pictures with his mama...

"Gosh Mom, this is embarrassing!"

Oh my, who is this ghost woman!? Oh wait, it's me. Yikes, I had no idea I was this fair. Such a difference from when my high school friends and I baked out in the sun for hours with baby oil on!

19.5 wks pregnant

I had such a fun time spending time with my two great friends, Erin and Hilary. We were roomies in college for a year and have done this trip several times, but our quality time together is fewer and far between now that we all have kids... although I still day dream of the day when we all live on the same street!

There were three little girls that Lucas took a little bit of interest in this weekend... Maddie, Mabry and Kalen. Maddie was 15 months old and kind of chased him around.. but he must have liked her because I caught him giving her a little kiss through the window! The youngest baby was still crawling and I saw Lucas crawling around with her several times. I tried to explain to him that she is a "baby sister", but not sure what he understood...

Each night after dinner the kids enjoyed ice cream cones...

Water Work

Lucas LOVES to play in the kitchen sink and it's often a cause of conflict between us. I don't mind if he plays in the water all day and makes a huge mess, but he prefers to spray things with the water, which means he wants it to constantly run. I can't stand wasting water, especially since we've had such a bad drought this year. Anyway, he's figured out that it's easier if he just goes ahead with this task without asking permission... that way he at least gets to enjoy himself for a few min. Last night we were all three in the family room and we noticed Lucas trying to carry his little blue chair across the room. He kept dropping it and tripping over it, but he didn't ask for help so we just watched. I guess we got distracted and forgot about it, but a couple of minutes later we heard the water running and knew what the stinker had done. We tip-toed around the corner to sneak a peek and saw that he had probably tried his blue chair, but when he realized he was still too short he went and got the kitchen chair. Little smarty. I let him play for a few min and then told him that it was time to finish up with our water work. He surpisingly said, "bye-bye water" and turned it off.

Homemade Pizza Work

Since Lucas has started school he is even more into helping us do things. He just wants to hang out with us, it doesn't really matter what we're doing. Last night we did some "dinner work" and made some pizza together. My neighbor, Ele, inspired me to make our own pizza. Our grocery store only had pre-made pizza dough, so we had to put some extra effort into it and it was messy, but it was fun and the end result was yummy.

The "H" Hunter

At Lucas's school they have a letter of the week that they practice for two weeks at a time before moving to the next letter. In Montessori school, instead of learning ABC's the traditional way, they learn the sounds first. The first week Lucas was there they were learning the "H" sound, the second week the short "I" sound (igloo), and now they are on "J". The second two letters are a little jealous because Lucas really prefers "huh" over "ihh" and "juh". He always has an eye out for an "H". He spots them on boxes at the grocery store, on t.v. ads, on posters in our house, on billboards, side of cars... everywhere. He always points and says, "huh! huh!" with an excited little voice.. proud that he found another one. The idea is that one day he'll see a word, like "hit" and sound out the letters, "huh-ihhh-tttt".

Each Friday they have Show and Tell and Lucas is allowed to bring in two items that begin with the letter of the week. I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall during Show and Tell! On Thursday night we work together as a family to pick out his two objects and then we practice saying them to make sure that he understands. Last night we picked out a jar and a jump rope. This morning Lucas was saying "juh, juh, jarrrrr" as we ate breakfast. It's great family time for us and Lucas seems to enjoy the challenge.

Just like Dada

It's strange, Lucas is definitely a mama's boy, but he copies everything that Jeff does now and hardly ever copies me. So cute how he copies the guy because I guess he knows he's a little guy. It's amazing to watch his little mind work. Last night Lucas was in Jeff's lap at the dinner table. Jeff quickly put his finger in his mouth (like touched his tooth) and then rubbed his fingers together over his plate to get bread crumbs off of his fingers. Lucas did the exact same thing, even though he didn't really know what Jeff was doing. He was watching him intently and kept looking at his fingers to make sure they were doing the same thing that Jeff's were.

Here is the turkey trying to play golf like his dada...

We have a baby club that is just his size...

But that club was not as cool, so he traded with dada...

and took the big club back to his practice spot.

Saturday Night Treat

We had a strange Saturday where sleep is concerned. Lucas started acting tired around 11am, an hour early, so we ate lunch and started the nap routine. He said he wanted to go to mama and dada's bed, which was fine with me because I was exhausted. We laid in my bed for a few minutes, but then he popped up with a grin and asked me to read him a book. This could go on forever, so I told him to go ask dada to read it to him. So for the next 2 hours he ran back and forth between Jeff and me. I was drifting in and out of sleep, so he would just get really close to my face, grin, and whisper, "hi mama". I would usually try harder to get him to sleep, but I was so tired that I didn't care. Around 2pm I got out of bed and noticed that he was indeed ready for his nap, so I laid down with him in his bed and we both fell asleep for three hours. In summary, I was in bed from noon - 5pm on Saturday and it felt so great!

Anyway, we had dinner around 6:30 and then decided to go to North Hills for some ice cream since we knew Lucas would be staying up a little later than normal. Jeff got cookies and cream and I got the most chocolate ice cream, filled with chocolate chunks and nuts - yum! Lucas shared with both of us. The weather was nice and there were other folks out and about, so it was a good time sitting outside together eating our ice cream treat.

Later that night I convinced Jeff to let me straighten his hair with my new straightener. He looked like a rocker dude, but he said it was annoying because it was getting in his eyes. I'm glad he didn't like it... his wavy hair is one of my favorite things about his looks.

Mis-er-able!

I have had a freaking stuffy nose going on 6 wks. There was a slight break in there, so I thought it might just be two different colds, but I'm starting to think it is pregnancy related. It turns out that "about 20 to 30 percent of pregnant women have congestion without having allergies or a viral infection like the common cold. This condition even has a name: rhinitis of pregnancy. It can start as early as your second month and last until you have your baby or even a few weeks afterward.Higher amounts of estrogen during pregnancy can contribute to swelling in the mucous membranes lining the nose and even cause you to make more mucus. What's more, the amount of blood in your body increases and your blood vessels expand during pregnancy, which can lead to swollen nasal membranes as well."

Yuck, yuck, yuck and more yuck. I hate stuffy noses and the stuff that goes along with it. I heard little girls were harder on their mommies during pregnancy - now I believe it.

Forbidden

Believe it or not, our sweet little shih-tzu was kicked out of his day spa on Friday because he bit four people! When Jeff picked him up that afternoon they said, "Um, yeah, he's not really welcome back here anymore." Oops.
Actually, it's not really Tyson's fault. About 6 months ago I was doing a little home grooming and accidentally snipped (barely) his ear, so now he freaks anytime someone comes near him with scissors. I have to call the vet to find out, but I think our only option is to get him sedated from now on when he gets groomed.
They didn't do that bad of a job, considering what they were dealing with...
TT - you're still our sweet little punkin and we love you!

Before

After

Falling for her...

When I first got pregnant with our second baby I had mixed emotions. I expected the same overwhelming feeling of excitement that I felt when pregnant with Lucas, but it didn't come. Instead of being a dreamer, I had become a realist. I already knew that raising one child was incredibly hard and was terrified of how much harder it would be with an infant. Instead of talking about baby names and how to decorate the nursery, we talked about how to budget for child care. On top of that I felt horrible about how Lucas's life would change. Of course it would be great in the long run, but at first he was going to have to share his mama with someone else. The fact that he is still nursing was also a big part of it - how would this all work out?

Eighteen weeks have passed and I feel quite different now and am very thankful that we have 9 months to prepare for our new life. I started to bond with "baby sister", as Lucas calls her, a few weeks ago when I first started feeling her move. Then we found out that she was a girl, which was the smartest thing we ever did. I love being able to think of her in little dresses and hair in pigtails with bows. We can also focus in on girl names... we have a decent list of names, but no favorites so far.

Last night was when I felt like I could say for the first time that I love our little girl. I can feel her move several times a day and Jeff even felt her move for the first time today. We were watching a movie about a pregnant girl and I was sobbing when they delivered the crying newborn. Yay! I am so excited about this pregnancy now and can't wait to meet "baby sister".

As far as my feelings for Lucas go, they haven't changed, but I think it has helped that I see how much he likes school and how he can survive without me being around him every second. I know from talking to friends that there will be an adjustment period, but a sibling is really a wonderful gift that I know he'll appreciate some day.

Bossy Lucas

I saw Lucas's bossy side for the first time this weekend. I had just asked the boys to both sit on the stairs so that I could get a side-by-side picture of the two of them.

Lucas placed him self on the stair of his choice...

The he waited for Ty to sit next to him. When Ty kept going down the stairs Lucas said, "Ty sit!" and hit his hand on the stair next to him.

We convinced Ty to sit next to Lucas...

A few minutes later Lucas noticed that Ty needed a tissue (they both did), so he got a tissue, held it to Ty's nose and said, "blow nose Ty!" I told him that this will probably be the only time in their lives where Lucas can boss Ty around... Ty is our little linebacker and will just tell Lucas to buzz off when he realizes he can.

Blog Friends

Ty has a baby crush on Maddie, one of our baby blog friends. Jennifer shows him a video of her or her brother laughing almost every day. Lucas was even enjoying the laughing baby...

Fun with Ty and Neil

The great part about having to go to Atlanta last week was that we got to spend a ton of time with family that we don't see as much as we would like. Lucas LOVED playing with Ty and also really enjoyed seeing everyone else... Grandma, Grandpa, Jenn, Neil, Mom...

Ty has a slide in his playroom... look at the joy on Lucas's face!

Lucas also got to ride in Ty's car seat, which he thought was way cool...

As usual, he really took to his Uncle Neil. Whenever Neil was around he wanted to hang out with him...

In this picture Neil and Lucas are watching the movie Cars. We were all getting ready for the funeral, but Lucas somehow convinced Neil to turn on the movie and then sit with him. Lucas was very specific about where he wanted Neil to sit while they watched the movie - Neil was on the floor and he made him move to the chair. Tyson was pooped from all of the excitement.

Here is a belly shot from wk 17...

Neil said he felt weighted down on one side... Lucas's cousin, Ty, weighs about 36 lbs and our little shrimp is lucky if he weighs 25 lbs (although this should change now that he's eating better at school.. and at home due to school).

Ty and Lucas had lots and lots of fun together. When it seemed like they had done everything, they climbed in the car and pretended like they were driving us around...

I hope Lucas never looks like this when he's old enough to really drive!

They also enjoyed some quality time with Uncle Jeff...