My mother's day present- late but great

I'm so excited, we finally got my mother's day present all finished. I had known what it was since mother's day when we bought the bougainvillea, but we had to wait until kenny had enough time to work on it. It was worth the wait.
We went from this:

To this:

The gift included the hand-made cedar raised bed and trellis, soil (since the soil on our property is only 100 years or so from being a rock), bougainvillea, and herbs (parsley, rosemary, dill, oregano, basil, and my own favorite, lemon thyme).
The idea is to train the bougainvillea to climb the trellis and give our bathroom window some cover so I can take baths in our nice big garden tub without having the shades pulled all the way down. It will take a few years, but I'm so excited for the green light to filter through that big window!

Bougainvillea's a gorgeous flower, I've completely fallen in love with it:

Better yet, since Kenny built everything, we were able to build it on a very tight budget. (herbs themselves only cost a couple bucks). Up front I've also planted some lavender, and we're trying to figure out a place to place some mint that we can keep it easily controlled. I still need to buy (and find room for) some sage, some marjoram, and some chives and I'll pretty much have my old garden back!

I was VERY into herb gardening in high school and leaving that garden behind in Washington was the hardest thing about moving out. The smells bring back such memories!


Thanks for the fabulous, work-intensive gift, Kenny!

Ways in which the Terrible Twos aren't so terrible

We've loved having a two-year-old. Seriously. I'd take 26-month old Daniel over 20-month-old Daniel any day. The perks of having a two-year-old:

• I can figure out what he wants- he now has 82 words in his vocabulary! That's HUGE progress for us. Sure, 80 of those words use only 4 consonants- b, d, m and s; and for some reason he's decided "w" makes a good replacement for "k", and I still can't understand him 60% of the time, but I'll happily take that 40% and run with it.
• He can now correctly operate a fork and spoon on his own. My days of spoon-feeding him yogurt are over.
• He's a great helper with Daddy in the garage:
  
  
  
  
• He can hold his own banana. You have no idea how happy this makes me.
• He understands that no matter how much he wants to wiggle during a diaper change, I WILL WIN. Mommy always wins, no use resisting.
• His drawings kind of resemble things. I LOVE the intense look of concentration he has as he draws a very random-looking squiggle, then informs me that it is a baby shark. He will then draw a smaller squiggle on it, and tell me with great pride it is an "eye" for the baby shark.
• He cleans up his own messes. He will take any dirty dish in the house and throw it in the sink (had a few broken dishes, but, oh well). He does not tolerate video game controllers being left out- he will put them on the appointed shelf, every time. He also does not allow the TV to be left on. (toys on the floor are a different story)
• He can brush his own teeth without me tackling and sitting on him... and likes to brush them 6 times a day (I "help" at least a couple times to make sure it's done thoroughly)
• He can climb into his own car seat- as I get more and more pregnant, this seems like a gift from God. 
• He helps feed the dogs- including his own stuffed dog:
  
  
• He knows how to keep a pen on paper rather than a desk or wall. Not saying he always does, but... at least he knows the difference
• He can "read" on his own- mommy is no longer needed to point out things of interest in a book
• He understands what we say so well. If we mention pancakes or swimming, even in passing, he will throw his little arms above his head and shout "yay!". Nothing is more gratifying than cooking pancakes for a kid running around with his hands in the air shouting "yay! bapay, bapay!!" ("bapay" means pancake, for those who don't speak toddler)
• He is a good playmate. The playgroup ladies were telling me that even though he's afraid to go down the slide himself (remember how he sprained his hip on a slide? yeah still not over that) he likes to sit next to the big step before the slide and help boost all the other kids up there. 
• He no longer prefers mommy over daddy (this may have a lot to do with Daddy being home for summer, and how amazingly fun he is next to boring, tired mommy- I'm not offended in the slightest). 
• He takes after his mommy and is very empathetic. A lady was crying while baring his testimony at church this month, and from the back row he started telling me, quite concerned, that she was sad, then blowing kisses and air-hugs at her, and finally offering her goldfish by holding them up in her direction and saying "nom nom nom"
• He can notify me of future diaper-fillings. I know having a kid point to an empty diaper and tell you "poo" may not SEEM like a big deal, especially when the "big event" can happen anytime in the next hour, but he knows it is in there. This gives me hope that someday he will be potty-trained. 
• He does cute things like this- he removes the armrest cover from the couch and uses it as a tailor-made, camouflage blanket:
  
  

The draw-backs of having a two-year-old:

• Sacrament meeting*. Enough said.

*For non-mormon readers, church for us is three hours long. The first hour and a half, the entire congregation, from newborn to ancient, sits in pews together and (hopefully) quietly listens to speakers and prayers (the second half of church, the 18-month-olds and up get to go to nursery or sunday school and mommy gets some sanity). Keeping a two-year-old still and quiet for that first portion of church is nothing short of a miracle. Fortunately most people there are wrangling their own children (or have in the past) and understand if Daniel occasionally roars like a dinosaur.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I wasn't feeling great so I went to lay down and read- Daniel came in, saw me climb into bed, immediately ran into the other room, grabbed a book, ran back, climbed into the other side, pulled up the blankets, and started "reading" along side me.

Babies and Bellies!

First of all, Daniel is definitely gearing up to be a big brother. For one, he tries to "feed the baby" now by jamming his favorite goldfish graham crackers in my belly button. The best part is that he then makes a "nom nom nom" sound of the baby eating and enjoying it. He keeps telling me the baby is "sad" (which worries me, maybe his intuition is telling him something I don't know?) and giving the baby hugs and kisses. Unfortunately, he loves to pull up my shirt in public and "show the baby off".
A friend let me watch her 6 month old son last week, so we got to see how Daniel handled a real live baby. Predictably, he screamed at first because mommy was paying such close attention to something other than him, but he quickly changed his mind and decided that mommy was old news and just wanted to be with that baby (who, by the way, is super mellow and smiley and agreeable):


I think he'll be a great big brother!

You know how they say you're more likely to show a pregnant belly sooner with a second pregnancy? Yeah, they're right! Check this out:

That's from today- I'm ten weeks along today! One quarter of the way done!
For comparison, here I am at 4 weeks along:

And here I am from last pregnancy, EIGHT weeks further long (18) :


I'm excited to be showing so soon though, makes the whole thing feel more real! I'm down about 7 pounds from where I started and just beginning to get my appetite back.

Patches (our new dog)

So, we have our new dog! A family in the ward was moving nearby and couldn't have a big dog at their new place, so we thought we would expand our little family. Lucy has gotten fat and spends way too much time on her couch, so we think a friend will do her some good.

Patches, a one-year-old lab mix joined our family officially the other day. Lucy immediately became submissive and is definitely NOT an alpha-type dog, but they've became fast friends, romping and wrestling in the back yard.


She's been very patient and gentle towards Daniel (pictured here giving her a hug):

We need to work on some manners (barking, sitting, staying) but all in all she's a great dog. She already won't leave Kenny's side, she just loves company.
We realize this officially makes us "dog people", and we're ok with that. Lucy has been such a blessing to our family and we think Patches will too. Now we just need to see if she'll catch a frisbee (our biggest disappointment in Lucy was her lack of frisbee-catching skills).

Silly Boy, so much fun (pic heavy)

Daniel has been so much fun lately!
First, the talking thing is coming along wonderfully. He now has 12 signs and about 20 words- including a few polysyllabic ones that I love- "uh-oh" and "bubbles" ("bub-bow").

He still loves to help clean up, sweep, vacuum... he even brought me the dirty dishes from the table last night (sadly, he dropped one and broke one of my favorite blue plates:(). He's sleeping really well on his big boy twin bed and most mornings we just sit on his bed and look out the window and point out animals on his bedspread for 15 minutes. He LOVES reading and will force me to reread the same book 3 or 4 times then go grab another. Did you know that Green Eggs and Ham has over 50 pages?!?

He likes to do goofy things like wear his shorts on his head:

Climb into the bathtub fully clothed and turn on the cold water:

Play with dirt (often dumping it in his hair):

Walk the dog while Daddy walks him:

Be afraid of ducklings:

(which, by the way, I am completely in love with:)


And have Epic Sword Battles with daddy at the Frisbee Golf Course:





By the way, I know us washingtonians like to brag about the beauty and greenness of our state, but this time of year I think Houston could give the NW a run for its money:

Of course, I'd still choose Washington any day. I'm a bit homesick.

Lastly, Daniel got a haircut yesterday. Here he is before the cut- I had a woman compliment how beautiful my "little girl" was the other day. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and overalls.

(PS isn't his new "pose for the camera" smile LOVELY?)


4 hours of haircutting and wiggling later (he's pushing the garbage can, helping us clean up):


K, so I'm not great at cutting wiggly little boy's hair. It's not awful, but... definitely room for improvement.

And lastly, and completely unrelated- check out the mushrooms we found growing on an old bag of mulch in our garage!

If you didn't catch that...

I'm pregnant!
take a look again:

Sorry the text on the video was hard to read- it says "I'm going to be a big brother sometime next december!!!" I had a real hard time not micromanaging Daniel and actually letting him decorate the poster himself, but you can see in the end he made it look just lovely;)
I had grand ambitions of a much cuter video but Daniel wouldn't cooperate on camera, and I was sick of waiting for the perfect video announcement:). If I ask him to point to the baby in my tummy, he usually points to my belly, though sometimes he'll point to his own instead. It's pretty cute.
I'm 4 weeks, 4 days along, due December 16th. We only found out last Tuesday. We were so sad last year when we thought we couldn't afford another baby for a long while, then we were blessed with these consulting jobs that make it possible. I felt very storngly last september that God wanted us to try for a baby in February, but... finances got worse and worse. It wasn't until the end of January that everything fell into place financially and I saw that God had it all planned out all along:) We're extremely happy and excited.
So... I suck at keeping secrets. Especially one I'm so happy, I want to shout it from rooftops. I know it's early for this to be public news, but, I want to share my happiness. If, heaven forbid, we lose the baby early on, I'll probably want public support then too.
Daniel is going to be 2 in a couple weeks, so he'll be nearly three years old when this baby comes along. We think he'll be a great big brother once he gets past his mommy's-lap territorial issues.:)