Our Little Yoda

Today we took Jeremiah's Halloween portraits! These are the three decent ones out of nearly 40 minutes worth of effort on the part of our poor photographer. She assured me that two year olds are the ones that like having their portraits taken the least and are most likely to NOT stay put for the camera, so I felt a little better about things and didn't expect too much. I"m just glad we got something to commemorate his second Halloween =)

I survived Louis's absence last week rather well. Aside from having a major run-in with our now ex-painter, which resulted the moron yelling at the top of his lungs that I"m a crazy broad, among other things (completely uncalled for, by the way, and which he denied even happened when Louis called him immediately after to yell at him!) it was a rather quiet three days, and it got so much easier to be alone at night as each day passed. Louis is staying put this week, but is off again next week to San Diego for a few days. Oh, and the outside of our house looks FANTASTIC. I'm just thankful this major battle w/ the creep happened when he was coming to pick up his gear after the job was complete, and not while he was in the middle of the project.

That's about all for now... I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, but didn't want to forget to upload the pics. I promise a more decent update within the next day or two =)

He's Gone =(

Last night Louis left for Sacramento. The original plan was for Jeremiah and I to go with him this week. However, while researching my airfare, I found that starting today, through the month of November, Southwest has a special fare of $44 each way to and from Sacramento. Much better than the $144 I was going to pay if I were to go yesterday... Louis was willing to pay it, though, until he found out that he will pretty much be in Sacramento nearly every week for the next month! Yeah I can wait a week to see Kappie =) He doesn't know his exact schedule as of yet, but it looks like our trip is coming up pretty soon!

I was really sad last night when Louis left. I think I've only been on my own at our house for 3 nights since we've been married (not counting my trip to Colorado, or a few other random nights here and there where I spent the night at my mom's house for one reason or another). I just love sleeping next to Louis at night, despite all the snoring, blanket fights we have, and stinky feet. I love waking up next to him in the morning and cudding close when it gets cold. Sleeping alone just feels wierd to me now after 3 years of marriage. Plus, I get creeped out at night... badly.... if he's not around. Even in college I hated being the only one home at night or overnight! However, last night I was pretty proud of myself. Once I realized I had to suck it up not just for my sake but Jeremiah's as well, and found some decent TV to watch, I was alright. I'm sure tonight's not going to be nearly as nervewracking as last night! However, I can't wait for Thursday night when my precious is home.

I"ve been keeping busy since Louis left. I think that is the key to not going nuts! Last night I took Jeremiah to the park on our way home from the airport. By the time we got home, it was time for dinner, bath and bed. This afternoon, I helped my mom at her shop, and then stayed for dinner. In between work and dinner, my dad and I went to take Jeremiah to get a haircut. He HATES haircuts, with a passion. The last time my dad took him, when Louis and I were away for our ann., the stylist had to cut his hair while he was hanging upside down from my dad's arms! Talented lady. Today was MUCH MUCH better... there was some fussing and crying, which was to be expected, but he stayed put REALLY well. All this is thanks to the TVs that are at every station in the kiddy salon by my mom's house, and they put on one of his favorite Sesame Street DVDs. It was worth paying the extra $7 to get his hair cut there vs. the barber Louis takes him to! Tomorrow after his Speech lesson, I am taking him to Disneyland for just a few hours- mostly to see the Pixar parade and take a picture with Mickey Mouse, to enclose in his birthday invitation. I can't believe his party is a month away!!! We're having it two weeks before his actual birthday to avoid the Thanksgiving rush.

Anyway, it's time for me to catch up with some TV and reading. Goodnight!

Oh Where Oh Where Has My Baby Gone?!

Once again, I am absolutely marveled by how much Jeremiah is growing up by leaps and bounds. Just a month and a half away from his second birthday, he is definitely NOT a baby any longer! The 7 pound 12 oz baby that I gave birth to, and who could not get enough of me holding him and singing to him for hours on end is no more (minus the part about me wanting to sing to him. If I even start humming a tune, he will beg for more and more, especially if the song is a favorite of his!) Instead, this baby has been replaced by a 25 pounds (as of August- I think he's gone up a pound or two) boy who will not sit still, and whose cognitive abilities never cease to amaze me. For example...

*Just 20 minutes ago Jeremiah found his PJ bottoms and put one leg on all by himself, no help from me! I was so amazed, and gave him such huge praise that he kept taking his leg out and putting it back in for 10 more minutes, just wanting to hear me applaud him. WOW. He's not going to need my help getting dressed much longer...

*or with his shoes! He won't keep them on if he's in his car seat, and has come SO CLOSE to putting them on all by himself so many times.

*Speaking of clothing, he went through another growth spurt, and as of last week none of his pants fit him and most of his shirts didn't, either. He now wears 2T shirts and PJs, and size 24 month pants (rolled up just a smidge on the bottom so he doesn't trip). However, the pants NEED to be the kind with the adjustable waist; I think his true waist size is 12 months, but since he's on the taller side, of course those are high waters on him. I was tired of having to roll up the waist (since they don't have belts for 2 year olds) and even then his pants would fall down, so I splurged on some pants with the adjustable waist from the Children's Place (normally I'm a Target or JC Penny shopper) . Best investment EVER!! By the way, it seems every kid out there is wearing 2T right now- I had such a hard time finding shirts in his size! There were plenty of 3T but hardly ANY 2T shirts. Even the 24 month size (practically the same as 2T) were hard to come by.

*And his vocabulary! I honestly don't know if it's the one week of speech therapy that he has been through, or just the fact that he's almost 2 and everything is finally starting to "click," but this boy is now a chatter box! Whenever he wakes up now, he spends a good 20-30 min. just chatterng away in his crib, saying things like "I do," "I go," "I gotta go," and other garbled words/phrases that I"m starting to be able to decipher. He still spouts out random words once in a while but then I don't hear them for quite some time. I'll take what I can get!! I"m really hoping to cancel his speech therapies in six months or so. I like the program and am SO thankful for what God and our state have provided, but it's taking up SO much of our time. Four sessions of speech a week and one session of learning how to feed himself with utensils on his own. Lots and lots for one little boy to handle.

And since I"ve bragged about my son for quite a bit, it's time to mention my daughter =) Yesterday I had my big mid-pregnancy ultrasound, and my worries about a wee wee popping out were proven wrong- the three little girly lines showed up loud and clear. WOOHOO! Our princess was very active during her ultrasound; waving at us, kicking, wiggling her toes, sucking her thumb. I love her!! I am 22 weeks pregnant and am starting to get so impatient to finally meet her. We bought her crib bedding yesterday, since Baby Depot was having a 25 percent off sale. Louis and I wound up completely changing our nursery theme, and it is now a very girly looking jungle- girly monkeys, giraffes and elephants are on her bedding. The colors are purple, pink and brown, so Louis and I both got what we wanted =) I love it! We're going to have her room painted within the next week or two. The outside of our house is being finished TODAY (Thank God!) and as soon as the painter is finished painting our storage shed to match the house, we will put him to work on her room. Not sure of the color yet, considering we changed the bedding theme.

Tomorrow Louis starts traveling for his job =( Thankfully, he will only be gone one night this week, to San Diego. Next week he will be gone for 3 nights, but Jeremiah and I will be with him for two of those nights! He is going to Sacramento, where my wonderful friend (and old APU roommate) Kappie and her hubby and son live, so Jeremiah and I will be tagging along to hang out with them while he works. I haven't seen Kappie in over a year, so I can't wait! Again, I am amazed at what a seasoned traveler my son is; this will be his third plane trip. I told him we're going on an airplane and he got SO excited, thinking we were leaving that moment to go on one. I hope he understood me when I tried explaining "not now," but he kept looking around for the plane.

That's about all for now! Show my blog some love =)

More progress...with some changes!

*Finish unpacking our boxes that are stored in Baby's room
*Purchase and assemble a storage shed for our back yard. Transfer all holiday decoration bins out there . We are in the process of buying a storage shed! Louis found a great one on Craigslist for dirt cheap... it should be here this weekend.
*Figure out how/where to store my boxes of scrapbook supplies.
*Go through Jeremiah's baby clothing bins. Sort clothing according to type and size. Separate what can be saved for Baby DONE.
*Have another yard sale. (or two or three). DONE. I had one on Saturday and that will be my LAST one, seeing as I donated the remaining products (an entire car full!) to Goodwill immediately following the yard sale.
*Move Jeremiah's changing table into Baby's room
*Shop for a twin sized bed for Jeremiah DONE! My parents gave us my brother's twin bed and a newer matress. The bed even has storage drawers underneath, sweet! It is disassembled at our house and will be put together in December (when he turns 2)
*Shop for a love seat or comfy couch for Jeremiah's room to replace the glider/rocker
*Move glider/rocker into Baby's room once couch has been purchased
*Move Jeremiah's crib into baby room once bed transition has been made
*Shop for a dresser for Baby's room DONE. We brought over my baby dresser from my mom and dad's house. It just needs a new coat of varnish and some new knobs and we're good to go!
*Shop for crib bedding for Baby (and sell Jeremiah's old bedding) I showed Louis the bedding that I wanted to buy for Baby... however he has differing opinons than me! Rather than lavendar bugs and butterflies he wants light pink and brown birds... or something like that. We're finalizing our choices this weekend. Will sell Jeremiah's bedding once we get his twin bed around his birthday
Shop for curtains or blinds for Baby's room
*Paint Baby's room. In the works- we're having the outside of our house painted this week, and the guy that's doing it is fantastic! His project for next week (or as soon as we get the storage shed in our yard and everything transferred from baby's room into the shed) will be to paint her room.
*Purchase a new Exersaucer; sell old one
*Purchase a play mat/ play gym Found a cute, rather inexpensive one that I will be registering for at Target
*Continue purchasing 1 box of diapers and 1 box of wipes per month I have bought one more of each- The grand total is 6 boxes of diapers in various sizes and 3 boxes of wipes (8 refills each)
*Make a final decision on if I"m going to register for my baby shower, (I am!) and create my registry (will do that closer to the shower. I think my shower is in January so I'll register around Christmas. There isn't a lot that will go on it- mostly bottles, onesies, bathing supplies, a swaddler blanket and of course diapers)
*Buy Baby her first doll. I want to be the first one to buy her a dolly =)
*Figure out financial responsibility for hospital stay not covered by insurance and set up monthly payments. Make it a goal to be payed in full come January 15th (one month before due date) I pre-registered at our hospital, and after they ran our insurance policy we found out that it is cheaper to do the cash payers route without running our insurance! I'm PISSED!! Why even have a policy?! We are making our first payment to the hospital on Friday, and we are slated to finish paying off our OB the beginning of January

Inquiring Minds Wanted To Know...

I've had a couple people ask me to update on my pregnancy, so here's a general rundown!

*On Sunday I reached week 20, which is the halfway mark!

*My belly seems to have popped over the past three weeks or so. I still don't need maternity shirts, and my belly isn't huge (tall people hide babies very well!) but I think you can tell that I"m not just chubby and that there might be a baby in me at first glance. I am working on a belly pic for those interested. I didn't really take too many with Jeremiah

*Even though I'm halfway through my second trimester, I feel like I'm well into my third. The leg cramps appeared big time this week (especially at the Star Wars concert last night- being crammed into a tiny seat at the Honda Center wasn't fun!). Thank God the horrific Charley-Horse-like pains, lasting 30 sec-3 min at a time and causing me to cry every single time have not shown up (yet).

*However... the Braxton Hicks (practice) contractions have shown up WAY earlier than last time! I don't think I had them until around 7 months along w/ Jeremiah. They hit me this week (roughly 4 1/2 months along). Fortunately, all of the second time + mommies in the Feb. 2010 babies group that I"m part of on Cafe Mom are experiencing the same thing, and their OB's say it's perfectly normal. Even though they don't really hurt, they freaked the heck out of me when I started getting them this time... not just because of their early arrival but because the reality of this baby is becoming more and more clear. And the fact that I'm not at the beginning of my pregnancy anymore is becoming evident as well.

*Our princess has been kicking kicking kicking for around a month now. She kicks more frequently than Jeremiah (through most of the day vs. night only) but her kicks are very ladylike and gentle. By the way- she either loved or hated the concert last night, I couldn't tell. But whenever the music got to be especially blaring she would run a stampede in my tummy!

*I have my mid pregnancy ultrasound on Monday, October 12th. Even though we took that ultrasound at 15 weeks and were told it's a girl, I am still a (teeny) bit scared that I'm going to be told that she is really a he. Like having a girl is too good to be true. If she really is a boy I have a LOT of shopping to do because Jeremiah's baby wardrobe is practically gone.

Growing Up

Okay, I know this picture is over four months old (taken at my brother's wedding!) but it is honestly the newest picture of Jeremiah and I that I have on my computer. It has been quite a while since I have uploaded pics onto a computer, since the one we have is Louis's work computer. (As for that free laptop I was waiting for?! It turns out that if you are even late on your payment ONE time, Verizon excludes you from the free laptop offer. We were one day late, one time. Boo...) The little boy that you see in this picture is so much more grown up now, in both mannerisms and physique, but because my blog has been lacking pictures lately, and this one is my new favorite of us, I decided to go ahead and post it anyway =)

Anyway, I just had to take a few moments and brag about my precious little boy. The fact that his second birthday is two months from tomorrow scares me quite a bit. He is no longer a baby- and he spends quite a bit of time kissing his baby sister and patting my tummy! All of this being done on his own accord and not prodded by me. Because, trust me, if you ask him for affection he will usually not give it to you. Every hug and kiss I get from him is given on his own terms- and greatly appreciated! Lately I have been getting showered with hugs and kisses, so I"m a happy camper =) He is more than happy to let YOU give him hugs and kisses; but when it is time for him to reciprocate, you're better off waiting for him to come to you =)

The past week or so I have noticed so many signs of "growing up" with Jeremiah. His intelligence never ceases to amaze me. Just yesterday at Disneyland, for example, he was sitting in a high chair eating his cheese. He would take a napkin after almost every bite and wipe his mouth! Something he has never done before. Normally I have to fight him at the end of a meal when I wipe his mouth off. He is also starting to spout out words at random moments- yesterday I was taking a picture of him, counting down "one, two..." and all of a sudden I heard him say "fwee!" (For those that don't speak Toddler that means three). Then this morning, we were playing with the remote for our DVD player. He handed it over to me, and I swear I heard him say (a rather garbled) "Here you go!" The inflection in his voice was mimicking mine and everything. Whenever he spouts out a new word I am always amazed... especially since a lot of these words don't stick around for long. Just the plain and simple fact that he is expanding his vocabulary is good enough for me. He starts his speech therapy program next week, and I'm crossing my fingers that within six months he won't need it anymore. Although I am truly thankful for all of these free intervention programs our state has to offer! Every little bit helps.

Today is the first day of October. I love the fall season. My house is halfway decorated, and surprisingly, Jeremiah is being rather respectful of the decorations. Louis would prefer if they didn't come out at all (men....) but of course I won that one =) By the way... have I mentioned how much I love my husband lately?! I'm so sad that starting this month he will be traveling for work roughly twice a month for 2-3 days at a time. I hate being home overnight without him. I miss him terribly... and I get freaked out. And with two sets of our neighbors moving this weekend, two sets that we actually know and talk to regularly, I'm going to be even more uneasy being home by myself. Especially when the time comes for me to be home alone at night with an infant, doing the multiple feedings a night and then having to wake up early and take care of a toddler on practically no sleep. But God is in control and I am truly thankful that my husband has this wonderful job!!

That's about all I have time for right now. Louis and I are going to the Star Wars in Concert show tonight, hosted by the guy that played C3PO. Not my choice for a date... but Louis has barely been able to sleep since we bought the tickets a month ago. At least it's a night out on our own, and Jer is with Grandma and Grandpa tonight!