Baby Boy Update

We went last week for another sonogram at 28 weeks and got to see our little wiggly guy. He was about 2 1/2 pounds. So, according to my book, he is pretty average right now. That would be great if he would stay that way. But, if he is anything like Madeline was, he will be doing a whole lot of growing over the next 2 1/2 months.



Everything looked great in the sonogram. Here is his little foot sticking up.




And then at the end, he did the sweetest thing. (At least to me :) He brought his little hand up to his mouth and started sucking his thumb. We never saw Madeline do that in her sonograms. So, we might have a little thumb sucker on our hands. You can see his sweet little hand next to his mouth in the next 2 pictures.

We are getting so excited to meet this little guy! But, we still have a lot to do; finish the kitchen, get his room ready, and pick a name for him. Just minor details, you know.

Kitchen Progress

Well, we are slowly making progress on our kitchen. We have measured, cut and hung the rail that the upper cabinets hang on.

And we have hung a whole new wall of cabinets. (I had to include a picture of Andrew's butt, since he took of picture of mine).

Things have moved a little more slowly than we had hoped because we are having to figure out little details as we go. For example, our corner isn't really square. So, it is making the corner cabinet hang funny. So, we have to figure out how to adjust everything to make it level and look right. So, assembling the cabinets have been no big deal. We can get one together in about 5 minutes. But, getting them on the wall takes a little more work.

We have also taken back one door for our pantry because the grain was a little funkidelic. We got the second one and we didn't like the grain on it either. So, we need to make another trip back to IKEA to get a third. I'm sure it won't be our last trip back. But, in the mean time, I have a whole wall of functioning cabinets and I am in love with my new pantry. Before, all of our food was shoved in a lazy susan, round about thingy, a cabinet here and a cabinet there. It was hard to know what I already had stored everywhere. So, now it is all in one place. So exciting!!

Our next step is to hang the rest of the wall cabinets. We actually have them all up on the wall already, we just need a few filler pieces to finish the job. So, hopefully that will be done by Wednesday. Then it is on to the base cabinets.

Madeline is still enjoying the remodeling process. She likes all the empty cabinets and calls them, "houses". She kind of looks like she is in "time out" here. But, we didn't put her there. :)

She even likes to play on the old cabinets. Here she is serving "happy cake" (birthday cake) to her bear. She makes some really yummy happy cake!

No More Monkeys Jumping on The Bed

As I mentioned in the last post, Madeline loves to jump! One of the best places to do it, is in her bed. She will ask/tell, "jump in bed." So, we will go hang out in her room for a while, while she burns a little energy jumping.




She soon realizes that there just isn't room for all her animals in there. So, she will throw them all out.

It's fun to just be silly (and sweet).

While we were in Michigan, Madeline figured out how to climb out of her pack 'n' play. She hasn't climbed out of her bed yet. But, I'm thinking it could be soon. We might need to get her a "big good girl bed" (as she calls them) very soon.

Oh yea, she like to hang on things too. She finds places to hang all over the house and says, "Watch mama, hangin".

Madeline will jump until she has worn herself out. If only I had that much energy.

20 Months Old

Well, I seem to have fallen behind on Madeline's monthly updates. I have skipped month 19 and we are more than halfway through the 20th month. So, this is what Madeline has been up to lately.

Her hair is getting much longer. So, I put curlers in it the other day.

This is about as curly as it got. I didn't let the hair dry enough before I took the curlers out. So, it basically just fell. She is also reading her little Bible in this picture. She likes to carry it around and "read" it.


We also started "Family Snuggle Time" before bed. So, we get several books together and pile onto mommy and daddy's bed to read and snuggle. It's so sweet.

Although we do not have a bike for Madeline (we don't really have a place to ride it), she likes to ride them in Walmart and Target and she got to ride some while we were in Michigan. She is learning how to keep her feet on the pedals. She still can't quite make it go by herself though.

Madeline is usually a very quiet little girl. (Unless she has had some ice cream. Then, she is bouncing off the walls!) She plays very nicely by herself. Her favorite toy right now is her Little People doll house. She wakes everyone up, sets them outside, puts them in the pool, answers the phone, makes everyone go potty and gets them dinner. She can play with her Little People for a long time. But, she also likes other little animals and figurines to play with as well.

She also likes to organize things in an orderly manner. She will lay out her crayons in a neat row with all the points facing the same direction.

She is getting very good at doing puzzles.

She really loves to jump and spin. She loves to jump on our bed, her bed, on a trampoline or on the cushions from the couch. I even caught her pulling her ball pit next to our bed this morning so she could jump off of it into the balls. I didn't think that was a great idea. Especially since half the balls weren't even in the ball pit.

Madeline is such a talker now. But, she is very shy around strangers (who she calls "peoples"). So, it is usually me or Andrew that hears most of it. Some of her favorite things to say right now are, "Watch, Mama" or "Watch, Dada". And if you aren't watching, she will keep asking or come and get you so you will watch. I love how she says, "Stam up, Mama" if I am sitting when I should be standing up and dancing with her. Her favorite cartoon is Blue's Clues, which she calls, "Blue's Clues Clues". And she asks specifically for episodes with the newer host, Joe, instead of Steve. She will often put 4 or more words together like, "go upstairs to mama and dada's bed." She can sing many of the words to "I'm a Little Tea Pot", "5 Little Monkeys" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep". She is also working on her alphabet song. It comes out very scrambled though (A b c...f g...j l...m p...x z) But, it is a start. :) She will remember and talk about a certain event for a long time. She has been talking about the beach since we got back. She will say, "ride cars, horses, boats at beach" or "sand castles at beach". She still talks about a time when there was "rain and boom booms (thunder)" when her Nana was here probably 2 months ago. And she still talks about "peoples at door" from when we had Chinese food delivered about a month ago. She doesn't let things go very quickly :). But, we are enjoying all this talking that we hear from her. It is so cute to hear what she is thinking and processing. It is especially sweet to hear her pray, "Thank you Jesus, Amen", with her little hands folded.

This little girl is the love of our lives! She is getting more and more precious everyday. We are having so much fun with her, watching her grow and learn. What a blessing to be her mama!

Andrew, The Electrician

Andrew has turned into quite the handyman around here. In order to install our new cabinets, we had to move 3 outlets. So, Andrew figured out how to do it.

Madeline pitched in to help as well.




I think it is a pretty good idea to teach your children to put screw drivers into outlets.


Andrew, with his first outlet done! Madeline, not sure how to give a thumbs up yet :)

Then, Andrew moved on to the other two outlets. Everything seems to be working properly. We haven't had any fires yet. So, hopefully we are good to go.

We have been assembling cabinets in our bedroom (which is no longer our bedroom. We have moved upstairs to our loft and our old room will become baby boy's room once it is no longer an assembly plant.) Here is one of the upper corner cabinets. We are planning on hanging the first wall tonight. We'll see how it goes.

Madeline is having fun playing in the cabinets. When I got out of the shower this morning, I found her with a whole box of screws...

...working very hard at getting them into all the little holes. I guess it is good fine motor practice.

Michigan

Last week, we flew up to Michigan to visit with Andrew's family. With 9 cousins to play with, Madeline certainly had a lack of attention.

There was nobody to fight over who got to hold her. So sad :)

Madeline loved being outside with all the cool toys and family to play with. Little Ezra shared his tractor very nicely.

He even shared it with Nana!

Madeline got to go tubing for the first time!

Andrew got to go wakeboarding several times.

We could get used to lakestyle living!

Madeline had a great time with her Nana and Papa Paul.

She also had fun with Nana's sister, Aunt Donna and Uncle Rog. (Whom she lovingly called, "Garage". I can hear the similarities.) Hannah, Ezra and their mommy, Lisa were lots of fun too!

But, I think Madeline enjoyed the trampoline the most. She loves jumping and who can think of a better place to do it?

She even learned how to take turns. Here she is waiting patiently on the side so the big kids could jump high.

And what vacation would be complete without lots of ice cream and popsicles. Yum!

We had a great time hanging out with everyone in Michigan. Madeline was a little lonely once we got home. It is so quiet without 9 other cousins running around. She even asked for some friends to come over. Hopefully we will get to see everyone really soon!