Third trimester, baby!

 28 weeks!!!  Third trimester!!!  We officially made it!

Based on my appetite and bump and Baby Sidekick's internal organ kicking skills, he has been doing some good growing!  An ultrasound today confirmed that he is around 2 1/2 pounds, right where he should be, and still very healthy and very active.  My doctor said they put in the numbers and if he continues to growing at the rate he has been, he will be right around 7 pounds at delivery (Lydia was 6 lb 15 oz).  We'll take it. :)
My blood pressure continues to look good and overall I have been feeling pretty good.  I also did the nice sugary beverage glucose test today and passed that fine, so that is another little piece of good news.  Also, shout out to my OB nurse who did immunizations today.  (Last time I got the flu shot it was not so good and I could barely move my arm for a few days...)  I am very thankful for my skilled doctor and nurses!  Oh, and I don't have to have another ultrasound and such for another month, just like a "normal" pregnancy.  I believe that word was even used today!

Well, I am off to celebrate by looking at baby things online and buying the crib set I have been looking at for months.
Also, I came home from my long appointment today to this:

Life is good.

Baby Sidekick

Well, I figure there's no better reason to bring back the ol' blog than for more baby updates!  Hooray for Baby #3!  The first name Noah suggested for the baby was "Sidekick" because of course, this baby will get to be his sidekick, so that is the fun nickname so far. :)

I am 25 weeks now and feeling great!  And already feeling big.  It is crazy to think that this baby is already right around the size Noah was when he was born.  We have had one ultrasound already where the description "very healthy and very active" was used.  We will still be closely watched come the 28 week mark, but the chances of something happening again are extremely low since Lydia's pregnancy was fine.  If everything continues to go well, Baby Sidekick will make his arrival on January 27.

I am so happy to get to experience pregnancy again.  (Um, I don't know if I would have said that during the first trimester, but that is all behind us now...)  The first pregnancy was what is was; the next time I was comparing every little detail to that first time around; this time I almost feel like a "normal" pregnant lady. :)  I feel like I know my body and what to expect so much better and am not stressing and over-analyzing each little thing.

We also found out from that first ultrasound that it's a BOY!  Noah says he knew all along that it was a boy, just how he knew Lydia was a girl.  Or maybe the fact that he reaaaally wants a brother has something to do with it. :)  He is such a sensitive and loving kid; yes, he wants a boy to play with and like the same things as him, but he did phrase it one time that "if the baby is a girl then Lydia will like her more and no one will like to play with me."  I am excited to see him get to have a brother. :)

If her feelings right now stick, Lydia is going to be the best big sister ever.  She asks at least once a day if our baby is here yet.  Usually at some point during the day she will say, "I am excited!" and when you ask why she will say "for the baby!"  And one of her favorite things to do is list all the ways she is going to help with the baby when he is here.  My mom said I did that same thing before my brother was born. :)

Once in a while Noah will say things about how I won't have as much time to play with him if I am taking care of the baby, but overall they are both genuinely excited and happy that we are going to have another person in our family.  They love telling other people that we are going to have a new baby.  It just warms my heart, and reminds me what the reaction to a new life should be.
I won't go into a giant rabbit trail about the sad, sad state of how our society views children, but passing from that magic "1 girl and 1 boy American dream" territory makes me even more aware of it.  We have gotten a few comments that imply along those lines of "why would you have another one if you already have a boy AND a girl."  Oh, the silliness.  Look to the reaction of the 3 and 5 year olds here; a new baby is something to be happy about.  Don't get me wrong, there is certainly part of me that is terrified of being outnumbered. :)  And I don't think there is anything wrong with stopping at 1 or 2 and we would have been perfectly happy with 2.  And thinking of the diapers and sleepless nights isn't something that I am bubbling with excitement about.  But I am VERY excited to welcome Baby Sidekick to our family and for all the adventures we will have together. 

And A Half!

                                                          Dear Lydia,
This week we celebrated your half birthday!  It's hard to believe you are already halfway to 2!  You are such a big girl now--using so many words and trying to say most things that you hear, eating pretty much anything we put in front of you (your favorites are cheese, fruit, noodles, and chocolate), getting pretty much anywhere you need to go (some favorites are your brother's room, up on the coffee table, watching "tweet tweets" out the window, recently up onto the kitchen chairs, and into your family's arms for big hugs!).  You are still such a sweet and happy girl!  You always have a hug or "love you" for your family, give Daddy the best send-off and welcome home every day, and must have your hugs before you go to bed.  You have energy and smiles to spare, and have a great laugh.  You already have wonderful manners; it is so cute and makes us so happy.  You always say thank you, even when we change your diaper (which usually goes something like this: "Thank you, Mama!  Thank you... poop.  Thank you, Mama, poop.")  You have even picked up on "sorry" and "excuse me" and use them appropriately.  One of your new favorite things to say is "oops!"  You aren't sure if you should call yourself "A-djia" or "Baby" because your brother still insists on calling you GirlBaby most of the time.  You love your family so much and we love you!  Anything you see is given a role in a family, either a mama, daddy, baby, "O-ah", or Lydia.  I would say your favorite thing to do is look at books!  Right now your favorite is an "animal encyclopedia" that was mine when I was a little girl.  You are getting pretty good at saying many of the animal names (and of course if they are a dada, mama, or baby).  Some of your other favorite things are: wrestling and chasing, coloring, dressing up, playing with your babies, dancing, watching Little Einsteins (which  you call "pat pat.")

 You still absolutely adore your brother, and he is a very good brother to you.  (You know quite a bit about Star Wars and Rescue Bots thanks to him.)

Now, when I say we celebrated you half birthday, we actually did celebrate your half birthday.  Your brother and I love to throw parties!  We even had a cake and a half, which I wanted to do but Noah though of by himself too. :)

I will always be the crazy and slightly over-the-top party and picture mom that celebrates things like half birthdays.  I hope you guys are okay with that.  It's not just an excuse to make cake and get out decorations (although that is fun).  It is because I really, truly think you are worth celebrating.  I say my life is better with you in it, and I honestly mean it.  (Even when at a year and a half you are just starting to sleep through the night, like to stand up on furniture and watch me come running, and could win awards for drama.)  I call you a blessing because that is what you are.  When I say there isn't any other way I would rather spend my days, it is because right here watching you grow and being the one to take care of you is exactly where I want to be, and it is all worth it.  So get ready to have lots more pictures taken and more half birthdays and anything else we come up with celebrated.  We are so glad that you are part of our family, and I love being your Mama.  Happy Half Birthday, Lydia.  I love you more than I know how to express.

He's FOUR!

We officially have a four year old in the house now!  Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy!
We celebrated with a Star Wars Angry Birds birthday party, complete with a Piggy Death Star pinata lovingly made by Mama and Noah and exuberantly smashed to bits with a lightsaber.

Here are some fun things about our four year old:
-He weighs 31 1/2 pounds and is 40 inches tall.
-He is amazingly healthy overall.  He seems to be catching a lot of bugs this year, probably because we are actually doing more activities out in public for the first time...  But he always bounces back quickly and we continue to be so thankful and sometimes just amazed at his health and development when we think of where he started.
-He loves to talk.  His grammar is pretty much spot on and uses better vocabulary that many high school students I know.  Words that are heard on a regular basis include: perhaps, I believe, rather, prefer, actually, although.  I attribute this to reading so much, particularly classic Winnie-the-Pooh. :) Oh, and of course: why?  And one that is his own invention that I don't ever correct because it's just too stinkin' cute and actually makes perfect sense: amn't.  In sentences like "I amn't cold" "I amn't hungry" etc.  Can you tell what it means?  See, it makes sense.  He also says, "as a quarter of fact" instead of "as a matter of fact."
-He tells us that he loves us many times a day.
-His favorite stories are David and Goliath and Joshua and the battle of Jericho.  In the words of Noah himself, "I guess I just like stories about things that fall down!"  (This has also rubbed off on his little sister, who will fall to the ground whenever she hears the word "down.")
-His favorite thing is Star Wars Angry Birds and Star Wars characters, which he always calls "Star Wars Edition."  We have let him watch some clips from the movies and he picks up lots from the game and he loves it all.  He always calls Darth Vader "Dark Vader" and for some reason doesn't like to say C3PO, so calls him Cassiopeia (as in the constellation; he is very into outer space overall too), and his very favorite is Yoda.
-The things he notices, remembers, and puts together are crazy.
-Often quietly narrates what he is doing as he is playing.
-Loves to read.
-Loves to wrestle and roughhouse.
-Is definitely a firstborn and likes to know what is happening, have a plan, and be in charge if possible.
-Is a very good big brother overall.  Lydia gets into pretty much everything, and he does not like it when she gets to close to something he is working on, but is usually willing to share his things with her and is pretty patient with her.
-Is pretty emotional and puts on quite the dramatic responses for things...
-Says that he wants to be an artist and has reached the coloring stage, as in he will actually sit down and color or draw for a long period of time.  It is wonderful. :)
Four year old Noah in four words:  inquisitive, perceptive, sensitive, imaginative

I love my four year old!

She's ONE!

Sorry little blog and anyone who actually reads it.  The crazy time of year (school starting) been full swing and there are only so many hours in a day.  But even though it is late, I have to post some pictures and a little tribute to the fact that our baby girl ONE!  A whole year old!  She is our spunky, happy little lady and we are so thankful that she is a part of our family!  We had a fun farm theme birthday party to celebrate, complete with new sparkly pink cowgirl boots for our little shoe-lover.

At a whole year old Lydia...
Loves: Mama, Dada, Noah, grandmas and grandpas, shoes, chapstick, cows, cats, books, being outside
Doesn't like: sleeping (she still wakes up a couple times each night and usually takes 2 catnaps during the day...), getting her face washed off, slowing down for too long
Weighs 23 pounds, which is just about what her brother weighed at age 2
Crawls very quickly, cruises, and has started standing on her own a little bit, climbs, loves stairs, considers any furniture an obstacle to be overcome
Says quite a few words in her own adorable little way: Mama, Dada, more, all done, amen, trees, hat, the end, moo, meow, woof, neigh.  Let's be honest, quite a few of those sound very similar but I usually know what she means and she is definitely trying.  She also communicates very loudly is words that I don't understand...

Of course among all the birthday festivities I though back quite a bit to her birth.  And then back to Noah's.  And then kind of thinking, "why in the world did we even attempt the whole pregnancy thing again?!"  Because let's just be honest, the first time around it was really not good.  Like life-threatening and dramatic and awful.  But I am oh so glad that we did, and grateful beyond words that we were given this precious gift:

 I love my one year old!

Happy Family Birthday! (Our Anniversary)

This past Sunday we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!  Or as it shall be also known from now on: our Family Birthday!  I did not come up with this idea totally on my own; I had some help from this post from one of my favorite blogs.  But a party, birthday, and cake... that has me and Noah written all over it! :)  I think an anniversary is a perfect way to talk about marriage and family with kids and celebrate something totally worth celebrating!  (And this year I used it to talk about our last name and why it is special.  He always insists that his name is "JUST NOAH" whenever anyone asks his last name or I answer for him...)
I got out our wedding album to show him and try to explain what a wedding was and one of his very first comments was: "Oh Mama, you are special; you are the princess of our family."  Oh what a sweet boy.  Then he asked me if I was going to wear my wedding dress to church.

Cake is a necessity for this celebration.  Of course he asked he it was going to be as big as the cake in the picture and was a little disappointed that it wasn't.  We put what I could find of our wedding cake topper on.  And candles and sprinkles.  Those are also necessities at any party we throw.
(As you can probably tell from the picture, it really was a pathetic attempt at a cake.  Oh well, perfection is not a necessity for celebrating and having a wonderful time.  It was still good and I'm blaming it on summer heat.) 
We sang "happy birthday to our family!" and all blew out the candles.

And then I demonstrated what else happened with the cake at our wedding.

Noah was a big fan. :)

Oh, and we made a project.

I have a few finishing touches left, but this is also going to be a part of our family birthday celebration each year.  Mommy is the most excited about this one. :)

Six years later and we get to be living this: 

 Yes, this is good.  We were just talking about how our life really is not "normal."  Seriously, it isn't.  When compared to people around our age and our country, we are dealing with such different things and are on different "path."  I'm not saying it is any better or more important than something closer to "normal", just different.  And honestly sometimes it is lonely.  But right next to this man following what God has for us is exactly where I want to be, no matter where that takes us.  And after all, to quote my sometimes wise little brother, Corey and I are "the same kind of weird."  I don't remember what the context was, but sometime when we were engaged we were hanging out with my brother and thought something was funny or reacted the same way to something and he looked at us and said, "You guys are weird.  But you are the same kind of weird.  So I guess it's a good thing you're getting married."  Yup, it's a very good thing.  I love you, Corey.  I've loved these 6 and am looking forward to many more years together.

The Star Wars Rule and The Coolest Dad Ever

Apparently it is an unwritten rule of the universe that all boys must love Star Wars immediately upon introduction.  Noah first got a taste of it with "Angry Birds, Star Wars Edition", which he loves.  Then we went to a birthday party and got these:

(Lydia also loves them.  In fact, she crawled all the way across the room for the very first time to get to them.  And as you can see, she is a crazy little Jedi.)

Then he started asking questions and picking up on more details from the game.  And is now slightly obsessed about all things Star Wars, especially Yoda.  (We think he is too young to actually watch a movie yet, but we showed him the clip of Yoda fighting Count Dooku.  I should have been recording his reaction...)

Then I came home from an appointment yesterday to this:

Corey got out his Star Wars Risk game (that every single boy of any age who comes into our house immediately notices; I'm telling you, there's a rule somewhere) and made up a version on the spot about axe-wielding piggies and having to defend the trees for the birds and a Yoda super power and I'm not sure what else. 

Guess what Noah wants to do all the time now?
Coolest. Dad. Ever.