I know I probably say this in pretty much every blog post, but things seem so busy these days and I find it hard to remember to stop and write it down. I can't believe it is September already! Here are some updates on the kiddos:

Lydia

18 months old now and getting smarter by the minute. I was asked the other day how many words I thought she says now and I guessed around 100. Today I decided to try to make a list and made myself stop after passing 250. So the real number is probably somewhere between 250 and 300, and these are words she actively says without us having to say them first. There's no way I'm going to try to add to the total with words she won't say unless we say them first or words that she clearly understands. Within the past week or so she has also become more and more confident with using multiple words together and forming small sentances. Mostly these consist of "Bye-bye {insert person/object here}" or "All done {insert item here}", but there are a few others that pop up here and there in her daily chatter.

At her 18 month doctor checkup I loved seeing the doctor's reaction to all that Lydia knows. Especially the face she made when I said Lydia already knows most of the alphabet! She now recognizes all of the letters and only has slight hang-ups on a couple of them (such as, sometimes "C" starts out as "G" and we have to correct her before she will say it properly). She's getting much better at colors now too and frequently points out orange, purple, pink, and green objects... which I find funny since blue used to be the one she assigned to everything, but now she seems to ignore blue things.

Sleeping, eating, playing... Lydia does them all well and she is a complete joy to watch. She continues to be on the go constantly. My mom, Brent's mom, and I all took her to the butterfly house last weekend and it was nearly impossible to get a picture of Lydia because she wouldn't stop even for a second! She just ran around saying "buh-FLY!" As she is getting older and gaining more independence, we are starting to see her testing her limits a bit more than she used to. I hate punishing her and wish she would go back to just listening right away (and don't get me wrong, she is a GREAT kid and obeys very well), but sometimes she pushes it too far and gets a hand slap for touching things she was told not to touch. But like I said, in general she is very obedient and loves to help clean up, do laundry, or other small tasks I set her on.

Potty training is sadly on hold right now. I was hoping to be getting a good start in these coming weeks, but Lydia decided she was going to get some sort of stomach... something... and be pooping like crazy. We even got to the point of being told to bring a sample in to the doc's office so they can check for bacteria, but as soon as they requested this Lydia has seemed much better (this was just 2 days ago). But there's no way I was going to attempt potty training a child that is pooping out some nasty stuff 5 times a day. So for now we are waiting for her system to get back to normal and will go from there. Still hoping we'll give it a go at some point this month.

As a final note on Lydia's life at the moment, I am getting excited to see her as a big sister. I really think, and hope, that she is going to absolutely love Eli. We talk about him all the time already and I try my best to convey the idea that he is a baby and will be here soon. She loves to give kisses and hugs to my belly and will smile and say "Eye-Yeye" (Eli) whenever she notices my belly or even sees baby boy clothing around. Can't wait to see my two little ones interacting!


Eli

Pregnancy week 30 is just on the horizon. So far things continue to be going along smoothly. If I remember correctly, I seem to recall being a lot more uncomfortable at this point with Lydia. My only complaints right now are heartburn and aches at night, but those are pretty minor irritations.

I had my most recent doctor appointment at about 28 weeks along and she said I was measuring 33 weeks! Yikes! I know those measurements can be off by quite a bit, and that I measured big the whole time with Lydia too, but now I'm slightly nervous that I'm cooking a 10-pounder here. Perhaps this will just mean he will arrive a little sooner. Mom is predicting a halloween baby... so we'll see! I also took my glucose test at that time and sadly failed the 1 hour test. This meant I had to go back in for a 3 hour test where I would get my blood drawn 4 different times and checked for glucose tolerance. While it was an annoying way to spend a Saturday morning, I did get a lot of work done on Eli's blanket while sitting around for over 3 hours, and I passed this time so no need for a special diet.

We finally got started painting the nursery this past weekend. And by "we" I mean Brent and my dad. My parents were here last weekend and Dad helped Brent with Eli's room while Mom & I were at the butterfly house. The walls are slated to have tan and green, so the tan was started and finished on Saturday. This coming Saturday we'll be working on the green, then Brent plans to paint a tree in one corner of the room. So excited to see his room come together!

Eli at 26 weeks 2 days

This is what a typical day in our house might look like right now:

Lydia wakes up around 7am and begins talking, singing, and "reading" her books on her bed. I always make sure to leave a few books on the end of her bed after she falls asleep so she'll have them there when she wakes up. She LOVES books and we commonly wake up to hearing her chant "books! books! books!" As soon as she sees me coming to get her, she will either grab a book or toy to give to me or will say "skooch skooch" as she scoots herself off the bed (usually to grab a different book off of her bookshelf). We regularly spend the first few minutes of the morning reading through a couple of her books. She loves it so much that I have a hard time getting her to let me change her diaper in the morning!

After the diaper change we go hang out with Daddy and make sure he is up for work. Then it's time for juice and breakfast! Lydia drinks a sippy cup (8oz) full of a juice/water combo first thing in the morning, then has water for the rest of the day. She doesn't care for milk much unless it is chocolate, so we stick to cheese, yogurt, and milk on cereal for dairy intake. Lydia continues to be a pretty good eater and uses lots of words for her favorite foods including cereal, waffles, chicken nuggets, apples, bananas, pizza, and spaghetti (aka "getti"). She cracked me up yesterday at a birthday party when she kept begging for cake as we were getting ready to do candles. I didn't realize she knew the word cake so well!

When breakfast is over, we usually have a laid back morning. Lydia loves to watch the shows on PBS. Her favorites are Word World, Super Why, and of course Elmo on Sesame Street. We try not to watch too much in any single day, but letting her watch a little while she plays in the playroom can't hurt. She is usually running all over the place playing with her toys and puzzles while the shows are on anyway. Rarely does she sit still for more than a minute or two!

Naps continue to be unpredictable (what's new?). We have tried going to one after-lunch nap, but I feel so bad making her stay up when she's super tired in the morning. I stuck with it for a week or so in hopes that she would adjust, but it didn't really work. Some days she just really seems to need a break in the morning. But of course, some days even if she is acting completely worn out (rubbing the eyes, yawning, sucking her thumb, and even lying down on the floor), she will decide it's play time after I put her down in her bed. Most of the time I can at least get a 1 hour afternoon nap out of her, but as always she is hit or miss.

Afternoons vary around here. After lunch and cleanup, sometimes Lydia naps (if she didn't rest in the morning) or we will play or go out until she needs a nap. We don't have a lot to do to get us out of the house, so we try to enjoy our trips to the grocery store or when the weather happens to be good enough to go outside. Unfortunately this pregnancy makes it quite uncomfortable to be outside in the heat... and this summer has been one of the hottest on record! As a result we don't get out as much as I'd like. Poor Lydia, she loves being outside! Oh and one other thing I wanted to mention is that Lydia can now go both up AND down stairs. I'm pretty sure she learned how to go down because just a day before she started to do it I was telling some other moms that she wasn't figuring it out no matter how I tried to teach her. Guess she didn't like sounding incapable! She scoots along on her rear-end from stair to stair and is getting quite good at it. This makes me feel a little safer knowing that if she encounters stairs and I'm not right by her side there's a chance of her safely navigating them.

So mostly we hang out and get things done that need to get done while we wait for Daddy to get home from work. Lydia loves her Daddy! She will excitedly run up to him yelling "Daddy!!!" when he walks in the door, then often promptly runs off to grab a ball so they can play. Balls are still amongst her favorite toys, along with her rubber ducks, fish bath toys, and any toy letters we have. She loves music and will dance and sing all around the room. When we are in the car and the radio turns off, she will start singing and making her own music!

There isn't anything in particular that Lydia dislikes. She continues to be pretty easy going. Sometimes she has a rough time still when we clean her off after meals or when she lays back in the bathtub to have her hair washed, but even then she can usually be distracted away from a tantrum pretty quickly. Lydia gets a bath every two or three days, depending on how messy she has gotten, and she continues to enjoy bathtime. She especially loves her foam letters and numbers and nearly knows them all now! 99% of the time she can get all of the letters correct except for "R" "X" and "Z". She's still working on learning those. We haven't worked as much on numbers, but she usually gets 1, 5, 7, and 8 correct. The foam letters are also great for learning colors. Lydia still tends to respond "blue" to any question involving a color, but when not prompted she has been known to point out yellow, pink, purple, and orange objects. I swear at the rate she is going the child will be smarter than us by the time she's 3. Yesterday when we were saying bye bye to Brent, Lydia informed me that he was going to "work." When I told her she was right, that he was going to work and he'd be back later, she looked at me and said "minute" ... as in, he'll be back in a minute. Ha!

Bedtime routine around here is pretty simple. Bathtime comes first if it's bath day, then pajamas and a diaper change, bedtime story, then down for bed. Lydia is doing great in her big girl bed (twin mattress on the floor). No regrets about moving her out of the crib! We don't use a sheet yet, just a toddler-bed-sized blanket that usually has to be put back on her after she falls asleep. She also has a flat pillow to help her not squish herself up against the wall and because she just likes going night-night on pillows.

She falls asleep pretty quickly most of the time, sometimes after a few minutes of talking to herself, and stays asleep throughout the night. Brent and I sneak into her room before we go to bed to place her back in a good position on the bed, re-cover her, or just to give her a little kiss to end the day. I love ending the day kissing my sweet angel... and starting each new one listening to her sweet voice!

25.5 weeks pregnant now and feeling great! I keep meaning to look back and see how I felt at this point with Lydia, but pregnancy brain combined with chasing a toddler around makes me incredibly forgetful.

We got a potty seat for Lydia and installed it this week. For the past few days I've been taking her into the bathroom for diaper changes and letting her sit on the potty for a few minutes before putting a clean diaper on her. This is really just for practice and getting her comfortable with the idea of sitting on the potty. No expectations at this point. But today when I sat her down I asked, "Do you want to try to go pee pee on the potty?" And she DID! Could have been total coincidence that she went after I asked, but I was a very excited mama! Lydia turned 17 months old yesterday so official potty training won't begin for another month or so, but I'm loving the potential she's showing!

Lydia has also made the move from the crib to a twin mattress. The first night did not go super well, but I think it was just a bad night in general - not fully related to the bed situation. She had been really clingy to me that day and had a rough time when I left her in her room that night. So we ended up going back to the crib that night, but yesterday jumped right back into the big girl bed. After two successful daytime naps, she also slept all night last night in the twin bed. Yay! The crib is getting disassembled today since we know she will be fine in the new bed.

Eli also continues to do well. Tomorrow will mark week 24. At my appointment earlier this week I was measuring big - a couple of weeks big in fact. But no due date change. I was usually a bit big with Lydia too but she was still less than 8lbs at full term. So I'm trying not to panic at the thought of having a huge baby! He'll come when he is ready. Still feeling great so far!

I was not planning to buy new furniture for Eli's room. The plan was to transition Lydia to a twin mattress and transfer the crib & changing table over to the new baby's room. However, yesterday a friend passed along a deal too good to let go. Walmart had a crib & changing table set (originally $180) marked down to only $99 for both pieces of furniture! On top of that it will ship directly to our house for free. Yay! I decided to go for it. While my penny-pinching practical side said it was a waste, my preferences really wanted a darker color for the furniture in Eli's room. I wasn't too thrilled about decorating another white-furniture nursery. Plus, there are lots of other benefits to having this set instead of reusing what we already own. It makes things much less complicated with dressers. Now we can keep the changing table/dresser that is in Lydia's room there. It's small with only 2 drawers, so it won't last forever there, but it will be fine for awhile. We also already have a large set of drawers in a dark wood color that will now (more closely) match this furniture in Eli's room. So we'll be able to move that into his room for more storage. All in all, we spent $100 and were able to avoid buying a new dresser for Lydia's room and will get some use out of the dark wood drawers we already have. I'd consider that a win!

I must apologize about the lack of belly picture to go along with this post. We have been so busy lately that I keep forgetting to take a decent new one! I'll be certain to get some to share during our upcoming camping trip.

In the meantime, here's a new picture of Eli!


This was taken at my ultrasound appointment today (21 weeks 3 days). He weighs a bit over a pound and was measuring about 5 days ahead of his due date, but that's not enough of a difference to change it officially. So the due date will be staying put at November 13th! This appointment was way different than what I expected... and way longer! When I had my mid-pregnancy ultrasound with Lydia they had me in and out of there in 15 minutes or less. This time I had to go to the hospital because our insurance changed and required that we go there. They have a totally different process at the hospital. The tech took over 120 pictures and the entire ultrasound lasted a whole hour! I really feel like my baby boy got a thorough examination. And yes, we did indeed confirm that we are due to have a son!

Another benefit to the hospital visit instead of my OB's office was that they had 3D capability on their ultrasound machine. I always prefer to see the baby's face in 3D... it looks a little less like a creepy skeleton! Eli was not in a very good position to get great pictures of his face, though. He had his arm up by his head and it kept casting a shadow. Then he kept trying to turn his face inward. I think he was tired of being messed with after an hour of poking!

In the end I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome of the appointment. The tech was very friendly and talked us through all of the parts she was looking at. We asked if everything looked good and she said they did as far as she could tell. A doctor has to look over the pictures and write an official report, but I assume if there were any major problems a tech of 16 years would know (and she said the doc would get called in right away for anything major).


So now feeling completely confident in the gender determination, I spent the afternoon browsing Amazon for a few of the "boy" items we'll want to have for our little man. I think we will be in good shape with everything except for clothes. I'm sure I will pick up some new things for him in the coming months and will fill in the gaps with gently used items from a big sale I go to in the Fall.


Oh - and we'll be even more set for his arrival now because today we bought a van!! I think this officially makes me a mom. ;-)