Playing in LOTS of Snow

Dan had been watching the weather forecast and warned me that we were in for a lot of snow, but I didn't realize how much until I looked out the sliding glass door this morning and saw the enormous mound on top of our patio furniture! Somewhere around 8 or 9 inches of snow had accumulated overnight. Dan decided to work from home today rather than attempt to shovel out our driveway early this morning and make his long commute.
Ethan hasn't really had much of an opportunity to play in snow, but he is completely fascinated with it. So, Dan and I decided to pile on the layers and give him a chance to explore the massive amount of snow in our front yard this evening. He had a blast!! He climbed around on it, sat in it, and threw it up in the air over and over. He was very reluctant to come back inside even though he must have been pretty chilly after sitting in and handling the snow so much. I had a hard time getting Ethan to look at the camera long enough to snap a good photo when he came inside (he was too excited and interested in all of the snow that was stuck to his gloves and boots!)

Birthday Freebies Galore!

As most (if not all) of you are aware, I enjoy shopping for bargains and deals, and freebies are even better! I came across a website on one of the money-saving blogs that I follow with a link to lots of great freebies and discounts during your (or your child's) birthday month:

http://www.freebirthdaytreats.com/default.aspx
Be sure to check it out!
I took advantage of January being my birthday month and was able to get lots of freebies at local restaurants which made eating out much more affordable! We don't anticipate being able to eat out much for awhile after Baby Q arrives, so it was also nice to indulge a bit before my induction date. These are freebies that we took advantage of during January:
-Free ice cream sundae at Outback Steakhouse
-Free ice cream dessert at TGIFridays
-Free appetizer (chips and salsa) and dessert (molten chocolate cake- yum!) at Chilis
-Free burger and fries at Red Robin
-Free dinner at BD's Mongolian Barbeque
We also had a certificate for a free entree up to $15 from Lonestar Steakhouse, but the closest one to our house is still a decent drive away, so we did not take advantage of this freebie.

Birthday Celebration with my Family

Today we went to my parent's house for a belated birthday celebration (my birthday was earlier this week). We had a great time! Mom knows that I am a majorly practical person, so she, Dad, and Mike got me very practical birthday gifts the most exciting of which is a Garmin navigation system. I am looking forward to starting to use this instead of mapquesting every new address I drive to! Mom also made my absolute favorite cake, which is pretty unique. I've heard of people making this recipe using chocolate cake and cherry jello or white cake and strawberry jello, but mom makes my favorite cake using a lemon cake mix and lime jello. You bake the lemon cake, let it cool a bit, poke holes in it with toothpicks and drizzle lime jello mix into the holes. Then top it with a very light and whippy icing made with milk, dream whip, and lemon pudding. Yum!

Ethan got a special surprise today too. My brother found a company online in Japan that makes model railroad N-gauge-sized Thomas the Train and Friends engines and cars. He bought a Thomas engine along with his coaches, Annie and Clarabel. Mike and Dad have an enormous N-gauge model train layout at their house (about 8 by 20 ft.), and Ethan LOVES watching the trains run with them whenever we visit. Dad "parked" the new Thomas engine and cars in a little building on the layout to keep them hidden from Ethan initially and then ran them around the layout as a surprise. Ethan was thrilled to see his favorite engine and coaches on Uncle Mike and Grandpa's train layout!

Ethan's New Baby Doll

A friend (thanks Heather!) gave me the idea to buy Ethan a little boy baby doll to play with before Baby Q arrives so that he can have his own little baby to take care of while I take care of his baby brother. I thought this was a great idea and searched for a baby boy doll during the after Thanksgiving and after Christmas sales. I found that it is pretty difficult to find baby dolls that are male! (After much more thought and searching than I probably should have dedicated to this "mission" ;) I settled on a realistic-looking baby boy doll that came with lots of fun accessories (a bathtub that looks just like Ethan's, toys, a bottle, even a hooded towel!) We decided to give the doll to him this evening so that he has some time to play with it before his baby brother arrives. It was really cute to see how excited he was to play with doll. He has given his baby a bath, wrapped him in a blanket and put him down for a nap, fed him his bottle, and carried him all over the house. He seems to understand more lately about his baby brother (as much as a 2-year-old can!):
-If you ask him where baby brother is, he'll say "In mommy's belly"
-He likes to put his hand on my belly and feel his brother kick (which happens OFTEN!)
-He knows that baby brother is going to sleep in the nursery in his old crib
-He knows that his brother is going to come live at our house soon
-He's a little confused about the actual arrival though. He cracked me up the other day because I told him that baby brother would be here pretty soon. Just then a doorbell sounded on a TV program that we were watching, and he said "There's baby brother. At the door!" He thought that his baby brother was ringing our doorbell. Oh, if Baby Q's arrival were only that easy!

News from my Latest Doctor Appointment

Today I completed the third glucose screening of this pregnancy (my doctor has been keeping close tabs on my blood sugar level after all that happened with Ethan). I'm not sure what everyone else's impressions of the glucola mixture is, but it reminds me of flat orange Fanta. Initially it tastes pretty decent, but when you are required to chug the entire container within 5 minutes, it quickly becomes a pretty yucky taste. I will gladly drink it many times over though if it means catching any blood sugar issues before they impact Baby Q!
I'm writing this blog entry in retrospect, so I can inform you that my glucose test results came back completely normal (as did the previous 2). In fact, the normal reference range for the test is 65-135, and my first two results were in the 80's and this time 97. So these results are very comfortably at the low to mid-range of normal. These results are only reassuring to a point though as my glucose screening result with Ethan was also normal (though I only completed the test once during my pregnancy with him).
In other baby-related news, we have a date set for induction- Monday, February 16th! Hard to believe that Baby Q will be here so soon. We are very excited to meet him and will do our best to post timely updates/photos when he is born. I anticipate that he will be born on the 16th as my labor was very fast with Ethan (about 7 hours), and I am supposed to check-in at the hospital at 6:30am. I expect that this labor and delivery will be even shorter than with Ethan. Less than a month to go!

Marathon of Errands and Success with a Straw

Tonight Dan, Ethan, and I ended up going on a marathon of errands. Due to the very cold weather and my extremely pregnant condition, I had been accumulating a list of errands to do but had not been motivated to actually do any of them this week. Since Dan had today off, I decided to take advantage of that and hit as many stores as possible. Dan and Ethan went with me since one of our "errands" was dinner at Outback to celebrate my birthday, but they stayed in the van for every stop except the restaurant. Within just a few hours we went to: Walgreens, the bank, Target, Wal-Mart, Babies R Us, Toys R Us, The Children's Place, Kroger, a party store (to get a free mylar balloon), and Outback. I also wanted to hit CVS, but it was getting past Ethan's bedtime, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. At least my errands are narrowed down to just one remaining. It has definitely been much more of a challenge to get Ethan in and out of the van and shopping carts being 8 months pregnant, so we haven't been shopping just the two of us as often lately.
For many months now we have been trying to get Ethan to drink out of a cup with a straw rather than just sippy cups. On occasion he has taken a sip, but he hasn't been consistent and usually just ends up chewing on the straw. Tonight at Outback Ethan attempted to use a straw again with success!! How to use the straw finally seemed to click with him, so I think that he'll be fine using them from now on. It used to be difficult if we ate out and forgot to bring his sippy cup, but that should no longer be a problem. Oh the little successes in life that we celebrate! :)

Yay for Target Clearance!

A friend tipped me off to the fact that Target's toy section had drastic markdowns (Thanks Chris!), so I checked out the deals and picked up a few things for Ethan and to stash away as gifts. Ethan loved the McDonald's cash register/food set and shopping cart that I bought at 75% off, and I was thrilled to find that the clearance markdowns were throughout the store, so I picked up a Baby Trend Sit N' Stand Stroller for 50% off. I found a few other items that were marked down including Nemo and Thomas the Train underwear (yes, we're hoping to kick-off potty training for real sometime in the near future) and a pair of Cars slippers (a huge hit with Ethan and much needed during these last few days of freezing temps). Here are some photos of my silly boy sporting his warm and fuzzy Cars slippers:

Ethan's Digital Camera

One of Ethan's favorite Christmas gifts is a VTech Kidizoom digital camera from Grandma and Grandpa G. He has always been very interested in our "real" digital camera, and I recommended this as a gift idea to my parents with the hunch that he'd enjoy it. He loves it! He has already taken over 500 pictures with it. For a kid's camera, its features are quite impressive. It came with a USB cable to upload photos to the computer, a cable to view the photos on TV, photo-editing software, and even some games. It is durable, and the functions of the various buttons are easy to learn. Ethan had them figured out fairly quickly. It took a little while for him to understand that you have to hold the camera steady and look at what is displayed on the viewing screen (which is as big or bigger than the display on our camera!) before snapping a photo, but now he knows what to do. The first of Ethan's photos were of the carpet or his feet, but he has now taken some pretty decent shots of me, Dan, Waggles, his toys, the TV, the Christmas tree, and his buddy Kara. Unfortunately we left the camera on the lowest resolution setting, so the photos are a bit grainy.

Many of his first photos looked like this

But soon he got the hang of it
My parent's dog, SashaOur family friend, GeneEthan's beloved toy food setAnother Christmas favorite- Tinker toysMommy

Reunion with Friends- Ethan's Getting Married?

Our dear friends Ben, Nicole, and their daughter Kara, moved out of state several months ago, and we have missed them so much. Ethan and Kara have a special bond, and each has talked about the other quite a bit while they've been apart. We were very excited to hear that their family was going to be back in town for a short time this week and loved getting to spend some time with them again. Ethan and Kara picked right back up where they left off and had a great time playing together. This evening after they had left, Ethan clearly said "I'm going to marry Kara" and then "I'm going to run away with Kara". I didn't know that Ethan even knew the word "marry" and I think his reference to running away was because part of the time that they played together involved the two of them running around and around our coffee table, but you never can tell what is going on inside a toddler's head! Who knows, maybe Dan and I will become in-laws with Ben and Nicole someday! To add to the fun, Ben and Nicole are expecting their second baby 15 weeks after Baby Q is due, so our second kiddos will be very close in age as well.

Ethan and his fiancee? Kara ;)

Ben and Nicole

Sad farewell hug :(

Gymnastics and Gymboree

Ethan's music class at the YMCA and gymnastics class through a local parks department both ended in December. I am looking for something to keep Ethan engaged in some fun activities throughout this winter (I'm hoping that we can get out of the house with the baby at least somewhat regularly!).
So, this week we took trial classes at both a local gymnastics facility (an actual gym as opposed to through the parks dept. where all of the equipment was portable and really small-scale) and at Gymboree. Chris and I took Ethan and his buddy Sam to the trial gymnastics class yesterday. It is for ages 2 1/2 to 3 1/2, so they are on the young side for this class. It is instructor-led rather than mommy-and-me, so Chris and I were eager to see how the boys would do. This type of class would allow us to chat and observe the class (and I could tend to Baby Q) while the boys enjoyed gymnastics and also got experience following instructions from someone other than us. All-in-all I think they did pretty well for their first time, though the instructor definitely had her hands full! She said they did alright and were manageable since there were only 3 kids total in the class, but the maximum class size is 6, and if more kids had been present, it would have been much more challenging. So, we may have to wait a bit before they are ready for a completely instructor-led class.
Today we attended a trial Gymboree class, and the boys had a great time exploring all of the fun equipment they have set up in their facility. The theme of the class was gardening and working outdoors, and the kids did several imaginative play activities about digging, collecting flowers, and "mowing" the yard. This class is mommy-and-me, so if we register, hopefully the baby will either sleep during the class or be content in the Baby Bjorn.
One way or another we'll certainly keep busy this winter!

Where Did He Go?

I was alarmed at first when I checked in on Ethan during naptime today only to find his bed looking like this- vacant! (aside from lots of stuffed animals):

I wondered if he had fallen off the other side of the bed (we have a bedrail on one side and a long body pillow on the other side). But, after very close observation of Ethan's comforter, I could see it just barely moving up and down with his breathing. He was laying almost at the foot of his bed with his comforter folded over on top of him. Phew! He was completely fine, just in an odd position!

Baby Q Ultrasound Update

Today I had an ultrasound to re-check my amniotic fluid level and a doctor appointment that followed. Thankfully the ultrasound showed that my fluid level is currently falling within the normal range, and everything with the baby looks great. According to the ultrasound, the baby is approximately 5 lbs 14 oz at this point (which is close to the 80th percentile). I think that Baby Q will keep us on our toes as the ultrasound tech said that he is by far the most active baby she has scanned in the 10 years that she has been performing ultrasounds. I've been affectionately referring to him as my little karate kid here lately as he seems to constantly be kicking, and kicking hard. I reasoned that this baby must seem more active to me than Ethan because Ethan was breech up until very shortly before his was born, so his legs were not pointing up to kick as hard. Baby Q is head-down, but apparently this much movement and kicking is not typical even if the baby is not breech! We might be in for a little fireball!
Ethan has been a little trooper coming with me to every OB appointment except the two at which I had glucola testing done (which requires a much longer appointment time). He sat in his stroller today while I had the ultrasound done, and when I asked what he thought of seeing his baby brother he exclaimed multiple times, "He's CUTE!"

Bye Bye Silver Grand Prix

Dan thinks I'm ridiculous for it (I probably am), and I don't really know why, but I had a sentimental attachment to our 2000 silver Grand Prix. I really love that car, and it's been very comfortable and reliable. It was my commuter car to work for many years. I was a bit sad to see it go, but we donated it to our church's vehicle ministry today. We hope that it provides many more years of reliable transportation to someone in our congregation who is in need. Farewell silver Grand Prix...

First Night Sleeping in a "Big Boy" Bed

We were anxious to transition Ethan from his crib in the nursery to his new "big boy" bed in his new bedroom as soon as possible. We wanted him to be comfortable there and to have the change of rooms occur several weeks before the baby arrives so that he doesn't feel displaced by Baby Q. We thought it might be confusing to try out his new bed, then sleep in the pack and play over vacation, and then go back to his new bed, so we postponed the transition until we got home from our trip. I wasn't sure how this would go, but we have been very happy and relieved that the transition went very smoothly. Ethan was SO excited to be in his big boy bed tonight for the first time. He got to wear some new Thomas the Train jammies, and I moved all of his stuffed animals and blankies from his crib to his new bed to help him feel comfortable there. He was all smiles and very enthusiastic as we got him ready to be tucked into his new bed. Compared to in his crib, Ethan looks SO tiny in his full-sized bed!

Showing me that his little doggie, Spot, is going to cuddle with him in his new bed

Feeding the Ducks and Heading Back Home

A feature that was advertised as a selling point for the motel that we stayed at is the river that runs behind the motel which is home to lots and lots of ducks. There are gumball machine-like stations along the river where you can use change to purchase duck feed. The weather had been icky off and on during our visit, so Ethan didn't get the opportunity to feed the ducks until this morning before we checked out of our room. We snagged some bread from the breakfast buffet to feed the ducks, and Ethan was thrilled to toss little bits of bread to the awaiting crowd of ducks.

Julie and Chris's Christmas tree was decorated so beautifully; I enjoyed seeing all of their neat ornaments. Julie told me about a local store that sells all types of adorable personalizable ornaments. Her family goes to the store each year to select ornaments to add to their collection. We decided to stop by on our way out of town, and we picked up this cute bear ornament and had it personalized with our names and the year. How fun! We hope to create a collection of these too over the years (Next year we'll need an ornament with 4 spots for personalization!)
When we arrived back home, Ethan got to open a fun package that was there waiting for him from Grandpa and Grandma A.

Here he is opening one of the gifts.
It cracks me up how he says, "It's CUTE!"

Putting together his new Thomas the Train puzzle

Another Visit to the Pool- Ethan's Favorite was the Hot Tub!

Today Dan's brother (Chris) and nephew (Sam) joined Dan and Ethan for a swim at our motel pool. They had a great time! What struck us as funny is today Dan brought Ethan into the hot tub to see what he thought of it (yesterday they just swam in the kiddie and big pools), and he LOVED it! Dan had a hard time convincing him that it was time to get out. He enjoyed the froth of bubbles, and I guess that he enjoyed the toasty temperature. He looked like such a little adult to me sitting in the hot tub joining Daddy in conversation with another guest who was also enjoying the hot tub that afternoon.

Dan, Ethan, Sam, and Chris

I'm such a grown-up hanging out in the hot tub

See the neat bubbles?
Pardon me while I engage in conversation with another guest (while Daddy is trying to persuade me that it's time to get out!) ;)

Swimming at the Motel Pool and Hanging Out

We had a relaxing day spending some time at the indoor pool at our motel and hanging out with family. It had been quite awhile since Ethan had been swimming (the last time was this summer in August), and he had a blast! He did well with his swimmies and enjoyed Daddy tossing and swinging him around in the the water. We did a little shopping at a nearby outlet mall and had a pizza and ice cream cake birthday celebration with Drew in the evening.

Drew and Chris
Happy 16th Birthday Drew!

Christmas Celebration with Dan's Family

Today we drove to visit some of Dan's family for a "belated" Christmas celebration. Ethan loved getting to play with his cousin Sam who is almost exactly one year older than him. We got to meet our niece, Arriane, for the first time and also celebrate our nephew, Drew's, 16th birthday during our visit. Tonight Gino prepared a wonderful lasagna for us (he is Italian and definitely knows how to make delicious Italian dishes!), and we enjoyed an evening of visiting and opening gifts.

Gino and Grandma Q. (Gail)

Julie and Sam

Sam and Ethan

Ethan and Sam playing with a new pizza toy

Julie and Arriane (she is teething right now!)