W-2 years, 5 months old!

 The best thing happened to me this morning.  

My husband had already left for church, and I was in our room changing baby girl's diaper.  Little Man came in from the other room, looked up at me, and said, "You're pretty!" and gave me a huge hug on my leg.  It was the sweetest thing ever.

We are so used to him copying everything we say, and providing him "thoughts" and "sentences."  But this came completely voluntarily and without provocation.  My heart melted, and I immediately bent down and gave him a huge hug.

W has really started talking.  He talks all the time!

He LOVES books!  We read to him every night, usually 3, but sometimes he talks us into reading him more.  Right now, his favorite book is "The Polar Express."  He asks me to read it to him all throughout the day.  Yesterday, I popped in the audio cd that came with the book because I was so tired of reading it, and W had a ball.  He loved hearing the actual train and the conductor's voice.  He really likes to pretend that he's reading too.  He jibber-jabbers and says, "The End!" when he's done.

He also remembers names really well.  At church, we are so amazed at how many names he knows when he sees them, not only his friends, but adults too!  

He has always enjoyed seeing himself in the mirror.  But he is really talking to himself in the mirror now.  He loves the body mirror in our closet.  He stands in front of it and talks for a minute, then says, "Be right back, ok?" "Ok!"  Then he walks away, and walks right back to continue his conversation.  He doesn't like to do this when we're around.  If we catch him, he puts on the cutest "shy" face, and then stops.

I guess I have to add in the bad with the good.  He has definitely hit the "terrible twos!" It doesn't happen all the time or even every day, but knows how to throw a tantrum.  He usually stops when we ignore him and leave the room.  But some of his favorite words have become, "No! Stop it!" while shaking his finger at us.  He immediately gets sent to time-out when it happens, and he definitely hasn't been talking back as much in the past few days.  Fortunately, he is still sweet to his baby sister!

He still loves to sing, and he knows all the words to over 30 songs.  He can also sing the blessing, and say the blessing.  The other night at bedtime, W wouldn't let Dada sing songs to him because he wanted to sing them all by himself. 

Little Man doesn't like to sit still for pictures anymore, but I was able to catch a few this afternoon... His eczema (that he's had since birth) has been under control, thanks to Vanicream, everywhere except his face.  I know the winter has a lot to do with it, but it doesn't look so good!  Hoping this isn't a life-long problem for him!

Hope everyone has a blessed week!

Throwing in a picture of E because she just looked so adorable this morning for church! (Today was the first day I left her in the nursery for "big church." It was hard for me, but she did great!)

W's 28 months; E's 2 months!

Big Brother is getting so big!!  He is 28 months old, and he is the best big brother in the world.  Whenever he walks into a room and finds "baby sister,"  he tenses his shoulders up, lets out a squeal, and shouts out her name.  Her face always lights up when she sees him too. She is definitely very smiley!

Big Brother amazes us more and more every day.  We were both flabbergasted to see that he really memorizes the words to his books.  One of his favorites is, "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck."  We can stop anywhere on any page mid-sentence, and he will finish the sentence or even the paragraph!  He loves reading books!  His stellar memory also work on his Thomas the Train book where he has to find pictures on the page.  He has already memorized where every picture is, and it takes us no time to fly through the pages.

Instead of being equipped with crayons like many two-year-olds, W would rather have a pen or pencil.  He likes to try and write letters instead of coloring.  He is getting really good at writing his favorite letter, "W," and also "M."  He loves for us to write letters and have him identify them.  He can spell "stop" and "zoo" as well.  He also likes for us to draw pictures of shapes which he can easily identify, and he knows most of his colors now too.

He likes to make up songs, one of which is "Story Duck."  It's to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and the only words are in the title..."Story story story duck! Story story story duck!" and so on... He laughs and loves to sing this at bed time.  His favorite DVD's to watch right now are of the Cedarmont Kids Christian songs.  While they are incredibly annoying for us parents, he is mesmerized, and if I need to get something done around the house, they work great!  He knows pretty much every word to every song. It's funny to hear him start singing, "Give me that old time religion" randomly!

Some cute things he has done recently:

When we were on our way home from Greenville one day, I had to jump in the backseat to care for E.  So I nestled in between W and E, and W started rubbing my arm and saying, "Hey Precious."  I'm sure he has heard that from his grandmother Bippie, and it was the sweetest thing ever.

One day when we were on a walk, I was pushing him around in his blue car.  He decided to push instead.  We walked past a house where a man was unloading things from his truck.  W said, "Hey! Whatcha doing?"  The man answered.  W said, "I see a cat!"  (Although there was not one in sight.)  I told him to tell the man good-bye.  He said, "Good-bye! Have a good day!"  So friendly and adorable!

He loves to mimic our actions.  He has started folding his arms across his chest and then making a really funny face like he's thinking about something.  The first few times he would try to fold his arms, and ask for help, "Do it Mama! Help me!"  He also wanted help learning how to make a thumb's up! The pig on his favorite show, "Super Why!" does it, and he wanted to learn!

W likes to talk to himself in the mirror, and it is hilarious.  The other day we were walking out the front door to play outside.  He stopped at the front door and looked into the window beside it at himself.  He said, "Wanna go play outside?! Yeah! Okay!"

Baby sister is growing as well!!  At her two month appt, she weighed 13 pounds even (up from 8 lbs, 3 ozs at her 2 week check).  She looks a LOT bigger from one to two months.  She is sleeping great.  Last week she slept 5 nights in a row (10-12 hours without a feeding).  She went from waking twice to not at all.  On the sixth day, she got a cold, and didn't sleep great for a couple nights, but she's working back to it!  I really can't complain.

She is very smiley.  It doesn't take much at all to get a big grin and sometimes even a little laugh out of her!  She loves to eat lots which is why she's so big!!

Sleeping soundly in her Rock N Play 

After we went on a walk!

 She looks just like my sister #4 in this picture!

 Trying on baby sister's headband!

 He always wants to hold her! And then after two seconds, he wants me to turn her around so he can see her!

 Sister #3 and her fiance came to visit us!  They just got engaged last Thursday night!

Playing at Jumping Jax!

Our happy little girl!

Making funny faces with Dada!

Morning time or before bed time...I can't tell!  His hair doesn't look messy enough for this to be morning time!

At cousin Seth's Elmo Birthday party!

We are so blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children.  We thank God for them everyday!

1 month old! (a little late)

 Baby E turned one month old on Christmas Day!

She is such a wonderful baby.  Our little man cried for the most part of his first six months, so she is easy compared to him! 

She really only cries if something is wrong...gas, hungry, dirty diaper...Other than that, she is content!

She coos a lot, "Ah goo!"  Little Man always gets so excited when she "talks" and he copies exactly what she says. 

She likes to smile at her big brother.

She sleeps up to 5 hours at night (one night she slept 7 1/2 hours...but that was during her first week, and only lasted the one night).

She lost her umbilical cord at 12 days old.

She has always been very alert, and she makes good eye contact.

She drinks a lot...30-32 ounces a day, which is why we call her our little "piglet."

She weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces at her two week check-up, but I think she's gained 3 more pounds since then.  We have her two month check up in a few weeks!

She is very much loved by her big brother.

She lights our world!

We love you Baby E!!

27 months old! (a little late!)

 We have had so much going on with a newborn and the holidays, so I am a little behind on posting updates!  Better late than never!

The only picture that I snapped of Little Man on his 27 month "birthday" was actually just a fluke.  We were visiting my family in Charlotte.  My mom, sister #5, and baby E were in the kitchen on our computers, just hanging out.  Little Man was somewhere nearby playing with his trucks.  We could hear his little voice every now and then, but couldn't make out what he was saying.  I knew he was in the foyer, and I knew he was playing with his trucks.  My mom said, "My house is not childproof or poison-proof just so you know!"  So I got up to go check on him.  I went into the foyer and immediately started laughing...hard.  Little Man was pushing his truck out of the foyer at the moment and turned around when he heard me laughing.  This is the lovely picture I got:

All I saw were a bunch of Hershey kisses wrappers all over the floor, and an almost empty candy dish on the table.  My mom heard my laughter, and ran in, and I said, "Hershey kisses!"  My mom was laughing harder than I was, and said, "With Almonds!!"  I screamed!!!  Little Man is allergic to peanuts, and we are supposed to keep him away from nuts altogether until he is 3 for further testing.  Fortunately, we discovered that he is not allergic to almonds, because the only reaction he had was a huge smile on his chocolate-y face!  I counted the wrappers, and he had eaten at least 6 or 7 kisses.  I rarely let him eat anything sweet, let alone pure chocolate!  What a day!

I did get some pictures of him the day before when we were in Greenville celebrating Christmas with my mom's side of the family.  

Attempting to take a Christmas card picture with our family :)  A little hard with toddlers!

Other updates for this month:

Little Man is talking in sentences sooo much more, and he likes to answer me in complete sentences.  For example, "W, will you go put this in the sink for me?"  "Yeah, I'll go put it in sink for you."  

He likes to "color," but his favorite things to use are pens because he really likes trying to write his letters and tell me what they are. 

When Baby E was born, we gave her a pacifier, well Little Man (who never would take a paci), decided he wanted one too.  He's not attached thank goodness!

He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES his baby sister! He constantly gives her kisses (which led to her first cold), and she's the first person he wants to see when he wakes up or walks in the door.  He doesn't like when she cries!

He loves to watch Sesame Street clips on youtube.  His favorite is Elmo singing the ABCs with India Arie.

He loves looking at Christmas lights!  

One of his favorite things to do is find the moon at night.  He gets so excited when he sees it!

Trucks are still his favorite toy, and he sure got enough for Christmas!

He loves to read books.  His current favorite is "Llama Llama Holiday Drama!"

He still loves to sing.  Current favorites:  Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me, Set Me as a Seal (a song I sang in high school), You are my Sunshine, and the Carolina (UNC) Fight Song.

He also loves to wear Crocs. They are his favorite shoes by far!

Our New Baby Girl!

 We welcomed our new baby girl, "E," into the world on November 25, 2011!

She weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and was 19 1/2 inches long.

She is a wonderful baby, and is well loved, especially by her big brother W!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!

26 months old!

 So Little Man is now 26 months old...that means he's still growing, but it also means that his baby sister will be here within a week's time!  I do feel like I have been pregnant forever, but I am so blessed that this pregnancy has been healthy and that we will soon become a family of 4!

Little Man is the sweetest thing ever.  He cannot wait for baby sister to get here.  He still kisses my tummy, and he wants to hold every baby he sees.  When we put baby girl's car seat in my car a couple weeks ago, we started asking him, "Who's seat is that?" He gets really excited and answers, "Baby Sister's!"

When I was folding some of her clothes, he came over and said, "W's clothes!" and I said, "No, these are baby sister's clothes."  He picked up one of the outfits, hugged it, and said, "Awww!"

We do have our rough patches with Little Man.  He doesn't always like to listen, and we still use time out as a form of punishment.  He gets two minutes now, and it seems to work great.  We are also transitioning him into a new room.  We finally got his new room put together enough to move him in on Saturday, and it sure didn't go over as planned.  All day he was so excited about his new crib and new room.  When my husband put him down for the night, he was fine....until 30 minutes later.  He started wailing.  I went in after about 10 minutes and he said, "Old crib, old bed."  So we gave in (since it was the first night)...and let him sleep in his old room.  The next day, he went down fine for his nap in his new room and crib.  We decided to just not make a big deal over it.  Then at bedtime, the wailing started immediately after I put him down.  We decided we might be having another "cry-it-out" session...like when he was 6 months old.  He did cry off and on for about 45 minutes, but then slept great and woke up happy.  He cried about 5 minutes at naptime, and then about 10 minutes tonight...but I think the transition is going to work.  Baby girl's nursery is getting painted tomorrow, so there is no hope for him going back to his old room!  

I know he is about to experience lots more change with a real little baby entering his life...and so are we! But I am going to try and stay calm and handle everything as stress-free as possible!  Keeping up a positive attitude is my main goal!

I forgot to take pictures on the "19th" this month.  I can't believe I let it slip my mind...but I did catch some pictures today...these were right before I took him to get his haircut (which he now is terrified of if I haven't mentioned that before).  Haircuts are worse than shots!!  He hates them.  I even let him sit in my lap, and brought his favorite snack and juice.  He did cooperate some when they gave him a spray water bottle to squirt in his own face, my face, and the hairdressers face...but I have assigned "Dada" to take him for his next cut!  I do have to say he does look mighty handsome after his cut!

The next post will probably be baby girl's birth announcement, so be on the lookout!  I am 4 cm and 80% effaced as of this morning...so it really could be anytime now!