Is it Spring Yet?

Only about another month before we see the first day of spring. Although in Colorado, that means about another month of relatively mild weather (with a few colder ones here and there) and about a week after we officially hit spring, we'll get the biggest snow of the year and continue to have snowfall for the few weeks that follow. Then it will be 90 degrees until Fall. Nevertheless, is it spring yet?

Jude loves to play outside and asks to play outside every day. Today he asked and tried to convince me in other ways...

I feel like a rather lazy and terrible Mom sometimes when I say "it's too cold" simply because I don't feel like standing outside while he goes exploring in mud puddles, water puddles, and puts unknown objects and solids in his mouth. I did finally give in today. He had a blast! He loved walking on top of the iced over snow piles left in the back yard and playing real "games" of football and basketball. He wins each game by calling a TOUCHDOWN! every few steps. I was impressed with his knowledge of outdoor items too. I said, "can you go find a pine cone?" and he'd bring one back! We found sticks, leaves, bark, etc. He knows his back yard stuff-that-should-probably-get-cleaned-up pretty well. Way to go Jude!

A few of his most memorable new words or phrases since my last post are: "alligator", "chomp-chomp" with corresponding hand motions, "hat off", Sodor (where Thomas the train lives), Island (as in the Island of Sodor), curious (as in George), "superhero", "drool bomb" which to him means putting a pillow over Daddy's face, "bed", "nap", "happy", "sad", "cheer up!", "world".
Those last three are Jude's description of the sequence of events from The Little Engine that Could...the train is "sad" because no one will help her over the mountain. The funny little clown says "cheer up! The passenger engine is not the only one in the "world"! Then they ask the next few trains "please, please" for help over the mountain. I'm glad to see that he understands a sequence of events like that! Unfortunately in Jude's version of the story, it never resolves. The train continues to be sad and the clown continues to say Cheer Up!

Little Baby 2 seems to be doing well. My belly doesn't have those pre-baby, tight muscles to hold in the changes anymore so I pretty much already look like I'm halfway through this pregnancy (or at least it feels that way). I'll post this photo because it's the only one I have really but it's silly because I took it myself in the mirror. In the photo, I'm just 13 weeks. I'll be 14 weeks in a few days - I welcome the presence of the 2nd trimester.

Updated Blog, Updated Life

Hello friends and family! It's been far too long since we have connected! As I'm sure you were guessing I would say...we've been really busy! But I have sat down and thought about updating this blog on a few occasions, however, I just could not bring myself to write something new and leave out important details. So I have decided that tonight is the night for an update at last.

First and foremost, we are expecting Baby #2 late this summer! We are very excited to see who will be joining our family and what he or she will be like. I am still coming to grips with the idea of having two children (one of which will just be 2) and what that will look like for my day to day life. I'm guessing little to no sleep, little to no "me" time, little to no time to do much of anything except change, feed, bathe and entertain my kiddos. While the most challenging role I've had, motherhood has also been the most rewarding and I look forward to see how things evolve.

Baby pants is not so baby anymore. He celebrated (and by celebrated, I mean, I thought about) his 18 month birthday this week. He is so toddler and no baby! Jude is a fun, loving, kind, but excitable toddler. He loves trains, cars, busses and any other type of transportation device. His security thing is his Curious George, lovingly called "jooge". He is a talker! (With us as parents how could he not be). He has a pretty wide vocabulary although I wonder if I'm one of the only ones who knows what each of them means. He recently began using two-word sentences. It started off with "shoe off" as he was taking his shoes off in the car to eat them. He also recently, to my surprise, started identifying letters! I was wearing a Colorado State University sweatshirt the other morning and he began to point out the o's and t's and e's. We've never done this before and I didn't prompt him! Needless to say, had I been on candid camera, it would've been a very embarrassing moment for Mommy. Jude's final love is football (and creeping up there is basketball). His Thomas and Football come with us to all locations. He loves to make touchdowns and tackle ... although we're trying to eliminate the latter for safety and appropriateness reasons. :)

My darling husband is working hard at supporting our family and I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunities he's given me. One of which was working toward my certification as a Childbirth Educator. I'm currently in the midst of my student teaching and will be certified this spring. It's been an amazing journey, I've met close friends, and had a wonderfully growing experience. I truly hope I can bring the knowledge and confidence to women that birth is a wonderfully normal, safe and healthy experience.

That's the latest with us! I plan to update more often with the growing belly pictures of course and some cute ones of the little one too :)