my little artist.

Yes that is my leg (ha!) And that is the person that Victor drew on me. Body, arms, legs, circle (head), eyes, nose, mouth and a squiggle up top for hair. He started doing this months ago and they are already significantly better than they started out. Within the past 9 months they went from big blob bodies to this more streamlined version you see here. He's done better ones on paper but this was just the only one I had a picture of! My sister-in-law was telling me how advanced that was, but I didn't really think anything of it till I looked it up myself. Apparently at 2 most kids are just starting to draw circles and blobby people don't typically emerge till 3ish. So right now his skills on this level are between 3-4 year age range. He also knows most of his colors and shapes. He can count things up to 10. This morning I was pouring pancakes on the griddle and he counts, "1,2,3,4,5 cakes! cirks mom cirks! (circles)" He will count the stairs as he goes up "1,2,3.." up to 10, then come back down "10,9,8..." back down to 1. He pretty much amazes me on a daily basis.

Oh and funny thing!! He's been doing "flips" (somersaults) for awhile, but he would put his head down and kind of fall over sideways (hilarious, btw). But within the past couple of weeks he has actually started to roll head over heels and he can do it at will now. We tell him "do a flip!" and he puts his head down and flips right over, then stands up and claps for himself, so cute! The other day he started doing flips, and was counting while he did it. Flip (1!) flip (2!) flip ("3! 3 flips! yay!!")

I love this age, he learns something new every day and basically blows me away. I'd love to get him into a Montessori preschool program next year, but unfortunately we can't afford nearly $3000 a year for that!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Matt and Slappy say "Hi!" Happy Thanksgiving to all, I hope everyone has a wonderful day!!

My little boy

almost a year ago, last January... still so much a baby! And now...

He's really my little boy!! Look how much he's changed....

I feel bad that I don't post many pictures of him anymore, but our camera was broken. Every time we tried to turn it on it would say Lens Error and shut back off :-/ pretty sure that was my fault for letting Victor play with it.... So I figured since it was already broken there was no harm in letting him still play with it. Apparently he fixed it!! He handed it to me last night and said, "mommy mommy! CHEESE!!" I went to take his picture and Whoa! It actually worked!! Cool! So expect more pictures from now on :-)

Love his "Cheese!" face! I think I have the most beautiful little boy... but doesn't everyone? *wink*
**edited to add** I meant, doesn't everyone think their OWN kids are the most beautiful, lol, not that you all think my kid is :-P

There are 50 states...

See how West Virginia is NEXT to Virginia? Yes, it really is its own separate state!

I can't tell you how many people I've seen, back home or just out-of-state that say

"oh how do you like Virginia?"

and I say "Well, Virginia is ok, but I live in WEST Virginia."

"Oh... Isn't that just western Virginia?"

"No. No it's not."

It's a state people. I promise.

26 week midwife appointment

There is the obligatory belly shot. 26 weeks and I'm actually measuring at 28 weeks. Of course I've also gained 8 lbs in the past 5 weeks since my last appt, so my midwife was not surprised, she said a mid-late 2nd trimester growth spurt is very common. Plus it brings my total weight gain up to 12 lbs so far, so really it's not that bad. I figure even if I gain 1 lb a week for the next 14 weeks it puts me up to 26lbs, which is normal. Granted it's more than I'd like, but still only HALF of what I gained with Victor, so I'll be thrilled.

They also checked my blood sugar at this visit. One of the great things about midwives is that I don't have to drink that nasty sugar stuff and have them draw a billion vials of blood. I just fasted for 8 hours before the appt and she pricked my finger to check it on a monitor. They like it to be below 95 and mine was 97, so just slightly elevated. They are checking me again in 2 weeks (they would be checking me again no matter what) this time 2 hours after I eat. If still just slightly elevated they'll probably just give me a monitor so I can check it on a regular basis to get a better baseline of what's really going on but I wouldn't be sent to a specialist or labeled GD or anything.

Cadie was actually head down this time, which I knew from where she was kicking me, and I certainly don't expect her to stay that way yet. She's still my little hurricane! Did I mention that this was a home visit? Yes, my midwives came to see me :-) I love them. So I was afraid that Victor was going to freak out with them touching me, he doesn't really like that. When they checked our iron at our WIC appt 2 weeks ago, he was more upset about them pricking my finger than he was about them sticking his. So yes, I was afraid he wouldn't handle it well and had my neighbor on stand by in case I needed her to watch him. Thanks to a fluke where Victor was up for an hour and a half in the middle of the night, he actually slept through most of the appt. He woke up just while she was measuring my belly. He came down with Matt just as she was starting to find Cadie's heartbeat. For just a second we thought he was going to cry, but then we were telling him that "it's Cadie's heartbeat, it's your sister! Doesn't it sound like a train?" and he just sat there watching with a slightly perplexed look on his face. So cute though, I had to look away from him because I kept laughing!

I see them every 2 weeks now! Crazy!

And so I shall leave you with these:

Victor was watching Toy Story, so he lined up his cars and told them "Sit! watch!"

Yep. that's Victor wearing my red heels. He walks pretty well in them. Love him :-)

Hear me roar!

This. A thousand times this.

I remember getting my first three little stripes with Victor. I was putting lotion on in front of the mirror and happened to see them on the underside of my belly. I cried. I had stretch marks just from going through puberty so I knew I was probably going to get them, but still... I cried. Eventually I ended up with them pretty much everywhere. One day I had 3, the next the were everywhere, or so it seemed.

This time, I don't care. First of all, they are already there. For 2 years now we've gotten to know each other, they are simply a part of me. Secondly, I've come to see them as evidence of what my body is capable of. I grew a HUMAN BEING in my womb! How cool is that?!?

So bring 'em on!!

Trick or Treat!

Victor had soo much fun! Until he got cold anyway. Then he was a screaming tantrum throwing little stinker (though I can't blame him, he hadn't had a nap either). But I digress. I originally wanted to make him a costume like this:

The main component of this costume is an oversize red sweatshirt with it's arms cut off. BUT, did you know that it's apparently IMPOSSIBLE to find a plain, red sweatshirt anywhere?!?! I mean seriously, it's such a basic thing I honestly did not think it would be an issue. yea, it was. So i kind of had to go a different direction:

He's my "Handsome Lil' Devil". Red turtleneck, red sweater vest, red boots, tail (that you can't see, but I think that was my favorite part), horns ("hat!") and scepter ("stick!"). I still think he looked adorable, but still wish I could have made the other one work. Maybe next year when I have a 3 year old and 8 month old (*faint!*) I'll try to plan a little better in advance.

Once I finally got him dressed and handed him his bucket, I tried to explain what was going to happen. He was really excited and dying to go outside. Even though we were waiting for the neighbors we went ahead outside for him to run around a bit. He kept yelling "Tri! Tree!" and running up and down the sidewalk. One of the neighbors tried to give him some candy but he freaked and ran back to me, haha! At least he knows he shouldn't take candy from strangers! I tried to explain to him that it was ok this time because it was Halloween. Once the neighbors came out and we were all ready, he got to watch Andrew (almost 4 y/o) and picked up on the idea real quick.

He had SOO much fun running from house to house!! It was kind of cold, and once it got dark it got much colder pretty quick. We were out for about an hour and a half and only made it around 3ish blocks? He was pooped and so cold by the time we called it quits and headed back. He climbed up in the stroller and I pulled his sweater over his head. That made him soo mad!! But he was so cold he wasn't moving his hands anymore :-) so I made the executive decision that he was going to wear the darn sweater for the 3 blocks it took us to get home.

He threw a tantrum of course, he wanted me to carry him, partly because I could help keep him warm, but I just can't carry him like that now. Once we got him home and he sat on the couch and warmed up, he was fine. We'd had dinner before going out so he got to eat a few pieces of candy and Matt and I freely pillaged his candy as well, Ha! Shortly thereafter we did bath and then he pretty well passed out for the night. I wish we could trick or treat every night so he'll always sleep that well, HA!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all had great nights!

P.S. I didn't think that trick or treating for 3 blocks would be that physically tiring, but I am sore this morning! I guess I'm just THAT out of shape right now, ugh!