Half Way!

Our baby boy is 20 weeks along now, so we have officially reached the half way mark.  So far so good!  I am continue to have weekly progesterone shots (5 down, 15 to go) and have doctor visits every 3 weeks as long as there are no warning signs.  As the politicians say, I am cautiously optimistic at this point.

We have been knee deep in home improvement lately.  Brian has been working on building a fence for our backyard whenever the weather permits.  We are planting a new back lawn and while we were at it we decided to put in a landscape irrigation system, so now we have a 4" trench around most of our yard.  This week we also turned in an application for a building permit for a garage too.  Ok, we are more like neck deep versus knee deep.  It is not always fun, but I know it will be awesome when it is all complete.  Benjamin likes to help too.  Here he is trying on mommy's gloves.

Mother's day weekend we got our first recliner.  I was resistant for a long time, but I must say it is wonderful to be able to kick up my feet at the end of the day, especially being pregnant.  Benjamin likes it for reading.  The picture below was taken the day we got it.  He just climbed up and made himself at home.

Last week Benjamin got to play with his friends Maxson and Aiden.  They have an amazing play area behind their house that is like a park.  It has a sandbox, which Benjamin loved, swings, and an incredible pirate ship fort with a slide.  It was super fun.  Benjamin loved the swings, despite his tendency to slide forward which made him look like a hung sock monkey. :)

        

Celebrating Moms

It is so wonderful to have one day of the year set aside to honor our mothers.  Now that I am a mother myself, it has even more significance.  I have an awesome mom and have always loved her and thanked God for her, but it wasn't until I lost hours of sleep up feeding or comforting my son, changing explosive diapers, etc. that I became even more thankful.  Everything I do for Benjamin, my mom has already done for me.  This week I have thought about that quite a bit.

Yesterday, Benjamin and I did some grocery shopping.  He usually does great, but yesterday he got a little impatient, even with a container of snacks.  He started crying at one point and was so loud that a clerk came over and said "Is all of that noise coming out of this little guy?"  She was very nice about it, but it was a little embarrassing.  He calmed down and I continued shopping.  He likes to hold on to objects, so I gave him a watermelon to keep by his side.  He usually picks at the sticker and all is fine.  This time, however, while I had my back turned I heard a thud and turned around to find a cracked open watermelon on the floor with juices spilling out.  Even more, Benjamin was pointing at it as if to say "look mom, the watermelon jumped!"  It was one of those moments where I just wanted to hide.  Fortunately, I was able to bag up the cracked melon and found paper towels nearby to clean up the mess.  I doubt that I threw a watermelon (my mom would have probably known better than to give a 2 year old a watermelon), but I am sure I did a few things that made my mom want to hide.  So, thanks Mom, for losing sleep, changing diapers, and surviving embarrassment, not to mention all of the things you do and have done for me as a grandparent to Benjamin.

It's A...

Today was our ultrasound to check out baby #2.  We found out that we will be having another boy!!!  It was so fun to see little one looking just like a mini person and wiggling around.  From what they could tell baby is right on track for size and right where they they want him to be (huge praise!).  It is so wonderful to say "him" instead of "it" or "they!"  I already feel more connected to my youngest son just by being able to think of him as a little boy and not just a baby.  We don't have a name yet, though a couple ones we have discussed are Henry and Wesley.  This happened to us with Benjamin - we were just stumped over it.  One day I love a name, then the next day I don't so much.  Here is an ultrasound of our little guy:

Signs & Wonders

After about a year of me trying, Benjamin finally signed his first word, "more" about a week and a half ago and has been doing it consistently since then.  He can almost do the sign for "all done" though it is more like clapping so I am not always sure what he wants to communicate.  I cannot get over how correct the Early Intervention team we have been working with was right...communication does truly follow walking.  After just a couple weeks of being able to walk we have seen so much change!  Even his toy preference is changing.  He now has a love for stuffed animals, especially a soft teddy bear the hospital gave him the day of his surgery.  Before they were just objects for throwing.

Tomorrow is the day we (hopefully) find out if Benjamin will have a little brother or sister.  People keep asking me if I have an intuition on what it is.  I was much more sick with this baby than Benjamin, making me wonder if it was girl, but lately have been thinking more boy and last night had a dream it was a boy.  I am sure that one of my two guesses will be correct!  Either way we are thrilled at what God gives us.  It will be fun to call baby "he" or "she" rather than "it" or just "baby."  Hopefully we will agree on a name so we can call baby by name and pray for him or her by name too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  I love Easter.  It is a wonderful time to reflect on God's entire plan for the human race from creation, the fall, offering Himself up as a sacrifice to pay our fines, conquering death, and offering eternal life to us.  How blessed we are to be part of His eternal plan!

This year we celebrated Easter with our church family as usual and in the afternoon headed over to Grandma & Grandpa's for dinner.  We had a delicious dinner and too many desserts, but it was sooo good.  After dinner we headed outside for our traditional Easter egg hunt.  This was Benjamin's first year to join in, since last year he wasn't even crawling.  We tried to help him understand the point of the hunt, but he just wanted to pick up the egg and play with it, so after 4 eggs we just let him sit down and play with them.  Next year we may have to practice ahead of time. :)  

The 2011 egg hunters: Cohen, John, Amy, Benjamin, and Emma.  

Tulips & Surgery

On Monday, my mom and I took Benjamin to the Tulip festival.  I had not been for about 10 years and it was fun to see the beautiful colors.

Benjamin loved the pretty flowers and was so gentle with them.

But much more fun than the flowers were the rocks.  Such a boy.

If you look closely, you will see below that Benjamin is not admiring the pretty flowers, but the rock he is holding. :)

Now those are what I call shoes...

Tuesday was Benjamin's eye surgery.  We had an early start and were back home by early afternoon.  Everything went well and Benjamin did great.  When he checked in he was actually excited and thought it was a party.  The other children we were sharing a room with were crying and very upset and Benjamin was bouncing around having a great time.  Maybe he felt like he was back in familiar territory?  Maybe he was excited about wearing the pink hospital clothes again (I still don't understand why they didn't choose green, brown, or yellow)?  He certainly didn't need the meds they gave him for anxiety, but they did help him to be less hyper.

After the surgery was not as much as a party as his eyes were sore and I am sure he was confused, but he still did great.  The worst part now is having to give him eye drops 4 times per day.  Have you ever given a toddler eye drops?  I reminds me of calf wrestling you see at rodeos.  To do it well, you need 3 people.  One to control the hands and body, one to keep his head still, and one to get the drops in.  Unfortunately, it is just me for 3 of the 4 times per day.  You can imagine how that goes!  Now he is a bit cross-eyed and his eyes have a lot of red in the white part, but both of those should clear up in a week or two.

#7 & Fun with a Blanket

Spring!  I love this season.  Though we have had so much rain, God has provided a few days here and there of sun.  Last Friday was absolutely gorgeous and such a gift.  I got to spend several hours outside in the yard weeding and just enjoying the fresh air.  Benjamin came out too after his name and had great fun.  Sunshine does the heart good.

I am really surprised how easily I have settled into my new role as a full time homemaker.  I feel like I have been doing it for years in some ways.  I still find it strange how little time there seems to be though and how fast the days go.  That was one of my biggest concerns about staying home - being bored - but I have not had the chance yet.  Baby is now 14 weeks along and according to one of my books is 3-4 inches from head to rump and if you could peek inside would look just like a miniature human.  Thank you, God that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  I am still experiencing some nausea, especially in the evenings, which I was sure would be gone by now.  I am praying that it will fade away soon and not last the whole pregnancy (or I might wish baby would come early! Just kidding.)

Brian is doing really well at his new job and has received good compliments from both his manager and coworkers.  He is really starting to get into his work and seems to enjoy it.  His current job is a contract position (a little higher pay with lousy benefits) and there is possibility that he may be hired on full time in the future (a little less pay, but hopefully good benefits) which would really bless our family as we have a very special boy with some pretty special needs.  We would appreciate any prayer we can get in this area.

Benjamin is doing well.  He is happy and vibrant and I fall in love with him all over again each and every day.  I feel so blessed to be his mommy.  We found out several weeks ago that he will need another eye surgery, that is scheduled in 2 weeks.  This surgery is to correct his "wandering" eye and may be on one or both eyes. This is surgery #7.  Seven is the perfect number, so I am praying that this will complete his surgeries, though we have been told that sometimes it can take multiple surgeries to correct this problem.  If gone un-treated, his brain would eventually "turn off" the sight to that eye to avoid seeing double, so it is very necessary.  We would appreciate prayer for this too, as every surgery comes with risks.

A few weeks ago we received a blanket made from girls in Thailand that live in a Remember Nhu home.  (Remember Nhu is a ministry that has homes in several countries that welcome in primarily young girls that are at high risk to be sold into prostitution.)  They are learning to knit and have knitted together squares to make a little blanket.  As soon as I opened the package, Benjamin decided it was his blanket and spent the next half hour or so dragging it around the house.

Here is another picture I thought was cute.  Our church's little Sunday School has been learning about the Armor of God.  One week they talked about the helmet of salvation and gave the kids little toy army helmets as an illustration.  (If you are wondering were Benjamin's glasses are in these pictures, so am I!)