Happy New Year and the final clue!

It's the first of a month so here comes another clue, the final one. It's five letters long and four of the five letters are in our son's name. (If you don't get it by now....:) You can still guess but I cut the phone call "prizes" off at 5. Here are the winners. Nancy, who guessed the name after only 2 clues! Next is my mentor from Crosstrainers (a working women's discipleship group at church) Sarah N., then Krista, then Amy, and finally Patricia. There have probably been about a dozen correct quesses total. It's been fun seeing all the guesses. We are still going to keep the middle name a total surprise.

So we're going to have 2009 baby. No tax exemption but more time to prepare for her arrival. And no health insurance issues (we switched insurances as of today). I can now say that I've never been this pregnant before. I wonder if I'll notice any difference in how I'll be feeling from now until she's born.

Another update

I just got back from my 38 week appointment. I'm 2 cm dialated (normal for second pregnancy) but nothing else going on. My doctor said everything points to her being right on schedule. No guarantees but that was his best guess. Looks like she may provide support for my mom's theory that girls are either on time or late. My sister and I were just about right on time.

I haven't gain any weight in the last 2 weeks (how did that happen? with the holidays) but the doctor said that happens sometimes. I've gained a little over 25 lbs total this pregancy which is was my goal. That's just a little more than I gained with Dylan. I feel bigger though. Of course at this point in my pregnancy with Dylan I was going into labor.

Pregnancy Update

Here's a picture of me one day shy of 37 weeks which was last Saturday. (Yes, I got my haircut, about 3 weeks ago - it's so much quicker to dry now and it will be out of the way more. It's a mommy do.) I'm now (as of today) 38 weeks so, any time now. Dylan was born at 38 and a half weeks but every kid is different and some think that girls are either on time or late and boys are early. I'm just trying to be prepared at this point in case she comes this week. The most pressing thing is finishing up some things at work which I think I can do a lot of tomorrow. (I'm working my same hours this week (except the holiday) but I'm working from home. Dylan will go to Patricia's tomorrow since this is Bushra's one week off per year.) This weekend we got a lot of the baby prep things done. It's funny because I blogged so much about all the prep with my last pregnancy and there really hasn't been much prep this time except now at the end. We got a bunch of stuff out of storage yesterday (bassinet, bath tub, car seat, etc.) I moved Dylan's clothes out of the changing table into his dresser and got out the newborn diapers and moved all the girl clothes to the changing table. While I was getting the clothes out I showed Dylan this pink jacket and I asked him whose jacket it was. He said "Anna's." Anna is a friend of Dylan's from church. At least he realized it was a girl's jacket. Then he saw the new pacifiers we got and he said they were Aiden's (another friend of his who is 7 months old). Here are some recent pictures of Dylan with Anna and Aiden:

At my last doctor's appointment (tuesday, the 23rd) the doctor confirmed that the baby had dropped. I had been feeling like I was breathing a lot easier for about a week before that. My next appointment is Wednesday. I got a pre-natal massage yesterday which felt awesome! I went into labor 24 hours after I had a pre-natal massage when I was pregnant with Dylan. But nothing yet this time. I'll keep you posted!

Baby thoughts on Christmas

Every advent/Christmas I try to focus/meditate on one aspect of the Christmas message that God came to us in this world to be with us and then to die for us. This year, not surprisingly, I've thought about how Jesus came into this world as a helpless baby. Why didn't He just mysteriously appear on the scene when He was ready to start His ministry at age 30? Why submit Himself to humans to care for Him?

I, of course, don't have answers to all my questions but here are some thoughts - Jesus came into the world in this way so that His humanity was firmly documented and accepted. (Jesus' humanity is a key element of Him being an acceptable substitute for taking our punishment for our sin. For justice to be served, a human had to die.) If Jesus had just appeared, His humanity could be questioned. But we know who is mother and father were and people watched Him grow up (John 6:42). And the fact that He was born into a certain line of a certain Jewish family is key in the fulfillment of prophecy (Jeremiah 33:17). It is also key that Jesus experienced and suffered all that we do as humans (yet was without sin - Hebrews 4:15). That would include being dependent on others. He knows what's it like to grow up in this world.

Yet it is still hard to fathom that God loved us so much that He would and could be a little baby. And imagine what it was like for Mary - I particularly like the verse in the song "Mary did you know?" that goes something like "when you kissed your little boy, did you know you were kissing the face of God."

I hope you all get a chance to marvel at the awesomeness of the incarnation this Christmas!

A whole new world begins today

No, I haven't given up on the blog and no I haven't had the baby yet. I just got really busy with preparing for Christmas. We also went to NC to see Martin's brother and his family. It's been a fun month but I do miss the blogging.

Today is my last day in the office before my maternity leave. I feel like things are going to be so different when I return. Not only will I for the first time in my career not see a picture of W when I walk into the building in the morning, but also my work content will probably be a lot different. What I'm working on now, which is something I've worked on, on and off, since I started in June, will wrap up next month (presumably) and in this environment things come up and priorites change so quickly that I can't imagine what I'll even be doing when I return to work in April!

My other thought for the day is about how I'm mentally preparing for our little girl's birth. I'm remembering how things went with Dylan and so in some ways I'm feeling more prepared (like, okay, remember this is what happened at the hospital the day after Dylan was born and then remember how we have to go to the pediatrician and oh, then there's the support group I can go to). I have a mental picture of what the places look like and that's somewhat comforting. But of course there are so many unknowns that challenge me to trust God - how labor will go, making sure Dylan is okay, life with two kids, what the baby will be like (temperment, eating and sleeping challenges), timing of her birth, which doctor will deliver her, etc. It's really hard to prepare for a big life change other than telling yourself, within the next x weeks my life is going to be completely different. It's hard to believe. Although being in town for Christmas is change for us so I feel like the new territory/phase starts today. And I'm excited. I couldn't fall back to sleep this morning after my 4am bathroom run.

I hope you all have a great Christmas! I plan on updating more soon!

Another fun summer get-together

On labor day weekend, my pen pal Kelly was in town with her husband Jake and we got together for lunch and some site-seeing. I met Kelly in Yellowstone Park when our families were on vacation there in 1987. We wrote to each other a lot during middle school and while we wrote less and less over the years we always kept in touch and sent each other Christmas cards, etc. Until Labor Day, I hadn't seen her since 1987, over 20 years! Kelly contacted me over Facebook and said she was coming into town and gave me her cell phone number so we made a plan to meet up, we just had to recognize each other. We didn't have any problem. I was amazed at how familiar it seemed to spend time with Kelly. And I was amazed and how much fun we had and how much I enjoyed the time with her and her husband who is super nice and funny. Martin and Dylan enjoyed hanging out with them too. What are the chances that after 20 years we would still get along and have enough in common to talk for a few hours? And what are the chances that our husbands would get along? But we did and they did. Kelly lives in MN so I probably won't see her again for a while but we are hoping they move to DC in a few years after she finishes school.

Linus' First Birthday Party

(I'm catching up on posting pictures.) These pictures are from my friend Nancy's son's 1st birthday back at the end of August. Here's Nancy having fun trying to get the candles to light.


Linus is on the right watching all the kids from the party blowing out the candles...:)

Linus did get to eat his own cake...

Dylan had a blast at the party playing with all the kids and the neighbor's dump truck. This is also where I heard about the idea for the dump truck cake that I used for Dylan's birthday.

Photo #4 and Clue #4

Here I am at 33 weeks pregnant. I am now 34 weeks. It's getting close!

Three more people guessed the name this month. I'm still going to take one more winner for the phone call list and after that if you guess I will tell you if you are correct (and swear you to secrecy) but you'll have to wait for the email announcement..:)

With more people getting the name we are hearing about different associations with her name that I hadn't heard before. This is one reason we typically avoid telling the name until its too late to go back. But as I mentioned before, we are very sure about her name so these associations haven't changed my mind at all about how I feel about her name. But I have changed my mind about this month's clue. This month's clue has something to do with one of the associations I have heard this month about our sweet little girl's name....:) The clue is purple tattoos!

Update on the kids (and Mommy)

I had a doctors appointment on Friday. All is well with our little girl. Her heartbeat was 136. I passed the glucose test and now I go back in 2 and a half weeks. I made my next two appointments and after that I'll be full term! I've already gained as much weight as I did with Dylan full term, maybe since I haven't exercised as much. Some people have told me though that I don't look as big or that I'm carrying differently. I don't see it but I feel it in my hips. It's hard to explain what it feels like. Exercising (I've been doing a weights class at the gym once a week) has helped a little and I think drinking more water may help. That's my plan for now.

Dylan has started climbing out of his crib, and quite proficiently too. I've watched him to it once. He swings his leg on top of the railing and then holds on tightly to the rail (with some amazing upper body strength) while he gets his legs over the top. Then he slides down the side. No thud, no crying. We just start hearing the doorknob jiggling and we know he's gotten out. He came out about twice when we were putting him to bed on Saturday and then before Sunday's nap he came out about 15 times before going to sleep. (We decided we needed to be persistent to stop this behavior so we didn't give up. I'm so glad we didn't because he did finally go to sleep after about an hour of climbing out. He definitely still needs a nap (and I need to work!) so hopefully the naps won't be a problem this week. We are still giving him a pacifier for the naps after he asks for it and sometimes at bedtime but not as much.) He came out once last night and then got up by himself this morning. We keep going back and forth about getting him toddler bed or putting a twin mattress on the floor or keeping him in the crib. Since he can get out of the crib safely now I'm leaning more towards keeping him in the crib until baby #2 needs it (grows out of the bassinet) and we move in the spring. It's still enough of a deterrent that it's helpful.

Dylan still eats less than we think he should be eating and it takes us forever to find him something to eat (we have to offer at least 5 different things for dinner), but I'm not to the point of worry or exasperation (yet). Breakfast usually isn't a problem - instant oatmeal and fruit. And he rarely refusing grapes or yogurt so we have some last resorts. He's still eating pureed veggies. He hasn't eaten meat for us in probably a week but that might just be a phase. He was all into pasta this weekend. We did switch to 2 percent milk since he turned 2. I asked the doctor if we should stick with whole and he said he Dylan gets fat in his diet from other sources then he didn't need the whole milk. So now we're letting him have more cheese and trying to offer peanut butter more. (We started PB a few weeks before his second birthday since we don't have a history of allergies in our family.) Martin and I decided that we could compromise and drink 2 percent milk too (we usually drink skim) so that we don't have buy two separate gallons at the grocery store. There's not too much left on our weekly grocery list that is just for Dylan now - just the baby veggies and plain yogurt (we switched from yogurt made with whole milk to low fat yogurt for him but Dylan still likes his yogurt plain, without fruit).

Along those lines, I've been thinking about how life with a new baby is going to be a shock for me since I feel like I'm almost back to my pre-kid "groove." We had a pretty busy day yesterday (church, friends over for lunch, made a meal to take over to some friends who just had their second, and then went back to church for a dinner/Harvest) and Martin says to me "I feel like we just had a day on Heather's old schedule," meaning before Dylan. And I've been working 30+ hours a week this last month. So I'm going to be in for a big lifestyle change (especially with going back to breastfeeding) in about 7 weeks. The good thing is I've done it before. Of course we didn't have a two year old then so some things will be different but people keep telling me that caring for the second one is easier because you know the drill now and aren't freaking out about every little thing. But then again every kid is different so what worked for #1 might not work for #2. But we'll roll with it whatever the case. Yes, I'm preaching this to myself.

Two more cute sayings...

"Keem-ut" - At first we thought he was saying K-mart. But this really means "clean up" which is what he says when we try to get him to clean up his toys.

"Second!...Place!" - There is a game on the cars website where you can race other cars (it's very much like Pole Position that we used to play on (gosh, was that) Atari, (man, I'm old)). Dylan can't play it but he asks us to play it so he can watch the cars. It's not that easy of a game and so for a while the best we could do was second place (out of five). At the end it tells you what place you came in and it says, in this movie announcer type voice, "second place", or "third place" or whatever you came in. So I think Dylan thinks that "second place" is the greatest thing because whenever he's pretending to race his cars or when we're running around the house playing "race" he always says "second!...place!"

Cute Dylan Sayings

Martin and I frequently comment on how Dylan just cracks us up sometime. I've been making a mental list of some of the fun things and now I'm going to blog about them, for as much your enjoyment (I hope) as my recordkeeping.

"Richie's Car" - Dylan hung out with his friend Richie one day (back when Bushra broke her leg) and rode in his (mom's) car, a maroon Toyota Prius. A few days later, we are walking out to our car and Dylan sees a silver Prius on the other side of our parking lot and says "Richie's Car." And now anytime we see a Prius on the road he says "Richie's Car." How he distinguishes the cars, I don't know. Sure the back of a Prius is distinctive but not so much that you would expect a two-year old to notice. I think he's going to be one of those 5 year olds that can tell you every make and model of every car that passes.

"Happy Tow Whoa" - translation, Happy Birthday to You. Dylan says this anytime he sees candles now or when he gets out the singing birthday card that my parents sent him.

"Watch....Bittus" - translation, "Can I watch Thomas videos?" Dylan can't say Thomas so he says Bit-tus. For a while Bit-tus, or bitten, or some variation was Dylan's word for many things he couldn't say like strawberry and Mater (from Cars). Dylan has also said "watch...starship" since he watched an episode of Star trek with daddy once.

"Picture...Anna" - translation, "Can I look at the pictures of me and Anna from Kings Dominion?" I'll have to post some of these later - this was from Martin's work picnic - Anna and her parents go to church with us and Anna's daddy also works for Booz. Watching Thomas and looking at these pictures are the things that Dylan seems to always want to do while we are at home these days, while Mommy wants to limit "media" time (computer, tv, etc.). I'm going to have to print out the pictures of Dylan and Anna for him.

"Bye Bye Ader" - translation, "Bye Bye, see you later." It took me a while to get this one. I thought he was trying to say Bye bye Heather but then we figured out he was saying "later."

"God Made You" not to be confused with "How old are you?" - We started Dylan's formal systmatic theological training recently (ha ha) with the first three catechism questions from the Children's Catechism. The first question is "Who made you?" and the answer is "God." Dylan often responds "God made you." And then separately we also tried to teach Dylan to answer the question "How old are you?" with "Two." So when we ask him "how old are you?" he responds with "God made you." Maybe he doesn't listen to the whole question and only hears the "you?"
{Side note for those who may be unfamiliar with having children memorize a catechism: we obviously don't think that Dylan will understand much of these concepts now but we have heard from folks who were "catechized" has kids that the things you memorize when you are young when you can memorize things more easily stay with you for a long time and you can recall them later in life to help you then.}

"Jellyfish" - translation, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Recent (routine) doctor's appointments

When Martin switched jobs over the summer, we mistakenly put too much into his new health care FSA because we thought we were going to be able to claim things from before his start date that we hadn't claimed in his old FSA. We later figured that Martin could get a new pair of prescription sunglasses so we could use up the funds but now it's starting to look like we might not need to do that with my corneal abrasion and the $40 (!) we spent on this cream for a mark on Dylan's arm from a bug bite that didn't go away. (I wouldn't have gotten the cream if I knew it was going to be so much but our new FSA also automatically debits our account from CVS and I didn't realize this until later - I thought the prescription was fully covered because CVS told me there was no charge. And to all your CVSers out there, if your FSA does this, make sure the checkout person still swipes your CVS card because you get credit for your prescriptions and usually they won't ask for your card if there is no charge. I've messed this up two or three times now.)

But I haven't reported on three routine doctors appointments that we've had recently. I've had two OB appointments and Dylan had his 2-year check up. All is going well with the kidos and with me. At the Sept OB appointment, my parents came and we saw my favorite doctor - Dr. B. My parents were excited because they had seen Dr. B on TV in PA a number of months back and they had to tell him about it. So then it's time to hear the baby's heartbeat. Dr. B sees our squirming toddler and very smartly talks directly to him and says, "do you want to hear the choo choo." Well, that got Dylan's attention. He loves trains and loves to talk about them. So Dr. B puts the sonar thingy up to my belly and you "choo choo, choo choo....choo choo, choo choo." Dylan loved it. He was much more into the experience than when we said "do you want to hear baby sister's heartbeat?" He doesn't get that but he does get choo choo. So at my next OB appointment we listened for the choo choo again and we heard it loud and clear. It's coming down a little, about 140 these days. I also did my glucose test and apparently passed since I haven't heard back from them. And we got some good news that the baby's head is down (at the sonogram her head was up), which could still change but I think it's encouraging. My next appointment is next Friday and then I start going twice a month.

Dylan's 2 year checkup went well too. He's growing on his own little curve (about the 3-5 percentile for weight, 50 percentile for head circum., and 25 percentile for height.) The doctor said he was happy with Dylan's growth. Dylan only had to get one shot this time and now he doesn't go back for a whole year! The fun part of the appointment though was the developmental stuff. Dr. Karp (not the guy who wrote the Happiest Baby btw) and Dylan had a good time playing with the "ball" - a flashlight projection of a circle on the floor. Dylan hit the ball and kicked it (first time he did this - the doctor started doing this test at about 15 months). Then Dylan says "Niiicce" when he hit the ball. Then he said "Awesssome." Dr. Karp bent over laughing. He said "I see a lot of kids and I have never heard a two year old say 'awesome' before." So Dr. Karp was impressed with Dylan's development. I wasn't able to say that Dylan was saying 2 word phrases at the appointment so Dr. Karp was asking me some more questions but after he heard "awesome" there was no more concern. Dylan is now saying 2 word phrases like "mommy sleep" when I had my eyes closed a lot last week.

Coreal Abrasion

Last Tuesday night Dylan accidentally hit me in the eye with a piece of something in between poster board and cardboard. I waited until the next day to go to the doctor since it didn't get better overnight and found out that I had a "large corneal abrasion." Normally the doctor would prescribe percocet but since I'm pregnant I got to take Tylenol. At least my OB said extra strength Tylenol was okay. So I was in a lot of pain on Wednesday and Thursday and missed work. I went to the opthamologist on Friday and he said that 35 percent of my cornia was scratched. I felt a lot better that day and every day since and my vision is getting better and better (I could always see, it would just hurt to open my eyes for periods of time or to read for a long time). The neat thing that I praise God for is that corneal abrasions heal a lot faster (48 hours) than other scratches to say your skin. It's pretty amazing how God made that work, especially since there's not much you can do with an injured eye (couldn't read, watch movies, etc.) Our eyes are pretty important and God must think so too for them to be able to be healed that quickly. And the spiritual lesson for me out of all this was that I need to stop thinking about my to do list and think about ways to love those around me instead. Since I only had my thoughts (and my phone) for those two days (Dylan still went to daycare since I couldn't take care of him) and I couldn't do anything on my to do list, I thought about my thoughts and how I should be using them to glorify God.

Halloween pics

We call this one Dylan Thomas...


This is Lisa and Aidan, friends from our Home Fellowship Group.

Dylan and Oliver eating cupcakes after trick-or-treating. Yes, I gave him a cupcake after getting all that candy but I don't think Dylan ever got any of candy. We ate it all. Oh, except for the pretzels.

Dylan in action. I really didn't think I would ever get into the Halloween thing too much with kids and we didn't talk it up much but I found a cheap costume and our friends were having this get-together and it's fun for this age. I just don't ever want to get into the scary blood and guts kinda stuff. For now we've delayed drawing the line at least for another year.

Aidan, this time with his daddy, Agent Smith. :)

Dylan didn't even recognize Richie in his dragon costume. He knew we were at Richie's house and he looked all around for Richie but couldn't find him. Good costume Richie!

Abigail dressed up as a chicken. Dylan now knows Abigail's name and it's really cute when he says it. (Bonus hint: no, our girl name is not Abigail but Dylan is able to repeat Baby Sister's name too.)

Dylan's Birthday

Dylan got to open some presents as soon as he got up.

Martin's parents also got Dylan this Thomas sticker set which he loved too.

Here's pictures from our trip to IHOP on Dylan's birthday. I unfortunately didn't get a picture of the smiley face pancake or the waiters singing to Dylan which he was a little confused about. Dylan didn't mind the ice cream that they brought though. Dylan is looking at the inserts from the Cars DVD that we bought him and gave to him before we went to IHOP and the truck book that my sister got him.

Dylan's 2nd Birthday Party

Here are the pictures from Dylan's party last Saturday. Notice the game with the guessing what's in the paper bag and the dump truck cake. See my earlier post.

Elmo

We let Dylan open one of his presents a day or two early. Martin's parents got Dylan a Tickle Me Elmo. Dylan loves the Elmo. He "parents" it - he gives it juice and lots of hugs. He also laughs when Elmo laughs, except when Elmo falls over from laughing - that scares Dylan a little but after hearing us tell him many times "Elmo's okay," he just says "Elmo OK" when it happens now.

Photo #3 and Clue #3

As you can see I look a lot bigger than the last picture that I posted. This picture was taken yesterday at almost 30 weeks and I've gained at least 13 lbs since that last picture was taken. Here's a comparison picture from when I was pregnant with Dylan. I guess I'm about the same as where I was with Dylan but I know that I weigh more now than I did at 30 weeks with Dylan. I'm on track to gain about 5 more pounds with this pregnancy than I did last time which I guess isn't bad since I've hardly exercised at all this time around. I'm definitely feeling the uncomfortable-ness sooner this time. I feel like I'm full term. But some of that might be psychological since Dylan was born at this time of year and so it's almost like I'm mental ready for our little girl to be born now too. But hopefully she'll stay in the nice warm womb for another 8 weeks. It's weird to think that I've never been pregnant at this time of year before. I notice it most when I'm trying to find something to wear to work. Since it's gotten so cold lately I haven't wanted to wear my skirts and dresses (in particular since I can't find any nylons that fit) so I'm down to about 5 pairs of pants that are work appropriate. I should get some maternity nylons though and I might start wearing some more casual clothes if I know I don't have any meetings.

I'm sure you all love my rambling on about clothes when you really just want the next clue. Well, I have to tell you something first. We actually have had a winner! I'm not going to disclose who it is just yet since she may get hounded by those who really want to know. But I will give her some props on this blog eventually. In the meantime though, I've decided to keep the contest going. The great thing about the prize is that there are easy 2nd and 3rd place prizes to give out - you get the 2nd and 3rd calls from us after immediate family. So keep guessing. Here is this month's clue: It's biblical. Hmmmm.....

Birthday Happy!

I can't believe my little baby boy is 2 today! We told Dylan "Happy Birthday" when he woke up this morning and he started looking for the candles (and the dump truck - we had a dump truck cake for him at his party on Saturday, see below). I think that's all he gets as far as what a birthday means right now. He got a singing card from my parents that has candles on it which reinforces that concept. We gave him some of his presents this morning from Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Mark. He got a Thomas sticker activity set that he loved and wouldn't let go of. We also told Dylan about the day he was born. Mommy notes that it was much lighter in the morning (I think we had already turned the clocks back at that point that year) and it was much warmer (it was 34 this morning when we left the house!). Tonight we are taking Dylan out to dinner at IHOP. That will be lots of fun. I won't be able to upload any pictures today but there are some good ones coming.

Since Dylan is learning a lot of words by repeating, I think he likes to repeat the last word we say a lot. So when we say Happy Birthday he says Birthday and then there's a pause and he says Happy too. Sometimes he puts it all together and says "Hap-pi-dy."

Dylan's party was awesome! We were going to have it outside but it rained so we had about 30 people in our little place but it was fine. It kept all the kids contained. We played a game where the kids put their hands in paper bags and had to guess what was in the bag just by feeling. All the kids wanted to peek but I think they had fun with it. We also had a dump truck filled with brownies as the cake. After singing, we dumped the brownies on a table cloth on the floor and let the kids go at the brownies. We had about twelve kids and their parents: Oliver, Richie, Jamie, Charlie, William, Anna, Ellie, Abigail, Aiden, Hamza, and Blawal. The balloons were also a big hit with the kids. The adults enjoyed the BBQ and hanging out with other parents.

Learning words

I know this is like the fifth post talking about experiencing Dylan's language learning but it's so fascinating to me. Recently, he's been trying to learn some new words but since they sound like other words he knows, he can't quite get them. For example, he knows aligator (although he says al-gee for aligator). Then, yesterday we were in an elevator and we were telling Dylan this is an elevator and he kept saying "al-gee." He was also getting two other similar words that he know mixed up - kitchen and chicken.

Dylan pretty much talks from the time he wakes up until he falls asleep. It's fun. It helps us to continually engage him and continually teach him new things. No full sentences yet but his vocab must be up in the 300s now.

Bike riding

At the beginning of the summer, I had grand plans for biking riding this summer (well, at least one trip on Fathers' Day). Then morning sickness hit. So, one of my goals for the fall was to do some bike riding. We had tried to install the bike seat that my sister got us two Christmases ago earlier but wasn't able to get it on right so we finally got around to taking it to the bike shop to get it on Martin's bike correctly. These pics are from Labor Day weekend. We did one ride near our house and then one trip to this trail near Annapolis. We've gone out one more time since then before it got to be too unfortable for me to bike ride. We didn't think Dylan would like the helmet very much. It took a little while but now since he knows wearing a helmit means going for a ride, he goes and gets his helmet and even tries to put it on himself.

Playdates

A couple months ago we were able to return one of the many babysitting favors that Richie's parents have given us. Patricia and Russ went out for Patricia's birthday and we got to play with Richie. Dylan really enjoyed the little playdate. (Actually they had two playdates, two days in a row because Patricia watched Dylan for a couple hours the day before they went out while we were at the ultrasound. Hence, the different clothes on Dylan.)





Not sure why I couldn't get this picture to post straight. Here's Dylan making sure Richie is safe by putting his helmet on him.

Uncle Justin's visit

My brother made his once every 3 year visit to DC in August (I shouldn't give him a hard time though - we've only been to his place once since he moved there in '06.) Justin liked getting Dylan to say dump (wait for it...) truck. Our trip to Silver Diner below was lots of fun too as you can tell by the expressions on Dylan's face. Recently, Dylan impressed Uncle Justin by being able to say "Happy Birthday" to him on the phone on his 28th birthday on 9/30.

Pictures from our trip to FL in July - Part 2

Dylan and me on the beach during the 20 minutes we were there in all of the 10 days we spent in FL. I often question why I have so many relatives in FL who do not enjoy the beach as much as I do.

Dylan and Grandpa at the aligator (algie - as Dylan calls them now) zoo.

Dylan with Grandma and Great-Grandma at the museum by the train.
Dylan and Daddy playing on the train.

Can You Peas Smile?

We still have a hard time getting Dylan to eat solid veggies but he seems to really like the pureed ones. I think peas are actually his favorite, or maybe he just likes saying "peas." (I guess you have to look kinda closely to see the peas on his face.)

Pictures from our trip to FL in July - Part 1

Yes, I know it's October and I'm just posting pics from July. I'll use the financial crisis as an excuse even though the fact that I'm behind on my picture posting is due not to work reasons but to personal reason- Martin's new job, Dylan's swimming lessons, the fact that Dylan won't let me use the computer while he's around because he wants to look at the Cars website....etc.

Here I am meeting my godson and nephew Zak for the first time. Zak is known as Baby Zak in both our household and my sister's household. Not to be confused with Baby Zack - a name my band director called Justin when Carrie and I were in high school. I was Zack and Carrie was little Zack.


This is Zak in his baptism outfit - also worn by Dylan and Uncle Justin. Two blond cousins! Stevo and Dylan fought over Steven's toys most of the time we were there but I don't think they held it against each other. They were just bonding.
Dylan checking out Baby Zak.
Dylan in a firetruck at a children's museum we went to with my sister and her kids. Erik, Steven, and Dylan in the firetruck.
Carrie and Steven, Martin and Dylan.
I didn't get very many pictures of Rachel except this one at the zoo. Rachel was a big help with the little ones - she was always pushing one of the strollers.
Betcha ya never saw a giraffe at a petting zoo before...and now you'll think twice before shaking hands with Martin.