A man of few words...

..... and many sounds :P Micah isn't into using real words yet, but he is way into constantly babbling incoherently. I have to admit, it's pretty stinkin cute and I don't really mind so much that he isn't using words. Plus, he is making it easier and easier to understand what he wants without words.....

Recently he has started the absolutely adorable habit of picking up something he wants (typically his snapped-shut Cheerios container), walking over to you, taking your hand, opening it, and placing the item in you hand. He then watches you excitedly and bounces on his toes until you open up the container and give him something to eat. I enjoy giving him some, then closing the container and putting it down. He'll eat what's in his hand, and then pick the container up and put it in your hand and bounce expectantly. I wish I had pictures, but Micah tends to lose focus when the camera appears :)

20 Weeks

What? 20 weeks?? Sheesh, how did I get that far along?! That means if I go all the way to my due date, I am already half way through the pregnancy! Time has been flying like crazy! I looked at what my baby development said was going on with Lizzie this week and frankly it's all kinda graphic and gross, so I decided to spare you this week :) Just know that Elizabeth is growing and kicking and is now the size of a grapefruit!

Just one less thing to worry about ;-)

My parents came over yesterday just an hour or so after Micah's morning daring escape and I was telling them the options I had been thinking of for Micah's sleeping arrangements. To which they said, "Well, you know we moved your brother to a big bed at Micah's age...". WHAT? I've never heard of a kid being moved so young! BUT, Micah will have to move before Lizzie gets here and we already have the bed....might be worth a shot.

Well..... it went surprisingly well!! We took his mattress and box spring off of the frame and put them on the floor and held our breath while we put him down to sleep. Nate had to go up there once to calm him down soon after we put him down but then there was only one early morning awakening where someone had to go comfort him! Seeing as how he was in a room he has rarely seen before and his nightlight is burned out, I think one waking is pretty justified and understandable :) He slept on his bed (not on the floor, Mom and Dad!) I think this just might work out!

Just another thing to worry about :P

I put Micah down for a nap yesterday and went downstairs like any other day. I began to prepare for the playgroup to come over when I was startled by an incredibly loud thump. "What the heck?!" I went up to check on Micah and he was out of his crib.... %$&@#*!!! I knew it would happen eventually and it officially has... Micah has learned to climb out of his crib. Luckily he didn't seem to be hurt, just startled. Just another one of those my-life-just-got-a-little-bit-more-crazy moments :P

Well, this morning Micah woke up (an hour earlier than normal) and without making a sound to try to get me to come and get him, he climbed out of his crib and walked over to his monitor and turned it off :P Luckily, when he turns his end off, my end gets static, so I knew what he had done. Anyhoo, I'll be looking into tent cribs today :P

New in Katy

For those of you Katy people out there, I thought I would send out an FYI. In case you didn't know, the Brookwood Community has opened up a gift shop in La Centerra!! It is in the space that Get Personal used to occupy next to J Jill. It's kind of small, but they have some great stuff there.... and it might save you the hassle of fighting off crowds at the main store around Christmas time!

For those of you who don't know what Brookwood is, OH MY GOSH! It is a community for mentally challenged adults in Brookshire that gives them a place to have active employment. They raise really high quality plants (their greenhouse is very large and the poinsettia I got there last year was gorgeous!), run a large shop where many of the gifts are made by the adults in the community (and they have some seriously great stuff), and have an on site cafe that has really great food! The adults don't cook, but they serve as your waiters. The whole thing is not for profit and the money spent there goes to support the adults who live there. Go sometime! But call ahead and make reservations if you want to eat lunch in the cafe :)

No Title Necessary

Nate and I did something for the first time this last weekend... we tried having Micah sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's house..... it went great! He didn't get upset (like we thought he might) and they had a great time. Not only that, we got to go out with friends and not have to worry about being back by a certain time. Well, every good thing has to have a bit of the weird in it (in my family at least) and when our night out was over, I looked at my email and saw that my mom had tagged me in three photos on Facebook. I opened it up and I saw photographic documentation of Micah's night with my parents~

Yup, that's a dog costume... nope, my parents don't have a dog :P Haha, these made me laugh and didn't surprise me one bit.. maybe I have been a part of this family for a little too long.....

19 Weeks

Lynn asked me Saturday night why I hadn't been posting belly pics with this pregnancy.... the answer (of course) was that I have been too lazy and have forgotten to take them! I feel like I popped out really fast with this pregnancy and then have stayed the same size for a LONG time. Well, I seem to finally be getting somewhat bigger, so these pics might become interesting again :) Today marks 19 weeks for Elizabeth!

At 19 weeks, Lizzie is continuing to grow and the development that is occurring is very specific. The kidneys are making urine, and hair is beginning to sprout on her scalp. The parts of her brain that are responsible for the senses are specializing. Lizzie is now the size of a juicy juicy mango (that's for you mom ;-)

Oh, and I forgot to ever mention the results of my Micah poll. In asking him daily whether he thought he was getting a little sister or a little brother, a clear leader began to take form a few weeks in. Elizabeth won by a landslide... yay for Micah!

CocoaDreams Aprons Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

CocoaDreams Aprons Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Disneyland!

Our last full day in CA we devoted to Disneyland! I didn't think Micah would get much out of it, but I figured we were so close and had the time.... might as well check it out! I love this first pic because it is pretty much the only pictures of Micah not smiling the entire day.. he loved Disneyland! Even this pic I grabbed at just the right moment to make him look mad.. it cracks me up ~


We started on the Finding Nemo submarine ride which didn't freak Micah out despite the loud noises, confined spaces, and frequent darkness.. he had a blast! From there we went to the Dumbo ride (a classic!)~

From there we went to the spinning teacup ride which is fun and, I gotta say, crowded with three adults and a toddler :P

Ahhhhh! The best ride ever! The Astro Blaster! You are in a little pod travelling on a track that you can rotate around on your own free will and you shot at laser tag targets.... so fun! Plus, instead of charging you 12 dollars for a picture of yourself on the ride, they let you email the picture to yourself for free... how fun!

Micah on the "It's a Small World" ride. The ride ROCKS. It's so cool and Micah was going nuts trying to take in all of the different figurines.

The three of us in line for the Astro Orbiter. Micah was giddy by this point. He definitely understood the magic part of the magic kingdom :) I don't have any pictures of him in the Enchanted Tiki Room, but that was great too!

After an afternoon nap in the hotel (during which Grandma and mom stayed in the park, riding rides and shopping ;-) Micah came back refreshed and ready to show off his sweet ears~

We didn't know how Micah would react to the big fuzzy characters, but he LOVED them. He hugged them, blew them kisses and smiled from ear to ear. I wish we had discovered this earlier... he only got this one encounter! At least it was with the big mouse himself :)

Anyone with a toddler or baby can appreciate the rarity of a family picture where the kid is looking in the direction of the camera AND smiling... and all this without anyone on the other side of the camera trying to make him laugh! He really LOVED that mouse~

We let Micah pick his own stuffed animal and Tigger won hands down :)

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride :)

So all in all, we were worried that he wouldn't "get" Disneyland, but he adored everything about it. We went on TONS of rides and nothing freaked him out. We will definitely be making a return trip sometime in the future :)

Tuesday :)

On Tuesday, we sort of did a hodge podge of things starting with a trip to the Taco Bell Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana. Basically it is a children's museum that also has 4D movies and special exhibits that change once a month. There are a lot of cool science related displays that we enjoyed messing around with including the "shake shack" which was a room that simulated earthquakes and made me a little sick :P Here is mom in the Hurricane simulator ~


Micah enjoyed the Smokey the Bear campsite area and particularly enjoyed hauling the wood around... go figure :)

The current special exhibit was a hockey exhibit exploring, what else, the science of hockey. One of the things you could do (besides the reflex tester, skating simulator, and the full size Zamboni) was choose colors and a team to support. The computer took your picture and then using your colors projected this life size on a 3D hockey player mounted on the wall~

Micah had to do it too, of course ~

Nate opted for the goalie simulator that shot pucks at you from three different spots on the wall (think tennis ball cannon :P). He saved most of them!

We switched gears that evening and headed to the Angels game in Anaheim~

It was great! Beautiful weather, great view, free giveaway hats, and a good game too!

Micah was SO into pictures that night :P

San Diego Wild Animal Park

On Monday morning, we packed up munchkin and drove down to Escondido to visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park (a mere 11 months after visiting the San Diego zoo :). It was SOOOOO worth it! The park is gorgeous and huge and amazing and very well thought out and everything was wonderful, except the food :P We started out the day on a safari style tour of the Africa area of the park (only viewable on the tour). It was so pretty and let you get right up on the animals~

Micah was not so much into the tour as he had to stay in a confined space, but he was jazzed to get out and find this lovely collection of flamingos.

Micah ADORES birds, for a reason I don't fully get, and it is a blast to watch him smile and talk to them~

The weather was beautiful and fairly cool that day and we just had a great time. Here is Micah watching a funny looking, very large bird. I have at least 10 pictures of him smiling and flirting with this bird... it's lots of fun~

These were just so pretty and graceful :)

At one point, Grandmommy ran and hid (partially) from Micah. This was his response when I asked him "Where's Grandma?!". The blur is due to the fact that he was running full speed to Grandma while pointing her out for my benefit :)

A view of a small section of the park... it's huge... HUGE I SAY!!

My little inchworm :) and for those of you who think I should have chosen just 1 of these pics, I actually had more and they are all 100% adorable, so I did well to get it down to this many :P

Stone rhino.... stone. Just in case there is confusion ;-)

Lorikeets... we didn't get the nectar that makes them flock to you cause we thought it might freak Micah out (also, it is 4 bucks and we are cheap :P), but he still loved watching them~

Anyways, I HIGHLY recommend both the Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo if ever you are in the area. They may seem expensive (for a zoo), but they are so well designed and kept up and have so much to offer beyond what a normal zoo would have that it is completely worth it. Go forth... visit... become a fan :)

Pasadena

I've decided to blog about California in parts to keep it a reasonable length and not crash my site with too many pictures :) Our first stop on our trip (and the purpose for going) was Pasadena for Courtney and Andre's wedding. Our hotel was right in Old Pasadena and was the perfect location to let us walk to anything and everything... we didn't move our car the whole weekend! The first night there, we walked to the campus of Fuller Theological Seminary for the rehearsal dinner. Micah had a blast running around and I got this shot of his wicked sweet running form~



We spent the next day shopping and eating wonderful food in Old Pasadena. Near sunset, we headed to the wedding which was within walking distance (although as my mom and I discovered, "walking distance" changes when heels are involved... we hitched a ride back after the festivities :) Micah was looking sharp in his dress shirt and his new khakis which, due to his VERY skinny genes, were held on using a strategically placed binder clip.... classy, I know ;-)


Courtney was gorgeous as she married the love of her life under a really cool ancient oak tree. It was fun to see Andre and his whole family in traditional Norwegian dress and hear toasts given in both languages. As the sun set, the tree was lit by hundreds of white Christmas lights and the tables were pretty in candlelight and the light of paper lanterns. It was a great wedding and we got to catch up with some old friends from the past 21 years. I particularly enjoyed talking with Courtney's sisters who are older and when we were kids seemed SO MUCH older than me. Now they are just fellow moms and a ton of fun :)

Alicia and Jean were there and we loved being able to catch up with them. They looked beautiful, as always, and even managed to make night flash photography look good :)

Our trip to Pasadena included 1 trip a day to Pinkberry and we grabbed this shot in honor of Miss Elizabeth. Mmmmmm, Pinkberry... should have gone every day in Anaheim too.. what a shame :P