Videos from the weekend

I remembered my video camera this time! In this first video my cousin Val thought it would be funny to tease Mary with her food...and it was:

Mary is generally a pretty laid back kid, but sometimes she goes into what we call "hyper mode." Here is a video of her latest episode of hyper-Mary. The best part is at the end when she starts kicking her legs like crazy and almost kicks herself in the face:

Norris Lake Family Visit

Mary and I spent the weekend in Norris Lake visiting family! It was a great time of relaxation and catching up. We spent most of the time at the little house we rented or at the park that was really close by. These first few pictures are when the girls decided to run around. We walked outside and Cara said, "Let's go run!" And she was so excited. It's nice when running around a yard can be entertainment for half an hour. Although Grandma Julie/Juliemybestfriend was getting pretty tired and asked the other grown ups if we wanted to switch. No one offered to be chased around by 3 kids. Can you believe it???



Mary joined in the running fun and found a flower too!

Cali found a caterpillar while we were outside running. She put it in Mary's hand and the second it started to move Mary chucked it down the stairs. It was pretty funny:)

The girls also thought it would be fun to throw rocks into the lake. Val (the 29 year old) thought it would be fun to see how far she could throw a rock and hit the neighbors all metal dock.



And here are some pictures from the park. We all had a great time!





Me and baby #2 and 29 weeks!

What we've been up to

With Ian coaching tennis that has left a lot of time for me and Mary to fill. So one day I tried letting her watch a baby Einstein DVD. She sat like this for about 5 minutes:

And then she cuddled with me...which makes me want to do this more often!

We've also been playing outside a lot:

And Mary likes to help clean:

And she climbed up into the kid chair before I had a chance to clean them off. They've been outside all winter so she had some dirty pants going on.

And here is Mary eating the way her daddy does:

27 week appointment

Everything went well at my appointment today. Almost 28 weeks! I had a glucose test to see if I have gestational diabetes and I didn't pass out! And I don't have diabetes! Although I did get short of breath and had to lay back in the chair. She poked my finger once and didn't get enough blood for the glucose test and the iron test so she had to do it again. I was wondering if she just wanted to see someone pass out today! No needles in heaven!

I got to choose whether I wanted to come back in 2 or 4 weeks and she said after this it's every 2 weeks. So 4 weeks it is! I love my doctor and would honestly drive like an hour to go to his practice, but the less I have to go the better. I found another reason today why I like him so much: he has books in every patient room in his office filled with pictures of him with babies:) He looks so happy in each picture. What a rewarding job he has!

Brooklynn's Birthday

We had my niece Brooklynn's birthday party on Sunday where we celebrated her 3rd year of life! Happy Birthday big girl!


Here is Mary sharing some cake and ice cream with her Grandma Julie:

And here is her face when she realizes how cold ice cream is:

And a picture of me, Ian, and baby #2 at 27 weeks:)

Parenting is hard

Have I said that before? In the past three months Mary has gotten 3 molars and two front teeth and she's had a large lump in her gums (signifying the imminent arrival of a fourth molar) for over a month now. This does not make for a happy baby. If you've met Mary you know how she is generally happy and easy to please...well not in the past three months.

Anyway, I'm re-reading The Baby Whisperer and I got to a part yesterday that I thought was really great and encouraging for our current situation. She says there is, "an inescapable law of parenting: nothing stays the same very long. After all, this is the only job on earth in which not only do the requirements keep changing, but so does the 'product'" Later she says, "problem solving means asking the right questions, so that you can figure out the source of a child's upset and the reasons for her new behavior, and then coming up with a plan for changing the situation - or learning how to live with the new circumstances." These two quotes really stuck out to me because the first one is so true, and the second is what we've been dealing with. We've had to come up with a plan to deal with whining and learn to live with our little girl being in a foul mood most of the time. I'm also hoping that this doesn't stay the same very long:)

Anyway, I'm glad I'm almost done with the book. It's GREAT for giving you ideas on how to do a lot of things with your infant/toddler. But at some point you just get tired of reading those things. I remember in the beginning getting so frustrated with books that were full of philosophy and didn't just tell me HOW to parent and what to do. But now I really appreciate those books and would like to start on another one!

Baby #2 at 27 Weeks

Here is a picture of me and baby #2 at 27 weeks! Baby is most active around 5-6 in the morning. If this is the way things are when baby is born that is alright by me! It's much better than being active at 2 in the morning:)

Besides being really busy we are doing well. Ian has started coaching tennis. He's never played tennis and doesn't know much about it...but he's a good coach in general. So I guess that makes him qualified. He's having fun coaching, but he has 3-4 matches each week for the next few weeks. Luckily a lot of them are home so Mary and I can go up and see him. Mary likes to throw the tennis balls around:) And unfortunately she REALLY liked it when we let her run on the courts during practice one day. She made a pile of all the balls in the corner of the fenced in area. Now as soon as she sees the courts she runs to the gate and wants inside. Some of the guys he coaches come to Young Life so they know Mary, as much as you can know a 19 month old I guess:). And they will let her play with their rackets and they try to play with her too. But she is too shy most of the time.
She's starting to come out of her shell a bit though! Especially if you have food or a dog (a "woof woof" in her words). She will be your best friend then. She tries to jump on dogs when she sees them, which makes a great first impression on strangers! OK enough rambling about us:)

More beach fun

Here are some more pictures from our time at the beach. I feel like we are finally getting back into our groove here at home and it's really nice. Although I do miss sitting on the beach during Mary's naps and reading my book/talking to Cari!

I love the girl's scrunchy faces in this pic:




She ran up to the gate and started signing "more". It was so funny! We didn't know what she wanted more of but sometimes I think she does that because she knows we think it's so cute that we'll basically give her whatever she wants:)

More on womanhood

Becoming God's True Woman is still good:) But I've also been listening to some other things including the following talks by Voddie Baucham. The funny thing is Ian says that Voddie is probably more conservative than we are spiritually, but I really like him!
One thing I really like in his talk is what he says about love. I included the section of the youtube videos of his that talks about love. He defines love as an act of the will, a choice. He says that the world views love as an emotion. I have seen this all around me, but I find no biblical basis for it. I also don't see love working out too well for people who believe it is an emotion. I think his definition is completely biblical. Although, I like to say that love is a person. God is love. But Jesus came to show us who God is, and Jesus shows us very clearly that love is a choice or an act of the will. He chooses to love us, he clearly doesn't love us for his own benefit! What hard creatures we are to love!
My friend Sheila has a very good analogy for Jesus' act of love toward us. She said that if she became a dog, it would be much easier for her to relate to her dog (and also tell him to stop eating rocks). Consider the difference between Dogs and people. How frustrating would it be to become a dog when you already know what it's like to be a human?!? Well, Jesus essentially did the same thing. He is God, yet he became human as an act of love for us. Awesome.
Here is the video from Voddie. If you are a woman you should watch the whole series! Men should watch too, but it's seriously great stuff about womanhood.

Love at first sight

We just got back from our trip to Florida. It was a long two days in the car, but the trip was amazing over all. The girls slept well (we went with our friends and their little girl), I got some alone time, Ian and I had some great time together, and we made memories with some of our best friends. Just thought I'd write a quick post to say we made it back and that we had a great time.

This post is titled love at first sight to describe Mary's thoughts on the ocean. We literally had to restrain her from running straight into the ocean all the time. I almost cried watching her play in the ocean because she was SO HAPPY and joyful. She had a permanent smile on her face and laughed so much when she was playing in the waves. By the end of the week she would get so excited whenever we pulled out her bathing suit! Here are some pictures of the very first time we walked out to the ocean. We weren't sure how she would take it so we didn't even bother getting out the bathing suit since we'd just gotten there.





We decided to go change into bathing suits after she'd gotten her clothes all wet...more pictures to come soon!