Noah 22 months

 Playing in the dirt (with a shovel, not hands...improvement!)

 One of his all time favorite past-times, watching daddy cut the grass. We need to get him one of those kid lawn mowers that blows bubbles!

Noah is over 22 months now! That last picture is him playing hide and seek. If you can't tell, he is a champion at hide and seek. And he ALWAYS answers, "I'm right here!" if you ask where he is while he's hiding. He is so much fun right now and still such a charmer. It melts my heart when he says please, thank you, and excuse me on his own with a cute little smile. How could someone ever be mad at someone that cute? When he's disobedient we often have to look away because we are cracking up inside.

I love the way he yells, "Mommy!" then a couple seconds later, "Daddy!" then, "Mommy Daddy get me OUT!" when he wakes up in the morning. This morning he was doing the usually yelling and then saying, "Jumping time Mary!" When Mary told him no and to stop. I think she was still tired...Bedtime is still interesting and mostly involves them playing until they drop.

He continues to be pretty friendly. He likes to tell people bye bye, see you later! And he will stand at the door doing that until they are out of sight. He REALLY likes to help me. I'm hoping this continues for years to come. If I can see a struggle coming with getting him to do something I just say, "can you please help mommy __________" I don't know why it works, but he loves to help. And his newest development is saying OK instead of yes. Noah do you want to go outside? OK. Noah are you all done eating? OK. Are you going to say yes ever again? Yes OK.

victory

Yes, that is 3 car seats in the back of my Toyota corolla. They are wedged in with absolutely no room in between, but they are installed safely! And we had to buy a new car seat...but $200 is cheaper than $10,000. Buying ourselves some time!

Appointment

Just thought I would post a quick update about my appointment yesterday. My friend/doula came with me and it was so nice to have her there! We got to hear baby's heart beat and chat with Dr. Bowen for a few minutes. He signed off on the birth plan so that's good to go! It hasn't changed a whole lot since last time, but there are a few minor things I wanted to make sure he saw. Then he asked if I had any questions...no. I never do. Sometime I want to have a unique whopper of a question for him, but really it's just time to hang out until baby comes. So I'll return next week hopefully for another boring appointment, or possibly in labor:)

Dirt

This is nothing, I realize that. Tip of the iceberg when it comes to dirt on the face. But I would really like to know why boys have this unstoppable urge to grab a handful of dirt and do one of three things:
1. eat it
2. rub it on their bodies
3. throw it
That list is in order of Noah's preference. And it's any dirt, all the time. Mary never did this. I mean I think she tried to eat dirt once? But it's every time Noah goes outside!

BFF's

Mary and Noah are best friends. They LOVE being together. Recently we put them into the same room so they could get used to it before baby comes and it has been very interesting. I try to remind myself that I have prayed for a long time that they would be best friends when they are having "jumping time" instead of sleeping. It has been difficult to say the least. They are tired during the day and so excited to be in the same room that they can't sleep at night. A couple funny things that have happened is that as soon as we walk out of the room Noah will say, "Jumping time Mary???" What an instigator. We have told them that they have to stay laying down and stay in bed..those are the only rules. Mary has no problem with them, but Noah would rather be jumping! I've also heard Noah whisper, "Come here Mary!!" multiple times. Occasionally she'll get sucked in by his charm, but usually I hear the reply, "No Noah."

So I'm going to focus on the fact that they love being together and what an answer to prayer that is! Sprinkler time:

Such a big girl I can't believe it:

This is what he did most of the time...he only occasionally joins in the sprinkler fun.

Green juice

So I read on a friend's blog about how she has made smoothies for her kids with spinach in them. Let me just say that veggies gross me out. I really hate vegetables, but I try to eat them and I've made them a part of my kid's diet since they were 6 months old. So mostly I wanted to start making these smoothies for myself! Trust me, I would not eat them if you could taste the spinach...but you can't! It's awesome! I sliced some bananas and froze them. The first smoothie I made I just used the bananas, some strawberries, a handful of spinach leaves, and some apple juice. It was seriously delicious. The next one I ran out of strawberries so I just used a very ripe pear and I think that one was even better. And more green, which is Mary's favorite color:)

Anyway, the kids loved them and I found a way to eat spinach without wanting to throw up! I highly recommend them.

Appointment

I had an appointment yesterday and everything is going well. Baby's heart rate looks good and baby is very low (tell me something I don't know!). That's basically all that happens at my appointments so there's not much else to tell. I had Dr. Bowen, who I love, and he was just as pleasant as ever. It makes me a little sad that he might not be the one to attend my birth since he was there for the other two, but he hired a partner two years ago so...it might be Dr. Wall. Personally I don't really care too much. I always tell moms that a baby is coming out no matter what. For 95% of women there's really no stopping it! So it's not a huge deal to me who's sitting at the end of the bed as long as they are not trying to force me into unnecessary interventions.

I told Ian the other day that it didn't really matter because I want to catch this baby anyways. He quickly responded that I wasn't allowed since HE was going to catch the baby! I pointed out that he chickened out last time. I know you will all be sitting on the edge of your seat to see this drama unfold...so I'll let you know what happens in a few weeks;)