Ultrasound pictures

If anyone reading this can identify any body parts on these pictures, please let me know!



We had another ultrasound yesterday, and I've resigned myself to the fact that we're not going to have any good pictures of our little guy while he's in the womb! Beth, the ultrasound tech, was a little bit friendlier this time, but Drew wasn't very cooperative. Just like our previous ultrasounds, he was facing down, towards my back. And he was also covering up his face with his hands for most of it! Almost nonstop, it feels like he's doing somersaults inside my belly, so it's crazy that he doesn't move around more during the ultrasounds. Maybe he doesn't like Beth any more than we do!

This was I think the neatest picture we got.....and I specifically asked Beth to go back and take a picture of it.....otherwise, we wouldn't even have this one! I think this picture of his spine is so cool:

Here she's labeled his hands.....it's probably a little hard to see on the small image, but you can make out the fingers (sort of!).And apparently these are his feet....I'm trusting her on this one!Here he's covering up his face. Do you see what I mean when I say that we don't get any good pictures???!!
All kidding aside, I am very thankful for what's most important.....that little Drew seems to be doing great. Based on the measurements, Beth estimated his weight at 2lbs 8oz. This equated to a baby at almost 29 weeks, which is one week ahead of schedule. I still consider myself to be due on October 3, though. We'll see what happens!

Baby has a name!

We have finally decided on a name for our new little guy: Andrew Dean. We'll call him Drew. I was hesitant to give him such a popular name (Andrew was #10 last year), but all of the names that we liked have been popular in the past few years. And hopefully by calling him Drew, he won't have a ton of friends with the same name. I still really like Jack too, so we might use that one if we have a third boy. To Dean, Jack sounds like a nickname and not a real first name. But I think if I'm pregnant with boy #3, Dean might not have too much say in the matter!! Just kidding.....

I've been restless lately, wanting to get things ready for little Drew to come. I'm almost 28 weeks now, which is SO hard to believe! It has just flown by, and it seems like suddenly we're getting really close! We bought paint for his room, and I've bought a crib bumper that I think will be cute. I still need to get the crib skirt and sheets for his crib. Grant is still very happy in his crib, so I'm not sure how (or when) we'll try out the toddler bed. I'm thinking maybe a month or so before the due date.....

I also researched double strollers and ended up ordering one last week. I have found that by going on the internet, we've been able to find a lot of things for MUCH cheaper than we'd find them at Babies R Us (at least for big purchases like strollers, carseats, etc.).

And what I'm most excited about.....I know, this is a little silly.....I ordered a nice, very cute JuJuBe diaper bag. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT if you want (I ordered the brown/champagne color)....it's definitely a splurge but I learned with Grant (and from seeing Leah's nice bag) that I wanted a backpack this time around! And I know I could have just gone with a simple Jansport or something, but we're saving a lot of money by having another boy (at least in theory!). Anyway, the backpack came a few days ago and I LOVE IT!! I can't wait to use it!

Dean is coming home early today because we have our last ultrasound at 3:20. Hopefully this time we can get some decent pictures.....if so, I will post them!

Amminadab, the banished kitty

One of my favorite children's authors is Nick Bruel. I ran across a few of his books at the library over a year ago, and they're great! One of them is called Bad Kitty.....it goes through the ABCs, where each letter stands for something bad that the kitty does (very creative!!). I feel like I could write a book like this about our male cat Amminadab. He loves people and he loves to be petted, but he's had some major issues lately.

Ever since we first got him (and our more well-behaved female cat, Scooter) three years ago, he has scratched furniture. His favorite targets were our couches. This drove me crazy, and I got more and more mad every time he did it. Finally, this February, we had him declawed. He had a hard time with it for a few days, but within about a week he seemed back to normal. For a few weeks before we had him declawed, he and Scooter both had escaped into our backyard here and there a few times. Amminadab especially loved going outside, but we figured we'd have to keep him inside after having the procedure done.

Well, I guess just from having some outdoor experiences, he knew that there were other neighborhood cats around. Soon after having him declawed, we noticed some yellow patches along the wall and on the floor in our living room. Sure enough, they smelled strongly of cat pee. We've tried a few different things to get him to stop spraying, but he still does it. According to statistics I've seen, only 10% of neutered male cats feel the need to spray. We are the lucky owners of one of them!

And lately, when he decides that he wants attention or wants to go outside in the morning, he'll start meowing very loudly, sometimes as early as 4:30 or 5am. It's woken Grant up early a few times, which makes me VERY angry! I need all the sleep I can get these days! We try to confine him to our closet when he starts meowing, but lately he'll run down the stairs as you're coming towards him, and wait just long enough for you to get back in bed before coming back up and meowing again. AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

And....best of all.....sometimes after being outside in the morning, I'll let him come in to eat. He eats a ton of food and then throws up EVERYWHERE.....the other day I found it in five different places around the house after Grant and I got home from doing errands. That was fun to clean up! And he almost always seems to throw up on the carpet, not the tile (which covers 80% of the downstairs)!

So Amminadab is becoming an outside kitty, at least during the day. So far we've only left him out one night.....even though he makes me so mad, he does look quite pitiful when he's standing outside the door meowing at night, wanting to come in. We bought a tag for him with his name and our phone number, in case he roams too far (which I can't see him doing.....he seems very content in the confines of our backyard). Poor Scooter....she is so sweet but now she hardly has a playmate anymore!

We had a wonderful July 4 holiday.....more about that later! I don't have pictures uploaded yet (of course!).

A few pictures from the past 10 days or so:

We had some of our friends over for dinner two Fridays ago. They both have kids who are 6 months older than Grant. All the kids had a wonderful time playing together! We bought a little picnic table that Dean set up inside the house earlier that day (we figured it was too hot for them to eat outside). The kids loved eating at the table.....I think it makes them feel like big kids! Andrew and Grant ate dinner there (although I hadn't taught Grant yet to stay at the table while he's eating, so he ended up taking his peanut butter sandwich with him all over the place). And before they left, Andrew shared his Fruit Loops with Grant and Lexie.....it was so cute seeing them all sit together! They also had fun outside.....when they heard the door open, they'd all run towards it and line up to go out!



The next day, I gave Grant his lunch at the table. It's funny.....I gave him his juice and a graham cracker to eat while I was making his sandwich, and he immediately went to sit at the table, then looked at me, very proud of himself! He's slowly learning that he needs to sit at the table until he's done.....he keeps trying to stand up and walk around with his food. And of course he tries to climb on top of the table as often as he can, so we're trying to stop that too!

19-Month Update (a little late!)

Now that Grant's almost 19 and a half months old, I figured I needed to write about what he's doing at this age.

- In the past few days, Dean and I have started calling Grant "Dr. No." He says "no" all the time, to almost every question we ask him! Sometimes he knows what we're asking and he really means "no" (like when we suggest something he doesn't want to do). But other times, he'll also say no when we ask him general questions like "is your milk good?" About 10 days ago we were having a bad day and I lost my temper with him. Then I picked him up and apologized and asked, "will you forgive me?" He shook his head and (very sure of himself) said, "no." I know he didn't understand what I was asking him, so it didn't hurt my feelings.....it was more funny than anything!

- (Related to the last point)- When I can tell that Grant needs a diaper change, I'll ask him if he's gone poopy. He'll pull up his shirt on the side (without even looking down), shakes his head, and says very simply, "no." What a little liar!!

- One of his favorite things to say these days is "let's go!" When we're about to leave to go out, he loves to say this over and over again! It sounds more like "deh doh," but he's so proud of himself when he does it!

- He loves to wave and say "bye!" He does this when people are walking (or driving) away, but he also does it if he starts walking up the stairs (he'll look at us and do it). Or when we're in the front yard, he'll start walking down the sidewalk, looking back every 10 feet or so to wave and say goodbye. And lately, he likes to wave and say goodbye to his poopy (if it's dry enough in his diaper to flush it!). Then he'll pull some pieces of toilet paper and throw it down into the toilet behind it!

- If he hurts himself, he says "oww." Then he'll come up to me or Dean, stick out his hand or foot and expects us to kiss it!

- He knows the number two!! He'll go pick up two balls (or two of the same of anything), and he holds them up high on his chest and says "two!" We haven't tried teaching him how to count yet, and he hasn't figured out the number three yet!

- For a few months, he has enjoyed being chased. But lately, he runs straight into the dining room and hides in one corner of the dining room table.....every time! We pretend that we don't know where he is, and we'll look in a lot of places before "finding" him (or until he jumps out to scare us).

- I've pretty much gotten him down to one long nap per day....yay! He usually goes to sleep somewhere between 10:30am and noon, and he'll sleep for 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Bedtime has gotten a little later recently.....by the time I play with him in his crib, he usually is going to sleep right around 9pm. And he doesn't like to read many books.....he just wants to get in his crib and play!

- In mid-late June, his top and bottom canine teeth started poking through on the left side. Still no sign of the ones on the right....

- Some words he's just picked up: mower (he says "mow" when he sees any lawn mower), eye (he'll point to/poke our eyes and say it!), shoe, bike, boat two, brush (we've been painting and he loves to play with brushes). And I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of right now!