April Faith

She's here! April Faith arrived on her due date, September 22nd at 8:12 a.m. She weighed 8 lb 1 oz and was 20 inches long. I'll post a longer version of her birth story soon, but we are home as of Saturday and Bethany came home from Grandma and Papa's on Sunday afternoon and we're adjusting as a family of 4! Dan goes back to work on Thursday so I'm figuring out how to be the best mom of two girls that I can be.

You're still here?

Yep! No baby yet. This pregnancy has been crazy with my emergency appendectomy, headaches, a broken toe, a condition that caused me to have ultrasounds every 2 weeks at Methodist, moving out of the cabin, moving into our house, moving out of our old house, remodeling Bethany's room, changing daycare, moving Bethany into a big girl bed, back pain etc.

With our due date just days away, it just goes to show that every pregnancy is different! I think it could be for a number of different reasons and here are a few...

- I've done it before. Now that I have gone through this, I'm paying much more attention to warning signs and being more careful about doing too much (not going on 20+ mile bike trips without a cell phone for example)
- We have a Sleep Number bed. I know Dan works for Select Comfort so this may seem like a shameless plug, but I seriously sleep soooo much better than I did before we got the bed. Since our bed arrived the day my water broke with Bethany I didn't get the benefit of sleeping on it last pregnancy, but this time it has been wonderful!
- I'm a Type A personality. Because I want to be able to plan for everything, God must have wanted to keep my on my toes with a 5 week early baby and now a full-term (or past!) baby this time. It has been so strange trying to plan for a 7 week time period that I may be out on leave for work.
- This baby is going to be laid back. Bethany was ready to face the world early and that fits her personality now, so maybe this baby will be different.

So, baby girl, I'm learning a lot about myself during this process and about you! We can't wait to meet you and although I'd love some sort of message telling me exactly when that will be, I will be patiently waiting.

No baby on Labor Day

Although I thought it would be quite humorous to have a baby on Labor Day, this little girl is content to stay put for the time being. I'm now 37.5 weeks pregnant and feeling great! The weather this weekend was absolutely beautiful and it looks like it is going to last all week.... I love fall. We had a fun filled weekend getting a bedroom set for our bedroom, building storage shelves for our basement storage room for all the boxes to unpack someday, going to the fair and then the Minnetonka Orchard. Dan and I even got in a boat ride together to finally figure out a baby name. We're down to only a couple options now so I think we're ready!

Here are some pictures from the last week or so of fun.

Waiting for the bus to go to the fair - Bethany talked about the bus all day and woke up the next morning reminding us of the bus ride and who went on it ("mommy, daddy, Charlie, auntie" (and yes Brent we know you were there too:)



This one looks good

on the hayride at the orchard

She loved all the baby animals, and we're hoping for a miracle of birth soon too!

This is her current favorite book counting all the items on each page. There are 10 buttons which Dan and I have had to count many, many, many times and she does a great job counting along with us

Cutie pie at the Gale Woods farm last week before we found out we got free state fair tickets (thanks, Mike!)

which way do we go at the orchard? yummy apple donuts please!

cute little farm kids

checking out the chickens

Fun to grill yesterday with my whole family and just enjoy the nice weather at the lake. It will never be as easy as it is now once baby #2 comes, so I'm enjoying every minute!

Chatterbox

Someone told me that once Bethany started talking, it would be tough to get her to stop. Well that is certainly proving to be correct. In the last month or so her vocabulary has really taken off! I'm sure I'll miss a lot in my quick list, but here are some things she is saying these days:

my shoes (especially when she wants to go outside, and is usually followed by mommy shoes? or daddy shoes? if she wants us to come too)
oh no! (exclaimed anytime someone else is talking animatedly - like she wants to participate in the conversation)
clean up (sung to a song Auntie Amber taught her to pick up her toys - but everyone around must help clean-up time or else)
boat ride or dock, usually followed by saying fast (very excited to go fast on the boat and she has a favorite spot to hold on while she jumps up and down when we speed up)
thank you and please (still working on those but sometimes said spontaneously)
ABC's (she sings the entire song along with us, sometimes hard to hear each letter, but she knows what comes next in the song)
A bee! (stated at every bug, bee or fly that comes near us)
Mommy eye, mommy nose, mommy owie (puts mommy or daddy in front of everything she is talking about us for)

A week or so ago Bethany and I were outside and she saw a fly buzzing around and she said "bee!" I told her it was a fly, which she repeated, but then I told her to say "shoo fly" and she had the most confused look on her face. She slowly bent down and took off her shoe and started shaking it at the fly saying "shoe fly!" Too funny. I'm sure a lot of what we're teaching her is confusing like that, but I don't stop to think about it from her perspective which is what made me laugh so hard at this.

Bethany is also jumping, real jumping! She gets so excited if we say we're going to see cousin "Charyee" or friends "Ayish" or "baby E" she says yay, yay, yay while jumping with both feet off the ground. She loves to try and jump off anything, which we try to discourage, but she is really coordinated and seems to do just fine pushing her boundaries if we feel it is safe enough. Her interest in balls to kick, or bounce or throw is also really interesting and I wonder if we have a little athlete on our hands?

Bethany - we love you so much! At 22 months you are an active, busy full-fledged toddler and we love you to pieces. We're so proud you've adjusted so well to your new surroundings and pray that you continue to love to sing your Bible songs and read our Bible stories each night. I love when you point out Jesus in the stories and remind us to pray for dinner or before bed if we happen to forget. You love routine and know exactly what we need to do for simple things, like going for a boat ride - you get your shoes, towell, and then make sure mommy and daddy get theirs too :) We can't wait for your new little sister to arrive because you will be a great role model for her to look up to - her big sister!

New baby's nursery

Here it is! Having baby #2 is so nice when you can reuse everything you had the first time around. The furniture fits in the room so well, now all we need is baby in a few more weeks!

Thanks Dan for getting the ceiling light and fan and closet shelves done and Roger and Monica for painting and helping Dan move in the furniture last weekend. And Amber for helping get the tiny diapers and clothes in the drawers :)

Moving, Part 2

We sold our Minnetonka place! It has been a busy couple of weeks trying to get all the details finalized but we will be closing September 13th. We were concerned about a couple of things that could cause the deal to go through but so far things are moving along smoothly. The inspection found what we had expected that the roof over the addition needed replacing but thankfully that was the only thing they asked to have done. Dan spent yesterday afternoon and evening tearing off the old roof and laying new water barriers so that the Richters could come next week and put down the new shingles. Scott came and helped which was great to have someone with experience in roofing, plus to keep Dan going after a long tiring day!

We're now in the midst of packing as we left the house pretty much fully furnished for showings. Dan and his parents moved everything for the nursery into the baby's room last weekend and everytime we stop at the house we pick up a few things to hopefully make the move next weekend go as smoothly and quickly as possible. I'll post some pictures of the baby's room as soon as I take some - it turned out great! I love the Harvest Brown color on the walls (thanks Monica for painting the rooms upstairs!) and with the sloped ceilings it is such a cute little nursery.

The weather has been perfect for packing and Dan's roofing project and I hope it stays nice through next weekend too. June was cold and rainy, July was HOT but so far August has been pleasant which has been so wonderful being pregnant. Even though I've had a few bad back pain days, this week I'm feeling a lot better and actually have been getting some things checked off my to-do list. Amber came with Charlie and helped me organize the baby's room and get her clothes washed and put away... so nice! It would be great if I can last a few more weeks, not only for the baby's sake, but also to get through the move and hopefully feel a bit more organized and ready.

A couple more things on my to-do list:
PICK A BABY NAME!!! We are down to three first names, but need to agree on the middle
Buy a baby book, 2nd video monitor, noise maker (love the sleep sheep) and a few more things on my registery
Find rugs and toy storage for Bethany's room - I'm thinking shelves with baskets to keep things hidden but cute
Pack my hospital bag - Bethany was born at 35 weeks, 5 days which is next Monday.. what will this baby do?

Lots of other things to do related to organizing and unpacking, but that is what winter months are for, right? I still want to enjoy the summer as much as possible and give Bethany lots of 1:1 attention. She had a hard time seeing the crib get setup and her baby toys be put in the room. We kept making a big deal of her big girl bed, fun new room and toys but I'm sure she is remembering when she had the baby things not that long ago and it is yet another transition. She has been a trooper though and really good about everything all things considered.

I'll need another post to talk about all of her new words, but her vocabulary has just exploded the last few weeks! She came in from a walk with Grandma last week and said she saw a "Derr!" and that the boat "beeped" at her when she waved. She repeats everything we say (better be careful!) and we can understand so much more of what she says which is fun. At almost 22 months, she is growing up so fast and will tell you she's "one" with her pointer finger... good thing she caught on to that before we have to start teaching her "two" in October!

weekend getaway for Kevin's wedding near Lutsen