two thumbs up for big boy drawers

Potty training didn't go anywhere close to how we had planned.  We should have known better than to literally plan out the week that we were going to tackle this.  Funny thing is, it was so.much.better than we could have expected, and I consider that nothing less than a blessing from God.  

One day out of the blue a few weeks "early" Lucas said "Mommy, I don't wear diapers anymore."

Excuse me?  Then what do you suggest that we do, Mr. Independent?

"I wear my big boy drawers!!!"

Insert fear. excitement. pride. fear. dread. amazement. fear. etc.

We bought big boy drawers a while back and started talking up the whole pee peeing on the potty stuff.  We tried him in underwear a few times here and there but my busy body didn't seem ready for this yet.  So it took him straight up refusing diapers (like literally would not let me put them on) out of the blue one day for us to be thrown into a potty training vortex. There was no turning back.

With a lot of hype and a lot of pee pee dances (even with the grandparents over FaceTime)

 and a LOT of m&m's...

WE DID IT!

With the help of our friends, we had our fun along the way too.

And yes, Poppy taught him how to pee pee on a tree.  Boys.

cue bon jovi!

ooooooh we're halfway there!
ooooooh living on a prayer!
take my hand, we'll make it i swear!

We made it to 20 weeks!  It's hard to believe we are halfway through with this pregnancy.  This time has gone by much quicker than when I was pregnant with Lucas.  The thing is, when you're pregnant with your first, it's all you have to think about!  You take naps and clean your house and day dream about the little baby growing inside.  With second babies and beyond, you are wishing for naps but are too busy chasing the little maniac toddler all over the place and it's all you can do to keep from stepping on the little dump trucks and train pieces scattered all over the living room floor as you think, "man...I should clean my house."  Day dreaming happens but looks different, as you try to remember how many weeks you are and sometimes try to squeeze in small places that you can't fit into because you momentarily forgot you were pregnant.  Or is it just me?  When we scheduled our ultrasound, I thought I made it for 18 weeks.  Well it was at 19 weeks because I completely miscounted.  That would have never happened in my first pregnancy!  I could rattle off my gestational weeks without thinking.  Now, it's....ummm....yeah, we're 20 weeks!  I think...

For the most part I'm feeling pretty good.  Aside from a few random nausea spells in the mornings and sporadic leg cramps at night, we are trucking right along!  Lucas is fascinated with the baby in my belly and loves to give her hugs and kisses and say things like "you growing baby?  you want some milk?  you want some fooooood?"  

He is so sweet and gentle and wants to feel her move.  Brandon felt her move the weekend of the 4th, right at 19 and a half weeks.  We were in Asheville at the time, so my mom got to feel her too!  By the time my dad tried, she had quieted down.  He says he is just the baby whisperer and put her to sleep.  We'll see about that.   

 

We have talked to Lucas a lot lately about the responsibilities of being a big brother.  When we are having a particularly difficult toddler moment (aka a "fofo" - full on freak out) we remind him that his baby sister is listening to everything he is saying and that he needs to teach her early how to be a good listener.  And the crazy thing is, sometimes it works!  He is practicing giving gentle hugs to his Mickey and reads stories to his cars.  My heart melts each and every time.  

Our first girly gift, a pack of headbands, was given to us by Betsy and Josh, and we just had to try one on Lucas.  Wouldn't he make a pretty little girl?  Excuse his goofy squinty eyed grin he is doing in all of the pictures.  It's the new face he makes when he is told to smile.  And excuse my manic looking face in the picture below, it's just my face.  I'm still in awe we are having a girl. 

So, 20 weeks down and 20ish more to go!  I say "ish" loosely, because Lucas was a week late.  I'm convinced I will still be pregnant on Thanksgiving which gives me an excuse to eat my weight in turkey.  Let's do this!

it's independence day

We loaded the car again and headed to the mountains for the 4th of July.  The timing worked out great since we left Raleigh right after our ultrasound appointment for the big gender reveal.  We spent the rest of the weekend hiking and relaxing and exploring.

We went to Lucas's favorite hiking spot to play in the creek.  Lexi loved it just as much as Lucas did!

Lucas thought he was hot stuff carrying his own backpack! 

We went to Splashville downtown and Lucas ran and ran and ran in the fountains.

Lucas and Nana spent lots of time tending to her garden, picking veggies and watering the plants.

And of course, lots of time was spent playing and practicing how to be a good big brother with my old baby dolls and stuffed animals.

We went to Antler Village on Biltmore Estate on the 4th and listened to a band play.  We didn't see any fireworks since Lucas goes to bed so early, but that's okay.  We had a great time in the mountains and are always sad to leave.  Until next time, mountains!

sugar and spice and everything nice

That's what little girls are made of!

We had our big ultrasound at 19 weeks. As excited as I was to know if baby Hudson was a little boy or a little girl, of course I was a nervous wreck leading up to the appointment.  Blame it on the pediatric nurse in me who sees the worst of the worst.  But our little girl gave us a full on show right as the ultrasound began, letting us immediately know that pink is in our near future!  The ultrasound showed she was perfect and growing, although we didn't get one single typical ultrasound picture of her face profile.  She was snuggled up next to my placenta the entire time and would not turn her head towards us to get her picture made!  What a diva.

I was genuinely surprised that we saw a little girl on the screen.  On the way there, Brandon and I both said that we had strong feelings that it was going to be another boy.  I felt like I was carrying the same way I carried Lucas, and the other differences in this pregnancy I attributed to chasing a toddler around.  So all signs pointed to boy.  Honestly, we would have been thrilled either way.  But now that we know it's a girl, we are over the moon!

After the ultrasound, we packed up and headed to Asheville for a long weekend.  The timing was almost perfect.  We planned to tell both of our parents in person the gender of the baby when we got into town.  We were only able to tell my parents in person, however, because Brandon's parents had to unexpectedly go to Florida a little early because Brandon's sister had her baby!  So we ended up telling them on FaceTime.

To tell my parents, we decided to wrap the appropriate colored silly string can in white paper and have them squirt Lucas to see if it was pink or blue.  Take a look:

So funny!  There is a decent change my mom may kill me for sharing this video but I had to! One of my favorite parts of the video is after I give them instructions to spray Lucas, my dad immediately starts counting and my mom says "spray him?!"  Typical Nana and Poppy personalities, my dad says go for it and my mom thinks logically about what is about to happen since I forgot to tell them it was just silly string.  My dad actually told us a few days before that he was 89% sure it was another boy.  Random, I know.  Well dad, you were 89% wrong!  I love how he yells "we were wrong! we were wrong!" in the video.  It never gets old watching that!  Brandon's parents were equally as ecstatic, as were the rest of our family and friends.

Now as we start thinking of girl names and girl rooms and all things that come along with raising a girl, we are overwhelmed with thanksgiving.  So to all of you mamas of girls out there, any tips are appreciated!  Lucas knows he is going to have a baby sister and it's so cute to hear him talking about it.  He's going to be the best big brother.

Baby girl, keep growing.  We love you already!

lake living

Last weekend, we packed up and headed to the lake for a few days.  Brandon and Lucas picked me up from work on Wednesday so we could head on down and have a full day Thursday.  We weren't sure how it would work having Lucas fall asleep in the car on the way there and then move him to his bed at the lake, but we knew plenty of people who have done that with their kids so we decided to give it a try.  What's the worst that could happen, right?  Well...

He didn't sleep.  At all.  All night.  Not. One. Minute.  He fell asleep in the car around 9:00 (which is already an hour past his bedtime) and we arrived at the lake at 10:00.  So for one hour, he slept.  When we got to the house, MiMi took him downstairs to his room and tried to put him to sleep.  Brandon and I unloaded, got a snack, etc. and then heard Lucas and MiMi downstairs...awake.  So we went down there to lay down the iron fist and get him to sleep, which was a complete fail.  The child would not sleep.  I get it, he was excited, but he was exhausted.  I was up with him until 3:00 and let Brandon sleep for a while, then at the moment where I was in tears because I was so tired and my child would not show his love for me by letting me sleep for goodness sake, I went and woke Brandon up and shoved Lucas at him.  Your turn, daddy.  Brandon stayed up with him until about 5:00 when MiMi got back up and took over.  The whole time we were up with him we were trying to get him to go to sleep.  Lucas, see it's dark outside.  Everyone is asleep.  The ducks are asleep.  The boats are asleep.  Please. Sleep.  Not one minute, y'all.  

So Thursday morning we got up and had breakfast and watched my drunk acting child in his sleepy stupor still be giddy over the fact that we were at the lake.  We went down on the beach after breakfast and Lucas went straight for the water.  He and Brandon kayaked and Lucas rode the kiddie jet ski all by himself!

Right before lunchtime, we decided to take a boat ride.  I whipped out my new maternity bathing suit (awww yeah!) and embraced the awkward stage of pregnancy where a regular bathing suit doesn't work and a maternity suit is still a little big.  

Lucas was soaking up every minute of being on the boat.  He did everything from drive to ride Titanic style on the very front.

Within 30 seconds of the above picture being taken, Lucas turned around and walked straight to me, crawled up on my lap, and was OUT.

And shortly after that, so was I.  

To wrap up the sleep saga, he napped on the boat and then again at the house, and the next two nights were not pleasant and not filled with much sleep, but we still had a blast during the days.  

We went on a search for the family of geese every day and brought them bread.  We were lucky enough to have them come straight up to the dock one afternoon.  Lucas was thrilled, and ate about half of their bread. Silly goose.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, but Lucas wanted to jump off of the dock into the water to Brandon.  I am so mad at myself that I didn't get a picture or a video!  It's a 3 or 4 foot drop down into the water, and my little daredevil did it.  Three times.  

He also rode the real jet ski.  As I was yelling "slow down!" from the dock, Lucas was yelling "faster Daddy, faster!" from the jet ski.  No surprise there. 

The evenings were filled with sunset boat rides across beautiful Lake James where we stopped the boat for frequent dance parties, requested of course by Lucas.  That boy's got some moves, I tell you.  One night he dropped it like it's hot in a Barbie life jacket (because his was wet from earlier in the day) to a wide genre of songs ranging from rap to Let It Go from Frozen.  Yes, I have videos.  

On Saturday before we left, my parents brought their boat out for a quick spin with Lucas.  Lucas loved driving Poppy's boat fast and watching Nana ski!  

We cherish our time at the lake surrounded by God's beauty and people we love.  Cheers to summer days on the water!

when daddy's away, we must play

Brandon had a wonderful opportunity to travel to London for 8 days for a small groups conference.  While he was gone, Lucas, Lexi, and I took a stretch of 5 days and headed to the mountains!  

The first part of our adventure started in the car...a solo drive for almost 4 hours.  It was a less than pleasant start to the trip since both the human child and the fur child were extremely restless until literally the last 30 minutes of our trip.  I expected Lucas to fall asleep shortly after hitting the road after lunch and was banking on a good 2 hours of quiet.  Well, I was very wrong, and he was busy throwing his toys and telling little lies the entire time!  Lies, yes, lies.  He would say "mommy I have a bug on my head! "Mommy I have a bug on my leg!"  Really buddy, not a funny joke to say when we are driving alone down the interstate.  

 Once we made it to our glorious mountains, the fun began!  Nana ran her tail off with Lucas, putting me to shame with her energy level.  We watered her garden and played around in big boy undies (those pictures are saved for a potty training post...hopefully coming up in the near future).

We went to a toddler gymnastics class at Asheville Gymnastics, and Lucas had a blast!

Oliver was there too, and Lucas has a pretty intense love for the little pup. [excuse the post nap hair...yikes]

We went to the creek...twice.  We splashed in the water and chased butterflies and collected rocks and picked flowers.

And a trip to Asheville isn't complete without a little Friday night drum circle action.  We went prepared with two wooden spoons and a metal flower pot, because you can't go to the drum circle without a drum.

Lucas was pretty fascinated by the crazy people and loud drums.

He took his placed in the section "reserved for drummers" and went to town!

I spy...Lucas and Nana in the bottom left corner!  He was totally into it until the beat got pretty loud and the eclectic group started chanting and howling (for lack of a better way to describe it.)  After that started, Lucas stopped with his spoons in mid air, looked at us and said "ALL DONE."

An older lady ended up giving Lucas $2 for his adorable entertainment.  We tried to give it back to her, insisting that a tip was completely unnecessary and he is just this cute all the time, but she insisted.  So after a few jokes about my dad becoming his agent, Lucas decided to use his tip money on what any good toddler would...ice cream!  We headed to Antler Village at Biltmore Estate for a late evening ice cream run.  They had live music on the lawn and turkey running wild everywhere.  It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful evening. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures there except for driving through the estate!  Next time.

We missed Brandon while he was gone but were thankful to have some time away to pass the time quickly.  There is nothing quite like summertime in the mountains!