Halloween Party!

 We went to the always fun toddler Halloween party last night.  Several of our little friends were sick and couldn't make it, but it was still a great time!

(From left to right:  Bumblebee Elliott, Coca-Cola Bear Morgan, Pirate Tyson, Race Car Driver Luke, Car Andrew, Red Riding Hood Quinn, and Clown Rachel.)

And because we always have to show at least one outtake - Quinn and Elliott decided they'd had enough at this point.

I made a spider web taco dip - I thought it ended up really cute!  Laura did an amazing job (like always) with her decorations/dessert table and I had to take a picture of that too.

 

After dinner and the group picture the kiddos got to decorate their own cookies.  Luke loved it and may or may not have dumped an entire bottle of sprinkles on his.  :)

And one more picture!  Gotta have one with the race car driver and the race car.  :)

He has a name!

Ok, so he's actually had a name pretty much since our ultrasound when we found out he was a he, and while it wasn't a secret, we hadn't gone 100% public with it.  We call him by his name all the time, and so does Luke, so I figured we'd go ahead and tell the world.  :)

Our second little baby boy will be Ethan Todd.  :)  Ethan because we love it, and Todd because it's Jason's middle name.  Luke runs around and talks about Baby Ethan all the time.  Although he has a little bit of trouble with the "th" sound so it's his baby brofer Efan.  :)

That reminds me of another cute Luke big brother story.  We were at Old Navy last week and found a shirt that said "Best Big Bro" - I told Luke that and he got excited and said that "we need that at my house!"  So then we found Jason again and I asked Luke to show him the shirt.  He told Jason that it said "I'm Baby Ethan's brother!"  Close.  :)  So adorable!

Family Pictures

Karen took family/maternity/Luke 32 month pictures for us last week and I am so very thrilled with how they turned out!  This post is going to be very picture heavy - it's hard to narrow down my favorites!!  I have no idea how I'm going to pick which ones to print to hang on our picture wall in the living room.  I love that we have a photographer in the family!!

 

 

Potty training

This last time I blogged about potty training was 2 months ago, which was 2 days into the process.  Those first few days were rough as he figured it all out - I think we went through 14 pairs of underwear in one day.  Then, just about 2 weeks into it, he informed us that "he doesn't pee on the floor.  He pees in the potty."  From that moment on, with us anyways, he had no pee accidents.  He struggled at daycare (and was still in pullups there for another week.)  We realized that when in the pullups he knew that he could just pee in them, so we switched him to underwear at school too.  He had a few accidents, but they were mostly because even though he's sitting down to pee, he had some aim issues - that's hard for a little boy!  Over the next few weeks he managed to master that.  At the same time he became really independent about everything and told us to leave him along when he went to the potty and that he'd do it all himself.  He now goes into the bathroom by himself, turns the light on, gets his pants and underwear down, and goes potty.  Then he'll ask us (er, yell for us, demand) that we come in to help him pull his pants back up.

So for the last 5 weeks or so he's been completely pee potty trained.  It doesn't seem to matter where we're at or what we're doing - including in the middle of swim class! - he'll tell us he has to go.  At some point in there we switched him to underwear for naps and overnight - and he's never had an accident with that either, which completely amazed us.

The biggest struggle has been with pooping - he seemed to know he was going to because he'd tell us to leave whatever room he was in so he could go in his pants.  Not fun to clean up!  Luckily (for us!) he seemed to poop in his pants mostly at daycare, while out on the playground.  I felt bad for them though!  Then exactly 2 weeks ago he seemed to get the pooping thing too.  He mostly goes in the evenings now, although sometimes at school, but always in the potty.  He has been 100% accident free for 2 weeks! 

We were so shocked and so proud of well he did with all of this.  I won't lie - we bribed - a lot .... m&ms, new trucks that he could only play with if he peed in the potty, then only if he pooped in the potty that day.  In fact, he still gets 2 m&ms when he poops, and if he remembers, 1 mini m&m if he pees.  We also did sticker charts for awhile - he got 1 sticker every time he peed and when he filled the chart up (25 stickers) he got a new toy (matchbox car.)  I felt like that rewarded him immediately, but also gave him a reason to keep doing it as he earned the stickers for a toy.  We don't do that anymore for peeing, but are filling the last one up with poop stickers.

We are just so so proud of him!!!

Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again - time for the annual trip to Stony Creek to pick out our pumpkins!  Luke was so excited this year - he seems to love everything about Halloween.

For reference, here are the last 2 years with his pumpkin.  He's grown up so much! 

We had fun with playing with some of the different things there (tractor, straw maze, pumpkin train, slide) and then rode the hayride out to get our pumpkins.

Time for a group picture before we left!

When we got back home we went ahead and carved our pumpkin.  (That is "going away" as Luke says - who knew that it would be 80 degrees in October??)

We went with a pretty simple pumpkin this year - Luke loves it and he actually helped with it!

After dinner we had a fire in the firepit and Luke has his very first s'more!  I love the fall season!

Baby Update - 27 weeks

Third trimester.  Exactly 3 months, or 13 weeks, or 92 days to go ... but who's counting?  :)  I think it's been 9 weeks since I've done one of these so I figured it was time.  :)

How far along: 27 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: +20 lbs - eek!  Although I'm back to being nearly on track with Luke, so I'm hoping to stay under the 40lb mark (which was my weight gain with him.  Not sure I ever really went public with that info!)  So much for the 25-30 I was supposed to shoot for.
Maternity clothes: Um, yes.  I've noticed that this time I tend to wear more of the ones that are fitted, rather than the ones that tie in the back and billow out - no idea why.  Oh, and I was brave and bought a pair of maternity skinny jeans!
Stretch marks: Just everything from before, which is alot.
Sleep: Pregnancy wise, not bad.  Otherwise, it's been better. 
Movement: He is a little acrobat.  We're to the point that other people can feel him as well - including Luke!  He was fairly concerned hearing us talk about him kicking though.  "Mommy, my baby brother is kicking you??"
Food cravings: No big cravings. Loving meat, chicken is ok again, and find myself drinking Arnold Palmer's quite a bit.
Gender: Boy!
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks a few times a day
Belly Button in or out: Just about completely out
What I miss: Spiked apple cider
What I am looking forward to: Finishing the nursery, 3D/4D ultrasound in a few weeks

I'm not going to lie, the past few weeks have been rough.  I got a cold several weeks ago and have had the annual "cough that lasts weeks and never goes away."  I've actually had a few panic moments because I start coughing so hard and just can't catch a breath.  It's been pretty miserable with the pregnancy.  I went to a medcheck and was treated for bronchitis and then had an appt at the Academy of Allergy and Asthma and found out that I have Asthma - and probably have for years.  (It was 14 years ago the first time it happened - that year I cracked a rib from coughing!)  Getting a cold is my trigger, so now I have an Asthma action plan.  I'm also doing nebulizer breathing treatments 3-4x/day now until we get through this round of coughing.  They also don't mess around with pregnancy and asthma - I have an appt each month until delivery and I have to get a pneumonia vaccine as well.  I was a little nervous taking some of the medicine but as they pointed out, it's important for the baby to get enough oxygen.  :)

My next appt is on Tuesday - it's the wonderful gestational diabetes test - oh boy!  Wish me luck!

First Movie!

About a year ago I heard that Finding Nemo was going to come back out into the movie theaters this fall - I immediately knew that this would be Luke's first movie.  It was his first favorite one, and Nemo is still his best little friend.

He was so excited when we got there - he got special glasses (with Nemo on them!) because it was 3D and they had a few Nemo posters up.

We got there a bit early and had our pick of seats.   Luke was a little confused and wanted to know where the other kids were.  Luckily some showed up soon after that!

Sporting the awesome 3D glasses.  These were actually a struggle for him - they didn't stay up quite right so he wanted to keep taking them off, which then made the movie blurry.  I wish it had come back out in theaters in a non-3D version.

Loving the popcorn!  He wasn't sure he wanted any at first, but then he realized what he was missing.

Overall he did really well at his first movie!  Next time we won't get there as early and it won't be 3D.  He did great with the glasses during all of the previews and the first 30 minutes of the movie, but then got tired of it.  Plus this was in the middle of potty training, so we had several bathroom trips.  We actually didn't make it until the end of the movie, but after 90 minutes there I don't blame him for being antsy.  At least we have it memorized and know how it ends!

I don't like to be good!

I suppose we all have days like this every now and then ...

Picture catch up

I'm so behind on getting pictures on here - so here are a few from my phone for the last month or so.

Who doesn't wear a helmet when washing a car?  (This is actually part of his Halloween costume - at least he's getting some good use out of it!)

All ready to go into story time at Grandma's library.  I think he looks like a little GQ model here.

Playing at the playground.  I think he was excited that he climbed to the top by himself.

We went to a place called "My Gym" for a friend's birthday party.  I think he's ready to be an olympic gymnast.

All curled up with mommy and his baby brother.  :)

Such a handsome boy!  He looks so old to me in this picture.

Optimus Prime!  I found this brand new (with tags!) mask in a drawer in an empty cubicle at work.  Luke loves to wear it - in fact, he's been known to wear and nothing else, while going to the bathroom.  :)

Last weekend he told me he wanted to listen to the baby in his belly as well.  He has just been so very sweet with the idea of his baby brother.  The other day he said, "Mommy, can he come out now?  I want to play with him."  I think he's going to be disappointed when he arrives and just eats and sleeps.

Being silly in mommy's shoes.  Shortly after this he realized he could kick his foot and the shoe would go flying - that was a lot more fun than just walking around in them.