Leaving on a jet plane

Lauren and I are on our way to San Francisco for a girls weekend with Maggie to celebrate her upcoming nuptials. "Trouble comes in Threes!"

Happy Easter

We celebrated our Jesus Christ by having a near perfect Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny came bearing some cool things for AJ (but no candy--I love that Easter Bunny!). He did, however, get some fruit roll-ups. AJ loved waking up to a basket full of surprises!

And he even got a new potty for the basement bathroom--which he loved as you can tell from his face. He loves "Cars" things--even though he hasn't seen the movie.

We had a nice Easter Breakfast outside since it was a beautiful morning. I love spring mornings more then anything season-wise. Do you notice the yellow and purple tulips? John sent them to me for Easter. He also sent 24 Chocolate Covered Strawberries AND a Easter Cookie Bouquet. No wonder I gained 4 pounds in three weeks (between that and Europe :)). That is ok, you only live once.

We went to Grandma and Eagle Pop-Pop's House. We got to open our baskets, eat an amazing meal cooked by my amazing mom, and play with the boys. Roman and AJ had a very interesting Easter Egg hunt. The Easter Egg hunt has been a tradition for us since I was born! Now it's so much fun seeing Roman and AJ continue that tradition by getting competitive as David, Kayla, and I did as kids (yes, I'm 15 years older then my sister and got competitive with her!). It was cute though, as they are still in that age where they aren't quite as competitive. What a change though from just one year ago--the boys were running and finding eggs and 'getting' the game. AJ even almost stole an egg that Roman was going for and when he got the egg, realized Roman was going for it, and gave it to him. It was very cute. AJ was on the move, so this was the best I could get (don't you just love his outfit ?):

We had a fabulous Easter!

30 weeks!!

We are 75% the way there with this pregnancy! I am feeling very behind in what I need to be doing and have a very busy couple of weeks coming up--so I'm fairly certain we will be getting everything done last minute. I was trying to avoid that since June is one of my favorite months and I didn't want to be doing anything--but what can you do??

I'm feeling great. I passed my glucose screening test with flying colors and am very healthy. So is the baby. I'm still working out and feeling good during the workout.

The baby is very healthy as well. He is head down already, so we just have to pray he doesn't move! He is moving a great amount.

AJ and John LOVE to talk to the baby and kiss him. It's very cute.

Nothing more to really report--just keep on keeping on at this moment!

Baby Boy #2's 4d pictures and videos

Technology is really amazing. I don't think my mom would have thought when she was pregnant with me that one day people would be able to see their babies in real live 4d imaging. Shoot, I think she was lucky if she got a grainy ultrasound.

The place where we had AJ and Dos's (as we are calling him--dos as in 2 in spanish) 20 week ultrasounds offers a free 28-30 4d study (we are a little over 29 weeks). It is so amazing to see your baby on the screen like that. I can't even explain it. The photos and videos below do it no justice really.

We brought AJ with us and he was so excited to see his brother. Oh, we also confirmed for sure that it is a boy--we saw all of his glory today! We also learned he is already head down (YEAH!) and got to see him open and close his eyes, smile, stick out his tongue, open and close his mouth, and saw the other beautiful parts of his body.

Now 4d imaging probably has some improvement to endure. It has already made improvement in the three years since we had AJ's. Today we got there and my bladder was slightly too full, causing him to be pushed up against the uterine wall and thus created blurry pictures. Then he had his feet, hands, and umbilical cord covering his face. With some taunting by the tech and some flipping and movement by me, we were able to get him to move his feet and hands most of the time, but the cord hung out. When the cord is covering the face, it causes distortion to the body parts it covers. Also, the ultrasound wand pressure causes 'bubbles' to the area it's hitting--so in all photos there is some sort of distortion. Some of you will think it's scary, but some of you will find that it's really a cool and amazing thing to see. I was blown away as I was able to learn quickly what everything was.

So first thing is first, let's compare AJ to Dos. The major difference in the photos below is that AJ's eyes are open and Dos's are closed. But, you can see that they look very similar (or maybe you don't see that, but we do!). I think that AJ and Dos have the same nose, eye shape, and face shape. The lips are a little fuller in Dos. John thinks the forehead shape is different. We are making these assumptions based on multiple photos and live imaging we saw today. It will be really interesting on how it really turns out!

AJ circa over three years ago:

Our second son:

I show this photo because it reminds me of a Sleeping Baby AJ. I also felt like they were similar in a lot of ways--facial expression wise.

Now on to some exciting videos! Here is the first of three:

This photo is amazing because it shows his little hand (he has 5 fingers!)

In this one, you will see him open his mouth, a little tongue, a smile, and him open and close it.

So a very amazing day--and now I'm SO excited and ready to meet my little baby boy. I can't wait to snuggle with him, to have him wrap his little hands around my finger (and he will have me wrapped around his finger just like AJ does), to nurse and look into his eyes, to hear him coo, to watch AJ interact with him...I'm just so looking forward to it.

Oh and in just to bring me down to earth for a minute, I thought I would remind myself of not only how I looked in the first few weeks after AJ, but how tired I was as well. Ok, nevermind, I'm back on cloud 9 thinking of those days and how amazing it was to snuggle with such a precious little thing (and now emotional thinking of how fast time flies):

A busy Good Friday

AJ and I had a very busy day today! First--AJ had his very first dentist appointment and I'm happy to report that he was really good! We started with him watching me get my teeth cleaned first. Then he hopped right in that chair ready to go. The hygenist counted his teeth (20) and even used the pokey thing to clean some plaque--which we all know is the worst part. AJ did so good and sat still, listened, and relaxed the whole time.

Then we went home for lunch and a nap. After waking up--we got to go see our baby boy in real live 4d. It was amazing. AJ sat on John's lap and pointed at the screen saying, WOW he is doing this or he is doing that--he is point to his face or he is moving. It was really incredible. I will post a separate blog entry on that experience.

Then AJ and I went to go see the Easter Bunny (John had to go back to work). Of course my brave little boy loved the Easter Bunny. Look at the big smile.

Then we came home and had some supper and cookies that John had sent us for Easter (he also sent flowers and chocolate covered strawberries, but I'm not sharing!). After supper, we dyed Easter eggs. AJ's favorite food is hard boiled eggs believe it or not, so he will enjoy colored ones!

A great Good Friday for us!

Wow--AJ is ALMOST three!

I just booked his birthday party--exciting! It's strange that I will have a THREE year old in a month and a half!

We're back! Funny (now) Poop Story Inside

Well, we survived our first European vacation as a family! It certainly is a whole lot easier to go as a couple without small children and we had our National Lampoon's European Vacation moments for sure, but AJ was such a perfect angel. Of course he had a few two year old meltdowns--but they were mostly due to exhaustion and I know I wanted to through a fit sometimes, so I don't blame him. Overall, he was so good.

One very awful thing that happened was that we lost our brand new digital camera. The camera was purchased specifically for this trip (to avoid bringing a big bulky SLR camera that could have been lost) and was lost after a week--so over 400 pictures all gone. It was our fault--I'm pretty sure--as I think we left it on a hop on-hop off bus in Brussels. AJ fell asleep on my shoulder while we were waiting for the bus at the end of the day. Once on the bus (with a stroller and sleeping child!), he looked so peaceful and I asked John to take a picture. He showed it to me and I think I put the camera down on the seat. Neither of us thought to look to make sure we had everything because we were so distracted with a sleeping AJ and a stroller. It put a bit of a strain on my next few days. I was in mourning for sure. John wasn't as bothered as I was. I just had so many plans for those pictures! It could have been so much worse, that was the theme for me this trip actually, we were safe, we didn't get robbed, we didn't lose our luggage, we were fine. We made up for it on John's I Phone, but the picture quality isn't great.

One of the moments that reminded me of the European vacation was our first train ride out of Paris. If you are skiddish on kid bowel movement stories, you might want to stop reading. If you are a mom, you will want to read.

First off, I have to say that riding the train in Europe is SO EASY. I thought it would be like flying where we had to be there early, check bags, etc. I had never even took a train in the US and the last two times we travelled to Europe we took flights internally instead. Realistically, you don't need to be at the station until about 20 minutes before the train leaves. Anyway, I say that because we didn't know how easy it was and showed up super early for our train out of Paris. We found a quiet and out of the way spot in the train station and just waited. I left to go to the bathroom and John changed AJ's poopy diaper in the said quiet spot. Remember how AJ was doing very well in potty training? Well, I regretfully say that John and I pushed for him to go in his diaper at times because not only are the bathrooms not clean in Europe for the most part, but you also have to pay to use them--even in some restaurants where you are paying good money for sub-par food!

So anyway, AJ had held in his poop for a day, partly because he was used to going on the potty and partly because the change in food. We were getting worried (remember--AJ is a kid that goes A LOT in a day) and then relieved when he did finally go. So John changes his diaper and I come back from the bathroom. I asked John if he was sure that he got everything because I swore I still smelled it. Thinking that maybe it was the disgusting bathroom I just came from, I dropped it, thinking maybe it was ME that smelled. A minute later, I look over at AJ, who was sitting on luggage and being quiet and said to John, that does look like a poop face, doesn't it. Sure enough, he was pooping again.

I asked AJ if he was going again and he didn't break concentration. I guess I caught it once he was already in the middle of his business. John and I laughed it off and he made sure to tell me it was 'my turn'. Once AJ seemed to be done, I told him we were going to change his diaper again and he complied.

Man, it smelled without even taking his pants off. I knew it was going to be bad, so I thought I should be somewhat careful. AJ was in a stage of wearing his soccer jersey my mom had just got him before he left (luckily we had a washer in the Paris apartment!). It came with soccer shorts and AJ really wanted to wear the shirt and shorts everwhere under his warmer clothes. In hindsight, it was a good thing he had an extra layer of clothing. I took off his jeans and the smell intensified. I immediately knew this wasn't good. I asked for some help from John before taking off the shorts--very carefully of course. Sure enough, the shorts were filled with poop. I mean filled. Let's not even discuss the diaper.

So within two seconds I went from smelling poop to a poop explosion. Even with careful attention, I still managed to smear the poop all over AJ's legs. John quickly took the clothes to the nearest trashcan. Then, after a half hour of no one coming near our little corner, a group of about 50 people walked by. My son's poor poopy butt, laying on our large piece of luggage, and legs were in the air held on by just three fingers on my left hand while I was trying to use wipes to clean him up -- all while trying to avoid smearing further poop to our luggage or me or John or onto the upper part of AJ's body. I glanced over at the people--who were of course, all staring at us in disgust.

I just shrugged it off and went back to work. John and I got a system going. AJ was laughing at us. Our faces were priceless I'm sure. It took a good 15 minutes, but we managed to clean him up well enough that we felt he at least no longer smelled. We put a good new diaper on him and LUCKILY had our bag so we were able to put all new clothes on him. His shirt and socks weren't affected, but I felt better with all new clothes.

The little **** laughed at us. LAUGHED at us cleaning up HIS mess! I swore I smelled poop the entire train ride. This caused us all to shower when we got to our hotel before doing anything. All of our clothes ended up in a laundry bag just in case so not to disturb our other clothes.

It's funny now looking back on the story. The rest of the trip I felt paranoid that we were going to have to go through that again--so I never left without a change of clothes for AJ.

I will post some more stories this week and hopefully some pictures later once I somehow get John's IPhone photos to my laptop. Ok, I am still upset about losing the camera.