Two point five

So crazy to think my lil man is 2 and a half! Although, he definitely acts like it :) He is such a "real" person now. I know that sounds funny, but I feel like we really interact with each other like adults now. Not to mention, he thinks he is an adult as well.

Some of his current favorites as this age, include-
*The color orange (if you haven't been able to tell by recent pics in my last few posts)
*Barney and Calliou are his favorite shows; they can bring him out of any bad mood!
*TRUCKS and CARS!!! I can't express this enough, but the boy could play with his cars and trucks all.day.long. He seriously just plays pretend with them, talks to them, names them, lines them up, "zooms" them everywhere, holds them in the carseat when we go places, takes them to restaurants, calls them out while driving - you get the picture. He is obsessed!
*We recently let him start coloring in the tub (not sure why we didn't do this sooner), but he has so much fun with it. Our little Picasso

*With the slightly cooler weather as of recent, he has been enjoying playing outside as well. His current favorites are sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and attempting to play baseball. He can really whack the ball when he has the attention span to play. Usually he tells someone else to hit the tee and he chases the balls. Or he just likes to "take a rest" and sit the bench!
*As far as food goes, he has really gotten into Chick-fil-a and the nuggets; still obsessed with strawberries, blueberries, grapes, any fruit basically, loves green beans, bread, and just about any baked good or sweet treat!
*He is sweet as sweet can be and bad to the bone sometimes, too. Sometimes, he can't stop kissing and hugging us, but other times he is defiant as all get out. It really can test my patience. We are having difficulty with discipline right now! I think this must just be preparation for 2 boys in a few short months :)

Some of his favorite things to say/do are:

*He has discovered his stool and carries it with him everywhere. He wants to constantly "help" with whatever task is taking place and just loves having the extra height to see and do things. He really loves turning on and off the lights now that he can reach. If I am doing something he can't see, he'll tell me to wait and that he'll be right back. He usually comes waddling back with his stool, just so he doesn't miss out on something.
*He does not like LED lights when it is dark. Alarm clocks, lights on cable boxes, wipe warmers, etc. They just scare him to death. He'll bring me into the room and point to the tiniest light and tell me it scares him. He also HATES our front entryway once the sun sets and the lights are off. He is so skittish when walking by it, it's kind of humorous!
*Getting out of his PJs in the morning are the worst. He would prefer to stay in them as long as possible. All he wants to do his snuggle and be cozy. Whenever I have to change him after he has been up for a short time, he begs to put them back on because he knows it means he must be leaving the house soon!
*He is very much into correcting me right now. For instance, if it is nap time and I tell him he needs to go to bed, he will say "It's not bed time, it's NAP time" Duh! Or since we have been staying at my parents during the remodel, out of habit I will say let's go home. He will tell me, "We're not going home, we're going to CoCo and Poppy's." He does this with just about everything. He takes everything so literally!
*He is extremely NOSY right now. If two people are talking and not including him or even if I am just singing to myself in the car, he will always ask, "What'd you say?" He can't miss out!
*He also can't stand when things have been moved around or put up when he is gone. As soon as he walks into a room, if ANYTHING (and I seriously mean anything) has changed he'll say, "Who somebody moved that _____?" He will probably go crazy when we move back into our house soon.
*He likes to say that things are very interesting or amazing. It's pretty cute.
*Something that makes me laugh, is that he is always referring to me "looking at facebook" or "doing emails". Or if you ask him where I go to work, he'll say that I "go see my clients" or need to "pick up documents" It's funny the things that kids pick up on!

My sweet boy at two and a half. We went to City Centre, again, today after swim to let the boys run around and tire out. I thought I would try and take a few pics not using my IPhone for once!

Fun with friends!

Ryan's been getting to spend some more time with friends lately and is finally getting the hang of playing with other kids and actually liking it. He talks about his friends all the time; what we did with them, prays for them at night, sings about them, and whenever he is bored he always throws out ideas of what he would like to do and who he would like to play with!

We've been going to Chick-fil-a just about weekly now with different friends. Over the course of the past 4-6 weeks, Ryan went from being terrified of the playground, getting slapped and trampled over by other kids, to ruling the roost and not being willing to leave when it's time to go. He wouldn't climb up the slides the first few times and now he just begs to "slide one more time" over and over again!

We went last week with Ashley and Alex. Alex liked to wait and watch for him at the bottom of the slide. I think he finally got over his fear while trying to impress her.

 My big boy!

 

 They were having their own pow wow in the tunnel, conspiring to stay longer!

Ryan and Caroline. His little girlfriend from MDO. We got them to hold hands for the picture, then they wanted to continue holding hands afterwards. Ryan even "walked" her to the car and the whole way home talked about how he and Caroline held hands in the parking lot and that he didn't have to hold mom's hand. My lil boy is growing up, haha! They are so sweet to each other. I'm thankful they both have each other in class again this year!

Yesterday, after swim lessons, we went with Jennifer and Elijah to Ruggles Green in City Centre so that the boys could run around and enjoy the nice weather. They definitely had fun running around. We had to keep chasing them to keep them away from the street. Ryan needed constant water breaks, so Elijah had to go find other kids to play with and "race."

 Our sweet boys.

I love all the fun friends we have met through school and our neighborhood. Ryan's lucky to have sweet lil boys and girls to play with all the time!

Baby boy dos

I have been meaning to post an update on baby boy #2 for about 2-3 months now, haha! As most of you know, we will be welcoming another baby boy to the family at the end of this year.

We are all pretty excited! My official due date is January 2, but assuming he is anything like Ryan in terms of size, my doctor says she will want to induce at least 2 weeks early like last time, assuming my body agrees. So, hopefully this means we will maybe have a new bundle of joy in our home for Christmas!

When we first showed Ryan a pic of the ultrasound, he said look at that doggy! Wes and I cracked up laughing. We have really been trying to prep Ryan for this change and I think so far he is on board with the whole idea of baby brother. He now calls him by name, kisses my tummy, talks about how they are going to play together and he is going to share his toys with baby B. At first, he thought everyone had a baby in their tummy and would always lift his shirt asking where his baby was. He then thought his baby was hiding in his pockets. He now understands only mommy's have babies in their tummy. We have so many friends right now that are pregnant, that he is getting to see the baby bumps all the time!

I felt much better this time around than I did with Ryan. I was hardly sick at all, just really tired (and still am!) I nap on the weekends, and sometimes during the week, too! By the end of the day, I am just worn out. This time around, I had a little procedure done at 12 weeks to hopefully help keep Mr. B in, and so far, everything has held up fine. I think we just passed the point where I was with Ryan when I had to go in for my emergency procedure to stitch him in. I also have started having contractions for about 4-6 weeks now, so my doctor is trying something different this time around to hopefully prevent so many episodes of pre-term labor. I have been taking Progesterone shots once a week for the past 3 weeks and will continue this for at least another 2 months. I think it is helping, so maybe I will have much better experience this time! I'm crossing my fingers for no bed rest. I also started feeling baby boy move around 16-17 weeks and then full on kicking at 18 weeks (which is about an entire month earlier than I did with Ryan). It's so nice to be able to feel him moving around all the time, he is an active one :)

I've started working on the nursery some, in terms of starting to buy some things and have my idea together. I'm going for a white, yellow, and gray elephant/bird theme. We are about to undertake a MASSIVE home remodel project that will hopefully start in two weeks and probably will be put at least me and Ryan out of our house for the most part of the next 4-6 weeks. Hopefully, by November 1, we will all be back in the house and can get ready for Baby B with a new kitchen and master bath :) Here are a few ultrasound pics from my last few appointments.

 

Here he is at 13 weeks

 Looking like an alien looknig at us at 16 weeks

 My 20 week appointment, we had a hard time getting good profile shots but here are two tiny feet :)

Ryan has attended the past few appointments and was less than impressed with the ultrasounds and seeing baby brother on the big TV. He was much more interested in monitoring the construction projects outside the office.

That's about it for now. I have my 6 month appointment in 2 weeks, so maybe we will start to get an idea for his size!

Birthday boy

Wes' birthday was mid-August and since we haven't had any birthday's to celebrate recently, Ryan was so excited to celebrate (you would have thought it was his birthday!). Wes' birthday was on a Friday, so when we started talking about it Thursday night, Ryan immediately chimed in and wanted to know when/where Daddy's birthday party was. So, since Wes had that Friday off, we decided to have a lil family party. I had a doctor's appointment that morning, so afterwards we went to Chick-a-la, as Ryan calls it, and then headed to Noah's Ark to go swimming and play. We continued our day of celebrating with junk food by chowing down on pizza and drumsticks! Ashley and Alex came to meet us, too and I think Ryan was either showing them Gig'em or that he was two - I'm not sure!

That evening, we went to dinner at Zelko Bistro (one of my new favorite obsessions) with Nancy and Manuel. I had mentioned to Wes that I was going to pick up some cupcakes for afterwards and apparently the little ears heard me, so that was all he could talk about from about 4pm on! Luckily, it gave him the right amount of motivation to behave at dinner! He was so excited about the cupcakes when we got home! Can you tell?!?

All he wanted to do was lick the icing, a boy after my own heart! The next night, we celebrated with my family at Perry's which was so yummy. Both Wes and our sister-in-law, Alissa's birthday's are just a couple of days apart and just so happen to fall in Houston Restaurant Month - so it gives us an excuse to go eat a delicious dinner every year. Wes and I decided we should continue to take advantage of the excuse to celebrate his birthday and went to our other favorite restaurant Vic and Anthony's the following weekend! Today, we capped off the celebrating at GiGi's with more cake. Apparently, Ryan was so excited about putting the candles on the cake, he couldn't sleep last night and woke GiGi up at 5am to discuss the candles! He was very proud of his cake he helped bake :)

It's been a fun few weeks celebrating and eating! I can only imagine how we will have to celebrate next year, when he turns the big 3-0!

School's in session

Well, everyone is back in the swing of things with school, Wes included. His MBA night classes started back up a month ago and Ryan had his first day of Mother's Day Out last week. Ryan got a nice back to school cut to get him ready for the year! Each time we take him, he gets a little more comfortable with the idea of having his hair cut. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the lollipop he gets and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse he gets to watch while sitting there :)

 

Checking out his new do!

We went to meet his new teachers the week before school started, so that Ryan could meet his new classmates and get to know his teachers. Luckily, there are 3 kids from his class last year in his new class (including his "girlfriend" from last year, Caroline) so I hope that will make the transition easier. I knew he was going to automatically connect with one teacher over the other, and sure enough he did. I really think both are wonderful. One is young, soft-spoken and just really loving and the other is a grandmother who is determined to improve their eating, pottying skills, ability to follow directions, etc. (and is really sweet, too). Knowing how he just has been drawn to the really sensitive and loving type, he immediately goes to Ms. K each time now. They are both going to be great for him. Well, when you go to the meet and greet, it is only an hour and the mom's stay and play for a bit, which apparently how he thought his "new school" (as he calls it since it is a new room with new teachers) was going to operate. So, of course, he was in for a nice surprise last Thursday when I left him. I tried my best to get a few pics of him Thursday morning, but he must not have been feeling too photogenic that morning! I'm pretty sure I didn't get one pic of him actually looking and smiling at the camera at the same time!

 Forced smile

 He pretty much did everything possible to not actually hold the sign

 fake smile

 Hamming it up. Mr. Too Cool for School

 This is what he does when he doesn't want his picture taken.

Unfortunately, the drop off went just as suspected. He kept talking all morning about how mommy was going to play with him at his new school. I decided not to break the news about me leaving him until we got in the parking lot because he actually seemed excited about going to school. Poor guy! So, after I told him the news, he immediately broke into tears, screaming "mommy don't leave me" the whole walk in, while every other parent was giving me the "I feel sorry for you look." So, since the drop off was a complete mess, I didn't get any pics of him at school. Wes was off Friday, so he actually took him into class and apparently it was just no big deal! He said both days that he had a lot of fun and talked about his new friends and Ms. K. He said he really liked a girl named, Brooke and that he wanted to have her over to his house along with his other girlfriend, Caroline. Looks like he has his priorities in line and has already staked his claim in the first week :)

Here's to hoping next week goes a little more smoothly and that he will take his naps there!