Two

I've been wanting to get this post up for a while!  I had grand plans of taking Brody out and doing a 2 year photo shoot with him but then found out we were pregnant, started to get sick and then we moved and it just hasn't happened.  So, I wanted to get down his two year stuff and then I'll get him out for some photos in the near future!

Brody is TWO!  I can't believe that it's been two years.  They have flown.  It seems like a day ago we were in the hospital with him and here he is walking, talking and letting us know how things go.

Brody is very, very active.  He will not sit still unless he's tired!  He likes to run, jump, play hide and seek, duck duck goose and tag.  He loves to be outside playing with his (daddy's) golf clubs, his baseball stuff, throwing a football or running (avoiding) the sprinklers.  He is all. boy.

His favorite food is hummus.  He'll eat anything with it!  Mostly he snacks on pita chips and hummus but if I ever need or want him to eat something he refuses I just let him dip it and he's happy.  He also enjoys zucchini, kilbasa, broccoli, mac and cheese, and peanut butter/honey bagels!

His favorite books are: Puff Puff Chugga Chugga, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site and a variety of other transportation books.  He loves cars, trains, planes and boats so if you have a book that's got one of those, I guarantee we'll read it until it's worn down.

His favorite TV show is Super Why.  Though, we can't get him to sit through a single episode of anything because he just doesn't want to sit still.  I can't complain, I'd rather have him running off energy than being a couch potato, but it's been rough being sick and not having ANY means of getting him to sit and be still!  He also loves Veggie Tales, Henry Hugglemonster, Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Chuggington.

His favorite dessert is cake pops but he honestly doesn't have much of a sweet tooth.  He'll gladly eat things that are sweet when offered to him, but he rarely finishes them.

His favorite toys are his train set and his trucks.  He could sit for hours on his own just playing with those.

His favorite activity is playing with Logan.  He follows her around and is over joyed when she asks if he wants to join her in her games.  He'll do anything with her!

Brody's language exploded at about 20 months and he began to talk in small sentences.  Now, he can communicate just about anything he wants.  He speaks really clearly for a two year old and sometimes surprises us with the sentences he's able to come up with.  Some of my favorite Brody-isms:

"Trains ride on the tracks, planes ride high in the sky!"

"Oh my."

"Where'd wogan (Logan) go?" (about 20,000x a day)

"Wogan HEET (hit) me!"  (Normally this is said after he patronizes her and wants her in trouble...it starts young!)

"Wanna nuggle (snuggle) me?  I wanna nuggle you!"  (usually said when he doesn't want to go to bed)

"I no listen to THIS music, turn on more uh-uh (veggie tales--if you're familiar, it's the sound the tuba makes at the beginning of their theme song) songs!"  

Brody can count to 20 (thank you hide and seek).  He can say the alphabet and can actually say some of the sounds thanks to his doting big sister.  He likes to come sit with us during her reading lessons and "sound out the letters" which really is more him saying any letter sound he can remember.  It drives her bonkers but it's sweet to me that he wants to be a part of it.

He loves to make animal noises, we are working on which animals make which sounds.  If it were up to him all animals would say 'oink oink' and humans would make all of the other sounds.  

Brody is 23lbs (40%) and is 34 inches (60%).  Long and lean like his daddy.

We are so thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful little boy.  We are thrilled that we get to be his family and can't wait to see him continue to grow!  Our prayer is that God would soften his heart and reveal himself to him one day and that we can watch him do amazing work for the Kingdom.

Kayle, Party of 5!

I guess this little announcement is a little overdue, though, many of you who follow this blog already know, we're expecting our third little blessing!  We found out on Brody's 2nd birthday that he was going to be a big brother and overjoyed that God has chosen to bless our family with another little one. Our due date is November 26--just two days before Thanksgiving!  

This pregnancy has been a tough one.  Between running after 2 little ones at the end of Mike's semester during my first trimester and being sick as a dog this go around I've been MIA quite a bit.  I feel a teeny bit better now (I'm not feeling ill 24 hours a day, more like 18, ha!), so I'm able to do a bit more.  But I'm thankful for every nauseated moment because I know that God is forming this little one and is allowing me to carry him/her.

 Here we are on the beach at 13 weeks: 

How far along?  15 weeks
Maternity clothes, yet?  Yes!  This little one had me popping out at about 10 weeks and I haven't been able to wear normal pants, since.

Sleep?  Some nights are better than others.  I'm still battling pretty bad morning (all day) sickness and it tends to wake me.

Best moment of the week?  Brody came with me to my appointment this week and hasn't stopped saying, "Baby say: boom boom boom boom."  He thinks that the baby's heartbeat was the baby talking to him.

Any movement?  Some, but it's very subtle and not happening frequently, yet.

Cravings?  None.  Anything I can keep down is what I want to eat.  I do have a strong aversion to chocolate chip cookies....which is the worst thing in the world.

Gender?  No idea, yet!  Mike and Logan think girl, Brody and I say boy.  We'll find out on the 21st!

Labor signs?  Nope.

What I miss?  Energy.  I'm in my second trimester and feel more tired than I did in my first.

What I am looking forward to:  Being done with this pregnancy!  But really, just looking forward to feeling better.

15 Weeks:

Beach 2013

Mike was asked to perform a wedding ceremony in the Outer Banks.  We knew he'd be going away this summer with the Army so we decided to take the weekend and make a mini family vacation out of it.  The wedding was in Corolla, and if you're familiar with the OBX it's almost at the very end.  Away from everything commercial, just beach, houses and that's about it.  The hotel we stayed in was beautiful.  It had 4 pools, one of which was indoors--which was fantastic since the high most of the weekend was 66!  The back of the hotel opened right up onto the beach:

The kids enjoyed their time in the sand, which was quite a change from a few months ago when Brody wanted absolutely nothing to do with the stuff!  

The wedding ceremony was really pretty.  Though, we only got to watch a couple minutes of it before Brody started begging for a snack....my bad, I forgot that the wedding would be going right through our normal dinner time and should have planned to have something for him to munch on while we watched.  Thankfully, we stayed in the hotel where the wedding was held so it was just a short walk back to our room and some food.

I was thankful that it warmed up enough on our last morning there to take some pictures on the beach.  I was afraid with the wind, the rain and the cooler temperatures that we'd totally miss out on the opportunity, but we woke up Sunday to 70 degree weather, sunshine and no wind/rain.

The kids, of course, were not super thrilled at my camera when all they wanted to do was play.  But they were good sports and played along.

It was a really nice way to celebrate the end of Mike's semester and the beginning of summer.  We're looking forward to more family vacations like this in our future!

North Carolina Zoo

After realizing that the zoo is only a couple hours from us, we planned a quick day trip out there.  Mike was still busy writing papers and taking finals, so our neighbor and I packed the kids up and drove out there ourselves.

Excited to finally be there!

We didn't realize how brave it was to hit this zoo with four kids and two double strollers with no muscle along with us until we started walking....

The WHOLE zoo is like one giant hill.  And it's all up.  It was crazy!

We stopped after 20 minutes and let the kids watch the geyser while we caught our breath.

I'm pretty sure this attraction was their favorite one and we could have ended the tour here and would have had happy kids.  Maybe we would have considered that knowing how much walking around hills we'd be doing!  ;)

Then we made our way to some animal exhibits.  The kids enjoyed watching the grizzly bear.

And they enjoyed learning about honey bees at the bee station.  (...some also enjoyed taunting each other, as you can tell.)

Favorite attraction #2 was the carousel.  (are we noticing the non-animal trend with their favorites?)

They did, however, really enjoy seeing the gorillas and baby gorillas!  

The elephant exhibit had a big helicopter for the kids to play in.  

We had a lot of fun, despite all of the walking!  Next time we'll take daddy, though.  :)

Strawberry Picking

Today we went strawberry picking with our MOPS group.  Normally this annual event is a moms and dads event so that there are two parents to wrangle each set of kids, but in the past the turnout hasn't been stellar.  So, we decided to brave it this year with just the moms!  The turnout was great!!  I think we had close to 20 mommies and 50(ish) kids!

We've been picking before, but hadn't been out to this particular farm.  I'm so glad we got the chance to, though.  It's a little bit of a hike to get out there, but the atmosphere and quality of service were 100% worth it.

The kids all enjoyed playtime while everyone was arriving.  They had an old Cessna plane set up and the kids had a great time taking turns in it.

Logan was so excited to see Julianna when we got there.  These girls have been friends since they were about a year old.  We've lived about a block away from them the whole time we've been here but her dad recently accepted a church position and they live in the parsonage there, now.  It's only a 10 minute drive away, but certainly not as convenient!

Brody was excited to be on the playground and wanted nothing to do with pictures. 

After playtime, we headed out with the group to pick strawberries!  Logan was in heaven.  Her favorite food is strawberries and she got to pick all of her own out.

Brody was happy for a few minutes until he spotted a giant tractor.  Then it was a mission to keep him in the strawberry fields.

Sweet little siblings:

Pick, pick, pick.

Logan's basket filled up very quickly.  She was thrilled that she picked more than B and I did.

Here is Logan with her picking buddy, Eliza.  They stood on opposite ends of a patch for almost the whole time and chatted away.

I finally got Brody over to the tractor and he was in heaven. 

After picking, we went back to the playground and had lunch and wore the kids out.

Brody wasn't sure about going too high until he let me try it...

...then he was thrilled!

More with Julianna (and Adalyn!)

I love that I get to be home with the kids so we can do things like this!  It's such a joy to be their mom.

We ended up bringing home about 6lbs of strawberries.  We've got all kinds of plans for them!

And now I'm off to enjoy the chocolate covered strawberry cheesecake I picked up in their general store...