Baby T2 - Due July 15

Mike and I are very excited that God has blessed us with baby #2 on the way, due July 15th. At my 11-week appointment the doctor was not able to hear the heart-beat with a stethescope, so we got another ultrasound, and this is what we saw!

The Little Bean.

And here the eyes are super-exaggerated, like a little alien baby!

Those eyes may seem freaky to some, but we think he/she is beautiful! The baby was wiggling all over, and we got to see it's little arms, legs, hands and fingers. Such a precious gift. I've been doing okay, a little queasy (especially at night) and overall quite tired and dependent on my husband's kind and consistent help so that I can get naps and breaks.

We are starting to try to tell Blake that there is a baby in Mommy's belly, which seems to just puzzle him so far. Blake already loves giving Mommy's belly kisses, so it will be extra sweet as the belly grows and Blake (somehow?) starts to understand more what is inside the belly!

Walking?!?

I'm not sure, when, exactly, we can claim that our little one is officially walking. He showed promise a month or so ago when he started to take a couple steps on his own, but then he didn't go much beyond that. But in the last couple of days he suddenly got bold and started taking a few more steps.

Today he was getting a kick out of knocking over blocks that I stacked for him. The he realized he could knock over the blocks by walking into them and I was trying so hard to catch that on video. And to my delight, this is what I got!

Walking Through Toy Obstacles from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

I couldn't believe that he kept going! Especially given the toy obstacle course that was in his way. He still walks like a drunken sailor, but he is the cutest little drunken sailor we've ever seen! He's not walking consistently, by any means, but he is making great progress and it is so fun to watch!

Just for some more fun here is a clip of Blake pounding out a beat with Dad to one of his favorite songs (Sandra Boynton's silly song, "Rhinoceros Tap.") At one point Dad tries to help by holding Blake's hands, but you can see that Blake doesn't need any help...

Tapping out a Tune with Dad from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

My New Tooth

Here is a good pic of the latest addition to Blake's mouth - tooth #10, a third tooth in the bottom front. So, presently he has his top four front teeth, bottom two (now three), and all molars except his upper right (which is coming through right now). In the midst of getting that upper right molar this little guy in the bottom front poked through. (Blake doesn't do things like most kids, and is getting his teeth slightly out of order from the norm.)

Confessions of a Scissor-Happy Mama

So, I did it again. I tried to cut his hair. The first pass wasn't so bad, it was when I went back the next morning to "fix" some spots that I really butchered it. I'll let you judge for yourself.

Here is a good shot showing just how hard it is to get a baby to sit still to "even out" his bangs. 

Do you like the bald spot above/in front of his ear?

If you liked that, you'll LOVE what I did on the other side..

Personally, I don't think the back is so bad. His hair is wavy, so it is slightly more forgiving.

And in my defense I think it looks okay if you comb it just right in the front.

My real solace comes from knowing that it will grow. But our Christmas day pics might look a little funnier than normal this year! He's just going to have to be extra cute to distract from the bad do.

Unsupervised with Peas

Blake was doing so well feeding himself with a spoon that I thought I'd try putting his peas into a bowl and giving him a spoon. Now, peas a little thinner than his applesauce with baby oatmeal mixture, but I thought it would still be okay. So I handed him his food, he tried to take a few spoonfuls his normal way, and I was relatively assured that it would be okay. So I turned my back for just a few minutes....and, behold! Peas in the nose (and many other places).

Video Montage

In case there is any doubt out there that this is one adorable little monkey, I thought I should post some evidence in Mommy's defense. He definitely keeps us smiling!

We call these his "happy feet" - he often claps his feet together when he is excited, and we just think it is too cute.

Happy Feet from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

Here Blake is pushing his "Cozy Coup" car through our back yard. It is a big yard, and he pushed the car all the way from the garage to the far corner, and then he happily pushed it much of the way back to the garage again, with just a little help getting up the slight hill. (As my mom usually says, "There are child labor laws, you know!") He doesn't mind the cold at all, and will happily stay out as long as mom and dad are willing to bear the chill.

Blake Pushing Cozy Coup in the Yard from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

This is Blake doing the "worm." For some reason Blake has decided it is fun to flop himself all over our bedroom floor, giggling as he goes and enjoying the surprised laughs he gets from Mom and Dad.

Baby Worm from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

And lastly, this is another glimpse at our disco fiend, jamming to some tunes on the television.

Jamming to the TV tunes from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

Despite the title of the post I'm adding a non-video pic, too. Today I gave Blake some humus for the first time, and he really enjoyed it, and of course he got it all over his face (not surprising). But what WAS surprising is that he broke out in a rash everywhere the humus touched! It was "roasted garlic" humus, with no alarming ingredients, and he has had lots of garlic already with no negative reaction. So I'm not sure if he is allergic to chic peas (that would be unusual), or perhaps the vague ingredient "spices," low on the ingredient list, included something that bothered him. Hmm...this is the first "real" (skin) allergy we've encountered so far.

Thankfully his lower left molar is now almost completely cut through and he is sleeping much better (which in Blake-terms means waking up only once a night instead of 3-4 times when he was cutting the tooth). Mike and I are VERY grateful to have our sleep back! I rescheduled his 15-month check up from this week to next because I didn't want to deal with a shot-fever / cranky baby at the same time that we were dealing with endless night wakings from his tooth, so 15-month stats will come next week.

Feeding himself

Here is the big boy feeding himself!

Getting it on the spoon is definitely the tricky part (like the maneuver below?), but he manages to get something most times. So far he only feeds himself applesauce mixed with baby oatmeal, since it is thicker and doesn't fall off the spoon as easily. (Mom is reluctant to let him feed himself most baby food that will probably fall right off..we'll keep practicing with the applesauce/cereal mixture for a while.)

And my cutie pie with a little cereal on his nose. Don't you just want to kiss him?

Here he is mastering his homemade ring toy.

One day he made a big game out of blowing bubbles in his mouth. I tried to do it myself, but I'm not nearly as good as Blake, and he got a kick out of my attempts. I think he was showing off.

 Mad skills.

Just a quick game of hide and seek behind the slide. He is such a joy, and I'm having so much fun being his Mommy!

A Day in the Life...

Here are just some snapshots from "a day in the life of Baby Blake."

Here he is happily destroying his bookshelf to find just the right book. He loves just sitting in that corner looking through books all by himself.

Just being cute.

For some reason he was laying on the floor and caught a glimpse of the light fixtures overhead and here he is just pointing them out to Mom. Nothing particularly new about the light fixtures, just worthy of his attention, I suppose.

And checking out Mama's shoes. The sign for shoe is pounding two fist together in front of you, which I tried to teach Blake, but it ends up looking just like the sign for "more please" (although he pounds a little louder for "shoe"), so we aren't making much progress in the sign language department.

A few updates:
I should mention that Blake is doing pretty well at feeding himself. He is happy to do it, and he doesn't even make a terrible mess. He just doesn't get a lot of food at one time, so usually we help get the food on the spoon or we take over after a few moments.

Another "trick" is he has figured out to fit his plastic rings into the slit that I cut out of a plastic formula canister lid. I made this "toy" months ago but he just wasn't coordinated to get the rings in there. All of the sudden the other day he got a couple rings in and now he does it all the time, putting them in the slit and then turning it over to get the rings out and start over again!

At 14.5 months is now officially on 1 nap (has been for a few weeks), and goes down at about noon for about 2 hours.

Some Blake Tricks

So I have to explain a few things. First of all, I have given up embedding video directly with Blogger. If anyone knows the secret of how to do this (something about re-sizing the video?), I would be grateful to learn from you. For now, I am resorting to Vimeo.

Next, I suppose I could have edited this video down a bit, but I thought it was all just too cute. I love his laugh. I am pretty pleased that he roared on command, but I really wanted him to do a little dance (why I asked him about the music), which I wasn't able to draw out. Usually, if the radio is off and he wants it on he puts his hands in the air and waves them back and forth as if he is dancing. But that will have to come in a future post! Now, without any further ado, here is our little star!

Blake with his Walk-Behind Toy (1) from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

And here is another clip. "Dada" just sneaked away to another room to try to get some work done (Blake kept wanting to be held and play with Dada), but you can't pull anything past this little boy! And the "Gug Gug Gug" noise he is making is his rendition of the sound of putting gas in the tank of his little walk-behind toy (which, of course, has a gas tank)!

Gug Gug Gug from Sarah Thompson on Vimeo.

This is life these days - he is generally a very silly, happy, fun little boy. Today he started giggling when I bent down to wipe up the floor around his high chair - not sure what he thought was funny about that, but it was very cute! He loves to dance and always "asks" us to turn on the radio if it isn't already on. His favorite, however, is listening to a silly song CD that we play on the computer.

Also, he's (barely) learned to scribble with crayons. He can hold the crayon in a way that he manages to make some marks on the paper, but there is still much room for growth. But he loves it, and it is fun to see him developing his "fine" motor skills and to see his excitement as he realizes that he has made marks on the paper.

Blake is starting to make a profession out of whining and Mike are talking about how to be more proactive in discipline to teach him this isn't an option. But he sure can communicate what he wants!  We will  need much grace and wisdom to know how to honor God as we train up our little boy according to God's word, and this is just the very beginning. It is all a joy, and a privilege to be entrusted to care for this little Gift From God!

Wilkommen Deutsche u. Schweize Freunden!

We are blessed to be able to host a couple from Germany while they are here for the Pastors' Conference. And we had some other German and Swiss friends (also here for the conference) over for dinner to hear about all that God is doing in their home churches. And we grilled up some good American NY Strip Steak.

And for dessert we had "s'mores" over sterno burners in the living room. It was a little difficult to explain the concept to our friends who were particularly facinated (and slightly mortified) that we would intentionally let the marshmello get burnt in the process.

I tried to explain that I have been eating my marshmellos like that for years and I haven't gotten cancer yet, but for some reason that didn't seem to comfort them much.

It is truly a blessing to hear what God is doing in two very different churches. One is a large church of 500 members, and God is refining their understanding and practice of Biblical manhood and womanhood and the sovereignty of God. The other is a small house church of 12 people. Each Sunday service starts with breakfast together, and church members are growing in their pursuit of fellowship and accountability. It encourages our souls to hear how God is at work in Europe, and also gives us fresh gratefulness for the abundant resources we have at Covenant Life Church.

Our Little Lion

After weeks of practicing his lion roar (and getting quite good at it), Halloween was finally here and we had the chance to put Blake in his little costume. The church hosts a Harvest Party each year, and right before the Harvest Party we had dinner with some friends, and then we all got ready for the Harvest Party together. So here are all the kiddos lined up in their oh-so-cute outfits, ready to go! Blake's costume barely/mostly fit when I bought it at the Tot Swap at the end of September, but but the end of October it was quite a bit too small. Notice the exposed calves...

Blake is a moving target these days, and this was the best attempt to capture him looking forward. That is Nate to his right, a very cute puppy dog (hidden at the moment behind his hood)!

At the Harvest Party our little lion fell mute! We couldn't get a roar out of him no matter how hard we tried. I will say, it was a little overwhelming even to us as adults, so I'm not surprised Blake was a bit stupefied.

And of course the next day he was roaring non-stop. Oh well! 

A Saturday at Sugarloaf Winery

A couple weeks ago we took advantage of another beautiful Saturday and visited Sugarloaf winery. Blake got to explore and watch puppy dogs and motorcycles while we sipped some wine.

(Disclaimer: This post is really just an excuse to post pics of our baby's delicious, chubby cheeks! Ugh. Don't you want to just squeeze them or gobble them or kiss them? I do!)

And here he is checking out his tray for Cherrios, raisins, veggie sticks or any other yummy left-overs he might find.

Stroller = walker. 

Unrelated but cute story...The other day I was giving the baby a stern talking to, explaining that he needs to obey Mommy and he cannot touch the television. I told him to look at Mommy, and he did as told. And then he gave me a big kiss on the lips! The stern talking-to was officially over at that point. He has Mama wrapped around his chubby little finger already!

A Weekend in PA...and 2 (Stumbling) Steps!

I drove to PA with Blake this weekend to visit with my dad, Mary, Mom and little bro. Blake was the life of the party everywhere he went. While he seemed a little unsettled when I tried to put him to sleep the first night, in general he jumped right in and seemed un-daunted and just excited by his new surroundings.

Here is Blake getting re-acquainted with Grandpop's beard!

 He was a wiggly worm, and it was very hard to get him to sit still for a photo.

But Blake was having a great time exploring the place and hanging out with Mare Mare and Grandpop.

And then we went to visit my mom. Here is Blake discovering the answering machine.

Anything with buttons is a hit, especially if it makes noise. I think we listened to the same message about a dozen times!

And then we went to a local farm to see the animals and get ice cream (no ice cream for Blake, of course). Hayrides were underway, and Blake L-O-V-E-D watching the tractors!

 He even got to get up close and personal with one.

 Uncle Matt is very fascinating - if not a little perplexing - to Blake (and the rest of us)! Matt is great with him.

Unfortunately, suddenly I am having technical difficulties posting the rest of the pics.

But I have a little bit of a milestone to share. Blake took two (stumbling) steps today! He was holding on to a chair facing me, then let go and put one foot in front of the other before falling into my arms. I hesitate to really call it his first steps, because his momentum was pulling him down more than he was actually controlling his steps, but I am so pleased that he is getting bold enough to leave go and at least try a few steps! He even tried a couple more times. Hopefully next time Dada will be there to see.

And then tonight, as I was putting Blake to bed, I followed my usual routine and patted him on my shoulder after I gave him his "bah-bah" (he still seems to benefit from being burped). He laid his head on me like he usually does, but today he just started to coo over and over. Oh, my, SOOO sweet! As if that wasn't enough, after enjoying that for a while I told him I wanted to switch shoulders (I actually said "come over to this shoulder") and he must have mis-understood and thought I said something about a kiss, because as I lifted him from one shoulder to the other, he gave me a big, opened mouth, baby kiss on the lips as his face passed mine. If I wasn't in a puddle already by this point, I was definitely in a puddle then!

What a sweet, blessed life I have. This little boy brings us so much joy, and he is a gift from God.

A Beautiful Fall Day (and updates)

Blake is doing a happy dance because we have pulled out the bubbles!

Don't you just want to gobble up those cheeks?

 He really is a daddy's boy - so excited to see Daddy, and upset when Daddy leaves the room or goes out of sight.

And he loves the neighbors' dogs (and they love him). Here comes Liddy!

One dog (the one pictured) doesn't bark at all, but Blake shrieks with delight when he races around him. Blake is learning to like it when he licks his toes. The other little dog (not pictured) barks and barks and barks, which would be disconcerting to most people, but Blake LOVES it and this is definitely Blake's favorite of the two dogs.

 Blake's imitation of barking sounds more like "art art art" (much like a dog toy he has). Oh, look at the joy on that face!

 And Dadda let Blake "drive" Mommy's car. He spends most of his time trying to honk the horn.

 Here we are with more bubbles. Blake didn't like the feeling of crawling on the asphalt (who could blame him?) so here he is doing a monkey walk.

Some more of Blake's recent tricks:

• Usually when I ask him for a kiss he turns away and tries to avoid my approaching lips. But recently Daddy has been "demonstrating" how to kiss Mommy, and now he turns to me with eager, open mouth when I ask for a kiss. Oh, I love it!
• While the grandparents watched him during our anniversary trip, they must have blown a lot of kisses, because now Blake blows kisses, too! Either that, or he has picked up the sign for "thank you" (which looks a lot like blowing a kiss).
• I've taught him the word "gentle." If he is being too rough, perhaps hitting at Mommy's face playfully, I tell him "gentle" and he knows to caress the side of my face! (I show him that hitting is NOT gentle, but caressing IS gentle.) Recently, Blake initiates this, and he rubs the side of his face (sometimes when we are in the car, looking at him in the rear-view mirror, or sometimes just as we are playing around the house). I am not sure exactly what he is saying,  but it looks a lot like "gentle." We think it is just his way of saying I love you.
• He is signing a lot of things now (accurately). He says "more" and "all done" and puts his fingers in his mouth when he is hungry. He points up when he wants us to raise the stove vent (it goes up and down out of the island).  He sometimes pushes on his booster seat tray and signs "all done" when he wants to get out. It is such a delight that he is starting to communicate more effectively!
• He officially has his first molar - the back left. That was the source of much consternation over the past few weeks.
• His night-time sleep has been very interrupted recently. He is no longer sleeping through the night, but one once or twice (last night 3 times). Sometimes we give him a bottle, sometimes we just rock him back to sleep. I'm not sure what is going on.
• He is taking 1 nap more than he takes 2. I thought this would be challenging, but it has turned out that this makes life so much more flexible! I can do much more in the day (particularly out, running errands) since I don't need to be back for his naps. And he generally loves being out. 

He is just more and more fun every day, it seems! Mike and I love sharing stories about fun/cute/sweet things he does for us during the day.