Six months and counting!

This pregnancy is whizzing by!! I feel like I just woke up and boom here I am at 6 mos pregnant with our daughter! I have started to look at the nursery decor, we ordered our nursery furniture and started to get organized for her arrival. We also settled on a name for her...which I won't say until she arrives! :) Here's me at 6 mos. Yikes! I think I was this big at 8 mos with Ethan.

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Today is Ethan's actual birthday. He is 2 years old! It is hard to believe that 2 years has gone by. It truly seems like just yesterday that he was born. Our sweet sweet baby boy. Mike and I could not feel more blessed to be his mom and dad. God has truly blessed us with the most amazing gift. From the way he laughs, to how he smiles with his eyes (just like his daddy!) and the way that he softly pats us on the back when we hold him, we are so in love with this little guy. At his 2 year check-up the doctor was so pleased with how he is doing! Happy and healthy and a "smart cookie" as the doctor said. He is measuring off the charts for height & 90th percentile for weight.

Here are some pictures of his birthday cake that we had the night of his birthday. Nana flew in to celebrate with Ethan. That morning I made his favorite breakfast and then we played and went to Chuck e Cheese for lunch. It was a very laid back and fun day!

Ethan decided during dinner that he really wanted a birthday hat. So Mike disappeared and came back with a homemade creation. Such a good daddy!












Ethan thoroughly enjoyed his birthday cake! He licked the icing off the candle and then after we cut his piece and he ate it--he picked up the rest of the cake! It was hysterical.













Our family photo that night, Nana and Ethan and a picture of what was left of the cake after he was done!

Ethan and Miss Lauren

Ethan started speech therapy back in October. He is doing so well with it! He has low muscle tone in his mouth, which from what I have read and what our speech therapist explained--is a very common issue with boys. It's also very fixable. "Miss" Lauren (aka "La-La") comes to our house 1x a week and works with Ethan. It's all based on play so he doesn't even know it's work! It's truly a blessing. Ethan has started to say so many words now! We could NOT be more proud of his progress. Lauren calls him her "super star" kiddo. She said that his fine motor skills are very advanced, along with his receptive language and his attention span with her. Lauren does some really fun things with Ethan. Here are two examples. Making homemade playdough and a marshmallow snowman.

While making homemade playdough, Lauren works on articulation. "Put in", "Dump", "Sticky", "Done", etc. Ethan started to spread the spoon on her hands and he just thought that was the best!








Here's the masterpiece snowman that Ethan and Lauren made. They used icing to put the marshmallows together, pretzels for the arms and mini marshmallows for the eyes. Sprinkles for the hair. And notice that this snowman has a bellybutton? Ethan wanted to add that on. :) This session was about words like "push", "on top", "more", "stack", "yum yum" etc.

















And the finished product--"ta da!"

Our little grocery helper

Ethan loves when I come home with the groceries and he is a huge help, actually! He goes through each bag and hands us the items in the bags. It really makes the grocery unloading go so much faster and he loves ever second of it! Plus, with my big pregnant belly--to not have to bend down to the grocery bags is AMAZING!

It's a girl!

When we first found out we were expecting baby #2, both of us had said how nice it would be to have a baby girl but both of us just prayed for a healthy baby! I remember when people asked me early on..."what do you think you are having" I would say..."I think it's a girl". But, before our ultrasound I went to visit my Nunny in Pittsburgh who recently had a stroke. The stroke affected her verbally. So she really can't say too much. When I went to see her, I was talking to her and telling her about the baby--I said, "Nunny...what do you think it is?" She looked at me and said with complete clarity--"it's a boy...but you know that." My mom and I were SHOCKED. I thought for sure she had to be right. Maybe she knew something I didn't?? Who knows. So day by day I really became uncertain about what it was going to be boy or girl...but I still had the gut feeling it was a baby girl.

We went for our 20 week ultrasound and the baby was measuring right on for a 4/14/11 due date and everything looked good. The baby's legs were so tight together that the ultrasound tech was having a hard time seeing what it was. But then all of a sudden right at the end of the ultrasound, she said..."oh, I can see now--you guys are having a baby GIRL!" We were both so shocked to hear the confirmation and so excited! Ethan didn't know what the hoopla was about and we kept saying--"buddy...you're going to have a baby sister" his response...."no, no, no." haha.

We feel truly blessed that the baby is growing as she should be and extra blessed to welcome a daughter to the world! (The first Haymaker girl too!)

Christmas in Florida

We had a great trip to Florida for an early Christmas celebration. Uncle Scott met us there. Ethan and I flew down for a little over a week and Mike came for a long 4-day weekend. We did a lot while we were there--went to the beach, rode the train at the mall (a highlight of the trip for Ethan), took golf cart rides to see the Christmas lights, went to the park, played on the golf course, went to Sun Harvest--(a tradition for our FL visits) and just enjoyed time at Nana and Pap's house. Ethan did so well on the plane--his last trip under the age of 2! We lucked out and got an empty row so he could sit in his own seat and have a "play" seat with all of his toys.

While we were there, we got to pick the first lemon from Nana and Pap's lemon tree. Ethan was in FL right after the tree was planted--now it's twice the size and bearing fruit!

Taking a walk to the pier with Uncle Scott and Pap

Here are some pictures from our time at the park, digging in the sand at the beach, and riding the train--all by himself! He didn't want to get off actually, and cried when the ride was done. The lady operating the train was nice enough to do one extra trip around for him for free! Also here are pics from our trip to Sun Harvest orchard--we go every time we are in FL. This time Ethan was big enough to reach the Orange outside! Of course, you have to get an orange/vanilla twist ice cream when you go and lots of free samples of fruit and fresh squeezed juice!

"Ethan...let's see how nervous we can make mommy. You wait here and I will jump over you!" I had to close my eyes while taking this picture. haha.


Hanging out at the park with Pap, the big lemon picking! and cool dude in the back of the car on the way to the park!



Our Christmas dinner and exchange


Here are some pics of Ethan making dinner with Nana, getting an "upside down ride" from Pap, running around with Nana on the golf course, digging with mommy at the park, reading with Pap and telling Pap all about the mower. Ethan LOVES when a mower or golf cart passes Nana and Pap's house--he can barely contain himself!



Here we are coming home on the plane. Each trip it gets harder to leave! This time Ethan was VERY sad to leave :(

No, no, no Santa!

This year Ethan wasn't a huge fan of Santa. Last year he was totally fine with sitting on Santa's lap--this year, however--not so much! We went to light up night in Shirlington--a quaint little town near us. They do such a nice job and Santa comes to visit all the boys and girls. We stood in line for a while this year--I think more people heard about how nice it is because it was packed this time. We rounded the corner and Ethan saw Santa. He started saying..."no, no, no..." before we even got close. Mike and I knew we were hosed before we got there. LOL. Here's a picture of Ethan "enjoying" his visit with Santa. Next year will be better, I can feel it!