Sweet or unsweet?

Perrin can be such a sweetheart. I love when he climbs up on the couch beside me, puts his head on my arm, and says, "Best friends." It's a good thing he has his sweet moments to make up for dumping cocoa powder all over the living room or for peeing on the floor at the library (yep, that happened recently. But that's another story for another day).

I keep wondering what he'll be like as a big brother. Will he be sweet to his little sibling? I hope so. But lately he's been climbing up on my stomach and saying, "Sit on baby." Probably not the best precedent to be setting. And he's incredibly jealous of other kids who try to climb into my lap or steal my attention.I worry that this will be a tough transition for him. On the other hand, he also kisses my tummy and says, "Wake up baby!" as if he just can't wait for the baby to come out and play.

So it'll be interesting to see if the baby brings out his sweet or spicy personality. Speaking of the baby, I'm 17 weeks pregnant now and I think I might possibly be past the awful morning sickness. At least I think I'm past the worst of it... I still have occasional nausea. But that's nothing compared to throwing up half the day. So, yay! AND... big news... we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl in a week and a half!!! I can't wait! Perrin keeps changing his mind about whether he wants a brother or sister. I'm not even completely sure he knows what those words mean. I asked him again a few minutes ago if he wants a brother or a sister. He said, "Brother, sister? Want toys."

Making room for baby

I'm 15 weeks pregnant. Still throwing up. :( On the up side, I'm starting to feel the faintest little flutters of movement. It makes the fatigue and nausea a teensy bit more tolerable. Well, as tolerable as puking up stomach acid can be.

Anyway, now that we're getting closer to the halfway point, I've been kind of freaking out because we still have SO much to do to get ready. Mainly, we have to clean out 29-year's worth of accumulated electronics, nerf guns, ugly robots, legos, and things that I can't identify from "the man cave"--previously known as Trey's room. It's been quite an experience going through everything. To give you an idea, I've compiled some statistics:

Number of toys in our house left over from my childhood: 0
Number of toys in our house left over from Trey's childhood: 5,397
Number of those toys covered in dog hair: 5,397
Number of those toys I've managed to sell so far: 3

So as you can see, we still have a long way to go before the room will be ready for Perrin. Aside from getting rid of stuff, we also have to paint, recarpet, set up a new bed for Perrin, and move all his furniture and toys. And THEN we can do some work on the nursery to get it ready for the next baby.

So, sweet little baby #2, I really need you to stop making me throw up so I can get some stuff done. Okay? Okay.

Pregnancy update--12.5 weeks

I'm nearing the end of the first trimester. Yay! I'll be 13 weeks on Saturday, which is right around the time I stopped having morning sickness when I was pregnant with Perrin. I am PRAYING the same is true for this pregnancy. The puking started earlier with this one and has been a little more intense, so I'm ready for some relief.

I've been taking zofran some just to get me through the day, but I've tried all the natural remedies too. Crackers (threw 'em up), ginger ale (threw it up), ginger snaps (threw 'em up), etc etc. Who would have thought the quickest way to get rid of those stubborn extra 5 pounds I was holding on to from my first pregnancy was to get pregnant again??

I know I'm being whiny and ungrateful. I'm really, really happy to be pregnant and to add to our family. But I am soooo tired. And sick. And I just want to be able to eat without gagging.

Okay, whining over. Happy thoughts: Perrin likes to poke my belly and say, "Hi, baby!" Then he'll blow bubbles on my stomach and say, "Wake up!" What a good big brother he is. :) I've asked him several times if he wants a baby to come live with us. He nods his head and says, "Yes!" My mom asked if the baby could wear his Toy Story flip flops. He got a really concerned look on his face and said, "No! My shoes!" So I guess he's okay with a baby coming to live with us as long as it doesn't steal his shoes.

Happy Easter!

I love Easter. Now that Perrin is 2, I can teach him a little about the meaning of Easter and why we celebrate Christ's resurrection. I love the colored eggs and chocolate and Easter eggs hunts too... but it was fun to spend some time with Perrin all week learning the Easter story through toddler-friendly activities (FamilyLife's Resurrection Eggs are awesome, by the way.)

This morning, I decided to continue building on what we've learned this week by making "resurrection rolls" for breakfast. I got the idea from Pinterest. Basically, you take a marshmallow that represents Christ's body, and you dip it in butter and cinnamon and sugar to represent the oil and spices that were used to anoint the body. Then you put the marshmallow into crescent roll dough (symbolizing the tomb) and close it tight. When you cook it, the marshmallow is supposed to melt and disappear so that you're left with an empty "tomb" when you bite into the crescent roll. Nifty idea, huh?

Well, it would have been if it had worked. The marshmallows we used weren't technically fresh... they had condensed a bit and were a little tough and chewy. That's probably why the metaphorical body of Christ, instead of disappearing, puffed up to about ten times its normal size and then slowly began oozing out of the "tomb." Not exactly useful for explaining the story of Easter.

Oh well. It tasted good anyway. And Perrin had fun dipping the marshmallows with me and babbling: "Jesus. Tomb. Empty. Candy!" I suppose that's a pretty good toddler summary of Easter.

Here we go again...

I've been pondering a question in my mind for the last few days: If you win the jackpot, do you keep playing the lottery? No, Trey and I haven't taken up gambling. I'm way too cheap for that. I'm thinking about it in relation to having kids. Perrin is so perfect (temper tantrums and affinity for mud puddles aside) that I really do feel like we won the jackpot with him. I love him to death; he's healthy, happy, funny, smart, cute, brave... everything I could have ever dreamed for in a child.

Here we are, pregnant again! Now that I know how awesome parenting can be, I'm really excited to add to our family and have another sweet baby to cuddle and love. But... is it possible that we could really be blessed with TWO perfect children? I don't want Baby #2 to ever feel like he/she has to live up to some impossible standard set by our wonderful first child. But come on... Perrin is pretty stinking awesome.

It also just occurred to me that Baby #2 might read this blog someday and wonder if we really do love him/her as much as we love Perrin. Well, dear Baby #2, let me just say that we already love you with our whole hearts and can't wait to meet you. We know you and Perrin will have very different strengths and personalities, and we are so excited to learn all about you! Yes, your older brother is amazing. But you are too. Also, you're making me throw up an awful lot right now but I love you anyway. You're totally worth it. Doesn't that make you feel good?

Happy anniversary to us!

Yesterday was our 6-year anniversary. In the first few years of our marriage, we made it a point to always travel somewhere fun for our anniversary--Eureka Springs, Branson, Hot Springs, etc. We have some awesome memories of sleeping in a tree house, relaxing in a mountain-side hot tub, horseback riding, and exploring together. Now that we have a child, anniversary celebrations have been toned down a bit. We didn't even leave the house yesterday evening--just cooked a nice dinner together (with Perrin scrambling into our laps as we tried to eat), and fell asleep soon after putting Perrin to bed. Fun, but not exactly on par with previous anniversaries. And not exactly loaded with romance. To top things off, both Perrin and I woke up puking yesterday morning. Nothing says "romance" like being sick AND cleaning up someone else's throw up!

We are in the diapers/bedtimes/messes/Elmo overload/playdough on everything phase of life right now. And I'm okay with it--in fact, I wouldn't have it any other way. But I do feel tinges of nostalgia for our carefree days of dating whenever and wherever we felt like it. I guess even as adults we still experience some "growing pains." I'm happy with where we are; I'm excited for the future. But change is always tough.

Between feeling sick yesterday and exhausted by the time dinner was over, I'm not even sure if I kissed my husband yesterday. On our anniversary!! Isn't that sad? I did send him on an "Anniversary Egg" hunt (similar to an Easter Egg hunt... one chocolate egg hidden for every year we've been married). But I'm telling you... my creative and romantic powers must have taken that anniversary trip without me because I feel about as romantic as a stick.

So, dear Trey, I apologize that your previously romantic wife is too tired to even give you a kiss on our anniversary (or too tired to remember, if in fact we did kiss...) I know this is just a stage and we'll have many wonderful anniversaries to celebrate in the years to come. In the meantime, we'll just have to settle for snuggling on the couch with the Veggie Tales theme song playing in the background as our toddler flushes his toy trains down the toilet. Maybe we can even sneak in a kiss before he pours his apple juice on his head.

Happy birthday, Perrin!

My little boy turned two years old yesterday. It's hard to believe I'm the mom of a two-year-old! It was fun celebrating with family over the weekend. We took Perrin to the Museum of Discovery on Saturday, and he had SO much fun.

Here he is digging for dinosaurs. It was tough pulling him away from this to see the rest of the museum. I think he would have played in this spot all day if I'd let him.

The museum had plenty of cute props to explore--a barn, a kitchen, a pirate ship, a lighthouse, etc.Perrin kept trying to go in and out the windows instead of using the doors.

 Here's my big boy climbing his first rock wall! (With a little help from Daddy).

Perrin climbed up inside this exhibit so that he could get a closer look at the balls floating on air. It worked out fine until he started throwing the balls out of the exhibit, and I had to go chase them through the museum.

When we got home, we had a party with balloons, food, presents, and Elmo cupcakes! I got this idea from Pinterest, and mine are totally not as cute as the ones I found online. They don't look much like Elmo, either. And I couldn't get the frosting perfectly red, so I had to serve pink Elmos. Not very manly... but Perrin didn't seem to mind.