Father and Son

Today Julian came over to play with TJ while his new baby sister had her pictures taken.

I sat on the couch and casually punched holes in foam while simultaneously absorbing the sight and sound of these two playing. They would giggle as they ran from activity to activity, first playing in the curtains, then chasing each other into the dining room, then onto the fireplace, etc. until Julian says, "Okay, now it's BASKETBALL time!" They run, TJ just two pitter-patters behind Julian, over to the basketball hoop in the corner of the room where they try their hardest to shoot a ball through the hoop without either of them ever having success. But they keep trying. Until Julian sits down with a book and TJ attempts to sit in his lap. He backs his little booty into Julians face, then takes a seat right on top of Julian's lap. That's when I think to myself, my child truly thinks he has two fathers. He LOVES sitting in Trent's lap to read books (and when given the option at bedtime, he always chooses Trent's lap over mine).

A while back, Kim put on her blog a list of funny things Julian had said, one of them being, "come back, Son!" a comment directed at TJ when we were leaving their house.

Certainly the father-son relationship goes both ways.

Father left, Son went straight to sleep, and I was able to finish my hole punching. The finished product was 28 sets of these:

And a carpet full of fun foam confetti!

A friend had the fun idea of doing a "Busy Bag" Swap just like the idea found here. I signed up to do the Foam Lacing Cards. Now I need to drop these little foam shapes into 28 different ziploc bags along with some lacing string, take them to the swapping party, and we all go home with 28 ziploc bags filled with different activities to keep our toddlers busy. Since I still have 20 weeks before receiving my Golden Ticket to Happiness, I have to do everything I can think of that makes me happy. Crafting seems to work. Watching Father and Son play was just a bonus.

forget-me-not

A month or two ago I was talking to a girlfriend on the phone about some advice she had recently received. Part of the advice was to not wait until {blank} occurs to be happy. The blank could be filled in with marriage, conception of a child, owning a house, getting a new car, etc. I have thought about my friend's advice often since she first shared it with me, and have related it to many aspects of my life and others'. On Saturday night, I heard a fabulous talk by President Uchtdorf, which is summarized here, where he also discusses avoiding the golden ticket to happiness with an analogy of the forget-me-not flower. I was going back and forth on sharing this on my blog, because let's be honest, I never talk about church stuff on here, but I can't stop thinking about this talk, it is simply fabulous. AND THEN I went to a funeral last night and the building where it was held is surrounded by all these little, blue, forget-me-not flowers. So onto the blog I go, but I can't stop typing with just that.

I have to include a little confession-session.

What is MY {blank}?

{This pregnancy with baby #2}

It is incredible how different one pregnancy can be from another. Maybe it's because it's my second, maybe it's because it's a different gender, I don't know.

But I do know this:

1. My baby bump was showing before I even knew I was pregnant (about 18 weeks sooner than with TJ)

2. My emotions have been out of control (don't remember it being this bad with TJ)

3. I can barely walk and I'm only 20 weeks along (I ran or walked my entire pregnancy with TJ, no problem)

4. The first trimester sickness was different (probably for the better) than last

5. None of the same cravings

6. I'm still not convinced that I have felt this baby girl move (by 20 weeks TJ was kicking all day long, and I was loving it)!

Trying to convince myself that I can be happy during this pregnancy (because heaven knows it's not gonna be any easier once she is born).

Now it sounds like I am complaining!! Just outlining the differences between my two pregnancies.

And although I am joking a lot in this post, I'm not joking when I say that I am already in love with this little baby girl that I have yet to see, and I know she will be worth 20 more weeks of anything.

TJ's Fifthteenth Month + News

TJ's fifteenth month has been wonderful. His whiny phase came to a quick halt, and was replaced with fantastic sleeping patterns, a happier toddler, and a happier mom. He seems to be learning new things at record speed and appears to understand everything I say to him. My favorite thing about this month is his newly acquired skill of hugging! It is the best. I ask for about 50 a day, and sometimes he sneaks in a few without being asked :) We just had a doctor's appointment today and they say our chubby little boy is thinning out- 75th percentile for height and 53 percentile for weight.

Trent had a one week summer break in August so we took full advantage and vacationed in Destin.

[TJ loves the beach, but he might love the showering-off-after-the-beach even more.]

[We shared a Little Caesar's Pizza at Desin Commons while TJ played.]

[We all took turns burying each other at Miramar Beach.]

[TJ thought being buried was pretty fun.]

[Priceline hooked us up with a fabulous deal at the Courtyard Marriott in Sandestin. TJ's need for a fridge hooked us up with a two bedroom king suite upgrade for free.]

[We rode over to Pensacola beach to see Trent's friend from Utah, Christian, who is in Air Force training.]

[TJ slept like a champ the whole week. Eleven or Twelve hours at night and a nice two hour nap everyday at the beach, thanks to the bottle. After that week was over we took away the bottle cold turkey- but it hasn't seemed to disrupt his good sleeping patterns.]

[We spent several evenings at the Destin Outlet Mall scooping up end-of-summer deals. TJ loved the playground there, too]

[Trent was probably seeing if TJ could do a pull up]

[There were lots of fun families to play with at the beach. This little girl came up while I was trying to get a picture of TJ. She sat down next to him and said she likes to get her picture taken too!]

[There was yet another playground just down the road from our hotel at the Baytowne Warf. TJ was loving this big red swing.]

[At the top of a small slide in the toddler section of the park.]

Trent: Should I go down the slide with him? Or will he be okay to go down by himself?

Amelia: Trent, he's been down a million slides before, he will be fine.

[Or not.]

[More swinging with Daddy.]

[We spent our last day at Panama City Beach by the Pier.]

[By the end of the week he was posing for the camera!]

[And that concludes our trip to the beach.]

[We spent the next day at my parent's house before heading home. We love playing in their pool.]
[Every time I am in Tallahassee my mom will spend several hours every day playing with the grandkids out in the pool. After a while, I'll go inside and take a nap and when I wake up she is still out in the pool with the grandkids.]

[Someone remembered his "touchdown!" trick from earlier this year and is super excited about football season!]

[We took that little someone down to the fan festival before UF's first game of the year to walk around and pick up some free stuff.]

[We had gatorzone.com take a family shot of us with TJ wearing a UF helmet. I think it would have been a cute picture, had they not lost our batch and/or never uploaded it to their website for us to view. This was the helmet, but he was over the excitement of wearing it by the time Trent took this picture.]

[Taking a break at Dunkin' Donuts to watch the second quarter of the BYU game]

Lastly, the "News":

[Trent's friend from dental school, Kevin, gave us this little gloworm baby a while back. Recently TJ has been loving it.]

[Maybe he is just trying to get in some practice before his BABY SISTER comes in February!]