Oh Brother!

What a wonderful summer! Will is growing faster than the weeds in my garden! He has had a pretty exciting couple of months since he started walking, he's discovering all kinds of new things, taking trips to visit family and is getting ready to be a BIG BROTHER!! I am 14.5 weeks pregnant and due on Feb. 7. I had my first appointment with my doc. about 3 weeks ago. She did an ultra sound and measured the heart rate. It was so exciting to see the little guy or girl jumping around; it was really quite comical. The doc said the baby is "hopscotching in there". I couldn't feel it of course but that kid was doing the Twist! The heart rate was 162...faster than Will's who was always around a 150-155. So for those of you who are into wives tales...start making your guess...faster than average heart rate...boy or girl? Yesterday's appointment revealed a 160. We'll soon find out at the 20 week ultra sound which will be in Sept/October. Will and the new baby will be just under 2 years apart. That's a little sooner than we planned but in retrospect what is 8-10 more weeks going to matter?

We've already started thinking about demolition and reconstruction of this old farm house to make room for baby...or really to make room for us as he/she will be taking our room. Other than that it's status quo around here as we marvel at our sweet boy and chase him around all day long. Fortunately this pregnancy has been much kinder on me. With Will I suffered morning sickness all the time throughout the whole 9 months. This time it is very seldom and I feel really good almost all of the time. A bit tired...but that's normal. And now that I am into the second trimester, the energy should pick up. Mega-Migrain last night...only had one bad one with Will when I was in my 4th month...am hoping the same this time.

I am really enjoying having the summer off and spending my days with my kid. He is so fun to watch as he becomes more and more adventurous as the days go. With walking comes bigger steps than he can sometimes manage, a little too much speed and of course no fear of heights or sharp edges. So of course there is often some kind of bruise or scratch decorating his noggin. His little shins are bruised up and down and his feet are always dirty. I don't think he minds :) His new favorite game (which irritates me to no end) is climbing up on a dining room chair so he can climb up on the dining room table and sit on it playing with whatever might be there. He does not quite get the notion of "danger danger" and "no" just makes him laugh at me...oh boy. He's quick and quiet too. I can turn around to load the dish washer and within seconds he's atop the table! Of course he climbs up onto the furniture, but he can get himself down from there. He loves sitting in Grandpa's chair when it is unoccupied and hit the buttons on the remote...just like Grandpa!

We have been able to spend lots of time outside. He loves to just wander around the yard and chase the cat. He LOVES our cat. Blaze (our dog) he could really take or leave. The cat is more his size and speed. She has 5 kittens now and Will is learning to be gentle and loves touching them. He is kind of getting the petting thing down. He has no fear of the peacocks or chickens and walks right up to them. I try to keep him at a bit of a distance, especially if the roosters are near...but they don't seem to mind him. Along with the 5 kittens we have 6 baby peacocks and 8 newly hatched chicks that are roaming around with their mama hens. We have just recently brought in two of our steers to the meat market and also butchered 25 chickens. We have had steak and burger from the steers and it was awesome! So farmer Zach is getting the cattle thing down!

Will tried his new kiddie pool the other day and didn't seem to think it was as inviting as I thought it was. He liked to stand in it, but didn't like sitting to play. I think he just needs to get used to it...hopefully this fleeting summer will offer up some more hot, sunny days.

For those of you that don't know, Zach was called for work! My last day of school was the first Thursday of June, he started the very next day! We didn't have a single day of scrambling for daycare! God has a plan and we are always taken care of! Praise God!

I think it is so awesome that in his first 16 months Will has been able to stay home with one or both parents...what a lucky kid! He will have to go to daycare in the fall when I go back to work but I think he will adjust just fine. He's pretty social and warms up to people pretty quickly. He will meet his daycare lady next week and spend some time with her alone. I think it will be a wonderful experience for him. There is only one boy at the daycare now, the rest are girls...so Will is an anticipated addition. The daycare only takes kids who's parents work for the school, so her days off are our days off and she is closed in the summer. This means even if I have off (MEA, holidays, summer etc) I don't have to pay her. What a nice bonus!

We have stayed pretty close to home this summer. A few trips to Zach's mom's resort up on Winnie, including a stay there with my dad, Lynn and Chris. They were with us over the 4th and we had a really nice visit. Lots of time at the pool and out on boat rides. We did not take our annual houseboat trip to Rainy Lake with our friends this year for several reasons...the two most important being two new additions for our friends Billy and Allysa (Megan Louise) and Chris and Katie (Harrison Lee) both who arrived just weeks before we usually board our boat. Next year we will all be ready to go (with infants old enough to stay home with a grandma).

My girlfriend Erica and her girls were home from Wales for a couple of weeks and we were able to spend the day with them. That weekend we headed to Wisconsin to spend some quality time with Zach's sister Jessie and our nephew Alex. We had a nice big suite at a hotel with a 24 hour pool! Love getting the hotel discount (thanks Mom and Jim!!). We took Will on his first trip to the zoo...as you can imagine, Will and Alex fit right in! It was a small zoo, perfect for their age. It had a beautiful view of Lake Michigan, however even the lake breeze could not cool the day...it was hot and miserable! After a BBQ with more family, we headed for the hotel pool quickly!

We took another trip this last weekend back up to Zach's mom's. I was able to spend some quality time with our niece Kaitlynn in the pool...we don't get to see her often, so it was so nice to have some one-on-one time with her to discuss all of the important things in life like Hannah Montana, fairies, horses and ice cream. :) We'll definitely make it up there one more time this summer before we gear up for White Pine and the beginning of the school year.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Mille Lacs County Fair with cousin Stacey and her two kids. It's going to be another hot one...we'll see how long we last.

Other than this post, it may be awhile before you see new pics as Will (within seconds) got ahold of my camera and dipped it into the toilet today! Hopefully it will dry out. If not, guess I'll be saving my pennies for that purchase!

Stay tuned for updates on Baby #1 and Baby #2!