24 weeks

Here's my 24 week belly shot:
I'm starting to feel really big, but at my last OB visit this past Saturday, my Dr. assured me that I'm measuring right where I should, and that it's very common to feel bigger faster with your second pregnancy. It was another good visit, with everything looking great! I'm so thankful for a healthy pregnancy and feel so blessed. :) I'm feeling Baby kicking a lot now, and they're definitely getting stronger. It's such a fun time of pregnancy right now, though I definitely feel more tired out in general this time around. I'm sure chasing Micah around all day has much to do with that!

Speaking of Micah, here's a little update on him too. He's doing a lot of babbling lately, which is super cute! It makes me wish I could understand his sentences. Sometimes it sounds like he's speaking Chinese, and others German! (Maybe that's why I can't understand him!) He's learning more words too, and likes to try to imitate when we tell him a word. His most recent word is "ball," and he's working on "apple." (He says, "Bap-bull" - so cute!) He enjoys reading books that have mostly pictures, since he points to every picture on the page and waits for us to identify the name of the object. He actually doesn't like to stay on a page long enough to hear the story - he's just interested in the pictures/objects. It's so fun to watch him learning right before our eyes!

Here's a picture from a couple days ago when I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast (what was I thinking?!):

Storytime at the library

Micah and I went to Baby Time at the Arlington Heights Library today for the first time with some friends! I figured he probably wouldn't really sit still, but it sounded like fun, and we needed to get out of the house this morning. The first thing we did was a song that involved bouncing, clapping, etc. which Micah loved. We also did some rhymes with actions, and he liked those too. Once they started reading the story, though, he was out of my lap and on the move! Almost all of the other kids were interested in the story, sitting on their mommies' laps. :) Not so much my active son! First he walked around where we were sitting and "greeted" some other moms (by pulling their hair...). Then he took off through the middle of the circle and went straight for the audio equipment! He had his hands in a plastic bin full of tapes by the time I got to him. :) He pretty much did his own thing until they handed out the book we were all reading together, and at least he sat in my lap and flipped pages with me during that time. The last thing was play time. They had bins of fun toys and some soft things to climb on. He loved playing with the toys (and stealing them from other kids) and being free to walk around to play. After Baby Time was done, we hung out in the kids' area of the library for a while. They have great stuff for kids his age! He enjoyed watching the fish in the fish tank, looking at himself in the fun-house type mirror on the wall, playing with a puzzle that was out on the table, and pulling board books off the shelves. :) We had a fun time, and I hope we didn't disrupt too many others during story time! But it's nice to know that the library is a fun place even to just go play for a bit.

When Micah wakes up from his nap, we're off to the indoor zero-depth pool in Arlington Heights. He loved it so much last time that I've been meaning to go back, and one of my friends and her son were going to go today, so that will be fun!

22 week belly pic and a sinus infection

Here's my most recent belly pic, at 22 weeks:
It's nice to finally really look pregnant, and to have the cute round belly! Now that I know how I'll be feeling in another two months or so, I'm determined to enjoy the "cute" stage of pregnancy! I'm feeling my little man moving around in there lots - that is definitely my favorite part of being pregnant. :)

For the past week I've been battling my first sinus infection. At first it was horrible headaches (I don't usually have problems with headaches), so I thought maybe it was just a pregnancy thing. Then I noticed that I was also a little congested, but didn't think anything of it. By Wednesday I was feeling pain in my sinuses, and Thursday it was pain from my nose all the way across my cheek to my ear, and down into the back teeth on top too. Wow, it was awful! I called my Dr. and they told me to come right in (I didn't know if these were signs of a sinus infection or not since I'd never had one!). He gave me some antibiotics. I was expecting to feel better right away, but didn't really. Yesterday I finally noticed some improvement, and today is the first day that I haven't had to take any Tylenol for the pain (though it's still there a bit). I think it's almost gone now, and I sure hope I don't get another sinus infection anytime soon! It's miserable! I feel for those of you that get them all the time...ugh!

Ultrasound pics

Here they are! We only got three pictures of this baby. With Micah we had a ton! Oh well. I guess Micah was much better at posing perfectly, because we had lots of clear pictures of him. This time there just weren't too many opportunities for great pictures. At least we got these three!

The first one is Baby's side profile (head on the right). What a cute nose! I want to compare this one to Micah's ultrasound at this age to look at their profiles. The second one is a 3D shot of Baby's face with his hands over his eyes. His face is on the right side - not sure what that big thing on the left is. He sure didn't want to move his hands during our ultrasound! (Neither did Micah.)

The third picture is another 3D picture of his face. We finally got him to put his hands down, though he still kept that one up by his mouth. The tech said that his umbilical cord was also floating above his face, so that obscured the clarity of the picture a bit. (You can't see it on this pic.)We also took some video, but it's too long to post here. I'm planning to put it up on Facebook, so let me know if you want the link. It's mainly just for the family, since I know they'd want to see it. :)

Micah's latest experiment

Over the last couple weeks Micah has started a new experiment, and it seems to be something he does no matter where he is. It all started when he took some of the lightweight balls from one of his toys and started throwing them on our tile floor. He realized that they bounced and made a funny noise when he did this, so he would do it over and over again! Last week he started taking two balls and making them bounce together to hear the cool sound that two balls together makes. He would giggle and giggle at this! Well, now it's progressed to systematically bringing all of his toys one by one to the edge of the tile and throwing them to see if they bounce! Of course, very few of them do. But it doesn't dissuade him from trying. It's kind of cute to see him trying out the laws of gravity and figuring out what "works" and what doesn't. :) It's not so cute when we're at Grandma and Grandpa's and they have wood flooring in the kitchen, though! I enjoy watching Micah learn. :)

Feeling our boy

This morning's excitement was that Steve finally felt the baby kicking! We were just waking up to Micah's sweet talking noises over the monitor, and the baby started kicking away. Luckily Steve was able to get his hand on there and got to feel multiple kicks! I'm excited that he's finally able to share in that special feeling with me. :)

Another funny note - whenever I'm using our laptop (with it sitting on my lap), the baby starts kicking! It makes me wonder if it's some electromagnetic field or something that he can sense. Then the paranoid part of me takes over and thinks that maybe I shouldn't use the laptop so close to him since he can clearly sense it...

It's a...

BOY!!!! We are so excited to share that Micah is going to have a little brother! We enjoyed watching him move around during the ultrasound. Just like his older brother, this one did not want to take his hands away from his face to let us get a good look. He was being a little stubborn with his legs crossed at the beginning, but when the tech came back to it a few minutes later, it was definitely there in all its glory! We could clearly tell it was a boy (even more so than with Micah). :) It was so amazing to watch his heart beating and to just see all of his little features. The Lord does such awe-inspiring work on these precious babies! In the coming days I'll try to scan our ultrasound pictures and post them. We're so excited to be able to share our news! :)

Micah's 15 month appointment

I can't believe my baby boy is already 15 months old! He had his well visit today and here are his stats: he's 31 inches tall (50%), weighs 26 lbs, 7 oz (75-90%), and his head is 19 inches around (75-90%). He's holding steady on the same growth curve that he's been on since the beginning. Everything else looked great, and he's a healthy boy!

Tomorrow's the big day for our other little baby...we can't wait to get to watch him or her move around, get measured, and most of all, find out his or her gender! We'll post as soon as we can once we get home from our appointment... :)

20 weeks!

I can't believe that I've already hit the 20 week mark in my pregnancy! I'm half way done and feel like we've only just started. Here's my 20 week belly shot:
I really feel like I expanded significantly over our Christmas break in Texas. I'm sure much of that has to do with Mom's great home cooking!! I'm a little afraid to weigh in at my appointment on Saturday. :) Speaking of my appointment, that's when we have the big ultrasound and we will hopefully find out the baby's gender! I'm so excited I can hardly wait, and I'm just praying that the baby isn't being overly modest on the big day. :) I'm definitely feeling the baby move every day multiple times now. Steve still hasn't been able to feel it yet, but we keep trying. One of these days! I'll post on Saturday with the big news!

A quick note on Micah - he's doing much better. Each day at home he seems happier and less sick. He has his 15 month well visit to the Dr. on Friday, so it will be fun to see how much he weighs, how tall he is, etc. I'm just glad to have my happy baby back!

I also added a link to our Christmas pictures on the right side of the blog. :)

On the upswing

After having quite a few difficult days, today we really feel like Micah's making a turn for the better. Especially by the afternoon he was acting much happier and was even getting into trouble! We knew right away that that was a good sign. :) His appetite is starting to come back too, and he gobbled down the Macaroni and Cheese that we made him for dinner. It's such a relief to have a happier baby who hopefully will get better and better each day now. We fly home on Sunday, so we're really just praying that he's much better by then!

Steve and I have also gotten sick with colds in the last few days, but thankfully we're not as bad as Micah was. I think we're both also feeling slightly better today, so hopefully the whole family will be back to normal very soon! We've both been reminded how miserable it is to be sick and have to still take care of a toddler, especially one who is sick and waking up in the night. But how wonderful it's going to feel when we're healthy again!