Graeme is 17 months!

Graeme Grayson turned 17 months old this past Sunday. He still feels a little more like a baby to me since he is closer to one than two. But next month, when he turns 18 months, he will be from then on closer to two. And that is crazy. We could all have thousands of dollars for the many times we've heard "It goes by so fast!"

But it does.

Graeme is definitely one of a kind. Besides being adorable in his looks (clearly), his personality is equally adorable.

He loves routine (not sure where he got that from...ha!). For the most part, he likes the same books every day, the same episodes of Curious George over and over, the same toys (right now it's between stacking cloth blocks and six colorful balls that he plays with), and the kid really doesn't tire of watching dump trucks drive back and forth in the neighborhood. His bedtime routine is the most important for him, and it of course includes a fun bath!

For good or bad, he needs to go to bed between 6:30-7:00pm. If he falls asleep after 7, there's a good chance he will wake up even earlier than normal the next day. For the most part though, it's a dream to have a kid that's in bed by 6:45pm. The 6:00am wake up call has become part of life and it really doesn't bother me anymore. And on the rarer day when he sleeps until 6:30am...well, that's just an extra great start to the day!

He is a pretty good eater. He still has a love/hate relationship with fruit and sweets (thought he would love chocolate chip pancakes...they were denied). He consistently will eat applesauce so I just buy it with other fruit mixed in. And then every so often he will actually decide to eat blueberries or grapes. It's really hard to predict from day to day! His favorite vegetable is peas, but he also likes carrots, broccoli, and corn. He loves spaghetti. He doesn't like mashed potatoes. And he has become obsessed with any sort of dip, especially ketchup. I think he would eat a whole bottle of ketchup.

He loves Penny, or "Peppy," as he lovingly calls her. They have an adorable relationship, and Penny gets much credit for being an absolutely wonderful dog. Graeme is, of course, nice to her, but in his toddler ways he doesn't always understand "gentle." She takes whatever he dishes out like a pro and loves to play with him. And when she is being too intense with her affection, he is quick to give her a shove and say "No, no Peppy." He makes it up to her by sharing Cheerios and all the other food that ends up on the floor all day.

I've said before that he's a talker. He picks up a word or two every day and I can't even keep track anymore. He is definitely a boy who knows what he wants and can let us know. Usually with words.

I am constantly curious now about how Maisy will be different from Graeme. There will be many obvious ways since she will be a girl. But I wonder if she will walk earlier or talk later. Will she be more like me or Aaron? Graeme seems to have aspects of both of us. Only a few more months until we start getting to know her because...

I'm 20 weeks now!

Even though this pregnancy has gone by pretty fast, I still feel like I've been pregnant for a really long time. We got the positive pregnancy test at the end of April and it's almost September. Goodness. But I know the fall will fly by and there will be so much to do that January will be here in the blink of an eye.

We did get one major thing crossed off our "To-do Before Maisy List..." 

We bought our mini van!

We've only had it since Saturday, but I already LOVE it. I am sorry for all of the mini van bashing I have done in my days. I'm a convert. Small kids and mini vans seemingly go hand in hand. Mini vans for the win. Even Aaron has come around and loves it too. It's a 2014 Chrysler Town and Country. Buttons open the doors and back gate. Button-opening doors is the greatest invention ever. All of the seats can fold down into the floor if needed. There are like a million storage compartments and at least ten cup holders. It may not be as "cool" as a sporty convertible, but, for now, it's a really great car for us.

Besides, the mini van portion of our life will come and go as quickly as our kids do. So we will embrace it.

Next week the new (to us) van gets an inaugural road trip to Tennessee for a couple of days as we visit my grandparents. This should be our last trip until we meet Maisy!

and baby girl makes four

IT'S A GIRL!

Aaron and I went for our anatomy ultrasound on Monday morning. I knew a little bit more of what to expect this time around, but I was very anxious waiting in the lobby. We had a different ultrasound technician this time, and she was very nice.

She explained everything she was looking at very well. And thank goodness for that because a lot of it still looks like black and white blobs to us!

Praise the Lord that everything looked healthy and the baby was wiggling around like crazy!

When she went to look for the gender at first she commented that she was pretty sure she knew the gender but wanted baby to spread its legs further before she said it out loud.

"Sure," said Aaron, "just drag it out!"

She checked on a couple of other things and then went back down to the baby's bottom. After some jostling with the ultrasound stick thing, Baby finally spread its legs wide enough for her to capture the screen and point out there were "no boy parts!"

"Looks like a girl to me!"

It's all a little fuzzy after that. I honestly couldn't say what I thought we were going to have, but I think kind of deep down I was figuring it would be another boy. So I was pretty shocked. Aaron, who already thought it was a girl, let out a happy shout.

We finished up, and she told me I could finally relieve myself of my very full bladder by this point. I know that I always have to leave a sample and the bathroom was literally across the hall. But in the two seconds it took me to walk in there, I totally blanked and forgot to pee in the cup. Oops! 

We had our regular appointment with the doctor after that and got to hear our daughter's strong heartbeat again. That never gets old. We have another ultrasound next month to clear up some confusion about our due date. She may be making her appearance a little bit earlier. We shall see!

A girl.

How exciting.

Being the insane planners that we (ahem, I mostly) are, we have had names picked for a boy and a girl for several weeks. We decided to not go with the girl name we had picked out to go along with Graeme originally. Instead, our new baby girl will be...

Maisy Katherine Bauer

Maisy (MAY-zee) is a name I started to see here and there on the internet that I really started to love and think was super cute. Katherine is the middle name of Aaron's grandmother that passed away just one month before we got married. She was very special to both of us and we have always wanted to use Katherine as a middle name for our daughter. Plus, "Maisy Kate" as a nickname is basically too cute.

When we first looked up "Maisy" we learned it was a Scottish name (it's a nickname for "Margaret"). This basically sealed the deal because "Graeme" is also Scottish. Who knew we are apparently very drawn to Scottish baby names?! Maisy means "pearl" or another definition we found was "light's creation." Katherine means "pure."

We pray our sweet "Pure Light's Creation" will grow to be a loving daughter of the King! She will definitely be our little princess. (Her father is already wanting to plan her first trip to Disney World!)

I am honestly still letting it sink in that I will have a little girl. I have always wanted a daughter. I grew up with a little brother, and in all of my many years of babysitting/nannying, I have mostly cared for little boys. I feel very comfortable with boys. A baby girl will definitely be a new adventure.

Just as I do with Graeme, I feel a great weight of responsibility in raising Maisy. Raising a child is no small calling. With God's help, Aaron and I pray we can raise both of our kids, and any future children (that's still way up in the air!) to know God made them, loves them, and wants to be their friend forever. And that they will grow up loving Him, making wise choices, and sharing His good news with the world.

We can't wait to meet our little Maisy Kate.

In other brief news:

1. I am 19 weeks pregnant now and feeling pretty great! I have felt baby Maisy moving for a few weeks, but Aaron is able to feel her now! 
2. We had a GREAT time at the beach! It was the first time we had ever gone on vacation with just my family. Graeme LOVED it this time and is still asking about the beach every day. I will have to do another post with more details of our last beach trip of the summer.
3. Graeme will be 17 months old on Sunday!?! I can't believe we are almost halfway to him turning two. If I had to pick one word to describe him right now it would be "FUN!" He is so inquisitive, curious, and smart. We are able to carry on pretty coherent conversations with him and he is very able to express what he wants. Or doesn't want. He is still mostly obsessed with the dump trucks outside our house.

He's going to be a great big brother in a few months!

beach take two, throwing up, and mini vans

It's August. There are less than five months in 2015 and that's weird. Summer has, as suspected, gone by really fast!

We have one more long vacation next week. We are headed to Carolina Beach with my family for the week. It's kind of fun that we bookended summer with two family beach trips. We spent a week with Aaron's family at Myrtle Beach in the beginning of June. I believe I mentioned in the blog that Graeme was not a huge fan of the ocean or sand back in June, so we are interested to see if a couple of months will make a difference.

Not a fan.

Graeme is mostly obsessed with trucks right now. There is a dump truck and a loader (not sure if that's the right name) that have now been working right down the street from us for about two weeks now. They are moving a MOUNTAIN of dirt and rocks and construction debris. They have made a big dent in it but I think it will take them quite a bit longer to finish. Graeme might cry when they are done. It's the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing he wants to do at the end of the day:  watch the dump truck.

"Dump truck! Dirt! Where'd it go?! Back!"

This is what he repeats over and over again. It's super cute and I can't believe how long he will stay out there just watching the dump truck go back and forth. You would think it would get boring. The man that drives the dump truck always waves at him and we have talked to him a couple of times.

"You need to get that boy a dump truck for Christmas!" he said. He is probably right.

At least he doesn't want to watch sports yet.

I am 17 weeks pregnant now! I have still been feeling much better but I had a minor setback. I either ate something bad that gave me food poisoning or had a stomach bug thing last Thursday. I am not sure which it was. It was definitely not pregnancy sickness related. It was a really bad 24 hours and then I was still not quite back to normal for the whole weekend. So that wasn't fun.

I could have cared less that I felt horrible and was more concerned for the baby and that Graeme or Aaron would catch it if it was a bug. By the next day, I did feel better and was able to keep some food down. And by Monday, I was all back to normal. Yay. Oh, and no one else got sick so I think we are in the clear.




Other than that, things have been great!

We have begun the search for a new (used) car. And by car, I mean mini van. Yes. I said it.

Aaron and I used to swear we would never own a mini van. But then we had a kid and decided to have another kid soon after. With two kids under two, a mini van began to creep in my thoughts saying, "You know you need me!"

I was pretty sold on it, but Aaron was still pretty sold on making an SUV work. We went to a couple of different places last weekend to look. After looking at both options, the mini van wins.

The SUVs that we can actually afford may have a third row of seats, but the third row cannot be used with carseats and it removes pretty much all storage when it's up. Since we cannot officially say "Two kids and we're done," we don't want to settle on something that may not have enough seats in the long run.

The mini vans we looked at were in the same price range or less and had lots of seats and lots of storage. I am most excited about the sliding doors that open with a button. Getting Graeme to the car with all of the things is already a handful. So adding an infant carrier back in the mix plus baby supplies makes sliding doors sound like heaven. No more worrying about banging my car door into the car next to me while I maneuver children into the car. For the win.

I'll keep you posted as we attempt to purchase our first car together. We still aren't sure which car we are getting rid of to acquire this van. I am, of course, clueless on all things financial. Thank goodness for Aaron.

"Are you guys sure you know what you're doing?"

We are less than two weeks away from finding out the gender of this sweet baby! I am trying not to think about it all the time but it is so hard to wait! At least I will have the beach to distract me next week.

Until next time.