Three Months Later And...

We're ALMOST done. :) The final contractor (the carpet installers) left the house on Saturday at 4:30. I knew that once the carpet was installed it would finally look like a real room, and it really does! Before the installers got there we let Lexi color on the floor. She traced her hand and "wrote her name" so that when the carpet gets replaced (someday, by some other owners) they'll know that Lexi's hand was there.

On Sunday, we spent the entire day moving our furniture into the new room, and starting to get things ready in the now nursery. It was a looooong day, and my back suffered terribly, but the room looks really great. There are still a few details needed (mostly decorative and exterior paint) but we are pretty much done now! HOORAY!!!

Here are some pictures before the furniture...

And after the furniture...

Busy Morning

This morning Lexi and I were very busy. We started the day with an early morning appointment with Mr. Bob, her AWESOME orthotist who measured her feet for the SMOs (aka, braces or orthotics) that she will wear for about 8 months. We were both admittedly a little nervous about the appointment, but Mr. Bob put us right at ease, and Lexi did extremely well letting him measure her feet. She even did a bit of talking in his presence, which always makes me laugh. She can be so shy around new people and I think they assume that she doesn't talk. Then she suddenly starts chatting away like she's 16 and people are a little shocked. So, the appointment went very well, and we're told that she's going to get her very cool, flower and butterfly SMOs with purple straps (that she picked out) in about two weeks.

After our appointment we went to her second gymnastics class. Last week did not go well at all, as she was not happy with being taken away from Mom and expected to do lots of tricks that were just a bit harder for her than the other kids. So, this week we joined a lower level class so that I could go with her, and she had an absolute BLAST!! She was doing forward rolls, log rolls, walking on the balance beam, swinging from the bars, and jumping on the trampoline all the while laughing hysterically. It was like physical therapy on steroids, except that she really LOVED being there. She even let Mr. Brian (who she was scared to death of last week) give her stamps on her hands and feet at the end of class. The fantastic part about the class is that the entire room is padded with mats, or trampolines, so she's not afraid to jump or do crazy things because it doesn't hurt to fall. There is no doubt in my mind that she could do the older kid class all by herself, but we'll stick with this one until she's more comfortable. We're both very excited about the class now, and I'm so happy we signed up.

Once we got home and ate lunch, Lexi was so tired that she actually asked me to take her up for a nap. I had lots of grand plans of things I would get done during nap time, but now I'm thinking that I could go for a quick nap myself...

Stinky

When Lexi woke up from her nap, Charlie came up with me to snuggle with her a little in her bed. After three years, he finally trusts her to pet him, so he was snuggled up close while she was giving him great pets on his head.

Lexi: Look, Mama! He's smelling my blanket!
Me: Yes he is! That's because your blanket smells like you, and he likes that.
Lexi: Yea, it's because he likes the stink of my toots.

She's very funny. :)

Grrrr....l

Lexi takes great pride in her linguistic accomplishments throughout her short three years. A conversation that we have over and over and over again goes as follows:

Lexi: Mama, when I was a little baby, all I could say was "nana".
Me: Yes, and what can you say now?
Lexi: BAnana.
Me: Yup, you're a big girl now!
Lexi: Yea, but I can still only say "gir", because I'm only three years old.
Me: Yes, but soon you'll be able to say "girl".

So, tonight I was explaining to her that girl is just "grr" with the "l" sound after it, so I went over and over, "gir...l, gir...l" but she wasn't interested in trying. Then suddenly after a few minutes she goes, "girl. Did you hear that Mommy?? I said it! GIRL!!" She had, and I was proud, but no one was more proud of her new accomplishment than she was. She made Daddy come upstairs to tell him what she could say, repeating it over and over for full effect, "I can say 'girl', see Daddy? Girl. Girl. Girl." Daddy was also quite proud. Then she needed to teach Tony the Tiger how to say girl, but he couldn't do it and still just says "grr" (which is appropriate for a tiger). Even in the middle of her stories she reminded me about how she can say "girl". "Yes, Lexi. I'm very, very proud of you." Stories over, time for bed...I tuck her in, watch her close her eyes for the minute, and then the one more half of minute, and head downstairs.

A few minutes later I'm called back because she needed another blanket. She asks me to watch her for one more half of minute, to which I agree if she closes her eyes. As she rolls over to go to sleep she goes, "Girl." "Did you hear that, Mama? I can say 'girl' now."

Yes, baby...I couldn't be more proud.

Silly girl...

Lexi LOVES to have races. At Yaya's house they have races across the daycare all the time and the kids just cannot get enough. Yaya always starts the race by saying, "On your mark, get set, GO!" and the kids tear across the yard.

So, it was pretty darn adorable when Lexi began having her own races (with herself) that she would start off by saying, "On my mark, get set, GO!" We hear this all the time and it still cracks me up.

But this morning was the funniest of all. She was spinning her Daddy's computer chair around and decided that it was a race. So she says, "Mama! Watch!! On chair's mark, get set, GO!!" It just cracked me up. That kid is a riot. :)

Beach Photos Update

Here's a link to some of the best pictures of the beach. We failed to pull out the camera as often as we should have, but we did catch a few cuties!

Beach Pictures

August Update

I've been putting this post off because so much has happened in the last few weeks, and I haven't had time to give any of the occasions enough blog time. So, I'm going to give a quick update on what's happened so that I can move on to regular blogging again...

Beach Vacation:
Two weeks of perfect sun and perfect days. I don't think we had one bad day while we were there, and it was so much fun for Lexi to get to play with her cousins Peter and Josie (as well as Ben, Cassie, Sophie, Sam and Bobby on the days they visited). I have a few great pictures, but I need to get them uploaded and I'm just not there yet. I'll probably do a web album soon and just post that to make it easier. All in all (with a few small exceptions- and illness here, trip to the ER there, and maybe one or two small casualties - my dad's bike and his cell phone!!) everything was perfect and an absolute blast!

The house:
We are just about done - basically just the small details remain - carpet, blinds, painting the outside, and then moving the furniture around so that we can begin transforming our old bedroom into a nursery. I'm pleased with the progress and results so far, but I don't currently have any great pictures loaded. I'll try to update with pictures soon. The dusty part of the project is done, so we've been spending the last week (since being home from the beach) dusting and vacuuming, and dusting and vacuuming some more. It seems endless, but at least the dusted areas are seeming to stay dust free now.

Lexi:
She turned three and continues to act closer to 30. We had a little kid party for her at the beach, and Ahren was in charge of taking pictures. Not one word of a lie - the man took 417 pictures. Four hundred and seventeen. What do you even do with 417 pictures of a kid's party?? Honestly, if you flip through them quickly it looks like a movie. I'm sure there are a few good ones in there, but I haven't had time to sort through all 417, so you'll just have to wait on those too.
She loooooves her swing set and has now mastered every part of it. I don't think one day has gone by without playing on it, which makes us feel better about the ridiculous cost of it.
Potty training was a success. She's had maybe two accidents in the last month, and both were while she was sleeping (one when she was sick), so I'd say she's trained. The only thing we have to get her to figure out is the preventive potty visit. She doesn't like to use the potty until her tummy tells her it's time, which causes problems for us when we are about to embark on a long car ride, or a trip to somewhere that has no potties. She absolutely refuses to try unless she knows she has to go. However, since the other day she went 20 hours without using the potty (no, I'm not kidding, and yes, we were concerned) I guess we just need to trust that she will go when she needs to.

Baby Lippman:
Tomorrow I will be 28 weeks pregnant - officially into my third trimester. This pregnancy continues to be more difficult than the last in the discomfort department. A bad case of apparent gas sent me to the emergency room during our beach vacation (two days of terrible abdominal pain and difficulty breathing) which ended up being fine, but annoying. The heartburn and other discomforts are frustrating me, though I know that in the grand scheme this pregnancy is going along perfectly. I think part of it is that I'm trying to keep up with my 3 year old this time, so the back pain, exhaustion, etc. are that much more pronounced because I can't just sit and put my feet up. I also officially feel huge. I know my size is normal, and the same as it was with Lexi, but again, trying to be Mommy to a 3 year old gets tough with a huge belly in the way. However, there is nothing cuter than Lexi talking to her little brother - giving him kisses and snuggles and hugs. Sometimes she asks me to sit down so that she can give her "brover" some snuggles, and it just melts my heart. She is going to be the best big sister ever.
The still nameless baby is squirming around a lot these days. This is the fun part of pregnancy when the movement feels more like a baby moving around in there than odd muscle twitches. I can actually put my hand on my belly now and feel arms and legs push by.
Tomorrow I have to get my rhogam shot, and then I think I'm done with testing and injections! My next appointment with my midwife is next week, and from there I will begin going every two weeks instead of every four. This pregnancy is definitely going by faster than the first and it's really amazing to think that in 11 short weeks this baby will be here!! Man...we really need to come up with a name.

Okay, I think that's the basic updating from the last few weeks. Now, off to fall asleep on the couch. :)