Waiting on Baby

We're three days away from my guess date.

I've been trying to get every possible thing I can think of done before baby arrives.

This month has been great so far.  The snow is starting to melt.  

I've had some amazing help getting things ready.  

I cut my hair... which was kind of a big deal for me.  

Feeling a little sad....

We're getting really excited for this baby to come.  The last couple of days I've finally felt 'ready'.  

But what I really wanted this blog post to document was C.

I've been getting emotional about a lot of things, but one of them has been C.  

What a kid.  He never ceases to amaze me, and I feel so grateful to be his mother.  I don't know how this transition from only child to older brother is going to go, but I wanted to document some of the fun/sweet things he's been doing lately.  

* We have a game where I say, "C, you're the best!"  He always responds, "No mom, you're the BEST!"  We then both say "We're BOTH the Best".  Nothing like a good round of that to boost your self-esteem. :)

*He LOVES playing games.  He loves hide and seek and has started to learn how to be quiet while he is hiding.  He also loves the game 'Huckle Buckle Beanstalk', an H family tradition.  You hide an item in the room and then help guide the seeker to the item.  He hasn't quite mastered the art of not pointing directly to it. :)

*He loves reading books.  Man I'm so happy this kid likes to read.  He's been memorizing the books too, and he loves to read them out loud to us. He's also been letting me read him chapter books, and we're currently reading "Charlotte's Web".  I love snuggling him and reading to him.  

*He is also getting to be quite the avid singer.  He always sings a long with me in the house, and it's funny to hear some of the songs he's picked up.  Some have included "Sweet Sweet Smile" (Carpenters), "Shake it Off" (Taylor Swift...he's really good at the 'boom boom' part), and "Let it Go".  

He loves singing by HIMSELF too, and his current repertoire is "Winnie the Pooh", "child of God", "Edelweiss" and any other silly song we can come up with. 

He is getting to be really polite (most of the time), and I love his little mannerisms.  

"Oh sorry, momma."

"Please, with a SMILE!"

"I won't anymore..."

"Oh, okay."

"This is really good mommy!  Thanks!"

He's starting to ask questions, and one of his favorites is asking who the people are on the cereal box.  

The other day at the store, there were St. Patrick's day decorations up.  He pointed at them and asked, "What are those mommy?"  I told him, and he said, "Wow.  They are so beautiful".

He loves pretending going to the store, and he LOVES our new grocery store of preference "market basket".

I said, "C do you want me or daddy to read you a book tonight?"

C: "I want daddy.  Mommy needs to work on dishwasher".

*those two boys gang up on me! :)

He wakes us up in the morning by knocking on our door in a very polite fashion. :)

He loves running laps in our house. 

He's also getting quite good at memorizing, and we've been having him work on articles of faith.  He's doing awesome!

I could go on and on, but I love having my little buddy around.  He has such a tender heart, and I am amazed at how he recognizes the needs of others around him.  This morning I was feeling a little sick, and he tucked me in, gave me a back rub and brought his baby to help me feel better.  He loves being all together and his daddy is still his favorite person in the world.  I wish I could hold onto time, but it is amazing to watch him grow up.  The next couple of weeks are going to have a different focus, and it kind of breaks my heart that my C time is going to diminish but I'm also so excited for him to be able to be a brother.  

pretty sure he gets the closed eyed photogenic skills from his momma :)

Well....the next post should be about a baby... so hooray for that!

February musings....

                                       February.  What a month here in Watertown, MA.

SNOW.

That would be the word of all words to sum it up.

It snowed.  A lot.

More on that later.

Other happenings:

A fun superbowl party with friends.  We let C stay up and he had a BLAST.  He LOVED eating the treats and playing with his friends.  

Tuesdays have become our library days.  We love our local library, and C has grown to love the story time there.  He loves picking out books (we've gotten some weird ones), playing with the toys there, and playing puzzles.  His favorite part is checking out, and he takes it very seriously.  He loves handing the librarian the card, and then she always gives him a stamp on his hand.  Lately, he's been asking for both hands.  It's pretty cute.

Mr. H and I helped with a fun primary activity.  We are enjoying our callings as primary teachers working with the eleven year olds.  

We also got to speak in church.  We talked about family history, and we had fun putting those talks together. Mr. H LOVES doing family history and has been plugging away at it very diligently.  We both found out that we have ancestors that helped found Watertown.  Cemetery scouting will be happening as soon as the snow melts.

We've also been diligent attenders at Tune Train through the Watertown family network. C has been learning so many new songs and we love it.

We had a nice Valentine's day.  Mr. H and I take turns planning V-day and our anniversary every year, and it was my turn for this fun day.  We made a fun fancy breakfast with C.  He loves 'fancy' breakfasts!  Then that night we all went to dinner.  It was of course snowing, and so we didn't go very far.  Dinner was good, and it was fun having C along.  Mr. H and I played games that night and then watched a movie of his choice: Castaway.  I had never seen it, and while I don't know if it would have ever been my pick for a Valentine's day movie, it was fun to see how much he enjoyed it.

Mr. H and I did a hospital tour of where I will be delivering at.  It was really fun---we're excited to have such a great hospital in our area!  

We had two Sundays where church was cancelled.  We got to have our own sacrament meeting which was different, but neat.  

Mr. H and I have been going on a few dates which have also been fun.  We went to a play, a murder mystery by Agatha Christie.  It was held at a local church, and it was a lot of fun!  We also went and played racquetball and our local YMCA.  That was hilarious....Mr. H had to play with his left hand to make it remotely far.  

My dr's appointments picked up this month, and I have to say C has been quite the trooper.  He is the best buddy every at those appointments.  My third trimester has surprisingly been my best, and I've felt really good and healthy. 

School was cancelled a lot too....which was fun for the most part, but got kind of stressful towards the end.  

And back to the snow.  I have never experienced SO MUCH SNOW! It just kept on coming.  A foot here, a couple of feet there it was crazy.  Boston made a record on snowfall this February, and I was afraid the snow drifts were going to cover my windows!  Luckily, our power always remained on, and so it mostly just kept us indoors.  Poor Mr. H had to do a lot of shoveling. 

Modeling my scarf...and sporting his new haircut!

A couple of V-day decorations

February Fun!

This month has flown by.  

So C got sick with pneumonia.  It was quite the bummer of this year. Then we all got sick.

But we got BETTER. :)  

So now we get to enjoy the sunshine.  60 degree weather in February?  AMAZING.

We got to celebrate Valentine's day.  We made homemade heart shaped pizzas and played with C.  Then we tried to watch "A Philadelphia Story".  It had a lot of potential, but ended up being a little weird.

Overall, it was a nice night and really great to be with Mr. H.  

So I wanted C to hold the flowers all cute and this was the best we got. :)

He loves helping me cook.  So we made special V-day cookies to celebrate. 

I took Mr. H and C out to the bird refuge on Saturday for a homework break.  Grandpa W also came.  It was fun.  I wanted to see bald eagles, and we saw one.  So that was cool. 

C and I had to go shoe shopping.  He grew TWO sizes since the last time I was with him.

That little boy is growing!

I took C to his Dr.'s appointment for his 18 month check-up.  

10 % weight

70 % height

96 % head!!!!  As Mr. H always says, big heads hold big brains.

Since Mr. H is going to important interviews and open houses, we decided to pay for a professional haircut for him.  (I have cut his hair our whole marriage).  Well, I guess I will continue cutting his hair.  He came back with it looking extremely short. This is a running battle between us, as he always wants it really short, and I like it a little longer.  He smiled, and said "I told her to go short".  I laughed, and laughed....which wasn't that nice of me.  Next time, we'll save the money and I'll just cut it how we always do. :)

We enjoyed President's day.  I discovered Savers, and also that they had a 50 % off sale.  It was awesome.  We went pant shopping with Mr. H.

It was hilarious.  He told me was a 32" by 38".  So I gathered up all the pants I could find in that measurement.  We got into the dressing room, and the pants could literally almost wrap around him twice.  He started panicking that he had lost so much weight.  I started thinking we were going to need to try the little boy section upstairs.  But then we realized I had brought all the 38" by 32".  ha.  Mr. H was relieved to not have to go to the boy's section.  And just as a side note, we could not find his size anywhere.  :(

We finished this season of Downton Abbey.  For some reason, that show has become 'our' show.  I loved this season.  And I loved being able to snuggle with Mr. H as we would watch the episodes.

Mr. H flew to Philadelphia this past Wednesday.  He was so excited.  I got to give him mock interviews, and ask him all sorts of fun questions.  He looked handsome  and confident.  We dropped him off at the airport, and then C and I headed to City Creek and played on the big sky bridge.  He loved seeing the trax trains, cars and people walking underneath us.  We were able to meet up with my brother's mission companion's family and chat about our cute missionaries.

I spent the rest of the week in Centerville.  It was awesome.  I got to be a buddy for O and go to a karate class, my brothers played with C, I got to hang with my awesome parents, my dad made me delicious crepes, and we tackled the task of organizing and sorting all the pictures in the house.  I am so lucky to have such a great family.  We both loved staying at their house.

Sunday we picked Mr. H up from the airport.  He had a great time, and enjoyed being in a new place.  

I encouraged him to take 'selfies' on his trip. 

This week started off really hard.  But I think I'm learning that hard things that happen may seem really bad or unfair at first.  They may break your heart. You may think that things like that shouldn't have to happen.  But I think I learned that hard things and trials NEED to happen.  We are able to draw near to our Savior, and He will heal our hearts.  We must experience trials to learn from the master Healer.  He shows His love for us by making up for our weakness, and giving us peace that we can't find from any other source.  

Here's to a sun filled week with HOPE, BRIGHTNESS, and LOVE.

Spring is right around the corner! 

Haircut Blues

I haven't cut my hair in one YEAR.

That's a long time.  

It's gotten really long, and I knew something had to be done.

I've always gone to a nice salon, paying around $25-which included a lovely scalp massage, washing my hair, and then styling it when done.  The salon was lovely, the hair dressers cheerful, etc.

For some dumb reason I decided $25 on a haircut once a year was too expensive.

So I tried out a local cheap hair salon.  

I figured they couldn't mess my hair up too bad and I might be pleasantly surprised.

When I arrived I quickly realized that this was not like a salon I was used to.  No pretty music, plush seats, fancy products.  The stylists all looked like they were having really bad days.  And nobody looked happy they were getting their hair cut. 

When I got to the girl I was assigned to, she asked me a couple of questions about my hair.  I had intentionally not washed it, as they have always washed my hair in the past. 

She informed me that my hair was too long and it would be easier to just cut it dry.  

How embarrassing.  

So I sat there with my oily, gross post work-out hair and let her try to comb it out.

My hair cut took approx. 15 minutes.

The whole time she was just trying to sell me their salon's products.

No friendly, salon chit-chat.

I walked out with my same gross hair cut in a boxy, blunt cut and paid $17!!!!

So my advice:

If you enjoy the magic of having your hair feel amazing and look beautiful, pay the extra $8 and go to a nicer salon.  

I didn't know I appreciated the magic of a nice salon, 

but there is magic in a nice salon. 

Go somewhere where it makes you want to come home and take pictures on your photo booth of yourself.

photo taken in 2009.  That is a happy customer right there :)

If you like getting your haircut, go somewhere where they like cutting it.