These past couple of of weeks ...

 We went with friends Brooke and Jenn to a nearby park that has a butterfly garden. After playing on the playground, Brooke and Ian enjoyed looking at the pretty flowers and pointing out the butterflies!

 A family from our church hosted a train open house last weekend. Almost the entire second floor of their house is a replica of a Colorado railroad. It was amazing! The family gave us a listing of all of the other model train builders in the area, too, so we can visit more trains!

 We had some friends over one day last week. Don't the boys look so grown up?? (Eli, Micah, Ian, Caleb B., and Caleb L.)

 Kim spent some time organizing the toy room. Since we moved our chest of drawers into the nursery, we could move the shelf with fabric bins into the toy room. My friend Kristy gave me a GREAT idea for how to label the bins. It's been SO helpful when Ian is looking for a toy or when it's time to pick up the toy room!

We also hung up a few bulletin boards to display Ian's artwork. When we were at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, Ian picked out the fabric that's hanging on the back of the bulletin board. (If you can't see it very well, he chose monkeys and giraffe print.)

 

 Our biggest news of the past few weeks, though, was finding out our "double siblings" (Amy and Jason) are expecting!! What an answer to prayer!! We excitedly got a care package together for them, including this homemade sign for their nursery (thanks for the great idea, Lauren!). Right after we got the care package together, we found out even more exciting news ... Amy and Jason are expecting TWINS!! Maybe we'll need to make another sign. :) We thank God for His wonderful gifts to Amy and Jason, and we're thrilled to become Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim for the first (and second!) time. We're also excited that these cousins will be born so close to the time our baby will be born. (Amy is due at the end of June.)

Ian is two and a half!

As a typical two and a half year old, Ian likes to be involved with everything and, preferably, do everything himself! He wanted an active role in making apple cake for small group last week. He cored/peeled/sliced all the apples we needed, plus one extra since it was just so much fun! He also chopped the walnuts all by himself with the nut grinder. Then, he "helped" with dishes. In the video, he'll tell you about his experience. (Momma's favorite part is when Ian mentions that he used an "apple corer/peeler/slicer.")

Our friends, Kati and Mike, watched Ian while we went to our 12-week prenatal appointment. Ian even got to help with baking at their house! Kati had Caleb and Ian decorate these cupcakes with icing squeezed out of a syringe. Fun! I'm sure Ian had fun decorating, and he certainly had fun eating the cupcakes!

Ian has an active imagination. If we sing "The Farmer in the Dell," for example, suddenly he's pretending that the farmer is sitting next to him in the car and coming along to the grocery store. Because he likes pretending, he loves it when Momma or Daddy comes up with a new game. One day, our living room rug got a wrinkle in the middle. We decided that it should be a tunnel for Ian's cars and trucks.

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With a little help from a broom, we were able to push the vehicles right through!

My cousin, Marcie, suggested participating in the Hands on Play Challenge for the month of November. (See The Imagination Tree for more details.) The activity that most interested ME was the "Fireworks Spin Art Paintings." Ian helped to choose the paint that went on the 6x6" card stock.

He was very excited to spin the salad spinner as fast as he could.

We checked often to see what the painting looked like ...

... and then Ian spun some more.

He LOVED this project so much he did it seven times! Here are his finished pieces.

On Monday, we celebrated Ian's half birthday. At lunch time, Momma sang Ian happy half-birthday,

and Ian blew out a birthday candle.

After dinner while Momma was tutoring, Daddy took Ian to Baskin Robbins to use his half-birthday ice cream cone certificate. Ian chose "the colorful one with green, blue, and purple" (Wild Ragin' Sherbet).

Here's a video of Ian singing a portion of what may in fact be the most annoying Sunday school song ever. You may know the song as "I Will Call Upon the Lord," but the Sunday school calls it, "Karate Jesus." It is Ian's current absolute favorite song. It will be a happy day when this stage passes. :)

What else is Ian up to at the ripe old age of 30 months? 

• He has just learned to pedal his tricycle, though he gets tired after pedaling about 20 feet!
• He LOVES routine. Ian will let someone know if he/she has broken protocol and will generally include the word "normally". The other day, Ian told Matt, "Normally, we put banana peels in the trash can, Daddy," after Matt set his peel by his plate.
• He loves to listen to his Sunday school CD but lets us know, "This is NOT a Sunday school song" if it's not one we sing regularly or "I don't like this song" if it's not one of the two songs on the CD he really, really likes.
• He's a very compassionate, tender-hearted kid. He loves kissing babies in real life and in pictures. He's very bothered when someone seems upset, sad, or hurt.
• He loves to know how things work. He's currently obsessed with speakers. In grocery stores, he has to find WHERE the sound is coming from. One of his favorite "games" is to find the small speakers on each of his electronic toys.
• He has a fascination with time but doesn't know what it really means. He'll ask, "What time is it?" When we answer him, he'll say, "What does that mean?" He also likes to ask things like, "Is it tomorrow? Is it today?"
• He only knows about 8 letters of the alphabet really consistently but is very interested in what letters SPELL. If he sees a word on someone's t-shirt, for example, he has to know what it says!
• He continues to be very opinionated. If we ask him to do something, he'll often initially respond, "It's not time!" or "I'm not comin.'" Given some alternatives, though, he'll generally comply. :) 
• He loves to giggle! Sound effects (especially things that sound like someone passing gas) are hilarious to him! He also laughed for days about a funny squeaking noise that a toilet made when he flushed it. If something that he says makes someone laugh, he'll repeat it over and over to try to get the same reaction each time.

We love you, little man! 

Changes to our Nursery

 With all of the talk about Ian's big boy room, we've neglected to tell you about some of the changes that we've made to the nursery. First of all, it's important to note that there's officially ...

because this crib is ...

(May 15th is about a week after big brother, Ian, will turn three!)

We went in to our OB-GYN today for our twelve-week prenatal visit. It
was such a joy to see the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound machine
and to picture JUST how big 6.1 cm really is! If you look carefully at the ultrasound picture, you'll notice that you can see the baby's hands (which look like two bright ovals on either side of the neck since they're closer to the ultrasound scanner). The baby is now measuring 12 weeks, 5 days based on his/her size.

 

We have already gone into the doctor a few times to check up on this little one. Understandably, we've been much more cautious and guarded this time around. Our doctor has been wonderful at reassuring us throughout these scary first weeks, even letting us come in about every two weeks for a quick ultrasound. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat at our eight-week "official" ultrasound. At that point, Baby measured 1.79 cm. and his/her heartbeat was 172 bpm. And, it's crazy to think that just 2 weeks ago, Baby measured 3.4 cm. Our doctor has reassured us that our chances of miscarriage are now less than 1% since we have reached the 12-week mark.

 Kim has been feeling good throughout the pregnancy as long as she gets a nap most afternoons. :) Her energy is already starting to come back as the second trimester quickly approaches.

Kim is definitely getting bigger more quickly this time around. Check out Ian's week 12 picture for a comparison.


We are so thankful to the Lord for the goodness and kindness He has shown to us. Thank you for keeping us in prayer as we together rejoice in this
tremendous gift the Lord has given!