Fourth of July

Aunt Ashley and Gavin came to visit for the 4th of July. We hung out at home because it was ridiculously HOT! We ate hot dogs and mac and cheese for lunch (classy I know) and Ash brought no bake cookies for dessert. We also spent lots of time in the pool on the deck. Nothing fancy for us, but we had a good time.

Visiting Metcalf

Tate and I went with my mom and brother to visit Tate's Great Great Grandma Metcalf in Indianapolis. Tatey is almost 2 and she is 96 1/2. We visited her last summer and she usually goes to Kansas City for Thanksgiving. She wasn't able to go last year so this was the first time we'd seen her in over a year. She had been pretty sick for several months, but was looking and feeling good while we were there. 

Tate is very fortunate to have lots of Grandmas so he gets a little concerned. Before our trip, I showed him pictures of Grandma Metcalf so he would know who she was. He called her "Metcalf". Hilarious! And once we got there, he continued calling her simply "Metcalf" the whole time. I guess having another Grandma label was too confusing so he shortened it. He would walk around and say "Metcalf's room" and "Metcalf's pretties" and "Hey Metcalf". We all died laughing. In all her 96 years, she's never been called Metcalf. Guess Tate just wanted to make her feel special. :)

Pretending to pinch Metcalf's toes so she would pretend to cry 

Sitting with Metcalf 

More pinching 

Giving goodbye hugs 

A little nervous that Gramma Nobles might leave without him!

We all had a nice visit and even went to a "Happy Birthday Party" for one of the many many cousins up in Indiana. Tate played outside in the water lots to stay cool, we ate WAY too much, and stayed up too late every night talking. The 4 days went by fast (probably because we drove 7 hours the first and 4th days). 

We're not sure when (or if) we'll see her again, but hopefully we'll be able to take a trip with Lexi once the weather clears up in the early spring. Grandma won't be coming for Thanksgiving this year because Miss Lexi is scheduled to arrive 2 days before... although she probably wouldn't be up for that much traveling anyways. I really really hope that she can meet Lexi before she passes- this will be the first great great granddaughter. She already has 4 little boys with another on the way, then Lexi, then one more after that (gender still unknown). How cool to live to see that many generations!

It's a...

Well it only took me a month to post this, but Baby Wahlquist #2 is a GIRL!

We announced to my parents, brother, and best friend via a text picture, called AJ's parents, and then posted the above photos on Facebook. 

We are absolutely thrilled. One boy and one girl. And now we can be done having babies! Who knows, we may decide (many years down the road) that we want another little one running around, but this is for sure my last pregnancy. No one can handle me being preggo again. 

And below is how we announced her name

We're still not positive if we will name her Lexi or Alexa, but I'm pretty sure it will just be Lexi. Still fighting over middle names, but my pick is Lexi Madison Wahlquist.

Baby ultrasound tomorrow

Last post of the night I swear! It's rare that I find the free time to sit down and blog so I just do several all at once. I figure it saves our memories just the same. :)

Well, tomorrow is the big gender reveal (if the baby cooperates). We have our 20 week ultrasound tomorrow morning and if the baby will spread it's legs, we can finally find out if it's a boy or girl. I am so nervous/anxious/excited. 

I know the baby is at least alive and well for now- he or she has really started moving around this week! So, now the question is "does everything look normal? like the heart, spine, etc. Since I work in a program that serves little bitties with medical conditions that lead to developmental delays, I am all too aware of what can go wrong during fetal development. We feel comfortable handling something like Down Syndrome, but things like heart defects and neural tube defects scare the bejesus out of me. Just trying to keep the faith that this baby will be healthy and look great tomorrow. 

As far as the sex of the baby... AJ thinks it's a girl, my mom keeps changing her mind, and I have NO idea. This pregnancy is different from Tate in that I want to eat ALL the time, have tons of back pain, and have gained weight more quickly. But, who knows is that's just the difference in pregnancy or a difference in the sex of the baby. I don't believe any of those old wives' tales- none were true with Tate. I think AJ would be totally happy either way. I would really like a girl so I can experience both. But, I wanted a girl with Tate but then couldn't imagine having a girl once we found out he was a boy. Boys are SO much fun so I know we will be excited either way. 

Tate is going to Gramma's for the weekend so I'm sure I will spend the weekend either shopping for girl's clothes or sorting through all of Tate's baby clothes. :) We took a whole bunch of photos this weekend of pink balloons and then blue balloons so that we will be ready to announce either way as soon as we know. There's one pic of each on my phone to send as a text to my parents, brother, and best friend. Then, we'll come home and put the rest of our pics (including one with the baby's name) on Facebook for the world to know. 

I know I won't be able to fall asleep for hours tonight- it's like Christmas Eve!!! 

Hurry up tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Swimming lessons were a bust

Well, I had a previous post about how swimming lessons were going pretty well and that we were all having fun. Yeah, not so much. We went Mon, Tues, Wed and then had to skip Thursday because Tate got a REALLY bad diaper rash. As in the kid didn't bathe for 4 days because his butt was so raw. Came out of nowhere. Ugh! So, we went back Mon for our second week and it was the same (or worse) than the previous Tues and Wed. Tate is used to free play all evening and he's pretty tired in the evenings. Apparently, this is not the best time to have a structured activity. We made the executive decision to not go back after Monday. It's just not worth the fight. We were so rushed in the evening with trying to eat dinner, get changed into swim suits, get sunscreen on everyone, and then keep Tate happy while we drove all the way across town. Then we fought with him (aka bribed, spoke sternly, tried to make it look like fun, every trick in the book) for the first 25 minutes of every lesson. He would fuss and whine and cry and we couldn't even hear the instructor most of the time. He finally liked the last 5 minutes of each class, but was ready to go home and sleep by the end of each session. Why go if it makes everything harder and no one is having fun?!

The pace of the class was soo slow and my Tatey is a go-go-go kinda kiddo. All but one of the other kids were there to just get comfortable being in the water. My goal was to learn how to keep Tate from drowning- he's like a frickin eel! The only part of the class that Tate actually liked was standing on the side of the pool and jumping in. He could do without kicking, scooping his arms, and blowing bubbles. He did kinda like going under the water. I feel like I learned enough to work with him on my own. Next year, we'll go for a morning session! And in the meantime, we'll go swimming on our own in the kiddie pool and do just fine. :)

Visiting West Plains

We took Tate down to visit Grandma and Grandpa Wahlquist in West Plains, MO June 15-17. We drove down to Mammoth Springs, Arkansas to see their new aquarium and to feed the ducks at the spring. Well, the new aquarium wasn't open yet, so we visited the old one which is basically 6-7 small tanks of fish. Not impressive, but Tate liked it. Then we went to feed the ducks, but they were full from the people right before us. We did get to feed a muskrat that was swimming around and a couple of the ducks nibbled our bread. Tate wasn't too interested in throwing in the bread anyways. He really just wanted to run around and be crazy. So we let him. I love that it's so easy to entertain a toddler! Here's some pics from our trip.

 Tate and Daddy getting ready to go feed the ducks

The muskrat that was swimming around and snacking on our bread 

Daddy was trying to lure the ducks to come closer so Tate could feed them 

 Tate getting ready to throw his bread

 Good throw!

Trying to him interested in the ducks 

 The spring is so pretty! 

AJ's dad used to go swimming in it as a child. Apparently it's REALLY cold!

Taking a water break after running around with daddy

Swimming Lessons

Tate has had 2 days of swimming lessons so far- one good and one bad. He LOVED the first day, followed some directions, and generally had a blast. Last night, he was super excited when we got to the pool, but started fussing almost immediately when we got in the water. He wanted to play with duckies and then a ball or two balls and he just generally didn't want to follow a structured class- he just wants to go, go, go at his own (fast) pace. He cried and screamed for 97% of the lesson. Fun! Luckily, it's a class of 1 and 2 year olds so most of them were crying at some point. We didn't get any pics last night since we were too busy trying to bribe Tate into cooperating, but here's a look at our first day's lessons. It's fun because AJ and I both get to participate!