18 weeks and 7 years

I bet you're wondering what that title is about. Well, 18 weeks is how far along I am with this pregnancy and 7 years is how many years Nate and I celebrated yesterday.

For our anniversary yesterday we did . . . . . . . absolutely nothing. In fact, we both forgot until I got a text message from my mom mid-morning. Wow. Are we horrible people or what?!?!? Now, before you start thinking that we didn't do anything, we actually celebrated early. Over the weekend Sanaa had a sleep over with Nate's parents and we had a night at home, alone. We went out to dinner and also had breakfast at Cracker Barrel before picking Sanaa up. So, it actually was a very relaxing and fun anniversary.

This morning I had my doctor's visit to check on baby #2. The baby's heart beat is going strong and all looks well. However, I still have not gained any weight with this pregnancy, which is hard to imagine since we just got finished with the holidays. The doctor would like to see me gain a pound a week from here on out and strongly suggested that I graze all day long since by the evening my nausea typically comes back and I'm not up for eating much.

My next visit will actually be in 2 weeks. The doctor would like to do a sonogram at 20 weeks to check up on the baby, so on the 21st we'll get to find out if Sanaa will be having a baby sister or baby brother!

Seeing as how I don't have any pictures of me with a belly that hasn't grown much, I put some in of Sanaa. Plus, I know the truth. You'd rather see pictures of Sanaa anyway. Sanaa loves to sweep and I really need to find her a little child sized broom. But I figured instead of giving her a broom to push around I'd give her the dry swiffer, this way she's not just pushing dirt around but actually working for me. She thinks it's all fun and games, but I'm finding this to a wonderful way to keep my floors clean. :-)

18 months old

Sanaa is 18 months old today and we spent the morning visiting the doctor for her check up. Overall it was a good check up. The best part was that she didn't need any shots this time. Yea! Made for a much better morning than I anticipated.

Sanaa's stats:

Weight: 23 lbs (35th percentile)

Height: 32 inches (55th percentile)

Head circumference: 18 3/4 inches (75th percentile)

They did a quick vision test on her. Her vision is 20/20. I have no idea how they could tell that from the hand held device they used. I've never even seen a little machine like the one they used before. It was pretty cool.

The only surprising thing that occurred was being handed a pamphlet for ECI because Sanaa is not quite where she should be with her expressive language. ECI stands for Early Childhood Intervention and this is the place where I did my internship a couple of years ago while I was working towards my Master's degree.

About a month ago the doctor's office sent me an 18-month questionnaire to fill out. As I filled it out I noticed Sanaa was doing awesome on the her motor skills, receptive language, and social-emotional skills. Her expressive language wasn't so good. I wasn't too worried about it since she was doing so well in all the other areas of development. The doctor questioned me a bit about Sanaa's receptive skills and what she was saying. In the end, the doctor was not overly worried with where Sanaa is with her expressive language and expects Sanaa to just explode over the next weeks/months with her expressive skills. However, the doctor still wanted me to have ECI's info in case Sanaa doesn't start talking a lot and we get worried. But I'm not worried. She's already trying to add new words to her vocabulary and we're probably up to about 8 or 9 words right now.

This picture was from the Sunday before Christmas. The beautiful dress was sent by my mom.

Sanaa had just said "ta-da" after hitting some balls with her toy hammer.

Sanaa giving me her "I don't want you to take my picture" face.

You know your wife is 4 months pregnant when...

...you get a text message at work from your wife saying:

"Where are my chocolate chip cookies? ME WANT CHOCOLATE CHIP!"

Nate

Some assembly required

Those were the words on the box. The day before Christmas Eve Nate and I opened up the box containing Sanaa's new kitchen set. I knew there would be some assembly, but when I opened the box I was not prepared for the "some assembly" to mean "you will create your own kitchen from scratch." Wow! There were so many pieces. We had to make everything from the doors to the little cell phone after cutting each plastic piece out. Thankfully Sanaa is really enjoying her new kitchen.

Most of the pieces. I couldn't get a picture of all the pieces. There were some pieces at my feet as I took the picture.

Getting there. Got the doors made and on the front.

Doing finishing touches.

Enjoying her new kitchen set. The hard work on our part was worth it.

We all had a good Christmas. Uncle Caleb and aunt Sarah drove down from Arkansas and spent about 5 days with us and Nate's parents. It was a lot of fun. I'll have to post more pictures of our time together.

A white Christmas

Early this afternoon it started snowing. I was so excited! Snow on Christmas Eve. How awesome! The last time I had a white Christmas was probably our first year of marriage when we visited my parents for Christmas and that was about 7 years ago. Yesterday our high was about 71 degrees and the last weather report I heard yesterday said we would have a high in the 40's today with rain. So when the weather forecasters started talking about snow this morning I just laughed. It wasn't the first time they had mentioned the possibility of it snowing on Christmas Eve and it never seemed to happened. But this year it did. Yea! I know it's not a lot of snow, but our grass is covered and it's going to stay very cold tonight and tomorrow. So we should be waking up to snow still on the ground tomorrow morning.

After Nate got home from work today we took Sanaa outside to play in the snow and she had a blast. Here are a couple of pictures of her enjoying the snow and cold temps.

Merlin

Hi there. Nate again.

This is my new cat Merlin. Silver never returned, but he is here in spirit.

Basically he is almost entirely like Silver from a personality standpoint. He does have certain quirks that make him distinctive though.

1. He is definitely a lap cat, but doesn't like being picked up. He freaks out and wants to run away.

2. Silver would play rough, and claw or bite you while you petted him. Merlin doesn't. Definite upgrade.

3. Merlin is very nocturnal, and will take very long naps during the day, and then be wired at night. This makes life interesting.

4. Unlike Silver, Merlin is very kid friendly, and will often rub up against Sanaa. Sanaa doesn't really know what to do with this, but Rosa and I think it is great.

All in all. A great cat. Personally, I've always liked all black cats, so Merlin and I are a good fit.

Quote of the Day

Hi.

Nate here.

There are certain moments in being a Dad that I will always remember. These moments can look different depending on what they are.

Yesterday was one such moment.

I was working and my phone vibrated, indicating an incoming text.

I looked, and found the following text from Rosa:

"I give up. If Sanaa wants to eat cat food, so be it."

I didn't respond.

I didn't need to.

Nate