Mom's birthday

My birthday was a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to do something fun to celebrate. So I decided Stephen and I would go to the local Aquarium. It was snowing that day which made driving a little less fun, but I wasn't going to let a little snow ruin my fun day. Stephen seemed to enjoy seeing all the different fish. They were always moving which helped to catch his attention. We also ate lunch at the Aquarium restaurant where we got to watch more fish swimming around. It was a fun way to celebrate my birthday.

Yes, they had a tiger at the Aquarium. It appeared to be hungrily eyeing the fish down below.

They had some big sharks, but it was hard to get a good picture of them.

Lots and lots of jellyfish

14 months old

I decided it was time to update what Stephen's been up to lately. We are blessed with such a good little boy. I have a weekly holy hour at our parish on Thursdays, and I have to take Stephen with me. He will usually sit on my lap and suck his thumb. Sometimes he'll look at a book or chatter a little bit, but he is SO good. I hope this behavior lasts. He is usually pretty good during Mass as well.

Stephen has great sleeping habits also. He is still taking two naps, both of which are typically an hour and a half to two hours long. At night he is sleeping from 8:00 pm - 7:00-7:30 am and will occasionally wake up once in need of some cuddles. His last day of nursing was this past Monday! He had only been having a bedtime feeding for a few weeks. I decided to try not doing it on Tuesday, and he didn't complain.

We went to Nebraska last weekend to have our final Christmas celebration (which I will post about eventually). After watching Jacob and Emily, Stephen decided walking looked like fun. Now he is walking all over the place!

Stephen loves playing with little cars. He even has his own sound effect. It's so cute to watch him pushing a car around. He also likes making it drive on himself or other people.

One of Stephen's other favorite activities is pushing his walker around the house. He has become very adept at maneuvering it around.

19 weeks pregnant

I'm almost halfway through this pregnancy. I can't believe I'm this far along, but I also can't believe I still have about 20 weeks to go. So far everything has been going very smoothly, much like it did with Stephen. The nausea is gone, as long as I don't go too long without eating. I finally have a baby bump which I'm hoping to get a picture of this week, and I'm wearing maternity clothes. We had the anatomy scan ultrasound yesterday. Baby looked great! Everything is normal. Baby is measuring at 20 weeks with long fingers. He/she really likes their hands and kept covering his/her face. As with Stephen, we are not finding out the gender. Here are some of the pictures we got.

Side profile

See that little hand?

What cute little feet!

No more pictures!

Another thumb sucker?

What a cutie!

Mommy's "helper"

Stephen decided my rags needed reorganizing today. He was having a great time.

Random pictures

Here's a few random pictures of our cute little boy.

He loves playing with his soccer ball.

Hanging outside with Daddy

Notice the gift bow in his right hand. That's still left from Christmas.

Let it snow!

We got about 10" of snow on December 22. We brought a bowl of it in to play with. Stephen loved it! I gave him one of his spoons as well. He stirred it, touched it, tasted it, and had a great time.

This was right after he took a bite.

Christmas 2011

We enjoyed a very nice Christmas this year. We got our tree the Sunday before Christmas. Stephen loved the pretty lights and ornaments. We had to remind him several times not to touch the tree, overall, he did a good job of just looking at it.

Admiring the lights

Our tree with the tree skirt I made this year

We met Grandma Rose and Aunt Anne for Mass on Christmas morning and then went to Grandma's house for breakfast. After that we went back home and opened our presents. Stephen was very excited to see all the presents under the tree when he got up in the morning. He did a pretty good job of opening his gifts. His favorites were the bows. There's still one he plays with and carries around with him.

By the last gift, Stephen has resorted to opening it laying down. 

Steve had to go on a treasure hunt for his last gift.

Stephen with his gifts from Mom and Dad

We took it easy all afternoon. Then we headed back to Grandma Rose's house for round 2. We had a lovely dinner cooked by Aunt Anne. Stephen got to open more fun gifts.

Hanging with Grandma Rose

The next evening I did pictures with his Christmas pajamas. Stephen likes to make the reindeer on his feet dance.