Happy Birthday Eric!

Eric turned 3 last week! Time does fly... we had his party on Saturday (because that's what worked for us...) Eric had missed having a nap and was grumpy... so we let him choose Presents or Cake and he chose presents first (duh, who wouldn't!)

I love birthday parties with small children - everyone helps open the gifts!

 Loved the expression on his face, not so much the blurriness of the photo...

 Driving the monster truck up the wall... because monster trucks are so much cooler than regular cars that they can drive up walls!

 What a happy boy!  Thanks Grandma!

Next... what do we have here? Another monster truck, except this one runs on batteries and flips itself over... Thanks Bryant and Lydia!

 What is this?

 A book, with dots!

 Thanks Aunt Elise!

Eric did so much better opening gifts for his birthday than he did at Christmas!

 Ohh, a toolbox!

 What is inside? Lots of fun tools!

 And finally... Mack!

Hurry and open it Papa, I can't wait to play with him!

Then on to the cake: 

 I made this cake... it took a while, but I think it turned out pretty well!

 It has mini Cars characters on it (and jelly beans as spectators).

Eric was in love with this cake as soon as he figured out it was a race track (or as he called it 'the race crew cake'. (This picture was taken before the party, but I love the expression on his face!) Shortly after this he drove McQueen across the still wet finish line... It was salvaged though ;).

Half Way... random ramblings

Yesterday (or today) marked the day when I became 20 weeks pregnant. It is hard to believe that I'm halfway there, but sometimes I wish we were so much closer! I know that things just get more difficult from here... my hips are starting to hurt pretty much every day, my back is always sore (I wake up with a sore back, which is so not fair!) My heartburn is going crazy again... and soon I'll be having to take more than just Zantac to calm it down - but that should mean we get another baby with a full head of hair according to the old wives tale! (If not I'll feel gypped for having to suffer with heartburn!)

This past week I've been overly emotional and that hasn't been fun. It seems to be getting better though and may have been related to fatigue... not that daylight savings time has helped the sleep loss issue!

I can feel baby move every day now, which is great! Daniel has gotten to feel him move once or twice as well.

Eric is still trying to figure out our baby's gender... we kept saying a brother or a sister when we didn't know, then for a while whenever I asked if he was having a brother, he'd say, "or a sister" OR "no, a sister!". So I took another route and said that we are going to have a baby boy... Now he knows the baby is a boy but still usually insists that baby is going to be a sister. We just have him so confused! It is just cute to see how he latches on to an idea and doesn't give it up... 

I'm actually pretty happy about the weight thing this time because at my halfway point with this pregnancy I'm only a pound (or 2-3) above where I was when I learned I was pregnant with Eric. So yey for having lost some weight in between pregnancies!

Oh and for those of you who like ultrasound pictures... here's our baby:

taken on February 29th. We have 6 pictures on cd that were given to us that day... We have the full body (can see the spine), face, profile, feet, and two that show he's a boy (one complete with 3 arrows pointing to a particular anatomical feature where I'm sure none would have been needed with the label on the picture of "boy". Oh yeah the label is there as well as the 3 arrows!). That said, the technician was great and let us know what she was looking for, which was interesting (at least I thought it was.)

Ultrasound

When we went in for the Ultrasound, I was pretty sure we were having a girl. My morning sickness was twice as bad as with Eric (and I honestly feel like I'm uglier this time so that indicates girl, right?)... It wasn't the same sureness I had with Eric - I KNEW he was a boy pretty much from the start. I only told a few people and they would tease me that he was going to be a girl because I was so sure he was a boy. But I knew we were having a boy and I knew I was right! So the ultrasound with him just confirmed my knowledge.

This time it actually took me a while to assign a gender and it became more and more that I was assigning this baby to be a girl. It wasn't the same as with Eric though, I did not absolute know that when we went to the ultrasound that it would be a girl. 

This time baby was a bit uncooperative - baby liked keeping a foot in between the legs... But with a little prodding of my tummy, we were able to find out his gender.

For a while now we've been telling Eric he's going to have a little brother or sister... we've obviously done a very good job since now he's pretty much convinced he's having a brother or a sister! We told him he's having a brother and then I ask him occasionally, "Eric, are you going to have a little brother?" to which he responds, "Or a sister!"  SO now we have our work cut out for us in removing the sister part from the equation (at least for this pregnancy!).