Baby Makes Four!

Baby P 2.0 will be making his or her big debut sometime at the end of February/beginning of March 2014 (official due date: March 3rd)!  We are completely thrilled to be adding (and almost certainly finishing) our family!
I am just finishing up my first trimester and this pregnancy has been VERY different so far!  While our journey to becoming pregnant was much like the first (pregnant the first month, again.  I told Michael that since we seem to be quite fertile people, we could always create a child army Duggar-style), I have felt no where near the energy, glow, fabulousness I did when I found out I was pregnant with Graham.  First, I was incredibly tired.  Like I HAVE to take a nap in the afternoon in order to even be able to make it to my 7pm bedtime.  Next, I was super queasy.  Starting around noon each day, my stomach just rejected the sight, taste, and smell of the majority of foods.  Finally, I had several freak out moments where I thought I might be losing the baby.  At my 7 week ultrasound, they found a small tear in the placenta, which can either get better or get worse.  I experienced some bleeding and anyone that has had this experience knows that the sight of blood during early pregnancy is absolutely terrifying.  Luckily, at this point in the pregnancy I am feeling much more energized, the queasiness has subsided, and my 11 week ultrasounds revealed that the tear had healed (hence my comfort in beginning to put our good news out there)!

@ 7 weeks

@ 11 weeks

@ 11 weeks

..And Summer is Almost Over

It's been several months since my last post (I have good reason, see next post!), so I'm going to do a quick version of our summer.

We celebrated a friend's marriage and got a cute picture of the extended Pretekin family in the process!



We went to my grandparents' cottage in Michigan again and celebrated my grandparents' 65th wedding annivesary.  Graham had a great time!

 

 

We also took a few other field trips!  We went to Tiny Town, out to lunch, the rec center in Evergreen, the pet shelter, and G saw his first movie in the theater!

 

 



Summer is Around the Corner!

After a snowy April and even some snow in May, it seems that we have finally settled into late Spring/early Summer weather!  And no one is happier to get outside than G!

Catchin' Up!

Wow!  Once again, there has been some definite blog neglect.  Here's what we have been up to for the past month and a half:

We celebrated Grandma's birthday with a trip to the mall, ride on the carousel (with Abey), and some ice cream:


We finished up our first session of gymnastics and started up another session:

We had some crazy weather...many inches of snow during April and May, so we kept our boots and other warm clothes:

We had some fun visiting the library:

And we just plain had fun:

Read to Me!

Graham loves to read.  He asks almost daily to go to the "liberry" to "get new books, Mama!"  We typically go once a week.  Here is a book we recently picked up.  We have read this book to him pretty daily for the past week.  Here he is "reading" the book to me!

Safe Ride

I am not a big advocate about a lot of things parenting.  Breastfeeding vs. formula.  Family bed.  Purees vs. solids (or baby led weaning).  Baby wearing.  Crying it out.  I have always felt that many of these choices should be made based on what works best for the family.  Using formula doesn't make you a bad parent.  Neither does letting your child sleep in your bed.  If these things work for your family, then more power to you.  We made choices based on what worked best for all three of us. 

The one thing that I am a HUGE advocate for is car seat safety.  Did you know that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 3 out of 4 car seats are used incorrectly?  This number is crazy to me, as using a car seat correctly EVERY SINGLE TIME is matter of life and death.

 Recently, I have been doing a huge amount of research on car seats, as I was looking to purchase something new for Graham.  We are practicing extended rear facing (meaning that Graham will stay rear facing in his car seat until he is either too heavy or too tall...another fact: did you know keeping those little guys rear facing is over 500% safer?  Yup, just because the law says you can turn them forward at 1 year or when they reach 20 pounds doesn't mean that it's what's safest for your child).  Graham was about to reach the height limit on the seat we had, and we wanted to find a seat that would accommodate his taller stature and let us keep him rear facing for as long as possible.  After purchasing a cheaper seat that accommodated his height, but wasn't user friendly at all, we bit the bullet and bought the pricier seat that I had been wanting for months.  It arrived the other day and we love it!  Graham will be able to ride safely for years to come in this bad boy!

My Little Gymnast

Over a month ago, we went to a gymnastic-themed birthday party at a local rec center. Graham had a blast!

 

Graham had so much fun that we decided to put him in a gymnastic class at that rec center.  He just finished his second of six classes.  He absolutely loves going.,  Although he definitely remembers going to a birthday party there because he keeps asking me when we are going to have the cake.