All The Latest

Taking a step back a few weeks, while Eddie & I traveled up to Indiana to visit family John made a long to-do list (with a couple of things added by me)and for those of you who know John know that he was able to check off the majority of things on that list. The biggest of those tasks was renting a tow-boom to trim all of our 60 trees and as if that wasn't enough he also trimmed much of 3 of our neighbors yards. He estimated the amount of work he did in our yard to be over $1000 and the work he did for neighbors,w/ the rental of the equipment ended up paying for itself plus making a little cash. He was also able to finish up the painting details in Eddie's room, paint the shed we recently acquired, reorganize my kitchen cabinets, paint some new furniture we bought for our living room, etc.!!! He's amazing and I seriously don't know where he gets his energy.
Since we've been home we've still been busy, busy but trying to have some fun in between. I'm near completion of Eddie's room and the babies room including closets, drawers, etc. I'm really happy with how they've come out and as promised before I will post once I completely finish.
I remember making a checklist a month or two ago with things I wanted to complete before our new little one comes. I've been able to check off a few of those items such as, trasitioning Eddie into his "big boy" bed which I have to say I AM SO PROUD OF HIM!! He doesn't try to get out of bed until we come in to get him and it's just been so easy...don't know why I waited so long. I've been taking him swimming regularly which was one thing on my to-do list. He's getting the hang of things but still needs a hand to support him in the water. He can put his face in/ blow bubbles, go under briefly without swollowing the water, kick his feet and use his arms to get where he wants to go. He's yet to be potty trained and is still attached to his "paci", however,not quite as much.
This past week I celebrated my 31st birthday which was low key and rather relaxing which I'm enjoying these days. Only 7 weeks to go until we get to meet our 2nd little guy, William Von Reinhold..."Will". The more I check off of my list the more I feel anxious to meet him and welcome him to our little family. We'll keep you posted on the progress there.
This weekend we leave for a final vacation before the summer's end. We head to NY for a relaxing visit w/ John's parents.
For this post I'll add a couple of before and after pictures of the shed that John labored so hard on...quite the transformation, I'd say.

Indiana Travels

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Summertime

Summer has officially arrived and my oh my is it HOT! With temps in the mid 90's and the humidity making it feel even hotter I've been getting really worn out when doing outdoor activities. It hasn't slowed us down much though. We've been working on lots of projects & Eddie prefers to be running around exploring the outdoors. We've applied a stain/sealer onto Eddie's swingset we acquired at Christmas from the neighbor (really gave it a facelift), we purchased a cheap shed off of Craigslist and it needs some serious TLC so we've been working to remove some rust and paint it, we've painted Eddies new bedroom and touched up the paint on the bunkbeds & also painted the table and chairs for his play area, I've made some cute little stencil cutouts for the babies room and also mentally and physically preparing for the flight to Indiana in 2 days (John is staying home).
I've hit the point in pregnancy (just beyond 6 months) where I have a difficult time finding a comfortable position to sleep, I feel like a beached whale, it's a strain to bend down to do things without feeling like I'll faint from lack of bloodflow to my brain, & I'm running out of lap room for Eddie to sit (adds a challenge for flying w/ him on my lap, oh, and my back is really killing me. Please add us to your prayer list this week as we travel....safety, eddie sitting still, and I'm praying that I can even visit w/ my Mom. She recently found out she has shingles and this means she isn't supposed to be around pregnant women for risk of transferring chickenpox to the fetus. We hope the rash is cleared up by the end of the week so we can visit.
I will post pictures of Eddie's room and the babies room once it's officially complete. Here is a picture of the swingset for now.

The Funnies!

Well, I have to say that although parenting has it daily challenges there usually isn't a day that goes by that Eddie doesn't crack me up. He seems to love making people laugh and he's pretty good at it. I thought I'd share a clip or two here of him in action from this past week.

Is it Official? Hope so...

For the few of you who may not have heard yet a few weeks ago we had the ultrasound and they said they're 95% certain it's a boy. Pretty much looks like boy parts but the difficulty was that the umbilical cord was wrapped through the legs causing some obstruction. However, with the 5% in question we feel confident enough to proceed forward planning for our second boy! We're very excited and think Eddie will really enjoy having a brother to rough around with. The ultrasound tech also felt this baby was on the large side predicting he was in the 90th %tile for growth already. I've said before that if they feel it's going to be a large baby again I will be signing the line for a c-section. No final decisions yet but with another ultrasound closer to the due date we'll know which route we're taking.
So, in the meantime, so much to do, so much to do. In my wildest dreams in the next 3 1/2 months I would like to get Eddie off his addiction to his "paci", potty trained, sleeping in a "big boy bed", and into swim lessons. In the midst of all that we have 2 vacations planned so we'll see. Even if I get 2 of those done I'll be pretty happy!
To talk a minute on current events we're just trying to stay cool in the warming temps. It's been in the 90's over the past 2 weeks here so we've been doing alot of water activities. Swimming in Oma & Opa's pool, playing in Eddie's new water table (gift from Grammy Baker) & attempting some fun in the sprinkler. Eddie LOVES water and doesn't seem to fear it at all (scary thought for Mom, at times). I'll also include a picture here of him in action splashing his buddy Lillian while playing in his new water table.

Been Busy!

We've been so busy over the past few months with really only a couple of weekends with nothing planned. We have lots of fun and lots of visitors so in order to catch you all up I thought I'd do a slideshow post to view lots of photos. We are SO enjoying Eddie at 18 months! He's is talking more and more, becoming more and more loving and cuddely (most days) and really changing so much. His most recent words or phrases are saying "open" but he says it as "opken", he says "all gone" and has to rotate his palms upwards as he says it, he says please, hey guys, and on occasion yells "hey John" from across the house...he obviously picked this one up from me.
As for a quick update on the pregnancy, I'm feeling better most days but still get sick about once a week. I'm half way through and will find out the babies gender and health status on Good Friday which we are anticipating greatly. Please keep us in your prayers for a healthy baby and to be preparing Eddie & ourselves in the best way possible for this new addition.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

PAWS ON!

We have a new area for kids that recently opened at our zoo called "Paws On"
( http://brevardzoo.org/explore_paws.php ). It's a GREAT area where kids can do everything from take classes to play in a fort, swim in 2 different lagoons, there is a petting zoo, an aquarium to watch fish like puffer fish, sting ray, crabs, etc. and more. We had the chance to take Eddie there last weekend and he had a blast. I think he really enjoyed watching the sting ray and the sting ray seemed to keep coming back around where he was. He also really enjoyed the swimming part! We are so excited to have the annual pass so we can go back as often as we want. We'll be using it alot as the weather is warming into the 80's lately.





(I think the look on his face in this last picture says it all! HE LOVED IT!)