Lots of growing!

Yes, we've been doing lots of growing around here! Me in the belly area, Tyler is growing in years, Cole in his getting big boy underwear, and our house in getting a kitchen mini-remodel. I've been getting flack about not posting pregnancy pictures, and the reason why I haven't put any on is two-fold: a) I forget to ask Tyler to take a picture of me, or b)any picture that does get taken, I'm like blinking or looking very uncute. Still not a fan of this one, but at least you can get an idea of how she's growing (this was actually almost a month ago, so visually add a couple inches to my belly)

This was last week making Tyler's BD dinner, my belly just gets in the way these days. I'm feeling really good, still able to run/walk four times a week and have pretty good energy throughout the day. She moves all over the place and is getting really strong. It scares me that I only have about 10 weeks left, I don't feel as prepared thing-wise (blankets, clothes, crib, etc) as I was with Cole. But I'm also more at peace with the upcoming delivery and aftermath, because I've done that once and can do it again. I just can't believe I'm 7 months along, it's just flown by.

Like I mentioned, it was Tyler's bday last week. He had work, so we just did a surprise breakfast with presents, then a yummy dinner when he got home with a fun scavenger hunt. Pretty low key, but I still think we got the "we love you!" message across loud and clear. He always picks berry pie for his bday dessert.

Cole is also growing up, like I mentioned he has been interested in potty training lately. But first, a couple cute pics. He still likes playing with "his baby", here he is singing "tinkle" (twinkle twinkle little star) to her before he puts her down for a nap. Last week I showed him how you need to hold under the baby's head, so now the first thing he says when he picks her up is "head" and he holds his hand right on her head. Cute!

Just took a picture of this to remember: he always has his ankles crossed. It's so adorable. This is at his high chair, eating. But anytime his feet are dangling, he prefers to have them crossed.

So Cole decided a couple weeks ago he wants to use his potty now! We haven't even been trying to potty train him, we just stuck a training potty in the bathroom a month or two ago for him to get used to, and he would randomly sit on it with everything on now and then. But a couple weeks ago, he pulls me in the bathroom and wants his diaper off, so I take it all off and he goes!! And he's been doing it since. We went and picked out some big boy undies, and he spends a couple hours in them a day when we're just hanging out around the house. He's really good at getting #2 in there, I think I've changed 1 or 2 stinky diapers since he's started this. But we're still working on the other one, that seems more challenging. But I'm just enjoying learning more about how he learns and how anxious he is to please us. He started to not want undies yesterday and that scared me a little that he might be regressing, so now we're using chocolate chips as incentives and he seems to be right back on track :) But even if he decides to take a break for awhile, it's all good. We're just trying to let him go at his own pace on this one and just offer as much encouragement/help as we can. It's been fun, what a big step he's starting to take!

Showing me his bat.
Anything yet?

More randoms: I thought this was cute of Cole and Will, this is what every morning looks like when Tyler leaves for work: I put up the blinds, open the window (no matter what the weather like is outside), and the boys shout "Bye Tyler/daddy! Love you!" as he pulls away in his motorcycle. The neighbors that are walking their kids to school also get a "hi!" and it's fun to watch them look around and try to figure out who it is :)

So our house is growing too, our kitchen is getting some nice work done thanks to Tyler! He has knocked out a wall, built a countertop and cabinet face, installed new lighting, and drywalled a ceiling. And all in like 3 days! I'm SOOO happy with how it's all turning out. Now we just have backsplash and flooring left.

The first thing to go was this wall that Cole is touching; it separates the kitchen from the dining room/living room and we've been bugged by it since we moved in. It also had 2 cabinets on it that came down and now adorn the garage wall.

So he knocked it down and then added the raised countertop, it really opens the whole upstairs up. I love that I can be in the kitchen and see what's going on in the dining room.

Then he did the lighting, here's the old flourescent-industrial light we had going on (he's already started to cut holes for the recessed lights):

This was the hole that light left that he had to fill:

Things got VERY dirty in the kitchen while he was cutting out the holes for the lights.

We're just waiting on the last layer of mud to dry and then we'll paint over it, so I'll post pics when it's finally done. I was so proud of all his work! He's amazingly handy.

More fun pics of Cole - this was him helping me with the laundry. He asked me to help him put these on then kept them on till Tyler got home to show him :) Tyler didn't think it was as funny as I did.

We were reading a cute book called Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms, and the little boy pretends to be an astronaut at one point and has a spacesuit made out of a paper grocery bag, so we decided to make one too. He loved it and even spent a lot of time coloring the front with lots of different colors, which is hard to get him to sit down and do. Fun day! This is him saying "cheese". Here are those big boy undies I was telling you about! Can you tell he's showing them to me? Woody-Buzz and Nemo seem to be the faves.

Riding his motorcycle with undies and "angry eyes". This kid cracks me up!