Enjoying the fall, and going potty!

It has been very fall-y outside. :) The colors are gorgeous, and we've had rain mixed with occasional sunshine. Everything is muddy, so the kids haven't been able to get outside too often. So we've been trying to get more creative with inside things...

 Like vacuuming!

 My baby belly... I'm already getting big. Andy had to get my maternity clothes out.

 Joel and Dana came over for dinner, and the kids had fun playing cars with them. We love our cars and car mat!

 Saturday we had a super low key day. We started the morning off by snuggling in our bed.

 We watched a movie, part in the morning part in the afternoon.

 And had some post-nap snuggles too!

 The kids wanted to do my hair...

 It only hurt a little bit. Haha!

Then Ruby wanted to brush Reid's hair. 

 We got a Chipotle coupon, so we tried the new one down the street. The kids really liked their apple juice.

 I had to take Ruby potty three times. I think she just liked going in the one they had.

 We got some grapefruit, and Reid loved it. He kept calling it "fruit grape."

 We love reading!

 He loves cooking! The kids both helped me make dinner.

 We saw the most amazing double rainbow. It was really bright and beautiful!

 He's just so cute!

 I looked over and this was happening... don't worry, it's anchored to the wall. :)

 We got lots of "twachia" (tractor) books from the library. He loves finding the steering wheels on each one. Haha!

 And they lined up all of these pillows to play hot lava. The library is a great place to go run around a little bit! Definitely more room than at home.

 We have this old computer that is totally fried. The kids have been loving playing "work" on it.

 We had our first big poop incident on Wednesday morning... I was making breakfast, and I heard Ruby say, "No Reid, that's not poop. It's an acorn!" So I looked, and then saw this. I assumed it came out the top of his diaper and that's all there was, but I was drastically wrong...

It had leaked out his leg, down his pajamas, and got all over the floor. Thankfully only one spot on a rug. It took a long time for Andy and I to clean it all up, bathe Reid, and get back to getting ready for work/school/the day. It was so gross!!!!

 But the good news is that Reid has been a lot more interested in going potty! He likes sitting on it, but hadn't gone at all until Friday. Then he went poopy and pee pee (x3)! It was pretty exciting.

 They've been refusing to nap a lot this week. So usually they have a rest time in their rooms, then they can come out and watch a little show.

 He's pretty tired when he doesn't nap, but I can't make him do it!

 Both kids had dentist appointments on Thursday. Ruby did so good and even had "the best x-rays from a 4-year-old" (from the dentist and the hygienist). Both kids' teeth are doing great. Ruby has two little places that might be pre-cavities, so we'll just have to floss extra good.

 They put some purple stuff on her teeth and it made her tongue purple. :) 

The x-rays of her teeth were so cool. You can see her big teeth growing down below her baby teeth. Pretty soon they'll be pushing them out! So crazy.

 Reid did really good too. They pretty much just look at his mouth and do a quick check on his teeth. He really liked the blue ducky he got. He loves everything blue.

 Our two cuties! <3

 We made peanut butter bars for a treat. I didn't let the kids have any, but told them that if they took a good nap, they could have one after nap. And then they did! We all slept for at least an hour, maybe two. It was the best.

 We made Reid's kitty ears for his costume!

He was trying to close himself in the fridge. Haha!

14 weeks

The baby is the size of a lemon this week! So exciting. This pregnancy is going by pretty fast so far, and as of today, I'm officially officially in my second trimester. (I was informed last week by a well meaning friend that it doesn't start until today. Hahaha.)

I can't wait to get in and hear the baby's heartbeat again soon. Our next appointment is on Nov 7th, so I'll have to wait until then. I've been feeling it wiggle around a lot though, so that is so nice.

I've definitely had less nausea the last few days. YAY!!! Hopefully that's over. I've still been really tired, and often will be asleep by 9pm. We do get up early around here though, Reid has been waking up at 5:30, and a few times in the night too. I got a nice, long nap in today while both kids napped. It was heavenly. Otherwise, no naps have happened here all week.

It's really weird trying to think about having a baby again and all that goes with it. It will be sleeping in our room for the first while, obviously, because there's no room anywhere else. We'd like to move to a 3 bedroom house sometime in the next year, but the housing market in Portland is pretty crazy. Anything we can kind of afford is way out. I'd love to move closer to Andy's work so he has less of a commute. We'll just keep praying about it. At least we have a car that will work for 3 kids! And I don't think we'll need another new carseat for a while, our infant one doesn't expire until Oct 2018. Whew!

It's also weird that so much baby stuff has changed in the last 5 years since my first baby was born. Tons of new baby carriers and products are out now that weren't when she was little. And the AAP has changed recommendations on a lot of things. They just recommended that babies sleep in their parents' room (not in their bed) for the first 6 months of life. Well, I guess we're good in that area! We've always done that anyway. I think it was a little less than 6 months for Ruby, and probably 7 months for Reid. :)

Changes this week: My pants are getting uncomfortable! I had to unbutton them while sitting down all day today. They are definitely looser than my jeans I had for previous pregnancies, and I've always worn a belt with them. I think that's why they've lasted longer this time. And my shirts are all getting too short already. Time to bust out my maternity wardrobe!

Cravings this week: Not much. Mostly just not wanting things that are too sweet still. But that's never a bad problem.

Sweet kids

I don't know if this has to do with it, but since Ruby started preschool, she has been very sweet and helpful. Maybe she's just growing up! She still has her naughty moments, but she is turning into a very caring little girl. She helps take care of Reid, is willing to clean up and do chores, says "I love you" to all of us, gives us snuggles, etc. We love it!!

Reid is still not doing any better in the bowel department since we went off of dairy. We're going to do it one more week, then move on to gluten... trying to figure it out, poor guy. It will be nice to be able to have cheese again though. I'm not looking forward to having to buy gluten free bread, oats, pasta, and everything in between. It's definitely more expensive. But it will be worth it if it helps his gut health!

 She has been taking him to the potty when she goes, and is trying to teach him. It's so cute! He likes to sit on the potty, but doesn't go on it yet. Hopefully soon. At least he's interested. I'm not going to push it like I did with Ruby, because that backfired majorly.

 I took Reid to an appointment for OHP. He was so cute.

 I brought him some cars and things to play with, but he had the most fun just playing with this rolling chair the whole time! Hahaha He's so different than Ruby with things like this.

 Both kids love apples.

 She was in time-out, so she called Reid over and said, "Reid, have a seat. Tell me about what you saw at Costco while I was at Preschool."

 Kissing Daddy! <3

 We got them some new jammies at Costco and they want to wear them every night. Reid fits nicely in 2T, but I got Ruby size 6! they're a little big, but not by too much.

 Story time!

 Playing Steam Roller.

They had so much fun with the measuring tape. Ruby says, "Dad, this ladder is 46 pounds!" 

 Date night! We found a dairy free bakery. It was okay, but not as good as regular. Hahaha

 Snuggles!

 Board game morning.

 And movie time.

 He likes to sit on the big potty.

 It's so fun to do her hair.

They love their little sibling already. :) They both like to kiss and hug my tummy. 

Reid doesn't know what nursing is since we fed Penelope with a bottle. He'll learn soon though!

 More game time! We love Sorry. Ruby's pretty good at it.

 We got these beautiful shelves from the Pullen's. They are fantastic! Andy worked really hard at getting them all set up and anchoring them to the walls.

 Reid LOVES tractors/mowers/anything with a steering wheel.

 And he also loves to help me cook. Making granola here.

 He got his snack, then got his tiny chair and brought it to the table. Haha!

 I had put the egg carton on the counter, then walked out of the kitchen for a minute... then walked back to this! At least he got a container out instead of cracking it onto the floor! Smart guy. :) Too bad it was a dirty container or we could have still used the egg. But at least we had no mess to clean up.

 Mmmmm.... water kefir! We've all been loving our new probiotic drink.

 They played Sorry together, although Reid doesn't really know what he's doing. Ruby decided to only play with the Sorry cards and took the rest out. Didn't get too far!!

 On Tuesday we went to Two's Together at the library. Reid was a little shy and only did some of the motions.

 Ruby loved it though!

 Helping Reid out.

 Someone found my purse... 

 They've been wanting to sit by each other at meals. It's cute.

 Playland was closed at Fred Meyer, so I kept the kids with me to get my ring cleaned. We had fun looking at the sparkly rings!

 He got the box of Life and pretended the word search was his computer keyboard! Hahaha

 Silly kids!

 He comes into our room in the mornings to snuggle.

 Poor guy has had a cough just at nights. The first night it was a very croupy cough, which was no fun. It's better now. And he's the cutest thing ever.

 Playing his guitar while he sat on the heater vent to get warm.

 I asked him what he wants for Christmas, and he said "a blue spoon." Then he proceeded to get out all of his blue spoons that we already have.

 He ate almost this whole apple with almond butter!

 Ruby had a field trip to the Fire Station down the street on Wednesday. She had a lot of fun! And it's great that they're learning about fire safety.

 Lunch with my boy.

 This happened...

 She loves our Dinner Winner game! It really helps her eat food that she doesn't love.

 Snuggles with Daddy.

 Sleepy guy. He has been refusing to nap on school days, so three times this past week. The only plus is that they go to bed super early on non-nap days.

 Like son, like father. Hahahahaha!

 More cooking. Ruby said she wants to be a cook when she grows up. And Reid regularly says, "You're a good cooker, Mommy."

 We all got a terrible night of sleep on Wednesday night. Reid was up coughing and crying every 15 minutes, so we finally brought him into our bed at around midnight. He moves around a lot in his sleep and flails his right arm... so I got hit in the face about 12 times. So we decided to make the best of a tired day and went for a nature walk in the rain.

 We walked down the street to collect lots of leaves for a craft project.

We found some huge ones! And they each had their bag of cashews for snack. 

 We love our nature area down the street. We explored the creek and found lots of different kinds of leaves.

 He loves to look in parked cars at the steering wheels.

 Then we did our craft project, painting leaves! They made fun outlines on the paper.

 I even painted my own cheek on accident...

 We had a lot of fun.

 He was tired...

 Then we made some monsters.