22 weeks....

AND STILL TRUCKIN'

(this post is REALLY long and most of it's just so I can remember what's going on, so don't feel obligated to read unless you want to.)

Things are going really great around here. I am past my half-way mark with this pregnancy which seems REALLY weird since I hardly feel pregnant at all. So far, Molly is a very active baby and I feel like she's doing flips all day (and night) long. Our doctor does an ultrasound every month and so far everything has been great. Next week we get to have a 4-D ultrasound, which will be exciting to see how she looks. We're almost ready for her to come. I've gotten a lot of clothes on sales and we are stocked up on diapers and wipes. I've made a million hairbows for her and I've got a few quilts in the works. It will be really fun to have a little girl around the house and to have all of the little girl things. I'm nervous about having a baby again, but I'm really excited too.

Benson is doing great. He is such a smart little boy. People always come up to us in the store and try to talk to him and he's usually really good about carrying on a conversation with them. He knows his name, his age, his favorite color, he can point out and make the noises of lots of animals, he can point out and say 4 different colors, he can count to 3, he jumps off of pretty much anything he sees including his bed and our coffee table. The other day I was in the shower and he was eating breakfast and I hear, "mom, MOM, nat, NAT, NATA-LEEEEE" I guess I deserve it after many years of calling my parents by their first names. Benson's favorite thing right now is books and he won't go to sleep until we read a few of them, and even after that, he keeps trying to get them into his bed. One of his favorite books is about when Jesus was born, and he always tells me, "Jesus ride a donkey" and "Jesus lives Temple". He is starting to be REALLY good about saying his prayers. Last night it went like this...

Dear Hevly Fadder

Tank you day

Tank you mac-a-roni

Tank you book

Tank you Jesus

Tank you Buff-a-low

Tank you Wadder

Amen

Benson seems to be excited for Molly. He's been sleeping on a big boy bed for over a year, but we got him a new bed frame with drawers underneath it and a bookshelf headboard so that Molly can use his dresser. He keeps calling the crib, "Molly's crib" and we keep telling him that it's Benson AND Molly's room. He loves to kiss my belly and has started pretending like he gets kicked everytime he touches it. He is such a good helper and usually does everything I ask him to do. He has his own mind, though, and will sometimes do things he knows he isn't supposed to do just to see what will happen. He likes to make messes and be noisy sometimes. He likes to push my buttons. The other day, he was bugging me so bad and when Casey called from work, I was almost in tears because Benson kept trying to put his feet all over me and he thought it was sooooo funny. He loves his grandpas best of all and gets really excited when we go to see them. He's still a mama's boy, though and won't let anyone else change his diapers or put him to bed. We really love Benson and could sit and watch him and laugh at him all day. He has such a funny personality and we love having him at our house.

Casey's still going to Weber State. He just got his associate's degree last semester. He's actually farther along than 2 years, but has put off taking some of the dumb classes and has been taking classes that he really likes, like computer programing (sounds like fun to me!). He works full-time at Weber High doing their computers and seems to like it a lot. During the summer he worked as a District computer tech instead of a school tech and loved doing that. Hopefully the training and experience he got during the summer will help him a lot in the future.

We are still living in our duplex. Last month was our year mark from when we bought it. We really love the neighborhood and we love having a garden. It's nice to be able to sit in our backyard at night or to clean out our garage and feel like it's really ours. Being landlords isn't all that great, I worry a lot about the rental and wonder if we're going to have to do a lot of work on it again... hopefully not. But getting rent every month isn't so bad, so I guess it's ok.

We had a really fun summer and were gone every weekend besides 2. Our neighbors kept telling us that it was alright if we wanted to stay home some weekends. It was fun to have a lot of time to spend with Casey and Benson. We have a lot of fun together. I guess I never really knew it would be like this. Sometimes staying at home and being a wife and mother isn't all that exciting, but there are a lot of moments when I just couldn't imagine doing anything else besides scraping dried-up cereal off the floor and folding laundry over and over and over. Sometimes it doesn't really seem like I'm making that much of a difference, but when I hear my little boy repeating things I've said, like "no fussing!" and making animal noises that aren't probably the right noises, but it's all I could come up with at the moment, and when he wants to give me a million kisses on one cheek and then a million on the other and one on the nose..... it's all VERY worth it. I love that I get to be here with Benson for all of the wonderful times in his life. I couldn't imagine picking him up from daycare and getting a report of my son's life. I'm glad that Casey works so hard so that Benson and I could spend every day together. Sometimes I feel like Casey gets a little cheated out of this whole deal, but today Benson said "no love mommy, love DADDY"... so I'm sure Casey knows that he's pretty special too. Benson and I LOVE when Casey is home, it's always so much more fun when Casey is around. Our entire day is spent cleaning up for when Daddy comes home or making dinner for when Daddy comes home. The best part of our day is when Daddy comes home.

Anyway, I know this is a really long and BORING blog post, but if you've made it to the end, good job. I just wanted to write down everything that's going on so I remember it someday when those little hands aren't so little anymore and when the kisses don't come so often. I want to remember how much I love this little boy, how grateful I am for my husband, and how excited I am for my little girl to come. This is what life is about!