We're at it Again!

As everyone knows after this post, I'm pregnant again! Yay! And after almost 3 months it's finally starting to sink in. This is good news. My only goal was for it to become real before hauling our cookies to the hospital to deliver the baby.

One of the best parts of moving back to Michigan is being able to spend time with two of my best and closest friends, Nikki and Katie, both who have babies close to Greyden's age (5 weeks younger and 3.5 months younger respectively). It's awesome to be able to get together without $500 plane tickets and 3 hour flights being involved. And, as crazy as it sounds, they're both pregnant again too. Yes, that's all 3 of us. And we're all due within weeks of each other. Nikki is kicking off the party with a May 24th due date, I'm following with a July 15th due date, and Katie is bringing up the rear with an August 1st due date. What's even crazier is that none of us were actively trying. It just kind of happened. According to our husbands, this is creepy. We disagree and actually think it's pretty cool. And just to be clear (and as I've had to explain to Kevin numerous times), no, we are not part of a cult, nor do we have one of those "high school pregnancy pacts" which seem to be all the rage these days. As any woman knows, we couldn't have planned this if we'd tried. But since this is the way it's worked out, we're embracing it. In my case, I'm also using the fact that Nikki is giving birth to #2 first to my advantage, meaning I'm planning on picking her brain and copying her every move in order to ensure my greatest chances of survival with both a toddler and an infant under one roof.

A couple of weekends ago, Kevin, Greyden, and I packed up our stuff (and our dogs) and headed over to Nikki and Bryan's new house near Kalamazoo. Nikki and I got to hang out and play with the boys and Bryan and Kevin got to hang out and drink beer. I think it was a win-win for all involved. 



Bryan with the boys

 What fun is getting the boys together for a sleepover if you can't get bath time shots for future blackmail? 

Getting ready for bath time



Is there anything cuter than two baby booties?



I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. This ISN'T cuter than the two baby booties.

Babies in hooded towels are pretty damn cute too.

After bath time, it was bed time! We figured we'd try to wind them down with a book:

Which somehow resulted in Greyden jumping on the bed: 

Then teaching Bryson how to raise the roof:

It looks like they're starting to settle down here, but this was actually just the beginning of the WWF match.

I still don't know exactly how we did it, but the boys did finally crash. It was wonderful.

On Sunday morning, Katie and Marc brought Alana over to show the boys who's boss play.

Isn't she the sweetest little thing???

One hand in the air - I think she's a Texas girl at heart.

Bryson loves his motorcycle



And Greyden and Alana both love Bryson's horse.



Greyden may not be much bigger than Alana, but he made sure to use every one of those 3 pounds to his advantage.

"Why is she touching me?!?!?!"

Picture time started out innocently enough.

Then came Alana. I think Grey may be scarred for life.

Unfortunately, with 3 toddlers, this is about the best picture you're going to get.

The same goes for these pictures. I'm surprised we managed to catch even one of them looking at the camera. Maybe if Uncle Kevin weren't making such a goofy face, we could have directed their attention toward the cameras instead.  





I can guarantee that when we were all here:



July 2010 and pregnant with #1 - Jessica  (far left) was baking #2. Apparently we didn't heed her warnings well enough.



We had trouble picturing here:



December 2010



And never imagined we'd all end up here:



February 2012 - No, we are not flashing the peace sign, we are indicating that we have number two on the way. We have toddlers, we don't know what peace is anymore.



Happy Valentine's Day!

 

I can't believe that Valentine's Day is already here again. It seems like just yesterday I was sending the leftover, uncompleted Valentine cards to daycare with Greyden instead of the stack that I had spent an hour painstakingly filling out. I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know that I managed to bring the correct Valentines this year (as are his teachers I'm sure), so at least I'm not "that" mom that expects the daycare providers to fill them out for me (again). Not only that, I brought them to daycare yesterday because I just KNEW that I'd forget them this morning. Kind of like I forgot to dress Greyden in red this morning. And also like I forgot to wrap the shoebox that I brought in last week for him to decorate as his Valentine's mailbox. Seriously, I swear that all daycares exist solely to test me on my (lack of) parenting skills.

  

Valentine's Day tends to be a bit like Groundhog's Day at our house, meaning that every year Kevin and I have pretty much the same conversation. This year, our Annual Valentine's Day Discussion took place yesterday on our way to get Junior from daycare. It's never exactly the same, but this will give you a general idea of the content: 

Me: It's Valentine's Day tomorrow!

Him: You didn't get me anything, right?

Me: Of course I got you something. And I can't WAIT to give it to you because you're going to LOVE it.

Him: Whatever. You did not. Did you? No, I know you didn't. But that doesn't matter, because you do this on every holiday and it's the reason I go out and spend way too much money buying you expensive gifts at the last minute, while I get nothing in return.

Me: LIAR! (Sidenote: This may have happened once or twice - and thank you for the new camera lens for Christmas honey! I hope you enjoy your......snow.....)

Since Kevin just happens to be right (obviously for the first time ever), I'm hoping that these adorable pictures of his son will suffice as the best Valentine's Day presents ever. 

Besides not doing Valentine's Day gifts, in the past we've also always opted to skip the romantic dinners in fancy restaurants, mainly because we don't want to deal with tons of people (or maybe it's because neither of us have ever remembered to make a reservation). Nor do I have a special, homemade dinner planned. (I was actually thinking pizza for delivery?) As far as I can remember, the most we have ever done is hit up our local Buffalo Wild Wings. There's a slight possibility that could happen tonight as well, although Junior tends to put a damper on all things food related lately. Yesterday after daycare, we tried to feed him dinner which resulted in approximately 40 straight minutes of screaming. He wouldn't go into his booster seat to save his life, and once we finally managed to pin him in there, he refused to eat anything and instead opted to throw it all on the floor. Yes, the dogs were beyond thrilled. It was well over an hour before we even attempted to feed him dinner for the second time. While I'm pretty sure that BWW won't be the busiest place on earth tonight (reservations are probably not required), even they don't have the time or patience to watch us fight with the kid for an hour to get him to eat.

When you have a picky toddler, you'll read a lot of articles that say it helps if you get them involved with their food. For example, start a garden so that the child can see where the food comes from. Then they'll be more likely to eat it if they help to grow the food themselves.

(Hockenberry version: Open a bag of lettuce and let Junior play with it)

Let them help with the preparation of dinner. They'll be more likely to eat it if they helped make it.

(Hockenberry version: Let Junior smush the lettuce in his hands and push the salad spinner button. See the big knife on the counter? Yes, he tried to use that at one point too.)

Let the child help with cleanup when dinner is over.

(Hockenberry version: Before dinner even starts, put all of the lettuce back into the bowl when Junior pulls the lid off before it stops spinning).

There is a very remote possibility that we may let Greyden help with our Valentine's Day dinner tonight (by opening the pizza box lid), but I would be much more willing to bet that we'll be waiting to have our romantic Valentine's Day dinner until Junior's in bed for the night.

Have a great Valentine's Day!

Settling In

Progress is being made in the Hockenberry house! The boxes are all unpacked (save for one of mine that contains a ton of random stuff that I have no idea what to do with) and everything has a home, even if it's only temporary. We still haven't done much decorating, but that should change now that the painter has given us his estimate and we'll hopefully be getting started soon. Yes, I said painter. As in, a real, live, professional one. Hiring someone else to paint my house is really hard for me. I am actually one of those strange people who love to paint, so I'm a little bummed that I can't do at least some of the painting on my own. But disappointed as I am, I'm also a realist and thinking that I can work all day and paint the house at night while cooking dinner and taking care of Greyden isn't even close to being realistic. Plus, I barely survived the last time I painted while I was pregnant. Granted I didn't know I was pregnant at the time, but calling my mom and spending 30 minutes literally sobbing into the phone because I didn't know what color to paint the hallway probably should have been a dead giveaway. I'm surprised she didn't either a) hang up on me (though she does have to deal with my siblings on a regular basis, so her tolerance for phychosis is pretty high, or b) tell me to go pee on a stick.

 Before the painter can even begin, we have to choose the color. (I say we, but I really mean I. Kevin is of no help but to tell me that he thinks beige would look fabulous. Yes, he used the word fabulous. You can tell how much he cares, can't you?) Luckily it should only take about 6 months for me to choose one and we'll be off and running. *Sigh* I am absolutely awful at choosing colors, most likely because I have no vision and little to no creativity. If you put me in a square, white room, I see a square, white room. Apparently my mom gave all of her creative genes to my sister (I, on the other hand, got the brains (all of them - sorry Kerry) so I guess that's a pretty fair trade.) What little creativity I do have has already been completely spent on simply picking the paint chips. It wasn't until after I'd returned home with a 3-inch stack that I realized all of them were shades of beige. Hmmm, perhaps that means I'm not as creative as I'd hoped I was. Either that or it means I truly value my dear husband's opinion. 

In terms of pregnancy news, I'm fat. That's it. I'm up about 4 pounds from where I was at this point in my last pregnancy for a grand total of 12 pounds in almost 18 weeks. I know 12 pounds doesn't sound like much, then I remember that I'm only expected to gain 35 (fine, 25 to 35) pounds total. Since my ultimate goal is, yet again, 25 pounds, I'm already pushing the envelope at 48% of my goal weight gain. However, as I said above, I'm a realist and even I know that cravings involving Chinese buffets and Mancino's grinders are probably not going to allow me to stick to that goal this time around either. And speaking of being fat, I'm sure everyone remembers this little gem?:

 Apparently, it's a family trait:

  
Other than the fatness, the pregnancy is going well. I'm not sick at all, only a little tired (which I attribute to having a toddler), and only have my hangover headaches a few times a week. We also only have 1 more week until we find out what we're having. I'm dying here, even though I'm still 100% sure it's a girl, as is Kevin. When I asked him what his reasoning was, he said it's because this pregnancy has been so different from my last one. Of course stupid me asked him what's so different about it this time versus the last go round. His response was that, first of all, he didn't remember me being this difficult with the last pregnancy. No, he wasn't given the option to tell me his other reasoning.

Since we can't seem to find the motivation to stay home on the weekends to work on the house, we've been spending time up at Grandpa and Grandma's house in Cass City. Judging by this picture, I think Greyden has found his "happy place".  There is honestly nothing the kid enjoys more than riding around in the backhoe or loader with Grandpa. Grandpa even let him help destroy grade the driveway last weekend for the Super Bowl party. Grey was in hog heaven. Especially when he realized that every time he pulled the lever, the bucket went up and down and Grandpa screamed in terror.

 A few weeks ago we finally got some snow, so we took him out on the pond to show him how to ice fish and let him play on his sled. He absolutely loved it.  

  

No, his arms really aren't that long. I think his hands were up somewhere around the elbow area of his snowsuit.

Daddy showing off his bait fish to Greyden

 

No outing at mom and dad's is complete without the A B Team.


 

He obviously knows he's going to get to go play in the snow.



Minor tipping problem. No need to be alarmed.



This is what you do to kids when they're restrained by a snowsuit and can't move their arms enough to take the stupid hat off.



Even though we've barely touched our 3-mile long house projects list, we have managed to inadvertantly start a play room for Greyden upstairs in the extra bedroom. I bought this playset for Greyden's birthday last November. It's been sitting in the box ever since. Right after I bought it we decided we were moving north so we never bothered to open it. A few nights ago we figured we might as well get it out and give him something to climb on (besides our furniture, barstools, chairs, dogs, shelves, beds, crib, table, etc). Now that it's open and put together, he can't get enough of it.  


It took him a couple of minutes to catch on.

  

Now we can't get him off it.


I believe it was right after the 3rd time he went down that he consciously decided going down head first would be even more fun. We're currently working on drilling "sitch yer booty" into his head. I wish I had been able to get a picture of my little dare devil, but I was a little too busy trying to prevent him from going head first through the wall. No worries, I'm fairly certain that wasn't my last opportunity.