Happy St. Patrick's Day

Nora sporting the "Sah-puh-cah-cahn" pin... which was mine when I was a little kid (I guess that makes it vintage).

Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends and family. We hope you enjoyed the wearin' o the green and all that. I, luckily, didn't get pinched... I realized too late I didn't have any green maternity tops. Our baby boy woke me up this morning with some intense gymnastics or irish dancing -- that's the first time I've felt that much moving and shaking from him!

Last week Nora started telling me things she likes, which was a surprsing change. She seems to understand at last that the pronoun "I" applies to herself when she says it. It started out with "I like oranges! I like Monkeys!" When I asked "what about daddy?" then she'd respond "I like daddy!" and so we went through all of her grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, stuffed animals -- you are all liked. Last night in the car, for the first time on her own she started a statement "I love...." and I thought "oh, how sweet, maybe someone in her family?" No. "I love Costco." Costco?!? Second on the list of things she loves: "I love cars."

Ahh well. We still love her and send our love out to you, too.
Sarah, Brett, Nora and the little guy

Still Snowy

Not much to report these days... just waiting for spring to, well, spring. We had more snow last weekend and this weekend, and it was actually warm enough for Nora to go out and play. It's been a weird winter, snow followed by intense cold, so before the last two weeks, she'd only been out in the snow once. Needless to say, she had a ball getting out of the house. Cabin fever has her in its grips! Last weekend she and Brett were able to build a snowman, though she was more interested in throwing snow chunks on him. Yesterday they managed to build a snow heap for her to slide down, but it wasn't good snowman-building material (our original snowman met his demise two days after being built). She came into the house rosy-cheeked, asking for hot chocolate!

Inside, Nora's been designing more outfits for herself. Her favorite pieces are her puppy pants, the ladybug sweater ("from China!"), the yellow beaded socks, and her skirt/ wing combo set -- mostly worn for dancing to the ever-present "cake song." Here's a picture of her in a pretty great get-up:

Getting ready for the snowball fight...

... and the "throw"

Nora, Brett and their snowman (Ned? who loved the book "Snow" by P.D. Eastman and Roy Mc Kie besides me and Nora?)

Guess who loves the snow!

While we don't know much about our second kiddo's personality yet, we do know something! I had the mid-term ultrasound toward the end of February and we found out that we're having a boy! With Nora, we didn't find out, so it's been fun to know this time. I had a checkup last Friday and the doctor told me that all of the ultrasound results looked great. Our little guy is measuring a slightly bigger than average at this point, so if we project that out to a full-term baby, he'll likely be closer to 8lbs than 7 lbs. Not a big surprise... Nora was 8lbs even. The ultrasound itself was great, he was moving all over the place. So much so that the tech had a hard time getting several of the shots she needed. Along with his moving and shaking, we saw him practicing swallowing, like a little fish. We could see his mouth open, gulp in, and close... it was pretty cool! Here are a couple of the ultrasound pictures, though they look a whole lot like any other ultrasound picture you've ever seen!

[head in profile to the left, arm up and bent, looks like he's putting his thumb into his mouth]


[lying on his back, head in profile to the left again, knees pulled up to his belly, his hand is the white spot that appears to be hanging in midair above his mouth/ neck]

As always, thanks for checking in with us. Here's hoping that spring is right around the corner!

Love-

Sarah, Brett, Nora & the Little Guy