I promised Marie I'd update by today. I truly am thankful for friends who keep me accountable to updating here (yes, that also includes you, Theresa & Rhiannon & Nichole), but goodness this feels like such a chore to me! When all is said and done I like having at least one place where I can look back on certain things about Joshua, mostly because I haven't scrapbooked or even journaled tidbits in over 8 months. But this really is not my favorite thing to do. Okay, enough whining :) here goes.
Joshua is nearly 22 months already. His 2nd b-day is getting closer and closer, not my favorite thing. He really is turning into such a big boy. He hasn't grown a ton physically, but his personality and comprehension are so much fun. He understands so much more, even if his vocab can't match it all. He loves his family, especially his cousins (Kyle, 13; Madi, 11; Evan, 7; Savanna, 4). Anyone he can name he asks about at least a few times each day, to which Mommy responds, "Ky-Ky is at school" and so on. He LOVES to tell stories and take over conversations. He jibbers in his own language, complete with body language such as pointing and shrugging shoulders and anything else that he feels like...and even laughing like he's just said something funny. Once in a while we catch a word we understand, so we know what he's saying. It will be so much fun the more his vocab grows and we can hear more of what goes on in his adorable head.
Let me tell you, this kid is all boy. He loves anything that makes noise...vacuums, Daddy's tools, Mommy's sewing machine, cars & trucks, airplanes, the choo-choo trains we hear from our house. One of these days I'll record his mimic of these sounds, really need it at least for us. If others didn't know better they'd probably think he was yelling, but he's just being loud like the fan or whatever. He loves helping his daddy with things. Lately he's been trying to help as Daddy puts his new room together. This includes grabbing his toy hammer and hammering away with Daddy, grabbing the screwdriver and twisting it around, grabbing a paint stick and attempting to dip it and then put it on the wall. His favorite thing is to be outside. Many days, even before he's gotten out of his p.j.s, he is at the door asking to put his shoo-shoos on. He runs, helps Daddy, plays with the cat and dog, picks flowers (fau-fau), rides his bike (or rides with Daddy), and most importantly digs in the dirt. He's been improving a little, but most days he throws a pretty big fit when it's time to come in. Sometimes he'll stand at the door crying with shoes in hand for 30 min. or more. The weather has been pretty warm this week, so at least he's been able to convince Mommy to go out too.
Matt and I have been hard at work to transition our small home to accommodate our newest member. We were so blessed to buy this house nearly 5 years ago and though we've been here longer than planned (and we know we'll be here a lot longer), God has enabled us to make it work for us. It's just over 1000 sq. ft. with three bedrooms. Our 3rd room was formerly the office/guest room/craft room and is now a nearly complete big boy room. The desk and computer went into the master bed and Matt custom built some wonderful shelves in Joshua's new closet. It works so well that I was able to organize all of my sewing & scrapbooking supplies onto the top shelves, leaving plenty of room for our family games in addition to Joshua's clothes and many toys. It's a little messy still b/c of some supplies I'm attempting to destash as well as those that I need to make into items for my shop. Once it's cleared a bit I'll be sure to take some photos. At that time I'll also include photos of Joshua's new room. Matt painted last week, the twin bed is in complete with bedrail, furniture is in and getting filled, toys are moving in. We'll shop for the comforter this week and I'll be making a valance, pillow sham, and some small pillows. I promise pictures when it's all done.
Don't know how long it will take to transition Joshua into sleeping in his new room. I tried to lay him in there for naptime today, but he wasn't ready. We'll just keep getting him used to it and try every day. As for his current room, we won't have it completely turned into the baby's room until after she arrives. I'm making the bedding myself (again, I promise photos when it's all done), but we decided to not paint until after she's born...just in case. By the way, "she" is officially named now. We ended right where we started, with the exact name we'd had chosen when pregnant with Joshua. But Matt wanted to be 100% sure nothing better came up. Our sweet baby girl will be named Carly Dawn. Dawn is my mom's legal first name, though when she was 6 months old my grandmother had finally had enough of people mistaking her for a boy Don, so she switched her to her middle name, Marilee. My sister's middle name is Dawn, so we wanted to honor the two of them. I love that both of our kids have something special. Matt's brother goes by Danny and Melissa's (my sis) hubby is Daniel, so it was natural to name our firstborn Joshua Daniel after his uncles. This weekend we settled on a backup boy's name, just in case, but I won't share that unless we really do get surprised.
Anyway, I'm tired, Matt is ready to crawl in bed, so I better wrap this up. I've posted a pic of me from last week...er...almost 2 weeks ago. I was 32 weeks preggo in this shot and Wed I'll be 34. My body is so much more uncomfortable this time around, but it's crazy to think I'm down to my last 6 weeks. I feel like I still have so much to do and I know our lives are about to change drastically very soon. The other pics are of my boys out on the hammock, Joshua about to climb onto the ladder while "helping" Daddy paint, and the final one was taken this evening of Joshua on his big boy bed just before stories (though he did not stay there). Hope the few of you who read this are well and still awake after this gigantic novel I've written. Love you lots and *hope* to update you again soon.
