A month closer!

Happy February 1st!! Now that January's behind us, we are that much closer to spring and to meeting Abby :)

We had a nice, lazy weekend. We even watched two movies, which is pretty much unheard of for us! Four Christmases & Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Both cute & entertaining, although nothing life changing. But hey, that's what we love about Redbox, cheap entertainment!

We also enjoyed a nice lunch at Applebee's on Saturday. We were bored and had a giftcard! We all three shared an appetizer sampler and a plate of sliders. It was great food, and Ryan was so well behaved. He ate two cheeseburger sliders & a quesadilla triangle. It was a very nice and enjoyable meal.

Other highlights included seeing Grandma & Grandpa and Nana & Pop-Pop. And Mommy had a good time scrapbooking, while Daddy played on the computer & watched mindless tv :)

Abby's update

Had another check up on Wednesday and Abby is doing great!! Here she is looking up at the ultrasound. See her face? And those chubby cheeks! The tech looked at those, looked at Ryan, and said wow, she already has her brother's cheeks. Thanks Pettit side of the family - this one's supposed to look like me! :) The tech also said she already has hair, so that's cool.

Not much of a surprise, but she's big! She was 3lbs, 3 oz on Wednesday. She's measuring about 1.5 weeks ahead of schedule. The doctor has already mentioned inducing early to avoid another 10lb baby and looks like that will be the case! Oh well, that just means we get to meet her that much sooner, yay :)

Ryan was great at the doctor. And so super cute ... all morning "Abby doctor, Abby doctor." Too bad he got shy and wouldn't say it when we actually saw the doctor. And before we opened the bedding, he carried the bag all around - "Abby's, Abby's." He's going to be the best big brother ever!

We've picked out her bedding and purchased the quilt set so that we would see exact colors and start planning her room. Here's a link to what it looks like: www.babysupermall.com/main/products/coc/coc7035-854.html In case that doesn't work, you can just google Jacana by Cocalo. We've also ordered furniture for her that should be here within three weeks or so. I'm really excited to get everything here and see how it looks and see how we want to decorate the room!

I suppose that's all that's new from Abby. To see more pictures, look in the Baby Sister folder on my picasa.

Happy Friday everyone!

Use your Words!

Ryan is doing great with his speech! He's been using a lot more words, so that's awesome and fun. Some cute ones are: Abby (my favorite!), Girafee, El-fat (elephant), Sa-son-dog (Sampson dog), cheer-o (cheerio), Bad-lynn (his best buddy Madeleine)

And then in the last week or two, he finally started putting two words together. He does this with lots of words now, but here are some favorite phrases: Daddy Work, Kitty Up or Kitty Down (for up or down stairs), Dog Out (side), Ryan Eat, Dog Sit, Police Car (one of the current fav toys)

He also is very good at grouping:
Nana, Baba (Pop-Pop), Jed
Baba (Grandpa), MomMom (Grandma), Ry-Ry (Riley), Jake!
Ya-yee (Aunt Lolly), By-n (Uncle Brian), Dee-do (Diego)
Saa (Auntie Sarah), Back-um (Maxim), Ris-tian (Uncle Christian)

Once he gets going on a group, he has to name everyone in it several times and if you don't encourage and reinforce him, he gets very upset! Not sure what starts this, but it's quite common for him to be hanging out or sitting in his carseat just going through the whole family. And when we are on our way home, he repeats kitty & sa-son dog over and over. *And yes, Pop-Pop and Grandpa sound exactly the same, as do Mommy & Grandma. You just have to hear them in context!

Today he said his first three word phrase unprompted, yay! "Sa-son Dog Out" Although the way Sa-son and Dog run together, maybe that's only one word, thus only a two-word phrase. But I'm going to count it as three words :)

Another fun activity is watching the new digital picture frame. It was a Christmas present and honestly we'd never even thought about getting one and weren't sure what to think of it. But all of us love it now, esp Ryan. He will sit at the kitchen table and watch it scroll through pictures while naming everyone in them. "Ry, Daddy, Mom-mom, Back-um, Ry, Baba, etc."

He also freaks me out occasionally with his recognizing and random words. For example, after just one day of school, he pointed to it & "scool!" when we passed it. Also the other day, while pulling into Chick-fil-a, he announced "chicken!" without me having even told him where we were going - and it wasn't even the one by our house that we usually go to. He's crazy smart when he wants to be, but only when he wants it! I'm really loving all the talking! It's great to finally start understanding him. And words are a whole lot more fun and much less frustrating then points and grunts.

PS - Wanted to also mention Ryan's amazing "parroting" skills. He will repeat the last word of whatever you say! He can also repeat /count to 10 and repeat his abc's, although W is a little tricky :) If I had to pick I'd say his favorite letter is Q. I think that's because it looks funny and thus it's easy for him to pick out when he's looking at the whole alphabet.

I saw it on the internet, so it must be true

Well since we haven't officially annouced it, or posted it on our blog or facebook, it must not really be true, right? These days it's just not real until you see it on the internet, eh? So, in case you haven't heard or looked up at the new header that my awesome husband designed for us, we have finally picked a name for our little girl ...

Abby Caroline Chase!

It is a combination of being named after my Nana, Alice Caroline, and us just really liking the name Abby. We are super excited to have agreed on a name and to be able to start calling her Abby instead of Baby B or Squirt. And if you haven't heard Ryan tell you his baby sister's name, you are really missing out, it is the sweetest thing ever!! We can't wait to meet little Abby in just about three months!!

Snow Day

Well, in case you are living under a rock and haven't heard ... it snowed in Atlanta! Crazy I know! And not only that, but it's been so cold that the snow actually stuck to the ground and is still there over 24 hours later! Needless to say, we Southerners don't have a clue what to do about this, and I think just about the whole city has been shut down. We enjoyed having Daddy stay home from work today, although he did work very hard on his computer & phone, so we had to practice being quiet & staying out of the way. Eventually we gave into the stir-craziness & watched Shrek 2. Ryan and I had watched the first one about a month ago, so he was very excited. "SHREK!" He sat in between us and watched the whole movie, it was super nice! However, I'm hoping to get out tomorrow and get some fresh air, doubtful though as the high is still not above freezing. This was fun for a day, but I'm ready for summer now :)

Preschool

Ryan started preschool this week, so hard to believe!! He goes two days a week, for three hours each day. It's just enough to get him out and interacting with other kids his age. And it gives Mommy some quiet time, especially now that Ryan's given up napping :) We're still working on the adjustment, but once we get used to our new routine, we know it will be good for all of us. Ryan has cried both days when Mommy dropped him off, but I'm told that he stopped within five minutes and did great the rest of the time. It's so weird that he has a life of his own now, independent of me! He does his own thing and I don't know what that is! While his speech is improving greatly, he still can't tell me what he did at school. But I know it's good for him and I'm told it's good for me too, although right now I still miss him and feel like the world's worst mom for leaving him crying in a strange place!

Ryan amd Mommy decorated Ryan's placemat. The school will laminate it and he'll use it each day at snack time. Fun idea!

 

Ryan's spiffy school bag. What a big boy!

 

Happy Birthday Jesus!

This morning at church, they gave all the kids a cake mix and frosting to celebrate Jesus's birthday. We had a great time this afternoon making the cake together. Ryan helped us pour and mix the ingredients, and we waited patiently while it baked. We frosted the cake and then added sprinkles. It was great fun, even though it got a little messy a few times! And of course, what's a birthday cake without candles?! Check out a video on our youtube link over there on the right to see a smidgen of the celebration :)

Happy Birthday Jesus!!

It's a ....

Girl!!

We are super excited to know that we'll be having a little girl in April! It was great to see her on the ultrasound today! Haven't settled on a name yet, but hoping to have one picked shortly. Also looking forward to planning her room and buying lots of pink :) Coleson brought me beautiful pink roses today, and we picked out a little pink elephant blanket for her! So fun!

Kitty Cats & Corn Dogs

Today when Ryan and I got home from running errands, the neighborhood stray cat was sitting in our driveway. Of course Ryan saw him from the car and his first reaction was "kitty!", followed immediately by bursting into a cry as the cat ran away. All I can think is he thought it was our Nellie kitty and she had run away. So I managed to convince him to come in the house (he really wanted to go find the kitty). Once we found Nellie and said hello to the kitty, all was better!

Then for lunch, I pulled the pregnancy comfort food card. Ryan still ate his veggies, but after that we both had a corndog and macaroni. Yummy!! It was Ryan's first corndog, and he loved it! No surprise though since he enjoys hotdogs so much. It was fun eating the corndogs together, dipping them in ketchup and then eating them right off the stick. Ryan really enjoyed that we were eating the same exact thing and most of our corndog bites had to be taken at the same time. Silly but fun! And yes, I promise we usually eat a little more nutritiously than this- I can't remember the last time I had a corndog. But sometimes you just gotta do what ya gotta do!

Ryan's Hat

Last winter, we could not keep a hat on Ryan. He was always pulling them off and wanted nothing to do with them. Yesterday I put a hat on Ryan at about 4:00 in the afternoon, while we were babysitting and playing outside. Not only did he not immediately take it off, but he decided he liked it a lot. A whole lot. He wore it all evening and slept in it all night. This morning it was still on. I have made him take it off for a few seconds every so often to make sure his ears were okay. But other than that he wore it all day today too. Then just like that, about 7:30 tonight, he took it off, handed it to Daddy, and the 27 hour hat marathon was over. Or at least we made sure it was - he has since had a bath to clean up all the matted hat hair and we didn't give him the option of putting it back on! Two year olds are so much fun and so silly!!