Dum Ditty, Dum Ditty, Dum, Dum, Dum.

This makes Jack laugh:


























This makes Jack cry:



























When we read "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" to Jack, he always laughs at that first picture. It cracks me up how amused he is by a picture of a monkey standing on top of another monkey's head.

Last night, Jeremy and I were watching The Soup, and this guy came on the screen and Jack start crying in terror. He was absolutely terrified and frantically reaching for Jeremy to save him. Only when we turned the TV off did he calm down.

Similar similarities

"We've never had a little girl, we've never had a little girl!"

Well, I'm finally getting to try my hand at being a mother of two. I have had people here helping me the whole time but now they're gone, and Jeremy's back at work and I've really been enjoying my kids. Evie sleeps a lot and is a precious little angel. I think her sleeping all the time is really making the transition easier for Jack. He's doing great. His vocabulary is exploding. I am absolutely baffled by him. It's amazing how toddlers can retain so many words. It seems that I can't remember anything, yet he remembers so much. It's just amazing to me how God engineers their little minds. Two of his more exciting new words: Evie and iPod. I will always remember that he learned the word iPod on the same day he learned his sister's name. Jeremy is so proud.

On a different note...

For a good while now, I have relied on Flickr to share photos with my friends and family. I have recently realized that many of you do not check Flickr, and therefor, have not seen a lot of my pictures. So I'm going to try to start putting more pictures on my blog. However, if you do not have a Flickr account, you should because Flickr is awesome! So go get a free account and add me as your friend. "That's not a request!"

Ok, so here are some pictures for you to enjoy:

Jack, meet Evie.

This video is from the very first time Jack met his baby sister. The first time he was somewhat timid. Now when he remembers that she is in the room, he runs over to her and lays his face on hers. Then after he decides he's been sweet for long enough, he steals her socks.

Eat it, Vigneri!!!

My day has been going a lot differently than originally planned. At 7:30 I was supposed to be getting hooked up to an IV filled with pitocin. Instead, I was happily snoozing next to my beautiful new daughter, Evelyn.

Two weeks ago I was at my obstetrician's office. She checked me and had said that even though the baby's head was very far down, that I was basically nowhere near ready to have this baby. She scheduled me to be induced today because I had told her I didn't want to go past the 25th. Well, after that appointment, I foolishly got my hopes up, thinking that since the baby had "dropped" that I would surely go into labor on my own in no time!

My doctor has been out of town this past week, so for my 40 week appointment, I had to go see a doctor I hadn't met before, Dr. Vigneri (vig-nary). When I got there, I was very anxious to find out if there had been any change, and I knew that if there wasn't that I would most definitely start crying. I had been getting less and less comfortable and carrying her past my due date was getting very annoying.

Well, I go into the doctor's office, receiving all of the annoying comments from the nurses that a 40+ week pregnant woman usually receives. The first nurse: "Are you still pregnant? " (that was my favorite!"); the second nurse: "you look miserable!"; and finally my fill-in doctor "you're still pregnant? (Jokingly:) Come on... get it together, Amy!" (Good one, doc!)

Well, he finally checks me and says that there have been no changes. I start crying. He very sympathetically looks at me and says "I'm sorry, Amy." Then continues to tell me that "I probably have one of those bodies that will always have to be induced." That seems like a nice thing to tell a crying pregnant woman who is three days past her due date. So, I come to the sad realization that I will have to be induced on Monday. As much as his comment about being induced upset me, it really helped me to just relax and accept my fate. So there I was, accepting my fate two days later when I had my first contraction. (Ooh-da-lolly, a contraction... how exciting!!) By the grace of God, less than 24 hours later, I gave birth to a completely healthy, 8 lb, 13 oz little girl. And boy, is she grand!



Soon to follow this post: a video of Jack meeting his baby sister!

Do the Stomp!

It's Jack's new dance move...

Saying goodbye, why is it fun?

Jack is really into saying goodbye these days. If we are at a restaurant, he'll say "bye" every time the waiter leaves our table. If we're in the car, he says "bye" when random cars drive by us. If he is watching TV he says "bye" when a character will leave the screen.

This is just a video of him rambling and saying "bye" a lot.

Yes, I've got milk. Stop asking me.

I was a little surprised when I purchased milk this morning and noticed the sell by date:



That is my due date! Do you realize what this means? This means that I could have a baby before the milk goes bad (if that were actually a possibility.) Crazy.


If for some reason you haven't heard yet, my little niece Alexa was born on Saturday! Oh goodness, she's cute-- and the fact that I haven't met her yet really tears me up inside.

Bask in her glory!




For more pictures, check out my sister's blog.

Keep them monkeys movin'...

Jeremy and I are pretty big fans of Taco John's, a fast food restaurant that we first discovered here in Casper. I'm not sure why, but they don't show commercials for Taco John's here. So, the first time I heard of Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey, it was from this paper bag that Jack's kid's meal came in. Jeremy and I were thoroughly amused. As I just sat down to blog about Whiplash, I googled the little guy to see what I could find. I'm a little sad but also a little delighted to find that Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey isn't just some random thought for a mascot, but an actual dog-riding cowboy monkey!





(You'd be surprised how depressing it is to see "West-Mex" where it would otherwise say "Tex-Mex.")

Significant date

I was about to get ready for bed when I realized I hadn't blogged about today's significance. Today marks mine and Jeremy's four year wedding anniversary! (See photo for reference.)




In countdown news, today is also exactly one month from our daughter's due date (which, I recently discovered, that in addition to being the day before my birthday, is Father's Day too)



This means that it's now only a matter of weeks until my little niece's due date! This is a picture of Charlotte from a week ago, so she was as far along as I am now! It's amazing how much more pregnant she looks, just from our height difference (I feel bad that the only profile picture I have of Charlotte at 36 weeks is one of her blinking-- so here's a pretty picture of her being pregnant.)

17 months later...

Jack used to sleep in this little rocker chair when he was a newborn. The other day, we laid him in it after he fell asleep on Jeremy's shoulder. I don't think it is as comfortable for him now as it once was.

Le-mon!

I just saw these pictures for the first time. Andrea found them on my mom's camera and sent them to me. They are from November-- my mom had given Jack a lemon wedge from her tea, and even though he seemed shocked by the taste, he contintued to eat the lemon wedge, and then ate another one. I am mainly posting these so you can see the last photo. I think you'll like it.

Show?

Jack is obsessed with this.

"Have I possibly gone daffy?"

Really, nothing says "Happy Cinco de Mayo" like a foot of snow.

Dude, where's YOUR car?

When I took Jack to the park on Wednesday, I came across an interesting group of people. There was a rather large lady (maybe late 30's), a guy and a girl (both about 22 or so-- the guy: not wearing a shirt), a younger guy (around 18), a little girl (around 4) and a little boy (possibly Jack's age.) At this particular park, there are only two picnic tables under the small pavilion. The three older people were sitting at one picnic table. I was going to set my bag on the other picnic table, but the younger guy was laying down on one of the benches. (Here's a picture of the park for reference, but those aren't the crazy people. That's Aubrey, Jack and Andrea):



So, I just held onto my bag and walked with Jack around the play area. No matter how much I watched this group of people, I could never figure out who the parent(s) were or how they were all related. They would all randomly shout out things like "so and so, get your butt over here" or "so and so, get that out of your mouth!" Anyhow, after I had been there for about 5 minutes, the larger lady, noticing my baby girth, said "when are you due?" I said "June." Then she said,"Do you have a car?"

(If you're thinking "I wasn't expecting her to say that", then we are right on track with one another.)

"Um, yes."

"Do you think that maybe you could take my son (possibly the guy loafing on the bench) to the mall, pick up his friend and bring them both back here?"

I was so shocked at such an inappropriate request, that I just stood there for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to respond.

"Well, I just got here and I was going to let my son play for a bit."

"Well, I didn't mean right now. Just whenever you get ready to go."

Now I'm thinking to myself "there is no way I'm going to take some random guy to pick up some other random guy-- and I'm especially not going to do it with my son and my unborn child in the car."

She then said "I would do it, but I have to wait here for my boyfriend."

(?!)

I didn't really say anything else, she just kind of started talking loudly to (her daughter?) the 20 something girl next to her. (She talked loudly the WHOLE time we were there and a lot of times she was swearing about something.) The rest of the time, I felt really awkward because I knew I would have to say something to them when I left-- and what would I even say?

Meanwhile, Jack was having lots of fun around the play area-- and I would have enjoyed it a lot too, but I just felt so uncomfortable around these people (we were the only people in the park, and it's really small.) Fortunately, Jack started showing interest in the green outside the play area, so we spent a lot of time looking at the trees (when jack sees a tree he says "tee!") and at one point Jack had a pretty good time chasing a squirrel all over the park.

Eventually, Jack wandered back to the play area. Then the shirtless guy came over to the play area, sat on the jungle gym, and started SMOKING. They were all smoking the whole time I was there, but at least they had been smoking under the pavilion. So I'm feeling pretty annoyed and I'm ready to leave. Just then, some guy (late 30's) shows up, so I'm feeling better about leaving-- thinking that maybe he is the older lady's boyfriend. Jack started showing signs of being tired, so I picked him up and started heading for the car. I walked by them and said "well, I really need to take my son home so he can take a nap. Did y'all figure something out?" The older lady said "Yeah, see this guy? The guy that showed up in the suburban? He's my boyfriend, the guy I was waiting for, so we're going to go to the mall together." Uh, ok.

So, I said "y'all take care" and started walking towards the car. Just then the 20 something girl came up to me (closely followed by the shirtless guy) and said "do you have any baby clothes?" I said "yes." She said "oh, well, I have to get all of my stuff out of my brother's garage soon, and I thought maybe you could take my baby clothes off my hands."

"No thanks. I'm all set."

This concludes the story of my strange park encounter.


Something else that is strange-- I just looked at Weather.com to see what the weather is going to be like this weekend: winter storm watch*. Oh, brother.


*Changed from "winter storm watch" to "snow advisory"

"You were half, now you're whole."

Jeremy returned on Friday from his three week absence. He was in Duncan Oklahoma, and it was no fun! I'm only just now posting this because I'm so used to people seeing my pictures on Flickr, that I rarely think to put them on here. Anyhow, it was so great when Jack saw Jeremy at the airport. I put Jack down on the ground and he started running towards Jeremy whilst laughing and smiling. I'm thinking Jeremy probably didn't mind that welcome.

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that.

Oh, brother.

This commercial for Kissimmee came on TV the other day, and Jack started cracking up. I was filming Jack watching the commercial today and Aubrey decided that she also thought it was funny...

and cuteness abounds.

Water, water... where?

Is there a bird that looks like a seagull, sounds like a seagull, but isn't a seagull? If not, there are some very sad and confused seagulls in Casper. It's really depressing on two fronts-- one, you hear these seagulls and it reminds you of the beach, but you realize "oh, I'm in Wyoming"; second, these poor birds! They just fly around parking lots, probably wondering "where the heck is all the water?" Maybe I'll go out there with some fish and a kiddy pool. Now that's a good way to get killed.

We are not amused!

(Ok, we are completely amused.)

Jack is now tall enough to reach things that are on the kitchen counter and he can even more easily reach things from our kitchen table. Like last night... when he picked up my cup of COLD water... and carried it all the way over to where I was laying on the couch... and poured it on me.

He did it so quickly that I couldn't stop him. I only had time to realize "whoa, he's got my cup" before he lovingly tried to give me a drink. It's actually quite impressive that he picked up the cup from the table, and walked that far without even spilling it. After I recovered from gasping, I joined Jeremy in cracking up. We always try not to laugh when Jack does something "wrong" (because sometimes it's pretty funny) but, hey-- we're only human.