thankful.

So, I have realized that my posts are all basically the same: updates on life, what we've been up to, Lily and Bob.  And so today, I'm just going to [hopefully] keep things short and sweet and mention some of the little blessings that we have and things that I am thankful for; because honestly, I don't think that I am grateful enough, or take the time to notice them as often as I should.  These will be in no particular order.

1. my family.  All of it.  Immediate family, family I added when Jesse and I got married, adopted siblings, adopted aunts and uncles..I'm so glad I get to see so many of them several times throughout the year, and those who I only get to see on a special occasion, I really look forward to those times!
2. Jesse, Lily and Bob.  Obviously.  Considering I thought/assumed I would never get married or have children, I consider them a huge blessing in my life.  And even though I tell Jesse that he messed up my life plans of becoming a US Marshall and traveling the world or something equally awesome, I couldn't be more thankful.
3. that Lily is imitating Jesse more than me in her food preferences.  Seriously.  He and I have joked since she was born that we hoped she had his (lack of) sweet tooth and my metabolism.  The other day, she handed me a half eaten Oreo and signed "all done," and tonight at dinner, when she and I split a bowl of cooked carrots [I foolishly thought I would get most of them] she ate the whole bowl and asked for more.  Keep in mind, this is without touching her sloppy joe OR baked potato.  I'm so thankful she loves vegetables.  
4. our house.  I admit to still being in the "honeymoon phase" of home ownership, but I love it and am having a blast, annoying expenses and all.  
5. spring.  ahhhh..I don't mind winter, but I like it for as long as there is a decent snow on the ground that I can play in.  No snow, no cold: move onto warmer weather [of 60-70F for spring, please].  Now that the weather has been warmer, we have been loving everything we can do outside together as a family.  Which, you should already know if you have read any of my past 10 blogs..and it just makes my heart smile when Lily starts signing, then saying "shoes."  And if we haven't figured out exactly what she means and that she wants to go outside [where she throws in a few signs of "outside"], she will BRING us her shoes.  And then a pair for me and a pair for Jesse.  She's brilliant: the shoes always match and go to the right person.  I'm amazed.

Yes, these were generic, but I hope to [maybe] make this a weekly event and have posts pertaining to the week.  We will see if I succeed.  I decided I needed goals in my blogging, or at least things to look forward to so I blog more often and don't just post rambles about what we've been doing.  So be on the watch for that.  Or just ignore the emails/posts if you choose :)

a baby shower and some gardening

Well, this past weekend went way too fast for all the driving we did, so our little family took a mental health day today and all stayed home from work.  I'm very grateful that Jesse and I both have jobs that are flexible enough that we can do this, so thank you to Jodi or whoever ended up covering for me this morning.

We headed to Zanesville Friday evening after dropping Zeke off at the kennel so that Jesse, Lily, Mom H and I could head out bright and early-- and by that I mean 5a!-- to go up to Michigan for Erin's baby shower.  Jesse and I realized that 7.5 hours is the longest we had ever asked Lily to be in the car at once so far, and really, she did fine.  I was tired and therefore had a much shorter temper and sense of humor about the whole thing than was necessary, but I'm still learning how to be a mom and how to travel with a kid, but let me tell ya, it is NOT the easiest thing I have ever done to keep her entertained for ~6 hours, especially since she didn't really want to nap.  

my niece's cake!  Koleen Echo Hildebrand xoxo

All that aside, I'm really glad that we were able to go to the shower and we could ride along with Mom.  We picked up Matt, headed to the church and Jesse and Matt went off to have some brotherly bonding time and look at guns and things while Mom, Lily and I went to the shower.  It was very nice, the food was delicious, and I got to see my SIL who is just an adorable little pregnant person, as well as a few members of Jesse's side of the family.  The few hours we all got to spend together was way too short for my taste, but I enjoyed what time we had.  Once Lily got over her grumpies, she had a blast running around the shower with two other little girls and playing with Nikki, who quickly reminded Lily of who she was and how awesome she is by sharing M&M's with her, and letting her get some drinks from the drinking fountain.  It was so much fun having the extra family there, because Lily was able to happily run from Aunt Patty, to Aunt Melony, to Jill, to Nikki, to Grandma, look around and find me, and then be off again.  

After the shower, we headed over to Springhill Camps where Matt and Erin both work for a quick tour.  Ironically enough, I went there when I was in high school with a friend's church group, so I remembered some of it, but they have definitely changed and added some things.  Jesse took charge of Lily so I could stretch my legs and walk around with Erin and Nikki while Erin went to check on a few things.  When we got to the zipline so she could check in with some of her staff, they asked if either Nikki or I would want to go.  Uhm, yes please!  No sooner was I getting in my harness and telling the girls NOT to mention this to Jesse because he would be jealous that I had gone off to play while he had to watch Lily than Jesse and the rest of the family drove by and saw us.  Oops.  The zipline was of course fun, even though I'm slightly petrified of heights.  I'm pretty glad that I'm not farther along in my pregnancy than I am because once I had finished zipping and was hanging at the end waiting for the staff to get me down, the harness started to put some pressure on my belly and I wasn't too big of a fan.  Fortunately, they got me down first, so it wasn't bad.  With a tummy any bigger, I don't think I would have gone, though.

Sidenote- I officially entered the third trimester today.  I am so unprepared for a newborn right now it isn't even funny, but what is funny is how little I care right now..I'm much more laid back about this whole pregnancy thing than I was with Lily, and I thought I was pretty laid back then.

When we had finished at Springhill, we went off to a tasty little BBQ joint for dinner.  Lily was still being decently pleasant, but was definitely starting to get tired and wasn't content sitting still any longer, so it made for a more trying meal than Jesse and I typically get with her when we go out to eat, but thankfully, Matt and Nikki sat at our booth and helped out a ton with her.  Lily was absolutely done when she smashed her forehead into the corner of the table..oops.

27ish and 38ish weeks

pregnant sisters!

Jesse and I headed all the way home yesterday from MI (9.5 hours, plus bathroom and food stops), so needless to say, we all slept well last night.  Lily got up at her normal time this morning, so she and I got some breakfast, bummed around then went to check Dick's Sporting Goods for a certain pair of running shoes I want [which they didn't have] before heading up to the kennel to get dog.  Even though it was about 2 hours earlier than nap time normally is, Lily fell asleep on the way home and slept almost 5 hours!  Hopefully she feels better and caught up on her rest!  Jesse had gone into town to get a ton dirt to try and level out the spot where we will be putting our garden.  He and I shoveled that out and began working on getting things level; we realized about half a ton in that we would be needing more.  We weren't too surprised by this, so he went off to get some more dirt and then we worked some more while Lily continued to nap.

shoveling dirt.  I helped, too, but then there was no one to take a picture, so just imagine it.

after we got the space mostly level, we looked and realized we had leveled it in the wrong spot.  so we had to move the whole thing.

bed 1.  also, see that field between our bed and the neighbors mess?  that's the neighbor's, but they said that if we wanted to, we could plant our garden there!  so we will also be tilling up a bit of that area and using it for the tomatoes, maybe some corn and I don't remember what else Jesse had decided would go there.  we're pretty excited about the extra space, though.

my clothesline, step 2: we decided it will go here-ish, just have to dig the hole.  Jesse wouldn't let me do that, but promised he would get it dug and the pole sunk this week.

load #2.  note the dog just chillin' in the way.  and also how low Jesse's truck is to the ground..

so, he went and got some peat to put in the beds.  as he threw the bag of peat on the ground, this sucker shot out.  ....?!? 

Speaking of our garden, the technique we are using is called "Square Foot Gardening," and you can check it out here.  We are going to be filling our beds with a mixture that is 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat and 1/3 vermiculite.  We mixed some of this up tonight to fill a bed and oh my.  If plants don't grow in it, I don't know what will because it is so light and fluffy.  Just need to keep Zeke out of it..

some of the components for our fill

more filling stuffs

helping Daddy

It was a great weekend, but I am so thankful that we could both take today off to be home since we were gone.

Oh, have I mentioned how much Lily loves reading now?  I wasn't really the new mom that would just sit and read stories with Lily when she was a newborn: we would read an occasional story, but it wasn't something that was her favorite.  I'm not really sure what changed, but almost overnight, she is now obsessed with books, and sitting quietly and patiently, listening to the whole story.  It makes my heart so happy and I love it.  Her favorite book is [of course] the Dr. Seuss ABC's book.  And by favorite, I mean to the point that THAT book is "book" and all others are ok but not the same.  I already have it memorized, and Jesse is well on his way [his favorite is "F" with the "four fluffy feathers on a Fiffer-Feffer-Feff"].  I have tried reading several other styles of books, but really, if it doesn't rhyme, she tends to shut the book and goes to get another one, so Dr. Seuss it is!  I have absolutely no problems with this, except that I don't have a very wide selection.  She LOVES the Cat in the Hat, though.  In fact, I found out that The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is one of Jesse's favorite's.  And I found this out because he was driving yesterday back to Zanesville and was listening to me read the Cat in the Hat and he missed his turn so we had to go on a detour.  The funny part is, we were in Findlay and he has driven that stretch and turned on that road countless times, he was just paying more attention to me reading than where he was, and was eagerly waiting for his favorite part of the book, which is unfortunately in the other Cat in the Hat.  Oh well, we made it safely to Zanesville and then back to our house.  

lemon tree buds

Sorry if this was a boring post, I'm kind of tired still, but I wanted to blog while I had time and share some of these wonderful pictures.  Speaking of pictures, I finally updated my picture blog.  Almost a month later.  So go check it out for lots of precious pictures of our precious little munchkin!

Last thing, seriously: I am realizing that my blog title is no longer accurate, as we no longer have fish, and that when we add Bob, it still won't be right.  So I am now taking suggestions on a new title.

26 weeks, 3 days

So, I'm not sure if I get to play the First Time Mom and I Take Pictures of Everything card or the Are You Kidding Me, You Took a Picture of That card: feel free to judge appropriate amounts, because Jesse just did when he looked over my shoulder and saw I had documented this instead of dealing with the issue in a more timely fashion.  All that to say, Lily got her first bloody knee last night. 

immediately trying to take the band aid off.  she went straight into pants after this for an "out of sight, out of mind" situation.

Clearly, it was a small scrape, but I've fallen on concrete before and know that it just doesn't feel good, so I don't blame Lily for being upset at all.  She was running across our patio, wearing a nice garage-saled (yes, I did just make that a verb) pair of knock-off Crocs and she tripped and fell, skinning her knee.  I'd been mentally preparing myself for the first bloody spot I would have to handle with band aids, so I didn't panic or anything and tried to make light of it to her, walking over to show Daddy her first big girl boo-boo before going inside to take care of it.  She was pretty upset about it anyway.

Today was a great day, though pretty tiring for both Lily and me because we got up earlier than normal and played hard.  Waking up early was worth it, because it meant that we could meet Jen for coffee and breakfast at McDonald's before heading into work.  Really, it's a great start to any day when you can meet a friend for coffee: just kind of starts things off with a smile and some extra energy.  Unfortunately, the time we allotted ourselves to visit before we each had to go to work went way too quickly.  Fortunately, we will be doing it again soon!

After work, Lily and I ran home to grab some more diapers and Zeke before heading over to Partin's so I could watch the kids and Lily could play with them while Betsy saved a life and donated blood.  After Lily woke up from her power nap and got over her grumpiness of having not slept long enough, we went outside so they could enjoy the fresh air and I could take some pictures.  We were playing in the shade so I wasn't too impressed with how the lighting turned out, but it was fun anyway.

bff's.

Lily cracks me up when she's playing with Logan, Kayla and Ethan: she doesn't realize she's smaller than they are, and whatever they are doing, SHE will obviously be needing to try.

after some muddy doggy kisses

I rarely take pictures in black and white.  I much prefer taking the picture in regular color and then changing it to black and white later because you can take the color out, but you can't put the color back in.  But, I figured I would play around with it a little bit on my camera anyway.  They turned out fine, nothing earth shattering, but I still think taking pictures in color and then having the option of color, b/w or even sepia is the better way to go.  Personal opinion, I don't know that much about photography, so my camera may take a better b/w picture and I just don't know the settings.  Ok, enough rambles.

not a great picture, but I had to add it because Zeke photo-bombed and has the most ridiculous expression I have ever seen.  I laughed for 5 minutes when I saw it, at least.

Lily and Socs playing

We came home and I was really hoping Lily would take at least an hour nap so she would be tolerable for the evening and I could get a few things done quickly before having to start dinner.  Turns out, she was able to relax enough on the way home without sleeping that she was ready to go when she got home and was super fun and in a great mood the rest of the night.  All in all, a great day.  See what starting your morning off right can do?

And now, since I was contemplating going to bed an hour ago, I shall be heading there.

dirt and a clothesline

I'll tell ya what, Lily has been thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and being able to play outside.  Almost as soon as I go into her room to get her up from her naps, she is signing "cold" to me, letting me know she wants to go outside.  Yes, she got a little confused with the signing, but I know what she wants still.  Through the colder days-- I don't really feel I can be justified in using the word "winter"--, we would go outside and I would sign "cold," so she has now associated going outside with that.  We are working on the correct sign for "outside," and she can do it, she's just still a bit confused.  Getting her to come inside is like pulling teeth, and you can almost count on there being a tantrum.  Yesterday, I brought bubbles outside, and it was honestly one of the best times ever.  Zeke adores bubbles as much as she does, and between the fascination of watching me blow bubbles and wanting to learn to do it herself and watching the dog fly through the air trying to pop all of them, she was about in fits with giggles.  She wanted to hold the wand and blow the bubbles herself and would dip the wand into the bubble mixture and then either blow on it herself or run over to Zeke to have him try and take a turn blowing bubbles.  Z just licked the wand, so clearly he has a firm grasp on how to play, but Lily loved it.  I wish I had been able to either get a video or take pictures, but I didn't have any free hands [ok, and I left both my phone and camera inside..].

In the evening, after dinner, we went outside so Jesse could dig up one of the T posts for my clothes line.  The house came with two great, sturdy and very solid T posts, but they are ridiculously far apart.  I really do mean an absurd amount for a clothes line, especially since there are no supports in between.  I had requested that one of the posts be moved closer to the other one, and we moving one will provide more space for our gardens, so out Jesse went to dig a hole.  Poor guy worked for at least an hour, probably more on getting it out of the ground.  First of all, the previous owners really knew what they were doing and knew how heavy wet clothes can be when hung up to dry, so they had sunk the pole at least 2.5 feet into the ground with concrete.  Which doesn't sound like all that deep, but I would guess that the cement had a diameter of 10-12 inches..so I will let Joel do the math [but for the curious, the formula to find the volume of a cylinder is V = πr²h].  So after a good chunk of time digging and trying to find the bottom, combined with rocking the post and trying to loosen it out of the ground, he began to realize just how heavy this ridiculous thing was going to be for him to move by himself.  Normally I would at least try and help, but we both knew that I would a) be useless with Lily and a Bob belly and b) it really wouldn't be in Bob's or my best interest if I did try and help so I cheered him on and played protective wife, asking him every 3 minutes to not hurt himself.  Secondly, once he finally found the bottom of the concrete and post, he had to try and lift the dumb thing out of the hole.  As previously mentioned, it's ridiculously heavy.  He eventually was able to get enough leverage to lay it down out of the hole so I could stand on the T part and act as a pivot while he [carefully!] lifted the cement end out of the ground. We left it there for the evening.  But, as I am trying to document the changes we are making to the house to share with my friends and family, and Lily was being ridiculous, I went inside to grab my camera and try and take pictures of the process.

Jesse lovin' life

Lily LOVED playing in the dirt

ridiculous.  but I guess I will appreciate it as soon as I go to hang up my clothes..

The next picture kind of proves that Jesse and I are good for each other.  As we both sat looking at the hole, I was thinking how I wanted to see what Lily would do if I put her in the hole, but didn't want Jesse to judge me for suggesting it.  At which point, he looks at me and says, "do you kinda want to put Lily in the hole?"  Great [or weird] minds think alike.

"what is this..?"

"oh, dirt!  this stuff is fun!"

helping Daddy put the dirt back in the hole

Lily sat down on the filled in hole..at which point I said, "look, Jesse, we planted a Lily!" ...hah

I went grocery shopping after work, and have decided that when you're shopping solo with a small child-- and this may prove true for older kids, too, I just don't know yet-- you may reach a point where you have to mark where you are on the grocery list, go home and finish shopping another day and just not worry about the rest.  That was today for us, but Lily did decently well for how tired she was.  She just wanted to be held while I tried to walk through the store and push a shopping cart.  I was not amused, she's getting heavy!  Regardless, I'm going to have to go back to the store sometime, probably will hold off until next week though.  As I was putting groceries away, I decided that my belly is to the annoying size where it's getting uncomfortable to just bend down and pick something up off the floor.  So I just sat down with all the groceries scattered around me on the floor to sort and organize where things needed to go before putting them away.  I probably looked pretty special. 

I guess that's about it!

26 weeks

Maybe I should catch up on pictures...?

Did I ever mention that Joel and a classmate of his came to visit a few weeks ago?  Well, they did.  We just bummed around all weekend and it was fabulous.  Board games, food, naps..that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, that was a few weeks ago, so all great stories are already neatly filed away.  Lily did get kind of attached to Joel when he started giving her food.  She would get a box of cereal and take it to him to open so she could get some.  It was precious.

Lily wanted to be playing games with the boys

The following weekend, my parents visited.  It was a nice visit, and the first time that they (and Joel, for that matter) had been to our new house.  Nothing too noteworthy, just enjoyed spending time with them.  We did all go down to Partin's to help celebrate Fiona's first birthday with lots of fun and food.  When it came time for the smash cake, Fiona did what everyone expects one year olds to do (unlike what Lily did, if you recall) and when she was done, Lily started indicating that she wanted in the high chair to take her turn.  But, instead of smashing it and making a mess, she took a fork and began neatly taking bites.  Who's kid is this?  How ridiculous.  My parents claim I used to hate getting messy when I was small, too, and I know Jesse was the same way, so apparently she gets it honestly, but come on.  Cake!

Lily "taught" Milly and Poppa how to pop bubble wrap

Fiona with the remnants of her cake

enter Lily with her fork

This weekend, we went to Zanesville to see Jesse's parents.  The plan was for Jesse and me to go [finally] on our anniversary + birthday date and we are so glad that we had a chance to finally do that, even if it was 3 months late..we slept in Saturday morning and then around lunch time, he and I took off for Columbus and left Lily with her Hildebrand grandparents for the day.  Now, I realize that when you read about our date, you will probably judge us that a) it doesn't sound like very much fun or b) we sound pretty lame.  Feel free, we enjoyed ourselves!  Pretty much everything we did was something we had done previously together in different times and places and it was fun to be reminiscent of those.

We started by going to a very nice fish store to peruse the fresh and salt water fish and tanks.  This is the first time in almost 5 years that we haven't had a fish tank set up, and I think we both were missing it when we went through the store.  Our ultimate goal is to set up a salt water tank, and we already have the tank, just buying everything else is the pricey part, so we wait.  But we went to an incredibly nice salt water fish store in Phoenix often, so we had fun finally finding another nice fish shop.  The fish store was also in a strip mall, so we wandered around there for awhile and went and got a snack at a Whole Foods Market.  If you've never been to one, they are really kind of fun and very nice with an incredibly variety and selection, but way over priced and I can't really imagine doing all my grocery shopping there and how much money I would add to my grocery budget.

From there, we headed to Easton.  Since we went to college an hour away from there, we went on several dates to Easton.  We had a hard time remembering the last time we actually had been there, but I think the last time I personally went was my last semester at MVNU right before Jesse and I got married with some friends..but we wandered around and window shopped, and talked about the different stores that held memories of our dates there, like the Build-a-Bear workshop [where he built me a Spiderman-pajama-with-aviator-sunglasses teddy bear] and a jewelry store where we went to look at engagement rings on our very first date.  We passed Auntie Anne's Pretzels for probably the first time ever in that mall, as we always split a pretzel on our way home from Easton.

Apparently, Easton has added a Lego store since either of us were there last, so obviously we went to check it out.  When we walked in the door, we saw a guy around Jesse's age sitting on the floor with his little girl (maybe 4-5) playing with Legos.  It just made my heart smile so much, and I pointed them out to Jesse and said "that's you in a few years with Lily.." he watched them for a minute and then said "yup, definitely is, I can't wait" and then we went off to look at all the big Lego sets we always wanted but never got when we were growing up.  We did a very little bit of real shopping and then went to BD's Mongolian BBQ for dinner.  We went there on our second date ever and it became one of our favorites and have been wanting to go again for a few years.  Honestly, it wasn't as good as we remembered, but we are glad we went and enjoyed remembering going on our dates there.  Since we went on St. Patrick's day, there were lots of green-clad crazies out and about, so we had some good chuckles people watching and checking out some fabulous outfits.  After dinner, we went to a little dessert place where he got a blondie and I got a brownie + a shot of icing.  What's a shot of icing?  Delicious: a 1 oz container of icing, of course.  And I had no regrets when I had my brownie and icing.  We headed home and Lily was still keeping her grandparents up, so we got to see our little munchkin and hear about her day and all the fun she had making messes and playing before I sent her off to bed.  Grandma and Grandpa H have pictures from their play day together, so I will post a few once their favorites are emailed to me, because word has it, they took a bunch ;) 

coloring with Grandma

All in all it has been a crazy busy couple of weeks, but lots of fun and family.  More busyness and family coming up in the next few weeks, so hopefully I will be able to stay on top(ish) of my blogging.

some of my daffodils.  Zeke chased the neighbors horse out of them today.  yes, you read that correctly.

Bob has been doing well; TONS of movement.  So far, no evil kicks or jabs, just rolling around and moving.  Lily did the same, and I'm not sure if my kids are just nice to me or because I have a longer torso they just have/had more room and don't feel the need to try and karate chop me in two?  I've also begun experiencing the joy of Braxton Hick's contractions again, starting about 2 weeks ago..I did some reading online about these little parties in my uterus, and the internets claim that most women don't feel them.  I've felt them significantly with both pregnancies, and from early on, so how is this fair?

Lily watching Zeke play outside