Boy or Girl?

The ultrasound is scheduled for a week from Saturday (March 5th)!  So now you have lots of time to vote in our lovely poll to the right.  Here's some info so you can make a nice educated guess:

~ I was much sicker this time around than I was with Chandler, but much less sick than I was with Jessica.

~ I was super tired all of the time for the first few months this time around.  I was that way with Chan, not with Jessica.

~ Jessica wants a girl, Chandler wants a boy.

~ I stopped being sick about 16 weeks along.  Jessica took just a little longer.  With Chandler I was doing a lot better closer to 12 weeks.  Now Michael will deny this and tell you that I was actually really sick with Chandler a lot more than I remember.  :)

So there you go!  Boy or girl?  We'll find out on March 5th.  And here I am at 19 weeks.  Yes, that's The Jimmer van behind me. :)  Seriously, is there anyone that likes these pictures of themselves?  Didn't think so.

The Jimmer

We've gone about a year with one car, but with another kid on the way it was time to get something a little bigger. Michael jokes that he's a true romantic because he got me a minivan for Valentine's, but I love it. My favorite part is the built-in DVD player, except it isn't a DVD player...it's a VHS player. It feels so retro that it's kind of cool. And keeping with tradition, we named the car. And out of respect for the Great One, we named it The Jimmer. Here he is.

We were going to get more pictures, but it's been snowing like crazy, so those will have to wait.

2

My little Bubs turned two yesterday.  As I lay next to him at bedtime, he told me that it had been a super fun day.  Here's the run-down.

We started off with a pre-breakfast cookie, that luckily he didn't each much of.  After dropping Jessica off at preschool, Chandler and I headed over to the library to look at their fish pond for like 45 minutes.  He spent another 15 minutes stuffing every remotely interesting looking book into my bag.  I think we came home with well over 15 kids' books.   His favorite so far is The Little Engine That Could.  Trains, of course.

After leftover chicken soup and rolls for lunch (again, his choice), he went down for his last nap with a binky.  Here he is snuggling with Monkey. Yes, that's the monkey's name, and yes, Chandler named him all by himself.

Keeping up with the obsession with trains, Chandler asked for a Thomas the Train cake.  I am not a cake decorator.  I have no cake-shaped pan.  I found some random tutorials online about shaping a cake and decorating it, but it just didn't seem like my skill level.  Then I discovered Wal-Mart had cheap-o mini cakes that included, you guessed it, Thomas.  Usually I think store-bought cakes are a waste of money, but it was WAY less than if I had had to go and buy a bunch of frosting tips/bags or something.  So this is the year of the store cakes.

We let Chandler pick the dinner menu - hot dogs.  OK, I can appreciate a good hot dog, but only under certain circumstances.  Campouts, BBQed, that kind of thing.  It's like 0 degrees outside people.  But Michael braved the cold for his little man and dragged the grill out.

Chandler loved every bite.  He ate two hot dogs, one bun, and a HUGE orange.  This boy can eat when he wants to.

Michael was quite impressed with Chandler's eating skills. 

Next it was present time!  When Jessica turned two, she got a bag of lolly pops for her birthday and she was THRILLED! It's amazing what a couple of years can do.  Chandler did quite well this year. He still only got a couple of presents from us, but they were a little nicer than lolly pops.  :)

Cake time!  Chandler was there when we picked up the cake and it took all of his will-power not to grab it and try to pry off the plastic cover.  He was glad when the moment came.

The frosting was VERY blue and we had lots of blue fingers and faces afterward.

 Yeah, the blue teeth are HOT!

And Chandler did amazingly well without a pacifier last night.  I stayed with him while he fell asleep and he slept until Michael woke up around 6.  No crying and screaming in the middle of the night.

I love my Chandler!

New Haircut

Chandler's New Haircut:

I just love his goofy smile.

As of Lately

I feel like I've been MIA from the blog for a while, but it really isn't because of anything major.  In fact life has just kind of been going on as usual, without too much exciting to update about.  But here's life for the past little while.

Right before Christmas I found a huge bag of random cars and trucks at a thrift store.  After a great deal of sanitizing, it made an awesome Christmas present for Chandler.  In the lot were two Thomas & Friends trains.  Chandler is now OBSESSED with everything train-related. He carries these two trains around everywhere he goes and is not a big fan of sharing with Jessica. I'm super excited for his birthday in just a couple days where he's getting some Thomas PJs and some wooden track to go with a couple more trains.  Lucky little guy.

Now that I don't spend all day curled up on the couch while the kids run wild, I've tried to get more serious about chores for these two.  Jessica is relatively competent at several jobs, but it takes more creativity to help Chan feel involved.  The solution? A spray bottle filled with water.  He can go to town at a bunch of windows around the house and (sort of) wipe it off with a rag.  He loves it.

 The past week around our house can be summed up in two words: pink eye.  Ugh.  I hate having sick kids.  Jessica's came and went within just a few days, so other than a quick call to the doctor's office, she healed on her own.  Once Chandler starting getting goopy we gave him the same number of days to clear up.  No luck.  It spread to his second eye and was showing no signs of clearing.  Off the doctor we went for some $90 eye drops.  I guess I was thinking with something as common as pink eye the drops would be part of the $4 Wal-Mart Rxs.  Oh well.  That's what insurance is for.

So that's life at the Hales house.  We're coming up on 18 weeks for this little baby.  Sometime in the next couple weeks we should have our ultrasound and know which kiddo will be lucky enough to get bunk beds in the next few years (Jessica SOOO wants it to be a girl and I think this is the main reason).  What say you? Boy or Girl?