We are pleased to announce...

...That Jason will be getting a little sister in March!  This is going to be short because we are all exausted, but I wanted my (limited) blog audience to know first

The "money shot"  To the left you can see her feet

Legs crossed just like a little lady

Our best profile view

I guess all the begging and praying payed off because Jeff took the family to the elective ultrasound place on Friday night where we got to spend about a half an hour watching our little girl.  We are working on names and are a lot closer in opions than we were at this point with Jason.

Boy or Girl

Jason's face in 3D ultrasound

So we got to hear baby #2's heartbeat on Wednesday and scheduled our next appointment.  When I was pregnant with Jason in Phoenix we had a level 2 ultrasound to check out Jason's hands to see if he has polysyndactily like Daddy (he does.)  I didn't think we would be getting another level 2 for this one because we are not in as major an area.  The good news is that we get the better quality level 2 ultrasound for this one also, but the bad news is that due to scheduling and insurance issues we won't be getting it until January.  Since this will be replacing my anatomy scan we would not find out the gender of our baby until January when I will be in the third trimester and 28+weeks (most people get theirs done by 20 weeks.)  I am begging Jeff to allow me get something called a sneek peak in Albuquerque in the next few weeks, but he still says he will think about it.  So if you talk to him soon you would mention how much you want to know boy or girl right now :)

cute Jason foot!

People ask if you would rather have a boy or girl and it has become a little cliche to say we don't care as long and the baby is healthy.  This really is true for me!  I will admit when I was pregnant with Jason I did lean a little more toward wanting a girl, but now that we have our sweet boy I couldn't imagine life any other way.

Pros for a Boy:

• A brother so close in age would be a wonderful playmate for Jason.  I saw my brothers growing up together and would love that comradery for my sons.
• We already have all the cute boy clothes and stuff and they will still be in style
• In our master plan this would not be the last baby for Jeff and I.  Not having a girl at this point would encourage us to jump back into the newborn stage after we had been out of it for a while.

Pros for a Girl:

• Adorable pink stuff!
• new clothes and lots of shoping
• I have always wanted a girl

Ok so my reasons for a boy are more concrete than for a girl, but I would really honestly be thrilled for either one.  I just want to know NOW!

So tell us what you think it will be on the poll to the right!

Trains and Taos

This weekend we decided to take advantage of the cooler weather and go out camping.  It took about 5 hours to get a little north of Taos, NM and by the time we got to our campsite it was pretty dark.  Good thing we are experts at putting up tents in the dark.  We did discover that Jason loves flashlights!  He was wound up after spending 5 hours in the carseat and loved stealing our flashlights to run around the campsite.  Luckly there weren't too many stumbles or falls.  I think the only injury incured was a little fat lip from falling down.  We discovered that the nights up there got VERY cold.  We had suspected as much so Jason was bundled up in no less than 3 layers.  Although he loves to cuddle with blankets Jason will not keep them on top of him.  In the middle of the night we thought he might have woken up from being too cold so I brought him into my sleeping bag to cuddle.  This ended up with him taking over my pillow with his whole body and me using my sweatshirt as a pillow.

He pointed out every tree on the way up there!

Jason woke up in such a good mood the next morning.  I guess the lack of sleep didn't bother him too much.  He cuddled with Mommy and Daddy and was thrilled to play peek-a-boo.  He must have known we were off to do fun things.  We drove up to Antonito, Colorado to take a train ride through the mountains and see the trees changing colors on the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad.  Jason LOVED it!  He was thrilled to see the engine and look out the open air observation car.  He was only disappointed when Mom and Dad wouldn't let him wonder the train by himself.  After 3 hours on the train we stopped for lunch and got on the train heading back.  We had one tired little boy by that time and he passed out almost as soon as the train started moving.  Mom was all too happy to cuddle her little one while he slept.

Jason inspecting the engine



The next morning Jeff decided it wouldn't be camping if we didn't take a hike.  So we hiked all the way down the gorge to the river.  I dreaded the trip back up the mountain the whole time and Jeff carried Jason on his back.  Jason wished we would have let him play in the river, but since it was so cold he had to settle for throwing rocks into it.  We did make it back up the moutain and don't tell Jeff, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  After I caught my breath back at the campsite we packed up and started the long drive home.  There was so much to do that we just didn't have time for, but all in all it was a good trip!





See that river WAY down there? Ya, we hiked to and from that!









Do these photos remind you of anything?





Whatever Jason is totally cuter than Tom!

But I think he might be a messier eater

At least he is enjoying it!

I didn't put him up to this at all!  He found the tiara I wore at my wedding and begged for me to put it on

He may have even worn it better than I did!

Jason has something to share

Have you guessed it yet?

He is pretty excited!



Jason is so big! That...



He's going to be a Big Brother at the end of March 2011!

He might not share his bananas

Ok we will work on the sharing thing

Everybody poops

Yup, I'm going to do it.  I'm going to write about my son's bowel movements, but don't worry there won't be pictures.  That is unless I can catch one of him pushing into his diaper.  That cracks me up everytime.  Jeff says I'm mean.

My sweet boy has been showering with me for a while.  As soon as he could pull himself up he did not want to be left out of a shower.  He loves the running water so we decided to abort bath time and just have him shower with me every morning since two washings a day are too many for his sensitive skin.  Normally when we are done I turn off the water and get out to dry off while he continues to play with his toys.  About three days ago I noticed him grunting after I got out and discovered he had left me a little present.  I cleaned it up and thought well at least then I don't have to waste a new diaper on that.  Aparently my son likes to be regular because yesterday he blessed me with the same gift.  This morning there was a little change, instead of waiting until I was out and dry he decided that this action needed to take place while we were still showering and I was halfway through shaving.  So I yelled at Jason not to touch the yucky and dashed out to grab handfuls of toilet paper.  After the offending poop was all cleaned up I scrubbed both of us and the floor of the shower very well.  I really hope that we can find another pooping time for Jason and I can enjoy our showers in relative peace.

Sleep trouble

Jason was not a particularly good sleeper when he was an infant. Eventually we weaned him from night feedings and did the Ferber method to help him sleep through the night. He did wonderfully! Eventually we got into a great cycle of going to bed well at 7:30pm with just a story and hugs and kisses from Mom and Dad then waking up between 6 and 7am. He was taking a nice 2 hour nap around 11am. Even changing him to a big boy bed a couple of weeks ago did nothing to change this great sleep cycle.

You may have noticed a general past tense sense to all this information. Recently Jason has been refusing naps. He doesn't want anything to do with them at all! Even saying the word nap will incite vigorous head shaking. We lay him down and he screams and screams until we come back in and get him. Since Ferber had at one point worked very well for us we tried it again. This entailed letting Jason cry for 3 mins then checking on him, laying down and waiting 5 mins, then extending the waiting 7 mins and eventually 10 mins. It was suggested in the book that if he wasn't sleeping after a half an hour to get him up and maybe try again later. Our stubborn child wasn't going to give up easily so after a half hour of crying I did get him and he completely passed out on my shoulder within 3 minutes.

The next day we thought maybe he didn't need to nap as early so I put him down later in the day. There was a little bit of fussing, but it went much better than the day before. Normally I don't check on him for naps in case I wake him, but today I wanted to be sure he wasn't asleep on the floor or anything. I peaked in and he wasn't in his bed. Instead he had climbed out of his bed, over his diaper champ, and onto his changing table where he had passed out. I tried to take a picture to prove this oddness, but he woke up before I got my camera. So I got him settled back in his bed and back to sleep.

So maybe the issue was that he was getting too much sleep during the night and didn't want to sleep during the day. I mean most days he was sleeping 11 hours at night. So I nudged his bedtime back to 8pm instead. Great idea, but it didn't work out as planned. It was now dark outside as Jason was falling asleep and he didn't like his room that dark. There is a nightlight on his side of the monitor, but it has a timer function and Jason was unhappy when it went off. He woke up and fussed around midnight then completely woke up for the day at 5:30am! GRRR! Well that was this morning so hopefully he will nap great this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed for us!