The Nature Center

We got a family membership to the Nature Center here in Asheville, which is great because it can also get us into 250 other zoos nation wide! It is a great place for Steven Edward because it is small enough to do in 1-2 hours, and it focuses on animals that are native to our area. So he has a great time. Today they had a big fall festival called Hay Day. It was lots of fun and it was the first time Steven Sr. got to go with us too. There were lots of extras represented today....like pony rides, face painting, cloggers, and fire engines!













Eleven more days!

13 Days...

Not that I'm counting....

So today can be summarized by a quick story. It started like any other day-I got up as my husband was about to leave, helped him put together his lunch, and got my son out of bed. We read some stories as he ate a banana and drank his milk. Eventually we make it to the breakfast table, where he insists on sitting in an adult chair rather than his high chair for breakfast....fine. We clean the breakfast dishes and prepare to leave the house by packing bags, sippy cups, snacks...you get the drill. We finally make it to the car 5 minutes after our supposed arrival time and head out of the house. This particular day it's raining, so we are headed to the mall. Yes, I know what you're thinking...and I thought it too....I never thought I would be the mom that goes to the mall with her child, but lo and behold it has happened. I'm not quite to the mini-van, but we do walk the mall and play at the food court playground. And my son loves it. As I'm walking to the play area with two of my good friends and their children, one of them tries to put my tag back in my shirt. I hear her chuckle, and say...."um..Courtney, your shirt is on inside out." How does this happen? How can you be up for a solid 3 hours living your life and never notice that you are wearing your shirt inside out? I suppose that this is the life of a woman who is tired, about to give birth in 2 weeks, and is chasing a toddler. It worked out perfectly though, because as any good mom would, my shirt was already covered with my son's snacks....so I got to start anew on the stain department with a simple flip. Nice.

On another train of thought, I have my amnioscenthesis test in 13 days...and assuming all goes well, should have my new baby in my arms that afternoon. The suspense of the gender is killing me, not to mention the back aches, the itching, and the never sleeping. So needless to say I am so ready for this to happen. Not quite sure I'm ready for the baby, but there really is no turning back as far as that goes. I also am not ready to look at something so tiny and funny looking and be convinced that it is adorable. I mean....looking back at pictures of my son, who I thought was perfect at the time, he really was quite funny lookin. I expect nothing different from this one. Here are some pictures of Steven Edward when he was born....see for yourself.

Since he was 6 weeks early he was crazy tiny....this blue outfit was a premie outfit my mom picked up for the way home!













Look at all those wrinkles and arm hair! Funny lookin'.






But no matter what he looked like....I loved him and I thought he was beautiful.

Steven Edward at 18 Months

I can barely believe that my son is already 18 months. And more than that right now, I can barely believe that he will have a little brother or sister in 3 weeks! It is hard for me to look at him and think he will have to grow up quickly and stop being the baby.....but in many ways at least he thinks he is ready. So what is he doing now?.........

*He LOVES to climb. He is on everything and anywhere we go with steps or anything that may resemble steps he is headed for them!

*He loves to drink out of a "big boy" cup. It is an easy way to get water into him. He will drink an entire cup and just giggle between sips.

*He has 16 teeth....four top, four bottom, four molars, and four incisors.

*He is always on the move and is quite fast. Everywhere I go where he is walking I always get comments on how much work he must be to keep up with and then eventually a pity face when they then see my belly.

*He jabbers all day long. Not so much words you can understand, but he is always talking. He will grab his play cell phone, say..."hello" and then just jabber away laughing at random times. It is quite cute.

*Our current words- car, truck, clock (which sounds remarkably like car), shoes, all done, uh-uh, door, dog, uh-oh....and he is trying to say lots of others. I'm sure there are some that i can't decipher that I'm not giving him credit for. But to be honest....I'm being lenient on pronunciation.

*He knows most of his body parts (excluding the elbow and knee) and loves to stick his tounge out at you when prompted.

*One of my favorite things he does is holding our hands for the blessing before we pray. I'm not sure why but this makes my heart quite happy.

*He loves watching football with his Mom and Dad on the couch on the weekends. He will just sit holding his own little football mesmerized! We have slightly laxed our no tv rule for sports....we figure it is just like real life....um...kind of.

*He still loves his cars and trucks-and has had a great time playing with Hotwheels and his Daddy's old orange Hotwheels track.

*He has also figure out how to open the fridge and often when I'm filling up his water cup will run to the fridge, open it and try to pull out the milk. This has become a punishable offense.

*Speaking of punishable offenses....he is into throwing EVERYTHING. So we have a rule that he is only allowed to throw balls. This is our newest challenge.

*He suddenly loves shoes and hats. He constantly brings them to me to put on.

*He also enjoys pushing things around the house. He will go the pantry get out the mop or broom and push them all over the place. He also does this with a toy lawnmower and a wooden duck that flaps its wings.

*Reading is still one of his favorite things-picutre books of family or himself, Richard Scarry, truck books, and Good Night Gorilla are his current favorites.




Well-I'm sure I've missed some things but I'm also sure you're tired of reading about my son. But this gives me a great time and place to brag on him and to adore the gift God has given me. I know I will love the next one just as much-I just can't quite imagine that yet.

All these pictures are from Steven Edward's 18 month pictures. We are putting together a panel or vignette in black and white of 5 shots of him. These are some that the photographer (Warren Sanders) put on his own personal blog to let people see his work. Feel free to check it out for yourself if you're interested.

His site
http://www.wsanderphotography.com/

His blog with Steven's pictures
http://www.wsanderphotography.com/blog/?page_id=106

Surprise Shower

What an amazing network of friends God has blessed me with here in Asheville. Today one of my good friends invited me to lunch with her at a tea room. I actually haven't been out to dinner but once since we moved back and was SOOO excited to have the opportunity to spend time with her without kids. Not to mention I had been looking forward to going to the tea room , though I couldn't see any reason anytime soon to be extravagent, so I was hoping for it in February for my birthday. She made sure to tell my husband that since we were going to a tea house I must be "cute." Not knowing exactly the definition of "cute," I dialogued with my husband and he said I should wear my fun brown skirt (I thought to myself....that is really the only pregnancy skirt I have), I should curl my hair, and maybe wear makeup. Seeing as I spend most of my life with a pony tail I was happy to have a reason to dress nice. She came to pick me up and off we went. When we were walking around the corner a whole group of my friends walks out from the side of the restaraunt and I absolutly couldn't believe it! It was such a blessing to me and made me feel so special. We spent 2 hours chatting without our children while our husbands watched them. I actually had 6 glasses of tea (although they were in teeny tiny china cups so....it's totally excusable. We'll disregard the fact that I put a sugar cube in each cup!), cute little sandwiches, and scones with lemon curd. It was such a fun afternoon and when I got home I couldn't stop smiling. Thanks guys-you are truly a blessing to me and I love you all. It may have helped that Carolina won their football game too....it's about time we had a football team!





There were other cameras but I didn't bring mine since obviously I didn't know it was happening! I will post another post once I get more.

Gas Frenzy

Today I was driving to the doctor (shocker right?) and ran into a traffic jam. It seems the traffic was stopped for two lights. I waited, expecting an accident....but as I inched forward I realized it was no accident; it was a gas station. People were lined up 15-30 cars deep on the road in 3 directions waiting to turn into the station and there were 3 cops there patrolling the situation. Craziness? I suppose our culture is not used to not getting what it wants when it wants it! This has brought the worst out in people. In fact I have heard that at one station a man got a baseball bat out of his car in a fight. And people aren't just getting a little and letting others have some too. People are topping off whenever they can because they are scared they will never see gas at normal supply again (even though our news sources say it should be back to normal within a week). Luckily I was able to fill up on Sunday when the wait was only 5 cars deep and it still took about 30 minutes. I pity the person who is almost on empty now. On my drive home this was the only station out of the 8 I passed that had any gas at all. And tonight when my husband went out to get ice cream for the non-craving pregnant wife, he said the line was a mile long down the road just turning into the station. The news says it may be a couple weeks before this is over! What the heck!

On a lighter note-here is a funny picture of my son before we went to church on Sunday. He has gotten into putting this hat on his head and now thinks drinking water out of this baby bottle that he found is hilarious. Oh, the phases we go through with a 1.5 yr old!

Western Mountain State Fair

Today we ventured out to the Western Mountain State Fair. We figured our kids could enjoy the animals and the overall over-stimulation of loud music, flashing lights, highschoolers, and fair rides. It poured on us for part of the time, as you can see by Steven's friend Eli in his wet stroller.









Here we are inside the barn weathering out the storm (pun completely intended). Between the four of us we had 8 kids! And if you count the one in my belly...that's 9. Two of the kids are 3 weeks or younger! I know you are all impressed.



Once the rain subsided, as you can see our boys were much more interested in the puddles than they were in the animals!






I was super glad to have my baby carrier during the rain.....but....it didn't take long before pregnant me got tired of carrying a 27 pounder and I let him run around a bit by himself! He did quite a good job for the first time walking just holding my hand!



This is Steven Edward's new favorite game, shown to him by none other than his father. He runs around the house with this bucket on his head staring through the slats.





As some of you know, I have the same condition I had during my first pregnancy, which means I go to the doctor ALOT! This is a picture of my good friend Jenny doing what she always does now that I'm at the doctor....babysitting my son. Here she is reading to Gabe and Steven.

Looking Glass Wilderness

Today we decided to go on a trip to the Looking Glass wilderness area. It is near Brevard NC, and has lots of creeks/rivers, waterfalls, and some beautiful mountains. The picture above is the actual looking glass rock. I have hiked it before, but today we just attempted to hike to the base. We choose this because it had some relatively easy hiking for me, but unfortunately we got rained out and picked up a stranded climber along the way. Either way it was lots of fun and Steven Edward got to try out his new hiking backpack. We're not sure how much he liked it, but Steven the elder LOVED it and it made us extremely mobile!

Here we are at Looking Glass Falls. The water was extremely cold so wading was not an option, but the boys did some exploring! It doesn't look as impressive as it is in real life. I mean, it's not Niagara, but even pictures of Niagara look small in comparison to the real thing. Some things photos just can't capture.