Blog break?

I'm not sure if we'll get a chance to blog from Orlando or not...if not, this picture will have to tide you over until August 10th :)

You know it's hot when....

...your dog is shedding like CRAZY! By the amount of hair Mitchell and I brushed off of him, you'd swear he wouldn't have any left!




Mitchell was so helpful bagging Tex's hair up when we were done.

He even wanted to try to reattach some of the hair. For some reason, it didn't work :)



We're off to ORLANDO tomorrow!!! I have a work conference there next week, so Jacob, Mitchell and I are heading down early to spend some quality time with Mickey Mouse :) Jacob wil fly home next Wednesday and then my mom and David are coming down to watch Mitchell Wednesday through the end of the conference on Sunday. Fun times ahead!

19 Months!

Happy 19 Months!

Our little man is a sports FANATIC. He absolutely LOVES baseball & golf right now. He is perfecting both swings and will do them on command even with out a bat/club. He is mesmorized by watching either on TV and actually fell asleep in my arms tonight watching the end of the Royal's game (we finally won!).



He is a ham at daycare. Each Wednesday they have intergenerational time, meaning that they go upstairs and play with the elderly people in the connected retirement community. Ms. Mary claims that Mitchell has a ball singing and dancing around. She said that they were on their way up there last week and she heard an employee urge an elderly person to go see the kids. The old person said "Is Mitchell going to be there?" When the answer was yes, the old lady decided it was worth attending. Ha!

He knows almost all of his animal sounds (I'll try to shoot a video). My personal favorites are "Baaaaa" because he does it with such conviction and "ribbit" because he places the emphasis on the end, and adds a question as in "rib-EEEET?"

His vocabulary is still growing each day! He literally repeats anything and everything we say. He's starting to properly pluralize (is that a word?) things such as balls or chairs when there are more than one. He's also making things possessive when necessary, "Daddy's shoes", etc. He's slowly catching on to counting. We were eating cheese cubes the other day and he held up one cube and said "one", he then put two in his hand and said "two cheeses". :)

He's got a full mouth of teeth now, finally cutting his incisor teeth. Mitchell has also recently become interested in the "potty". He has not actually gone in it yet, but he enjoys sitting on it and acting like he is, usually before his bath. I'm well aware that potty training is a ridiculous goal right now, but if he's interested, I figured I may as well start acquainting him with it!

Jacob is out of town this week, so I decided to treat Mitchell to a 'date night' to celebrate his 19 month milestone (and also maybe I happened to be craving Pizza Shoppe salad dressing). For the first time ever (I think), I took him out to a restaurant by myself. We went to Old Shawnee Pizza; the food was wonderful AND Mitchell was wonderful! On the way in, I asked him if he was going to be a good boy, he answered 'yes'...and he didn't disappoint me :) It might've helped that there were lots of other kiddos there and that the Royal's were on TV.

We're starting to learn opposites like 'big' or 'little' and 'boy' or 'girl'...we're struggling through our colors, getting them right about 1/3rd of the time (maybe it's luck?)

Oh, terrible twos....I hope you're far away. We are enjoying our happy, giggly, curious boy way too much!

Someday he will be mortified by this...

For some strange reason, Mitchell LOVES to play in my underwear drawer. He's become more interested in trying to dress himself lately, so he decided to put on as many undergarments as he could possibly fit!!!

And run around the house!

I started to get a little worried that he would suffocate himself! Here he is before I started dismanteling his wardrobe one by one. Any guesses as to how many garments he had successfully stacked up around his neck?



THIRTY SIX!

Last Weekend

I'm kicking myself because I didn't get a single picture of Aunt Kelli and Mitchell last weekend :( We had such a good time enjoying the nice weather and hanging out all together that I honestly just forgot!

We spent the entire day together with my Dad, Kel, Mark, Jacob, Mitchell and I on Sunday. We even made homemade icecream! We found a bucket for Mitchell to "swim" in...we've gotta buy him a little pool :)



Jacob and I took Mitchell to a little park on Saturday before Kel and Mark arrived (below).

He LOVES LOVES LOVES slides these days and will go down them over and over again! He's fearless too...but I am not, so I often spend our park days on pins and needles :)

The tongue action must help him concentrate :)

Overall, we had a wonderful weekend with Kel and Mark and can't wait to see them again when we visit Wisconsin in October! It'll be here before we know it!

Baby #2 is steadily growing! While I can feel my clothes growing tighter, I'm not "showing" yet hence no pictures. I've gained a few pounds, which is probably more due to my "oh well, I'm pregant!" diet mentality than the actual growth of the baby! :) I'm feeling great and starting to get some energy back now that I'm almost into the 2nd trimester. I'm still convinced that I think it's another boy. We scheduled our sonogram for September 14th, so then we'll know for sure. Although Mitchell has been informed that he'll be a big brother, we're fairly certain he's clueless about the changes that are in store for him. He's often more perceptive than we think though, so who knows! Our next doctor appointment is coming up in early August, so I'll post an update. So far, so good :)

Daddy See, Daddy Do!

The other day I posted a video of Jacob running and jumping onto the bed with a giggling Mitchell. Mitchell has now decided that he and Jacob should take turns running and jumping. It is pretty entertaining for us, so I thought you might enjoy too!

Playing with Daddy!

Here is a cute little video of Jacob and Mitchell playing.

Mitchell has been a JOY lately! His little personality is really starting to form and we're really enjoying it. We took him to the Royal's game last night and he was such a good boy through the entire LONG game. He even stayed up long enough to enjoy the fireworks, which he asked for "more, more, more" of when they finished. He crashed as soon as he hit his carseat and slept in until 8am this morning! He REALLY enjoyed the hotdog race on the jumbo-tron and the hot dog toss by Slugger...maybe he just loves hotdogs? :)

Some of his newer things that we get a kick out of are 1. proclaiming his own diaper as "stinky" as his way of telling us that he needs to be changed and 2. rapidly shouting "no, no, no" as we make the turn into the daycare parking lot, only to change his no's into yes's as I ask him if he'd like to go see Ms. Mary and the rest of the kids.

We're looking forward to a beautitul Kansas City weekend! My sister is visiting, woo hoo! More pictures to soon to post :)

Our family of 3 soon to become a family of 4!

Yep, that's right. We're expecting Baby Folks #2! I'm about 12 weeks along...and feeling really good! So far this pregnancy is very similar to my pregnancy with Mitchell. A little 'hung over'ish feeling for a few weeks around week 6 or 7, and the typical exhaustion. I've honestly been going to bed as SOON as I get Mitchell down - between 8:30 and 9pm these days.

We've had a few doctor's appointments thus far and things look good :) The baby's heartbeat exactly matches Mitchell's at his first recorded rate - 165 bpm.

We're fairly convinced it's going to be another little boy, but we'll find out at our sonogram appointment on September 14th. We think Mitchell will be pretty happy to have a little brother....I guess he'd make due with a sister too :)

More Maine pictures

Yes, we've been home a few days now...but it's taking me some time to get caught up :) Here are a few more pictures from the trip!



We have a slew of summer birthdays in the family, including my sister-in-law Deana who's birthday is actually on the 4th of July. We have one big birthday celebration while we're there. Above is my favorite picture from the celebration. I think Greyson, our nephew, liked his present.

Mitchell was very fond of their piano. He actually was very careful and gentle when playing it. :)

David and Diane recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, so their kids planned a little toast & cake celebration. We also gave them an inscribed frame with the picture of the group that I posted while we were there. They were touched :)



Mitchell on the rocking....moose? What else would you expect in Maine :)

All in all, it was a great trip and we can't wait until next year!

Trojan of Travel

Jacob, myself and our trojan of travel arrived home safe and sound from Maine yesterday. We shaved a full two hours off of our travel time out there, so it only took us 12 hours. Mitchell was very good for us :) When the plane finally landed in Kansas City, he said "more, more, more"....we did NOT agree :)

I'll post more pictures of our trip soon. Gotta get to work!

Maine!

It took us 14 full hours of travel, but we finally arrived! Mitchell was a fabulous traveller! We actually got compliments on both of our flights...of course it helped that there were other crying babies on both flights.


We're having a great time with the family. Here's the crew above. Yes, we're all staying in one three bedroom house :)

Mitchell is having a blast with his cousins and is especially fond of the boat! Each time we stop the boat, he demands "more, more, more". He drags his life jacket around with him in hopes that we'll give in and put it back on him. :)

More posts of our trip to follow...

What did he say?

So much for only 50 words, Mitchell has begun repeating just about any word you throw his way...even his Daddy's favorite home improvement store. Take a listen :)

I finished my first summer recruiting conference this week...whew! We hosted 35 students in our office for a two day conference that I planned. It went very well and we hope to attract several of the students to accept offers with our firm. It was A LOT of work, including a 20 hour work day on Monday...yes, 20 hours straight!

We are headed to Maine tomorrow morning for our annual 4th of July trip to visit Jacob's family. We haven't seen most of them since Christmas. It should be a good time :) Sure to have plenty of pictures to post upon our return next week (or maybe while we're there?) Mitchell is excited to play with his cousins, Jacob is excited to white water raft and I'm mostly excited for some rest and relaxation. Maybe I'll take a book and lay out in the hammock for an afternoon....doesn't that sound wonderful!