Hello, Third Trimester!

This past Thursday, the baby and I entered the third trimester.  Crazy!  Just like when I was pregnant with James, we've signed up for weekly email updates on the little one that tell us which obscure vegetable or fruit he/she most resembles as he/she grows.  Here's what this week has to say:

"By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world."

I'm feeling a bit more tired and have more aches & pains this go round (not to mention LOTS of braxton hicks contractions!), but overall, I'm feeling pretty good.

We'll soon be moving James into his new big boy room (which is currently known as "Dada's Closet"), so he can get used to sleeping in another room before the baby arrives and takes over his current space.  Since he's been doing so well in his crib so far (fingers crossed that we didn't just jinx ourselves), we decided to not to make the move to his big boy bed just yet and purchased a second crib for him this weekend.  

We also recently purchased a video baby monitor.  When I was pregnant with James, I kind of thought they were silly and a waste of money, but I have to say, I LOVE it.  We bought a model that came with two cameras, so we set up one in James's room and one in his playroom.  He's pretty good at independent play, so it will be nice to let him do his thing in the playroom be able to keep an eye on him while I get things done upstairs.  And since the little man occasionally talks in his sleep, the video monitor has already prevented us from interrupting a nap too early because we thought he was awake (Cue cute James-talking-in-his-sleep story: earlier this week around 11pm, he said "ee-ah gaga" twice, which is James speak for IU basketball.  Must have been a good dream!).  We'll most likely get another camera for the little one, too.

And because I can't do a blog post without sharing some kind of visual media, here's 1 minute and 9 seconds of James (aka The Little Handsome) playing IU basketball:

And here's 2 minutes and 33 seconds of him playing with his cars:

PS - as I mentioned at the end of this post, a new blog name was in order.  Hope you like the new header & blog name!  (Still have the picture of your Pride & Joy in your wallet, Dad?)

January 2013 10 on 10

I forgot to do this on the 10th (woops!), so on January 11th, I took part in the 10 on 10 project.  Once a month on the tenth, participants (when they remember!) take a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours to document the life and beauty among the ordinary things of our day.  Click HERE or on the button to the right for more information about the project.  Enjoy!

I've been dreading this day...

...ever since those precious curls started to appear around 7 months:

I have had several people tell me that their child had curls just like James and that after the first haircut, the curls were no more.

So I did what most Mamas of babies with sweet baby curls would do, and put off his haircut as long as possible.

It didn't bother me that he was constantly getting called a girl by strangers,

"Is her hair naturally curly?"

even though he would be dressed all in blue and have dinosaurs on his shirt and playing with a toy truck
(although it did irk me a little to find out that Dada doesn't correct people when they tell him his daughter is cute - he just says Thanks).

The two things that finally convinced us (me) it was time were 1) the fact that James, Dada, and I were constantly brushing his hair out of his eyes and it was starting to irritate him, and 2) his hair is actually past his shoulders:

Nice rat tail!

In the days leading up to his haircut, I decided to take a few pictures (353 pictures, to be exact).  If the haircut was catastrophic, I wanted to document his last few days with long, flowing, beautiful locks.

I kind of think he looks like a little model here

Here, not so much.  I think he may be mad at me some day for posting this one on the internet...

Right after I took this one, he colored on our white bedspread

And then he wondered why I took the crayons away

Starting to get angry at me for taking pictures of him in the tub

 And finally, today, the big day arrived

We're ready to go!

 He was really good throughout the entire haircut.  His Charlie Brown book, Dada's iPhone, and the football game on tv all helped.

 

All done!

 Doesn't he look handsome?

And he still has his curls!!  I don't think the haircut could have gone any better - there were no tears shed by James or Mama, which in and of itself constitutes a huge success.

And of course I had to take some more pics of his new 'do once we got home

 As you can see, we ended up not taking a whole lot off - just enough to keep it out of his eyes for a while and make him look more like a little boy.  I think Dada wanted to cut it shorter, but knew better than to disagree with a pregnant, hormonal Mama. 

 I told him James could maybe get a shorter hair cut in a year.  Or two.