Carter - 2 1/2 Years Old

The last post I did on Carter was a whopping 6 months ago!  Man oh man the differences in the first 6 months of the second year!  I’ll go through the main categories I’ve been doing in the past and just add any tidbits I find necessary to document. 
Diapers
Still rockin’ the size 4’s.  We’ve done pullups a few times, but most of the time, Carter prefers the Sesame Street diapers, though he’s now starting to ask for the pullups every now and again.  Once we get big time into potty training, we’ll use pullups more.  Speaking of potty training, Carter has poo poo’d (sorry for the wording) in the potty TWICE.  It’s not something he asks to do, it just so happened that I hit it at the right time when he had to go.  There were a few days where he was constantly asking to go to the potty, but then he stopped.  Now I ask him to come to the potty and he usually says no-which is why I’m not potty training yet.  I am trying to get him psyched about it though.  I’ve shown him pictures of big boy Elmo and Cookie Monster underwear from Target and he loves looking at them and knows that they are for “potty training” (yes, he actually says potty training).  He also knows that we will be using M&M’s as a treat during the process and that if he keeps his diaper dry, he’ll get an M&M every so often and then when he goes in the potty he’ll get many M&M’s.  I’m hoping all this talk of big boy underpants and M&Ms is getting him excited.  He has, within the last couple of weeks, started telling us he had to tee tee and he actually does tee tee…a lot!  But he still wets his diaper too.   I think I’m going to hold off until July or August to attempt the 3 day boot camp method.        
Shoe Size
He can still fit into his size 7 shoes, but I have recently gone ahead and bought some size 8’s.  They’re still slightly too big.  We went to Kicks to buy some new shoes and they sized him and he still measures at a 7.  But right now he wears anything from a 7-8 because that’s what we have.

Clothes
Shirts are 2t or 24 months.  For shorts, the kid can still wear some 18 month shorts!!!  I was dreading spending a ton of money buying shorts for summer wardrobe and wondered if some of his shorts from last summer would still fit so I pulled them out and sure enough, about 75% of them still fit.  So he usually wears a 2t or 24 month shirt with 18 month shorts.  He’s a small kid, what can I say!

Feeding
We still struggle with a relatively picky eater.  I think we tried too hard to make sure he liked “healthy” foods when he was younger by staying away from the bad stuff and now he won’t even touch the bad stuff.  He doesn’t eat most foods kids love like hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, grilled cheese, peanut butter jelly sandwiches, etc.  Most of this boils down to the fact that he still won’t eat bread.  I’m cutting him some slack because he’s only 2, but when this kid gets to be around 4 or 5, he’ll be eating pizza and hamburgers or he will go hungry.  Period.  We did manage to get him to eat pieces of the cheese off of a  Little Caesar’s pizza at a birthday party the other day so that was a success!  Part of this is our fault too because Justin and I don’t typically eat these things, therefore Carter’s never had the opportunity to eat them.  All these are mistakes that we will correct with Garrett once he starts eating table food.  That being said, Carter’s absolute FAVORITE meal is mexican.  He LOVES LOVES LOVES to go eat at a mexican restaurant and is constantly asking to go.  He even knows that when we turn right out of our neighborhood, it means we’re going to a mexican restaurant and he gets extremely excited.  He always gets a chicken quesadilla with rice and he devours momma’s cheese dip.  I’m working on him with peanut butter jelly sandwiches.  We know he likes peanut butter because he’ll dip his apples and animal crackers in it.  So we’re going to start trying to get him to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  We’ll see how that goes.  I put a mini corn dog on his plate the other night and he literally screamed until I took it off.  Bribed him to eat it with M&Ms (his FAVORITE) and everything and he still wouldn’t touch it.

Sleep
Big changes in this department.  For starters, Carter went through about a 2 week phase where he was waking up in the middle of the night screaming.  Every night was different.  Some nights he wanted water, some nights he wanted to be re-tucked in, other nights he just wanted to chat.  You can imagine how frustrating this got, especially when Justin was out of town.  It was like having a newborn again.  He was waking up anywhere from 1-3 times in the middle of the night.  After about a week, Justin realized that this all started happening around the same time that Carter mysteriously stopped sucking his thumb.  Out of nowhere the kid decided not to suck his thumb anymore!  Since that was kind of how he soothed himself at night, it may very well have led to him waking up wanting us to soothe him.  Anyway, we knew that it was just going to take some time and after another week, he went back to sleeping on his own through the night. 
Another change was the transition to a toddler bed.  This happened when he was about 2 years 5 months old.  It went so smoothly!!!  I’ve read that if you wait until around this time to transition, they are so used to being in their cribs that they really don’t have a desire to get out in the middle of sleeping.  I found this to be true with Carter.  At night, he would get into his bed after our nighttime routine and we will tuck him in and then we leave.  He may play with his animals and talk to himself for a while, but he won’t get out of the bed and will eventually fall asleep.  The only time he gets out of the bed is in the mornings when he wakes up and he goes to get his books to read until we come upstairs to get him.  Naps started out a different story.  For some reason, he would get out of the bed during naps and sometimes he’d even wake up after only an hour nap screaming-as if he was confused about the bed he was in, but this only last a few days and then he took naps like normal too.  Overall, super easy transition for him.  And he loves his bed!

**The above picture was taken in January 2014 when he started climbing out of his crib for the first time.  It wasn’t until the next month when he finally fell out of the crib all the way to the floor.  He cried, but was not injured and it scared the dickens out of him and after that one incident, he never tried to get out of the crib again.  This was, however, when we began thinking about a toddler bed transition.**
Waketime
We do so many different things now that I may not even make this a category anymore, or at the very least change it to “favorite things” or something like that.  It’s summer time now so most waketimes include us being outside.  He loves to use sidewalk chalk on our driveway and draw pictures.  He also loves to get his umbrella stroller from the garage and push it up and down the sidewalk.  Justin bought him a blowup pool that goes in the backyard and he loves to play in that too.  Still loves golf cart rides, going to the playground, playing at the pool, going to the zoo, etc.  We had a first for him recently.  We took him to Oak Mountain State Park to the beach and he played with Justin in the water while mommy watched from the beach.  He loved it!  He really loves anything dealing with water.  Before summer kicked off, he was going to storytime at the library once a week, but they’re done for summer so it will be a couple of months before we go to that again.
 
He loves going to exercise class with mommy too.  Mommy and Me Time Fitness comes to our church on Monday nights and me and Carter along with his Nana, his aunt Jen Jen and his twin cousins Celia and Cynthia all do an exercise class together in the gym.  He loves those classes.  He still loves looking at pictures and videos on our phones and iPad and he loves to facetime people on the iPhone.  When Justin’s out of town he’ll say “face daddy!” and that’s what he  means.  As far as television goes, he still rarely watches it unless he strapped in the highchair eating or in the carseat while driving.  TV shows he prefers are somewhat the same as they have been:  Elmo’s World, Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse, Little Einsteins.  He’s recently started liking Super Why (which I love that he loves this show because it’s all about reading and the alphabet and he’s already mastered the alphabet!), Barney and a show that comes on Sprout called Zou which is about Zebras and the kid zebra’s name is Zou. 
 
 
Mother’s Day Out
So if you live in the south, you are familiar with the term “snowpacolypse”.  We had a BAD storm hit the south and it came out of nowhere.  Our meteorologists didn’t see it coming until it was too late.  We got several feet of snow within hours and roads were completely iced over.  Schools weren’t canceled until it was too late.  Parents couldn’t get to their children and in Alabama alone, some 11,000+ children spent the night in schools that night.  My sweet boy was one of them.  By the time I left to go pick him up, streets were so badly iced over that I couldn’t get out of my neighborhood.  Justin was out of town and my MIL couldn’t get out of her neighborhood either.  Luckily my FIL was at work and he was able to get to the church.  Carter and his twin cousins all spent the night at the church that night but luckily I have a sweet neighbor with 4WD that offered to go pick him up the next day so I got him back after about 36 hours.  It was rough, but he made it!  Mother’s Day Out ended in May and he was home with me for about a week and a half before he started in the Summer Fun program.  He goes 3 days a week from 9-1 for the entire month of June.  This is HEAVEN for mommy!  July and August are gonna be tough because I’ll have him 7 days a week and have to find new and interesting ways to keep him entertained.  But he loves school as always!!  In fact, when I come to pick him up he usually says “no see mommy!” because he doesn’t want to leave.  Quite the opposite from back when he was in the infant room and bawled anytime I left him.  The only downside I’ve noticed with summer school is that Carter FIGHTS taking a nap after school.  This didn’t happen until he started school so I feel pretty strongly that it’s somehow correlated.  The only way we can get him to take a nap is to make sure we rock him to the point of sleepiness before putting him in the bed.  Otherwise, he’ll stay awake in his room the entire time.  This makes the naptime routine a tad longer than usual, but he’s 2 1/2…he won’t be taking a nap much longer so I’m going to cherish him wanting me to rock him just a little longer :)
**The below pictures are from the “snowpacolypse” at the end of January**
On the left is a picture my FIL took when he spent the night at our church with all the kids.  They slept on those little cots in their clothes they wore to school that day.  Poor things.  Luckily Carter slept almost as good as he does when he’s at home.  On the right is a picture I took of when my neighbor took me to go get Carter the next day.  I brought Henry for him because I knew it would make him happy.  It made him so happy that he fell asleep on the ride home sucking his thumb holding Henry!  You should have seen that reunion.  When I ran into the church and he saw me and started running for me too.  I was just crying like a baby!!!

Statistics
No clue in this department.  He stands on our scale every now and again and last time I check he was close to 31 pounds.  Height wise-I would say he’s close to 3 feet now.
Vocabulary
I don’t even think this can be a section anymore.  He’s learning from absolutely everything.  His vocabulary is insane and he learns new words and phrases every day.  He makes full sentences now and can hold a conversation with us pretty well.  The only thing not quite right is that he still talks about himself in the third person saying “carter” or “car car” instead of “me” or “I”.  The few times he does use those words, he’s not really using them correctly.  This is not unusual for this age at all though.  They say that the more he listens to us talk, the quicker he’ll pick up on the correct way to use pronouns.  We’ve already started noticing him picking up on the proper time to say “I” in the last few weeks.  Funny things he has said recently include:
Justin: “Carter are you ready to get out of the tub now?”
Carter:  “Not yet daddy.  Not quite.”  (Not quite???  Where did he learn that?!?!)
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While looking at a centipede that was crawling on our wall in the house:
Carter: “Look mommy!!!  That’s amazing!!!”
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After finishing breakfast, but not drinking all of his milk and eating all his oranges:
Carter:  “Carter all done mommy.  Put milk and oranges in refrigerator to save for later”.
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I swear y’all, he listens to EVERY SINGLE WORD we say and the context in which we use certain phrases.  He doesn’t always repeat them right away, but he remembers them and will use them a week later.  He’s so stinking smart!

Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• Still cleans up after himself when asked to about 85% of the time (sometimes he’ll even do it without being asked to) but other times we have to ask him a few times before he’ll actually do it.
• Stopped sucking his thumb completely on his own at 28 months.
• We started him on a daily vitamin this month.  He eats one Flintstone gummy vitamin a day.
• HUGE animal lover.  He’s obsessed with going outside to look at bugs too (See below picture of him talking to ants in our driveway)

• Still quite shy around people he doesn’t know and is even shy around people he does know for a couple of minutes until he warms up to them.
• Very good at understanding that he has to hold someone’s hand when walking on “black pavement” like a street or parking lot.  He also knows not to go into the black pavement at our house.  He’ll run as far as he can down the driveway and just stand at the edge of the white concrete on the driveway and stare at the black pavement until one of us comes to get him.
• Still has a huge love of Henry.  He loves all his animals, but obviously Henry is the preferred one.  In the past 6 months, we’ve even increased our number of “Henry’s”.  I think we’re up to about 6 or 8 now.

• He’s still fairly obedient.  We are in the middle of the two’s and he is starting to push me and Justin on instructions, but we usually hold strong with the “obey mommy and daddy or we go to timeout”.   Obedience is about 80% of the time I would guess, which I personally think is pretty good for a two year old.  We’ve also been able to narrow down the times the he disobeys.  For example, he NEVER obeys us when we tell him it’s time to come inside.  He loves playing outside and always says “no” when we tell him to come inside.  I think this just comes with the territory of having a 2 year old boy-they want to be outside 24/7 and the fact that his mommy is 5 months pregnant and doesn’t want to sit in 90 degree weather doesn’t really phase him.
• Speaking of timeouts, he’s really good now about saying he’s sorry and saying why he was put in timeout.  He knows this is a requirement before we come out of timeout.  There’s been a few times where he was just so mad that he wouldn’t say sorry, in which case I let him sit there even longer.  He’s only been in timeout for a max of 4 minutes or so before he’ll finally give in.
• He gets into his carseat all by himself.  This helps mommy greatly since she’s only getting fatter each day and it’s hard for me to bend over and pick him up.  Sometimes he doesn’t get immediately into the carseat though.  Sometimes he’ll “take a lap” around my car before sitting down which is kinda frustrating, but again, he’s 2.   He can’t be perfect all the time.

• We’ve mastered ABC’s.  He frequently sings them to himself before going to bed every night.   If you ask him his favorite song, he’ll say “ABCs”.
• Speaking of singing, he’s doing A TON of singing.  He prefers Jesus Loves Me, He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands, ABC’s, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row Row Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Zacchaeus song.  Those are the ones he usually wants to sing every night before bedtime.
• He’s also mastered the following shapes: Circle, Square, Rectangle, Octagon, Diamond, Heart, Triangle, and Star.
• He has literally memorized certain DVDs that he watches in the car, namely the Cookie Monster Letters DVD.  We’ll be driving and he’ll be quoting the entire DVD in the backseat.  It’s pretty funny to listen to. 
• He can count to 10 every single time he tries, though sometimes I’ve caught him counting as high as 20, but other times he’ll get numbers between 13-18 mixed up.  He has a numbers and an alphabet puzzle and he has completely mastered both. 

• He loves riding his bike, but he still won’t put his feet on the pedals and ride it that way.  He’s just putting his feet on the ground and riding it that way.
• He is extremely affectionate.  I didn’t see this coming with him.  I thought he’d be the very social and playful but didn’t want to cuddle type of kid, but around 18 months I started noticing how much he loved affection.  Giving kisses and hugs.  Cuddling before bedtime.  Loving on his animals.  The other day we were in the car and he said “Carter gonna love baby Garrett sooooooooooo much”.  I about died.  Another day after naptime, we were walking out of his room to go downstairs to facetime Nana and Papa and he ran back to the crib and got Henry out, gave him a kiss and said to him “Carter is going to call Nana and Papa.  You go night night.  I love you Henry” and then gave him a hug and put him back in the crib.  He does stuff like this all the time.   His teachers at school always talk about his “sweet personality”.  Don’t get me wrong, he ain’t like that 100% of the time.  But for the most part, he’s pretty affectionate as long as he isn’t being told “no” or just in an overall bad mood.  I think we have the perfect balance of affection/playfulness.

An example of his affection-he LOVES to hold hands with his twin cousins.

• I’ve asked him what his favorite things are and here’s what he says-favorite color-blue, favorite number-zero, favorite letter-H (though sometimes he’ll say ‘X’),  favorite food-this is a tossup because sometimes he’ll say chicken quesadilla and other times he’ll say macaroni and cheese, favorite stuffed animal-Henry.

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - 20 Weeks

How far along: 20 Weeks, 3 Days - Over halfway!!!

Symptoms:  No big symptoms the last couple weeks.  The sinus thing is even starting to not become as big of an issue as it has been in the past.  The only other thing I’ve noticed (and apologies for any males reading this) is that the boobs are gigantic.  I am now wearing bras I was wearing with Carter when I was NURSING.  That was the biggest they ever got with Carter-during nursing.  If they’re already that size now…..y’all…..I’m scared! 

Maternity Clothes:  Same as the past couple of weeks.  If I wear shorts, they’re maternity shorts.  Shirts are now more of about 60% non-maternity, 40% maternity.  Still haven’t gone to buy any maternity workout clothes yet but will have to do that pretty soon.

Weight Gain:  Man oh man did this kid have some kind of growth spurt the last two weeks.  I’m up to 12 pounds now.  12.  Yikes.  The weight gain is baffling me because I workout 6 days a week and eat really healthy (we hardly ever eat out) so I have no idea where it’s coming from.  I’m about a pound more than I was with Carter at this stage, so still not a huge deal by any means.  I guess I’m just confused because I rarely worked out with Carter since I was still working as a CPA and never had time.  I had a weight gain week like this with Carter too but it wasn’t until 22 weeks.  They say baby goes through one of it’s largest growth spurts somewhere between weeks 18-22, so I guess that was what happened.  The belly popped out a ton more this week too and so many people have said stuff to me.  One woman at our church even commented to my mother-in-law because she had no idea I was pregnant!  I guess that’s a compliment.

Sleep:  No change.  Sleep is normal.

Belly Button: In and it will likely stay that way.  With Carter it never popped out, it just got really really flat as my stomach got bigger.  No indication of the line that shows up on your lower stomach just yet.  Can’t really remember when it showed up with Carter, but I do remember that it FREAKED JUSTIN OUT!

Stretch Marks:  I’m hoping I don’t get any.  Never got any with Carter.  I will say I have noticed some very light stretch marks on my boobs though….which isn’t surprising if you read my “symptoms” section.

Cravings/Aversions:  Haven’t really noticed any major cravings lately.

Exercise Routine:  Still holding strong at 6 days a week of P90X, Mommy and Me Fitness and/or Pure Barre.

Baby Size:  At week 20, baby is the size of a banana or mango.  It’s about 6.5 inches from head to heel and weighs about 11 ounces.  See when Justin sees that he thinks that because baby only weighs 11 ounces that I should have only gained one pound.  Boys just don’t understand.  It’s not just the baby I got in my uterus.  It’s a placenta and blood and the growth of the actual uterus and amniotic fluid, and all kinds of other stuff that wasn’t in my body previously.  Men. 

Movement:  Still feel Garrett kick all the time and am still loving it.  As he’s getting bigger I’ve noticed the kicks getting stronger and also moving upwards in location.  I mainly feel them around the belly button now instead of below it.  It just means my uterus is getting bigger and his location is moving upwards.

Gender:  If you missed the gender reveal post, you can read it here.  We are having another sweet baby boy!  His name is Garrett Franklin Morris.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Getting a tad more done in the nursery.  Walls are painted.  We went with green since Carter’s room is blue.  I won’t lie, the green we painted is a little brighter than I thought it was, but I think once we get furniture in there and stuff on the walls it will look perfectly fine.  And honestly, even if it doesn’t look fine….I couldn’t care less!  I worked so hard on making Carter’s room absolutely perfect and the only people that ever see that room are me, Justin and Carter.  In another few years, he’ll probably even ask me to change up his room.  So it’s definitely not worth fretting over for sure!

Next Appointment:  22 weeks is my next appointment.  No ultrasound or anything like that.  Just hearing the heartbeat on the doppler and checking blood pressure, urine and iron levels.  That appointment is next Thursday, the 26th.

Bump Pic for Week 19:

Bump Pic for Week 20:

My Big Fat Belly 2.0 - 18 Weeks

How far along: 18 weeks, 5 days

Symptoms:  No symptoms other than the sinus thing I’ve discussed in previous posts.  It’s not even a big thing to me anymore….I guess I’m just getting used to it.  And I’m lucky it only happens at night while I’m sleeping and it’s not all day every day.

Maternity Clothes:  Same as the past couple of weeks.  If I wear shorts, they’re maternity shorts (except for one pair that I can still button up).  Shirts are still about 75% non-maternity, 25% maternity.  My workout clothes are all non-maternity and I’m about to have to buy some maternity yoga pants because only 3 pairs of them fit me now and when you workout 5 days a week, that’s not enough!  So I’ll probably go buy a couple of pairs of yoga pants in the coming weeks.

Weight Gain:  Right now I’m about 10 1/2 pounds, which is about 1/2 pound more than I was with Carter at this point.  Still not really concerned with weight because I am so much more “fit” this time around because of how much I workout.  I’m also just now at the weight I was at with Carter when I peed on a stick.  So even though I’ve gained roughly the same amount of weight at 18 weeks with both pregnancies, I’m about 9ish pounds lighter at 18 weeks with this baby than I was at 18 weeks with Carter….if that makes any sense!

Sleep:  No change.  Sleep is normal.

Cravings/Aversions:  Haven’t really noticed any major cravings lately.

Exercise Routine:  Still holding strong at about 5 days a week of P90X, Mommy and Me Fitness and/or Pure Barre.

Baby Size:  At week 18, baby is the size of a sweet potato.  At our 18 week ultrasound, baby measured right at 18 weeks and was 8oz which is right on track according to the doc.  They didn’t tell me length but on average, babies at 18 weeks are around 6 inches.  He is longways in my belly…so his feet are on the left side of my belly and his head is on the right side.  Or at least that was the position he was in when we did the ultrasound.  They move a lot at this stage so he could be in a totally different position now.  At Carter’s 18 week ultrasound he was breech.  Baby is now yawning, hiccupping and swallowing as well as kicking, twisting, rolling and punching.  For comparison, Carter weighed 11oz at 18 weeks.  With him, we were told he was measuring a week ahead of schedule, but he ended up leveling out later because at his 4D the due date was on track again.

Movement:  I feel baby ALL. THE. TIME.  And I love it.  I wasn’t able to feel Carter until he was 21 weeks because the placenta was in the front of my uterus.  This time, the placenta is in the back (according to the ultrasound tech) which explains why I’ve been able to feel baby move so much so soon.  Justin even felt movement at about 17 1/2 weeks and he didn’t feel Carter move until I was 23 or 24 weeks.

Gender:  If you missed the last blog post, you can read it here, but we had our gender reveal party on Saturday, May 31st and Carter opened a box of balloons and we all found out we were having a sweet baby boy!  We have had a boy name since we were pregnant with Carter (had no idea what we would have named a girl-we hadn’t even discussed it).  We’ll be meeting sweet baby Garrett Franklin Morris at the end of October.  Carter is already saying “baby Garrett” all the time and two nights ago when I was rocking him he was telling God (during prayer) all the things he’s thankful for.  He went through the usual “Nana, Papa, Don Don, Ina, Gigi, etc….” and then out of nowhere, he said the baby’s FULL name.  He said “Garrett Franklin Morris”.  LOVE!  The night after that he told me and I quote “Carter want to touch baby Garrett.  Hold his hand so we can play ring around the rosey”.

What I’m Looking Forward To:  Getting the nursery set up.  Carter starts summer school this week and Justin is actually in town next week so we may go ahead and start doing stuff.  We are actually going to use the same bedding Carter had as a newborn and Garrett will even inherit Carter’s crib.  There will be differences though.  We will paint his room green instead of the blue in Carter’s room.  We’ll still have block letters with Garrett’s name just like Carter’s, but they’ll be in a different part of the room.  He’ll also have a different color rocking chair and overall decor will be a tad different.  I’ve even already made out a “Garrett” list of all the things we’ll need for him.  We say that diapers is all we need, and that is the biggie, but there are a few other things that we’ll need too, like another noise machine, some more stuffed animals and books (Carter will never give up his books or animals-trust me), a new thermometer (ours does NOT work anymore), some pacifiers, etc.  A bunch of small things basically.

Bump Pic for Week 18:

I can’t even explain how excited I am to finally know what we’re having.  To finally be able to begin planning.  To call Garrett by his name (which I must admit is still weird because I’m so used to only having one child).  I am enjoying this pregnancy so much, probably because it will likely be my last.  I say “likely” because neither Justin nor I want a third child, but since neither of us are having “procedures” done just yet, there’s technically always a chance.  But it’s just unlikely.

Our Sweet Little Pumpkin Is A…..

Yesterday we had a fun little gender reveal party to reveal the gender of our sweet little baby.  Our ultrasound was on Friday at 9am and I was so anxious.  Not anxious about the gender though (Justin and I had the tech write the gender in an envelope and then seal it and we passed it off to a friend of ours) but about the overall health of the baby.  This is strange because with Carter, I was intently looking at the screen trying to sneak a peak at the goods, even though we did the same thing with him that we did with this baby in not finding out the gender until the reveal party (see the post to his reveal party here).  Even though we were going to wait until the reveal party with Carter, I tried to sneak a peak during the ultrasound anyway.  It was all I could think about during that 18 week appointment.  I wanted to know if Carter was a he or she.

This time was different though.  I think it was because of having a miscarriage, but I was WAY more concerned with making sure all the organs and bones and limbs were growing like normal.  She showed us all the body parts and I asked to see the spine to make sure it looked ok.  I also asked her if there was enough amniotic fluid and she said that the level and quality of fluid was great.  I was a happy girl!!!  With Carter, the tech printed all the pictures and put them in the sealed envelope along with the DVD so that our friend Jackie could bake a cake for us for the gender reveal party.  She did what I asked her to do, but deep down I was upset because all of the pictures were in the envelope and I didn’t get to see any pictures at all until after the party that was 2 days later. 

This time, the tech printed two pictures showing the sex separately to seal in the envelope and gave me the rest of the pictures so I got to look at all the pictures as much as I wanted and didn’t have to wait until the reveal party!  And on top of that, she didn’t do the gender on the DVD so I got to also have the DVD and watch it over and over without ruining anything for myself!  That made me super happy.  We showed Carter the pictures but of course he doesn’t see anything in them.  He won’t get it until he sees an actual baby.  On another note, the past three days he has woken up for the day and when I go to get him from his room, he sits straight up and says “open the box!!!” and I had to tell him that he wouldn’t open the box of balloons for another couple days. 

With Carter, Justin and I had our friend make a cake that was pink or blue on the inside and we cut into the cake in front of our friends and family.  This time, we used the same girl who made us another cake (pink or blue on inside) but she also filled a box for us with balloons that were pink or blue.  Midway through the party, we had Carter open up the box of balloons to find out if he was going to have a brother or sister.  So here’s how that went:

Yep….Sweet Carter is going to have a baby BROTHER!

We are so so excited!  Justin and Carter wore blue because they thought it was a boy (really Carter was about 50/50 when you asked him what he thought it was, but we don’t own a pink shirt for him-so blue it was!).  I wore pink because I really did think it was a girl.  Part of me feels like an awful mom for not having the right intuition about it, but honestly I don’t care.  I’m not the first mom to guess wrong.  I guessed Carter correctly so I got 50% of my kids gender right ;)

There was a big part of me that wanted a girl so that I could have something different.  Different challenges, different everything.  But I really am so so happy to have another sweet boy.  I get to raise two boys to love God and treat women the right way.  We need more men in the world that do those two things so I’ll take my responsibility for these two!  Also, I will be in a house full of boys that will protect their momma.  There’s just something special about being the only girl in the house!  And let’s not forget how friggin cheap it’s going to be to have another boy.  Recycling clothes, toys, bedding, etc.  I still have all of Carter’s clothes-never sold a single thing.  So basically all we need for this baby is diapers and a few monogrammed clothes (every kid needs something with their name on it). 

We have a name, but we’re making sure it’s the right name and I think it is because Carter is already calling the baby by that name, but I’ll wait to announce it until we are 100% certain, which probably won’t be long from now.  I’m so grateful for all of our friends and family that were able to come to the party and find out with us!  You guys are so awesome and thank you so much for caring about our family!  Here’s a few pictures that my sister took at the party.  Oh yeah, and special shout out to my sister who flew in from Tampa to be there.  I had NO idea she was coming!!!

This was before opening the box.  Me and a few girls were “analyzing” the ultrasound photos to see if we could see any indication of blue or pink in them :) 

Carter and Harper were very ready to open the box!

 

   

I love this picture of Harper and Carter together!!!  Maybe I’m crazy, but I think they look so much alike sometimes!

This was funny.  We were trying to get Carter to come stand with me and Justin by the box and he wouldn’t, but Harper did! 

 

After some pictures we went inside to cut the cake.  The girl that did the box also did the cake and we already knew it would be blue but it was still fun to cut into!

 

This was about the time that I said “so how funny would it be if the inside of this cake was pink??”

But it wasn’t….it was BLUE!

 

Carter was LOVING the cake! 

So we are excited to enter into “big brother/little brother” territory!  I guess it’s time for me to start looking for matching shirts ;)