"I Can't Tell You..."

"...it's a SEEECWET!"

Another endless saying from Nolan that was left off of the last blog! I'm not quite sure how I was even able to leave that one off considering I hear it almost daily. Everytime I pick him up from Preschool and ask him what he did, automatically that is ALWAYS his reply! But, Nolan is not the only one keeping secrets. Brian and I (and now Nolan, too) also have a secret. A secret that we've been carrying around for 41 days to be exact. A secret that is now, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, protruding out of my midsection. Pretty unbelievable for something that is (according to the books) only the size of a lime! So, yes, we are happily expecting and over the moon with "Walnut*" #2. After taking a much needed break for nearly 7 months, the faithful Lord has surprised and blessed us.

I woke up the morning of September 11th because of a dream that I was pregnant. I had 1 out of the probably 245 pregnancy tests left, and before I even set it down this is what I saw:

and the next day, just for good measure, we saw this:

Unfortunately, it wasn't just pure joy from that moment on because we had some complications. But as of yesterday (plus, countless blood draws and ultrasounds later), I'm almost 10 weeks pregnant and we saw that we have another finger/thumb sucker on our hands. A battle many of you know we've been fighting with Nolan for months, but we gladly accept with a new, healthy addition. The heartbeat was even stronger this time than a couple of weeks ago, measuring in at a whooping 170 bpm. We saw "Walnut*" wave to us, and suck his/her fingers/thumb. Upon seeing what's below, one simple moment created tears of joy and hearts full of abounding love and have now replaced days, months, and even a couple years of frustration, disappointment, worry, and fear.

He makes all things work together for our good. -Romans 8:28
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. -Hebrews 11:1

*While sitting on my lap the other night (before he knew) Nolan said, "You have a baby in your belly." When I asked why he thought that, he replied, "...because your belly is getting big!" He then later told Brian, "Shhh Daddy...the baby is sleeping in my Mommy's belly!" A couple nights later we told him the news and ever since he's insisting on naming the new baby "Walnut."   What do you think?

Long Overdue

So, this is completely long overdue, and the longer I've been away from blogging, the harder it is to get back into the swing of doing it. The biggest problem with that being the fact that when I'm now getting angry at myself because I've missed "journaling" about some of his latest stories and milestones. So...I'm going to keep these stories short & simple & try to share a few of his latest laughs that he's offered us!

* He'd been continually & at random times saying, "Thousands of Americans..." FINALLY Brian came to realize what this came from...the "Your Baby Can Read" commericals!

* Coming home the other night, he got super excited to see a star in the night sky and said he needed to make a wish. Upon turning the radio down this is the wish that I heard whispered from his lips, "I wish I was at school...I wish I was at school..."  Did I mention he nearly cries everytime I pick him up because he isn't ready to leave?!

* One that I'm a little less proud of and we had a BIG discussion about happened the other day. The local ice cream place has a huge blow-up cat on it's roof for Halloween. After getting past it a little ways down the road Nolan realizes he didn't see it and suddenly shouts out, "Damn it! I missed that big cat...ugh, I wanted to see it, Mommy!"  On the bright side, at least he used it properly?!? But seriously, it was bad & I hope in our past!

* He is constantly using the word, "AWESOME!" at any given opportunity.

* He's completely & utterly obsessed with superheroes right now.

* We had our saddest parenting moment ever the other night....his favorite fish, Connie (which he named on his own & we have no clue where this name came from) passed away. We noticed right before bedtime when he does his nightly ritual of telling his fish g'night & feeding them. In 3 1/2 years, I've never seen my son cry so hard and so sadly at anything. It literally broke my heart and we both cried together in his bed. On a lighter note, we got 2 new fish last night and he named them "Joker & Batman."

* Since the firefighters visited his school, he's been talking about fires and hot things nonstop. He told us if our house is on fire it's okay to throw something at the firefighter, so that he sees me and I won't even get in trouble!

* In the last week, we've probably played 250 games of Go Fish.

* He is BEGGING for a Nintendo DS from Santa. Really...already?!?

* He's very much into rooting for teams other than the ones Mommy & Daddy like and no one even put him up to it. Towards the end of this summer, he went from an advid Cardinals fan to a complete Cubs fan (*Barf*). Now that he understands Daddy's passion for the Packers, Nolan cheers for Da Bears, luckily he'll root for Mommy's Colts, too, though. He can name SEVERAL Nascar drivers and Kyle Busch is his favorite (because he drives the Purina car which has dogs & cats on it).

* He can write his first name on his own and can now spell his last name. One of his favorite hobbies in the car is to look for signs that have "his letters" in it (letters from his name).