Halfway

Yup, since Thursday I'm a full 20 weeks. And yup, it's cliche to say but it's going by sooooo fast.

She'll be here in no time. And we are so excited to meet her. I love that when Josh and I talk about her, she doesn't seem abstract or hard to imagine. She is already here with us inside me! And in about four months she'll be with us outside of me.

I think I've mentioned before how different this pregnancy has been compared to the first. I've been more sick and more tired (although that is highly related to being pregnant and having a one year old), but it's been mentally a lot different too. Naturally I don't think about or worry about the whole birthing thing quite as much because I've done it before. And I'm not counting the days, avidly reading pregnancy books, and checking what fruit my little fetus is comparable in size to. But it's so neat this time around, because the idea of having a child is not enigmatic. It's a lot more real. It makes it even more exciting because I know how much I love Morgan and the IMMENSE joy that he brings into my life, so to double that makes Josh and I more than thrilled.

The thing that IS hard to grasp is how my heart will be able to handle it- my heart feels ready to burst every day with the love I feel for the boy (not to mention my man!).
It will work out somehow I guess!

Me at 20 weeks:

Dindin

Ok, so overall during this pregnancy I havent done great at making dinner every night. But these last couple of weeks I've made it a goal and I've done pretty darn good.
I always like knowing what people have for dinner (is that wierd?) ... so... I figure you totally want to know what I've been making... right?
Maybe not, I'm tellin' ya anyways! It's such good stuff.

Some faves were:

Chedder Baked Chicken. The breading on this was so good and the chicken turned out moist and delicious. I get annoyed with baked breaded chicken because the breading usually slides off so easily, but I liked the three step breading process- I think when you dip it into a flour mixture first instead of a wet misture first it stays on better. I don't know, I'm no expert but that's what it seems like.

Tuna Patties. Yum. Cheap, easy, and delicious- very good things. I served them with mac & cheese and a salad.

Swedish Meatballs in Sour Cream Dill Sauce. Mmm. So good. Pretty easy too. They were somewhat reminiscent of the IKEA meatballs, which was what I was hoping. I need to get some of those lingonberries they have there. I served with homemade mashed potatoes.

Turkey Chili. This has definitely become a classic here. It's best when it simmers for a couple hours and gets nice and thick. I actually usually put in less meat and double the beans- one can mashed and one can not.I like to serve the leftovers the next day with baked potatoes.

And my VERY favorite:

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala. I was so amazed by this. Josh and I looooove Indian food. I've always wanted to make some ligit tasting Indian food and this recipe is IT. Mmm. Definitley satisfies that crazing. I wouldn't stray from the recipe one bit. You might be a little leery about authentic tasting Indian food in a slow cooker but this lady knows how to do it. I promise it will remind you of your favorite Indian restaurant.
I made the yellow basmati rice that she mentions on the recipe and some homemade naan. I grilled the naan on an open george foreman grill.
Her blog is FAVORITE food blog. I've made other good stuff from it as well.
Seriously, check it out. http://www.mealplanning101.com/.

Anyways, here's Indian yumminess. Indian food isn't the greatest for being aesthetically pleasing, but you get the delicious idea...

Gooby words.

The boy is growing up. I guess that won't really ever stop... but it's still crazy!
The latest excitement is his expanding vocabulary. It's now officially four words:

mama, dada, big, and hi.

It's the cutest thing eeeever!

We raise our arms up and say big and he totally copies us. He's been doing that for a few weeks but the awesome thing is now he just randomly does it and says it completely on his own. He doesn't really say the "g" but there's no mistaking what he's saying.

And just the last few days he's really perfected his "hi". He usually does it when we say it first, but sometimes he looks at us, usually when he's peeking around a corner, and says it on his own. Cuteness.

He's really too much fun.

He has had some tough days recently because of an ear infection, with a cold on top of that, but he's like 90% better now and back to his crazy fun self.

Here's the guy looking at books at the library a couple weeks ago- (because who does't like pictures of a cute little raccoon boy?)

ALSO,
today Joshie and I went on a little date. We havent been out without the boy for a couple months so it was really nice. We had purchased a shotgun a little while ago so we went to the shooting range with a couple friends to shoot the thing. It was aaawsesome. We like guns now... it's weird I know. I'm really glad we went though because I have no idea what I'm doing or how to have a good stance. Evidence: my bicep is sore from the kickback. Pretty sure that's not supposed to happen... oops.

Par-taaay

I know I've done a post or two relating to Goobs' birthday party already, but I now I have the pictures and they are just too great not to post.
We had a few friends over and they were so good to the boy. I'm way glad they could come celebrate with us. I didn't really plan any activities- I figured the boy wouldn't be too interested- but we had fun just chilling.
Thanks SO much to my friend Erika for taking the lovely photos!
I had a little rainbow color scheme going on and I think it turned out quite nicely.

...I hope you like pictures...

New and Improved Video

Hey... I actually tried using imovie and it was really fun... and I stayed up too late last night messing around with it.

Here's the new video.

Yeah, it's on youtube. I couldn't get it to download on photobucket, and I actually posted it on fb but "they" took it off! It's kinda creepy how they can do that. I guess it makes sense though- I added a song in the video and fb took it off because they said it had copyright violations. So I don't know if youtube will do it too. We'll see. Enjoy.

Da goobs' birthday party

Here's a little peak at the gooby cake-eating fun times!
We had his FIRST birthday party yesterday! I'm pretty sure it was a success. We were going to have the party last saturday, but... we all started puking our guts out, so it was a no-go.
Anyways, I'll post more pictures later, but here's the video...




P.S. I should probably edit this and make it cool or something... is it bad that imovie scares me? I need to teach myself how to use it! I'll work on it.