25 Weeks

Wow!  Only 15 more weeks to go...This little baby feels like she's "cooking" a lot faster than Ben did, ha!!  Lately, she's been kicking a TON, making my belly bounce and jiggle all around :)  I had another doctor's visit this week to take the awful Glucose Tolerance test - thankfully, I passed it just fine so I won't have to drink that terrible stuff anymore.  I did test a little low for hemoglobin, so need to start taking an iron supplement. 

I was looking to see if I had any ultrasound pictures I hadn't posted yet, because I"m not really in the mood to post another belly shot right now, LOL!!!  I didn't have any, but did realize I hadn't posted this of when we announced that we were having a baby (and didn't yet know the gender!!)

I made this little sign to go with the pink and blue cupcakes I took to work that day (and, of course, sent some to work with Mark, too!).  It was SO cute, because just about everyone came by my cubicle that day to let me know that they were going to eat a PINK cupcake for me!! Ha, ha!!  I think by sheer force, our coworkers and friends willed us a girl!!

Since she did end up being a girl, we already had a name picked out for the most part.  We had picked it the first pregnancy before we knew what we were having.  Since I was just about worn out the first time around with so, so, so many questions about "What are you going to name him?"....I was ready to get it out there what this little girl's name was going to be!! 

On Mother's Day, we had brunch with Mark's mom Susanah and his stepdad Raoul, and announced then that we would be naming her  ~ Susanah Julia Williams ~ and calling her "Anna".  We just love the name Anna and were honored to name her after Mark's mom, and since I'm the fifth generation of "Julias" in my mom's family, we though it would be great to carry on that tradition and have Anna be the sixth generation to have that name :) 

We can't wait to meet you, Miss Anna!!

Ben's First Easter Egg Hunt!

This year was the first year Ben could understand some of the whole Easter thing, so we were all excited about his very first Easter Egg Hunt!  We spent a beautiful Easter afternoon at Grandmama's and Grandaddy's house, eating brunch and dyeing eggs (well, Mason and Chandler made some GREAT eggs; Ben would have made a GREAT BIG mess!!)

Then is was finally time for the hunt!!

Mama and Ben had "practiced" a little bit in our yard that weekend, just to make sure he knew the drill and he had a ball, so we knew this would be fun :)

The whole gang....

Ben with Mama....

...& Dada

...and big brothers "May May" and "Bo Bo" (Mason and Chandler's self-chosen nicknames!!)

My Lil' Monkey Goes to the Zoo

Last month, we took Ben on his first trip to a zoo!  We went on a gorgeous Saturday to the Knoxville Zoo and had a fabulous day :)  Lately, he's been a little anti-stroller, so I was worried about that, but really, at his age...it was going to be stroller or nothing at a place like the zoo.  Fortunately, he did GREAT.

First stop:  the penguins.  Some of the animals were a little difficult to see from a stroller, but these little guys were right on Ben's level ~ he loved them!

Here's his cute little safety tattoo...I thought he'd hate it since he's not into Band-Aids these days, but Mark and I talked it up about being cool, and he didn't mind it a bit! 

Next stop after the penguins was the camels.  These guys were fenced in, but you could pet them as they stuck their heads over the fence, and even pay to ride on them!!

I think the Merry-Go-Round was one of Ben's favorite things...he was such a big boy riding it!!

The Knoxville Zoo has a wonderful, entire area just for little children.  We spent a lot of time here on the slides, Merry-Go-Round, and petting zoo...here's Ben brushing a goat!

We also got to see monkeys, elephants, lots of snakes, giraffes, really cute meerkats, and of course, lions and tigers. 

Whew! As soon as we headed for the car, Little Man was OUT!  What a big, fun day for us all :)

Our Excitement for the Day

I may have mentioned it in an earlier post, but Ben's MOST favorite thing to do lately is to "drive".  He is just crazy about simply sitting in the parked car (ignition off, of course) and pushing all the buttons and opening/closing the garage door a hundred times.  (All I can think of is "Wonder how much sooner we're going to have to buy a new garage door motor because of this??").  He will even ask for the keys and say, "Bye bye"...as in..."Close the door and let me drive by myself"..ha!!

So, we typically let him do all this while we're outside doing other stuff, and be SURE to open at least one other door and/or window since he has the keys in there.  Welllll.....even the best plans go awry once in a while. 

Yes, Ben got locked in the car today :(  Poor little thing thought it was funny for about 10 minutes, and then bawled for the next 20 minutes until Pop-A-Lock got there.  You see, we only have one set of keys to my car.  That little booger somehow managed to hold onto the keys, open the driver door, hit the lock button on it, close it, then climb in the back driver door that I had opened so this exact thing wouldn't happen, and close it - while I was unloading our bags just from the garage to the dining room (not far!) from our trip to Gastonia this weekend. 

Well...lesson learned (by me,  not him - he wanted to drive again less than an hour later!!!)....1). no more driving with the keys, even with other doors open.  And 2).  Call Pop-A-Lock if it even happens again.  They were there in 20 minutes and it's FREE if a child is locked inside the car, LOL!!!

My poor baby...he was fine until I put him down to capture the moment for all eternity ;)

Two Months Away from TWO!

Twenty-two months old...Wow!  Ben was just turning one yesterday, it seems!  Little Man is growing and changing so much lately, and it's SO cute :)  He is really into copying us these days.  You never know what will come out of his mouth after it comes out of yours, ha ha!!  He also likes getting a laugh out of you, and knows that saying, "OH, Baby Bobo!" will do it (don't know where he came up with that?) so he hams it up for us often. 

Here we are watching Baby Einstein on the computer ~ love that snuggling! 

This is his "smile" when he's getting his picture taken...

A week or so ago, Ben had another little bug, and wasn't quite feeling himself :(

Daddy and Ben on the blowups at Rita's for the First Day of Spring! celebration

Trying on Daddy's shoes for size!!

Fun times at Wallabies at one of his first "real" birthday parties he attended.

21 Weeks and Counting ~ Over Halfway!

Last week, went to see Dr. Hallman for our next appointment, which came at 21 weeks.  He measured my belly and listened to her heartbeat and all was well with the baby :)  It was a pretty uneventful visit, thank goodness!  At 21 weeks, Baby Girl is now about 11 inches long and weighs just under a pound.  From the looks of my belly, she sure does seem bigger than that, ha ha!!!  Here's the progression starting at 10 weeks....

I'm pretty puzzled as to why 14 weeks and 20 weeks look almost the same ~ I think I was suffering from some serious bloating!  Whew...glad that's gone (for the moment ;) !!