Springtime, finally...

In the past five days, we've opened our windows almost everyday, our spring bulbs are peaking out of the ground left and right, Annie's excitedly got to touch a worm (who she found again and again, despite the poor guy's attempts to escape her), we've played outside and taken some walks: it's spring!!! Yes, there is a long way to go before shorts weather, and leaves-on-trees, but at least we finally feel like we are on our way there. This seems especially good news as our two year old loves to be outside, and our day-to-day existence is much happier when we get to play a bit in the sunshine and fresh air.

Over the last few weeks, we've kept ourselves busy with a number of things.

Annie and I got our first night apart right after her second birthday, as I traveled home to Arizona for a funeral. I was gone for two nights, and it went very smoothly. As it probably goes in most cases, it was much harder on me than it was on her. Eric assures me that it wasn't all fine and dandy, and that she definitely missed me, but it sounds like she had a great time with her dad and with her Papa and Nana who helped out some as well. It was very bizarre for me to be on a plane without her, I felt like I got all kinds of things done...it's very strange to think that the next time I fly, I'll have two little ones with me, and that Annie will get (and we'll have to pay for) her own seat...

Annie nursed for the last time on her birthday morning. Nursing had continued throughout February and March to be a very intermittent thing. I had my mind set on not nursing after her birthday, but hadn't really talked about that with her. I just was gearing myself up to start refusing her. On her birthday morning, she asked to nurse, and hasn't asked since then, it seems we were on the same page. This does mean that my belly button is getting all sorts of attention. She's always been a bit of a fan, and her interest in it has grown as my belly has grown with this pregnancy. Whenever she's tired or in a particularly cuddly mood, and always at times when she would have used to nurse, she wants to hang on to "mama's belly button" for dear life.

Annie was thrilled to go to our favorite nursery's Spring Open House. She always thinks its fun to go there to see fish and have a "special treat" in the bakery, but on the first weekend of April, they also had some baby farm animals and little activities set-up all over. Annie was quite thrilled to touch the lambs, goats, calf, rabbits, chicks, and ducklings. She actually had me quite floored by being far more assertive than I've ever seen her. At our various classes she always hangs back to put toys away or participate until most of the other kids have cleared out. At parks, she's waited for crowds to pass by until she'll do what she's set-out to do. But, with these little animals, I had to remind her not to push in front of other kids and to wait her turn. She was gentle with the animals themselves, but it was interesting to watch this change in her.

As seems to be the trend of the winter, Annie spent the majority of the first week of April feeling under the weather (it really has seemed to be the first week of each month, then she recovers over the next week or so, has a good week, and then gets sick again), and so that slowed us down a bit. She's doing quite well now, and was just in time for Easter fun.






We celebrated Easter with friends and family over the course of the long Easter weekend. We very much enjoyed Eric having the day off on Friday--we went to the zoo with Grandma Barb and cousin Emily, painted eggs with Ella and her parents, and had some good playtime at home together. On Saturday, we celebrate Easter with Eric's dad and extended family. We were thrilled it was warm enough to spent a lot of our time together in the backyard--looking for eggs, blowing bubbles, running around, sitting in the sun. Sunday, we spent our morning at church and then had some friends and Eric's mom over for a little Easter egg hunt and Easter dinner.




With Easter now behind us, and spring arrived, the reality of our next big event seems a bit clearer. We're starting to look over birth plan, talking about packing the diaper bag with baby things, ordering new cloth diapers (we did a service with Annie for about the first year, but have been doing it by ourselves since then, and plan to continue with this little one), and generally taking care of all the little prep work that needs to be done. We're only at 33 weeks, but with Annie around, we are determined to have some basic things taken care of early so that we can focus more time right before the baby arrives on Annie and helping her prepare.