It's the Little Things: Daddy at Gymboree

Yesterday about halfway through Gymboree Ez and I got a pleasant surprise when Joe showed up. He was on his way to work when he got a call that they were working from home instead, and since he's never been to a Gymboree class before he decided to stop by. Ez and I hadn't been to class in two weeks because of my infamous cough, so Ez was already pretty wired to be there. But then he saw his Daddy and he started running around like a little Tazmanian Devil, climbing over everything, crawling through the tunnels, and literally just running in circles. He was pretty excited to show off his Gymboree skills ;)

Bonus that Joe was there for all the little parent/child dances we do at the end of class. My back doesn't agree with all the lifts and exertion that the dances require, so I've been half-assing it for awhile. With Joe there Ez finally got the full effect and he was loving every minute of it. 

29 Week Bump Update - Baby #2

According to Baby Center, baby is the size of a butternut squash this week, and he definitely feels like he's taking up that much space. Of course, butternut squash varies a lot, as you can see from this photo:

Based on his movements, I'm gonna assume he's on the bigger side as far as butternut squashes go. Sometimes it feels like he's stretching out all his limbs at once and you can see my belly move up by my ribs and down below my belly button at the same time. He's an active little guy. 

Heartburn has been making more of an appearance in the last week. Apparently sugar is not my friend right before bed. My solution, of course, is to eat sugar for breakfast instead ;) Cupcakes are basically a breakfast food, right? One had strawberries in it, so it's like a muffin with a lot of delicious frosting. On the bright side, after 3 weeks my cough has finally subsided and I've gotten the first few nights of good sleep in what feels like forever. I don't even have to sleep at a 90 degree angle with a dozen pillows propping me up anymore, which my back is very thankful for. It's amazing how a few extra hours of sleep can make me feel like a brand new person. 

Since Ez and I were gone all week visiting family we haven't made much more progress on their shared room. Ez's big boy bed and the new dresser/changing table are both 90% complete. Next up is rearranging their room, washing and sorting tons of baby clothes , and finally picking out a stroller and infant carseat. 

Best moment of the week was definitely my baby shower. It was so great to be able to see everyone at least one more time before Baby Craig gets here. And I'm still in awe over all the seriously cute baby stuff, it was fun pulling it all out to show Joe when we got home last night. This week I'm looking forward to getting the boys' shared room in order, as well as our last photo shoot as a family of three this weekend. 

Here's a comparison of me at 29 weeks with Ez on the left, compared to now on the right:

Even though my bump grew a lot faster this time around, I think it's pretty much caught up to where I was last time at 6 months. I remember 6 months was the mark where people started seeming surprised that I was "only" six months, meaning apparently that was the point that I got huge. On a sidenote, I'm not sure why people say half the stuff they say to pregnant women. Just stick with "you're glowing!" or "you look great!" and never, ever talk about weight. K, rant over ;)

You can check out all of Baby #2's Bump Updates here and all of Ez's Bump Updates here. Thanks for following along!

Baby Craig's Shower

My mom threw me a "surprise" brunch baby shower on Sunday. Even though I saw a text and knew it was coming, it was still basically a surprise since I didn't know anything about it when I planned this trip. Also, it's always nice to have a little foresight so that I knew to brush my hair and whatnot ;)

We all filled up on the brunch buffet, played a few games (my friend Zshnette guessed my stomach size exactly!), ate some of the most delicious cupcakes ever (also baked by Zshnette), and opened tons of adorable gifts for baby Craig, including a light blue sleeper handmade by my cousin. This baby is so spoiled already! Then we sat around talking until Ez fell asleep in his stroller. It was a perfect shower and I loved every minute of it. Thanks mom! And thanks to everyone that could make it.

Afterward my friends and I got pedicures at this place that had the most amazing massage chairs ever. My lower back hasn't been doing that well since I pretty much have to sleep sitting up with this cough I have, and those chairs were heaven. I love the way my toes turned out, but even if I didn't, I'd go back just for the chairs.

We capped off our last night in town with dinner out, and then one more cupcake for this pregnant lady. Perfect ending to a perfect week!

MIA - Hanging With the Fam

I've been on a little blogging break because Ez and I decided to do a roadtrip to visit family. We wanted to squeeze in at least one more trip before baby #2 arrives. This also crosses #4 off the Spring Bucket List -yay!

This was the scene exactly two minutes after we arrived:

Ez likes to command where the uncles and Grampa sit (always on the floor) so that they're in optimal car playing position. That's pretty much how they spend hours per day whenever we visit. Ez is lucky they're such good sports cause this pregnant mama is past the playing on the floor stage.

On Thursday we went to the Oakland Zoo where Ez was obsessed with the elephants and the train (big surprise). The train was actually pretty cool because it took us right through the wallaby enclosure, and there were a bunch of joeys poking out of their mom's pouches. I'm not sure how familiar you are with wallabys, but they're super adorable and I want one of my own. And a hedgehog too.

Friday was apparently National Sibling Day (not sure if social media just made that up or it's an actual holiday) but it worked out well because we had a park/burrito/Starbucks date with my sister. Ez was pretty much in his element since he got to swing himself into a trance, hunt for rocks and sticks, and he even got to watch two trains go by. Oh, and the whole day was capped off with a big bowl of fruit. It really doesn't get much better than that. 

So far Saturday has been more of the same: a park date with uncle that was all fun and games till someone face planted and wound up with a mouthful of dirt. I'll give you one guess who that was.

We'll be here a few more days, but I wanted to squeeze in a quick blog post while Ez is being entertained:

Hope you're having a great weekend!!

28 Week Bump Update - Baby #2

We are now firmly in the third trimester! I've forgotten to take a real bump picture for the last few weeks, so here's a collage of my first two trimesters instead. 

I haven't been having any crazy pregnancy symptoms lately, but I've had a lingering cough for almost two weeks now which makes sleeping impossible. Thankfully nobody else in the house has it, and I think it resulted from allergies. 

Lately my appetite is all off. I'm either ravenous or not hungry at all, and usually I'm starving and snacky through the afternoon, but then I don't want anything for dinner. Joe's eaten a lot of lean pockets and popcorn for dinner. Sorry, babe!

We've made some progress as far as the nursery/shared room goes. Both the dresser and Ez's big boy bed are nearly complete. The bed has been a 3 day process (so far) and resulted in almost giving up and paying someone to put it together for us, not to mention several tantrums on Ez's part because he's obsessed with tools and gets really mad that he can only use his toy tools and not the real screwdriver. At this point I feel done with Ikea forever, but I have a feeling I'll forget that next time we need furniture. 

A little over a week ago we had our last appointment with the specialist/3D doctor. Everything's looking good, and we got some more pics of baby #2:

Here's a comparison of Ez and littlest Craig (Ez on the left, baby #2 on the right):

I definitely see a resemblance!

As you may be able to tell from the content and length of this update, I'm exhausted. If there's one thing I miss right now, it's sleep. Fingers crossed this cough goes away, Ez adjusts well to his big boy bed, and sleep starts happening again (like, immediately)!

If you feel like taking a look back, here's all my past Baby #2 bump updates. And here are my bump updates from when I was pregnant with Ez.

Happy Easter!

Hope you had a great Easter weekend! Our Easter festivities started on Thursday with a little crafting and egg hunting at a park with Ez's friends. This was actually Ez's 1st egg hunt ever since he was about 1 month pre-walking last Easter. Crazy how much changes in a year! This was also Ez's first experience with glue. Thankfully he decided it's not as yummy as it looks. 

The whole party was a ton of fun until Ez decided to dig near a tree that happened to be home to a billion ants. He and two other boys wound up with all kinds of bites, mostly on the feet for Ez. Makes me sad every time I see em :-/

Another first was decorating sugar cookies (which we kindly got from Paula and Jacob in the Boy Mom Box Swap - thank you!) Ez decorated the Mickey cookies, I did the bunnies. As you can see, we had slightly differing views in how many sprinkles belong on a single cookie. To each their own.

Friday we fit in another park play date where Ez decided he's obsessed with Bella, Ana (from Frozen), and going down the big boy slide all on his own. Quite the productive day!

Saturday we went to a local egg hunt at a nearby park. (Notice a theme with the parks here?) They split the hunts up by age group, so Ez went with the 2 year olds, and it was an absolute madhouse. They just scattered a ton of plastic eggs and the kids (aka a few over zealous parents) went crazy trying to collect them all as fast as possible. The whole thing was over in 20 seconds. Ez was happy with the 3 eggs he got, and I was happy to get outta there. We'll probably skip the local egg hunts until Ez is old enough to go by himself because that was a little scary. 

Saturday afternoon Ez dyed eggs for the first time. I stuck with 8 eggs because I had flashbacks to my childhood when we forgot an egg outside for weeks until the smell took over the neighborhood. Ez was so excited to see the eggs change colors that he threw one across the patio. But really 7 eggs was the perfect amount, 8 would've been overkill ;)

Easter morning! Ez's loved his Cars basket. In fact, the only way I could get him to hunt eggs was to crack one open and show him that maybe he'd find even more cars inside the eggs. (I filled them with mini cars instead if candy.) Then it was game on! 

Afterward we had some coconut pancakes and Ez played with the millions of new cars he got from the Easter Bunny. All in all it was a perfect Easter morning. Until the poop fiasco. But we won't relive those details yet. Too soon. 

And in case there was any doubt just how loved and spoiled this boy is, here are some grandparent gifts: 101 Dalmatians, Cars stuff, and some Spring clothes from Gangy and Grampa (not to mention a ton of gift cards for Joe and I, and maternity clothes for me - thanks mom!), a giant dump truck with his name on it from Great Grandma, and a cute build a bear bunny + chocolate bunny from Grandma Kat and Grandpa Brett. Such a lucky boy!

And of course there was a round of the traditional Easter Day cars game.

And I can't let a holiday pass by without a little flashback. Same boy, just bigger clothes and a much bigger personality:

Can't believe we'll have two next Easter! 

Playing Catchup: Disneyland & the Clippers

How is it already April?? March was so full of activities and outings and mini getaways, not to mention this hacking cough that I caught a week ago that is making sleep impossible. In other words, March flew by in a bit of a blur, and I wanted to make sure to catchup on a few things before I forget about them and the pictures get lost in the cyber graveyard that is Dropbox. 

You may remember I made a Spring Bucket List, and on it I mentioned I wanted to hit up Disneyland a few more times before it gets too hot. So, of course, I picked the hottest day of the year so far for Ez and I to go to good ol' Dland. It was basically a super-expensive splash pad with Cars characters thrown into the mix. (Well, it would've been expensive if we didn't have passes.) We started off with breakfast at Boudin Bakery in California Adventure, and by the time we finished it already felt like about 90 degrees. We bee-lined over to the water play area in Bugs Land where Ez got soaked, and I couldn't resist running through the water a few times too, under the guise of chasing Ez around, of course. Pregnancy + summer is a bad combo. 

Eventually the water area got crowded, because that was clearly the smartest place to be, so Ez and I headed over to Cars Land, and happened to have perfect timing for a photo op with Lightning McQueen. It might not look like it in the picture, but Ez was pretty psyched, and after our turn was over he kept waving and saying "bye bye car." I couldn't take the heat any longer, so we made another trip to the water area, but on the way we saw a...(drumroll!) Fire Truck!! Ez is obsessed, so of course we had to get a picture. Apparently the truck's name is Red. Again, it's hard to tell from the picture, but Ez's day was pretty much made by that point. We did a few more runs through the water, rode three rides in Bugs Land, got ourselves some cold drinks from Starbucks, and called it a day. Ez passed out in the stroller and didn't even wake up when I put him in his car seat. That's definitely the sign of a good day. 

On Tuesday Joe's work got a suite for the Clippers vs. Golden State Warriors game. This was Ez's first NBA game, and he got the total VIP treatment. Is this kid spoiled, or what?? I've never been in a suite before, but they had a whole buffet set up, and tons of snacks plus alcohol and soft drinks. If I wasn't pregnant (or a vegetarian) the setup would've been amazing. As is, I just stuck with lemonade and chips + guac, which I was happy with. I think we got one of the best suites in the place. We were dead center court. Of course we spent most of our time chasing a wired toddler around the room, but if we were just going to sit and watch the game we couldn't have asked for a better view. 

Ez absolutely loved the entire experience. After his nap I told him that we were going to a basket ball game when Daddy got home, and after that he kept saying "ba ba ga Dada?" (I'm pretty sure that translates to "basket ball game Dada", in case you were wondering.) When we got to the Staples Center he was skipping down the hallway, stopping every now and then to charm older ladies. And when we actually got in the suite he went straight to the window to watch the game, and every time the crowd cheered he'd get so excited and start clapping and stomp his feet then turn around to bury his head in Joe's lap. Clearly the kid was overwhelmed with joy. I definitely think we've got a budding sports fanatic in the house. Let's just hope he and Daddy cheer for the same teams!

Around halftime we left to get some ice cream and wander around the Clippers store. All the jerseys were 60% off, which means the kid's Chris Paul jersey was only $11. Score! We got one for Ez (Joe and I got free ones when we got there), and then headed outside for a few photos before heading home. By the time we got to our car it was almost 10, but Ez was so excited that he actually stayed up the entire car ride. We made sure to tell him that we hoped he enjoyed that, because it's never going to happen again ;)  Well, not unless Joe's work pays again!

blurry but mandatory selfie

Not sure if you can tell, but there are minions dancing with the cheerleaders

Daddy + Son in matching jerseys

I think that pretty much catches us up to April. We're super excited for the upcoming Easter festivities, including dying eggs and Ez's first egg hunt! What Easter plans and traditions are you and your family doing this weekend?