18 Months & Holiday Weekend

On Valentine's Day, Lexie hit a big milestone...18 months old! As I looked at her this weekend all I could think was how she is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little girl. The past 18 months have flown by and being Lexie's mom has been the greatest gift I've been given in my life (besides being Bryan's wife...I love you honey)! I will post her stats after her Dr. appointment in a few days, but she is such a happy girl with an easy-going, fun personality that I enjoy getting to know better each and every day.

At 18 Months Lexie enjoys many things. She loves Winnie the Pooh and asks to watch "The Pooh" every day while doing a little dance. Speaking of dancing, that is one thing she really enjoys; we can turn on the KSL weather channel with the jazzy music and she really puts on a show for us! Singing is also among her favorite things. She can pretty much sing the entire theme song for "Winnie the Pooh" and if she sees snow she sings "Once There Was a Snowman". It seems like just about every day she surprises me with new words she has learned and she loves to talk even if I don't know everything she is trying to tell me. One really cute thing she does is get on her pretend cell phone and walk around the room chatting away...I really don't know where she learned that one from. :)

Our pretty 18 month old girl!

Lexie would not get her picture taken without Pooh Bear and Kitty, and wanted to spend most of the weekend going up and down the stairs. She has such a cute smile and now will pose and say "cheese" for the camera (when she isn't running).

Making a fashion statement & enjoying her "ba-oon" (balloon).

Our Valentine's Day family photo.This weekend was a lot of fun! Lexie had a great time playing at Grandpa and Grandma's house with her aunts and uncle. They were kind enough to tend on Saturday so Bryan and I could go to St. George. We had a great time going to the temple, going to lunch at Olive Garden, and shopping for a few things (like boy stuff for our baby). We had fun just being together alone for a few hours. It was a wonderful Valentine's date!!!

Growing Baby and Belly

Well, time is flying and I am now over 24 weeks pregnant with our little baby boy! As you can see, my belly is growing and I feel bigger than I want to be, but there is less than 16 weeks until the due date! Our little guy is growing also (now about 12 inches long and just over 1 lb.) and starting to be a hyper little thing. He is kicking really hard now (especially at night when I'm trying to go to sleep), and I love being able to feel the movement every day.

I need to get some new pictures of Lexie since she is turning 18 months this weekend, but she has been way sick this past week. She came down with a high fever over 104 on Thursday and even with medication it still wasn't coming down so we took her to the Dr. at 4:45 on Friday (nothing like doing it last minute before the weekend) and found out she had strep throat which we are sure she got from her trial run at nursery. Needless to say it has been a rough week and got scary when her temp got above 105, but she is finally on the mend and we are looking forward to a fun holiday weekend!

Holiday Fun

Sorry this is about a month late...but we did have a very fun holiday season this year with our little Lexie girl. It was fun to see her face light up when she would see Christmas decorations, and hearing her "Ho Ho Ho" when she saw anything with Santa. The Sunday before Christmas she was dressed up in her Christmas best and we took some pictures.

Here she is opening a box in preparation of the big day.

Cute girl pointing at the Christmas Tree.

She loved the big nutcracker which she thinks growls because of a funny joke Bryan did which just kind of stuck.

Christmas Eve we headed over to spend the weekend with my family. We had a great time visiting with family, enjoying traditions, and eating way too much yummy food...this year all of my weight gain is going to be blamed on pregnancy. :)

Here Lexie is with Grandpa and her new baby's bottles, and with her new fisher price people from Grandpa and Grandma. She loves those toys!

This is Bryan with his new old-school "V" DVDs and lovely me with one of my many new books to read! Lexie is playing with her kitty keyboard named "Applebee" which she named for one of the songs the keyboard plays about a cat named Applebee. She loves playing music and singing in the microphone...our little music lover.

Lexie loves all of her new toys and I was happy she got new things that are more on her level to play with. She has so many more options now, and especially loves her new "Mega Bloks" which she builds towers with every day. We all had a wonderful Christmas and the best part was just being with family and enjoying being together. It's my favorite time of year and Lexie just made it so much more fun this year!

This video was taken on New Year's Eve. She was in her hyper stage which she gets in when she's winding down at night. She's pushing her new baby in the new stroller (with the hiccups) that were both given to her by Santa. She loves to talk a lot and has many words in her vocabulary, but sometimes you just don't know what she's talking about when she runs around babbling. I love this video because she goes from hyper and pushing the stroller, to feeding the baby a bottle, and toward the end you can tell she's ready for bed.

New Year's Eve was low-key this year. We spend the night at home and made homemade pizza which was delicious! Here we are before dinner.

As you can see, Lexie was tired of getting her picture taken and just wanted to eat. The next picture shows her mood change after having yummy pizza in her belly!

After dinner, Lexie played with Daddy and went to bed around 9:00. Bryan and I then watched a movie and toasted the new year with some Welch's sparkling grape juice and were in bed by around 12:15 (yes we are old and boring now).

We wish you all a Happy New Year and we are looking forward to a great year full of many more memories as we add a little guy to our family in just a few months!

It's a...

BOY!

We were surprised, but we are super excited for Lexie to have a little brother! I love this 3D shot of him with his little arm up with the hand on his head. Bryan does that same thing all the time when he is tired and says it is a Lyman trait. I also like his pouty lips. We know he's going to be a real cutie!

This is a profile shot with his head turned to the side. He seems to be very healthy, and we can't wait to meet the little guy in May!

Updates

It has been forever since I updated the blog...sorry. I am now over 15 weeks pregnant! We find out in 4 weeks what we are having and we can't wait! Our 2nd appointment was good; the heartbeat was 154 beats per minute and the baby is growing. I have started feeling flutters this past week which makes me super excited! I decided we better take a picture. I feel a lot bigger this time around but so far even with Thanksgiving and the Holidays I have only gained 2 pounds. Now that I'm in the 2nd trimester I'm feeling much better and we are having fun getting ready for Christmas! Lexie loves taking all the "balls" off the tree so I hope the tree survives.

Here I am at 15 weeks.

Lexie is now almost 16 months old! At her 15 month well check a couple weeks ago she weighed 23 lbs (48%) and is 31 inches (61%) I have a hard time believing she only grew 1/2 an inch in 3 months, but the measuring didn't go so well this time. She freaked out with the medical assistant, the pediatrician, and especially the girl who came to give shots. It was so much easier when she didn't know what was going on, but she has turned into a little smarty. Lexie jabbers all the time now and has a lot of words in her ever-growing vocabulary. Her newest favorite words at the moment are "cocka" - clock, "pemple" - temple (followed by her singing "I Love To See the Temple"), "cracka" - cracker, "kitty" (followed by "mow, mow"), "chairs" (which she loves to use to climb up to the table), and she loves the "tee" - tree.

Here she is on one of her favorite things and favorite words...stairs. She loves going to my parents house and climbing the stairs.

For Christmas, Bryan's work gave him a brand new IPOD Nano. He was super excited because there is no way we could afford to buy one right now. Well, Lexie wanted to try it out and she absolutely LOVES it. This first picture is of her making one of her silly faces. She is into making really funny faces these days and it really makes us laugh.

Here she is dancing while listening to the IPOD music, and the other picture she thinks the IPOD is a cell phone. Kids are so techno-savvy these days!

Here is Lexie helping me cook, and here she is playing the keyboard which she loves (I hope she keeps it up).

The day before Thanksgiving we met up with Kirsten, Mark, and Britton for a little visit. It was fun to see them as always! Aren't Lexie and Brit so cute!

Well, I hope to be better at updating in the coming weeks and months. I hope everyone is having a great Christmas Season. We are really trying to focus on the true meaning of Christmas this year by remembering Christ and all he has done for us, along with being more thankful for our many blessings. It is such a great time of year and we are grateful for all of our friends and family and all you do for us. We love you!