It's a .....

So the time arrived to have the option of finding out the sex of our baby, and of course we did. I like to plan too much to wait till delivery. But we wanted to include Jonathan in the discovery, he has been fascinated by the baby since we've told him he will be a big brother. In fact he calls it "his baby", and corrects Nate and I emphatically when we say our baby. "It is my baby because I'm the one going to play with it" he says. It is cute, but boy he is in for a rude awakening once the baby arrives. 

Not only did we want to include Jonathan, but we also wanted to celebrate such a happy occasion. This pregnancy has been rough (though thankfully not quite as bad the one with Jonathan), and I haven't been feeling too celebratory until recently. We decided to have a party to reveal the gender to ourselves, Jonathan, and some friends and family at the same time. We were inspired by our dear Baltimore friends Stef and George (who had a gender reveal party (or as they called it, "sex party") well before it became the hip thing to do,  For those of you not familiar with concept, at the ultrasound we don't find out the sex, but have the technician write it on a sheet of paper. We gave the envelope to our talented friend Suzanne who made us an amazing cake. Inside the cake (specifically the question mark cake) was either blue or pink cake, pointing to either a boy or girl baby respectively. 

The beautiful cakes

We polled everyone at the party right before cutting the cake, asking what they thought it was. About 75% said boy, but Jonathan with a loud resounding voice kept declaring "Girl, girl!"

Cutting the cake...what will it be?

Jonathan saw first and declared for everyone....

" A boy"

A boy! We are thrilled! I love having a boy already, so two boys sounds great (though a bit exhausting). Also, the practical  woman that I am, am excited to reuse all those boy clothes and boy toys.

Winter 2011/2012

 Winter! 
It was fun this winter to continue some of our Seattle Christmas traditions (only 2nd year we celebrated them, but we plan on keeping them, so traditions they are!)


Teddy Bear Suite: A fancy smancy hotel in Seattle decorates one of their suites with cute cuddly bears, ornaments, lights, etc. It is fun for the kids and makes great photos.

Jonathan with  his forced smile

We also enjoyed to the gingerbread house display again this year. The theme this year was trains! How perfect for our little train lover.

Notice the train on the tree

 And Jonathan enjoyed making his own gingerbread house

The concentration...

Jonathan loved doing the advent candles again this year. This year his favorite songs to sing after lighting them were Away in the Manger, Joy to the World (which he preferred to dance to!), and First Noel

Bellevue Botanical Garden Lights. The spider was Jonathan's favorite again this year

Picking out the Christmas tree! The Christmas tree farms are fancy out here; this one had a train you could ride on, vintage fire truck to play on, bonfire, free hot chocolate/cider, store, and oh yeah trees.

Jonathan's selection!

 

Christmas Eve! Jonathan was old enough to hold his own candle this year for the Christmas eve service, and boy did he enjoy it.

Another Christmas tradition--Nate and I give Jonathan a book the night before Christmas  so he has a new book to read before bedtime. This year it was another Bill Peet train book. 

Fall 2011

 Fall 2011

So the updates continue with this past fall. We...

Went to the State Fair again (thinking it might become an annual tradition!) This year Jonathan loved the goat parade (people dressed up their goats, quite funny, but those goats did not seem amused), the tractors, and old fashioned kitchen gadgets.

Jonathan loves gadgets!

And still loves trains!

Hiking! This time it was Mt.Rainier (not to the top :), just some trails around it)

As always we were so impressed by Jonathan's hiking abilities :)

Hiking again! (This time Wallace Falls)

Jonathan discovered that hiking can be even more fun when there is trail mix involved :)

Yellowstone!

We were so excited to be within driving distance of Yellowstone. I had never been and was excited to experience it with my men. We had planned the trip well before I became pregnant, and while it was fun, pregnancy, "morning (all the time actually) sickness", 13+ hours of driving along curvy roads, and lots of sulfur smell are not the best combination for fun (for mommy). But Jonathan and Nate had lots of fun, and I hope we can share it again as a family of four again, unpregnant. 

Jonathan enjoyed the geysers!

The lovely sulfur pools...

Jonathan also loved the wildlife, especially the bison

But he really loved Yellowstone when it snowed! (yes, it was only Oct)

Jonathan's snow"dinosaur". T-rex style