Nice Ego Boost

Tonight, while I was helping Rachel get ready for bed, she hugged me and said, "You're a beautiful woman. I wish I were a boy so I could marry you someday."

I don't know if she's buttering me up so she can ask for something, but it was nice nonetheless :)

Making Up Songs

Rachel has been really getting into making up songs and stories lately. We were on our way to visit friends in Vancouver on Saturday when she sang this little ditty in the backseat:

"I love Jesus,
He's my best friend.
I love Him very much,
I'd like to shake His hand."

Of course, that was then followed by a song that included the lyrics "I love Jesus when I'm Jesus...", so her theology is not all that clear yet :)

Rachel the smart-aleck

(Gee, I wonder where she gets that from?)

We had make-your-own mini pizzas for James' birthday a few weeks ago. Rachel had chosen pepperoni, canadian bacon, olives and cheese for her toppings. She ate a bite of pepperoni and proclaimed it was "too spicy!", and she picked off the rest. She then declared the canadian bacon was also too spicy and decided she didn't want to eat any of that, either.

Her Grandpa Jim was on one side and I was on the other. Each of us tried fruitlessly to persuade her that the canadian bacon was a totally different kind of meat that wasn't spicy, and that she should try a bite before deciding whether or not she liked it. Jim tried one more time, and she just turned to him and said "It's not gonna happen!"

She sounded just like a child on a sitcom, except funny and not obnoxious about it. I have no idea where she picked up that phrase, but it sure cracked us up.

Benjamin David

We have been terribly lax in posting things about our baby-in-the-works, as well as much about Rachel. It's not like nothing has been going on with either one. Often Rachel will say or do something and I'll think "I should post that on the blog," and then I don't. I guess I've just been lazy about actually logging in and getting things down in writing. (Then again, I have Rachel's baby book sitting here on the kitchen counter. It's about 10% completed, and she's 3 1/2. But I'm really trying to make an effort to get it complete, or mostly complete, before Ben is born. Otherwise, it's pretty sad if my firstborn doesn't even have a finished baby book. I haven't started on her scrapbook yet, either, but I'm just now getting back into scrapbooking and am hoping to gain momentum and start plowing through all the photos I haven't yet gotten into albums. Including our wedding and honeymoon photos, and that was 8 1/2 years ago, so that's even more pathetic.)

I don't know how many people even read this blog, but for the sake of preserving our own memories, anyway, I want to be better about posting things that I think are noteworthy, or funny, or cute, or otherwise in need of blogging.

For example, here are photos from the last ultrasound we had, where we found out we were having a boy. That was 9 weeks ago (!), so these aren't the most timely of photos, but still I thought they should be included. We're also hoping to have 3D/4D ultrasound done like we did with Rachel, so I'm guessing we would do that within another 3-4 weeks so we can get some good views of him. We waited until about 33 weeks with Rachel, and that was right at the edge of being able to get a good shot. And we almost didn't get to see her face because she kept her hands up over much of it for 25 out of our 30 minute session. I guess she was just teasing us (we should have known then what we were in for), because she finally brought those little hands down and let us get a really good view of her sweet little face for those last 5 minutes.

Anyway, here are the photos of our son, who we have since named Benjamin David.

Front view, with his little skeleton pirate head looking at the camera:

Here, he's lying on his back with his hand sticking up:

Here's a profile shot; he's hiccuping, which is why you can see a black line in the middle where his mouth and the top of his throat are:
And one more profile with his hand curled up and brought to his mouth:

Feel free to say "Awww!" if you'd like.

Oh, and Ben - I left out the one where they pointed out the evidence that you're a boy, so you can thank me one day for that. You're welcome.

Green

"Daddy, the light is green."
"Yep, it is," I responded, slowly easing off the brake and pressing down gently on the gas pedal.
"So we can go."
"Yep, we can," I responded, easing forward with traffic.
"GO! GO! GO!" she shouted, excitedly.