Ummm... remember in my post last week about how I was glad Kylie hadn't picked up the "No" phrase yet? We've purposely tried to use other words in it's place so it wouldn't turn into an early favorite.

Well, scratch that idea.

Since yesterday that's basically her response for everything. I guess all children go through that phase at one time or another (or if your's hasn't... I don't want to hear about it). At least she says it in a cute pitchy sound.

We keep asking Kylie over and over again about what we should name this baby since we have no idea ourselves. She is adamant, absolutely convinced (you name it) that his name is "Take". I'll try to post a few pics of myself since I've had a few requests lately. You guys make me blush! I'm still generally feeling fine, except now that I can't fit into my two pairs of maternity pants anymore and I refuse to buy any more with less than a month left. They were swimming on me when I bought them! So I live in my pajamas pretty much these days.

We had a great Christmas this year! We went up to my parents on Christmas Eve and will be going down to Jared's parents for New Years in a couple of days. After how much Jared has been working this month it was great to see him again! He finally got his project working the morning of Christmas Eve and was finally able to relax a bit. Whew!

Kylie had a great time on Christmas morning. Apparently she didn't get the memo that she's supposed to wake up seriously early and go see what Santa brought. We finally woke her up at 10:30am since everyone was ready to start. I have a feeling that this will probably be the last Christmas that will happen :). Santa brought her some blocks, play-dough, coloring books,a pretend cash register, a new stash of books thanks to grandma, and her favorite... a new baby doll. Yes, she already has several dolls that she loves, but they are what she plays with the most. When we ask her what her new baby doll is named she says "Kylie!". This one also sucks it's bottle, laughs when you push it's stomach, cries and makes other sounds. She loves it! I made her a baby blanket to go with it and she always makes sure that her baby has it's blanket and tells us that "she's sleeping".

Our appointment on Tuesday went great! We had an ultrasound and the fluid levels were normal and everything looked perfect. His little arm was resting across his face. They estimated the weight to be just under six pounds, but our doctor says that in her experience the measurements tend to overestimate poundage by about a pound and aren't that accurate. So I'm guessing he's somewhere between 5-6 lbs now? That was great to hear. I'm all for being able to take this baby straight home from the hospital. Such a blessings to do so nowadays and can't be taken for granted. So far this pregnancy has been fairly easy and pretty much as complication free as one can get. We got an estimate of what we'll pay for the hospital stay. Let's just say that it's exponentially less than what Kylie ended up costing us (but she was sooooo worth it...!). I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being able to bring this little one home straight from the hospital (hopefully). I was just so hard to be stuck out of state with a newborn with all the stress of caseworkers, attorneys, arranging flights back and forth and the legal problems. I'm hoping to enjoy the simplicity of things this time, but who knows. Kylie was such an easy breezy infant. This one could easily be the opposite. So we shall see I guess!

Kylie, bless her heart has been keeping me on my toes this week. I think a new streak of independence has started and all of a sudden she wants to do things her way or not at all (aka many meltdowns lately). So I guess the term "terrible two's" is somewhat a true thing! She is absolutely becoming more independent and forthcoming (even stubborn!) with what she wants to do. She's such a mommies little helper. If I'm cooking she'll help me dump in the ingredients, if I'm dusting, putting away laundry or sweeping she must do that too. Her favorite thing to do is to "go!" which is unfortunate for me because she's running pretty wild lately if I try to take her to the store. She's definitely a social butterfly and we don't have a shy wall flower on our hands in this house!

I really underestimate how much she understands. The other day Jared and I were sitting on the couch and I brought up the idea of cooking a frozen pizza in the oven. Kylie disappeared for a few minute, and we were just shocked when she brought us a frozen pizza out of the freezer! Mind you we rarely have pizza and I didn't even know she knew what that was! She surprises us with things like that all the time. We've been very blessed that she hasn't picked up phrase "NO!" that most kids seem to love, but this week she's decided that "stop it!" is her favorite phrase of choice. So I hear that multiple times a day unfortunately, still working on correcting that one :).

Jared's been working a ton this week trying to get a project to work. Last night he didn't get home till after midnight trying to get his program to work. He then woke up early this morning with an epiphany of something to try and it worked! He had some big customer meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday that he had to prepare for in addition. It's made for a long week for all of us. Looking forward to him having a few days off after Christmas.

Well I think our family is finally on the mend. I swear either Kylie, myself or Jared have been sick at one time or another over the past six weeks! All the sickies going around has left me very stressed on Sundays lately. Both Jared and I have sunday callings so it leaves us in a real bind of what to do when Kylie manages to get sick. Jared teaches the young men and I am in the nursery. It's one thing if we'd have some forshadowing of things to come, but it's happened twice now where Kylie doesn't show any symptoms until Saturday night (as in the middle of the night she'll wake up with a horrible cough) and then we are left in a bind of what to do with our callings so one of us can take her home.

We have a doctors appointment and ultrasound tomorrow morning (just shy of 35 weeks) to make sure things are still looking good. Everytime we ask Kylie what we should name her brother she says "Take!". We think she is saying Jake but that name is obviously out because she has a cousin Jake on each side of the family already :). We still have no idea what this baby will be named. I have a huge list of names and am no where near to having it whittled down to just a few. I'm convinced that this baby won't be named for at least a few days after his birth but Jared seems to think so otherwise. We seem to agree easily on girl names but with boy names it's another story. I also feel a lot more pressure to "get it right" since he will have this name for the rest of his life (no pressure, no pressure) whereas a girl will most likely drop their last name once they marry. There are just not a whole lot of boy names out there that I LOVE so it's made things really hard for me.

Still trying to finish up some last minute Christmas shopping. It's so hard to take Kylie out with me now. She just goes wild when she's contained in a shopping cart for some reason. She has no self constraint when she's out of the cart either. So she'll try to put everything in sight into the cart, will try to open things, or spends her time running away from me. I've almost lost her twice this week because she will just disappear the minute I look away at something. She generally hates the stroller too so that hasn't worked either. She seems to like riding around in her dolly stroller so I still need to get an umbrella stroller and see if she'll sit in there for me better. I have a feelings that my days of taking her to the store will be over in a few months. I can barely manage her on my own and it will be that much harder once the little one comes.

It's been a pretty boring week around this place. Kylie has gotten sick and with the winter storms we haven't left the house since this past weekend. Makes for an uneventful week with a precious little girl that has cabin fever!