my 21-month-old!

Charli is now closer to two than she is to 18 months!  What a big girl!  She's such a joy & so much fun to play with.  Her giant teddy bear pictures are becoming more & more difficult to take successfully, though!

 giving mr. bear kisses

 showing mr. bear her pinecone

big sweet smile

peanut butter pinecones

The weather has been so amazing lately, Charli & I have spent a lot of time outside.  On Tuesday evening she was finding pinecones for me.  With each one she picked up, she was so pleased with herself, so I decided it was time to do our first project together!  We were going to make pinecone bird feeders.  I tried to think out logistically how this was going to go to avoid as much mess as I could, but of course, with a toddler, that's impossible!  I thought if I spread the peanut butter on the pinecones, she could sprinkle the seeds on.  That worked for a little while, but then she put her seed-covered hand in her mouth.  After that, I just rolled the peanut buttery pinecones in the seeds & she just dunked her hands in the peanut butter jar & ate!  They turned out pretty well and I think the birds will be happy!  Someday I'm sure she'll be ready to do projects like this, I just need to be patient!

 Yum!

 Our completed bird feeders

 My peanut butter cutie

A quick pretend ride on daddy's tractor after she's all clean!

gender reveal party

It all started during lunch at work about 2 months ago.  A coworker was reading the newspaper as usual and came across an article about a gender reveal party.  He thought it was right up our alley, but we didn't think about it seriously--at least at first.  The more we thought about it, the more we thought about how fun it might be!  When you are pregnant the first time, everyone is so excited about your announcement, it's all you can think about and there are showers, parties & so much excitement.  When you are pregnant for the second time, however, people have already anticipated your announcement, and you rarely get a shower.  Plus, you're so busy chasing around the toddler to really think about the little life inside you very much.  So with that in mind, we (read, I) started to plan our gender reveal party.  The biggest hiccup to our party was that our ultrasound was going to take place on Monday, February 20th, but due to parental vacations, we couldn't have the party until Sunday, March 4th!  It seemed like such a long time to wait, but we did it, and it was well worth it!  Plus, it was kind of nice to go into the ultrasound not wanting to know the gender right away.  We were so happy & relieved to see a healthy baby squirming around!  Here are some pics of the party!

Our healthy baby

 We got some great baby name suggestions :)

 Our friends & family voted boy

 banner

 The old wives predicted a boy, too!

 Yummy cake

 Completely surprised - We both were thinking girl!  Charli must've known something we didn't!

So excited to meet our little boy in July!