Surprise!

I suppose it's time to let the cat out of the bag and let you all know that we're expecting. Again. It seems like I just had a baby, and now we're going to be having another one! I'm due in October, which means that our two little beans will be about 16 months apart. To quote my mother-in-law, "Any mother having babies that close together deserves a medal!" Well spoken.

While I am generally panic-stricken and wondering how we could possibly do this to ourselves, there will be some upsides to having children this close together.

1. They will most likely be great little buddies. After the first several months, they can entertain each other!

2. Holly is a good little helper already, so hopefully she will continue on this trend.

3. I will have another one of these:


And who can resist that?

On the negative side, what is up with my hair?! I will tell you. You know how your hair gets thick and luxurious during pregnancy? And then it falls out in huge clumps afterward? And then it kind of starts to grow back? And then you get pregnant again and your hair gets thick and voluminous again? On my head, that series of events produces that nice little tuft you see in that picture of me. It's trying to wave and say hello. Isn't that nice of my hair? I spend about 5 minutes each morning trying to tame it, and by the end of the day (or 30 minutes later) I look like this again. Amazing.

Anyway, I have set up a little poll for you, my lovely family and friends, to guess the gender of our baby. We don't really have the energy to try and guess ourselves, so you can do it for us! I have my ultrasound in a few weeks, so stay tuned to see if your guess was correct.

Rearranging

Holly likes to rearrange things. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's not too big or too heavy for her to carry. The other day, when I was getting ready for church, she did this:


Note how carefully she placed Andrew's dental insurance card on top of this little tin. This is in our bathroom, right in front of the toilet. I had been badgering Andrew to put this card in his wallet for about a week when Holly decided to take matters into her own hands. She was sending her daddy a message.

I just love that little girl!

Mountain Dew Baby

Disclaimer: No babies were harmed in the shooting of this photo.


And she wasn't actually drinking the Mountain Dew either. I felt I just had to say that.

A few weeks ago, Holly and I went to the beach with some family during the day. This was my first experience with sunscreen for a baby, so I was pretty nervous about it. Does that sound dumb? I was, though. I didn't want my poor baby to get sunburned. As it turned out, Holly did NOT approve of the beach at all. She stayed on my lap the entire time. Not the best beach trip ever. To compound matters, here is what she looked like a few hours after we got home:


Uh, hello? What happened here? Apparently I was a little concerned about getting sunscreen in her eyes and didn't provide enough coverage on her face. Poor kid. She didn't seem too miserable, but I felt terrible!


Our little Holly enjoys eating (just like her parents). We have some friends whose daughter (ahem--Leah) could really take or leave food. She's a skinny little thing and just...doesn't care that much. Holly steals her food all the time, and a new high (or low, depending on how you think about it) was Holly eating food directly out of her hand last Sunday. Holly is also very friendly toward other babies and children. She is the baby during Sunday school who walks right up to other babies to try and share snacks and play with them. They usually don't know how to respond. She is becoming a sweet little girl!


This is my favorite recent picture. Holly is extremely aware of our camera and what it does. She enjoys posing for pictures and watching them play back to her on the camera. This is her smile for the camera! I love this little girl so much.