Today's Tomato Crop

We all headed out to the garden this morning to pick some tomatoes before the squirrels helped themselves for the day. Sure enough a couple of squirrels eyed us from the fence as if to say - what do you think you are doing? We left them some green maters, but nothing red or even orange.



In other garden news, our sunflowers finally opened and they are huge and beautiful!



Here is a shot of one of those tummy hugs I described yesterday.



This one was fast and almost knocked me over!

Check out how high I am carrying Carter these days. I didn't realize it until I saw the picture. I wonder how long it will take me to start comfortably carrying him on my hip again once baby is born.



Adam is doing such a great job teaching Carter about the garden. And Carter loves helping - even if today's help consisted of picking multiple green tomatoes. :)



I still have vacation pictures and stories to share but am going to try to stay ahead of the game at least for a few weeks and not fall any farther behind!

35 WEEKS down and 35 DAYS to go

It scares me a bit to write that title. Where has the time gone? Seems like it was just the other day that I was trying to hold out on telling Adam the good news until Christmas morning. I took a pregnancy test a few days before Christmas and thought it would be great for him to open a present on Christmas morning with the good news. But I couldn’t wait. So I took a picture of the good news and put it on a card. I “wrapped” the card by putting it in the small stocking in the picture below and gave it to Adam as an early present.



This was the picture on our Christmas card back in 2007 and it is how we shared the good news that we were expecting Carter. I thought Adam would recognize the small stocking and know what was inside before he opened it, but I think he was surprised and I was definitely glad I didn’t keep it a secret for a few days.

The past eight months really have flown by. So much faster than with Carter. I think he is part of the reason these 8 months have passed so quickly as he never lets me slow down long enough to dwell on how many days are left until my due date. With Carter every week was a milestone, I read every weekly update I received from Baby Center in entirety, plus the weekly chapters in my pregnancy book. This time around I do good to skim the articles. Such is the life with a very busy toddler I suppose.

But there have been some really sweet moments throughout this pregnancy…
Carter will randomly run up and hug and kiss my belly. And will always do this when I ask him to. When we ask him who the big brother is, he proudly points to himself. And when I ask where his baby brother is he points to my tummy. We have tried to prepare him as best we can for what is about to come. We visited a friend with a newborn a couple of months ago and the new baby cried a bit while we were there. I asked Carter later what he thought of the new baby brother and he said “Wah!” imitating the crying noise. So, hopefully he will be prepared for that! We have talked about how he will get to teach his brother how to do lots of fun stuff like playing ball, or reading books, or working puzzles. He seems ok with this. I have also spent some time trying to explain that the baby will always be with us. He will be here in the morning when we wake up and have breakfast with us. He will go to the grocery store with us. He will go to the playground with us, etc. This explanation brought a slightly confused look, or a “I’m not so sure about all of that look.” There is no way to fully prepare him for the changes that are about to take place, but we are trying.

At the beginning of this pregnancy, I felt overwhelmed. Imagining my life with a 2 year old and a newborn. Thinking about those long nights. The many hours nursing. And all of the spit up that followed. But those thoughts were quickly replaced by the exhaustion that set in those first few weeks. Keeping up with Carter all day definitely took up whatever energy I started with each morning. I was fortunate again to not have any morning sickness. And I felt pretty good for all of my second and most of my third trimester. However, just last week, I was working in the kitchen and had the first of what I like to describe as “my hip is about to fall out of its socket” pains. These happened with Carter and I had COMPLETELY forgotten about them. They are quick shooting pains and they make me feel like I need to sit down right away. Plenty of people say that you are able to forget all of the pains of pregnancy/labor enough to have more children and this pain is definitely one of those memory blocks. Thankfully they aren’t too frequent and usually only come at the end of the day. And really, they are a good thing because they mean my body is getting ready for delivery.

I must admit that my nesting instinct has been much stronger this time around. With Carter, we closed on our first house just 6 weeks before his due date and moved in less than a month before his due date. So my nesting was left to just unpacking as many boxes as possible. Or, to be honest, supervising the unpacking because it is not too comfortable to do any sort of bending or lifting at that stage of the game! But this time around, the ‘to do’ list has been long and is getting longer. (I hope to show you some of these project on the blog in the next few weeks.) And yesterday, as I was unloading the groceries I decided the refrigerator shelves needed cleaning. That is not normal for me.

This little guy has also been doing quite the acrobatic moves in my belly. Last night was the most violent yet. The skin on my belly was rippling all over the place as he moved/stretched/kicked inside. Might have sprinkled a little too much cayenne pepper on our dinner last night. Although he is moving as I write this morning, the morning is usually his quiet time and I wonder if I will see a similar quiet morning pattern once he is born. His most active time of the day in my belly is by far the 6-9 pm window. I don’t know if this is because it is my most still time of the day once Daddy is home and Carter goes to bed but he definitely makes his presence known whenever I start to relax on the couch. I am a pretty heavy sleeper so thankfully his movement doesn’t keep me up at night, but the middle of the night bathroom trips have increased over the past week or so.

As my due date gets closer I am getting more and more excited. I think it is partly because I know what to expect. I know how much love I have for Carter and I have no doubt about having just as much love for his baby brother.



Let the 35 day countdown begin!

Making Poppa Proud

We are certainly no experts, but we have fun with our little garden in the backyard. Our efforts have evolved through the years, from potted plants on the balcony of an apartment to a plot in a community garden, to the modest raised beds that we have now. And through the years we’ve experienced the minor successes and major failures that accompany any gardening endeavor.

This year is no different. The okra, which we planted in mid-spring, is barely inches off the ground. The peppers may produce fruit sometime in 2012 at their current pace. Our squash never took off, and the puny plants that did emerge were quickly ravaged by bugs.



Our first attempt at corn was welcomed by the neighborhood squirrels. They’ve pulled over the stalks, shucked the corn, eaten every kernel, and then come back to eat what was left of the ear.



But we have had a couple of successes. Although the sunflowers are taking their time to open, they have certainly added some height to the garden.



And then, there are the tomatoes. Those unbelievably (for us) successful tomatoes. The plants are full and bushy. The vines are weighted down to the ground with fruit. And, for once, we are enjoying baskets of tomatoes to make Poppa proud.





With any luck, the plants hold up and we might even get to share some ‘maters with Poppa when he visits in a few weeks.



-BY ADAM

Little Bittle Update

It has been awhile since I have written about my Little Bittle Design business on the ATL Post. (by the way - do you guys know where the names for both this blog and my little business came from? If not, leave a comment and I will fill you in.) Despite my silence about Little Bittle Designs it has been keeping me busy and I am still loving it.

With only seven weeks until baby boy #2 makes his arrival, I am trying to offer some Fall and Halloween designs a little early because Little Bittle will be taking a maternity break for (at least) the months of September and October.

Here are a couple of the new designs that I have just listed on my Etsy store.

Isn't this friendly ghost brother/sister set cute? I really like the brown and green shirts too.



This one is for Carter and I plan on making a onesie for baby brother just as soon as we can decide on a name.



Go ahead and check out my Etsy store to see the rest of the Halloween designs and more!

For those of you on Facebook, Little Bittle Designs now has a fan page. We are up to 210 fans and counting. Once we reach 250 fans, it will be Giveaway time! I will draw 2 names at random and each of those 2 fans will win a free shirt.

Football designs and a couple of other Halloween options still to come, so check back again soon!

If you are wanting more Little Bittle Design information, here are a few links:
www.littlebittledesigns.etsy.com
www.littlebittledesigns.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/littlebittledesigns

Poppa & Nana's Gardens

Adam here with another installment of our vacation series. You've seen our meager attempts at gardening in past posts. But we ain't got nothing on Poppa & Nana's house. First off, the vegetable garden is something to behold. Laid out in front of a perfect little potting shed and overlooking the lake, it provides fresh veggies all summer long. There are cucumbers and peppers and squash, of course, but the stars of the show are the tomatoes. Poppa even built the tomatoes their own potting boxes along the dock - these plants have waterfront property, quite literally. Carter especially enjoyed the cherry tomatoes...fresh off the vine and warmed by the sun.

But the gardens don't end there. Behind the house is an herb garden and blueberry patch. Flowers and shrubs are all around the yard...it's overflowing with beatiful hydrangeas.

We plant a few seeds and pick a few flowers from our yard, but we have certainly got a long way to go to catch up with Poppa & Nana's gardens.

Happy 4th

We have a long pre-baby to-do list and are trying to tackle lots on this 3-day weekend.

One of the items on the list for this weekend was to move Carter from his nursery to his new big boy room. We have 3 bedrooms, so we decided to change our guest room to Carter's big boy room and let the new baby have the smaller nursery when he is born.

On Saturday afternoon, Carter woke up in his nursery for the last time. I, of course, was there with a camera. Carter has quite a crew with him when he goes to bed. He has to have his teddy, his hippie (a light blue hippopotamus lovie), his blue blanket, and at least 3 pacis, sometimes more.



He wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning but is very slow to wake up in the afternoon.



We took a few final shots of the nursery before we started changing it for baby #2, you can see more in the July album. I liked this shot...



...because it reminded me of this shot before Carter was born.



We have all spent a lot of time in that green rocker!

Carter's big boy room isn't quite done...but here are just a couple of shots of him getting used to his new stuff.

We brought up a new reading chair from the basement that was part of a generous hand-me-down collection from Adam's sister several years ago. The boy loves to read. We limit his pre-nap and pre-bedtime books to just 3, but I think he would let us read every book on the shelf if we offered. I think this is part because he likes books and part because he is a pretty good procrastinator when it comes to naptime/bedtime.



His room is a transportation theme, so we brought up this fun rug from the playroom with some new trucks that he got as a birthday gift from his cousins.



His first night in the new room went as I expected. He woke up several times and called out for us. We expected it to take a few nights to get used to - hopefully he will adjust quickly.

His Sunday afternoon nap didn't happen. He jabbered in his crib for over an hour and then got a little more worked up so we decided to forego the afternoon nap and hope for a good nights rest. After "naptime" we went to run a few errands and he of course konked out for over an hour as we were shopping. We let him sleep later than usual in hopes we could keep him up for some fireworks.

We went to a fun cookout at a neighbors house and then loaded Carter up in the stroller and walked to our nearby elementary school where we were hopeful we could see the fireworks that were supposed to start at the end of the baseball game. We started out on our walk at the top of the 9th inning and when we got to the school there was a crowd, so we were hopeful this was a good spot. Unfortunately, the visiting team tied the game at the top of the 9th and the game went into extra innings! Luckily, we pulled out a victory at the bottom of the 10th.

Here are my boys waiting for the show to start.



We let Carter out of the stroller since we thought we would be there awhile and he probably ran 50+ laps around the stroller while we waited. Occasionally he would crash on the ground out of exhaustion and just giggle with himself. He had a blast even though it was a good 2 hours past his bedtime.





I am happy to report that the extra excitement tired him out and he went right to bed in his new room and slept until 7 this morning. Adam and Carter are out for a morning jog this morning and I am enjoying a slow start to the day.

Hope each of you had a wonderful 4th and are enjoying a 3-day weekend too!