"SO big!"

Lee really is getting old. I love all that he is learning to do except the tantrums. :)
When he finally caught on to the "how big's the baby?" game a few nights ago I almost died. He gains such genuine pleasure from having us play with him and pay good attention to what he is doing. He just wanted to play again and again, I'm sure mostly because he had both of his parents undivided attention while he was doing it.

During a conference for our church Saturday and Sunday, (Church leaders speak to the membership as a whole twice a year)a speaker, Rosemary Wixom, gave such a good reminder about how easy it is to be distracted from our children by the ever present and available technology today and how MUCH it impacts them when we do;

 "Unfortunately, the distractions of this world prevent many children from hearing encouraging words that could shape their view of themselves..."

" ...The answer to our prayer of how to meet our children’s needs may be to more often technologically disconnect. Precious moments of opportunity to interact and converse with our children dissolve when we are occupied with distractions."

 Good reminder for me to be "with Lee" when I'm with him and not plugged into some form of technology or media so often.

*the whole talk was Wonderful, read it here.

home for Easter weekend.

Because of Kevin's thesis work, family schedules and church responsibilities we had almost the whole Easter weekend to ourselves.  With the myriad of events leading up to and following Sister Ann's mission departure (and David's mission call) combined with the deadline for Kevin's thesis defense getting so close, we have not had a lot of personal family time.
 This past weekend ended up being just what we needed with beautiful weather and some scheduled family time away from daily tasks and thesis-es.
We decided spur of the moment to go out to eat together at a little local place called Casa Salza. (known for their creamy salsa) It was so FUN to get out together and enjoy each others' company away from all the distractions at home.

 We got to have a virtual chat with our dear friends (and cousins) Taryn and James to hear all their "moving to Texas" advice, which was very helpful but mostly I LOVED shnarning with them again. (sigh)
Kevin also made traditional Greek Easter cookies, Koulourakia. (He is 1/4 Greek, his Grandma is full Greek.) They are delicious with a little bit of chocolate milk.

We woke up Saturday morning to beautiful sunshine and decided to get right in the car and drive up the canyon to take advantage of the weather and go for a walk with Lee. It was so fun.  I even enjoyed the comments of the newly married couples we passed on our way back out of the canyon about baby+one on the way.

Sunday during our church services we sang a Hymn, "He is Risen" and though I've sung it a million times, it really struck me again what a miracle it is that Christ is risen and that with His resurrection comes the promise of our families not having to say goodbye when a loved one departs this earth, instead we can look forward to an eternal reunion with each other.  What a miracle and blessing to have such a selfless and perfect older brother in our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We drove up to have dinner at my mom and dad's with my mom's side of the family after church.  I actually was so glad my mom thought to get little Lee an Easter basket (we didn't) since he LOVED taking everything out of it, playing with it, putting it back in and repeating the process over and over. Overall it was really a wonderful weekend for our family and much needed to buoy up my recently very easily "blah" spirits.

pregnancy+exercise goals.

So, I'm not a marathon runner, or even much of a runner or "work-out crazy" for several years now. But I have noticed that frequent (almost daily) exercise greatly affects my emotions.  That being said, the tricky thing with pregnancy (at least for me) is that the nausea that comes with the first 16-18 weeks renders me almost completely incapable of doing any form of exercise since my usually bad motion sickness becomes insane motion sickness during that time.  Anyway, by the end of that time I feel pretty bad about how I'm doing physically.  (probably doesn't help to have that be the "I just look chubby" phase of pregnancy either)
My first pregnancy was almost completely wrapped into the winter months which made it hard/impossible to get outside to exercise.  With the wonderful winter we've had this year I've found the same thing to be true (so far). To combat "house arrest" my first pregnancy I did a whole lot of stairs and walking around and around my house for my daily exercise.  Not super exciting no, but I could do it whenever, didn't have to get myself "presentable" first and didn't have to battle the cold and slush.  I found out at the beginning of this pregnancy that the frequent tightness I felt in my abdominal region during said exercise was actually contractions.  So, I wasn't super keen on doing the same thing for the daily "work-out" this pregnancy.
*Lee came almost exactly 4 weeks early, which actually was a miracle with our timing last spring but brought about it's own trials and is something I'd rather not repeat if possible with this baby.

So this pregnancy I bike.  Yep. Inside, every day (almost.)
Kevin is really into cycling and when we saw a fantastic deal on a women's cycling bike over a year ago, we jumped on it. With pregnancy and a newborn I hadn't been able to do much street riding for a while so I was curious to see how the indoor riding would go.
We purchased a closeout bike trainer and I got started the next day (or so).
*For those who (like me) don't know what a trainer is: it's a frame that holds the back wheel of a bike in place and essentially makes it a stationary bike.

 

progression through the months. aka overtaking of the stomach.

*First hurdle: getting into the regular exercise "groove" again.
It was really hard for me to work a work-out into my daily schedule with Lee.  I already had such a long list of things to do when he was sleeping I knew I'd have to do it when he was awake.  Luckily, Lee handles a half an hour or so of "independent play" really well. 

*Second hurdle: the growing stomach and reaching the handle bars. 
Not a joke. I was finding myself uncomfortably straining to reach the handlebars in a way that would be comfortable for the full work-out time.  So Kevin actually rigged them for me, work like a dream stomach and all. 

I started really consistently in January and I can report that I'm back to feeling a lack when I don't exercise on a given day and that it's become habitual for me again. And again, it makes me feel so much better than when I don't exercise.
Nope, I'm not doing the world's most difficult work-out each day but for me, right now, exercise is exercise and thus it's golden.

sweaty head syndrome.

Lee has what we like to call *sweaty head syndrome*. Ever since he was first born his little head (wait..big head.) could really sweat.  A lot. Wet circle every time we take him out of the carseat. Wet circle in the crib. Wet circle on our pillows. Basically wet circles are always found when Lee has been sleeping somewhere.  I don't know what he is going to do in humid, hot Houston when we move this summer.  Just wanted to make sure I documented it before it's a forgotten baby memory.

(use Lee's hand for scale.)