We love you Ms. Hadzira!

So I never thought I'd turn into someone who blogs less than once a week, but here I am. Once you get out of the habit, it's just hard to re-find the time for it. If I tried to include everything y'all have missed I would have a day long blog post, so I'm just going to skip to the most recent...

Friday was Hunter's last day as an Explorer at LHCCEC. I can't remember if I ever told y'all, but Hunter did finally get his language burst...better late than never:) Although I know it would've come regardless, I attribute much of what he's learned to Ms. Hadzira (and the other teachers that rotated through) and Hunter's classmates. I never thought I'd love his school so much. Here's some of Hunter's latest conversation topics...

*The ABCs - He loves the ABC song and will look at you and say, "ABCD! ABCD!" to let you know he wants you to sing it with him. Sometimes he'll sing random letters with you like the P or the O, but usually he just listens.

*Twinkle Twinkle - He also loves this song. He always wants it sung right after we finish with our ABCs. He'll say "up a" and make his little diamond symbol with his hands. He calls stars "up a" because of the part of the song that says, "UP Above the world so high".

(In case you hadn't noticed, it is pretty genius that he recognizes that those tunes are the same. He's so going to have perfect pitch. I mean what else would I expect with him humming Twinkle Twinkle at such very young age...see here.)

*Shapes - He really only names circle and star spontaneously right now, but he will imitate all of the other names. He loves to pull out his shape sorter and try to push the shape through saying, "noooo. noooo. noooo." when it doesn't fit. It's really cute.

*Numbers - He's starting talking more about numbers, and Ms. Hadzira said that he'll get really upset if they skip counting to 10 for the day...so they always make sure to do it for him (they don't spoil him or anything!). On the way home from school last week he was going, "siiiix. niiiine. siiiix. niiiine" and when I was telling James the story when he got home, Hunter would say, "ten!" after every time I said "nine".

*Animals - He still loves animals...well talking about them at least. We were at Aunt Katie's house this week and every time the dogs ran up to him he'd give me the death grip and say, "hurt you! hurt you!"

We're going to miss Ms. Hadzira so much! Here's Hunter and her on Friday (their last day together)... And since that's not the best picture of her, here he is with Ms. Hadzira and Ms. Sandy...

See how sad he is to be leaving them? I think I feel more sad than he does though. I heart Ms. Hadzira.

The good news is Hunter is now re-united with his first friends (Noah and the gang) that had already moved up to the Crickets class. We're praying for an easy transition. Hopefully his friends can make it better for him!

Charlotte? Is that you?

So my sweet friend at the DPRC did a sonogram for James and I - okay I'm not gonna lie, she did two for us. i try not to be too high maintenance, but sometimes the hormones enhance that part of my personality a little - because I wanted to find out the gender early. Unfortunately, she couldn't tell for sure at either visit. We have a modest little baby in there...using either the umbilical cord or legs to cover up the "private areas". Good for her! We're getting an early start on those modesty lessons:)

As you probably guessed, we think it's a girl. Lisa (our friend who did the sono) thinks it's probably a girl, too, but she's not 100% - that umbilical cord can throw you off:)

So although this isn't the big reveal, I'm gonna share some pictures from one of our baby's very first photo shoots...

Giving a wave

A little skeleton face...we were looking at the profile and she turned really quickly to look at us. It was so sweet...and a little scary:)

I've put a poll on the side for y'all to vote on whether you think it's a boy or girl. Our next sono is on March 10, so I'll leave it open until then.

And you know you want to vote so I don't have to come on here every day and vote so it looks like people actually care:)

Parent of the Year

So apparently the more time you let go by between blog posts, the harder it is to actually write one. So as I was looking through my few pictures and thinking of stories to tell, and here's what I came up with...

*It's actually been over a month since this happened, but as I mentioned above blogging has not been a priority for me with all of the puking. Anyway, we went on one of our regular walks to the park one day and Hunter was so cute at the top of this slide that I got loads of cute pics. Since I know you're dying for it, here's a sample...

He was hesitant to go down because he couldn't figure out how to turn his little body at the angle he was positioned. So after much luring, he finally slid down head first, and y'all, it was a disaster. He skidded the whole way on his hands and was crying (no real tears though...just a look of terror on his face), but it really was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, so I did what any mom would do and took a picture...Yes. As my kid was sliding down in terror, I'm taking pictures. Judge if you want, but it was dang funny.

*We went to a super bowl party at the church, but I kept Hunter there entirely too late, so the only pictures we got were close to that of mug shots...

No our child is not drugged....just exhausted.

*We got this box in the mail earlier this week...

...my son's first response after seeing it was "pizza! pizza!" And in case that's not a big enough clue to you on how health conscious I've been lately, just look at the fruit roll ups in the background...and I guess the donuts aren't scoring me any points either.

*Here's where I redeem myself, though, people. We were all playing in Hunter's room one night this week and Hunter pulled out his Bible. (He loves books, but he especially hearts his Bible). He was reading it aloud to us - which sound something like "boodigoogifas apple gadomisuh ssssss(for the snake)" - when he suddenly stopped, put his hands together, and said, "Amen. Amen." Cutest thing ever.

So my kid may not be eating a perfectly balanced diet and living a bruise free life, but he sure does love Jesus.:)

Rockless No More

My mom was so sweet to us and watched Hunter this weekend so James and I could travel to Austin for my friend Liz's wedding. I met Liz in graduate school, and we became almost instant friends. Liz always has a crazy story or comment that brings a smile to everyone's face. She, along with my other dear friends from grad school, made those 2 years so special to me. We shared many hours studying, eating, talking, laughing, dancing, story telling (my favorite:)), and on and on.

...

During our first week of grad school, we had a class where we had to stand up and do the typical tell your name, why you love speech path, blah, blah, blah. Our professor also wanted us to add our biggest fear onto our little intro. This is probably my favorite get to know you topic of all of the ones I've experienced. Favorite pizza, favorite color, shoe size, boring, boring, boring. Biggest fear...that will give us some real insight. Did I mention this professor was a genius? She was. Anyway, many of us said that our biggest fear was that we'd never get married. In case that wasn't a dead give away, there aren't many men in the speech pathology world:)

...

So Liz (I think it was Liz) decided to form the rockless club for us gals who weren't yet married, but still had hope! That was six and a half years ago, and here we are (most of us anyway) today...

I'm so thankful for their friendships, and I'm so excited for Liz and Philip!

...

Here are some more pictures from the night... me and my honey...I love going to weddings with James because it always makes me think of ours, and how lucky I am to share my life with this wonderful man.

me and the bride