New Baby looks Suspiciously Like Old Baby

On Tuesday we got to take a little peak at the baby.  And of course we were excited to find out the answer to the whole he/she debate.  But we also wanted to make sure that baby is growing and healthy.  And boy is he. 

Little man is right on track just like his big brother.  He weighed in at the same, measured the same, and is sitting breech just like Charlie.

Also... he looks just like Charlie.  Now the pic we have is at a slightly different chin angle, because this is when the little guy was still hiding his goods.  His head is thrown back a bit because he is most definitely laughing at us. 

So what do you think? 

 

And just as a reminder of how cute our original recipe baby is... here are some of my favorite photos from this past hot as hell weekend.

What a doll!

Slacker Blogger- Retrospect #1

It is no secret that I was quite the slacker extraordinaire with this blog over the last few months (ok, so more like year).  It is with renewed vigor that I once again ask you if I can enter your homes with my poorly written stories and musings.

In honor of my top notch blog avoidance I hope to bring you all up to speed in a series of retrospects in no particular order.

Retrospect #1- "Charlie's First Birthday"

On the 16th day of this past hot and humid June, my baby turned one.  He was unimpressed by his chosen outfit, but he did like that he got special cake cookies at school.  It's the little things.  His official birthday party was to be Saturday at the lake, so his actual birthday was less than glamorous.

On Saturday, I was sick.  My mom was sick.  My dad was sick.  Charlie's Auntie Amanda was sick.  Matthew felt less than 100%.  ANNNND we had 24 guests scheduled to drive 1.5 to the party.  It was tough, but at 10am we called everyone and told them not to come. Part of the family was already there (or already infected) so we just kept it to a tight crowd that wouldn't get mad if they became insanely ill afterwards.

We felt sooo guilty for Charlie.  But, you know what, he didn't notice and didn't care.  He ran around like his little mad man self and had a blast.  He had a few friends show up to play with and that meant all the world to him.  That--- and cake of course.

Here is also his video/slideshow that I put together as a gift to him.  (More like a gift to his future wife, who I am sure will demand it for the rehearsal dinner)

Mmmmm... Cupcakes.

If you are a friend on facebook, you already know.  But of course, it is time to share with the world at large. Which cupcakes did we share with friends and family?

Yesterday at 10am we made our way over to our doctor's office for a little date with the ultra sound technician.  First things first she wanted to see what baby's sex was.  And, fail.  Baby was sitting very comfortably with legs crossed.  Poke poke poke.  Nothing.

At this point I starting thinking that neither pink or blue sprinkles would make an appearance.  But, undeterred, the scan went on.  We got to see all of baby's toes, baby's healthy heart and all of the wonderful bones.  Baby is measuring exactly on time and weighed about 12 oz.  

So, back we were to investigate between the legs.  Baby started wiggling toes and all of a sudden, boom, there it was.  There was no mistaking it, our next little one is a baby... BOY!

Charlie will have a little brother for his partner in crime.  I will be officially outnumbered.  I suppose now would be the time for me to learn to actually throw a ball, eh?

We are so excited to have another little guy.  It will be an easier adjustment in the household, although I will miss out on making little dresses.  But, one of these days one of our siblings will bless us with a niece, and you can bet your hat that I will spoil the heck out of her.

So where do we go from here?  My two main concerns now are names and lodging.  

It is weird, the names that we had picked out as back-up names when Charlie was born don't feel right anymore.  It feels like they all fell off the table because they weren't for him.  This leaves us with a blank slate and two very opinionated parents with different ideas of what makes a name right.

The second concern is nursery.  I love, and I mean LOVE Charlie's nursery.  I love everything about it.  That being said (because yes, I just said it) I don't know how I can compete with it.  I feel like everything that we do will fall short.  So, do I just put together a nursery?  Theme it up and move along?  Or do we make a new bigger boy room for Charlie and switch him out?  Ahhhh decisions.

Boy, Girl, Cupcake?

So tomorrow is the big day.  Yep, the BIG day.  I am so giddy I don't know how I will ever sleep tonight.
With this pregnancy I have been feeling a lot of guilt.  Most of my guilt is that since being pregnant is old hat I am really not treasuring all of the experiences like I did with Charlie.  I have no idea when I started to feel this baby move.  I know it happened one day and I wasn't surprised and I moved along with my day.  Same thing with my bump sticking out.  With Charlie I would practically measure to see every millimeter of growth.  Now every time I have to pull a short top down in the front I am surprised that my tummy is bigger.  I don't want baby to ever feel like he or she hasn't had the same love in the womb--- because baby has.  It's just that love now comes in quiet moments when I have time to sit and be with baby.
However, tomorrow this baby will have something that Charlie never had.  That is right, we are giving this baby the chance to show us the goods.  Not finding out the sex of the baby last time was my idea.  Finding out this time was a MUST and we both were gung ho.
Will it be a boy?  Will Charlie get a little partner in crime.  Will I be forever outnumbered in the Tal household?  Or will it be a girl that I can craft the world's cutest dresses for.  A baby that Matthew will never allow to date until she is 30 years old?  I can't wait to find out.  Eeeeee!

So let's take a peek at our odds...

Here are the BOY facts from Matthew and my families:
Number of Siblings that are boys- 3
Number of 1st Cousins that are boys- 10
Number of Uncles-7
Total-20

Here are the GIRL facts from Matthew and my families:
Number of Siblings that are girls-0
Number of 1st Cousins that are girls-11
Number of Aunts-1
Total-12

As you can see, the numbers are a little bit more than skewed.  In fact, if it were not for Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Perry's family line the girl numbers would be very sad.

So, let's look a little bit further out in the family lines.  The numbers get hard to calculate at this point--- so we will look at specific case studies of babes born in the last--- let's say 2.5 years, and only born to first cousins...
Kristi (first cousin of M)- BOY
Sara (first cousin of M)-BOY
Marissa (and Scott, first cousin of M)-BOY
Kelli (first cousin of M)-BOY
Chrissy (and Nick, first cousin of M)- BOY

Now in my family NONE of my first cousins have kids.  But, quite a few of my Grandma's siblings grandchildren have kids.  So, just so that my family tree looks somewhat represented, here are the stats from that branch.
Shaelie (and Cliff, second cousin of L)-GIRL and GIRL
Katie (and Brent, second cousin of L)-GIRL
Melanie (and Al, second cousin of L)-GIRL (also note that they already have 2 boys--- but they are older than the cutoff age)

Wow.  That took a lot of brain power.

So to tell the news we are using a very sturdy, dependable and much loved cupcake.  The cakes themselves are funfetti... simply because funfetti is awesome.  They will be iced in white ahead of time and we are taking two jars of sprinkles with us.  When we get to work we'll either have pink cakes or blue cakes.  Or in the case of having a shy baby there will be no cupcakes as I will have consumed them all in efforts to sugar shock the baby into exposing him(her)self.

Re-Birth Pre-Birth

An event like this calls for a re-birth.  Guess what world?  This blogger is back, baby!  And welcome to our newer, cleaner, cooler home on blogger.  I hope you like what you see because you are going to see it at least once a week now.  And that is an almost guarantee.
To say that a lot has happened since my last post is an understatement.  I think when you see my highlights you might see why we were a teensy bit busy. For brevity here is the low down.

• Charlie started walking in April
• Charlie found out he was going to be a big brother 
• Charlie started running in May
• Charlie started CLIMBING in June
• Charlie got his drivers license in July 

Okay, so that last one is a slight exaggeration, but you get my point.  This little guy is growing up so fast it is making my head spin.

The other big time news is of course that Charlie is going to have a great responsibility in December when the littlest Tal will arrive.  Boy or a girl, what will it be?  Ahh you'll have to wait until... TUESDAY!  That's right dear friends, we are finding out this time around.  Stand by for our official guessing game later this weekend.
So, here is what you all come back for, my chubby gut.  Please, take it in.  It is a glorious preggo sight to behold.

Unfortunately, I don't have a 20 week picture from my pregnancy with Charlie.  It seems like I might have *gasp* been a bad blogger then as well.  So in lieu, I will compare with my 22 week picture from January of 2010.

 

Same jeans, same shirt, same... WHOA.. what?

 

 

I think it is pretty safe to say that I am bigger with this baby.  It may just be my body remembering what the whole "pregnancy" thing is.  Or, maybe this is a different kind of baby? Time will tell!