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!

Thank You

Wow.  I never post anymore.   This makes me sad, and I apologize for my lack of sharing.  And, I promise to remedy it soon.  A lot of my extracurriculars are starting to slow down, so hopefully you will hear more from the Tals.

In the meantime, I wanted to share that on this Ash Wednesday I am starting 40 special days.  When I was growing up I always had a few Catholic friends who gave something up for lent.  It was usually something like pop, chocolate, candy and sweets.  Honestly, I never really understood how 40 days of no chocolate would make someone a better Christian.  I understand the symbolism, and appreciate it, but as a non-catholic, non-denominational gal, it wasn't for me.

Again this year I am not giving up anything. Instead I am committing to be more thankful.  Each day until Easter I will write a thank you card.  I have much to be thankful for and often times I forget to express my gratitude.  Rather than giving something up, I want to start giving something back.  If you aren't giving something up--- come join me.

And because no post is complete without a picture of Charlie...

Where have we been?!?

Yes, this post is approximately two and a half months late.  Somehow we have been so busy that we missed a 5 month post... a thanksgiving post... a 6 month post... AND a Christmas post.  Oopsies.

Forgive me for this abridged version of the past two months--- but all you are after are the pictures anyways, am I right?

So I guess that to officially update everyone I should go back in time to November 16th.

Ahhh.... November 16th.  The air was warmer than a usual November (50 degrees) and Charlie was enjoying every minute of it with near daily walks with his Grandma.  She was still watching him five days a week.  He was a big growing boy.  Two weeks before his 5 month Birthday he had started doing an army crawl.  By the 16th he was pulling his way along like a little champ.  Gone were the days of setting him down and walking away.

Not long after he hit 5 months Charlie took his first long car ride to the state up north for Thanksgiving.  He took the car ride like a champ and entertained all of his cousins, uncles, aunts and great grandmas to boot.  He even stayed at a hotel and went swimming in the pool with his mom and pop.  The trip was the kick off to a very busy holiday season.





Just after turkey day Charlie started daycare.  Three days a week he goes to see Miss Kim and play at her house.  It has been a hard adjustment for him since he is so used to being the center of attention.  He wants to constantly entertain and he is always out for a laugh.

On December 16th, Charlie hit 6 months.  It is hard to remember what our life was like before this little guy.  He is 18 and a half pounds and about 27 some inches tall and is the army crawl champ.  He is able to pull himself up on all fours and likes to rock a bit.  He rolls and coos and dances and cracks himself up.  He is obsessed with dogs and cats and grins from ear to ear.  He has also started eating some solid foods which has been both hilarious and messy.  He HATES peas, loves squash and is indifferent about most other things that we have slowly started trying.





Christmas was so much fun with the little guy.  We went to see Santa and although Charlie didn't like him all that much, I don't think we scarred him that badly.  Hopefully as he gets older he'll grow to love the old guy.  We had many a Christmas party that Charlie was the star of and Christmas Eve we went to the candlelight service at Church.

Christmas Morning we opened our gifts and spent the morning together with the three of us before heading over to my mom and dads for the day.  Charlie was spoiled of course.  And the next day we did it all over again with Matt's family.  Again, Charlie really cleaned up!

Now it is 2011.  I can't believe it.  And I don't know if it is possible for the new year to even compare to our last.  Happy New Year to all.

Free is my Favorite.

It will come to no shock to you all that I am always looking for a deal.  I love getting the best price on just about anything and when I score something awesome I get WAY too excited.

Speaking of, remember my sell out post a couple weeks ago?  You know, the one where I gushed about Shutterfly?  Well here comes some more gushing.  I LOVE SHUTTERFLY.  Why, oh why?  Probably because I just got the 50 free holiday cards I earned by blogging about them.  You read that right, 50 free cards.  And Envelopes.  And I barely had to lift a finger.  Talk about a steal--- that is a $119 value steal.  WOOT.

To continue the love fest, I must admit, the cards turned out awesome.  I cannot yet share their beauty since I want everyone to be surprised when they get them in the mail.  Eeeeeee!

It's the most wonderful time of the Year....

Although it is nearly 70 degrees and sunny as can be today, the holidays are in deed sneaking up on us.  And with the holidays comes all of the hustle, and bustle and of course all of the traditions.

One tradition that Matt and I have had since we have been together is our Christmas card.  We take great pride in our Christmas creations, and always try to find that perfect balance between funny and sweet.  Last year was probably our least inspired card so I am definitely trying to make up for it this year.  

Luckily, we have a clever ally in Shutterfly.  As you all know, we have a share site where we keep all of our pictures of our family (Check em out HERE).  The site also has a ton of Christmas (or Holiday if you so choose) cards for you to choose from.  You can browse their complete selection here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

Now that our lives are Charlie filled we have a little less time for all of the cutting, scoring and folding so partnering and using a site like Shutterfly is a pretty darn good choice.

Want to see a couple of my favorites?

I am a sucker for the Holly Jolly font.. or what about...

Or this?

Of course I am not going to let the cat out of the bag on which we are actually choosing, but you can be sure it will be adorable :)

Once you are on the site they also have many a photo- related gift.  Like these calendars. Or you can always use these gift tags... super cute.  I might have to make some grandma gifts with Charlie.

Do you love Shutterfly as much as we do?  Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… learn more: http://bit.ly/sfly2010