Chatty Preston

Mr. P is doing well these days. He is quite the chatty little man. His language skills have taken off in the last two weeks! He's randomly spitting out words that he's apparently been listening to us say to him for sometime, and all of the sudden, it's clicked, and he can say them. It's the coolest, neatest thing! He def comes by his "chattiness" very honesty.

He can now say, " Night Night"

He loves to tickle us and the dogs…well, and the carpet, too, and say, “ tickle tickle tickle” and tickle you. 

"Na Na" for banana ( he shares my banana with me every morning at breakfast)

He can sign and say, " No"

I think I already mentioned but he is also signing, " Daddy"

He can sign the letter, " A" when we do the alphabet. He so badly wants to be able to sign the rest of the letters. As I sign and sing ABC's to him both of his hands and fingers are just moving away trying to mimic what I'm doing with my hands. If you don't know sign, you'd probably think he was signing his ABCs perfectly. He looks so dang cute.

He loves to tell the dogs, " SShhhhhh...."

He says, " Dog"

-His eating habits have really deteriorated. I am desperately wanting him off purees, but he literally eats minimal table food now and throws everything we try with him from his tray.

-He's still love to brush his own teeth and hair and tries to put his PJs on himself

 -First big fall. He face planted on the kitchen tile and busted his upper lip and it looks like he also busted his attached frenulum too. Blood everywhere from his mouth and nose. So glad this first is over with. I tried not to freak, and I think I did pretty well if I say so myself ( we're actually pretty chilled out when Preston hurts himself) 

 -He has found out that his nose has two holes in it. He constantly has his finger, if not two fingers, in his nostrils.

-He will immediately imitate a lot of what we do and say.

-He’s pretty in to riding Glory like a horse.

As you cane see this little one is quite the amazing little guy. I am constantly amazed. There is not one day that goes by that I'm not fully aware of the beauty that is his life and the beauty in us being his parents. Every child is a product of their environment and raising, whether parents like to own that or not. And it is extremely important to Kevin and I that Preston not have a a full suitcase of things he must work against as he grows in a man with regard to his upbringing. So every decision we make for Preston, from how we are choosing to invest in his future education to allowing him to wear an amber necklace is well thought out and purposeful. For us, the most important and best gift we can ever give Preston, and our new Bean, is to be parents on purpose every day of their lives. Preston as a first grader, Preston as a middle school boy on the baseball field, Preston on his first date, Preston driving for the first time, Preston choosing his wife, Preston choosing his career, Preston choosing what kind of man he will be and what kind of heart he will have is all a direct reflection of Kevin and I and how we parent him all of his days. Sure, every kid goes off hundreds of times and makes choices that you KNOW are against how you raised them. That's a part of the process, too. But at the end of the day, they will always come back to their roots, so parents better plants some good, deep seeds, so those seeds turn into strong and healthy roots that they can always rely on to point them in the right direction.  Okay, little bit of a soapbox. :) 

Okay, moving along. Kevin and I are great. We have been doing some work on our car situation over the past few weeks, and we are finally done with it all! We did have two cars, with two car payments. In an effort to lower our monthly expenses, we felt this was one area that we had a lot of opportunity. Soo...we traded in both of our cars, bought Kevin a used car that we could afford to purchase with cash ( so no payment) and we got me an SUV for the kiddos. We both have really been wanting to tackle this task for some time, but we have been forced to wait a bit so that we would have some positive equity in our two cars. And Kevin has really been excited to get an "old" car for him.  I have no idea why  because we don't mean old like a fixer-upper car project, but, anyway, he ended up finding a 2003 truck/suv that will be able to haul around however many kiddos we have  with relatively low miles and all checked out on inspection prior to buying it, so we're hoping it turns out to be a good investment for us. I went back to my roots on this one, and got a -it's gonna-last-forever Honda Pilot. It took some time to work out all the logistics of making it all work and finding a car for Kevin---we didn't have a lot of money to spend--and all the low priced cars sell in like minutes. But we got it all done, and we're set. 

I'm starting to feel the baby move some. I think I've been feeling it for a few weeks, but it's hard to tell when it's this early, and when you have an anterior placenta. I can still only feel it when I'm quiet and still, but I definitely think I'm feeling it. Sooo excting! Kevin says he can't wait until I get, ' big'. I'm pretty sure I should be really thankful to hear him say this. :) I'm really excited too. I'm now out of the size 1's and into the size 4's. I weigh 115/116#. I cannot believe how much weight I have already gained. I sure hope this is not a trend. I have no idea why either. I'm eating normally. No weird cravings or indulgences, it's so weird. I've been really thinking lately that we need to cherish these last months with Preston as an only child. This time will never be again. And it makes me sad to think about. I know we will all adjust and all will be fine, but there is something so sweet about the time we're in. 

Okay, so gotta run and head off to LifeGroup. Thank you for all of your support and kindness through our journey to be people and family that we are today. Much love.