February

Valentines was one of my favorite holidays as a kid. It was when you got to make a fun valentines box for all of the valentines at school. I always wanted to win the competition and even managed to win one year. Plus, I had a dad who gave all of his girls a valentine. I would look forward to that every year. What a fun Valentines Day we had at our house. Or at least, what a fun day Mom had thanks to Dad. Bruce went all out for Valentines. He arranged for my wonderful in-laws to watch Gideon and then we went and picked up food from Olive Garden. He then took me to a local park pavilion, where he had candles set up and sparkling cider set out for us. He even made a special playlist for Valentines that had all of my favorite songs. Bruce doesn't enjoy dancing, but I got to dance a couple of songs with my sweetheart before it got too cold to keep up the dancing. Even though it was super cold outside, it was one of the most romantic nights we've had. It was such a surprise.

Our second pregnancy is coming along nicely. We are having a baby girl and the countdown is now less than eight weeks. Now comes the phase of waddling! Gideon obviously doesn't completely understand why mom's belly is growing, but it is still fun. Whenever we ask where the baby is, he comes up and kisses my belly. He is going to be such a fun big brother! He is such a joy to watch grow and develop. He is starting to talk and it is so much easier now that he can tell me things. My favorite is when he tells me he wants "Lenonade". It makes both of us laugh. This last weekend, he got a new big boy bed. We aren't quite at the point of sleeping in it at night, but he does climb into it for bed time. We are hoping that by next weekend, we can get him to start to sleep in it. We wanted to have some time to take down the crib before we reset it up. That way, the crib can be the baby's instead of his.

Bruce is still looking for a full time teaching job. He has gotten quite a few substitute teaching jobs and is still working every night at the pizza place. While this has been a blessing, I am ready to have Dad be home more. He is such a hard worker. I am always amazed when I realize that most nights he is getting less than six hours of sleep just so we can survive. Gideon really misses his Daddy, though. I can always tell when it has been too many days of not seeing his Dad. He will cry for almost no reason. Half an hour a day of seeing Daddy just isn't enough. But we really appreciate all of Bruce's hard work for our little family. We know that someday, this will be one of those times we look back on and say "Look what we accomplished" and it will be a great learning experience. Until then, we will just keep going.