and the verdict is.....

No twins.
Girl.
Due date the same (June 27).

Apparently the combination of the size of my uterus and lil' missy's positioning makes me measure bigger than what I should be at this stage. Regardless, praise God for another healthy baby!

this boy

is almost 15 months. Wow. Here's what he's been up to lately.

Continues to favor the word hot, but added up and daddy to his vocab. Everyone is daddy, including himself. He also says animal noises for dog, cat, horse, monkey, and cow. Lately he likes to try mimicking the noise for snoring as well.

Has taken interest in wanting to use a spoon. He'll walk around the house with a spoon and bowl all day, pretending there's food in there.

Loves what we call rolly polly time. It's usually right before bedtime - he likes to get on the floor and roll around with momma and daddy.

Is kind of down to one nap per day. Some days he needs 2 naps. But for some reason, going from 2 to 1 nap has made him sleep longer at night. This boy sleeps from around 7:15 until 9:30 in the morning some days! Is that normal?!

Going through separation anxiety. He's never cried when dropped off at the nursery or at the daycare in the gym. Those days are gone for now though. Hoping this phase won't last too long.

Loves being outside. He enjoys finding sticks and poking the ground with it. He also loves to rake the yard. He'll always make a fuss when it's time to come inside.

Has been cutting teeth forever it seems like. He now has 4 front teeth on top, 3 front teeth on bottom, and 4 molars.

Continues to be a little ham. He's the most charming little boy, which makes it so hard to discipline him!

Baby Krieger #2: boy, girl or....twins??

Yesterday I had my 16 week appointment, which went great overall. I was looking forward to scheduling my 20 week ultrasound, where we'll find out the gender of Baby Krieger #2. Instead of having to wait 4 more weeks for the ultrasound though, I only have to wait 12 more days. Why?

Because I'm measuring at 20 weeks already.

They said that means I'm either having twins or my due date is 4 weeks earlier.

Without going into too much information, I don't see how the date I calculated myself would be a whole 4 weeks off what I'm measuring.

However, they've only heard 1 heartbeat at my previous 2 appointments, but yet my dad is a twin - and so if anyone in this family is going to have twins, it would be me.

I asked perhaps maybe this just means I'll have another big baby? No, they said - all babies grow at the same rate pretty much the first 20 weeks.

And so I just really have no idea. I could be way off my due date or I could be having twins. We'll just have to keep guessing until my ultrasound on January 25 to see if Baby Krieger is a boy, a girl or if there's a Baby Krieger #2 and #3 in there!

happy birthday steve

Today is my husband's 27th birthday. Here he is in Zanzibar when he was growing out a mustache and still wore a headband in his hair. If you're wondering, he's doing a hand motion that was popular in Tanzania amongst the men - it means 'cool'.


I thought I would write down just a few things about him that I'm appreciating today for who he is:

- a man who is confident
- a man who lives for the Lord
- a man who compliments his wife 109239847 times a day
- a man who does not want to live a 'normal' life
- a man who loves to spend time with his son
- a man who excels at his job
- a man who likes to read, shoot guns, write poetry, do anything outdoors, play music, play sports
- a man who loves his family more than anything else in this world

Happy Birthday Steve! And thanks Peggy for laboring and bearing Steve into this world!
(Now that I'm a mom myself I feel like the mom should definitely get as much (if not more) celebration on their children's birthday, being they did all the work that day - amen?!)

why we need a great dane.

I've been trying to talk Steve into getting not only a dog, but a big dog ever since we got back from Tanzania. I grew up with dogs and having 2 of them in Tanzania made me remember just how much I love having a dog of my own. To this day though, we are still a dog-less family, so obviously my arguments for getting a dog haven't been too persuasive.

Well I attempted to remedy that yesterday. We dog-sat a friend's Great Dane for several hours and let me just mention that Caleb was in heaven (and perhaps so was I). So in order to better my argument for needing a dog, I took full advantage of this short test run we had as dog owners to try to win Steve over.

Some examples of my persuasive arguments that I used throughout the day:

When I saw Caleb giving his cracker to the dog - "See Steve, a dog will teach Caleb how to share."

Or when we were all on the front porch hanging out and the dog growled at the mailman who instantly got scared and backed away - "See, people are scared of big dogs. No one would ever think about robbing us if they saw this huge beast in our house."

Watching Caleb laugh at the dog, pet the dog, mimic the dog's panting, follow the dog everywhere she went - "See, every little boy needs a faithful pup to grow up with. They'll become best buds."

Going for a walk down the block with Caleb chasing after the dog - "See, going for walks are so much more fun with a dog!"

In the backyard doing some work on the garden while Caleb and the dog played with sticks - "See, having a dog would entertain Caleb and enable us to get things done around the house a lot quicker!"

Lastly, when we were just hanging out in the family room - "See Steve, a 100lb dog can actually fit in our house just fine"

Don't you agree??

just your typical winter day.

67 degrees in January? Ummm yes, please - I'll take it. In order to take full advantage of this amazing weather we had a family picnic at the VMFA where Caleb was more interested in finding sticks, playing with the dogs, and running around in the grass than eating his lunch:

a look back at 2011

Hello again blog world - it's been a while, I know. With the busyness of the Christmas season and honestly just not feeling inspired to blog, I took a little hiatus. Forgive me. But with the new year, I'm back and ready to write a bit more frequently.

Because it's the first week of the new year, I thought I'd start off by looking back at my goals from 2011 and well, see how I did. I don't have any new goals for this upcoming year - there are a few from 2011 that still need some work.

2011 Goals

1. Be in the Word daily. This one definitely needs some work this year again. I am thankful for the time I'm in the Word with friends, our community group, and our church, but still need to figure out how to better manage my time at home to make sure this happens more consistently on my own.

2. Have more mommy friends. So thankful to have met fellow moms at RH and friends of old that I've reunited with this past year who also have children. Time with other moms has been so beneficial and therapeutic!

3. Improve my time management at home. Once Caleb got on more of a consistent routine, managing my chores around the house got easier. I definitely don't have it all together and our house is unorganized and cluttered a lot of the time, but it's as good as it can be when you have a toddler running around everywhere!

4. Pray more diligently for others. This is yet another one I need to work on again this year.

5. Learn new things. Crocheting was a failure. Our vegetable garden did well - we had a lot of veggies harvested and learned a lot from just our first year. I love raised garden beds and can't wait to plant for this year! I tried several new recipes that I loved and hated - will continue to try out new ones throughout this year.

6. Quilt and read. I definitely read a lot this year. I found out you can really get through some books when you're nursing. I completed one quilt, made some progress on the cathedral window quilt, and completed a few random sewing projects that were on my list of to dos. This year I hope to make several more baby quilts (one for myself even)!