what is roo-2 trying to tell me?

i have decided that, even though almost all of our newborn clothes are gender-neutral and will work just fine, roo-2 should get a brand new outfit to wear home from the hospital. and since we don't know if roo-2 is a girl-roo or a boy-roo i have to get one of each. i suppose i could get another gender-neutral outfit, but where's the fun in that? - anyway, i was just fawning over the adorable dresses on babygap.com and roo-2 starting going crazy. - so, is she excited that i am looking at pretty dresses? - or is he worried that i might dress him in one?? - hmmmmm.

t-r-o-u-b-l-e

of course i'm not standing on the coffee table!

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and i'm definitely not dancing on the coffee table!

-and i would never do my chris kattan as mr. peepers eating a biscuit imitation while standing on a puzzle on the coffee table!

diy puzzle storage

quentin has accumulated a little puzzle collection. and he even enjoys doing the puzzles, but most of all he enjoys dumping the pieces all over the place and then transporting them everywhere - the kitchen, the bathroom, the car, etc. pieces are under every piece of furniture and every night we go on a puzzle piece scavenger hunt once Q has gone to bed to put them all back together again. - i decided that a puzzle rack to be placed in his confined cellar playland was just the thing we needed. this one from melissa & doug is super-cute but costs between $30-40 AND apparently doesn't even fit most melissa & doug puzzles. so i made my own using a ton of zip ties and leftover pieces of the shelves that we used to construct playland in the first place. -

plus it's expandable!

hanging out

quentin is only going to daycare 3 days a week now. it really doesn't make sense to have him go any days a week, but he loves it so much i just can't pull him out. the 3-day week also works out well for linda since things there are crazy with the two new babies. normally Q will stay home with me on wednesdays and thursdays but this week he stayed home yesterday and today because linda's assistant is on vacation. - yesterday i let Q stay in his jammies for a while. here he is destroying our house, enjoying his milk, and watching mickey mouse clubhouse. he even came and got me from the kitchen to tell/show me that mickey was on. loves him some mickey (though it sounds like "diddy" when he says it!) -

- and now that the weather is warmer, the cellar playland is once again in business. we usually spend an hour down there every night before tuck-in time. here quentin demonstrates how to wear a demolished plastic hat and how to crash trucks into each other. boys. -

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i like how he is watching himself push the truck in the mirror in this last one :)

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not sure if you can see it in the playland pics or not, but Q suffered his first real boo-boo at the playground last night. he tripped on the concrete and now has a cut under his nose, a cut on his bottom lip, a giant scrape on his arm, and a huge bruise on one of his knees. he, of course, doesn't even notice!

lasting impressions

we've started going to a new church up here. quentin seems to enjoy "learning" (i.e. playing) in the under 5 sunday school class. and he seems to be making quite an impression on the other kids. last week one of the mothers told us how her two kids didn't stop talking about Q the whole week. and then this week i overheard one little girl telling one of her friends about the new boy in sunday school. i am only assuming she was talking about quentin because her description was, "he's about this tall, only like 2 years old, and his name begins with a Q." guess it could be another kid ;)

roo-2: 29 weeks

i am clearly pregnant now because strangers are not afraid to ask me when i am due. and when i tell them july they always look shocked, like they expected it to be much sooner than that. yeah the kid is going to be big. just like the 7 pound, 10 ounce "preemie" i had last time :) i don't know if i'll be able to handle it if roo-2 cooks for the whole 40 weeks and comes out as a 10+ pounder!

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i am determined to have things go smoothly with this one. quentin's birth was nothing short of chaos, what with us being homeless nomads and all. so i am already prepping a distribution list for the arrival announcement email. i will put everyone i can think of on the list, but to ensure you're on it, you may just want to send me an email (my first name dot my last name at gmail.com) to be safe. as always the blog will be a good place for info too!

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from babycenter.com:

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Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

don't you just love a bargain?

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i was obsessing over these lamps since before there even was a roo-2. they were selling for $14.99 at christmas tree shops (my favorite store) though i have seen them in a catalog for $64.95!!! i couldn't justify buying them with no good use for them. then when we finally found out about roo-2 i decided to go ahead and get them for Q's new baseball room before they disappeared, as things often do at "the tree." i went to 5 different stores, but i was only able to find one. then this week, i saw them in their newspaper ad so we went out last night to grab a second. i was also able to snag this cool painting for $4.99. don't you just love a bargain? i do.

lol

compliments of aunt leah: -

guinness was in there again today, passed out napping. i'm sure he'll do it again so i can snap a picture.

cat's in the cradle

even if roo-2 doesn't like it, seems like the bassinet i bought will be loved by someone

roo at the zoo

in almost two full years of his residency, jeremy has not gotten a single monday holiday off. so since he had today off (and day care was closed), we decided to plan a fun day. the roger williams zoo in providence is less than an hour from our house, so we decided to check it out. we are now zoo members, so i am sure we will go several more times this year! - you'll notice that we had to employ the kiddie leash. quentin does not enjoy the stroller for extended periods of time, and he's awfully fast. we got to the zoo pretty early, so it wasn't super crowded. i don't think Q was hugely impressed by it, but he adored the crazy gibbons and the moon bears. things like rocks and sticks on the ground were more exciting than most of the other attractions. it's also hard to get good zoo pics with him in them since he doesn't sit still! -

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then, (after nap time, of course!) because we just haven't had enough fun the past few days, we went to the park near our house.

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he should be good and tired, and will hopefully sleep in a little tomorrow. unless that damn woodpecker comes back...

that's all, folks!

it's on, mr./ms. woodpecker. i think you are very pretty and i even keep the birdfeeders and suet well-stocked for you and your fine feathered friends. but i simply cannot have you pecking giant holes in the side of my house, especially outside of quentin's room, at 6 a.m. when he is actually sleeping. and i am the least of your problems, since i won't try to hurt you. the next-door neighbor, on the other hand, may invoke his g-u-n if you try this at his house again too.

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now to find humane ways to keep the woodpeckers off of my house! ideas?

surf and turf?

it was a beautiful sunny day here (though windy and chilly) so we decided to have some fun after church today. - first we went to our favorite farm store, hoping to get some of their awesome homemade pickles. they were out of pickles, but Q enjoyed the animals so it was still fun. he really got a kick out of the rabbit. these first few pics are him squealing with glee as the bunny hops in the cage. -

then, because the farm didn't really take too long, we decided to find a beach to let him romp on. we let the GPS guide us, with no real clue where we were going. the first beach it brought us to was hardly a beach, but it did have an awesome view of boston that we enjoyed from the car before trying again. the second beach it took us to was more beach-like, though still very rocky, as is the new england beach style. that didn't bother quentin at all since daddy showed him how fun throwing rocks into the ocean is. Q has a tantrum when we tried to leave the rocky beach so we found another spot with actual sand and let him run wild there for a while. it was freakishly cold, but he did not mind at all, and would probably still be out there if we let him!

and tomorrow is a holiday here in the bay state (patriots day!) we'd love to take him to the children's museum since we have a membership, but school vacation + boston marathon = us not going anywhere near the city. so instead we're heading down to providence to check out the zoo! fun!! i hope!

easter candy + toddler = messy

roo-2: 28 weeks

3rd trimester starts today! wow! this pregnancy has flown by. i did get the bassinet i have been after off of craigslist this week - woo hoo! now i just have to re-assemble it. i swear i could have gotten it in to the jetta without taking it apart, but the lady i bought it from wouldn't let pregnant old me carry the thing and insisted on helping me. so it ended up getting taken apart. oh well, it will be a fun project. also this week i have started the "everything i need to do before the baby comes" addendum to my to-do list. this includes things like getting the infant carrier and bases installed in our cars, taking out and washing the 0-3 month clothes, etc.

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from babycenter.com:

By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

it's the easter beagle!

quentin had a very busy and candy-filled easter!

some cuteness to start the day

followed by an easter egg hunt in our kitchen (totally reusing the eggs from the day before's hunt!)

then he got his easter basket from mimi

then (all hopped up on jelly beans) he went to church (no pics)

then he went to easter lunch at aunt lois's house where he got his easter basket from the easter bunny

and then after eating candy, mashed potatoes, and asparagus for lunch, he got to go outside for yet another egg hunt, recycling the same eggs again.

easter will be a lot harder when he knows what's going on!