Ian's Second Birthday

Today was Ian's second birthday! It is so hard to beleive! I think I am just as tired today as I was the day he was born. He had a birthday party at school complete with a Nemo and Dory cake. After that he came home and we ran him around a bit to burn off some sugar! Next, it was time for Chuck E Cheese...he ran and ran and ran for 2 hours from game to ride and then back again. We all had so much fun though. When we left Chuck E Cheese it was off to Toys R Us to get Ian his first tricycle. We were going to wait until after we moved but decided to go ahead and get it here. What's one more thing for the movers to move, huh?

He is such a sweet little boy and we have been so blessed these past two years. The joy and laughter he brings with each day is priceless! Soon we will have double the pleasure when Miss Abbie Grace comes along!

28 Weeks

Yes, that's right, I am now 28 weeks! Little Abbie Grace will be born in 10 weeks! Can you believe it?? There is much to do before the little one arrives though....moving being the biggest! We have started reading some big brother books to Ian and stopped referring to Abbie Grace as the baby and by name. Hopefully this will help with the transition. Joe thinks Ian will adjust without any problems and hopefully he is right! He will have grandparents and family around spoiling him while I am in the hospital since Joe will be away in training. Abbie Grace will also have a very special gift for Ian when he comes to meet her:)

Spring Has Sprung!

YAY! We have had 4 days of beautiful weather! Last night there were really bad storms but so far it doesn't look like we had any damage. Ian has his first new summer outfit on today...it's a 3T! Yikes when did he get so big?!?!?

Things are progressing well with preparing for the move. We had a successful garage sale this weekend and got rid of all of the extra furniture we had. Ian is moving into a big boy bed when we move so any of you coming to visit will get to sleep under his new Trucks bedding! He will have a twin over full bunk bed for his new room.

It's official!

We finally have orders, a townhome, and a signed contract! WOO HOO! The packers come on April 24th and we will head out on April 26th for DC...Thanks for all your prayers in getting everything to line up! We are very excited but have a super busy month ahead of us.

Baby Abbie Grace

We had a 4-D ultrasound on Saturday and got to see Abbie Grace! She is so cute:) Her pictures look exactly like Ian's did. She is a very active baby, especially about 2 am!

Still no word on when we are moving but we have a buyer for our house and they have one for theirs. It will all work out but whew is it hard to wait!

South Carolina

Ian and Tammy went to SC this past week to visit friends and family. They were so glad to see so many folks. Ian got to play with Angela's little girl, Katie, and had a great time. We went to Charleston for one day and Ian attended his first oyster roast and crab boil. He enjoyed the corn and sausage the most:)

We are so blessed to have the friends and family God has given us! We can't wait to see more of you soon!

Ian and Cooper

Aunt Kerry and Cooper are visiting us for a few days. Ian isn't real sure what to do with a little baby! Here are some pics of the two cousins! They were not very photogenic this morning!

Church Gala

Joe and I went to a Gala on Saturday night. We got to dress up and had such a great time with our friends.

Here is a recent baby picture...

Valentine's Day Party

Ian's first official valentine's day party was today! He was the clown, of course! Since he is the oldest one in his class now he is often the entertainment for the little ones. And boy does he love snack food! Whew...he ate twice as much as most of the kids:)

More Snow!

We had more snow in TN this weekend and Ian had a ball playing in it. Friday night when we played in it for a while I showed him that he could eat the snow...well that was all he did for the rest of the time we were outside! And for those of you who have been around Ian when he eats, he hums and he did this while he was eating snow too! Such a funny little Guy!

He has been learning to sing songs too! He sings the first few lines of Jesus Loves Me and all of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! The first time he did this we were amazed! They are also learning 10 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and other nursery rhymes at daycare so he will often sing a line of one of them! It's hard to make them out but we eventually catch on.

DC Bound!

We found out Thursday that we are going to move to DC in April! We are so excited to move near family but are so sad to leave our friends here in TN. Joe also found out he will be promoted to Major probably this summer!

Please pray that we will find housing, childcare for Ian and Abbie Grace, and healthcare since we will be moving with I am 31 weeks pregnant!

So many people of offered to help with the move and we so appreciate all of your support and prayers during this time!

IT'S A GIRL!!!

Abigail Grace was cooperative for about 30 seconds yesterday and allowed Dr. Anderson to see that she was a girl! It took him quite a while to get her to cooperate and he was about to give up but I convinced him how much I really needed to know! So he tried one more thing and got her to flip! I was able to talk to Joe right after and tell him the news. (He is training in GA right now). We are planning on calling her Abbie Grace...Ian says Ab-Gace.

Cars, Trucks, and Trains

Ian has found a new love of trucks. He particularly likes the matchbox cars and trucks but if it has 4 wheels he loves it! His Aunt Kerry gave him a dump truck that rolls by itself so he loads all of his matchbox cars in the back of it! Then he goes over to the Little People garage Aunt Amy gave him and takes them through the car wash and gets them gas. It is amazing to see his little mind at work! Whenever we see a fire engine he makes a horn noise and gets so excited.

Baby is doing well. Moving more each day. As you can see from the picture I have grown quite a bit in the past few weeks. Only 4 more days and we will see whether it's a boy or girl!

Ian's First Snow

We had about an inch of snow here in TN on Tuesday, January 17th. It was so pretty even though it was gone by about 10 the next morning! We took Ian out to play in the snow but he was not a big fan! At first we had to coax him out of the garage but then he had fun until Joe and I got too cold and had to go inside!

Baby update...we had an ultrasound on Tuesday but the baby was not very cooperative so we are going to try again on the 31st to see if we can tell the sex. Both of us think it is a girl but we shall see in a couple of weeks. The names are Abigail Grace or Alec Joseph.

Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a wonderful New Year celebration. Ours was very low key. Ian was really sick and in the emergency room with a fever Saturday morning and then on Sunday we found out he has pneumonia. Thankfully his fever has been down all day on Monday so all of the medicines he is on should be kicking in.

Joe had a private fireworks show for Ian at 8:00 before he went to bed though which Ian really enjoyed. He called the fireworks "bubbles pop". He was even talking about them when he woke up Sunday morning:)

Christmas 2005

What a fun day we had on Sunday! Ian was so much fun this year! Last year he didn't really understand what was going on and this year we are sure he didn't "get" what this was all about but he sure did enjoy opening his gifts! He was very methodical about opening each one and played with each gift after opening them so gift opening took about an hour or more! Tammy's dad was here with us and got a kick out of Ian's "WOW's" with each gift opening. He brought Ian a pair of boots which are a little big but he sure does like to wear them! He loves his wagon and lego's from his Grammy, Grandma, and Popie too! Oh what fun it will be next year with 2!!!!

The Ice Palace

Saturday night we decided to take Ian to see the "Ice!" display in Nashville. This is the most amazing display of 1.5 million pounds of ice that is sculptured into lifesize things. They even had 3 slides made completely of ice. Ian had such a good time going down the slide. About halfway down he got stuck and turned over on his belly and shimmied down. It was very funny. The temperature in the building was 15 degrees so they gave you an extra parka when you go in. We had lots of fun!

Joe and I went to the dr today and got to see the little baby again. He/She was being stubborn and moving away from the doppler heartbeat machine so they had to do an ultrasound. He was fine, just hiding up higher than the dr expected. The baby was kicking and moving around although I could not feel anything. At one point he put his hands near his mouth like he was going to suck his thumb. Dr. Anderson said it was too early for that but he was close. Hopefully we will find out what the little darling is in about 6 weeks.

Christmas Fun

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, isn't it? It is so much fun this year as Ian is in awe of the lights. He refers to the Christmas tree as "don't touch" or "no touch"! Here are some pictures of his first visit with Santa and our trip to see the Christmas lights down by the river. Ian just looked around for the first 10 minutes at all the lights then cut loose and wanted to go and see how they worked. After he shook a couple displays we decided it was probably time to go! He really like Santa tonight. He pulls some hair out of his beard and said "haair" (he sounds like he's from Rhode Island when he says it!). Santa got a big kick out of it!

The last picture is our little Thug. Joe put his black cap on him and he thought it was so much fun.

Oh, Ian's favorite songs these day's is "If your happy and you know it" and "It's amazing how You love me". He and Joe sing the "It's amazing" song after their prayer every night and Ian can't wait until the clap in the song.

Today at Church when I went to get Ian the teach was laughing because Ian had spent the last 15 minutes organizing the crayons and got very frustrated if someone put a crayon in point down. She asked if he was a little OCD!

Exciting News

Sorry it has been a while since our last update but we have had exciting stuff going on around here. What's that in the picture to the left you ask? Why it's baby #2! Yes, that's right...Ian is going to be a big brother in June! We had our first ultrasound today and everything looks good. I have been really sick but Ian takes good care of me. He comes in the bathroom and pats my back and says "It's otay, It's otay"! He also lifts up my shirt and says "Baby"...little does he know this baby is here to stay! While Ian likes other children he loves Ianfest that happens daily! I'm sure he will be a great big brother though!

Ian is doing great. He is learning and developing so much these days. It is so exciting to see him learn new things and to almost see his little brain working! We are trying to learn numbers now and he will play along sometimes. Most of the time we get the same number again and again though. Yesterday his favorite number for vive (5).

Halloween

Ian had his first trick or treating experience this year and had a great time! He started off the evening by running into the glass door at our house when trick or treaters came and then when I opened the door he fell out! So he has road rash down the right side of his face. But that did not stop the festivities...we only went to a couple of houses but he had fun. Ian tried to go into most peoples houses when they opened the door which was hillarious! After we went to a few houses we came home and he sat on the kitchen floor and organized his candy for an hour and a half! I don't know where he gets this organization thing from but it was very funny. After a while we noticed he was chewing on something and he had started eating the chocolate, foil wrapper and all!

Family Pictures

It's Potty Time

For Ian's 18 month birthday we introduced him to the potty...we aren't expecting any miracles just want him to know what it is and get used to the idea of sitting on it. Plus last week right before we put him in the tub he stood in front of the toilet and peed on the floor:) So for the next few months we are going to sit him on the potty before bath time and see what happens. Since we will be moving next spring we aren't going to push the issue until we get settled.

Other than that big news nothing much has really been going on. Joe has been home for a couple of months now so we are into our routine and loving it. This past week Ian has been really sick so he stayed home from daycare. It started off as the croup and then was headed towards walking pneumonia but we got him on medication before it got too bad. It was pretty sweet to have a cuddly boy again but he must be feeling better because the tantrums started back!

We went to Octoberfest a few weekends ago and Ian went on his first merry go round ride and also down the giant slide. Daddy went with him and had just as much fun!

Oh, and Ian has his first cousin on the Becker side. Cooper William Zeckman was born to Aunt Kerry and Uncle Dan on Oct. 6. He was 7 lbs. 1 oz.