Long Overdue Check-in

I already used the line "I didn't mean to be away this long," right?

Truly, I didn't.

It's become clear to me that I need one outlet for writing, and one alone. Since September that outlet has been seminary. But that means I haven't kept up with Caleb updates, a pregnancy announcement, spring gardening activity, what we're eating, anything.

So I'm back, and hoping spring will propel me to write a little bit more in this space. No promises though.

Caleb
Caleb's 2 years old. In fact, he turned 2 years old in January, so he's now 26 months. That kid is ball of personality. His verbal skills are off the charts, especially for a boy his age. (Only family reads this, so I can brag, right?) I couldn't begin to guess how many words he knows, it's in the hundreds. He speaks in full sentences/paragraphs, just as we guessed he might do. He can hold a full conversation with you, which makes this stage really fun. My favorite phrase of his might be "Hold my hand, Daddy/Mommy." He uses that when we're headed down to the garage. I don't carry him up and down stairs anymore, so we make him hold hands to walk down the stairs. His little voice asking us to hold his hand is just too cute.

 His latest trick is balancing on the top of his sit and spin.

We're about to move him into a big boy bed, if we can only pull the trigger on that purchase! He's been trying to climb into his crib at night. Thankfully he doesn't try to climb OUT of it!

 Our new-to-us minivan has a DVD player. Caleb was mesmerized on our road trip to NC.

He continues to be a really happy and loving little boy. He adores his grandparents and extended family. He gets good reports on his behavior at day care, and he likes to tell me what activities he did and who he played with. He's a toddler, so yes, we see stubbornness and pickiness and we're trying to get rid of his pacifer, but in general, he's a great easy kid. 

5 months pregnant

June
Our daughter is due in the middle of July. (No, not in June. We just like the name June.) I've been pregnant for most of my first year of seminary, which has been challenging, but not too bad. We're thrilled to be expecting a girl- I was convinced we'd have boys forever and ever, but the sickness in my first trimester should have tipped me off. I feel like I'm be able to pinpoint on boy or girl in future pregnancies depending on if I'm sick or not. Otherwise the pregnancy has been pretty easy, and I'm looking forward to a warm-weather maternity leave this time around.

 Tomatoes, peppers, parsley, basil, cotton

The Garden
I will freely admit that I have next to no energy for gardening this year. Seminary + pregnancy = very little energy left over. But that doesn't mean I don't have 30 some-odd seedlings in the basement already started, with plans to start more this weekend. I'll be planting my fenced-in garden as well as two big beds in front of the house. I ignored the bed along the front of the house last year, letting it get weedy and gross. Then in the middle of summer we had a big delivery of fill dirt put in, to try to alleviate water pooling down into our basement and garage. When that happened, I asked the guy to use the front bucket of his small bulldozer to plow up the grass directly in front of our porch, so that I could use it as a garden bed as well. (This was a surprise to Brian, but he saw my mother's garden before he married me and knew I had the gardening bug. He should have seen tearing up the grass coming. Plus that's less he has to mow.) I've got three azaleas in there now, and a lemon thyme plant that overwintered nicely. I noticed some hosta coming up in that bed too, it must have been gardened at some point. My mint came back in full force in the other bed. So those front two beds will be a mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables, some edible landscaping, if you will. I also noticed the rhubarb and peony plant has come back up as well in our back yard.

That's about it- I may post a seminary and ministry update soon. I'm halfway through my second semester and so far classes are going well and I'm feeling good about continuing down this path.