War Memorial

There is a War Memorial in Alden, Wade's home town, that we were finally able to see. It lists all service members from the community.

15 Weeks

I'm a day or two shy of 16 weeks, but here is a 15 week belly shot. I tracked my weight weekly with Whitney and at this point I was 8lbs ahead with Whitney, meaning I have not gained any weight yet with this pregnancy. I was a lot more tired, a little more naseaus, and a lot more busy with this pregancy so I guess you gain less with the second?? My clothes are starting to get tight and many can no longer be buttoned and I am finally looking pregnant, I love the big prego belly! I may have felt the baby a few times, not entirely sure. I didn't posititively indentify movement with Whitney until 19 weeks. Just the other night I had my fist dream of the gender of the baby and it was a boy, so we'll find out soon what we're having if I can ever get an appointment here!

Vandewater Cousins

Whitney got a taste of what it would be like with siblings, and I think she likes it! (sorry Tiff, I didn't get any pictures with Owen too over the weekend)

Iowa State Fair

I'm back on the blog! Our memory card reader on our laptop went bad so every time I went to blog I couldn't get the memory card to cooperate. I finally found the cable to directly connect the camera to the computer, so here we go!

Two weekends ago my parents came down to take us to the fair, on possibly the hottest day of August! Whitney loves the fair and did really good despite the heat. She loves to people watch and be out in the activity. We went after nap time so she was awake for all the animals this time (this was our second fair trip of the year). She wasn't interested in touching anything, but liked to look.

I suppose we'll support Iowa State for daddy.

poking the goat in the nose

surprised at a goat sticking its head over the top

loves tractors!

Ames

We made it to Ames two weeks ago, so I thought I better take a few minutes to upload the blog. Well, I don't really have a few minutes, but I want to sit down while Whitney is napping!! Moving is a much slower process with a toddler. What would normally have taken us 2-3 to get completely settled took about two weeks, if I could even say we're settled yet?? The first weekend here we went to my sister's in CR for a pool party. It was awesome only having to drive TWO hours to get there!!! How nice being in Iowa again!! Then this last weekend we went to Wade's mom's for the day and then the Iowa State Fair on sunday. Our camera battery was dead so I didn't get to document Whitney's first fair experience. She loved all the activity and was even distracted enough to sit in her stoller some of the time. our $5 garage sale find that kept Whitney entertained while the house was empty the weekend before we moved

Whitney found my eyeliner and decided to color

Mama and two baby deer who come to sit under Alaina's play set every morning

Whitney, Grandpa and Callie

one of our moving casualties. Wade kind of "fixed" them so they are tolerable until we decide to buy new ones. The only other damage we had was a broken picture frame and glass, so not too bad of a move.

At Ada Hayden park in Ames the day the flooding started, surprised they had the park open, because curious dummies like us come out to see how bad things are!

we could see the water rising as we stood there and watched it

this ditch was dry when we came through not three minutes earlier. We walked through the ditch to look at the road

Wade came back to get me by piggy back. The water was even higher after he set Whitney down and came back for me

she discovered a fuzzy little catepillar, only to dance around all excited and then accidentally squash it, should have seen it coming

at the university, not sure what building is in the background

thought I would let her play with this box of speghetti while I made dinner and cleaned up. i didn't realize she would start to smash them into tiny pieces, what a mess!

she thought it was hilarious to feed Mac

Owen and Whitney under the crab apple tree

15 Months

She thought it was time to play peek a boo after her hands were messy with yogurt!

Whitney is 15 months today. I love that she is growing into an intelligent adventurous little person. She is about 21 lbs and maybe up to 30 inches. She wears a size 3 diaper and has since she was six months. She still only has six teeth, she hasn't gotten any new ones since she was 10 months. I'm hoping when she gets more teeth she will eat better and be able to eat more of a variety. She is willing to try new foods but she doesn't eat very much. She loves her milk and juice and could drink all day. Sometimes I have to withhold liquid to get her to eat more. But she seems to be growing just fine so I don't worry about it too much. I made of list of words and animal sounds she can say and she is up to 46. I'm sure I missed a few too. She seems to pick up a new word a day and will try to say almost anything. The funniest being octopus. She can count to three, but she skips one, so everything is two, three. When she wonders what something is she points at it and says this. It's cute when she points at pictures in a book and waits for us to put a label on it. Yesterday Wade said to her, "you're turning into quite the little monkey!" and she replied, "ooh ooh, ah ah" Wade watches hunting shows all the time and sometimes she stops to watch the animals. One time is was on a turkey hunt, and she laugh when the turkey would gobble and then they shot it, and in her very serious voice, "oh no". Hilarious!!

She loves to push things around, take thing out, put them back, watch her dvd player, pretend she's talking on the phone, play in water, go to the park, climb stairs, do ring-around-the-rosy, ride in her wagon and her new car, and just run around.

It doesn't seem to phase her that our furniture is gone, so hopefully she will settle right into our new house. We won't have internet access until the 13th, so this will be my last post for a while.