Princess!

Halloween Pictures!

Follow this link to facebook to see our Halloween pictures! (let me know if it doesn't work)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.658766909357.2130106.68602760&type=1&l=65b8e32ed7

Avery singing

Here's a little piece of Avery singing into her microphone like Daddy...she sings and dances CONSTANTLY!

Avery's kisses

We are doing open mouthed/wet kisses...here we are trying to get it on video:)

Sunday Update!

Hey guys...well we have been keeping very busy this last week or so since our last check in, I'm not totally sure what we're doing, I guess a 2 year old, one of us working full time, and the other one trying to get stuff done around the house before baby #2 comes just keeps you busy:) Avery is getting more and more excited for baby Mary Lou to make her arrival, every day she asks, "baby coming?" and just yesterday she said, "mommy, avery hold baby, avery hold baby" I had to explain to her that she can't hold the baby quite yet because the baby is "stuck" in Mommy's belly (ha ha anyone else have a better way of explaining this to a 2 year old?). The weather is getting colder and rainier which we LOVE but it seems to make little Avester a bit more antsy so we're going to have to get creative with entertainment. She asks to go to "Super Franks" (a kids play place in Pleasanton) daily and she asks to play with her bestie Dawson daily. They went trick-or-treating together on Halloween, it was adorable, I'll post pictures as soon as I get them edited:)

I've been keeping busy doing things like washing burp cloths, bottles, blankets, etc. getting ready for the new baby. It takes me double as long to do it all cause #1: i'm super pregnant and #2: I have a 2 year old that wants to help with everything, and her helping just makes everything take that much longer! I've decided organization is key with two little ones in a small house so while some may think I'm looney, I'm going label and bin crazy! We've decided to do cloth diapering with the 2nd one so we're figuring all of that out (we have the diapers already which are the cutest things ever, pictures also to come) but we're still figuring out the organization and washing of them, once we do we'll post pictures (because once again, they're adorable!). We're doing somewhat of an owl themed room for the girls, really cute and unfortunately really trendy right now. My amazing mother-in-law Kathy sewed everything for Avery's original room and is doing the same for the room the girls will be sharing, we're so excited to see the final results! (also pictures will come when it's all put together:)

I had to go in twice this week to the OB for some stuff going on (personal...sorry:) BUT I'm fine, the baby is fine, and I'm 1cm dilated and 50% effaced (you have to get to 10cm dilated and 100% effaced for those that don't know:) so we're on the right track! Not due for 3 weeks but we wouldn't mind if she came in about a week, I'm not really sleeping anymore related to being sooooo uncomfortable! Here are some random pictures from our lives the last week or so:

Halloween teaser!

Baby #2 hasn't gotten as many music lessons from Daddy as Avery did BUT we try to put those headphones on the belly as much as possible!

See anything wrong with this picture? I was getting ready for the day, heard Avery run into her room and close the door, then opened it only to find that she had found a nuk somewhere in her room and climbed back into bed...this happened twice in one day and has not happened since then, I think we got rid of them all!

This is happening a lot in my house right now...lots of baking, some cooking, lots of baking:)

The result: a yummy warm cookie bowl with vanilla ice-cream and hot fudge, we have dessert every night, it's a really bad habit, but oh so yummy!

One of our visits to Kaiser this week...Avery decided her baby pooped her "panties" so she was cleaning her up...everyone that walked in and out of Kaiser thought this was adorable:)

Cute picture BUT represents one of Mommy's greatest frustrations in life right now...we are going through a MAJOR daddy phase. I imagine it is because I'm home all of the time now so I'm old news, hopefully that's all it is because I rarely receive kisses and hugs, when I go into her room in the morning she pushes me aside and says, "where's daddy?" and then throws a fit when she realizes he is gone at work...this picture is her eagerly awaiting his arrival home from work, oh dear I hope this phase is a quick one!

Sassy Mc-Sasserton is what we call her now...the outfit is a good portrayal of how sassy this little one has become!

Yesterday was one of the most glorious days I have had in a while, I got to run away to my parent's house for a little while (leaving Avery with Daddy) where my Mom and I watched cooking shows for a few hours, I then enjoyed an AMAZING bubble bath, then Andy brought over the Avester who stayed home with Nana cooking dinner while Andy and I went to the movies. We came home to an incredible home cooked meal by my mom and watched another movie, oh so relaxing!

Finally...God bless the people in my life that tell me, "wow, you don't look like you're having a baby in 3 weeks" If you know someone that's pregnant, say the same thing to them, unless it's a complete lie of course. At this stage in the pregnancy, I feel huge and completely unattractive but when friends and/or random people (aka the receptionist at the OB office) tell you that you don't look that big, it feels really good, so pass it on!

Oh, stay tuned because we will be announcing the baby's name SOON and for those interested (but no pressure) we're registered at Babies R US!

It felt like an emergency at the time...;)

Two nights ago I experienced what I consider to be a total "Pratt" moment of thinking, "did that just really happen?". Obviously not everyone knows all the crazy Pratt or Koning stories of when us kids were younger, but as a bit of history we were taking a roadtrip to Winnemucca in our Toyota Previa and Erica got stuck with the seatbelt wrapped around her (not totally sure how this happened other than she wrapped the chest strap around her and fell asleep only to have the seatbelt lock up, then she unbuckled it, and it locked again, then she moved closer to the window and it locked again, you get the idea, each time getting tighter and tighter eventually making it somewhat difficult for her to breathe) and we had to pull over on the side of the road to cut it off of her with the knife my mom always carried around (way to go Mom!). This is a Pratt moment in my head cause I'm like, "who else would this happen to?" (although I'm sure every family has their stories;). Well, similarly, two nights ago around 2130 (9:30pm for those not able to tell military time) we heard Avery crying for Daddy from her bedroom. This was odd for a few reasons, first she should have been sleeping, secondly, she rarely cries from her room, and thirdly, it was loud enough for us to hear it without the monitor or anything on while we were downstairs watching TV. We quickly ran upstairs only to find our 2 year old daughter had essentially hung herself (can you say hung if it's not around her neck?) via her earring on the blinds. What happened was she loves to watch cars from her room so she pulls the blinds out and sticks her head between the blinds and the window, in doing so the strings that keep all the blinds together somehow wrapped themselves around her earring and she was stuck, unable to move any great distance in any direction.

Andy and I both went slightly into panic mode because it was ripping her ear...it was so similar to Dad holding Erica up in the Previa (except that Avery could breathe quite well;) Andy was holding her up as I was trying to unwind the chord from her earring...why not just take the earring off you ask yourself? Well, we have those fancy screw on kinds that are really quite difficult to get off and because she was moving so much and the back was digging into her ear so badly, it was impossible. Andy and I were yelling at eachother to do this, do that, finally I unwound the stupid chord but no release happened. So I ran into our room to grab scissors and by then Andy had worked a miracle and freed our poor innocent 2 year old:)

Probably more traumatic for us then for her but it was quite sad. She told us how it happened after we freed her (despite her hand motions and all of the words she used we really have no idea:) and we put her back to bed and just started laughing because really? Who gets the blinds stuck around their earrings? Oh dear...so many more of these moments to happen in our future!