Introducing Baby Ewald #2!

The star of today's post...Baby Ewald #2!
We are growing as a family, both literally and figuratively :-) Sometime around December 22, we'll be welcoming a new little one into the world! The due date has bounced around a little bit, but that seems to be the official consensus at this point. We're thrilled, to say the least!

I'm 15 weeks along, we've had no less than FOUR good ultrasounds, and we breezed through the first trimester screen with no issues. Plus, I can feel the baby kicking on a regular basis now :-). So we're finally able to share the good news with everyone in our lives.

It has been quite the roller coaster ride up until this point, but as you can see from the ultrasound, the baby is kicked back and relaxed. The ultrasound tech was laughing at this image, saying "look at that...kicked back in the recliner, soda in hand, loving life...". He or she is not at all stressed, and Mom and Dad (mostly Mom) are trying to take a lesson from that.

The pregnancy is the main reason that I haven't blogged much in recent months. First, because I felt absolutely terrible 95% of the time for the first 12 weeks. Dragging my nauseated carcass out of bed was about as much as I could handle, forget actually thinking! Second, because I didn't want to spill the beans about the baby until we were "in the clear", or as much in the clear as you ever can be with your children. It's hard to face my blank screen and not talk about one of the biggest things on my mind, so I just avoided the whole issue by not blogging.

But now I'm back! And I'm excited to document this new adventure, along with the continuing adventures of Miss Addie. By the way, she had some really really super cute photos taken by our friend Becky that I can't wait to share! So there is a lot to look forward to and just like Baby Ewald, we're loving life.

Father's Day

I love Father's Day. Check out three generations of adorable dimples.

I like Mother's Day too, of course, but I feel slightly embarrassed by Mother's Day now that I'm a mother. I get this kind of "Aw, shucks" feeling, a strange sort of mixture of guilt and humility. It feels strange to get a present and attention for doing something that feels like the greatest and best and most fun thing I've ever done. It's like getting a trip to Europe and then being presented with a massive diamond ring while you're there..."an embarrassment of riches" is how the saying goes, I suppose.

I have none of these conflicting feelings about Father's Day. It feels exactly right to take a day to honor Tim...and my own dad, and his dad...for being the men and fathers that they've become. And Adelaide really, really loves her father. No shock there, of course, because he's a very lovable guy. And he's a wonderful father. She takes a very obvious delight in her dad. You can see how happy she is!

During the day, she routinely asks if Dad can come with us to run errands, swim, play with friends...and she usually answers her own question with a sigh, and "No. Working." That's the sad reality of a resident's daughter's life. But the flip side is that they both really value the time that they DO get together. They play hard, wrestle hard, laugh hard, and make the most of every minute. Tim puts her in bed every night that he can, and she always asks for Daddy at bedtime. She has a special tone of voice that she reserves just for Tim, that makes us both laugh. He'll tickle her or otherwise tease her and she gives him this adoring sideways look and says "Daaaaadaaaaa" in this tone of voice that's like "Oh, you!". It's such a cute and flirty thing to do, and it just melts Daddy, which is exactly what it's designed to do. Never believe that an 18 month old is incapable of manipulation, folks.

We spent the day with Grandpa and Lita, their good friend Edith, and Aunt Sylvia. It was a really lovely day and we had excellent food, per the usual. Addie really loves Grandpa and Lita's yard, which is HUGE. She spent at least the first half hour yelling "GRASS! RUN!" and then taking off as fast as she could. If you enlarge the picture here, you can see that her mouth is wide open, because she's yelling "RUN!"

And here she is, still running.

Having fun with her sweet and pretty aunt.

We missed being able to to be with my own Dad also, but we were able to call "Heavy D" (yes, that is really what he wants to be called) and chat with him. And we'll see him in August.

In other news, Addie got a badly needed haircut about two weeks ago. It was her first haircut, and she LOVED the salon. And how not? Look at this place, it's adorable.

It's called Little Dudes and Divas, and they have a lot of fun toys and video screens at each sink. And here's Miss Ads checking out the toys ...and you can see her mullet, which just had to go.

So while Addie loved the salon, she actually hated getting her hair cut. I'd tried to prepare her, but she was really uncomfortable with the whole process, as you can see.

I couldn't get many shots of her because I had to hold her in the chair. And while we got rid of the mullet, she still has really long bangs, because she started flailing around during that part of the proceedings. And while a more trim frontline would have been cute, losing an eye would sort of detract from the overall effect. This is my best "after" shot....and it's not that great. She wanted out.
Addie is now saying "Maaaaammmaaaa. Get ouuuuut." which is her oh-so-subtle way of saying she wants to get out of her crib. And she's already asking for her morning "godurt" or yogurt. Time to begin the day!

Golden Days

Summer is here! And in typical Minnesota fashion, it has arrived with a vengeance.

It was a hard spring for the Ewalds. Well, at least it was a hard spring for me, and I probably made it hard on everyone else! We had the worst spring weather possible...tons of gray, chilly, rainy days. And I felt very flat and restless and irrationally irritable for much of the last few months. So that was great fun for everyone...

But now it's warm and lovely and I feel like the long golden days have given our family a new burst of energy and inspiration. The last few days have been downright scorching...it reached 100 yesterday...but no one is complaining! We're soaking up the sun and the heat and loving every minute of it. The change in the weather has coincided with a change in our household. We have remembered gratitude for small pleasures and happiness in simple things.

Especially Miss Addie. She is a lover of the outdoors. She wants to be "SIDE!" all the time, which is how she says "outside". We've been going to the pool nearly every day and she loves swimming. She charges right into the water (fortunately our pool has a zero depth entry!) and just keeps walking until she's up to her chin in water. Then she usually stops, although she's had her fair share of dunkings. Luckily she loves the water, so she doesn't cry when she goes under. She just looks sort of surprised.

Speaking of being outside, I've missed a LOT of updates in the past few months. I'll eventually talk about why I haven't blogged much, but for today, here are some pictures from our friend Justin's birthday. He's from Louisiana and he had a big crawfish boil on Memorial Day for his birthday celebration. It was the first of the beautiful days and we had a great time being outside with all our friends. It was also super windy, but it was warm, and the kids had a great time messing with the live crawfish (not too many fingers got pinched!) and just running around together. Eventually they all ended up playing in the hose, and Addie spent the last half of the day naked. The pics are from the first half of the day. There was a little too much "chasing of children" going on towards the end to take many pictures!

So I dressed Addie in this SUPER cute dress that my Mom bought her, and she looked like a doll. This is me asking Addie to smile and say "cheese!". She missed the smile but she said "cheeeeeeeesssssseeeee" repeatedly.



This is a hill that she insisted on trying to climb repeatedly. It was very high and dangerous for her (you can't see it, but there's a wall on the right side that drops off about 8 feet to concrete). And I'm telling her for the millionth time that she isn't allowed to go up there. Ads was very wounded by this.


Addie Bells is fascinated by "big girls" at this time in her life. Here she is hanging out with Ava and Grace, like one of the ladies.

And here she is still trying to hang out with Ava.

She isn't quite big enough to keep up, but boy, she tries!



Fortunately, Ava is an experienced big sister, with two younger siblings at home. So she was really kind and sweet to Addie.

And you can see the hero worship in Addie's face. She was so happy that Ava was playing with her. Thanks, Maggie, for raising such a sweetie!


And did I mention it was really windy? I love the shots of the girls with their hair and dresses blowing!


Speaking of sweeties, I got two kind of random shots of other kids. Addie was supposed to be sitting beside Halle for this one, so we could get a picture of them with their pigtails. But she was MUCH too busy for that!
And here's our "Calo". He is getting so big and handsome.

My girl is cooing from her bed now, so I'm going to scoop her up and give her morning snuggles before her "SEARuhl" as she calls it, with great emphasis.

More pictures and catching up to come....