And the Verdict is...

Alexa here...I just wanted to make an announcement...I'm going to be a big sister to a LITTLE SISTER next year! Yay, I'm so excited. I just knew it. Every time my mommy and daddy would ask me what mommy's baby was, a boy or a girl, I would always say "girl". I'm so smart! I'm going to be the bestest big sister a little sister could ask for. I can't wait for the end of April when Payton Jae Mortenson will arrive. My mommy heard the name "Payton" a long time ago and really liked it (I think it's just cuz she likes Peyton Manning though!!!), and Jae is after my Gramma Jenny (Jennifer), but my cousin Kailey already has Jennifer as her middle name so my mommy and daddy chose Jae (pronounced "Jay"). I think it's pretty! Well, here's my mom now...I need to go have a nap!

Okay, so here I am at 20 weeks!

And here's how excited Alexa is that we're going to outnumber her daddy even more!!!

Girls Rule and Boys Drool!!!!

And here's a sneak peak at out sweet little girl! The ultrasound went great, Payton (name is subject to change - but we're pretty confident that this is what it will stay) was moving around a ton. She currently weighs 11 ounces, so just an itty bitty thing at this point. It's hard to imagine that she's going to gain another 6-7 lbs in the next 4 months!! I already feel huge! Anyways, there was no doubt she's a girl...she's not embarrassed in the least, just like her big sister!!

And here's her cute little face...don't you just love the 4D pictures!!?!!

She wanted to keep her hands up around her face pretty much the entire time...another thing she already has in common with her big sister!!

And here's a side profile of her entire body. We are thrilled to be having another little girl. They really are so much fun and we already have all the girl stuff so we're pretty well set! Now we'll just anxiously await her arrival and see if I've cloned myself yet again!! :-)

Want to weigh in????

Okay, so my ultrasound appointment got moved up a day (woohoo!!!!)...we're now scheduled for this coming Thursday (Dec 11th) at 11:00 am to find out if this little nugget inside of me is a BOY or a GIRL.

Anyone want to make a guess on what we're having??? Leave a comment and come Thursday, we'll see who's right!!

Alexa's favorite things...

...her yellow jammies and shoes!! Or in this case, boots. I had worn those boots out earlier this evening and then set them on the stairs to take up to my room later. Well, as we were heading upstairs to put Alexa to bed, she just HAD to put them on. She loved it! And believe it or not, she walks in heels like a pro...like she's been doing it all her life! Anyways, I just thought this was too cute of a picture not to post it.

Ward Christmas Party - The Polar Express

Tonight was the Christmas party at our church. It was a Polar Express theme and it was a lot of fun. Thanks to Erin and her family for all their hard work! You really did an amazing job!

Alexa was so excited to go to a party. She even got to wear her pajamas which is top notch in her books! She would live in her pj's 24/7 if I let her!! All afternoon, she kept asking about the party and if "Nay-Nay" would be there. As you know, she loves her friend, Nathan Ice, and as soon as he got there, she no longer cared about the food or anything else. She just wanted to run up and down the center of the room, chasing after this cute little boy.

And at the end, she even got a little surprise from Santa.

Thanks again Erin for planning such a fun night!

And here's a cute pic that Erin took...thanks Erin!!

Christmas Preparations

I LOVE Christmas!! And so I wanted to decorate for Christmas last Sunday, right after Alexa's birthday, but Kevin made me wait until today, the day AFTER Thanksgiving. Well, Alexa started the day out just maxin' and relaxin'. She's pretty good at it, actually!!

I was really excited to decorate this year because we didn't even put up a tree last year. We put up all the other decorations, but with Alexa being 13 months old last year (translation: getting into EVERYTHING!!!)...AND us going to Arizona for the holidays, we just decided the tree would be better off left in the box. BUT THIS YEAR, I wanted her to help us. I want this to be a fun family tradition for years to come. So we dug out the decorations and the tree and got to work!

She was so enthralled with the ornaments...so much so that she kept trying to eat them!!

Kevin really was involved, besides taking the pictures. I sat on the floor and hooked on the ornament tree hooks and handed them to my sweet husband who then decorated the tree. It's a bit of a Charlie Brown tree...but I'm not going to complain, I got it at Walgreens during the after Christmas sales last year for $5!!! And it's prelit...I will NEVER go back to stringing my own lights on a tree! But despite it's Charlie Brown tendencies...we love it and Alexa thinks it's pretty! We're so excited for the holidays this year and are so grateful for this time of year when we can really focus on the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Family Pictures

In preparation for sending out Christmas cards, we had my good friend Rachael take some family pictures. Here is a sneak preview of our photoshoot. Alexa wasn't so much in the mood to have her picture taken, so we had to bribe her with a giant lollipop. I think we got some good ones though...thanks Rach for helping us out with this! You are the best!

Stats Update

We had Alexa's 2 year check up this morning. She is currently weighing in at 28.6 lbs and is 34 3/4 " tall. She's in the 75 percentile still for both - which means she's a little tall for her age. Apparently, she got a bit of her daddy's height and we hope it stays that way!! Anyways, she's healthy and developing fabulously...even doing a lot of things that 3 year olds are doing. The doctor was impressed and I was so proud...because, OF COURSE, it's all my doing, right??!!! :-)Just kidding, she's just a smart little girl and I'm so grateful she's a part of our family!

Birthday Girl, Part 2

The Birthday Girl!!

Well, we've had a fun day. Alexa and I went to Target this morning where she insisted she was "hungy" (ever since I stopped once and got a soft pretzel there, she's remembered and always says "hungy" as soon as we get to Target). But since it was her birthday, I decided to indulge and we shared a soup bread bowl (yes Target has soup bread bowls, who knew???!!), which was quite delicious and then came home for naptime.

Once Kevin got home from school, we had dinner, more singing, blowing out of candles, and eating of cake. And then, of course, more presents. My family had sent gifts that had arrived earlier this week and so I saved them for today. Here are a few videos of the birthday festivities.

This first one is just to go along with Alexa's Spongebob birthday theme.

Here's the actual birthday singing with all her friends. She really did turn two, the candle is a #2, it was just turned sideways from the view of the camera! She had us sing again after this video was taken. She could have had us sing all night, she loved it!

And this is for my mom and my sister, Jenn. They sent gifts for Alexa that I saved for today and I wanted them to share in her excitement. The purse was a big hit, as you'll see! All the gifts were...thank you so much for spoiling her! Jenn, she wanted Dora to go to bed with her tonight and got really upset when I wouldn't let her stay in the crib!

A few tidbits about Alexa:

She loves to be silly. I can make her giggle by just saying something in a high voice or dancing a funny dance. She absolutely loves music and dancing. It doesn't matter what kind of music, she just loves it all and will get her groove on whenever she can. She LOVES her "lello yammies" (yellow jammies). They are her favorite. She is very much a mama's girl and would be content to just sit in my lap with her lovies all day if I would let her. She absolutely LOVES Spongebob Squarepants for some reason and knows all the characters, their homes, their places of work, etc. She also loves Dora and Diego. She gets so excited when her daddy gets home from school. She loves to tease and get a reaction. She is very attached to her lovies and her thumb. We'll have to work on the thumb thing one of these days but for now, I'm not too worried about it. She is very sweet and always asks me if I'm okay. She'll say "peez" and "tane too" for everything. She loves raisins right now. She loves to be in the car and will usually ask first thing in the morning if we're going in the car. She has the sweetest smile and I love the way her eyes light up when she grins at me. She is the center of our world and we couldn't imagine life without her!

Happy Birthday Alexa. We hope this next year is just as fun as the last two have been!

We love you!

Birthday Girl, Part 1!

Happy Birthday to our sweet little Alexa! She turns 2 today! I can't even begin to express the joy and love she has brought into our family these past two years. I have been so emotional the past couple of days (I'm sure part of it is the pregnancy), but it really does amaze me what a miracle having a child is and I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday! We welcomed her into our lives on Monday, November 20, 2006 at 6:59 pm, after 12 1/2 hours of labor. She was so tiny and perfect and I was so glad to finally have her here.

These past two years have been so fun. We've had our difficult times, our sick times, our grumpy times, our crazy times...but we wouldn't trade any of it. We've grown so much and learned so much and our lives have become so much richer because of this precious little girl.

Last Sunday, we had a little birthday dinner for Alexa. It was a Spongebob Squarepants theme since that is her most favorite thing right now. I spent hours on a Spongebob cake for her and wondered "what was I thinking??" as my hand kept cramping up...but the look on her face when she saw it, and the fact that she had to show her friends the cake very first thing when they arrived, made it all worth it!!

After Alexa's nap on Sunday, she enjoyed some pre-festivity cuddle time with her daddy while I got the birthday preparations ready. I'm so grateful for the wonderful father that Kevin is and for how much he adores his little girl. I know that they will have a special relationship forever!

And here are some pictures from the festivities. Alexa's favorite people were in attendance..."the guys" (aka Olan & Quincy Carter), "Nay-Nay" (aka Nathan Ice) and "Kar-kar" (aka Karter Graves), along with various parents of said kids! We enjoyed homemade pizza and snacks in Bikini Bottom style. (For those of you who are wondering what "Bikini Bottom" is, that's where Spongebob lives!!).

Alexa then had fun opening her presents, or rather, all the kids had fun opening the presents! Alexa didn't seem to mind though and was so excited for the wonderful things she received. Thank you everyone, you all spoiled her rotten!!

Our place isn't that big, but the kids had fun chasing balloons around and running up and down the hallway. We really had a great time celebrating Alexa's big day! Thank you to everyone for sharing in her special day!

We'll be having a little family dinner tonight and will post more pictures then! Happy Birthday Baby Girl, we love you so much!!

4 Months Prego!

So, I've had some requests for a picture of me pregnant and since I feel much better about myself this time around, I have no problem posting a picture. Here I am, in all my glory, at 4 months pregnant. This pregnancy has definitely been different than my pregnancy with Alexa. The nausea has been WAY more random and has lasted longer. By 14 1/2 weeks with Alexa, I was feeling great. However, I'm STILL running into episodes of nausea and I'm so ready to be done with it. Finding something to eat that sounds good to me has been harder this time, although I'm hungrier which makes it even more difficult to find a little something to snack on when NOTHING sounds good to me. But if I don't eat, I pay for it so I have to force myself to eat even if it doesn't sound good to me at that moment. And ice cream hasn't had any appeal to me this time around...what, this is madness??!!! I LOVE ice cream but apparently the baby doesn't care for it too much!! Give me candy though!! I tell ya, Halloween was fabulous this year! :-) I don't know if any of these differences mean that this one could be a boy, I'm really not holding my breath on that one, but it is kinda fun to note that there definitely HAVE been differences. And we'll just have to wait a few more weeks to find out for sure what this little peanut is. Anyways, I'll try and keep my family updated on how this pregnancy is going with pics from time to time.

Randomness

Here are just some random pictures from the last little bit...does this first one look familiar Jenn??

I love, love, love pink and brown on Alexa!!

We even happened to match this particular Sunday (not meaning to of course!!).

Pretty much our last nice bit of weather. We went to Cherokee Park to enjoy the Fall colors and Alexa had a great time with her daddy!

70 Years and still going strong!!!

I want to introduce you to two of my most favorite people, my grandparents, DeVere & Marguritte Leavitt. These are my mom's parents and they just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary! All I can say is WOW!! My grandpa also celebrated his 95th birthday this week. What an inspiration they are to me. They still live in their own home and my mom told me recently that my grandpa asked for his horse to be brought onto his property (instead of his son's) so that he could have something to do every day!! They really are amazing. In honor of their 70th, my family threw them a big party last night. I'm sad that we were unable to attend - but so it goes when you live so far away. I did call my grandma a few weeks ago to tell her our exciting news about expecting another baby and she was so excited...even though she promptly called my mom right after to scold her for lying to her the day before about if I was expecting or not!!! Can you picture a 93 year old woman scolding her daughter??!! I thought that was pretty funny. Anyways, I love these two people more than I can say and only hope that I can be as happy and in love with Kevin in 65 years as they still are.

Here are a couple shots of them dancing at their party...thank you to my cousin, Kelsey, for sending me the pics!!

A date has been set...

...for the revealing of the gender of Mortenson Baby #2, aka Pablo!!! I had another monthly doctor's appointment this morning where all was well. The uterus is growing (thankfully because that means the baby is too, and unfortunately because that means so is my waistline!!), the heartbeat was perfect and everything looked great. AND we got to book the date of the 20 week ultrasound.....for DECEMBER 12TH at 9:30 AM!!!! Yay! For those of you who know me well enough (or even just a little bit), you know I am a planner! And I can't really start planning for this second baby until I KNOW what it is...sooooo I am just a teensy bit excited for Dec 12th, to say the least. This little peanut better cooperate or this mama won't know what to do!

Day at the Park

After going to Music Makers this morning, Taffney, Rachael and I decided to take the kiddos to the park. We've had wonderful fall weather this week and just had to get out and enjoy it while it lasts, as there's probably only one more day of this!!

Here's Quincy and Alexa...

Mr. Nathan

My sweet baby girl!!!

Mr. Quincy

Mr. Olan

And sweet Miss Cali!

Thanks ladies for an enjoyable day at the park...until the meltdown, this is!! :-)

Happy Halloween!

Another tradition we have, which just started last year, is trick-r-treating down Hillcrest Avenue here in Louisville. It's right in our neighborhood, which makes it convenient, and just about everyone on the block goes ALL out for Halloween. It's a tourist attraction for the whole month of October. And it's so fun to see all the decorations. We go rather early as to avoid the crowds, in fact this year we left our house at 5:30 and timed it just right! Alexa loved to "tick teet" and she'd say "peez" and "tane too" at every house.

It was pretty cute. Alexa's chicken costume was a hit, even landing an inside appearance at one of the houses so the 84 year old grandmother could get a look at her!

We even met up with a couple other chickens!! We had a great night. Halloween sure is more fun with kids...and thanks to Alexa, we scored some good candy!! :-)