The Big Announcement!

Well, as many of you might have guessed, we are packing our bags and moving to a remote Andean cloudforest reserve to track the plight of the spectacled bear! Ha, ha... just thought I would spice it up before the REAL announcement that most of you have already deduced: Baby number two is on the way!!! It was a bit of a surprise but we are ecstatic and feeling so blessed by the miracle of life as we watch our first son grow and imagine our second child emerging in my belly. My due date is March 20th. That said, I have a large circle around the 15th of September, when I hit the 14 week mark and all of my exhaustion, nausea, mood swings and food aversions will magically go away and I will glow in the light of the second trimester.

The second, slightly smaller announcement is that I have gone back to work half time. Except, as all those of you with experience in the education world know, half time means more like 85% especially at the beginning of the year. So, needless to say, we have not been taking very many exciting pictures over the past few weeks. We decided to spare you the ones of me laying on the couch (which I do in every spare minute I can find) or Matthew unloading yet another load of dishes (which he seems to do all the time as I lay on the couch and moan.) Fortunately Grandpa has come up to help with child care which both boys are thoroughly enjoying.

And our precious Lyell is thriving! In the past month he has taken up many new hobbies. The most important is the quintessential man-skill of trundling. There must be some genetic code written into the y-chromosome that programs the male species to throw the largest available object over the highest available cliff. Lyell's trundling career began in his high chair with unappetizing bits of food, but has quickly progressed to large pieces of porch furniture over the flimsy baby-gate and down our hill. And let me tell you, the larger the object and the farther the roll the bigger Lyell's baby grin gets as he turns proudly for our parental acknowledgement of his accomplishment.

His second favorite hobby consists of the pursuit to make his clothes even more dirty with each new day. He keeps inventing new ways to rub in as much dirt as possible, such as dipping himself in the baby pool before rolling around with the cats, or picking up handfuls of soil to gleefully rub in his hair. We don't really mind this hobby as we love watching our son explore our land. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is point to the door to head outside.

And finally, of course, there are the cats. Here is a video which shows a pretty typical day for Lyell on the porch, making up games with the cats. I call this video, "Lyell, the Cat and the Apple." It starts out a little slow, but by the end I am having trouble holding the camera as I am laughing. Enjoy!