Sugar and spice and all things nice...

We had our 18 week ultrasound today. We were pleased to see that the baby looks healthy and is growing at exactly the correct rate. The ultrasound technician asked us if we wanted to know the gender and it was quite a surprise when she said, "This baby is a girl!" The look on our faces must have been priceless. We laughed and let out a "No way!" response a few times. Looks like we're bound to have lots of pink frills in our future!

Our nephew/Benjamin's cousin A.J. turned 5 last week and on Saturday we celebrated his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese.

They had a machine there that would take a token and then print out a photo of you that looks like a drawing. A.J. and Benjamin sat together for one photo. Although they only give you one copy of the drawing, I took a photo of it and here is the SILLY result:


On Sunday Mike completed the indoor triathlon that was the culmination of his 12 week "Why Not Tri" class. I think he is glad to be done with the mandatory 5:30am mornings, but he is also looking forward now to the outdoor triathlons he has coming up soon!

One of the things that Benjamin really enjoys at school is working with maps. Over the course of his first year at school he has learned all of the continents and many of the countries of the world. Right now in order to improve his handwriting, he has been labeling maps. Here he is working on a map of South America. Benjamin's teacher provides us with photos of him hard at work throughout the year and it is great to see him doing the things he talks about at home.

Benjamin was on his very first ever spring break last week. We weren't able to go away on a vacation (have you seen the price of airline tickets lately?!?!), so we tried to fill up his time with fun local activities. He spent the first weekend with his Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed who took him to Dave & Busters, the Minnesota Zoo, and out to see How to Train Your Dragon. He stayed there until Monday, when I picked him up and took him to the Minnesota Science Museum for the afternoon. On both Tuesday and Wednesday he was at a school-provided daycare program where he played for hours outside in the nice weather with some friends. Tuesday was also the day when Mike and I finally got to have another OB appointment. We were supposed to hear the baby's heartbeat, but I have an anterior placenta, which blocks the way for the machine to pick up the heartbeat. Instead, we were treated to another ultrasound where we were able to see the little one moving around, kicking and sucking its thumb. We now have our anatomy ultrasound (where we'll find out the gender) scheduled for April 26th.

On Thursday we drove back up to the Twin Cities again to spend the day with Jen, AJ and John. The boys played outside in the almost 80 degree weather, we had lunch and we all spent a few hours at the Minnesota Children's Museum.

Here is a video of Benjamin and AJ performing at the museum:After leaving the boys and Jen, we met up with Uncle Andy for dinner and even were able to see Aunt Jennifer for a short while before our drive back to Rochester.

We were able to celebrate Easter with both sides of the family this year for a change. First we spent Saturday night and Sunday morning/afternoon with Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed and then the rest of the day was with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Bert (plus Uncle Andy, Auntie Katie and Uncle Dan). It was a fun and tiring day that brought lots of goodies for Benjamin.