I got some more pics of our second little guy today- I think my OB feels bad for Andy that he never can make it to my appointments anymore so she's taken to giving me more snapshots to share with him! Here is another face shot as well as proof of the additional impending Y chromosome to our family pack (the photos are in that order- obviously it all takes a bit of imagination to see what's actually in the picture). He's apparently a monster- on track to be about 4 kilos! (About 9 pounds!)

Finally figured out how to upload pictures to the website with our new computer setup (okay, actually, I finally caved and made Andy do it for me). Anyways, click here to view pics from our week in Bucerias, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We had a lovely time- Drew had a blast playing in the sand and swimming around the pool every day and it was wonderful to have a week of relaxing and hanging out in the sun. We can't wait to go back again next year!

Drew and I watching the sunset:

Enjoying paletas:

Here are some pics of baby number 2 (or Skeletor, as Andy and I have dubbed him for somewhat obvious reasons) from this week's ultrasound:

Portrait

Tiny feet

I don't remember seeing Drew this well until about a month before he was due- my doctor and I actually got to watch this one drinking amniotic fluid on the monitor! For what it's worth, his ultrasound physique reminds me a lot of the way Drew looked- good to know they have similar skeletal structures, I guess. Everything looks good and she predicts he will be on the large side as well- not surprising to anyone who has seen how big I am with almost four months still to go!

Here are a couple adorable pictures of Drew holding his new cousin Grace- brought a few tears to my eyes to see him kiss her and talk about how tiny she is. Can't believe he's going to be a big brother in a few months!

Drew and I took advantage of a long rain storm here last week to head to the mountains for some good snow play (or mainly snow consumption, in his case). We had a fabulous time romping around and throwing snow at each other, and ended up sweating profusely because of course a snowy day in Los Angeles is bound to be at least 50 degrees and sunny. A good time was had by all (except our snowman- see the unfortunate demise sequence in the photos I posted).

Both Andy and I are on holiday break from school- his is mid-term and mine is semester break- and enjoying the opportunity to spend our evenings and weekends doing something other than frantically writing papers. We're super excited for our upcoming trip to Bucerias, Mexico- Drew's first international foray since he's been out of the womb (although he did boast an impressive 7 country total in utero- poor number two is already getting the raw end of the stick when it comes to prenatal travel).

Enjoying the holiday chaos- we've made it through three hannukah parties and our first couple christmas affairs- Drew has officially gotten into the whole "PRESENT!!!" craze, although half the time he's just as happy with the box and the bows in which his gifts arrive. He did manage to drag all his holiday loot into bed with us this morning in an attempt to convince us it was time to get up and greet the day, so he's clearly thrilled with it.

Will update about our trip when we return in early January!

Here is a cute pic of Drew conversing with our snowman before he decided he'd rather have lunch than a new friend:

Major news from the past month:
- Baby Lansford #2 is another boy!
- Andy is another term down for his MBA, putting him in his last classes of his first year
- I'm in my last week of my first semester and will be VERY excited to have all these final papers behind me next week
- Drew LOVES the desert and has decided it is the best place ever, even in the freezing rain
- We're fully entrenched in the world of pretend play, and Drew is frequently found feeding and parenting his stuffed animals- he has also started making us "coffee" and bringing it to us in bed each morning with Grandma Rudi's childhood revereware teapot. Quite the nice treat even if it doesn't have quite the caffeine kick we're used to!
- We've moved along to perpetual repetition of the dreidel song and endless conversations about "scrissmas lights" (and speaking of the merging of cultures, Drew and his friends would like to state for the record that gingerbread cookies go excellently with latke parties!)

I've uploaded some great pics from November, particularly the desert- be sure to check them out. Here is one of the more precious ones of Drew taking a spin in Papa Jack's jeep. (In the words of Drew: pretend driving, of COURSE!)

I just posted pictures from Halloween day- click here to check them out.

Cousin Jake came up with the inspired idea to all dress up as the Scooby gang. Jake and Drew were Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Andy was Fred, Pete was Shaggy, Hil was Velma and I was Daphne. Drew of course thought he was dressed as Manu, being that he had never heard of Scooby-Doo, but loved the costume and the experience. We also hit up a haunted pumpkin patch earlier in the day which was tons of fun.

for the sake of equal opportunity, I realize I should have included the following in my October update as well- one of the first shots of our munchkin-in-the-making:

Sorry to be SO laboriously slow in getting around to referencing our existence for the month of October. (At least I've only overshot by a few days!) We've been somewhat swamped with life- Andy and I are both busily working and studying at our respective graduate endeavors and Drew has settled well into the routine of spending time each week with Grams (aka Carla) and Grandma & Peppa Owl (aka Rudi and Al). We're certainly keeping busy though which makes the time fly- before we know it we'll have a family of four, and then Andy will graduate, and then I'll probably still be writing my dissertation for years

We've also had a couple of early bouts of illness but are hoping that means that we'll all be healthy all winter long! Drew and I waited last week in the crazy line at the county vaccination clinic held by the CDC to get our H1N1 vaccines, so we are now protected (after he gets his second dose, at least). That was a CRAZY experience- reminded me of all of the out there sci-fi scenarios one could imagine depicting people in an epidemic trying to save themselves and their children (minus the screaming and tears and throwing of one's baby into the arms of strangers, etc). I think maybe this was just my imagination running wild- it was all quite orderly and friendly, but the sight of thousands of people standing in a line that wrapped around a county park, committed to a minimum 5 hour wait, was quite intense and made me almost feel guilty for getting to go to the front of the line for being pregnant and getting out of there in a mere two and a half hours! (Almost guilty... but not really.)

I am also THRILLED to report that I'm about 1 week into my second trimester with pregnancy numero dos and the nausea seems to have almost completely abated in the past week or so, making me a much happier and more pleasant person to be around. I'm still exhausted, what with trying to grow a human, chase after the little one I've already got, attend school full-time, commute to Irvine each week, etc etc etc, but feeling awesome that things have at least thus far proven to be much less sickening than they were with Drew, and quite encouraged at this recent change for the better. (Now I'm just crossing my fingers for no hormone-induced migraines this time around!)

I've uploaded photos from October (other than Halloween weekend, which will be added soon as a separate folder since there are a bunch) including our trip to the LA county fair, Sukkot, and lots of playing around at home- click here to check them out. One of my favorites from a bout of "playing ghost" in preparation for Halloween:

Drew and I returned last Monday from a lovely week-long visit with our extended family at the lake in Michiana. We were so fortunate to get just about everyone in the family there at the same time (except for Andy, sadly!) and it was a great relaxing time. (Even though it was rainy and overcast most of the week.) Drew LOVED his cousins and still talks about them every day (Mia? Ben? Wagon?) and learned all kinds of great big kid concepts like "mine". We also learned that Drew has a strong affinity for bald men as he immediately took to cousin "Davin", and subsequently to Simon and Adam as well (not to mention the steward on the flight out). He was thrilled to be staying in a house with his own personal deity, Cousin Jake, as well as the rest of us mere familial mortals. We also got to see Shosh and Sam who came to stay with us (yay!) and even gave me some napping opportunities. I didn't take our good camera but I've posted some fun shots of everyone enjoying each other's company that I took with the point-and-shoot. Enjoy!

For those of you who follow our life happenings through this medium (insert blanket apology for my relative infrequency of posts to such effect) I figured I'd send a quick update about my latest personal endeavor. I've decided that while I'm taking a time out from my full-time career to be with Drew, I will go back to school and get my doctorate (much to the smug satisfaction of my sister who apparently never believed that I would seriously not want one as I claimed in my adolescence).

In early September I'm starting a program at Pepperdine University to get my Educational Doctorate in Organizational Leadership. The program is sort of a hybridized business degree/research thesis. It will put me first through two years of courses that focus on leadership and management as well as MBA-style business theory and then I will work on my dissertation which will probably be another two years(-ish). The idea is to provide an opportunity to pursue personal interests in the fields of education/non-profit business while also helping me develop a skill set that would enable me to increase my managerial capabilities and develop my as yet relatively non-existent understanding of the business and policy side of such things.(Or at least this is what I have interpreted that I would like it to do for me.) If you want to check out more specifics on the program you can click here to go to the school's website.

If you weren't quite sure you interpreted correctly, this DOES in fact mean that both Andy and I will be overlapping in grad school for the next year and a half or so. (Please cross any spare digits you might have on our behalf.) We're both very excited and fortunately Drew didn't get a vote, so there's no dissent amongst the ranks quite yet... hopefully it will stay that way.

And since I got around to typing something, the quick and dirty Drew update: he is continuing to shock us with his language development and is pluralizing nouns consistently and conjugating verbs in the present tense (-ing). He repeats anything and everything you say (so watch out!) and has begun to string words together into coherent mini-sentences (ice. more. peeeeeeeese.)

He's also running all over the place and climbing like a fearless little lemur. The other day I left him alone in the dining room to go to the bathroom for approximately 38 seconds, and came back to find him standing up in the middle of the dining room table. Apparently this didn't teach me my lesson so the next day I let him climb onto the piano bench to play some music while I was looking up directions on the computer. With my back turned I noticed that the music had gotten substantially louder- I turned around to find that this was because he was standing up on the keyboard stomping around with his feet. He was quite pleased with himself. Needless to say I had a slightly different response.

Besides our fabulous camping trip and sweltering in the ridiculous valley heat, we've been having a fun if insanely busy summer. Drew and I are on "vacation" from our mommy and me classes so we've been using our less-scheduled time to hang out and soak up the sun. (And of course, because I can't pretend to be someone I'm not, to come up with new scheduled things to do to keep us go-go-going!)

Drew and I have been doing swimming lessons this month and he's becoming quite the fish- he loves to be dragged around the pool chanting "kick-kick-kick" and splashing around with his arms. My greatest feat is that I've gotten him to actually enjoy being dunked and jumping in off the side with a big splash, which was pretty much my goal given that he's a little young to become the next Michael Phelps this calendar year. It's quite the production, however, to get both myself and him all geared up and ready to go and then cleaned and dressed in real clothing after the fact. It's one of those enigmas of parenthood that our 25 minute swim lessons seem to take up a good two and a half hours of a given day. Maybe the local pool has some sort of time-warping capabilities with which I am not fully versed.

Otherwise, we've been trying to find ways to enjoy the sun and have been frequenting his favorite parks, Kidspace children's museum, the Long Beach aquarium, etc. (Anywhere with water play is a huge boon not only for fun but to stay thermo-regulated, so pretty much all of our destinations require this stipulation.) When we're closer to home, one of our favorite new activities is fingerpainting- as you can see from the photo album I'm uploading, this is a multi-sensory experience for everyone involved, and often results in even poor Manu needing a bath. (Not to mention everyone else!)

Our other excitement was last week's trip to Las Vegas for the annual wood-working convention where we escaped one form of heat torture for another. (Notice a theme in my reporting here?) It was both Drew's and my first time there and he had a fabulous time hanging out with Grams and visiting relatives while Andy and I got to "work" the show and sight-see. (And win some money on the roulette tables!) It was fun but I can't imagine how anyone could sustain spending more than about 60 hours there without going totally crazy from the sensory overload.

Now we're back home and Andy's chugging through tons of school work and work work and we're resting before our next round of summer trips, checking out the local concerts in the park, and taste-testing our second batch of homebrew which just came to fruition this weekend. (In hindsight making a porter in the middle of summer was probably a little silly but it is tasty indeed so we'll manage to work our way through it regardless.)

I've got some pictures of our latest activities (some of which are long overdue and only barely qualify as "summer", my apologies for the time lag- better late than never). Click here to check them out.

And just as a teaser in case you weren't sure it was worth your time to check them out:

We spent last week up in northern CA on Drew's first ever camping trip, at Eagle Lake. We had a FABULOUS time playing in the dirt, "driving" our camper, swimming in the lake, hiking, running around with cousins, etc. Drew loved the outdoors and all the big kids and wildlife. We even got him to pet a snake or two. The highlight of the trip for the adults was the hike to the "Devil's Kitchen" sulfur works in Drakesbad (Lassen National Forest) and the highlight for Drew was probably the oreo cookies (see corresponding pics for evidence of enjoyment, and look closely, as oreos and dirt look suspiciously similar). We did, fortunately, all love the general level of relaxation and down time, so a good vacation was had by all. I wanted to get some of our favorite pics up from the trip- make sure to check out Andy's panoramas in there as well! click here to check them out.

Devil's Kitchen:

Poseidon, look at me now...

I did my best to get photos from Drew's birthday up in record time so he wasn't two by the time people got to see them. You can check out the album by clicking here. The shots are from his actual birthday (playing with water in the backyard and the indoor cake sequence) and also his birthday party the following day (the rest). Nothing like a kid thoroughly enjoying a celebration in their honor:



I also threw in a few photos of him wearing Andy's shirt a couple of weeks ago- apparently Andy asked him which pajamas he wanted to wear to bed and this was what he chose (apparently the force was with him).