Bring out the blue cigars!

Our family is growing! Mark and I are expecting a baby in late January...a little brother for Ashen! We just had our 19 week ultrasound yesterday that revealed that "it's definitely a boy (not a girl, like I thought). Mark thought it was a boy all along, so no surprise for him. He's already thinking about all the fun projects he'll have for the boys as they get older. He jokingly mentioned the great advantage he'll have with two sons in getting all his house projects done (I think he's wishing his sons were older now since he's trying to refinish the garage roof right now). We are so grateful that the ultrasound showed a very healthy and growing boy.

We are thrilled with this new addition to the family and know that Ashen will absolutely LOVE having another child in the house. He's such a social butterfly and is mesmorized by other kids. We just returned from Starbucks this morning where he traced every child he saw with his eyes. Two little boys walked in and he stared them down and jumped and waved his hands wildly when they made eye contact with him. It will definitely be a wild year to come, but slowly I'm feeling more confident being a mother and ready to take on a new challenge. I had to resign from my job last week--no part-time option available and I will not leave Ashen full-time--which was a very very sad decision for me since I've loved my work the last 7 years. I know this is a new season in life and I'm now embracing it. I'm looking forward to tutoring a woman from Ethiopia who is learning English and she's offered to speak Amharic (Ashen's native language) with Ashen and teach us some cultural traditions from Ethiopia. Hooray! I am so excited for this new relationship. Her husband is a pastor of a local Ethiopian church, so I'm hoping that it's a foot in the door to the Ethiopian community in our city.

I'm having so much fun with Ashen now--it's more fun every day as we get to know each other better. He's an absolutely happy boy with smiles ear to ear about 90% of the time.
He's an avid mover...now cruising (that means moving from one piece of furniture to another for those who don't have kiddos) and becoming much braver when it comes to taking the leap to walking. We may have a walker on our hands in the next few weeks. He's getting really heavy, so his self-sufficiency in getting from place to place is welcome in my mind (though I know that it will open a whole new world of potential dangers...starting with all the non baby proofed areas of our house!).

Well, I thought it was about time we announced our exciting news on our blog...exciting times to come!


*As usual, I'll post pics a little later...I'll post the ultrasound pic but I don't know how to use our $10 scanner so I'll have to wait for Mark to come home.