It's a.....

Well, we had our second ultrasound today of baby #2 and we are happy to announce that we're having a... BOY!!  And he wasn't shy about it!  :)  What fun it will be to have two little boys running around the house.  Daniel seems to be excited about it.  He's adjusting to saying "brother" now because almost every time we asked him if he wanted a baby brother or a baby sister he would say "sister"!  And we are super excited that Daniel will have a playmate close to him in age.  Of course, they may bother each other some of the time, but hopefully they will also enjoy playing together most of the time!

This ultrasound was really neat for us to see.  With Daniel, when we had the second ultrasound, the tech really didn't tell us anything about what she was doing or looking at or looking for.  But with this child the tech was really great and walked us through the entire thing showing us all the limbs, spine, ribs, heart, kidneys, face, everything!  It was so neat to see our little boy this way.  We did have a 4D ultrasound (they just switch it to the 4D at the end and do all the other stuff in the regular format).  We were hoping to get a glimpse of our little boy's face as we were able to do so with Daniel.  However, this little one was very uncooperative!  He had his arms crossed over his face the entire time and refused to move even though he was wiggling and we tried shifting positions and prodding him and everything!  Oh well.

We haven't been able to scan the pictures from this ultrasound yet.  but I do have the picture from our first ultrasound at 10 weeks so I'll at least put that one up so you can see, and hopefully we'll be able to get the others scanned soon...

You know it really is something to be able to know ahead of time if you're having a boy or a girl.  It creates anticipation in a different way than when the baby's gender is a surprise.  You only have to come up with one name. :)  And you can name your child before they are born.  I'm a planner and so I guess I like all that :)  Now the real preparation begins... moving Daniel into a new room and a big boy bed and getting the nursery ready for this little one!

David and Emily visit!

Over the new year holiday we had the wonderful blessing of Bronson and Jenny visiting from KS. And I was able to meet my neice for the first time! David is 2.5 now and Emily is a precious 3.5 months old. We spent as much time as possible with them. And Daniel had a blast! While in FL he learned that "cousins" are a lot of fun and so he was very excited to get to play with his cousins.  He was constantly talking about playing legos with David and kissing baby Emily! And he was really, really sweet with Emily. I think that he will be a great big brother to our new baby!

Here is Daniel holding Emily, I think he was a bit unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do :)

 

Daniel giving baby Emily a sweet kiss.  We told him he was allowed to gently kiss her on the head, but no hugs, too much risk for Emily getting squashed!

Daniel enjoys imitating these days and so he was imitating Emily lying on her blanket :)

Both David and Daniel love having stories read to them and so they got some good quality time in with Uncle Ryan that way!

Josue gets some cuddle time with sweet Emily.

And, of course, I could hardly put her down she was so darling!

Trying to get a picture with all the cousins together... nearly impossible! This one turned out the best probably and no one is even looking!

David and Daniel wrestling with Grandpa!

Uncle BD giving dual horsey rides, takes some coordination with two squirmy wormys!

Daniel and David share a clementine on Grammie's kitchen floor - this is a very calm moment for the two of them.

It is such a mission to get a picture of David looking at the camera and smiling.  But I did it!  Love this picture!

What a beautiful, beautiful little girl!

Daniel watches Uncle B play the piano, he was quite enthralled :)

We were so sad to see them go.  Daniel keeps talking about David and Emily and I'm sure he will for quite some time.  We love you guys!

Family Gatherings

The McDowell side of the family got together on Christmas day and unfortunatly we were not very vigilant about taking pictures that evening and so we don't have any to share.  :(  However, the Hokuf family did get together on New Years day and we do have some pics from that gathering. 

Here's the whole Hokuf clan (without Grandmom), we've grown quite a bit!

My favorite picture!  My cousin Laura and I both with babies on the way.  We were born 7 weeks apart and our babies are due just 2 months apart (Laura in April and myself in June).  They're having a girl and we find out soon what we're having!

And my little boy squirming and uncooperative for this picture. :)  Oh well.

"Bubble" Bath

The other day we indulged Daniel and allowed him to play with bubbles while in the bath tub.  He thought this was the greatest fun!  And we got some adorable pictures of him. 

Daniel had great fun trying to catch the bubbles.

Here's a fun shot! 

Because Daniel was wet the bubbles stuck to his skin and the tub and didn't pop.  He thought that was totally great and was trying to eat them!

Our sweet little boy :)  Melts my Mommy's heart!

Christmas is here!

Christmas time was particularly fun this year as Daniel is almost two and really was able to grasp the concept much more.  We have a childrens nativity set/activity from Family Life that we used with him.  It takes the various characters from the Christmas story, Gabriel, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the shepherds, and the wise men and tells about their part in the story.  It is a 7 day activity, every night we read him a character's story and then he got to open up a little box that had the figurine in it and place it in the nativity set.  He really enjoyed this and while certainly he didn't get the full picture he did talk a lot about baby Jesus and could name all the figurines.  We're really looking forward to using this set in the coming years to help him understand that Jesus is God's greatest gift to us! 

We decided to let Daniel open two gifts here at home and then we went over the Grandma and Grandpa's for brunch and to open the rest of the gifts.  This will probably change in the coming years, but for now Josue and I still find it more enjoyable to spend the morning with the grandparents.  The more people the merrier!  Daniel had a ton of fun this year!  We took some time after brunch and before openning gifts to read the Christmas story.  Dad read it primarily from a toddler bible (pictures and all for Daniel).  Then on to gifts, Daniel really got into openning the gifts this year as you can see!

So here are some pictures from our Christmas activities.

Here's a picture of us on Christmas Eve at my parents.  We went over there after the Christmas Eve service for a little bit.  Note the baby bump!!

The first thing Daniel did when walking into the living room Christmas morning was to grab the largest bow he could find!

Daniel getting into the unwrapping!

Daniel was super excited about the farm set from Mommy and Daddy!

Daniel really enjoyed helping everyone else open their gifts!  Here he is helping Grammie open her gift from him.

Openning the larger than life present from Grammie and Grandpa, he was really focused on this one as you can see!

Diggers!  So much fun for a little boy!

Daddy and Uncle Ryan sacked out on the couch after all the activities! 

Uncle Ryan helping Daniel put together the puzzle he gave him!

Daniel watching the cars and trucks go by sitting on his new toy box and window seat from Abuela and Abuelo!

Daniel was super excited about the tent and tunnel from Grammie and Grandpa! 

It was a fun Christmas as you can see!

Daniel tries out his sled and builds a snowman

So after all the snow from the "blizzard" stopped Daniel and Daddy went out to explore again!  The snow was up past Daniel's knees and he wasn't even touching the ground!

As an early Christmas present Grandma and Grandpa gave Daniel a childrens sled.  Really perfect for a little guy because it sits flat on the ground and has a high back and also a strap to hold him in.  So we pulled out the sled and put our bundled up boy in it.  Daddy started to pull him out ove the snow, but unfortunatly tried to pull him over a hump of previously shoveled snow.  That promptly dumped him in the snow and Daniel decided that he wanted nothing what-so-ever to do with that sled ever again.  So sad!  I was particularly bummed because I love sledding so much!  We will certainly try again when we get another reasonable snow.

Sledding, about to go over the hump :(

Trying to convince Daniel to get back in the sled after face-planting in the snow...

Happy face again!

So after the failed sledding adventure Daddy went on to have snowball fights with Daniel and build a snowman which was much more acceptable to our boy.  The snow wasn't very good packing snow so they had to get creative and use the wetter snow near the gutter drain pipe.  But they managed to get a really nice snowman built!

Working hard to get that snow to pack!

The finished snowman!  Not bad at all for a guy from Miami!  :D

Snow! Snow! And... More Snow!!

The weekend before Christmas we had the "Blizzard of 2009" where we received around 18+ inches of snow!  I didn't believe the forecasts when we heard them.  We haven't had that much snow in years!  It snowed all day Saturday and through the night and by Sunday morning we had a huge, beautiful blanket of white over everything!  What a treat for a little boy!  (And poor Daddy who had to shovel the driveway all by himself!)

Daniel was a little uncertain of what to do with the snow, but Daddy made sure he got a full lesson in snowball fights, building snowmen, sledding, and snow angels!

Daniel exploring our first snow of the season (not the blizzard obviously!).

Daniel and Daddy checking out the snow fall Saturday morning before things got too deep.  Even at this point it was hard for our little man to walk.

Trudging through the snow, this takes some balance and practice!

Speaking of balance!  Daniel had to get used to the cold the hard way :)

Daddy demonstrating for Daniel how to make a snow angel!

One of my favorite pictures of all the snow pictures, of course!  Such a sweetie my boy is!

Warming up inside after a fun time playing outside!

Daddy tackling the driveway after the snow finally stopped.  Check out how deep it is!!

Daniel was very happy to go outside and encourage his Daddy in his hard work. 

What a delightful way to start the winter season, and just before Christmas too!

Christmas cookies!

What better season than Christmas to bake a TON of cookies and enjoy them to the fullest?!  Daniel has never been given many sweets, but we have allowed him some this Christmas season.  And boy does he ever love them!

He is also my official and best "helper" in the kitchen and he loves to stand up next to me on a chair and assist me.  He always declares that he must "dump in" all of the ingredients.  Which he does except for any of the wet or messy ingredients.  :)  He also particularly enjoys decorating the cookies with colored sugar.

While helping my Mom bake cookies he also enjoyed the rare pleasure of licking the beaters which is a huge treat.  I ususally allow him to lick the beaters from mashed potatoes etc., but I had never allowed him to lick a cookie beater!

Here are some pictures from throughout the season.  Enjoy!

Daniel licking the beater while helping Grammie make Christmas cookies!

Helping Grammie sprinkle on the colored sugar!

And, of course, verifying that the cookies meet his high, high standards for sugary treats!

Getting ready to help Mommy make out gingerbread cookies!  (What a sticky mess!  That's the last time I'll be making gingerbread unless I find a better recipe!)

Very, very pleased with the results!

And again, making sure that cookie with yummy icing and sprinkles passes the taste test!