24 Weeks

We had a quick 24 week appointment this morning and everything was going fine according to my doctor. I think we've settled on a name, but there are a few people having babies between now and when we are that could "steal" it from us. We're anxiously awaiting their name choices. :) 

Now that Christmas is over, I'm thinking more about this baby's arrival. A mere 16 weeks and we'll have another baby boy in our family. To be honest, I'm thinking more about Eli's transition than my own. Maybe I should start thinking of both. 

Christmas Card & Update

Just in case you didn't get one of these gems in the mail, here's our photo and udpate.

Wichert Family Update 2013

-Brent started a new job with The EyeDoctors in March. This resulted in a move to Salina, KS. We bought a house in April and were able to rent that same house in March until we could close. We live a mile outside of town. We are really enjoying our home.

-This summer proved to be very busy even though we didn’t have any big vacations planned. We had several trips to both Sabetha (for Cindy’s family) and Buhler (for Brent’s family) for various birthday parties and family events. In June all the Wertenberger family got together for a weekend to celebrate mom’s 60^th birthday and mom & dad’s 40^th anniversary. In July the McKim family (Cindy’s mom’s side of the family) had their bi-annual reunion at Rock Springs. It was a full and fun summer season.

-In August we found out that we will be adding a baby to our family in April. A few weeks ago we found out this baby is a boy! We could not be more excited to add this little guy to our family.

-As I write this, we are preparing for Eli’s 2^nd birthday (on the 20^th). I can hardly believe how fast these past 2 years have gone. He is such a lively fun little boy. He loves books, music and dancing, ball games, trains, trucks, dirt, playing with his cousins and friends, and all things boy. He keeps us laughing with his 2 year old antics. It is so fun to see who God is making him to be. Our prayer is that God will use us to make him into the man that God wants him to be.

-We hope this update finds you all doing well. As we enter this Christmas season may we all remember the babe in the manger that was (and still is) the hope for all mankind. He provides the redemption that we are incapable of ourselves. We are so thankful for His incomparable gift.

-If you’d like to keep up with us throughout the year, you can check out our family blog at  brentcindyandfamily.blogspot.com

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” II Corinthians 5:21

Our 2 Year Old

Our friend, Amanda at A.D. Photography took our pictures again this year. Here Eli is trying to show you how old he is!

The day has come when our little boy turns 2. When I look at his baby pictures, it feels like it was just months ago. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. He is such a joy! God is good to allow us to be his parents. Our prayer is that we are parenting the way He wants us too and for His glory! 

Stats: Height 35" (75th percentile) Weight 28.8 lbs (61st percentile)

The day he was born.

Our 1 year old!

Some things I want to remember...

-He loves to dance when he hears music. He can't help himself.

-He loves Bob the Builder and Super Why.

-The other night we drove through a neighborhood with lots of Christmas lights. He loved it! He kept saying, "wow, light-t". He added 2 t's at the end for some reason. He now does this with all words that end in t or k. 

-Isn't the best eater, but will eat when he's hungry so I don't lose sleep over it. 

-When daddy and mommy hug or kiss, he has to get in on the action too. He doesn't like to be left out.

-If it's not his idea, he doesn't always like to play along.

-When he sees something tall- like a water tower- he'll say, "tall tall tower, sit down"! 

-Eli: "Super Why?"
Mom: "Do you want to watch Super Why?"
Eli: "Ooookay." 
(This also happens when he asks for snacks, drink, trains, etc...)

-When he's excited he says "wow wow wow wow" and usually laughs while putting his hands over his face. 

-Sometimes he comes up to Brent and me, points to us and says "poopy poopy poopy poopy" and then laughs. 

Sledding

(*Pictures were taken over a week ago.) We attempted our first sledding experience. There wasn't much snow, but we thought we'd give it a whirl. Well, Eli hated it. Like was crying the whole time. He just wanted to run in his awesome boots. No sitting for him.

The misery...

Crafting

Mom had a great idea to make a Christmas craft for some family. It involved finger paint on the feet. Once Eli knew he could put paint on other parts of his body besides his hands, he jumped all in.

 And this was the end result. Pretty cute...

Choo Choo, Eli is turning 2!

We had Eli's birthday party tonight with our families. Almost everyone was there- if I would have scheduled better everyone would have. :) It's such a blessing to celebrate the 2 years God has given us with him with his aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas, and grandpas. 

His first present was a "choo choo" so he wasn't too excited to open any other presents.  

This is a good depictions of how Eli acted during the opening of presents. 

Playing with cousins: Megan, Kyson, and Tynlee. (Wish I would have taken more pictures of everyone that was there.)

Happy birthday to you!

More excited about the Thomas plates than looking at mom and smiling.  

Eating cake and ice cream and loving it! 

No Words Needed

20 weeks (the second baby boy edition)

It's true. I'm half way through my pregnancy with our second BOY! We could not be more excited. We actually found out at our 16 week appointment the gender of the baby but just recently had the big appointment where they do all the measuring and everything. Baby looked good. 

Eli's reaction? He has no idea what's going on. He sees the sono pictures on the fridge and smiles and says baby. He points to mommy's tummy and says baby. But the reality of it all probably won't come to him until...well...April 23rd (that is if I deliver on my due date). 

This was taken in September when we told our family. His shirt says "Only Child Exp. April 2014".

 2 boys. As most of you know, I come from a family of 4 older brothers. Truth be known, I think it would be great to have the same family make-up. Obviously we'd be fine with whatever the Lord decides to give us, but boys don't scare me and girls kinda do. Don't get me wrong, I love little girls (and especially my 3 beautiful nieces and some special little girl friends). I also love the idea of doing girly things with my daughter some day, Lord willing. Right now, in this moment, we are very excited to add a little brother to our family this Spring.

20 weeks- I made Brent take a billion pictures and they somehow ALL turned out blurry. I took one picture of him and it wasn't. Hmmmm.

Eli's Funnies (23 month edition)

Our boy is 23 months old today. That means only one more month before he is 2. CRA-ZI-NESS. Love him and all his little quirks. 

We play a game called "no smiling". I'll look at Eli and give him a play-stern face and say "no smiling". He makes this face back at me

and then gives this cheesy grin. 

When he sees a duck (in a book or in real life) he says "Aflack Aflack". He has a little duck that when you push it, it says "aflack". 

He can whistle. Not on cue, but usually does it once a day.

He lines up his little cars and says "choo choo". Poor kid thinks he made a train with cars. Guess maybe a train should be on his Christmas list.

We went to Lowes the other day and they have their Christmas decorations out. When he sees those lights or the ugly ginormous polar bear, his eyes light up and he says "more more more". (Now I understand why people have those blow up things in their yard. Its' for the kids.)

I can tell Eli to go to time-out and he does, willingly. He'll walk over very calmly, sit down, and then start fake crying. Sometimes he'll go to timeout without being told to. He'll sit for a little while and then stand up and say "sorry". 

His favorite thing to say is "Ut oh. I drop it."

Sometimes when he's really excited he shimmies his body with a big smile. 

He says "Sit dooooown" when he is starting to stand up in his high chair and he knows he isn't supposed to. 

This one isn't so funny, but it's still an oddity. When he's looking at books by himself, if he sees a little boy or girl in the picture he says "nooooooo" while pointing at them. We've been working on it, but I'm not exactly sure what it's about. 

He has a Little People car that plays music when you push different buttons. He never lets the song play through. He just keeps pushing buttons. I'm convinced he does this simply to drive me crazy. 

When he says bye-bye to anyone, he also blows them a kiss.

He counts the stairs as he walks them (yeah, no more crawling the stairs yikes!) 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and any combination of other numbers from 1-15. 

Says "Where are you?" and "Doing?" when he wants to know what's going on. 

Our First Public Meltdown

It was the most beautiful day ever. 65* cool breeze and sunny. Eli and I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up just a few things. He was doing really well, so I decided we should go to Big Lots as we had some birthday presents to pick out. Instead of driving, we walked. Approximately 200 yards. No big deal. 

Inside the store, I tried on some hats on Eli and he loved it. When I started walking away he started throwing a smallish fit. Crying like he couldn't believe his mommy would be so mean. He soon found his composure. We picked out the presents for the princesses and saw a dump truck at the end of the isle. Side note- Eli has like no outside toys. He's got a tiny slide that he plays with for like 10 seconds and a wagon. That's it. Not trike, no nothing. So, I thought this little plastic dump truck would be a good addition to his toys. As soon as I picked it up, his eyes lit up. He was so excited. So we headed to check out. When I put the truck on the counter to pay for it, Eli freaked out. He was so mad/sad/distraught. I grabbed his face and did the close talk thing. It didn't faze him. If I were a good mom I should have left the dump truck, but truth be known, I really wanted him to have it. Oh, it was also at this time that I noticed he had a nasty yellow dried on booger on his nose. Mom of the year, folks. 

Was it worth it? 

We get outside. Eli is still in the cart and it is then that I realized that I have to figure out how to hold the hand of a toddler that has no idea that cars could really hurt him AND carry a dump truck and two other small bags 200 yards. So I get everything adjusted in one hand/arm and grab Eli's hand and we're off. Except Eli decides he's still mad so he sits down and starts crying. So I set the merchandise down, pick him up (discipline his little rear right there in front of anyone who cared to look) and tried to pick up the merchandise. Off we went to the car. He had composed himself by now, but I wasn't about to try to readjust by having him walk. We get to the car and I pop the trunk to put the stuff in. He sees that stupid dump truck again and proceeds to throw his head back and start crying. I put him in his car seat and he blows his nose in protest. The boy has allergies and there was a ton of snot every. Would you believe that there wasn't a napkin, wipe, kleenex anywhere???!?! 

I had planned to stop by the grocery store after Big Lots because we need milk. I wasn't about to take my emotional snot-faced child into another store. 

If this doesn't call for a trip through the drive-thru, I don't know what does. 

Chiefs Kingdom

The Chiefs have been and always will be my favorite NFL team. It is especially fun this year because they are 8-0. That's right. 8 wins, 0 losses. It has maybe happened in my lifetime, but I don't remember it. My brothers, Josh and Jobi, were kind enough to let Brent and I go to our very first game this last week (very generous considering the undefeated streak they had witnessed). The Chiefs were playing the Browns. My mom watched Eli so we could go solo. 

Before the game. 

My favorite Chief is in the background practicing his punt return. Dexter McCluster. He's standing at the 11 yard line. You can't tell it's him, but we all know who's using the camera. :)

I was too chicken to ask anyone to take our picture together. So this is proof Brent was there. I should have recorded him doing the Tomahawk Chop. He thinks he's a Cowboys fan...barf.

Chiefs win!

We had so much fun! What a day. If you haven't experienced a game at Arrowhead, you really should. Thanks again to Jobi and Josh! 

Just 5 Loaves and 2 Fish

Today as Eli and I were running errands around town, I turned on the local Christian radio station. There was a lady speaking about how God can use us even though we lack much. I don't know who she was and I'm not even sure what program it was on (maybe Focus on the Family) and didn't hear it in its entirety. The part I heard she was talking about the time when Jesus feeds the 5,000. He had been healing and speaking all day and they just kept following Him. It was late and the disciples had the brilliant idea to send everyone home and get their own food (no sarcasm intended, I'm pretty sure I would have said the same thing). 

My paraphrase, for entire version go to John 6:1-14

Jesus: How are we going to feed these people?

Disciples: Uh, send them home? Even if we spent all our money from this year, it wouldn't even give everyone a bite.

Andrew: Uh, Jesus...there's a boy that has 5 barley loaves and 2 fish. 

Jesus: Tell the people to sit down. (Then Jesus gave thanks for the food and began distributing it.)

There was enough for everyone. EVERYONE. Five freaking thousand people. And 12 baskets left over. 

Did the boy with the food have extra special gifts that made it multiply? Did Andrew get extra God-points because he spotted the food and then gave it to the Master? 

Or, did the Son of God take what little measly gift that was presented, use it, and through His power make it MORE THAN ENOUGH for EVERYONE. 

Wow. This has huge implications for my life. 

But God, I'm not educated enough. But God, I don't know anyone here. But God, I'm too busy. But God, I don't have enough money. But God, (fill in your own excuse). 

But God owns me. He captivates me. He rules my life. So why am I limiting Him? 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

E is for Eli the Elephant

I had to bribe him with Thomas the Train to get him to even put the thing on, but man is he cute! Thanks to the Lynch family for loaning us this cute costume! Currently, an elephant is Eli's favorite animal. Whenever he sees one in a book, he puts his arm out and makes his elephant noise. Happy Halloween! 

Done with this hat thing.

Husband-Wife Conversation (take 3)

Husband: makes painful moan sound from the kitchen area (not overly done just loud enough I could hear it in the living room)

Wife: "What happened?"

Husband: "I'm fine."

Wife: "That's not what I asked."

Husband: "Maybe I don't want to tell you that I hurt my neck finishing off the Cheetos, okay?" 

Wife: "Hahahaha, can I please have your permission to put this on the blog?" 

Husband: "Whatever."

I sure do love him! 

My Boys First D-1 Game

Last weekend, we went to the K-State Baylor game. It was Brent and Eli's first division one football game and I'd say it was an overall success. Eli did great. He got scared the first time everyone started yelling, but then he got the hang of things and even took a nap on me- which rarely happens anymore- so it was a treat for everyone. 

The EyeDoctors are on the scoreboard (this is who Brent works for and the reason we got to go to the game).

Me and my little boy! 

The boy loves his daddy!

A pretzel with nacho cheese makes EVERYTHING better!

Night night

Eli's Funnies

Eli makes us laugh all the time, so we wanted to try and document all of those little things. 

-Eli notices Jayhawks all the time- even at the store when I don't intentionally walk by them or point them out. He points to them and says "SHEEE-HAW" over and over until I acknowledge him. 

-When Eli sees a cow (or sheep or goat- we're working on it) he says moo (just like any other kid, right). But he says it in a demanding way- like in the same way he says no when he doesn't want to do something. MOOOOOO

-He's a copy cat. If one of us coughs, Eli coughs. A few weekends ago, we were at Brent's parent's house. We were playing outside and Brent went over to the grass to spit. Eli walked over exactly where daddy was standing and spit in the grass too.

Copying dad

Copying mom- we were picking up sticks.

-He likes to jump on the couch or bed. He'll do some little jumps and then says something like "one, five, three" and then puts his feet straight out so he bounces on his bottom and then proceeds to laugh with delight. 

-When Eli is being too rough I will tell him to be nice or gentle. He then usually responds by "tickling" me (or whoever is closest). When he tickles he says "TICK-A-TICK-A-TICK-A". Sometimes he tickles the couch. 

-When Eli hears the Subway commercial he puts up his hand and says "fie dolla". 

-Eli has enjoyed playing peek-a-boo for quite awhile now, but he has started figuring out that he can peek at us through his fingers. He thinks he's being sneaky. 

-Pretty much any animal he sees on tv is a puppy. Dolphins, elephants, actual puppies, camels: all are "PUPPY". The boy LOVES puppies. With real puppies he puts his hands right in their face and laughs. 

-He saw The Price is Right the other day for the first time and was clapping and jumping along with the contestants. 

-He likes to make this face...

Oh, and he's a mess when he's eating.

20 Months

Eli is 20 months today and I just can't believe that in 4 short months, our baby will be 2. In the last month his independence has made its appearance. Oh boy! Particularly in the last couple weeks he has been a real bear. When I ask him to do something and he doesn't want to, he will get a scowl on his face, shake his head no, and hit his face and head. I am thinking that maybe his 2 year molars might be making their appearance, or maybe I'm just hoping that's the reason for his behavior. He definitely has his sweet moments too and will give kisses and says "hi" while waving and giving the biggest grin. Whenever I pick him from from the Y kids gym, he puts down the toy he's playing with, smiles, and runs to me while saying bye to the workers there. He loves puppies- whenever he sees one on a tv commercial, he stops whatever he is doing, points, laughs, and says "puppy" in a high pitched delighted voice. And whenever he gets to see one in real life, he is especially happy. He likes to be outside and watch the cars and trucks that go by. He now knows the difference between a car and a truck. Eli will dance when he hears music- it's a gentle bounce with a head nod- so adorable! He has become more clingy and a momma's boy this last month, which is nice and a bit challenging at times, but at least I know he loves me! We sure do love our little bear! 

Eating corn on the cob from mommy's garden!

...and loving it!

"Helping" mommy unload the dishwasher. Don't mind the mark on his head, it's just Sharpie marker. 

20 months today and messy messy messy! 

Bath-time after a messy supper.