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...BOY!!

I hear Ryder waking up, so I only have a moment to blog, but is was so exciting opening this gift and sharing the news with our family! Balloons came shooting out of our package as soon as we opened it and we loved opening all the little boy packages inside.  We owe Jen a HUGE! thank you for pulling this all together.  We couldn't have imagined a more special morning :)

To share the news with family, I made fortune cookies with the gender inside :)

We are so excited to welcome another little boy into our home.  Ryder and baby #2 are going to have so much fun causing trouble together ;)

Baby boy Billing - 21 weeks

Merry Christmas!

We had a super exciting Christmas morning at the Billing house.  We found out the gender of our second baby!!  I woke up a million times throughout the night to check the time and see if it was late enough for me to wake us all up to go open our present!  I had dreams of it being both a boy and a girl...

Opening our "gender present"!!

We are super excited to share the news - I'll be posting it tomorrow after telling family in person :)

We also opened presents from Santa, family & friends :)

Have a Merry Christmas :)

Happy 14th Birthday Mikayla!

Happy 14th Birthday Mikayla!! We celebrated at Laura's...

Celebrated at Nickelodoen Universe:

Shawn, Mikayla & Craig braving the ropes course

The thrill-seekers at Nickelodeon Universe 

Laura

Shawn (blue), Mikayla and Craig

Nick (left), Craig (right) 

And celebrated at Tucci!!

3 Days till Christmas!

Which means...3 days until we find out the gender of our baby! 

Will it be a boy...or a girl???

Holiday Spirit

This kid is so funny.  Most pictures are initiated by me.  Most of these, however, were requested by Ryman.  He almost cried when I said I was putting my camera away! Lol!

We're looking forward to celebrating with our families this weekend!! :)

20 Weeks

More pictures!  Yesterday we had another ultrasound to double check a couple things from last week.  I'm relieved to say that everything checked out perfectly!  At the end, she switched the machine to 3D/4D and we were able to see our little one so much more clearly.  It was crazy - I felt like we got to peak inside my tummy!  It is so cool to see the baby on screen and feel him / her move at the same time :)

At 20 weeks now, I feel baby moving every day, for most of the day, and his / her movements are getting stronger.  Baby weighs 12oz with a heart rate of 142 bpm. 

Our baby! Placenta to the left and umbilical cord by his / her face.

Arm and hand - the tech was actually able to count all ten fingers and toes :)

Tiny little foot

Baby from the outside at 20 wks...still comfy in most of my clothes - which is totally different from my first pregnancy.  I think I was wearing maternity pants at 16 weeks last time!

Holiday Art for Daddy

With daddy gone at a work dinner last night, we thought we'd make him something special.  We spent almost 2 hours just doing art projects!  He loved it and was so careful with the paint.  Here's the special project for daddy:

Happy Holidays!

With our tree finally up and Christmas shopping well underway, its finally beginning to feel like the holiday season!  Now all we need is some snow!

19 Weeks

Yesterday we had our second ultrasound.  The first was at 8 weeks, this one was at 19 weeks.  Baby measured right on schedule.  He / she was super active and made it a little tricky for the tech to be postive about the gender.  But she said she was pretty sure she had it right and sealed the result in an envelope.  Stay tuned - gender to be revealed on Christmas :)  (Both to us and on the blog!)

Otherwise, at this point, the pregnancy is going great.  The second trimester is the best - I feel good, am still comfortable without maternity clothes and get to feel kicks and sommersaults daily :) I love it :)  I felt the first movements around 14 weeks (super early) and Shawn felt the baby at 18 weeks.  I am so anxious to find out whether we have a little boy or little girl tumbling around in there!

Florida

We just got back from our family vacation to Florida this afternoon.  We loved being able to spend so much time outside again!  We hung out in Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Downtown Disney, swam in the hotel pool, ate on the beach and enjoyed the family time.  Ry traveled so well...Pretty much the only time we had to tell him to behave was when he was giggling or singing too loudly!  Here are some photos from our trip:

Oceanside lunch in Cocoa Beach, listening to a live reggae band.

One of Ry's fav things was being chased back to shore by the waves!

Cocoa Beach

Daytona Beach

Run!!

Ryder doesn't speak in full sentences yet, but he is getting really good at communicating.  We told him we were ready to go back to the hotel and that he could swim there.  His response: "No. Stay. Ocean." Tough to argue with our little beach boy :)

Eating like such a big kid!

Ponce Point Lighthouse

The intimidating view looking up!

Ryder climbed all 203 steps by himself!!

Enjoying the view a the top

Catching one of many shows going on at Downtown Disney

Happy Thanksgiving!!

The Things Kids Say...

 After a light dinner last night, I woke up pretty hungry.  Ryder and I were eating breakfast together and I decided to pour myself another bowl of cereal.  As I was doing so, Ryder looks at me with shock and says:
"Mommy?!  Mooooree???" As if he was to say 'you're seriously gonig to have another bowl??'
I just said "Yep, I'm hungry" and started to eat.
Then he starts shouting in a deep grunting voice "MOOOORE!  MOOOORE!" Followed by lots of giggles...from him!

Where did he learn this?!!  We'll see if I have a second round of cereal again...maybe just not in his presence!

Great Outdoors

With the awesome fall we're having, we enjoyed spending another weekend outside.  On Sunday, we hiked at Taylor's Falls, went the the Hwy 8 sculpture garden and then went out to lunch in Forest Lake - fun to spend some time in my old neighborhood :)

Hiking along the St. Croix River

A little hiking at a slower pace

My favorite sculpture at Franconia was one we could climb on!

Friday at the Pool

I know I've said this already, but I am loooving my Fridays home with Ryder.  One day makes such a difference!  This past Friday, we spent 2 hours at the Maple Grove pool...which led to a 4 hour nap!!

He's such a big boy now, he can go down the toddler slide all by himself - over and over...

P.S.  As I'm writing this, I can hear Ryder talking to himself in bed...he saying "Hola!" "Bye!" "Hola!" "Bye!"  So silly :)