Alexander Looks Like a Klingon and His New Discovery

Alexander and Benjamin spent the day at Gram's house while I worked more on moving preparations. I was making a quick stop at the Honda body shop, after my midwife (22 week) appointment, to see how much it would cost to repair the damage from Ryan high centering the car on a snowbank this last winter when I got a phone call from Diane. Alexander had fallen off a chair and had a black eye and a possible broken nose. I went to pick Ryan up and we met them at the new Bellevue Medical Center (which I didn't expect to see the inside of before our move -- It's a shame we won't be here for baby #3's delivery because it's a beautiful building). Apparently baby's noses are mostly cartilage. Amazingly, they got him right in and the Dr. came right away. They had already seen Alexander by the time we arrived. We were there less time than it took for my midwife appointment.

Alexander was not interested in much but laying his head on Gram's shoulder when we first arrived and then he moved to my shoulder. I nursed him a bit, we got back to Gram and Gramp's got him a diaper change, and now he's no worse for wear (other than looking a bit like a Klingon).

He was really excited about discovering his pocket.

Benjamin's Preschool Party

Benjamin had a party to celebrate the end of the semester at Preschool. Alexander was really excited he got to stay and play and not just watch through the one-way window and wave "bye bye" at Benjamin. They ate a LOT of cupcakes, cookies, snack mix, and Kool-aide.
Benjamin's Class.
I had to crop the photo with his 2nd hour buddy, Cassarah, because she had way too much cleavage showing.
This is Mrs. Hill, the child development teacher.
These were Benjamin's 3rd hour buddies, Rashim (1st 1/2 of the semester) and Tevante (2nd 1/2 of the semester).

Lewis Baby #3 has a Dongle...

Well, he doesn't actually have a dongle... because a dongle according to dictionary.com is: "a hardware device attached to a computer without which a particular software program will not run: used to prevent unauthorized use." Apparently, this is a widely used term in the computer world.

So it's way too late at night and we've been packing boxes or I wouldn't have thought it was so funny that Ryan put my A&M Smokey the Bear Hat Band on his head and said something about a dongle... thus, our conversation (about his dongle being broken at work) and the title of this post.
We had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday. Benjamin was sorely disappointed that he won't be having a little sister at the end of September and was grumpy that Ryan was so relieved (i.e. excited) by the news: For now Ryan won't have to figure out how to parent a daughter and will have one more boy scout. Alexander at this point really doesn't have a concept of what's going on and will be shocked when the new baby arrives. Ryan and I were both pretty surprised when the ultrasound tech said "It's a boy". I've been having dreams about a daughter for weeks and we both had the feeling last fall that we would eventually have a daughter... and no we are not going to keep having kids until we get one! The baby seemed to have all his parts and pieces and measured large (which is expected for a Lewis baby) possibly moving my due date to the 21st of Sept.

More Benjamin Photography

Benjamin was taking pictures while we were getting boxes ready for storage.
This is a pretty funny self-portrait.
Alexander at the bottom of the basement stairs.
Alexander throwing a fit at the bottom of the basement stairs.

Alexander swinging like a big boy.

We bought Alexander a baby swing for Easter to replace the dangerous 2 seat swing on the play set (80 pounds of boy would make the set twist and was a scary projectile), but Ryan didn't get it put up right away and I figured it wasn't worth only using it for a month before it went into storage, so I returned it to Wal-mart.
This is the first time Alexander has held onto the regular swing by himself. He wasn't so sure about it, but thought it was funny when I gave him slight pushes.

I wish I could have gotten video of it, but I was too busy trying to ensure he didn't fall off the wall... Alexander spent more than 10 minutes walking down the length of the brick wall in the background. He has a pretty good sense of balance for only being 15 months old!

I'm going to miss this house.

A Great Day at the Base Lake

I was going to send Ryan with the boys to the classic car show at the Durham while I got stuff done around the house, but the base lake was having an event at the same time. There were free boat rentals, free snow cones, bounce houses, and $1 hot dogs. We gave Benjamin the choice of what he wanted to do and he (to my surprise) picked the lake.

Alexander fell asleep on the way there, so I sat in the car with him and read the Ensign while Ryan and Benjamin canoed. As an update to this post, Ryan and Benjamin made the front cover of the base services magazine for June. Ryan didn't realize they had taken the photo. One of the brethren from our congregation in Bellevue saw the magazine and e-mailed Ryan about it.
Ryan and Benjamin brought us hot dogs and Alexander woke up just as they got back (from Ryan shutting the van door). The boys enjoyed a snow cone... Benjamin liked my blue raspberry one better than the bubble gum flavored one he and gotten and tried to swipe it from me.
We then went out on a paddle boat. Alexander wasn't so sure about being out on the water. He was very subdued the entire time. I am SO out of shape. We were paddling into the wind to get back to the dock and it was hard going. We were only out on the water about 10 minutes.
Benjamin then wanted to bounce. Alexander had never truly experienced a bounce house before. I don't think the event was well advertised because there were only about 50 people there. I only knew about it because I had seen a flier at base rental when I was picking up a tree pruner and tin snips. There was only one other kid in bounce house (Benjamin was in the other one being a "beast" to the big kids -- He was a little sad inside they were calling him a beast until Daddy told him to go "rwarh" at them... it worked).
Alexander had a great time flopping around. I'm really stressed about our move, but I don't want to focus solely on it and miss out on quality experiences. This was one of those experience I'm glad we took the time for.