I am now 38 weeks pregnant! Our daughter weighs approximately 6.8 pounds and is about 19.75 inches long, or the length of a leek. All of her organs are developed and functional. We’re hoping she stays in a couple more weeks to finish growing. I keep telling her how great it would be to come on her due date, as that would work really well for us. We’ll see how well she listens. 
Her nursery is done and it looks great! My wonderful mother-in-law put her excellent sewing skills to work when she was here recently and made the window valances and crib skirt. Here are some pictures of the room. It’s a little hard to tell but the walls are a lavender color.
Thanks Oma for these great window treatments!
The tree with owls is a decal that I found online. Isn’t it cute? See ALL the leaves on that tree? Turns out those have to be applied one by one in a slow and careful process. Big applause for my wonderful husband, who painstakingly applied the thing to the wall. I love the way it turned out.
The awesome owl that our friend Angel made:
The diapers on the floor are not part of the design scheme for the room and will be moved.
The wall above this shelf is empty right now, it will have canvas enlargements of our maternity/birth/newborn pictures from the fabulous J. Shelton Photography, and I still need to fill the frames as well.
Yesterday we enjoyed a visit to our friend Laura and Dave’s house for a BBQ, a tradition that began when Laura, our friend Angela and I were in grad school together in Michigan. Angela still lives in Michigan but is out here for work, so we took advantage of the opportunity to get together and eat some delicious food. Here are the three of us enjoying the nice weather:
Laura and Dave were witness to Max’s love for all things cake when we celebrated Laura and Max’s birthdays the last time we got together. Laura had the brilliant idea that our BBQ event should include a new tradition: Cupcakes! We were careful not to mention this to Max until after dinner, and he was of course thrilled. Here he is with his cupcake in one hand and mine in the other:
This was about the time he started eating the frosting with his fingers:
A good time was had by all, and we’re looking forward to doing it again next summer!
Max is making his opinions known these days, and has perfected the toddler art of passive resistance–going limp and somehow making himself weigh twice as much when he doesn’t want to do something and we attempt to pick him up. You know how the parenting books always advise to give kids the choice between two acceptable options? Well, that definitely helps and we do it as much as possible, but Max has caught on that it’s not that simple and will now often respond with either, “Both?” or “No anything” when asked if he wants this or that. Just all part of the process of being two!
He is constantly making us laugh and amazing us with how his mind works. The other day Jeff and Max were coloring and Maxwell was telling Jeff what shapes to draw on the paper. At one point Jeff asked which shape he should do next and Max replied, “Matagon.” Jeff asked, “What shape?” and Max again said, “Matagon” and then looked at Jeff with a grin and waited to see what he would do. So apparently he’s invented a new shape. Every so often he mentions it and when we ask how many sides it has he always says five. But apparently it’s not a pentagon. If I can determine what this matagon looks like, I’ll be sure to update you.
It’s so much fun to have conversations with Max as his expressive language grows. Here’s a video of one such conversation from a couple weeks ago. Jeff and Max had gone to the park close to our house. The bucket swing there is hung really low to the ground, to the point that Max’s feet drag when he swings in it. Jeff thought he’d try pushing the swing over the top of the bar to make it sit a little higher before Max got in. I arrived at the park a bit later to join them and Max was eager to tell me about the “really big bang” that happened when Jeff did that. The following video was preceded by at least two solid minutes of similar conversation about said bang:
Big Bang swing video