Have I mentioned before how much Joseph loves numbers? Well, he just keeps getting better and better at identifying them and counting with them. Here he is up in the double digits with Tim tonight!

Today, of course, was also my birthday! Tim surprised me by taking me to dinner at a fantastic Mexican food place called La Fogata. Apparently, it was featured in the 2007 publication of "1000 Places to See Before You Die", and I will freely admit that my Chile En Nogada (poblano pepper stuffed with picadillo, almonds and green olives, covered with a deliciously unique pecan sauce) and Tres Leches Cake were utterly delicious! Here I am opening presents tonight, a great way to end another fantastic birthday!

Here's our inventive little guy showing off his clever way of pushing this green truck around without having to get down on his hands and knees. He always has preferred to do things standing up!

This afternoon, Tim and I suddenly realized that we hadn't heard or seen anything from Joseph in quite some time. Although that usually means mischief of some kind or another, we discovered him in his room just reading books to himself! Here he is reading the last few pages of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", quietly saying things like "cocoon" and "beautiful butterfly"!

Here's Joseph tonight just being silly in the tub! He sure loves taking a bath!

Some of the neighborhood streets around our house have those big, wide speed humps, and Joseph just loves them. He's already managed to memorize which routes have them, and continually says things like: "let's go find some bumps", "got to go to another bump", "here comes the next bump", etc. Here he is at home this afternoon engaging in some of his first imaginative play, taking his little walker wagon over the speed bumps he created in the living room with some of his other toys! What a fun idea!

Here's just a fun shot of Joseph sporting his new shoes, which he thinks are really "cute" and "comfy"!

This afternoon I had an ultrasound, and here's our first portrait of our new little family member! We still don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl, because, amazingly enough, this baby is in frank breech position just like Joseph was. Apparently, it's highly unusual to see multiple breech babies from the same mom, and although it's still possible that the baby will turn, it's also possible that this is just the way my body makes babies. So, instead of getting ready to rent the labor hot tub our hospital offers, I'm getting myself ready for another c-section. What a blessing, though, to live in a day where a baby's position is more of a minor inconvenience than a major life-threatening problem! Just under two months left to go now!

Here's a neat shot Tim took of one of the two Golden-fronted Woodpeckers flitting around here and there in our back yard this afternoon, reminding us that we've got to get those bird feeders up soon!

Here is Joseph running around in my shower cap tonight and being quite a little ham!

Here's our little sleepyhead snoozing away when I went in to wake him up this afternoon! It looks a bit uncomfortable to me, but who am I to judge? It sure seems to work for him!

Tim decided this shot offered a good perspective on the size of my belly nowadays (at just about two months away from my due date). The bulge really is quite a bit lower and sticks out quite a bit farther than it did with Joseph!

Since I've had so many requests for shots of our new house, I suppose I should apologize for always just posting lots of shots of our cute little boy. Then again, this is my blog, and frankly, our house just isn't nearly as interesting as our growing, changing, loving, little boy! Here he is this morning with his little Snuffle (which he has been carrying around with him quite a bit lately), and this week's favorite book (about Cookie Monster sharing cookies with his friends).

He is also learning how to stick his tongue out! He has always had a little difficulty with certain mouth-related activities, but it seems like he's slowly learning all the important things little boys need to know...

like how to spit out food! Although his little bowl of cherries is most certainly devoid of pits, he is getting quite a kick out of watching me spit out mine!

In listing the many things Joseph loves lately, I can't believe I forgot to mention numbers! Seeing numbers, saying numbers, arranging numbers: he's attracted to just about anything number-related. He's to the point where he can pretty much count to 20, and he even has a limited understand of what happens after that, although his confusion about the difference between 0 and 10 does tend to make things a bit difficult for him! While we were getting ready this morning, he brought all these numbers into the bathroom one by one, lining them carefully up in order. What a little smartypants!

Here is Joseph this morning doing and talking about some of his favorite things lately: climbing on our bed with the help of his nifty little step stool, grabbing the striped pillow and the big Snuffles, snuggling with them, and recalling his favorite elevator-riding experiences! One day he started talking about elevators as soon as I walked in his room after his nap, so I asked him if he had been "dreaming about an elevator", and now that's what he says whenever one comes to mind. Some of the other things he's been into lately are: getting his hands washed with soap ("soapy-soap-soap"), going over the speed bumps in our neighborhood ("let's go find another bump"), singing songs from the Children's Songbook (especially "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" and "Follow the Prophet"), watching the garage door open and close (although he's somehow come to confuse the lights on the garage door opener with "sunlight"), riding in the big, orange car-carts at Home Depot (we've been doing that an awful lot lately), turning on and off the two low light switches in the house (also reached via his handy step stool), and eating Mallow-Oats cereal for breakfast (although it took us a few days to reach an understanding about the importance of eating the oats along with the mallows). These are among the many, many things that make being a parent so worthwhile!