Today I am 39 weeks, 5 days and yes, still pregnant. Whoever said no news is good news has definitely never been pregnant, especially because all I want right now is to wake up in excruciating pain and hurry off to the hospital. Until then, we are enjoying Ben's spring break and are grateful that Buffalo has given us an unusually warm day so we can walk . . . and walk . . . and walk . . . .

And here he is, the big brother to be. Can you believe Dayton's going to be the BIG brother? I can't. Wish us luck!

What do you do in February?

Oh, the question I have asking myself building up to this February, one of the coldest months in Buffalo. This is what we decided to do:
#1-POTTY TRAIN

I've been told this was "ambitious", but with Ben in Syracuse, myself with a headcold, and Buffalo hitting below freezing temperatures, could there be a better time to stay inside, crank up the heat, and let Dayton run around in his underwear?

That being said, this was definitely not an easy task. Maybe it was because Dayton's "reward of choice" happened to be the candy in the University of Utah Pez dispenser that was given to us as a prank- in fact, I'm pretty sure the candy was cursed (notice, in the next picture we put Dayton in a BYU shirt) After 1 1/2 days with little success, we callled on our friend Kalisa for a little pep talk. Gratefully, we took her advice and stuck with it because that afternoon Dayton finally started getting it. As you can see, he was happy about it (and so were we!)

*Sorry Ben- I couldn't bring myself to post the "messy" picture

After a Friday morning start, by Monday we were accident free and have been since. We even braved the mall today without any "mishaps". Dayton's gotten pretty used to the idea and has even been waking up dry since Sunday night. The picture below was not even planned- promise! He picked up the comics and said "bathroom".

#2- "NESTING"

I've felt kind of bad that I haven't really done much for the new baby- and he'll be here next month! So, after inspiration from a friend's blog I made a "car seat tent". Hopefully baby #2 likes it!

#3- PLAYING THE PIANO

Okay, so I haven't played the piano much for the past few years, which makes me kind of sad, but since Ben's been gone I've spent some of my evenings after Dayton goes to bed putting on the headphones and catching up. Apparently Dayton notices more than I know- he calls the headphones "goggles", has to have the music in place, and humms as he plays :)

#4- CHEESEBURGER DORITIOS

Okay, I usually don't blog much about things other than our little family, but have you guys tried these things? Seriously, they taste just like a Cheeseburger- I swear I can even taste the lettuce and tomato. These fascinate me- it must be February!

Christmas

I can't believe Christmas (AND most of January AND most of this pregnancy!) has come and gone! We told many of you we wouldn't be going to Utah this year, but after Ben's parents got their mission call, well, we booked our tickets and to Utah we went. We spent most of the trip with our wonderful families and had such a great time.

Thank you all for the memories! We miss you all already!

After 2 weeks in Utah, Ben came back to start rotations in Syracuse, so rather than being fatherless and freezing in Buffalo, Dayton and I went to Denver where it was in the 50's and 60's- which is what we Buffalonians call WARM! Thank you Alisha and Jamon for the great trip!

Well, so, many pictures, so little room . . . this calls for a slide show!

Well, its getting cold here in good ol' Buffalo and when it gets cold, we tend to get bored. To relieve the boredom, here are some of the things we've resorted to:

#1- Torturing Dayton

First of all, this was not my idea (although I did take pictures while laughing hysterically); Ben thought it would be a good costume- as you can see, Dayton didn't (sorry it's sideways- another blogger battle I lost)

#2: BYU Football

(ok really, I wish it was just BYU football, but really it is ANY football)

Here are some of Buffalo's biggest cougar fans, decked out for the big Utah game. Fortuanely for our windows/doors/pride the cougars won this year- which was unfortunate for our Ute friend's windows/doors/pride (we love you Steinbliks!). Taylor (the little blondie) is Dayton's favorite person. Usually, when Dayton wakes up in the morning he calls, "Mama, Mama . . ."; well, the other morning it was "Taylor, Taylor . . . " and so on.

#3: Haircuts (aka another version of torturing Dayton)

As you can see, Dayton's hair had gotten quite long (particularly in the front and back- no mullet jokes, please). So, for Dayton's 18-month-birthday present, we cut his hair- REALLY cut it- for the first time.

We thought it would be a good idea to put him in his booster, turn on "Madagascar" and give him a sucker- 2 out of 3 of those ideas turned out to be good ones (imagine a hairy sucker). In the picture below (don't mind my day-dreamy look) you can kind of see Dayton's long curls in the back. This was the saddest part to cut.

Below is his after shot:

#4: Playing outside

Yes, even in Buffalo we try to make it outside when tolerable. On December 1st, we had our first snow for the year, which was belated and seemingly appropriate. Dayton just kept pointing to different parts of the ground saying "Snowman! Snowman! Snowman!". This picture also shows Dayton with his favorite toys- an old solftball and a wooden souveniour bat. He insists on bringing them everywhere and even sleeping with them all the time. Pretty adorable . . .

Merry Christmas everyone!!!