I keep seeing this on different people's blogs and I may have been tagged on it once, so I thought I'd do it. I felt like I did okay, but then I counted 38 out of 100, I'm not sure...but seriously, all the France and Rome things. If you've been to Italy, wouldn't you have done ALL the things listed?

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars- in the Grand Canyon
3. Played in a band – does sang with a band count?
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disney World
8. Climbed a mountain -I'm not sure I've climbed the entire thing, but I've been on lots of peaks
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris-I went to Canada once...
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch –it's probably not an art form to most, but I have learned and tried a lot of new things through scrapbooking
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables -tomatoes
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France (if I'd been to Paris, don't you think this would have been covered)
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill -I prefer to think of it as a mental health day
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset - both the best being in the Grand Tetons
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person - Yes, the Canadian side
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors- Hillbilly-land, OH, 3 of my cousins liked my sister, 2 liked me (and I'm not kidding, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt b/c I was 13)
35. Seen an Amish community -yep, school, house, sawmill, maple sugar camp
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing- Montana, thanks for all the cool experiences Tim...
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris Enough with Paris already!
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check – but it was a bank error
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person -Twice, once from the top, once rafting through the bottom
80. Published a book- so I haven't published a book, but one of my scrapbooks was published in a magazine
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club - we started a reading club for our church library
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day-too many times to count

Megan Update

Megan at 19 1/2 months:

• still loves shoes, any shoes really
• is also into hats, she has 3 main hats: a orange fisherman style hat with a hawaiian type hat that she refers to as her "cowboy" hat, a knit hat made by cousin "Rub-a-beka", and a white snow hat, she will gladly wear mommy's or daddy's hat too.
• knows her colors, which I think is weird, but she is right 95% of the time (black usually throws her off).
• talks in complete sentences a lot of the time, "I want to hold you mommy," "I want more juice," "Mommy have cookie, too?" (she regularly adds too on the end of phrases, sometimes it makes sense, many times it doesn't), "Megan has stripes on shirt." They aren't always that clear, but for the most part she is understandable.
• She will repeat about everything. We were at dinner the other day and she overheard us say, "appetizer" and the next thing I hear is "app-e-tiz-er." At breakfast yesterday, she said, "Pablo says, 'Poppycock' and (pause) 'bal-der-dash.' This caused my jaw to drop because she had watched that episode of Backyardigans 2 weeks ago and hadn't mentioned it since.
• She remains obsessed with the Backyardigans. She has her own Tyrone and Pablo stuffed characters and they are regular playmates. We may have to quit watching though because of questionable comments. Last week, they had an episode where one of the characters was "Madame Tasha." Well, Megan just says, "Dam Tasha"...

• She loves to play with her village people (not the group that sings YMCA). She has started to imitate pretend play, I'll regularly overhear her saying, "Fireman want donut?" followed by "I love donut, mmm" and lip-smacking. Then, she'll move onto another person, "Grandma want donut?" or she'll give everyone a bath or have everyone take a nap.
• Loves to take baths and help wash dishes.
• Regularly call people in succession on her toy cell phones. It goes sort of like this, "Hi Tracy" click, "Hi Phil" click, "Hi Grandpa" click. Recently, she has started to add additional comments or questions. I think she asked Grandpa, "How a you?" yesterday and then replied with something like, "playing with toys." He must have asked what she was doing...
• Loves markers, crayons and play-doh. Might I add, those color wonder markers are amazing!! They stay in the diaper bag on all occasions and regular come out to make visits to the doctor, restaurants, etc. much more peaceful.
• Is starting to move away from board books. We go to the library almost weekly and last time checked out all "regular" books. She would sit for an hour and let me read to her (that might just be because she knows naptime or bedtime is coming, but I'll pretend it's because she loves books). Her favorite books right now are, "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" (which I love), "Brown Bear" and "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies." I thought she was a little young at first, but then she'll say, "agin" (translation=again) at the end and will point out things in the book or talk about them later. I, for one, enjoy the change because our library doesn't have near the selection of board books as regular books and the stories tend to be more interesting than a picture of a bear and the word "Teddy Bear" on the page.
• So far, she seems like a wonderbaby, but here are her flaws. She refuses to eat any vegetables. She ate all of them at first, but now there is no amount of convincing to get her to eat a pea. Fruit tends to be in the same category.
• She is particular about her clothing and will throw fits if she doesn't like what I pick out. Lately, she has been better about this, but I think it's because I have started offering her choices and not because she is less picky.
• Can throw a mean fit about unexpected things. She doesn't do it often, but the infrequency has made it difficult for me to formulate a game plan for dealing with it.

All in all, she cracks us up regularly. She is easy going and pleasant almost all the time unless she is tired or hungry (just like her daddy). It is especially nice that she is so verbal because it makes it easier to figure out what is going on in her little head. She is a true blessing.

Baby #2

So we made the announcement between Thanksgiving and Christmas that we are expecting our second baby. The official due date is July 10 (although I don't put a whole lot of stock in due dates since only 3% of babies are born on them). We will find out if it is a boy or girl on February 23.

I am starting to feel a lot better. I didn't feel great for the first couple of months, but my energy is starting to come back. Now my only problem is that I try to get too much done and wear myself out.

Megan should be 25 months old and I think she'll be a good big sister. Verbally she is very advanced so I feel like being able to communicate with her will make the transition easier. I'm also currently researching potty training and hope to have it done before the new baby comes. If anyone has any miracle advice, let me know...

So here are my excuses...

• My camera broke during Thanksgiving and I didn't find time to replace it until the first part of January.
• Now I can't figure out how to use/download pictures from my new camera.
• We were gone like 14 days over the holidays.
• We are expecting a baby in July and the first trimester hit me hard. I spent the last two months feeling pretty gross and extremely exhausted.
• I finally feel better but now I am playing catch up from all the things that got neglected over the past 2 months.
• I am in charge of a project to automate our church library that started in November and will probably take another 5 months. Any and all free time (and a lot of time that isn't free time) seems to be spent in that direction.

Now that the excuses are out of the way I will try to include some interesting things from the last 2 months. Don't expect many pictures though.