36 Weeks!

Well, for those of you who have been asking, here's a tummy picture at 36 weeks. I can't believe there are just 3.5 weeks to go until we will Lord willing meet this sweet baby girl! So far everything is checking out just fine and she seems to be doing great.

I'm not sure Caleb has a clue what's about to hit this household. He loves kissing my tummy and then saying, "Baby," but then he lifts up his shirt and says, "Baby." I put the infant car seat in our car yesterday, and I keep telling him that's where his baby sister will sit soon. Maybe that's helping him understand some because now when we get in the car, he'll look over at her car seat, smile and say, "Baby."

2 Month Recap

Well, as I mentioned in my previous post, we closed on our house 1.5-2 months ago, and it's been a blur ever since. Tons and tons of renovations have been and are going on, but here's just a glimpse of our life lately. This area that has been gutted is our new dining room. The other picture shows just some of the lumber and debris that were removed mainly from that same area. You can play the "Where's Caleb?" game with that picture. :)




Here are just a couple of our sweet little boy helping out. He's become quite the expert with tools!














In the midst of the chaos, we rejoiced in the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Happy Easter!


We also celebrated one of Caleb's little friend's birthdays Texas style--a homemade petting zoo featuring a baby goat and baby chicks (both pictured below), donkeys, ponies and a tractor ride. The kids loved it!














Though the vast majority of our last 1.5-2 months have been spent working, we've also taken some time to play.

Knee Deep

As you may have noticed, there has been a blogging silence from the Bishop household. That's largely because we closed on our new house on April 7 and have been knee deep in renovations ever since. My mom and her husband have been helping us as we learn all about tearing out walls, adding windows, moving door openings, drywalling, taping and bedding, texturing, removing wallpaper from cabinets, laying laminate wood flooring and ripping out tile. This is not to mention the usual stuff like painting. Though we're far from finished, we went ahead and moved in 2 weeks ago and have now added unpacking to the everyday list of chores. It's starting to come together, though again, we have so much left to do, but I will try and post pictures when I get my computer back from being fixed.

On another note, we have about 5 weeks left before baby girl arrives. All of our checkups are going well and starting at our next appointment, we'll be going every week. I can't believe we're already at this point in the pregnancy! We're working furiously to try and make as much progress on the house as possible before she arrives. I'll also try and post an updated pregnancy picture soon.

Sweet Caleb has been talking up a storm for the last month or two. I just can't get over how one day they decide they're going to say everything. Mind you, not everything is completely intelligible to everyone else, but his vocabulary is now huge. One of my new favorite things is that when I sneeze, Caleb says, "Bessu" (God bless you) and then runs to get me a kleenex saying, "No, no" (nose). I love his tender heart in wanting to care for his mama.

As a result of all the renovations, Caleb has also developed a huge love for tools and all things boy. He LOVES hammers ("hamma"), drills ("dill") and pounding anything and everything he sees. This was ok in the early stages of renovations, but as we're starting to finish some areas of the house, we are having to retrain his new habits of pounding on walls, floors, etc. Hopefully Caleb can relearn the meaning of "gentle" before his baby sister arrives. :)

Please Pray!

Please be praying for the people of Graham and the surrounding areas. There are lots of wildfires going and many people are being evacuated from their homes, including members of our church. If it continues, there's a good chance we will be evacuated as well. Please pray that God will still the winds, extinguish the fires, and protect people but most of all that He would be glorified as many hopefully are forced to turn to and lean on Him.

Thank you for your prayers!

Caleb's First Rodeo

Last night, we went to the Graham rodeo. It was a night filled with barrel racing, horse and steer riding and calf tying. Caleb loved it! He is really into animals these days, and loves seeing cows and horses as we drive around. He says, "mmmooo" for cows and will occasionally making a laughing sound for horses--I guess my "nay nay" sounds kind of like laughing to him. :) He also kept saying "geeee uh", which is his version of "giddy up." Too cute!

I don't think Caleb was a huge fan of the calf tying because every time the calf was caught and then flipped, Caleb would say, "uh oh". Uh oh is right, buddy. I was sad for those calfs too!

Playing with Sticks

Caleb LOVES being outside and LOVES playing with sticks. He also LOVES his cowboy boots and really wanted to wear them when we went to play in the backyard yesterday. I thought he looked like such a little boy in his Honduras soccer outfit that Ryan brought back in January coupled with his cowboy boots. Shorts and boots are definitely the way to go. :)

Third Trimester!

Yea! Yea! I can't believe how quickly this pregnancy is going by--we just entered our third trimester and yet it seems like we just found out we were pregnant. Anyway, as of our appointment today, baby girl is doing great and continues to be super active. We now start going to our checkups every 2 weeks.

Here's a belly picture from yesterday at 27.5 weeks:

Provin' Mama Wrong

Today has been one of those days for Caleb. While at a friend's house this afternoon, I made the comment that Caleb loved to kick and throw balls but seemed nowhere near being able to actually catch one. Just a few minutes later, I tossed him a ball and he caught it. I know this was a fluke catch, but it was his first one, nonetheless.

During this same conversation with my friend, we were talking about how our little boys hadn't yet attempted to climb out of their cribs. I remarked that I figured Caleb was still awhile from that. Well, about an hour later, after we were back home and Caleb was down for his afternoon nap, Ryan and I heard a thud. You guessed it...our little monkey had climbed out of his crib. Praise the Lord he was ok!

Happy 18 Month Birthday, Little Caleb!

I meant to post this yesterday, but I never got around to it. I can't believe 18 months have already passed since this precious little boy entered the world! What a joy he has been!

I really want to get caught up on blogging, including Caleb's 15 month (3 months late!) and 18 month posts. Soon, soon...I hope. :)

Family Date

On Ryan's day off a couple weeks ago, he decided to treat me and Caleb to lunch, bowling and a sweet treat. I LOVED spending time with my boys, and Caleb LOVED seeing all the balls. Thank you, Ryan, for making our day so special!

Mommy Son Date

On Valentine's Day, my ladies' Bible study got done before Ryan's men's Bible study, so I decided to take Caleb to McDonald's for a little date. I'm often able to spend time alone with Caleb (including trips to the park, etc.), however this was the first time we did something like this just to hang out together.


We had a great time and especially enjoyed our hot fudge sundae! I love you, little boy!

Boy or Girl?

Finding out the gender of Baby Bishop #2 has been quite a process. Our initial ultrasound to find out was at 18 weeks, however, sweet baby didn't cooperate. The plan was to try again 4 weeks later at our next checkup. Well, my insurance was mistakenly canceled, so we spent 2 weeks trying to get that straightened out. Let's face it, doctor's appointments aren't cheap, therefore we postponed our checkup until my insurance had been reinstated. So, we went again today to try and find out the gender.

Some friends of ours had done this before, so we copied their clever idea on how to find out the gender of the baby. (Thanks, Smiths!) Instead of finding out in the doctor's office what we were having, we brought in a card and envelope with "Boy" and "Girl" written on it. After our ultrasound, our doctor circled the gender and then sealed the envelope. We then went to lunch and found out over dessert what we were having. We gave our waitress the envelope and then asked for the Pumpkin Delight if the card said "Boy" and the Chocolate Divine cake if the card said "Girl."

We were either going to receive this for a boy


or this for a girl.


We were so excited when the waitress and owner brought this to us!



Ryan and I couldn't be happier about our baby girl! (Caleb, of course, has absolutely no clue that we're having a baby or what a little sister is, but I'm sure if he did, he'd be excited too.) Ryan and I have both thought we were having a girl all along, though I'm not really sure why because my pregnancies have been almost exactly the same (super easy) and both babies are crazy active. Just like we did with Caleb, we plan on keeping her name a secret until she arrives, but we think we know what it is already. In fact, we decided on it right before Thanksgiving!


It's a bit overwhelming because I'm not a very girly girl, but bring on the pink and purple! We love you, Baby GIRL!!

More Than Halfway--21 Weeks!

It's hard to believe that we're more than halfway through this pregnancy. Sweet Baby #2 is getting bigger and is now almost 11 inches long! I'm amazed at how active this little one is, just like Caleb was. When I was laying down the other night, I was able to not only feel this baby move, but also see it too--so fun!

We have another prenatal appointment in 5 days, so we're hoping little one cooperates this time and allows us to find out what we're having. We'll see!

Caleb's Favorite Toys

Some of Caleb's favorite toys have always been things that aren't actually toys--for example, he LOVES remote controls and has recently discovered the joys of empty boxes. Sweet Caleb, may you always delight in life's simple things.

On a side note, I feel like our little boy has recently gone through a growth spurt. I know part of it may be the haircut, but he seems so much bigger these days.

First Home Haircut

We haven't done much this week. The weather and driving conditions have been bad and Ryan apparently got a parasite, perhaps E. coli, while in Honduras last week and has been sick since Sunday. (Please keep him in your prayers.) Anyway, Ryan was feeling a little better one night this week, so we decided to attempt Caleb's first home haircut. I know this is something I need to get good at because it's just so expensive to pay to have it done, but I'll admit--it's been daunting. Caleb is great at obeying (so far), so it didn't have nearly as much to do with him as with me. I know nothing about cutting hair, but I looked up some tips online, and we gave it a whirl.

Ryan and Caleb did great, but thankfully I have many many many haircuts ahead of me to perfect this skill. Caleb's hair is shorter than we anticipated, and there are definitely a few spots I missed, but at least it's not hanging in his eyes any more.

Lovin' This Weather Too!

So, you may have noticed that about a week ago, I blogged about loving the warm winter weather. Well, we went from a high of 77 degrees on Saturday, January 29 to a high of 16 degrees on Wednesday, February 2. Crazy, huh!? Who knew things could change so much in just 4 days. We haven't gotten any snow since we moved to Graham over the summer, but man did we get hit on Tuesday. I have searched and searched online to find an official snowfall total for Tuesday but haven't been able to find anything (part of living in a small town, I'm sure). So yesterday, I went into our backyard and did some official measuring--6.5"! It only snowed/iced on Tuesday and 6.5" was what was left after 3 days, though I don't think much had melted because today's our first day above freezing since Monday.

Though these kind of conditions are common in many parts of the country, I'm guessing they're not here because the town has pretty much been shut down since Monday. Grocery stores have been open, but no school, mail or trash pickup since Monday. There's been very little traffic, too, because the streets were so icy. No salt trucks in a small town either. Our driveway is fairly flat with only a small dip before the street, but my car got stuck there for 20 minutes this morning when Caleb and I tried to go to the grocery store.

Anyway, I took Caleb out to play in the snow for a little bit on Tuesday, but he didn't know what to think. He couldn't really walk much in it because when he sank down all the way, the snow came to his knees. He sure was cute, though. (By the way, yes, those are grocery bags on Caleb's feet--we don't typically need snow boots in Texas!) :) Here are some pictures from our winter wonderland.