Luke has BIG news!  Last night he slept the WHOLE night in the big boy bed in the room he will share with Preston.  Preston slept on the top bunk, and Luke slept on the bottom bunk!  Daddy gets all the credit for the success.  Mommy had to go to a work thing during bedtime, and when she came back Daddy had drilled the "stay in your bed" rule into Luke.  He was still awake, but not for long.  And then in the morning Daddy woke up to a tiny voice calling for "help!"  Luke was such a good boy that he didn't even get out of his bed when he woke up!

A few more nights of consistent good sleepers, and this might be the perfect timing and transition for Luke to vacate the nursery.  Just in time for baby sister!

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Since we are having a crazy snowstorm today - Mommy managed to finish this little dress for baby girl.  It still needs buttons, but is otherwise complete!

Preston turned 5 on Saturday, and then 6 because we had a second party.  But then I explained to him that parties don't make you a certain age, years do.  It's very confusing. We had a nice time with family for lunch - hoagies, salads, and a double header train cake (which was a DISASTER to make, but somehow worked out in the end).  Then in the afternoon we went to Gymnastics to celebrate with Preston's friends!  They all LOVED the gymnastics party, and Luke, who thinks he is also 5, was in on all the action. He wanted to do everything that the big kids were doing!  Preston got a lot of cool new toys, and the blue brio crane that Santa didn't give him for Christmas.   I think we are now up to 5 different train sets in the this house: brio, bumpy train (lincoln logs), lego duplo, O guage for around the Christmas tree, and NOW a lego city train set.  It seems excessive, but they really do play with all of them.  I can't see getting rid of any one set just yet.  
Preston's party at Parkettes was Iron Man themed, and when he came downstairs on the morning of his birthday he found his Birthday Balloons waiting for him!  He wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts, but I think we ended up staying home and having eggs for breakfast.  It was a little simpler.  And then John and Preston decorated the double header train cake together while Luke helped me to do some chores around the house.
I think Preston had an awesome birthday!  

I went a little overboard on the photo gallery, but there are few more photos I didn't post here that you can find on the full album HERE.
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Luke Updates:

As I mentioned, Luke also thinks he is 5.  He wants to do everything that his big brother can do, and is successful most of the time.  He hasn't gotten himself into too much trouble, yet, but he's getting to the point where he needs more constant supervision.  

His vocabulary is really exploding.  He's starting to deliberately and thoughtfully put together 2-3 word sentences like "Daddy go outside" "I drop napkin" "Where's Preston" and of course the old standards "I DID IT!" and "I love you" and "Bless you."  It's all very adorable.
He also now says "Preston" and his own name sounds like "Yukey."  He's working on colors, but his favorite so far seems to be "Blue."
His train vocab is also coming along.  He used "Diesel" correctly the other day, which is exciting news, because we are branching out from just "choo-choos" into the world of pistons and smokestacks, cabooses and hopper cars, johnson bars, cylinders... there is a lot to learn there.

One of the other adorable things about Luke is that he loves to sing!  Sometimes he makes it up, sometimes he sings things that are somewhat recognizable, and sometimes he requests things for me to sing.
At bedtime I get a lot of strange requests for songs like:
Luke - "Blue"
Me - "Blue what?"
Luke - "Sheep"
Me - "You mean Bah Bah Blue Sheep"
Luke - "Yesh" (Because he says Yes with an "sh" and it's adorable - for now"

I also get some random requests, and I think he just asks for them to see if I can come up with a song like: Piggy, Froggy, and Snowman - I do my best.

We got the bassinet from Gigi and Grandpa and it lives in Luke's room for now (until he finally vacates that room so baby girl can actually move in, but it seems like we are nowhere closer to getting him into a big boy bed.  All in due time).  He loves to show it to me and say "baby's bed."  

Baby Girl Updates:
I had an appointment last week and the doctor couldn't tell if the baby was head down or breech.  They scheduled an ultrasound for this week so that we could know for sure what her position is and then "make some decisions."  So last week I had something to focus on for this baby.  I diligently did my cat and cow yoga poses to better position my uterus.  I had John set up a board for me at a 25 degree angle so that I could lay with my feet in the air to encourage her to flip, and apparently it paid off, because today at my appointment she was perfectly positioned.  Now I have nothing left to focus on!  She measured in at 5lbs 11ozs which is 49th percentile for 36 weeks gestation (perfectly average), and everything else looked great.  John came to my appointment with me because we knew there would be an ultrasound, and then he ratted me out to the doctor because I've been trying to pump some supplementary milk ahead of time in case I have another dramatic few days of a starving baby like I did with Luke.  I'm not allowed to do it anymore because it could put me into labor (bummer).  He also ratted me out about my water intake.  I think I'm doing pretty well with that.  The midwife at least found him funny *winks.*  Oh, and she's still a girl.  They double checked.

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It seems as though 2016 is here.  I have 6 weeks until my due date, nothing ready for a baby, major denial about a baby coming, and yet somehow everything will be fine.  I'm sure.

We had a great Christmas followed by a week of me having a cold that pretty much wiped me out.  I went to work a little bit the few days between Christmas and New Years, a day of not lounging around at home meant that the next day I was absolutely useless.  Anyway, my cold is finally clearing up, with the exception of a cough that John finds totally annoying, and we are all *knock on wood* healthy.

Christmas was charming with 2 little people.  Preston is at a magical age of believing and wondering and enjoying every minute.  Luke loves whatever is brother loves... and trains... so between the two of them we had a wonderful morning at home of breakfast with Grandma, Grandpa, and Debbie.  Followed by and afternoon of more fun at Gigi and Grandpa's house.  
Some of the present highlights were a batman fishing rod, RC cars, more pieces for lego trains and brio, and lots of legos. Here are some photos from Christmas!

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I think I'm going to have to post some guest blogs from Grandpa, because we did a lot of stuff in December that I totally slacked on, but he was a rockstar in sending e-mails.  Preston went to his first RPI college ice hockey game. He got to see the lake when it was really low and walk to treasure island.  We went on a Santa caboose hop.  Numerous model trains were viewed and discussed with a fine-tooth comb.  Preston went to New York City for the first time to see the Rockettes.  And I completely let it all slack on the blog. And now I'm adding a third little distraction to the mix.  
I'll do my best to do some make-up posts.

But first things first and let's stick with the present.  Tonight was Luke's FIRST night of gymnastics!  He and Preston have class at the same time, which makes things super easy.  He went with me to gymnastics a few weeks ago to pick up my knitting bag (which I had left there), and he was completely enthralled with the gym.  He cried when we had to leave before he was allowed to play with anything.  So... we signed him up.  He did great!  His favorite thing was probably the zip-line.  He was nervous about doing it with the teacher, but was totally fine with having Daddy as a spotter.  He also loved the trampolines and quickly got the hang of tumbling.  There are only 2 other little girls in his class, so we get a lot of attention from the teacher.  When the baby comes John will be able to take them both to the gym to get them out of the house, so I think it will work out well.
Here are some pictures and a video.