Catching up (and asking for votes)

Happy Monday Morning! I told you I'd harass you for votes, so if you haven't voted today in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Adoption Blogs by Moms, please do it! (And of course, if you vote for me, I'd be super thankful.) You can vote daily through April 26.

Since I've been so sporadic lately, thought I'd give you an update on the goings on here.

• Spring is here! So very excited about planting the garden this summer. It was so fun last year, and this year we are looking forward to more broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash from out in the back yard. We've already got seeds started which is probably entirely too early. And I've never started seeds indoors before, so I really have no idea what or how we are supposed to be doing things.
• Little Man is more toddler than baby anymore. He's fully in his "I'm a two-year-old" phase. No, he's not two yet. But evidently no one told him he had to wait. So we've had lots of screamy days here, punctuated with his shouts of "NO", diaper-changing wrestling matches, appetite swings, and extreme moodiness. 
• He especially loves testing us to see if we *really* mean things. Things like do we really mean he can't eat the plant? Do we really mean he can't stand up on the back of the couch? Do we really mean he can't pull the dog's tail? Those sort of things. I can't wait for this phase to pass!
• I've been struggling being really tired, and part of the problem was that I was deficient in vitamin D. So I beefed up my vitamin regime and have been much more dedicated about getting in my workouts. When I'm time crunched, I tend to put them on the back burner, and that leads to me being even more tired. I'm back to hitting the gym at least 4 times a week which has helped a bit. And I've upped my running mileage. Averaging over 12 miles a week!
• We are on the home stretch in getting all of LM's paperwork complete. We just filed for his social security number. The last steps in the paper chase will be to get his certificate of citizenship and in Wisconsin, you can apply for an updated birth certificate which notates his citizenship status. 
• LM is having an explosion of words. This is such a fun phase! He has so many new words now that I can't keep track of them all. And he surprises us because we will tell him what something is called and days later he'll just point to an object and say the name. He's also using the occasional two or three word sentence. 
• LM loves to sing. I mean, really, really loves it. When he wakes up in the morning, he'll give a short little cry, and then he'll lie there for a while singing to himself. His songs are jibberish, mixed in with occasional favorite words like 'no' or 'kitty'. Totally cracks us up.
• The Man and I both signed up for Tough Mudder. Can't wait! We were both going to run it last year but a certain someone had finally come home and it was too early to let anyone else care for him. So LM and I watched from the sidelines and The Man conquered the course. So excited to do it together this year!