Baby Shower

Okay, I'm ready now to have a baby - I've had my baby shower :) Ok, I'm really not ready but last night I had a couple of pretty big "contractions" and I was worried that they would have to have my shower without me - but I made it.

We had a fun time - everyone pitched in and made it a really nice party. My kids even came but there were so many other cousins there that I barely saw them (except when they asked if they could have another chocolate covered strawberry or "muffin".

I was very excited to see Becky come in late. I wasn't sure if she knew about the shower and would have felt bad if she hadn't. I joked that the only reason I was having another baby was because she always made her fabulous orange rolls for the showers (she always said I should have more kids since mine were so cute - I told her I only would if she made me rolls :) Then when I went to open her present I noticed on the box it said the usual to and from then down on the bottom it said "(I Promised)" I leaned over and smiled as I could smell them - what a fun surprise!
I hope you could see this gift from Violet (When I'm the star of the pictures I tend to do them smaller - especially when there's basically 5 of me) She just got her Cricut (die cut) machine and told me that she was nervous to use it but she zoomed to the advanced setting in order to make me this cute little purse/gift bag and card - I'm so proud of her (and excited to try it out myself :)

I got another fun surprise as I opened a gift that didn't have a name on the outside... It was from my good friends in Canada! They had sent me a diaper bag, complete with diapers, and two boppy covers. There were some friends that couldn't make it and sent gift, which was really nice, but I never expected something, especially something so nice from my friends that live so far away! You guys rock! Thanks for thinking of me. (Now you have another excuse to come back to Cali, to meet the baby - hint hint.)

I talked to my sister, Debbie, about games/activity for the party just this afternoon. She showed up with a quilt with pirates on one side and white on the back for everyone to sign and decorate - that she just made after I talked to her. Since she made that she didn't have time to finish the pieced quilt she made for me - but it will be worth the wait - it's really beautiful. (I think she has friends that were willing to have another baby just to get one of her beautiful quilts :)

So we had a fun time, especially when I finally sat down and relaxed a bit (I think my frantic nesting hormones are taking over my life) I had a fun time visiting with friends, life-long and new. There were even a couple of my friends there (I claim them since I've worked with them so much with genealogy, though they were my mom's friends first) that were at my baby shower way back when!

I was good and let other people take the pictures this time but then when I get more I'll have to post more, just so I can remember for myself. Now all I have left to do is get the house ready (and try to talk myself out of rearranging furniture) and have the baby. I try not to think about labor though it really is the easiest part of pregnancy for me - it's still scary :) Hopefully all will go well and we'll be bringing home a healthy baby boy soon (then the fun really starts! Yikes!!)

Name the Date

One of my favorite things to do is document everything... I have a pregnancy book and one of the things it has is having friends guess the sex and date of birth of the baby. Well, we kind of blew it with the boy/girl thing since we didn't tell anyone we were expecting a baby until we already knew it was a boy but there's still time to try to guess the date.

Here are some of the facts to help you make the guess.

• I'm due August 15
• I'm considered "Full Term" (37 1/2 weeks) - that means that though I have 2 1/2 weeks left I could go into labor any time and the baby is fine
• They were concerned the baby would be too big so they would need to induce at 38 or 39 weeks but they think the baby is growing fine
• They did say they would induce rather than let me go past my due date, like I did with the first 2
• Chad may or may not be going out of town this Wednesday and Thursday (for those of you, like me, that believe Murphy's Law has more influence than we appreciate)
• I've been having Braxton Hicks (fake contractions) for days now
• I normally go past my due date
• I'm not ready

I think that's all the necessary information that might influence when I could have the baby. I need everyone to post their guess so I can fill that page in my book - and if you haven't voted for the bald/blond/brunette poll yet you can do that too.

(It's these silly little things that help me forget the aches and pains and have fun during the pregnancy :)

Getting Bigger... but still not enough

Kelsey is getting so much taller lately... but she is still teased by the drinking fountain. She can lick the water but not actually drink.

Lady Gaga...

Kelsey likes Lady Gaga so much she decided to try to do the make-up like her...

Ok, so she doesn't really look like her but for some reason when Kelsey quietly came into my room that was the first thing I thought of - that she looked like Lady Gaga... Though I don't think K is wearing as much as LG does (she actually did a pretty good job of getting the mascara on her lashes :}

Pioneer Day

We had a fun day at Pioneer Day (Celebrating the day the first group of Pioneers, with Brigham Young, entered the Salt Lake Valley, Utah)...

Collin with Bradlee (If you want a friend for life just carry Collin around a bit - he loves it! Especially if you're a teenage girl - go figure)
Collin & Kelsey waiting for the pony ride
Yee haw!
Collin looks right at home with the dusty trail behind him
Even pioneer children found time to play
This is a replica of the hand carts... can you imagine putting everything you own in one (and then pushing/pulling it for hundreds of mile...)
Had to take advantage of the photo op :)

Family Dinner at Matt's House

We are so lucky to be able to live near family.

Crazy drivers...

Chad with Matt & Dennis

I saw this on Myth Busters... but I think the kids forgot to use the harness...

Grandy with a few of his grandkids - the kids really loved his surprise (for us) visit

Ahhh - the cops better watch out for this one when she starts driving

Kelsey, Karissa & Kayley enjoying their chocolate cones

It's Time to Party!

I am so lucky to be in Young Womens right now - Emily is throwing me a party and Kim made these awesome invitations. They decided to e-mail them this time so if you didn't get one it's probably because they don't have a current e-mail. So for any of you that think you weren't invited because I didn't want you there - now you have no excuse!

Some people think they should only have a baby shower for the first baby... and that's fine but I think that after 9 months of discomfort and pain every woman deserves a party :) Plus, as many of you heard, I was all done with babies. I can't tell you how great it felt to finally give away all my baby clothes and paraphernalia! Some of my friends asked, "Are sure you want to give this away?" "Oh yeah, I am so DONE!" ... Let's just say that Chad and the kids are more persuasive than I thought... So here I am again - weeks from delivery, again - and trying to figure out what I have and don't have. And where I'm going to put it all!

So come celebrate with me. I so seldom have parties that I have to take advantage of every excuse... plus it helps the time go faster - 2 weeks to the party, then 2 weeks until the baby's due. Sometimes it seems too long - but usually it seems way too soon for all the stuff I need to do, especially when you consider how slow I am these days and how quickly I tire...

Ballon Fun

Collin and Kelsey came with me to the Young Women's activity - Collin jumped right in and wanted to tell you about it...

"We were having a water balloon fight. I was the smallest but I figured out how to use the water balloon sling-shoot. I hit a girl on the bummy - he he he."

" Kelsey was looking up into the wind - that's all I can say"

Jacob's Birthday

Collin wanted to help me write the captions for our neighbors birthday...

"I was looking at the snake while Josh was holding it. It feels weird. It feels like the scales would pop off in two seconds."
"Bearded Dragons feel a little weird and a little spiky. I've always wanted one for a pet. Then me and Aidan can swat fllies and feed them to him.""This trarantula was HUGE! And it was in a little cage with a bunch of newspaper - I guess he was reading it."

"Josh was lifting up the pinata on Kelsey - it was sad... but it was fun...

Luckily he never did it to me. I was wacking it so hard that it blew open! I got the most candy!!"

"Kelsey is holding a little bit of candy in her hand - but she ate all of it."

"Having fun in the sun... is not that great becasue you get sunburned"

"Darla is finally being nice to me, and Kelsey as well"

Napping

I've been enjoying spending time at my mom's house this summer- the kids stay busy, I scrapbook, and I don't have to worry about neighbor kids invading or kidnapping my kids... The only problem is that Kelsey rarely takes a nap there...

The one time she did take a nap was when she must have finally got tired of jumping on the trampoline... This is how I found her

I had to take an extra picture of all the twigs that fell on her to show how long she was out there :)

Now when I tell her she needs to lay down in grandma's bed to rest she always tells me, "No, I'm going to take a nap on the trampoline." So far it hasn't happened again but she keeps trying to use that one.

Getting Ready

I'm finally getting ready for this baby. I was excited to find that I hadn't given away all my clothes, or at least whoever I leant them to gave them back. Collin helped me organize the clothes and pick out all the smallest ones so I can wash them and get them ready. I found I'll need more pants and then all the boring stuff - sheets, burp clothes, 'water'-proof pads, diapers... oh yeah, I'll need to kick Kelsey out of her bed so we can use it as the baby crib again - but hopefully he can sleep in a bassinet for a few months first. A car seat and stroller would be nice too :) (since they won' tlet us leave the hosital without a car seat...)

I really can't believe I only have a month left and my energy level is sub-sub-level. At least I have lots of family to help out. Tiana has taken my kids to the movies and watched Kelsey while I have my many, many doctor appointments. And my sister, Chris, took them when I actually tried to clean the house a bit (PMS has nothing on pregnancy hormones >:( So I thank all of you for the help and hopefully I won't wear you out too soon cuz I have more appointments (3 this week alone) and I'm sure I'll have a few more hormonal breakdowns in the weeks to come - what fun to look forward to.

Last Day of School

I had to laugh when I sent Collin to school for his last day... You'll have to look back at the first day of school - so well groomed, squeaky clean. Then here he is on the last day and he's wearing very casual clothes (at least they're not his favorite ripped comfy pants (sweats). But you'll have to notice the chocolate around his mouth - from some quick breakfast he ate in the car. Hair's not combed... Ah .. Welcome to summer, early!

Scrapbooking!

Kelsey took some pictures while I was scrapbooking this week...

I know I'm supposed to be nesting about now - this is just my form, I'm trying to catch up on my scrapbooking :) We used to have my parents dining room covered, wall-to-wall, with scrapbooking stuff but then took it all down. I took it all home and put it in a cabinet in the garage so when ever I wanted to scrapbook I had to lug everything out - then put it back before my kids could get into it.

Now that my parents are back from Costa Rica they donated another room, upstairs, for us. (My mom is a saint) It's so nice to have everything ready when ever I need it. I do have to pace myself a bit though. I worked with my friend for a few hours then when she left I kept going for another few hours - and couldn't walk that night, in fact every time I rolled over in bed I nearly cried... Still, it would be nice to catch up a little bit before the baby is born. Right now I'm working on Christmas 2007 (I remember when I would take pictures in the morning, develop them and scrapbook them the same day!)

I'm still months behind in printing out my pictures - another new thing for me - but I'm hopefully getting caught up, or deciding it doesn't really matter so much :) That's why I try to blog so much - to compensate for my procrastination of scrapbooking.

So, if any of you want to come to my mom's house and scrapbook with me in the next few weeks, let me know - there's room for one more.

Happy Fourth of July!

Normally for the 4th we just hang out... As far as fireworks go, we usually climb the big hill next to our house, past the water towers, where we can see the fireworks in the distance (and 3 others). But this year I had no desire to walk a mile straight up a hill in the dark... Luckily my friends live just across the freeway from the high school so they invited all their friends to watch from their front lawn. It was really nice to enjoy the fireworks without having to fight crowds and traffic.

Collin having fun behind Chris' back

Kelsey didn't like the noise so she plugged her ears. About halfway through she told me to plug them. I thought that was weird until I looked down to see that she was sucking her thumb and playing with her belly button...

The fireworks were pretty cool. The only thing was the lower ones were behind the tree across the street - but I thought they looked pretty cool thru the tree.

While Kelsey snuggled Daddy she played with her glow sticks in her belly button- weird kid.

After the fireworks we hung out for a bit. When we got home Eric had the movies set up so they all went to watch. Collin got scared so came home to snuggle me :) I thought Kelsey and Chad had fallen asleep downstairs until I heard them come in about midnight from the movie... What a fun - long - day!

Meeting Sirena

Collin is so excited to have another baby in the fmaily
He gets to practise for his own little brother

I even remembered to hold the baby

The cousins

It's always fun to get together with the gang!