Sittin' Pretty, Ready to Go

We went to the doctor today and we are over halfway to having our very own basketball team. That's right, another boy! Yes, I was hoping for a girl, everyone knows I did everything to have one, but apparently God wants us to have another boy right now. And it's probably a good thing, since Robbie still has two years of school left, and I wouldn't be able to properly spoil her like she should be. The next time we have a baby, Robbie will have a full time job and I will be able to pay for cute girl clothes and not dress her in her brothers' hand-me-downs.

So yeah, I have nothing to do to get ready. We have sizes of clothes for all seasons since Alex and Jared were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. No burp cloths or blankets need to be made, so I can just relax until he comes, right? Not! I have plenty to do, like Alex's first year scrapbook, or catch up on the kids' photo album, or do the scrapbook for Robbie and I that I have been trying to do for years. Oh, and we also have to get rid of a lot of stuff to make room for one more in our little apartment.

It will be interesting to see what he looks like, since Jared looks more like me and Alex looks more like Robbie. We just have one problem...coming up with another boy name. It is so hard for us, and it doesn't help that people seem to always be stealing good boy names for their girls. It will probably come down to another long last night in the hospital debating what the little guy's name should be.

So no one can get mad at me that there aren't enough good worthy young men for their daughters to marry, because I'm certainly doing my part. It made me think of a quote that was in the Visitor's Center on my mission about how sister missionaries were important because they would be raising up righteous young men, Elders, in the church. If anyone has this please send it to me. I tried to find it on lds.org, but couldn't.

Ultrasound pics to come...

Free Snapfish Scrapbook

My friend sent me the following email and it's true, so everyone enjoy it!

Oprah is giving coupons for a free snapfish scrapbook. You have to get the coupon by Friday and use it by Sunday. So hurry at take a look at it. I thought it was so exciting and that every one would like to take advantage of it! I hope this link works.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081029_tows_messyhouse/7

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. Jared got to wear his costume to pre-school and he got some goodies there too. On Wednesday they got Halloween cupcakes. His had an eye ring on it and he is obsessed with it. He wears it all the time, except for when he sleeps because he doesn't want to lose it. He tells me, "I love my eye, Mommy". Jared sure was a cute monkey.


My friend Choka's daughter Zayaa goes to preschool with Jared and so we have started carpooling. Her husband Dan works in the same lab as Robbie, so she took the kids to see them after school in their costumes and Jared thought that we pretty fun. Here are our cute kids. (Alex and Ariuna were napping.)


Jared before we left for the ward Halloween party.


The only way we could Alex to take a picture was to give him his pumpking with some candy already in it.


The ward had chili and baked potatoes first, followed by trunk-or-treating. Robbie decided this is the way to go. We got the church at 6:30 and were done and leaving by 7:30. No one was cold or tired. It was great.


Alex loved it!! Don't touch his bucket though or you will get a terrific tantrum. He had to be the one carrying it. It was so cute when he asked for candy from the people next to our car and I heard him say "thank you" so clearly. He always says "gracias" with me when I tell him to say "thank you". Robbie, who took the kids around, said he had been doing really well with saying it.




When we got home Alex looked through his bucket for a piece of candy to eat and he pulled out a little box of Milk Duds and started "oohing" and "ahhing". He had never had them before but you couldn't tell from his excitement. I asked him if I could have one and he responded with an emphatic "Nnooo", his favorite word lately.


Jared dumped out his bucket of candy and couldn't believe how well he had made out.


I overestimated how many kids would be at the party and we were left with 2 huge bags of candy from Sam's Club that were still half full. I guess we won't be needing to steal from our kids stash like last year. ;)

Halloween Birthday Party

We got to go to a Halloween Birthday Party for my friends' little girl on Oct. 25. The boys were so excited to wear the monkey costumes.

Alex really enjoyed the punch and cupcake. What a surprise! He has such a sweet tooth.

My little monkey.

My other little monkey, Jared, enjoying his cupcake.

They had a pinata and Alex loved it! It was so cute to watch him. Every time he would hit it he would yell. I thought it was so cute. Alex was very excited about all of the suckers that came pouring out when the big kids finally broke it open. I helped him get some starbursts and jolly ranchers. ;)

Thanks for a fun party Ana and David!

Gettin' Ready for Halloween

Well, I don't get much into decorating for the holidays, but since Jared is getting older I think it is important to celebrate and have some family traditions. So we picked out some pumpkins from Wal-Mart (not as fun as going to the pumpkin patch like we did growing up in St. Louis. Do they even have that here in Utah?) and we carved them the Friday before Halloween. We saw on the Today show to attach a whisk to your drill to clean out your pumpkin and so Jared wanted us to try it. It worked out all right, but not as good as we saw on T.V. Jared didn't like touching the guts and was done after pulling out seeds once. I don't blame him. I had my dishwashing gloves on.





Here are our Jack-O-Lanterns. And let me tell you. There was a tantrum about the square eye. I made the first triangle eye and asked Jared what he wanted the second one to be. He said a square. I asked him twice if he was sure that he didn't want another triangle. He was sure he wanted a square until he saw it. He wanted me to fix it, which you can't. He threw a tantrum and ended up in time out. When he came out he came over to me and said, "Ok, mommy, say your sorry." I was like, excuse me, you need to apoligize to me. He said, "but you did a square." He really thought I was in the wrong. I told him I was sorry for the misunderstanding, but that we can't behave this way. He apologized and we hugged and kissed, but he was in no mood for pictures, so I took this picture a few days later.


For FHE we decorated sugar cookies. My mom always made these and Halloween just isn't Halloween without them. Jared decorated his first one, and ate it, and was ready to play Wii. He decided he wanted to decorate a few more after that though and was pleased with his creation.




His had noses and hats. I only put eyes and mouths on mine.


Alex eats his pumpkin cookies by eating all of the chocolate chips first and then he eats the cookie. I like having a chocolate chip in every bite, but to each his own.

Raspberry Pickin'

Thanks to my mission companion Janae, my sister Melanie and I and Jared and Alex enjoyed an afternoon in Payson picking raspberries. After seeing all of her homemade jam I decided I just had to go and we had a great time. It was a little late in the season, we went Oct. 16, and there had already been a freeze so we had to look a little harder for the berries and my quads were so sore the next day from all of the standing and squatting as we looked for and picked raspberries. It took 2 hours to get there because of the road construction, so we got there when I thought we would be leaving. But boy, oh, boy after eating that jam on some french toast, it was so worth it.

Jared and Alex helped pick the first hour and then ran around the patch the second hour. Alex was very tired, since this was during his nap time, by the time we finished.








My sister Melanie, who is a freshman at BYU, came with us. I am so glad she did. It has really been fun to have her close and the kids loved having her there. She made some raspberry peach jam with her raspberries. She made some rolls and she said they were quite the hit with her friends.


It was so sunny out and we couldn't get a picture without whitening our faces. Jared I guess is practicing for his upcoming debut as a monkey for Halloween this year.


I highly recommend this activity for everyone and I plan to do it every year while we live here. My mom would take us strawberry picking when I was little and I just loved it, so it was fun to do it with my kids. For more info, click here.

Drastic Times Call For Drastic Measures

I am in mourning and I just had to do something, so I cut off all my hair. Pretty symbolic, huh? I have posted some pictures for those disbelieving friends and family.

Here is how long my hair was before:

Here is how short it is after:

My hair is still wet. I went to get it cut at 8pm tonight and didn't have her style it since it was so late. I will put up more pics when I actually style it.

Although I am disappointed that Obama won, that is not the reason I cut my hair. I realized that my hair had gotten really long about a month or so ago. I have always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love, but since I am not blessed with fast growing hair like my cousin Camille or Robbie's sisters, I have never done it. I didn't want to just get my hair cut and have 8 inches thrown in the garbage, so I decided now would be the perfect time to make the sacrifice and take the plunge. If I hate it, being pregnant, my hair grows a lot faster than normal, so by the time I have the baby my hair will have grown out somewhat.

I've Been Tagged!

For the first time ever I've been tagged by my sister. That's probably because I'm not the best or most consistent blogger. Anyways, here it is...

8 TV shows I love to watch:
Heroes
House
Smallville
ER
The Biggest Loser
Hannity & Colmes
Today
The View

8 places I love to eat:
PF Changs
Tepanyaki
Carraba's
Wingers
Cafe Rio
Apple Bee's
My mom's
Houlihans (however, my sister just informed me that they got rid of their potato skins, what's up with that!?!)

8 things that happened yesterday:
Hung out with friends and chatted while kids played
Took a nap
Played with the kids
Went grocery shopping
Made dinner
Washed dishes
Washed and mashed raspberries
Watched Smallville

8 things I look forward to:
Finding out what we are having (Nov. 17th)
Making baby blankets and burp cloths for a girl hopefully
Not feeling sick anymore
Getting Alex's first year scrapbook done
Date night with my hubby
Time spent with family
The holidays
Robbie finishing his Ph.D.

8 things I love about fall:
BYU football
The leaves changing colors
Cooler temperatures
Crispness to the air
The red all over the mountains
TV shows are back on
Halloween
Thanksgiving

8 things on my wish list:
New maternity jeans that are long enough
New shoes (all of mine have worn out at the same time)
2nd honeymoon to Cancun
Bring the kids' photo albums and scrapbooks up to date
Buy and furnish a home
Peanut M&M's
BYU beating Utah
Getting through school loan free

8 people I'm tagging:
Ann
Aimee
Sherrie
Melanie
Hannah
Jennifer
Ruth
Anna

Music and Dancin'

The last few times we have gone to Grandma's house, Jared has loved playing the harmonica. Alex always wants to do what his brother is doing and soon we found him blowing out tunes on the harmonica and shaking his hips.



Brothers jammin' and dancin'...

Is Running in the Genes?

There are a lot of runners in Robbie's family and it seems that Alex might have the gene or at least the desire to race. Jared really likes to run too. We went to watch Aimee's race at UVU on Friday and the boys had a lot of fun running around and getting muddy. Alex's starting position for racing is a little unusual. Check it out...



Now he takes off...

My Baby is in Preschool!

Jared had his first day of preschool today! He was soooo excited and had no problems with me dropping him off and leaving. We went and bought his backpack on Monday. Robbie took him to Wal-Mart Saturday night, but they didn't have any kids backpacks which he was very upset about, so when we found the Spiderman backpack he had been asking for at ShopKo he was ecstatic. And all I have been hearing since then is the following:

"Mommy, I love my Spiderman backpack."

"Mommy, I love backpacks."

"Mommy, my Spiderman backpack is so cool."

"Mommy, thank you so much for buying me this backpack."

I have heard this about 10 times every day the past three days. He insisted on bringing it last night to the open house and was disappointed no one else had their backpacks. So when I picked him up today he was very excited to tell me that all of "my kids" had backpacks.


He brought home his first project, a "J" he had decorated. He said they read stories, ate cheese and elephant ears, and a kid wearing a yellow shirt cried. He loved school and is excited to go back. I can't believe my baby is old enough to go to school! It was weird just having one child for a few hours and I think Alex enjoyed having me all to himself.

Here we go again!

You may have noticed I haven't been blogging lately, and well I actually have an excuse this time. I have been sick morning, midday, and night for the past 7 weeks. Luckily it's nothing too serious and I'm hoping it will clear up in the next couple of weeks, but for sure in the next 6 months. That's right, we're expecting baby #3 and are so very excited!

We had our first appointment today and they moved my due date up to April 5th from the 9th. That's always great news. I was excited to hear the baby's heartbeat and see her (positive thinking) on the ultrasound and to know everything seems to be progressing as it should be. Here is a picture of our little peanut from our visit today:



Only 8.5 weeks until we find out the sex of the baby, and yes I'm hoping for a girl. I love my boys and would be fine having more boys, but I just want to experience having a girl.

So we told Jared and Alex Sunday night that I was going to be having a baby. Alex doesn't understand, but Jared is so excited, and talks about it several times a day. We asked him if he wanted a sister or a brother and he told us he wants a sister like Mylah (his cousin who is 8 or 9 months). We explained that I had a baby in my tummy and that that is why I have been feeling sick. So he asked, "so there be two baby Mylah's? One for Jennie and one for us." We were like, "well yes, but our baby will probably have a different name" (especially if it ends up being a boy). So he calls the baby, baby Mylah. It's funny how he understands it. We are glad he is excited.

It has been hard feeling so sick all the time. This pregnancy is not as bad as Jared's, but worse than Alex's. I think it's because I am having a girl (thinking positive again), because I read in a book that many first time moms are sick because their body has never done this before and produces too many hormones, making them sick. Then the second time they aren't as sick because their body is like "Oh, I've done this before. I know what to do this time." That was my experience from Jared to Alex. Well, your body I assume would be producing different hormones when you have a girl versus a boy. So my body, never having a girl, is in shock again. Let a girl dream, right? Right...

So Robbie has just been amazing taking care of the kids in the mornings and playing with them in the evenings, doing the dishes, and then being a Ph.D. student on top of all of that working hard all day and getting little sleep at night. I am so grateful for his love and service. Robbie's mom has also helped out a lot. We have gone up there the last several weeks for a few days at a time, to lessen the load on Robbie. She has taken care of the kids in the morning, played with them throughout the day, fixed us meals and just been so great. I am so grateful to have family that is always there to help us. It has been hard on Jared. He will ask me if I feel sick and I unfortunately always respond yes and he will cry and say, "no, don't be sick mommy". So hopefully this pregnancy will go like Alex's and I will get better in a couple of weeks when the first trimester is over.

Anyways, I'm glad we can finally announce this since I have been showing for a few weeks now (depressing), and people may have noticed me snitching my kids' snacks at church. So, there you have it. Baby #3 here we go!

Rosarito Mexico 2008

Last week we spent the week in Rosarito, Mexico with Robbie's family. We had an amazing time and are so grateful that Robbie's parents treated us to such a fun family vacation. We drove the 12 hours over 2 days so it wasn't too bad. The kids were actually quite good, and it helped that we had Josh sitting next to Jared, since Josh is his favorite. You can see all of the pictures from our trip by clinking the link "Family Photo Gallery" on the top right of the screen. Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

As we traveled south on I-15 we saw the most vibrant rainbow I think I have ever seen. It was gorgeous.



The boys were great on our 12 hours journey to Mexico!


Here we are about to cross the border. It took a few seconds to cross into Mexico, but coming back it took over 2 hours! I wonder why?

Alex loves jumping off the ledge. We have to make sure though he is close to it, because often times he will be too far back and just start falling forward. He loved swimming and would ask to go whenever he saw the water.

Grandma Ann got Jared these "chido" (cool in Spanish) dolphin "googles" (how Jared says goggles). He wore them all the time, even when we weren't swimming.

And of course, the boogie boarding. I don't participate in this. The Pacific is way too cold for me. I thought about getting in for a second when Robbie's mom and dad got in, and I have never seen them get in the other 2 years we have come here, and Robbie's mom doesn't even get in in Cancun. But then, when I was taking pictures the water cam up about mid-calf and it almost took my breath away it was so cold, and my feet ached because of the cold. I have no idea how Robbie and his family can do it. They say you just go numb after awhile. Anyways, Robbie had a good time trying to catch a wave in.

Jared loved playing in the sand and making animals and temples (sand castles).

Jared and I made a sea turtle.

Alex shared the same sentiment I did on the ocean. This is him running away from the water.

It is a family tradition to go to this great restaurant called La Fonda. They have these great flour tortilla chips and salsa and a view of the ocean where we always see dolphins.

This year the dolphins really put on a show for us swimming in the waves and jumping out of them. It was great and screamed like a little school girl it was so exciting.

All of a sudden all of the boogie boarders got out of the water. JAWS had appeared. Robbie's dad and sister Aimee both thought they saw a shark. It swam straight and never came up for air, so let's just say no one got in the rest of the day and the next day they got it after they saw some dolphins swimming nearby and deemed it safe to go in. No one wanted to watch Jaws then until after we left Mexico. I can't imagine why.

Alex usually spent his beach time taking a nap. Isn't he precious?

Jared and Robbie watching the boogie boarders.

Uncle Josh bought Jared a popsicle which he thoroughly enjoyed.

My niece Mylah (with her mom Jennie) is tougher than me and absolutely loved playing in the ocean. She would get so excited and jump and kick her legs when the waves came. Look at that bathing beauty!

She also loved the sand and decided to try some. Every day though she would eat less. Here she just ate some sand and thought she would follow that up with her cousin Alex's toes. She is such a cutie!

The boys had fun playing frisbee. And they say white men can't jump...

We finally got Jared to run out of the ocean.

The family on our morning walk.

Our last morning walk on the beach. This year was a lot better since Jared would actually walk on the sand. He really enjoyed the beach. Alex liked riding on Papi's back and would get the backpack in the mornings to tell us he wanted to go.


The gorgeous waves we enjoyed for a whole week in Rosarito, Mexico. It was a great year for dolphins. We saw them every day. I absolutely loved it!