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!