Fun with Grandpa

My friend Lisa is in Washington right now, but she's organized and already has her pictures posted. I've been putting off this post for a couple of days because she just wrote about her family's trip to Bradley Lake Park, and now I look like a dirty copy cat. Oh well... 

While we were in Washington we took a trip to the park. I love this park and my dad and I went there with Hannah a ton the summer we lived in Washington. Hannah was only a few months older back then than Ben is now so it was fun to go back and see what Ben compares.

I remember being so surprised when Hannah always wanted to climb this ladder when she was only 13 or 14 months old. I wasn't surprised this time when Ben wanted to climb it at 11 months.



I'm grateful that now Ben has Hannah to take him down the big slide so I don't have to do it.

Another day we took our traditional trip to the mall to play on the toys.

Unfortunately, this is where my camera died so I have no more Washington pictures that I took personally. I have some more cute ones my mom took, but they are on my laptop, which Devan just took with him on an out-of-town job. He won't be home until Wednesday. It figures that when I finally have 3 full days of no husband to distract me, I'd be left without the pictures I need to blog. How will I ever fill my days?

Blast from the past

These pictures are almost 2 months old, but I just found them and they made me laugh so I wanted to share. Hannah got invited to her friend Annabelle's birthday party. After cake the kids went to play in the bedroom. A few minutes later Hannah came walking out in Annabelle's new swimsuit and shoes. It was so funny! I don't know what to do with that girl!

She kept it on the rest of the party.

They got to follow a map to find hidden treasure...

The treasure chest was filled with beautiful things.

Even Ben made sure to get his cut of the treasure.

A Day at the Beach

The morning after arriving in Washington, we met up with Ryan, Heather, and Nathan and headed to Ocean Shores. It was so fun. I'd spent all winter dreaming of a trip to the beach and when we had our car troubles I was so afraid we weren't going to be able to go this year.

It was cold (like 55 degrees and windy), but the kids loved it!

Ben did exactly what Hannah did on her first trip to the beach: headed for the ocean and didn't stop.

Hannah got so cold. She kept shivering and her teeth were chattering, but whenever I asked her if she wanted to go back to the car, she said no and ran back to the water.

Ben's clothes were getting all wet and muddy, but he wouldn't say out of the water either so I changed him into his swimsuit too. He decided he didn't like that and was done with the beach from that time one.

After about an hour we were all getting hungry and cold so we left to eat our lunch and visit Ocean Shore's museum.

Ben fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep in Devan's arms until I told Devan we weren't going to waste a nap. I was secretly dreaming of being able to cuddle down and nap with Ben on the beach later.

So Devan put him down and he woke up.

After we left the museum, we found the beach on the harbor side on the peninsula. It was so much more pleasant there. It was much less windy and quieter and warmer. We had fun playing in the sand and talking for a couple of hours.

Devan found a dead sea lion. It was gross!

Ryan dug a pretty impressive hole. That's normally Devan's job on a beach trip, but that day he was too preoccupied wandering the beach looking for sea shells.

It was an awesome hole. It was about as deep as Hannah and Nathan are tall. I kept telling Devan to put Ben in there too, but he was afraid the hole would cave in and bury Ben. Is that because Devan thought Ryan's construction was shoddy? I didn't say that...

Me and my Heather. This fall we'll have been friends for 15 years. How is that possible?

There's nothing in the world better than Benjamin kisses...

It was an amazing day!

To Grandmother's House We Go!

We made it home from our one and only drive to Washington this year. (My 17th in the nearly 6 years I've lived in Utah, which also happens to be more miles if I'd driven around the earth's equator.) It was long and fun and we're glad to be home. We had a good start out. We picked up Devan from school 8:30 pm and set out from there. I was feeling so productive because I'd gotten all the cleaning and most of the packing and loading of the car done all by myself. We had a plan to drive straight through the night and arrive at our friends' Heather and Ryan's house midday on Thursday and then go camping with them on the beach in Oregon.  Everything went great until around midnight. I was driving through Idaho and I could feel we'd gotten a flat tire. I pulled over and the tire had practically exploded!

Luckily we were only a few miles away from Twin Falls where we were able to get a motel room. Devan went out the next morning to replace the tire and we entertained ourselves at the hotel. Since we weren't going to make it to Oregon until 12 hours later than planned, we had to call Heather and cancel and make plans to meet up with them in Washington instead. I was so afraid that Hannah was going to be heartbroken when I told her we weren't going camping. I let her eat some of the treats we'd been saving for the beach for breakfast and she said, "Are we camping now? Is this hotel camping?" I told her it was, and she was content.

At around 10:00 in the morning we set out again, $700 poorer, but 4 tires richer. It took us about 12 more hours to get to Washington since our plan to drive while the kids slept had been ruined and they don' t love spending the whole day in the car. On the trip home at the end of the week we were able to drive overnight and we made it home in only 13 hours. So much more pleasant.

We passed snacks back to the kids all day, but by dinnertime we were still a few hours from our destination so we stopped at a little drive-in in Eastern Washington. The food wasn't great and it was overpriced, but it was so nice to get out and play for a while.

Ben ate his first corndog

Change of Plans

I'm huge this pregnancy, like HUGE! Every month some new ache or discomfort surfaces and I say to Devan, "I shouldn't feel this pregnant yet!" I didn't know how I was going to get through 4 more months of this. A couple of weeks ago I had a prenatal appointment. I hadn't had an appointment for a couple of months because I forgot my last one and never rescheduled. I went in and they measured my stomach. You're supposed to measure about 1 centimeter for every week pregnant you are. I was at 22 weeks and I measured at 29 cm. A centimeter or two off is no big deal, but 7 centimeters is huge. My midwife recommended an ultrasound to see how big the baby is. Turns out, the baby is measuring at 27 weeks, changing my due date from November 3rd to October 8th.

I've wondered from the beginning if I could possibly be farther along than I think I am. I seemed to get sick way too early and I got a positive pregnancy test when I thought I was only 3 weeks along. But I didn't think it was really possible because I had a very normal period in January. I guess it wasn't really a period and I'd already been pregnant for a month by that point. I think this is going to mess with my head for the rest of my life. If I can't rely on having a period tell me I'm not pregnant, what can I count on?

Moving on from the oversharing... here's my little boy!

Smooshed up face

Cute profile

And like the caption says, his lips and nose. 

We're so excited to get to meet our little guy a whole month earlier than expected!

A Sick Day

It's 12:45 on a Sunday. This is right about the time I'd start running around yelling at everyone to get ready for church. But not today. Today I'm lying on the couch, Devan is playing his new Wii game we got him for Father's Day, and the kids are playing in a box.

And yes, Hannah is still a binkie thief. I don't know how to deal with it.

This has been a weird week. The kids have had sick-like symptoms all week, but haven't really been acting sick and I've been acting sick all week, but haven't really had any symptoms (except having my body hurt when I'm out of bed, but I've just been blaming that on being fat) but today I'm admitting that symptoms or not, we're all sick.

Yesterday was a fun, busy day. We slept in until 8 then jumped up and headed down to Provo for all-you-can-eat French toast at Magleby's Fresh. Before we'd even eaten, Hannah had a poop issue that I think will forever be my worst poop changing experience. I laid her down on the bathroom counter to be changed and didn't realize until too late how liquid her poop was. It ran all over the counter covering her back all the way up to her hair. We dealt with it. I took off all her clothes and used half a box of diaper wipes scrubbing her from head to toe, wiping down the bathroom counter, floor and even garbage can. It was fun. Then she had to go finish her breakfast wearing only a diaper and pair of purple flip flops.

We drove home just in time to get to our ward service project, which was cleaning up the Jordan River Parkway by our  house. Devan wanted me to let him go home and take care of the kids, but I was selfish and didn't want to go alone so we packed them up in the stroller and headed out. It was a super fun activity and Hannah had a blast picking up garbage with her friends. Toward the end I started feeling sick too and had to run into the woods to throw up a couple of times.

After the service project I went to a shower for my friend Lindsey who is having a little boy at the end of July. Hannah and her daughter Noelle love each other.

I made this little taggy blanket for baby Michael. I'd never made one before, but I like the way it turned out. I think I'll do one for our new baby too.

After the party I finished up the last of my visiting teaching for the month. It was seriously the first time in about a year and a half I've personally visited all of the four women I'm assigned to visit. If you don't know what visiting teaching is, each willing woman in a ward is assigned a companion and then given other women to check up on at least once in the month. Ideally, we should go into their homes and give a short message and spend some time just chatting about whatever it is women like to chat about and offer help where help is needed, but even a note or a phone call is sufficient. Just so that they know that someone is thinking of them. Visiting teaching is one of my very favorite parts about the church. I know it might sound weird having friends "assigned" to you, but I know that I need that extra push. I've made some wonderful friends over the years with people I've visited or who were my companions or who came and visited me. Like I said before, I've been so bad about doing my visiting teaching. I don't know why, I've had the same women on my list for about a year and they are all so wonderful. They all go to church every week so there is no fear that they won't want me to come over or anything. And I'm so lucky to have great visiting teachers who come visit me every month and it's one of my favorite parts of my whole month. For some reason, it's just so hard for me to pick up a phone and call someone and ask them to let me come over. And then I'm always afraid that once I get there we won't have anything to talk about and it will be awkward. But it never is and I always feel so much happier after I've just faced my fears and done it. We women need each other so much. I need to take advantages of my opportunities to reach out beyond myself and make some meaningful connections.

After I was done visiting teaching, I picked up Devan and the kids and we went to visit my dear friend Dawn on her birthday. She shared her birthday cake with us and Devan and I got to talk to she and Kevin while the kids played. Their boy and girl are just about the same ages as our boy and girl so we all have a blast together, even though things can get a little crazy when we get our 4 strong-willed children together.

After the birthday festivities we dropped the kids off at Nana and Papa's and went on our Father's Day date. We went to 3 sporting good shops looking at camping stuff. By this point I was feeling so sick and tired but I tried to be as enthusiastic as I could. Sweet Devan took me to the mall and helped me pick out a new dress the day before Mother's Day so I was trying to be as patient and loving as he was. I don't think I succeeded. We went to Red Robin for dinner and it was amazing and then got our kids and headed home.

We got home and I gave him the Wii games I'd gotten him for Father's Day. I tried so hard to play with him, but I fell asleep while we were playing and he stayed up and took care of the kids until they went to bed. He's done that for me every night for the last week. I seriously don't deserve him.

I woke up in the middle of the night violently ill. Devan got up with me and got me water and a wet washcloth to wipe my mouth. This morning he took care of every thing and I slept until 10:00. He cleaned the toilet for me so I wouldn't have to look at my old throw up and he nailed a heavy blanket over the window in our room so I would have a completely dark room to sleep in. It was just so perfect.

Every weekend for the last month I've gotten so frustrated. I've been trying to get the house completely cleaned by Friday afternoon so that I can take the weekend off. By Sunday night it's trashed again and I get so angry that I can't ever take a day off from the drudgery and that I have to clean everything all by myself. Then the week before last he was home sick from work for 4 days and I got so bitter that he could take days off and lay on the couch and I never, ever got that luxury. Today I did. Devan stayed home from church so I wouldn't have to be home taking care of sick kids while I was sick and I've gotten to lay down all day. I feel so crappy, but it feels so nice to not have to take care of anyone else while I feel crappy. I'm going to try my hardest to drag myself up and make him his Father's Day dinner tonight so that the day isn't completely ruined for him.

Devan is so kind to us. I give him far more grief about some things than he deserves and on days like this when he steps up and gives me everything I need, I'm humbled by him. Happy Father's Day, my sweet husband.