Friday Updates

This post is going to be a little bit of a mish-mash, so hang in there with me.

It is so beautiful outside today! The sun is shining and the temperature is warm. Michael and I had a great time at the zoo this morning with some friends and now he is taking a nice nap. Perfection!

I had another OB appointment this morning, and everything is looking great. I have been having some contractions, but nothing to worry about. The doc said if I were to go into labor they would not stop it, so I guess that is good news. I'm not anticipating this happening anytime soon, though. :o) I will have two more appointments and then it will be the big day! We still don't have a time for the surgery, but I'm sure we will get that information at some point here in the next couple of weeks. My blood pressure is doing great; it is such a blessing to not have to worry about it constantly. I can feel the baby getting bigger every day and I'm curious to see if it will be as big as Michael (9 lbs)!

We are making progress on getting things ready for baby- I currently have 12 freezer meals done and a few more I want to make. We still need to get out all the newborn clothes and put them away in the dresser that still needs to be moved upstairs. I am hoping this will happen next weekend? We bought a ton of D batteries and now we just need to put them in our swing and bouncer and make sure everything works. I've been getting packages of things daily from amazon.com of little things I need so that is exciting.

This next week is "yard work week" and even though I am severely scaling back the amount of planting I am doing, I still have some things that need to go in the ground. I have lots of plants that need to be split but I am feeling so irrational these days with pregnancy hormones that I don't trust myself to do anything to them.

We have a busy weekend here with both my sister and Scott's brother's family visiting and Scott's parents dropping by to drop some stuff off on their way to Omaha today and Sunday. I hope it all works out well, we are going to keep things pretty low key. I am just crossing my fingers that we can work a trip to Hickory Park (my favorite BBQ place) into the schedule!

Have you been watching the Royal Wedding coverage? I have about 10 hours of it DVR-ed that I need to get through sometime. Such a historical event!

Easter Fun pt. 2

As promised, I'm back with more photos from our fun Easter Sunday!

I just thought Michael looked so cute and I'm sorry about the overload of photos. I just couldn't help myself! It was a nice overcast day, great for taking photos.





Notice the candy. I think it is finally all gone so we can resume our non-sugar high behavior. I actually put goldfish crackers in about half the eggs...and Michael refused to eat those ones. He only wanted the good stuff!










After seeing how terrible our yard looked in the photos, Scott spent the next 4 hours (plus the hour it took running to home depot to get a new battery for the lawn mower) working in the yard. It looks great now!



I can't believe how big Michael looks. We had such a great day, I can't wait until next Easter when there will be two little rugrats running around!

Easter fun!

We had the best Easter Sunday. It was such a beautiful day full of good food and spending time with family!

It actually felt like four days crammed into one because we were all up early so we could go to the sunrise service at church. I volunteered to play this year and it was really fun. Usually our church is a huge zoo on major holidays and so I figured it was probably worth it to get up early and get a good parking spot! After church Scott took us out for a nice brunch and we had a nice time. We got there right at 8 and by the time we were done the place was packed!! Another good call on our part! :o)

I say we should start waking up at 5 every morning!

We got home and everyone rested for a little bit and then it was Easter basket time!!



Michael is really into his Little People guys so I got him a few more. I just think they are sooo cute! I wish he could have every Little People set and sometimes I find myself looking at them on Amazon just for fun because they are so cute. Yes, I have a problem!






Scampy is so funny in the background of these photos- he is just like whatever.





"What does a sheep say?"




Michael's favorite part of his Easter basket was the candy!! He is a messy boy.





My handsome little guy. We'll share more photos tomorrow! Happy Monday!

Hockey TIme

This year Scott has really gotten into hockey and he plays two nights a week for two different leagues. Usually the games are late at night, but this week he had an early game so Michael and decided to go! We are so terrible at attending his games, this was only our 3rd one this year. It was a great game and Scott scored two goals and a good assist!

He really likes his team and there are some good guys on it. I think this is the 3rd team he's been on since he started in the league but I have a feeling they want to keep him around for a while. :o)

The highlight for Michael, of course, was the zamboni. We got there early so he got to watch it clear the entire sheet of ice. He was so excited and was pointing and babbling the whole time. It is so funny to me the things that little boys find entertaining.

This week Michael had to go to a different home for childcare and he slept hard at naptime. Both days he came home with this funny hair that was all flipped up in the back. I thought it was so cute!
(he could almost pass for a little girl....shhh, don't tell dad!)

I thought this was just the cutest photo and I'm so sad it came out blurry. I have a little 50mm f/1.8 lens for my camera but it is a manual focus and so lots of times my photos come out blurry. It is still fun to use, but I wish I would have splurged for the higher end one that can do focus automatically!

Have a great Easter weekend, all!

Babies and Birthdays

We spent last weekend celebrating a couple of first birthdays and spending time with friends.

First up were these cutie pies:

They are getting so big! Time flies! We had a great time hanging out and Michael had lots of fun playing their toys.

Afterwards we headed out to birthday party number 2. Here is the birthday boy:

He was doing a great job walking and was so big! They had a ranch themed party and he even had the little boots on. We were happy we had an excuse to visit our friend's new home and catch up with everyone!

Michael's girlfriend- born just a week later than him! Her little sister is due one week before our little one will be here.

Men's pow-wow. So serious.

And just for fun...some baby blues. Wow, we have got to get rid of that pacifier! He is too big to have it!

Who's the king of his jungle?

...and he spots his prey!



(yes....I really don't have anything better to do than take photos of my cat and son all day!)

Updates

The countdown to baby is on! We are less than 4 weeks away from the new baby arriving!

I survived my concert at school last night without going into labor so that is a big check off my list. The kids did great and everything went really smoothly. After a full day of school moving equipment and then a whole night of being on my feet, I was exhausted last night. I came home, took a hot bath, drank about a gallon of water and then watched the season finale of Parenthood.
And then I bawled my eyes out. Every episode....it never fails. Usually I watch it by myself but last night Scott caught it with me and he was laughing at me. I can't help it!! So good. Anyone else watch?

My computer has just been brought back to life by my husband after my hard drive crashed. Luckily we had time to back everything up, but it took a long time to get everything copied back on it. My 2011 photo file took about 2 days with all the huge photos I've been taking with my new camera. The new hard drive is 500 gigs...my first hard drive was 20 gigs and I thought that was huge!

Since I didn't have any recent photos for this post, I will give you some treats from days gone by:


Life pre-kids. 2007.
Yes, I am wearing a denim tuxedo. It was on the mannequin at Gap that way!



Scott and his fraternity brothers, 2001.
We went to a birthday party this weekend and a couple of Scott's friends were there and it was so weird to see them all as DADS. I could have never imagined that in a million years back when we were in college. Life is funny. Two of these guys have 3 kids, one has 1 with 1 on the way, and 1 will hopefully have some soon!

Speaking of college....

Hi, Skippy! :o)
Dallas, 2004?

Stud.
Honeymoon, 2006.

The only year I had awesome looking pots. I want to say 2007.
I had a photo from a magazine and spent a ton of money at the garden store. I have never gotten them to look nice since. I think it is because I got cheap and didn't feel like spending $20 on plants for a pot. Ahhh the days of disposable income! :o)

I'll be back with more recent updates as soon as I find some time....have a great week!

Enjoying the weather

This past weekend it was as warm as its been yet this spring- in the upper 70's! On Saturday we all headed to Jester Park for some family time. Michael had a blast and we spent about 2 hours playing, walking around and exploring.

What is it about nice weather that makes time fly?



I thought Michael kind of looked like an old man in this outfit. I think it is maybe the tucked in shirt that does it? I think he is actually getting taller and I'm curious to see how tall he is at his appointment next week. People always ask if he's two and when I say no they comment on how tall he is!

He is also the skinniest he has ever been. His legs are really thinning out and they have been chubby ever since he was born! I think it is just another reminder that he is growing up right before my eyes.

We walked down to see the elk and they were all chilling in the shade. They looked so peaceful. Michael loves watching them.

Michael saw some older boys playing with sticks so of course he also had to have a stick to play with. He is so observant and smart it amazes me!

They also recently burned all the grasses down at the natural playscape so it looked very different. I'm excited to see the new stuff pop up as spring continues.

I'm glad we enjoyed the nice weather when we did because now it is going to get colder again and possibly even snow!! It is a good reminder to never take a nice spring day in Iowa for granted. :o)

Instagram

I have been having lots of fun over the last week taking photos on my iphone using my new favorite (free!) app recommended by my virtual buddy (not really...I just like to pretend we would be friends) the Pioneer Woman. It is a pretty fun app!

Here's a sample of photos I've taken just over the last few days; as you can see I use my favorite subjects- Scampy, Michael and plants. Enjoy!