Whew!

What a weekend! We were busy busy. Playing, working, church stuff. It was mostly fun, but also kind of tiring. I am looking forward to a slow couple of days before Thanksgiving. Friday night Ian and I ran out the door and just barely made it to our tour of the hospital that I will be delivering at. It was pretty standard. I just wanted to see the delivery and recovery rooms to get an idea of what it would be like. They are nice and bigger than at St. Mark's, so that was good. It was funny doing the tour with all these 1st time parents and hearing their paranoid sounding questions. :)

After our tour we grabbed some dinner and went to the mall. I got a new nursing bra (oh the joy), did a little Christmas shopping, and hit up See's for dessert. Then we went to the airport to pick up Ian's mom! Hooray! It was so great having her around this weekend. She was a huge help and we got to do some fun shopping. Seriously, do not let us loose in Joanne's.

Saturday was our errand day. We got a little bit of a late start since Ian had some yard work to get done before we could leave, but it worked out. We shopped for curtain fabric, among other things, at Joanne's first. Then we went out to lunch. Last we went to Walmart. That was about my shopping limit. Denny got some sewing done that afternoon and even made the boys some bean bags. They were super excited about them (FYI if you make bean bags, rice makes a much better filler than unpopped popcorn). It started snowing at about 5pm and didn't stop all night. We watched a chick flick, Leap Year (it was only ok), and wrapped all the books for the Christmas book advent.

The boys wanted to dress up and show Grandma their Halloween costumes in person.
Around midnight we lost power and it was still off when we all woke up around 6:30am to over a foot of snow. It made for a cold morning, but I was kind of secretly hoping the power would stay off so I could stay home and snuggle in a blanket instead of having to teach YW and do our Evening of Excellence program. Go ahead, judge me. It wasn't to be though. The power came back on before 8, so I still got to have a full day of Ward Council, church, teaching YW, baking dessert for the Evening of Excellence, writing my talk for the program, then putting it on. It went pretty well for being fairly last minute. I am just glad it is done and I can kind of check out of YW for the next month and focus on baby.

Building block towers and castles Sunday morning.
Ian digging out our cars Sunday morning so we could go to our meetings. I really need to get this man a snowblower. Poor guy.
Yesterday was Ian and my 7 year anniversary! Can you believe we have been married that long? Crazy. We weren't going to be able to sneak away for an overnight getaway, but we planned an all day date and it was fabulous. We TV shopped, ate lunch at Kneader's, got massages, saw the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX (it was fantastic!), and went to a nice dinner downtown at Faustina. It was a good day.
Denny is such a fun grandma. She spent the day with the boys and helped them build a snowman and make cute turkeys out of apples and cookies and candy. She also worked more on the baby's room curtains. They aren't finished, but they are going to be so cute! Both boys just loved having Grandma here to play with and are probably going to be super bored with just me home for the next couple days. Thanks for coming and playing and helping Den!

The boys playing lightsabers and swords. They are such goofs.
All decked out in their winter gear (we had to get Weston snow boots and Davin mittens) to play in the snow.
Working on their snowman with Grandma.
The finished little snowman. Didn't he turn out cute?
We are supposed to be having some pretty miserable winter weather the rest of this week. Highs in the teens and more snow, so it should be a pretty mellow, stay inside and decorate for Christmas kind of Thanksgiving. I'm excited to enjoy dinner with family and have Ian home for a long weekend.

No Change

That is pretty much the worst thing you can hear at an OB appointment when you're 37 weeks and so over being pregnant, but that's what I heard today. Sigh. I have been having a really rough week. It has been busy, but I have been sick and all I want to do is lay on the couch all day and read my book and have my food brought to me on a tray. :) Ian has been really great taking over when he gets home. I came home to fed, bathed, sleeping kids, rinsed dishes, and a tidy house last night after my YW training meeting. I am definitely thankful for my wonderful husband.

The other issue we have been having, besides me being sick and too busy to get better, is that Davin is not sleeping well. Grr. It seems like I can only remember brief pockets of time in his life that he has consistently slept through the night. Right now is NOT one of them. Yesterday he didn't nap, went to bed at 8pm, then was up 3 times between 1 and 2am. Which meant I was up. Then I couldn't get back to sleep because I was hungry, so I got up and ate a bowl of cereal and finally got back to sleep around 3:30. That makes for a very tired (and still sick) mommy and a tired, crabby 2 year old. I have declared today a "sick" day. Meaning I am only leaving the house to go to my OB appointment and to drop off/pick up Weston from school. Also I am staying in my sweats all day and not feeling guilty if I do nothing from my to-do list.

Today is Weston's last day of school until after Thanksgiving. It's a week from today! Crazy! Tomorrow night Ian and I are touring the hospital I'm planning on delivering at and picking up his mom from the airport for the weekend. I'm excited. I hope that I feel decent enough to enjoy the weekend.

Sickies

We are all sickies at our house. It's no fun. Ian and I are feeling it the most. Davin doesn't even really have the cold. Weston has it, but seems to feel mostly fine. Just sniffly. He has chosen to go to school every day this week so far. I don't feel too guilty about sending him since I know it's just a stuffy nose cold and nothing worse. I would be a happier camper if I could be nyquil/dayquil medicated around the clock, but since I can't, I'm kind of cranky about being sick. I just hope I get all the way better before the baby is born.

Sickies vegging. I love it when Davin lays on the couch like this. It's so adorable!
Anyway, we had a nice, productive Saturday. I had a lovely brunch at Kneader's with my Aunt Pam and Williamson cousins. We chatted and laughed and ate and they gave me fun presents for baby girl. After brunch I did a little shopping alone, which is always kind of nice. That afternoon Ian worked on the garage and I helped get the linen cupboards organized inside. It felt good to be working on getting things cleaned out and put away. We had never really put everything back after emptying the den.

Sunday was pretty chill. Weston gave a talk and did a great job. That's pretty much the only reason I went to church since I wasn't feeling great. The boys sure looked cute in their coordinating red ties though. Davin was so excited to be part of the matching tie crew.
This week we have been sort of just running errands and getting a few things done around the house in the morning and then I have been taking it easy in the afternoons. I am getting anxious for baby to come. I can't sleep and I can't do anything productive without getting worn out or getting sore from this heavy belly. My mother in law is going to be here on Friday for the weekend and I'm looking forward to getting the nursery all finished up with her. She is going to help me with curtains and I think I will go and get the hamper and lamp to finish the main decor. Needless to say, I've hit my wall. I'm ready to not be pregnant. :)

Another Week

Now that I'm 36 weeks I'm finally nesting! It feels like I have mostly just been exhausted this whole pregnancy. The nursery felt too overwhelming to tackle, but now that the dresser is cleared out and I have fun girl clothes to put inside it I have been feeling like getting it ready is really urgent. Plus, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and that means "any day now." I went to the doctor on Wednesday morning and I was measuring between 37 and 38 centimeters, which surprised my doctor, but the baby hadn't dropped yet, so we still have a few weeks to go.
Wednesday night I had a combined YM/YW planning meeting that I was in charge of. I felt like it was a little chaotic, but we did get lots of ideas for each month's combined activity for next year. Right when I was getting to the last month or two I realized I hadn't planned anything else for the evening. When I was finished the YM president came in and said he had set up chairs in the cultural hall so the YW could go in there and pick the actual activities we wanted to do for our months of the year and the YM would stay in that room and figure out their months' activities then we would get the calendar nailed down. I was so grateful he had thought of doing that!

The YW filed into the cultural hall and I held the door for them to make sure they all made it in (they tend to disappear to the bathroom sometimes), then when I came in I saw all my friends and some family there for a surprise shower! I really had zero idea it was happening. I was so touched. It was great fun to see friends and my aunt and cousins who drove down from Ogden. There were ward members there too, and, of course, the young women. It was pretty low key. We ate the cute rattle cupcake cake, visited, and opened presents. I got so many adorable little girly clothes, a couple blankets, a couple packs of diapers and wipes, and a car seat cover. It was so fun of my friend, Janelle, to put the whole thing together and even make it a surprise! Thanks everyone who helped and came. It meant so much to me. :)

Me and my friend, Tara, who thankfully took some pictures and sent them to me.
Opening presents. My friend, Janelle, who threw the shower is the one taking pictures right behind me.
Yesterday after I picked up Weston from his short day at school we went to Babies R Us to register. I know that's kind of weird since I already had a shower and my baby is due in just a few short weeks, but I did it because they gave me a $10 gift card for registering. Why not, for a free $10? Anyway, it was good because it helped my organize in my head what things I still need to get. I went ahead a bought a couple things too. Then I went home and started getting my nursery organized!
The giant CD case I ordered from Amazon came yesterday too, so last night I stayed up and put our entire DVD collection into it. We had run out of room on our DVD shelf and had quite a few hidden in the cupboard. It was getting harder to know what we had to watch. It was kind of fun going through all our movies and seeing ones I hadn't watched in a long time. I also enjoyed organizing them into genres. I don't think I did the best job though. I didn't leave enough blanks spaces between sections, so we'll see how long they stay nicely organized. In the meantime Ian and I are still debating what to do with all the cases. Do we store them in the garage or just toss them?

Goodbye empty DVD shelf cluttering up my living room corner!
Can you believe all that got consolidated into the one case with plenty of pages leftover?
Yesterday morning while Weston was at school Davin decided to make his own little ball pit. He put all the balls into his fire truck and threw them around while he watched Cars. When I went in to sneak a picture he wanted me to take more and more. When I realized he was going to want me to take his picture with every single ball in there I said no. It was pretty funny how excited he was to have just HIS picture taken though. I sure love this adorable two year old!
Unfortunately Ian has been working late late nights this week and hadn't slept in 48 hours, so last night he mostly dozed on the couch while I talked at him until he officially had to go to bed. :) I am excited for our anniversary coming up and our fun date we have planned. Also the long Thanksgiving weekend will be nice. Hooray for November!

Surprise!

As you may have noticed from the tone of my blog lately I had been feeling pretty blah for a couple weeks. The only real cure for that showed up at my door on Friday afternoon. Ian had told me he was expecting a package on Friday afternoon that I needed to sign for, so I wasn't too surprised to hear the knock at the door, but when I opened it and saw my sister, Mel, standing there I was shocked! Apparently she had been plotting this surprise visit for almost a month and Ian and all my family managed to keep the secret. I was so excited to see her! She came at just the right time and we had the best time together. I was sad to see her go today, but she'll be back at Christmas, so it won't be too long.

Anyway, Friday we just talked and played with the boys until it was time to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. We had already planned to go there since Weston had earned the outing by doing all his morning jobs in the month of October. It was just extra fun to have Auntie Mel with us. The boys played games galore and earned over 1000 tickets (with which they bought balls and bugs). After playing we all went to dinner at Costa Vida. Davin scarfed all of his quesadilla and half of Weston's. That kid just loves cheese!

Saturday morning we got up and all got ready and headed to the Hogle Zoo. We had amazing November weather. It was mostly sunny and about 70 degrees. A perfect zoo day. It wasn't very crowded either, especially for a Saturday. Davin was so excited to see the animals. He hadn't been to the zoo since he was about 4 months old. Poor deprived child. Unfortunately the zoo outing is about the only thing I got pictures of from the entire weekend and I forgot to grab the ones off Mel's camera before she left. Hopefully she will post hers and I can steal them soon. :)
Davin was super excited to see the elephant. Luckily all the animals were pretty active while we were there. We got some great up-close views of the monkeys, elephant, rhinos, giraffes, tigers, meerkats, and lots of other fun animals. The kids also really enjoyed their ride on the carousel and playing on the playground.So the zoo was a blast. We were all tired when we got home though. Mel and I sacked out on the couch while trying to watch a movie. The nap was worth it.
That night we hung out at our friends, the Miller's. We played games, ate dessert, chatted and laughed, and got adjusted (Jared is a brilliant chiropractor). It was a fun, but kind of late night.

The time change threw us all off a bit. Daylight savings time with kids is such a cruel joke. Davin was up at 5:30, Weston was up by 6, and the rest of us slowly staggered out of bed when we couldn't block the noise of the kids playing, fighting, and coughing any longer. It was still a pretty great Sunday. Ian didn't have any meetings, I skipped choir and didn't have to teach or anything, so I read the paper, we had a pancake breakfast, and all got showered and dressed in time for 12:30 church. By the end of church Davin was so exhausted he was barely coping. After some quiet time on his bed though he made it until 7pm. We spent most of our afternoon/evening watching Prince of Egypt and eating our dinner "picnic" style in the living room. Seriously it was probably the most relaxing Sunday we have had since Ian was called into the bishopric last November.

Today we dropped Weston off and school and then shopped! Mel had some stores she wanted to shop at that she doesn't have in Rexburg and I had some sales I wanted to check out. We were pretty productive and successful. Plus it's fun to have a shopping buddy. We met up with Ian for lunch at In N Out. Then Mel had to hit the road to drive back to Rexburg. It was kind of hard to say goodbye. Too bad she has a job and a husband she had to go home to otherwise I might have kidnapped her and made her stay with me all week. I'm so glad she decided to make the trip out to see me and to make it such a fun surprise too! I love me some sister time and it definitely was just what I needed. Now I can face the rest of my busy month. Thanks Mel!

Errand Queen

That's me! I have been go go going this week. I had a full page of lists of things I needed to pick up from various stores. I planned it out so that I could hit clusters of stores each morning while Weston was in school. Davin has been pretty good on our errand outings. Better than me. There are too many great clearance deals around right now.

Tonight my cousin, Kim, is going to teach me how to make flower clips for headbands. I am super excited, but nervous too since I am so not crafty. Seriously wandering around Michael's and Joanne's for an hour was so intimidating! I hope I got the right stuff. I'll let you know how my creative endeavors turn out. If I can get a few cute bows/flowers out of the deal I will be happy.

Having so many errands to run has forced me to get up on time and get going, which has actually been pretty nice. We have been a little more on our routine this week. The kids even slept until 7:20 one morning! That's a mini miracle for Dav. I have been showered for preschool drop off a couple times this week, we have been reading scriptures and having family prayer in the mornings, and I have still managed to keep the house relatively in order.

Utah has been having great Fall weather this week too. Sunny and in the 60's. We have gone to the park almost every single day after naps. It's nice to sit outside and be in the sunshine. It helps wear the kids out for bedtime too and pass those usually horrendous hours of 4-6pm.

Sorry this post is so rambly, but this is about all that's going on in my life. I feel kind of rambly myself. The downside to being an 8 months pregnant errand queen is that it's truly exhausting. By lunchtime I can barely stay awake, much less be productive around the house. It's a trade off I guess. Hopefully you all have been having a good, productive first week of November too!

Halloween Weekend

I don't have any pictures. Can you believe it? Oh well I have posted enough pictures in the last week to make up for it. I can't really pretend to summon much excitement about how our Halloween went. It was just kind of ok.

Reasons I was disappointed:
-Ian had to work all day Saturday. I mean, ALL day. He left before 8am and didn't come home until after 6pm.
-We didn't really have anything to do during the day on Saturday, so we stayed home and puttered around the house and baked cupcakes. There was no rain outside.
-The second we got in the car to go on our trick or treating adventure it started raining.
-We went to the mall to trick or treat. It was a madhouse. SO many people. Very little candy. Definitely not worth it in my opinion. Weston thought he got a ton of candy though so I guess that was good. And the boys got to at least dress up and wear their costumes to something.
-Daddy never even saw the kids in their costumes except in pictures.
-After we got home from the mall and ate dinner the rain let up. I probably could have taken Weston out in our neighborhood for some real trick or treating, but by this point it was dark and really cold and getting too close to bed time. But it was pretty sad watching him answer the door for the older kid trick or treaters in his costume.

Sigh. I just hope that they won't remember how lame their Halloween was and that we will have more fun next year and the stupid Utah weather will cooperate. I felt kind of embarrassed Saturday night for being in such a bummed out mood, but I swear when holiday celebrations don't come together I take it personally/feel responsible. I know my kids were fine and didn't feel like they really missed out on anything. I just had a different idea of what the day would/should be like. Anyway, moving on.

Sunday was nice. I taught the combined YM/YW lesson on testimony. It went pretty well even though I was kind of nervous about it. After church I had a presidency meeting, then we had some friends over for Papa Murphy's jack o lantern pizza and to watch Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit with us. It was really fun. I was glad that the weekend ended on good note. I am glad that this holiday is behind me too. Today I need to take down all the decorations and dust! I never dust in October and call it part of the decor. :)

I am excited that it is November and that I am in the home stretch of this pregnancy. I just hope I can get everything ready for baby and Christmas in time. This month is a super busy one with church activities, our anniversary, Thanksgiving, baby prep, and a visit from Ian's mom. She is going to be super helpful getting the nursery put together though, so that will just be fun. I'm pondering curtains in preparation for her visit.

What are you looking forward to in November?