Misery Loves Company

I remember as a  kid seeing a picture of my mom pregnant with my older brother standing next to one of her sisters who was also pregnant.  Ever since then I thought it would be so fun to be pregnant at the same time as one of my sisters.  Low and behold this year there were THREE of us pregnant at the same time, but my younger sister had her baby back in December and lives out of state.  My sister Ardice and I, however, live just a few minutes away from each other and were due within 2 weeks!  We finally managed to get a couple photos of our pregnant selves together just recently.  (With Jossy as the only available photographer, we were glad anything turned out.)

It's been fun to be pregnant at the same time and have someone to commiserate with who knows exactly how you're feeling at that moment.  Unfortunately, she ditched me just yesterday in pregnant-land and moved onto newborn-ville.  So rude, right?!  Visiting her today in the hospital reminded me how hard recovery can be.  I think I'll try to enjoy pregnant-land a little more for now. 
 
My girls and their cousin wanted pictures together after Ardice and I were done.  They're all within 3 years of each other and great friends. 

Derby Day!

Matty joined Cub Scouts in April, just in time to work on a Pinewood Derby car for the race in May.  He and his dad were uber excited.  They researched, planned, and worked on it for hours on end. When the big day came, Matty was a ball of enthusiasm. 

Or at least he was for a while.  His car broke when he and another kid were "testing it" just minutes before the race and knocked it hard off the track.  He was a mess of tears as his dad and I frantically tried to fix the weights that had come unglued.  (Our super glue was not so super.)  Even once he stopped crying, he was still very down about it all.  Thankfully, he had a cute little supporter who wanted to sit by him and help him feel better.

Once we started racing, he perked up and had a fantastic time.  Somehow he even ended up in 3rd place overall out of 17 or so boys!

We were glad that the night ended with this face instead of the earlier glum one.  He's already excited to do it again next year.

Mommy's Day

Most years I feel like Mother's Day isn't much of a big deal here, but this year my kids were SUPER excited for it to the point that they were actually counting down weeks before!  They acted like it was Christmas which helped the whole day seem more fun. 

Matty went with his dad shopping the day before (even though he had an awesome gift already for me that he made at school.)  They went to Costco were Dan asked Matty what he wanted to look at.  Matty said jewelry, so Dan let him look.  Once he looked at everything, Matty narrowed in on a $6,000 ring.  Dan explained how much is was.  Matty said, "WOW!  That would take me like 60 weeks to save for!"  He gets a dollar a week for allowance.  Dan explained it would take SIX THOUSAND weeks.  Matty then chose to get me 2 dozen roses instead which his dad of course paid for.  I told Dan he got off easy on that one.  :)

Jossy drew a picture of me.  Frankly those teeth scare the crap out of me, but she was trying to draw me smiling.  It makes me laugh.

She also had Dan help her write a song about me to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle."  It was very cute.  She asked her dad to wrap a cake mix for me.  When I opened it she told me she wanted to bake a Mother's day cake for me with her Dad.  It took them a couple days to get around to but they had a great time baking it together.

Dan had wanted to get me a gift certificate for a pedicure, but last minute I told him all I really wanted was a bag of dried mangoes from Costco.  I pass them by every time I shop and always want them, but seeing my already full and expensive cart makes me walk on by each trip.  So he kindly got me my simple request, and I've been in heaven every day since.

My little stinkers may drive me absolutely up the wall on a daily basis, but man somehow they've sucked me into loving them anyway.   I'm a very blessed Mommy.

Muffins and Moms

Today was the 2nd graders' "Muffins and Moms" program.  They did "Donuts and Dads" a couple months ago where the dads came to school to read with their kids for an hour and eat donuts.  I figured this would be similar but turns out there was a big musical program the kids put on for their moms.  The kids were super cute to watch. 

And my little stinker decided to keep it a secret that he had a special speaking part, so I didn't have a great lens for taking pictures or a video camera on me.  A few kids got to go to the microphone and share what they loved about their mom.  Matty was one of those kids, and he said, "One day my mom got me 3 Flat Stanley books from the book orders.  I was so surprised.  My mom is great because she cares about me."   Several times he signed "I love you" from his place on the stage while he was singing.

 

After the program we walked to his classroom for muffins and to play an M&M game.  (Which really was just a bunch of math worksheets they were calling a "game.")  Matty wanted to know if I cried through the whole thing.  He was disappointed when I told him not the whole time, but I did tear up a little at the beginning.  I just fought it off the rest of the time.  (I already feel like a hormonal pregnant mess, no need to share that with his whole school!)   He said he saw other moms crying.  I told him they cried enough for all of us.  :)

It was nice to spend some one-on-one time together like this while his sisters played at a cousin's house.  We don't get many opportunities to just have it be the two of us anymore.  It's hard to believe we had 3 years of just us before anyone else came along.  I'm feeling thankful for today.

Farm Life

Jossy only has about a month left of preschool at home.  (HURRAY!!!)  Last week we talked about baby animals, so yesterday we went on a field trip to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point to see some.  She immediately wanted to take her pony ride that comes with admission.  I was a little surprised because last time we were there I could barely get her on one with me walking next to her, but she did GREAT and was super brave!

We got to see lots of baby animals and try to remember the different names we had learned for them.  Some of our favorites were this sweet new baby calf and feeding the kids.

We took a wagon ride as well.  I knew it would be bumpy having been on it before but Jossy REALLY wanted to go, so I just toughed it out.  Can I just say being 8 months pregnant makes the bumps 10 x's worse?! (And I now know yet another way to put myself into labor if I get really desperate.)

As we were leaving we noticed a little baby chick had just hatched in the incubator.  The egg didn't even have a crack on it on our way in.  Then we saw another one with a big old crack in it and feathers poking through.  I thought surely it would hatch soon and Jossy really wanted to see it, so we waited around and watched . . . and watched . . . and watched . . . til this hungry, tired mom couldn't take it anymore and we had to leave.  We waited for at least 40 minutes, but never saw more than lots of wiggles as it tried to break open.  I'm sure it hatched before we left the parking lot.

 Jossy confessed later that one of the reasons she really wanted to see it open is because she wanted it to think she was its momma.  Thanks, Curious George, for that. 

See Matty Run

Our elementary school does a running fundraiser every spring, and Matty LOVES to participate.  This year he hit a personal best of 14 laps and was beyond proud of himself.  This is him literally hollering and cheering himself on as he ran, feeling super proud.  We were proud of him, too.

Parking It With Family

After Matty's baptism, we went with my mother-in-law and some of the kids' visiting Idaho cousins to a nearby park to play.  Soccer and the slide were the main attraction for everyone.  I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed sitting my pregnant self down on a blanket and watching it all from the sidelines with a telephoto lens.

Cinderella lost a shoe down the slide, but luckily Prince Charming was close by.

Dressed in White

Matty was baptized last week on April 27th.  In our area, there are so many kids getting baptized that they have a day once a month for the whole stake to do it.  Each ward (there are about 10 in our stake) is given a time for their program and if there's more than one baptism in a ward then they share that program.  We shared with one other family who had twins being baptized.  Everything went smoothly and Matty had a great day filled with happy memories.  We're thankful to our family and friends who were able to attend and celebrate this important milestone with us. 

 

I asked Matty afterwards how he felt when he got out of the water.  

He smiled big and said, "Happy . . . and a little wet."  Silly kid.  

His school teacher came for a little bit and gave him this candy lei in celebration.  

He loved it!

We're so proud of him and thankful for the example he's setting for his younger siblings.  

Watching my husband baptize our son was truly a wonderful experience.

8 Year, 5 Year, and 2 Year Pictures!

I'm way behind printing out pictures for albums, and as I've been working hard to catch up at least some before the baby comes I've realized one thing yet again: I take too many pictures.  Really, I've gone through thousands and thousands trying to choose a minimal amount to edit and print and it's taking FOREVER!  I probably show 1% on my blog of what I actually take.  But even with all those pictures, I sometimes forget to take those posed, yearly shots with my kids.  We wanted to take some prior to Matty's baptism, so I decided to do the girls' pictures at the same time since Lacey just turned 2 and Jossy will turn 5 in about a month.  Close enough.  So we got them all done one quick afternoon on the temple grounds after church, only the gates to the temple were closed that day so we had to stay further away than I would have liked.

So here they are, just a few of the way too many I take! (And I'm not taking the time right now for black and white, cross-processing, fun-type editing stuff.  Just trying to get these on the blog and get caught up!  One more thing off my ever-growing to-do list!)

The kids got restless after, oh all of 5 minutes of having their pictures taken, so they took up a rowdy game of tag on the temple lawn.  I'm sure the others taking pictures that day or sitting there looking for inspiration from the temple really appreciated it . . . but it was kind of cute.

Dan snapped a few of Lacey and I before we left.  

The Bump

Hitting the 7 month mark a few weeks ago meant it was time for some maternity pics.  (It's best to do them when you're big, but not too big and awkward, so 7 months is about right.) One of my sisters and I are expecting less than 2 weeks apart, so she took mine and I took hers while our girls played together one morning.  Here are a few of my favorites.