Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Full Term!

It's exciting to me that I'm officially full term with this pregnancy. Although I know I will probably still be waiting around on my due date... I feel like the end is in sight now. I have an appointment tomorrow so we'll see if this baby has made any progress since I was last checked at 35 weeks. After seeing this fun thing on Andrea's blog I thought I should try it out also - so if you want to make a guess as to when this little girl will arrive and how much she will weigh....feel free! I might even give a prize to the winner (although you might have to give me some time to do that one!)

And here are some recent pregnancy pictures. It makes me sick to look at them! The purple shirt picture is from 36 weeks and the black shirt picture is from today 37 1/2 weeks.

I feel mostly ready for this next baby - although lots of mixed emotions. The crib is set up, supplies purchased, hospital bag is as packed as it can be right now, etc. Bassinet and car seat just need to be assembled. Clothes and blankets are washed and put away. My aunt has bought her plane tickets to come and help for a few days and my dad and stepmom and brother will be here after her. I still have some deep cleaning projects to get to but most of my stuff is done and the house is as clean as you would expect with a 2 year old living in it.

Ellie has been keeping me as busy as she possibly can. The other day I was working on the computer and noticed she was being a little too quiet and found her covered in stickers! All over her body. At least they were easy to clean up! And of course my favorite are her sleeping positions. She goes and goes all day and then crashes hard at the end. Her imagination is on overdrive and she is obsessed with monsters and dragons in her room. Of course her current favorite movie is Monsters Inc so it explains the monster part but we're not sure where the dragon obsession came from!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Baby Shower

I have to admit that I wasn't really on board with having another baby shower since I'm having my 2nd girl in a row...but Amy and Jessica didn't really listen to me and threw me and this little baby girl a shower yesterday. And I'm so glad that they did because it was so much fun! It ended up being a small group of us that had all been in the same ward together at one point or another. We had lots of yummy food and treats and played some really fun games. And this little girl and I were spoiled rotten! So many wonderful presents. And now I'm finally feeling like I'm ready to have her. Thanks again girls for a wonderful afternoon!

The fabulous food and table spreads:





Amy planned the best baby shower games. One of them we had to put a paper plate on top of our heads and draw a baby without being able to see what we were drawing.


Another game we had to try and see how many baby socks we could match together in 30 seconds (I need to work on my speed on this one).


And another where there were 10 baby objects inside of paper bags and we had to guess what they were just by feeling the bag.


Some of the people who came (I didn't think to get a picture with the whole group and missed one with Jessica as well for some reason):

Becky and I getting ready to enjoy the cupcakes!


C, Emily, Brenda, Elena, and I enjoying the food.


Amy and I



Opening up some of the presents:

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Arizona Museum for Youth

Last week we went with our friends Amy and Brooklyn and C & E to the Arizona Museum for Youth. I think I'm just about convinced that I need to buy a year long membership to this Museum! It's really close to the house and we had so much fun. They had this special "Munsters" exhibit going on right now where the kids were able to help build a monster, play in the glow in the dark area with dress up monster apparel, put on monster hands and feeds, and all sorts of stuff.





Ellie's favorite areas had to do with the coloring and then painting with water. I think she would have stayed in these sections for hours! Maybe I have a future artist on my hands?


And then of course the Artville section where they got to play on the slide, play in the pretend kitchen and with the food (my favorite is the girls in their aprons), and play with the dollhouse and make a craft.

It was a fun morning and Ellie is still talking about everything we did a few days later!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Staycation, Rain, & Trouble

After Rob's hospital visit last month, I feel like I've just been in a state of playing catch up ever since! On my list was this blog... so I'm finally going to do a quick recap for my own journaling.

The last week in August we had initially planned on heading to San Diego and the beach. But we had to scrap those plans due to Rob's health. So instead we did a little "staycation". I was able to use Priceline and we got an awesome deal at the Doubletree Resort in Paradise Valley/Scottsdale. We were able to enjoy the beautiful and large pools, had pizza in the hotel room, and I let Ellie eat donuts on the bed for breakfast. While only about 20 minutes away from our house... it was amazing how just being at a hotel can you make you feel like you are far away! It wasn't the beach but at least it was something and I want to repeat it next year - especially since resorts in Arizona always have great summer specials going on.




I'm quickly realizing just how close I am getting to my due date. People keep asking me how I'm feeling and the answer is pretty good! I could do without the neverending heat here (oh and the heartburn and insomnia) but overall, I'm still feeling allright. I do have to be careful to take breaks and rest and I'm noticing it is getting hard to bend over. But I am not too uncomfortable yet and trying to enjoy feeling halfway decent for a few more weeks since I know this stage is going to come to an end soon! I am not nearly as stressed about this new baby coming as I was with Ellie. I do have a list of projects that I still want to get done in the next few weeks but I also have the mentality that life will go on if I don't get them done in time.

And on that note - Ellie has become the best little helper when I'm cleaning. I pull out cleaning supplies and she immediately runs to get a rag out of the drawer to help me. I'm definitely putting her to use helping me out! We're still working on getting her to pick up her toys and books (she won't do it unless I'm sitting with her and helping) but we're making progress.

Ellie started a community class a few weeks ago with her best friend Brooklyn. I am going to have to try and capture pictures one of these days but the girls love it. They get to play with playdough, dance, a little tumbling, songs, play with a parachute, hula hoops, etc. Ellie would love to go to this class every day but it's only once a week. We've been filling the rest of our free time with other playdates which has been really helpful to keep Ellie happy and entertained!

We enjoyed a nice rain storm during the day a few weeks ago and Ellie immediately wanted to run out and play with it but quickly grabbed the umbrella. Ever since she has been asking me to buy her a pink umbrella. I couldn't get her to jump in puddles this time but hopefully we can get another daytime storm and enjoy puddle jumping! It's probably always going to be funny to me how Ellie doesn't know what to do with rain and I grew up with it almost every day in Washington.



I definitely have a two year old on my hand who can get into trouble super fast! This last week alone she decided to get into the eggs in our fridge and cracked one on herself. And within the same hour dumped out a whole container of dog food. She keeps me on toes for sure. And she's really into dressing up in Rob's work boots and clomping around the house in them. And being rewarded with stickers that end up all over herself and all over the house!


Our stake was reorganized with new ward boundaries this last week and after almost 3 years, I was released from being Primary President. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself since I've been in Primary for almost 5 years straight. But we have a brand new ward now (part of our old ward moved with us) and so it'll be fun to have some new experiences. And I'm going to enjoy not stressing about the Primary Program that was supposed to be done in 2 weeks!