25 days left!!!

I had a doctor's appointment today and it was PERFECT! Here's some latest pictures of me and the babe.

 (Don't I look awesome?)

The boy is starting to measure a little ahead of schedule for the first time (just by half a week), so maybe he'll make a grand entrance sooner than we thought! Our due date is September 24th which would still be good by me. But lets be honest, we all know he will NOT come that day because no one ever has their babies on their actual due dates, right? I have yet to meet someone.

 (This dress is so flattering on me! I wish I was pregnant ALL the time!)

Baby also appears to be head down and anterior. I'm pretty stoked about that because, hopefully, that means no back labor (back labor tends to be common in posterior babies.) Here's a random insight into my life. Weight gain has been nuts this pregnancy! Not that anyone probably cares, but seriously I can't wrap my head around it. From 30-32 weeks I gained 4.5 pounds and I was definitely feeling the aches from the stretching. But then from 32-36 weeks I only gained 1.5 pounds. So in twice the time, I gained less than half the weight. How on earth does that happen? Plus, the left side of my belly is bigger than my right side. Weird.

(Wow! I make this pregnancy look good!)

And I just want to say that being pregnant has been awesome. Yes, there are some downsides to it (read: waking up at least 3 times a night, pains in my belly and back all day, lack of energy, wearing the same clothes week after week) but I still love that my family is growing. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I'm living my dream. I love my husband, I love my daughter, I love that I will soon have a son, and I love that this is all happening to me. My life is good.

And just because I know family won't let me get away with those first few pictures, I will post a few other ones of me.

Hello 36.5 weeks!

A word about cravings

I'm not one of those women that gets cravings for certain delicacies during her pregnancy.

Truth of the matter is that I. Get. Cravings. All. The. Time. Night or day, weekdays and weekends, pregnant or not, cravings are a part of my life.

Case and point. Back when Kyle and I could count how many months we were married on our hands, I got the strongest of strongest urges to down a bag of these chips.

So being the wonderful and dutiful husband he is, he drove around Provo with me to Macy's, Smith's, Walmart, and other reasonable locations to find them.

And you know what? They were no where to be found! One google search later, I found out that they had been discontinued, which made sense since the last time I could recall eating them was in the 3rd grade when my mom came to my school to read books with me for an hour. We sat in the hallway devouring books (figuratively) and chips (literally.) Has anyone else ever had these delectable chips before?

Anyways, flash forward 15 years, and there I was faced with a predicament. What chip choice could possibly satisfy my desire for Pizzarias?

Verdict:

That's right, Tato Skins. It wasn't a perfect match, but since Tato Skins are rarely the variety of chips offered at social gatherings, the novelty of eating a bag of them held me and my hungry monster of a stomach at bay.

At least, that is until 2 weeks ago.

Cereal has always been a part of my life. It has been my staple for breakfast since before I can remember, and often is my nighttime snack. I consider myself pretty well versed in the cereal aisle because of my 26 years of experience, and a cereal that has always been a favorite, all though not well known, is Oh's!

Yes, they make the milk texture a  bit funky, but as you can see on the box they are "Always a GREAT VALUE!" How can a person not want to purchase these?

Unfortunately, they are not sold at our local Kroger, so when Kyle and I went to Walmart to pickup Avery's new carseat, 

 I insisted we grab a box.

But once again, I was foiled! They were completely out of stock! Someone had let one of cereal's best kept secrets out, and all the Indianapolisites had raided the shelves. I was devastated.

That is until I found this new cereal.

I didn't even bother with the one on the right. As soon as I saw "Double Chocolate" I was on my merry way to check out. 

Verdict: Decent. Better than Cocoa Puffs due to the creamy center, but could not hold a candle to my Oh's. In fact a week after all of this occurred we were passing a different Walmart and I jumped out and bought 3 boxes of Oh's.

We have little more than a box left. And I'm pretty sure Kyle hasn't had any...

And before I finish with my love affair with cereal (and pretty much all food), can we all have a moment of silence for one of the greatest cereals that has ever been created?

I still don't understand it, and I still don't like it, but I have come to terms that I will never get to experience this cereal again due to its discontinuation in 2007.

RIP Oreo O's, RIP.

Ball

The best thing about having neighbors?

Playing with their toys when they leave them in the communal yard!

We don't own any balls, so this was an incredible toy!

Walking with it, crawling over it, kicking it, the possibilities were endless!

And how grass ended up her nose...the world will never know.

We love the great outdoors!

P.S. Neither Avery or I made it to church yesterday because we both are sick, and now Kyle is too. So no cool Sunday stories to share, although I am definitely blaming this cold on that restroom floor.

Plights of Pregnancy

This is a story about my 35 week pregnant body.

I go to church for 3 hours every Sunday. Kyle has early morning meetings and is out the door by 6 o'clock (poor guy, one day he won't be serving in Elder's Quorum and as Executive Secretary.) That leaves me and the Avester to get ourselves in our Sunday best and drive the 20 minutes to our 9:00 church. That first hour is spent wrestling with Avery on a pew (y'know only handing her one piece of bread for sacrament and then trying to stifle her pleas for more bread as she sees the trays being walked up and down the aisles) and the last two hours I teach/entertain/restrain 7-9 year old boys. To be honest it isn't much of a day of rest, but it leads to good stories. Like this one (I'm getting there, I promise.)

2 weeks ago I was struggling to make it through all of primary. I think the singing time is what did me in (some of those primary songs have high notes that I don't think I've ever been able to hit and I get out of breath just talking these days!) Once we got home I was parched to the utmost degree and spent the afternoon drinking water. As in a ton of water! How much water you ask? Try 5 LITERS!!! Crazy, right? I was kind of disgusted and impressed with myself all at the same time.

Okay, cue this past Sunday. I decided to avoid the dehydration and bring a water bottle with me to church. Naturally, I went through 2 liters and needed to visit the ladies room between teaching my kids and sharing time. So I sent my kids on their merry way to the primary room and I made my pit stop in the handicapped stall.

Well, this is where it gets tricky. After I had finished utilizing the facilities, I turned the circular lock to release me from the stall.

And you know what? Nothing. Happened.

That lock's handle would keep aspinning but that darn little metal post would not retract back into the door. I was absolutely dumbfounded! Was it really a possibility to get trapped in a stall in the Lord's building?

 

So there I was trying, to shake the door and manipulate this lock to do my bidding. No luck! All the while women kept entering (there were two other stalls) and exiting the room, giving weird glances at my shuttering stall. After 5 minutes of unsuccessful attempts, I knew that the only way I would break free of this imprisonment was to slide myself under the door.

Alright, kind of gross, but what's a girl to do? So I waited for the bathroom to be vacated, pushed my church bag through the opening, dropped on all fours, and began the army crawl.

Can I just mention once again that I was 35 weeks pregnant? I don't know how it goes for most ladies, but I kind of get this innertube effect going on that my belly, hips, and bum expand, making my mid range a bit...err...difficult to slide through small crevices.

So there I was, trying to roll from belly, to side, to belly, to side, and slither out from the stall. Yes, the skirt was ridding a bit low during the process, but I finally broke free! And to top it all off, nobody walked in during my plight!

And I haven't told anyone (aside from Kyle immediately after church) until now! That's how important all of you are to me. It was hilarious, humbling, and blog worthy in my opinion.

And now we get to wait and see what this upcoming Sunday holds...

Fun with Dad

Summer is officially over for us. First indicator of that for me is that we have turned off our air conditioning and have just had all our windows open and fans going. Second reminder is that Kyle began classes Monday. Yea for last year of grad school! :)

Even bigger news is that Kyle proposes his thesis TOMORROW! He has been working on it for a year now and made huge progress on it over the summer. He's not all that nervous for it, so hopefully we have a good night celebrating tomorrow.

And the biggest news is that Kyle is an awesome Dad! I try really hard to keep videos to about 20 seconds on here, because lets face it, whenever I see a video on someone's blog that is much longer than half a minute I'm less than likely to watch it. But there was no way of trimming it down. So enjoy the tour of most of our house and seeing how much Avery and her Dad love each other.

Gearing up

Well, hello world! It's been a little while! I treated myself to a vacation from most electronic devices for the last 3ish weeks, and it has been lovely! (Apologies to those who have gotten delayed e-mails, phone calls, texts, Facebook replys) But I'm back and ready to tell you about what's been going on.

We have been gearing up for this little one that's a coming. With my due date being about a month away (!!!) there have been lots of odds and ends to tie up.

(I had no idea I looked this silly when I let Avery sit on top of her brother)

 
Kyle finished up his internship 2 weeks prior to school beginning and that dude got put to work!


Project #1 The toddler bed that Kyle refinished for Avery!

He chipped off paint.

He sanded.

And he painted.

And it is now a luxurious little piece of furniture! My Dad actually slept in it as a toddler which makes it even cooler. It's smaller than a twin bed so we have yet to figure out what we will do for bedding, but Avery LOVES it. I'm not kidding, this girl goes wild when she sees that bed in her room. She scrambles up on to the mattress and flings blankets, stuffed animals, and herself all over it.

As of now, she still sleeps in the crib and I'm not sure when/how we'll transition her to the bed. Our little baby will stay in our room in a pack n' play for the first bit of his life.  Let's be real, Avery didn't even know what a crib was until she was 3 months old, and it's looking like the new little guy will have the same fate.

Project 2 Rearranging/sorting the nursery

First we had to find a place to for a bed and crib to fit. And we did!

Granted, the changing table is now in the closet, but it works just great.

Plus, notice how neatly organized that closet is? We have clothes that Avery has outgrown and yet to grow into on that top shelf. We also have clothes for baby boy Bradley to grow into as well. Kyle and I have yet to purchase a single article of clothing for this child. We have been showered with gifts and hand me downs from generous souls. THANK YOU!!!

...Oh, and about the pink walls and butterflies...we won't tell our son that he spent the first year of his life in a pink room if you don't. Kyle is majoring in psychology and doesn't seem too worried about this impacting the boy's life, so neither am I. :)


Project 3 Having fun together!

We taught Avery a couple of animal noises,

and we visited the zoo (a few times.)

And a bird landed on my head in the aviary! I had no idea what to do!

Avery made her elephant noises at the elephants.

I tried to teach her what the rhinoceros said.

And Kyle reaffirmed his love for merekats after seeing this little sleeping beauty.

Other fun things: Avery has taken off with walking,

(and she only walks as far as she wants to)

we toured the local art museum (this was on our way back to the car after visiting),

we read books,

(this is Avery's new favorite book. She has her own version of the word "Swimmy" that she says a couple of times in this video.)

we went on morning walks,

(and fed Avery crackers)

(and fed crackers to the geese and ducks along the way)

we watched movies,

went to biweekly doctor appointments,

purchased a new car seat for Avery,

and ate lots of ice cream.

Like I said, life has been lovely! I'm so glad we were able to end this summer on such an awesome note!