The good, the bad, and the ugly

Last Thursday was the big 39 week milestone of this pregnancy. So here I am in all my beach ball glory. This top pretty much adds a month onto my belly size and might possibly make me look like a circus clown but I love it, so I wear it.



I know hearing me drone on about my pregnancy is by far the highlight of your day. And so, once again, I have some things to say.

• It is no longer amusing to "squeeze by" anyone or anything. I don't fit. Period.
• Underestimating the size of my belly has indeed become a problem. For instance, it gets a little embarrassing to accidentally greet people with my belly before I greet them with words from my mouth. This is also a problem in bathroom stalls, where, if you haven't figured out by now, I spend a lot of my time. If I don't go into a handicap stall, I will inevitably hit myself with the door. It was funny the first time but not so much the 110th time.
• I am HOT HOT HOT all the time time time. This does not work well for sleeping. I did notice last night that at about 4:30 a.m. the house starts to cool down and I can actually fall asleep. And when Livvy comes bounding into my room at 6:30, ready to go for the day, I have to remind myself that this whole pregnancy thing was my idea, and a good (if not GREAT) idea, at that.
• I would like to blame the fact that I washed my cell phone in the washing machine on pregnancy brain. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I feel much better.
• My hands and feet are swollen. They don't look so bad but they hurt. All the time. When I tell people I am swollen they really just laugh me off and don't give my sausage fingers and toes the credit they deserve. I can't help it that I was born with scrawny appendages! However, my sister-in-law Amy was kind enough to point out that yes, my feet are swollen. Thanks already! It's nice to be validated about something that I am complaining about. My word. And because of the swelling factor, my arms and hands fall asleep all night long. The other night I was up every hour shaking out the pins and needles.
• Most nights I get ready for bed, go the bathroom, and hop in bed. Right after I hop in bed I have to go to the bathroom. So I get out, do my thing, get back in bed, and wham! Back to the bathroom. This is no joke. And it goes on for like 45 minutes. So I sit up and watch T.V. or read and Dave just loves it... Really. I'm sure he secretly wants to hate me. But he can't. Because I am barefoot and pregnant and it's his fault.
• Livvy has found a new hiding place under Sara's bed after she takes off her diaper and pees or poops on the floor, couch, or my bed. She isn't very discretionary. Having her hide under the bed is a BIG problem for me because I can't exactly reach her! Just give me a few days and she'll be quite surprised all the places mommy can actually fit. Game over little stinker!
• My neighbors (two separate ones at separate times) walked by the other night while I was vacuuming out the car and informed me that I was nesting. Nesting? Heck no! This is stuff that has to be done! Okay, so maybe they are right...
• In other news, I really will miss the relationship I have had with the baby while he is growing in my belly. It's a special thing that only a mama can experience and I love it!

So ya think I'm about ready to be done? Yep. Ready. Well, except for some painting that needs to be done in my bedroom. Working on it... And as much as I love to complain- it's not my doctor that says I can't have the baby, it's me. He would have induced me days ago but it just doesn't fit into my schedule. Ha! Too many things going on. I think he thinks I am crazy. And I probably am.

The front view really is more forgiving of my size and so I must share.

Real Soccer Dream Team

Saturday night Taylor had the opportunity to be a part of the Real Soccer Dream Team. Translation= before the game started he got to walk out onto the field holding a team member's hand. He stood there with the team for the National Anthem. We were a little nervous that he would get scared and back out but he did a really good job. However, he was the only kid that just stood there during the National Anthem looking around like, "what the?..."- no hand over his heart- nothin. It was cute though, because well, he's 5 years old.

This is the player Taylor walked out with- Olave. I don't know his first name but I do know that he is #4 and that he is from Columbia. But now that I say that Dave will probably correct me. After the game he got the "Man of the Match" honor. I guess that means he must be good.



Here is the Dream Team plastered on the score board. Taylor is down on the bottom left:



Walking out with the team:



This was a good experience for Taylor. I think it's always great for my kids to have experiences that push them out of their comfort zone. I'm all about building their character and making them stronger people. I figure throwing Taylor out on a soccer field in front of thousands of people is just one step in the right direction.

The biggest challenge in bringing Taylor to sporting events is that his goal and our goal differ. Our goal is to watch the game while his goal is to see how much food he can consume in the shortest amount of time possible. If there is a lapse in food consumption, we hear about it and hear about it and hear about it. So after pizza, lemonade, a churro, and some cotton candy- we had to cut the boy off. And about the cotton candy- Taylor calls it "cotton". I was trying to explain to him that it's called "cotton candy" and he explained right back to me that he can call it whatever he wants. Alrighty then...

Class Clown

I guess I never really thought this day would come- Taylor's last day of preschool! Get out of town. It's killin' me. He's all done. And he's going to kindergarten. Wowza! I still remember standing in his bedroom right before he was born and looking at all the little sleepers hanging in his closet. I remember pulling out a 3-6 month outfit and not being able to imagine my baby "getting that big". Well, guess what? He got that big and much much bigger. I guess this makes me old. Old. Old. Old. I'm quickly approaching dentures and a lifetime supply of Ensure...

Taylor's last day of preschool is one big party called "Clown Days". All the teachers dress up like clowns and the kids can dress up in a costume of their choice. I didn't want Taylor to wear his Red Power Ranger costume because 1. He wore it last year for Clown Days and 2. He wore it on Halloween. And so, we took a little jaunt over to Party America to pick him out a little somethin'-somethin'. He was very excited with his choice. The entire time we were shopping the only thing he was concerned about was being funny and making everyone at school laugh. Always the class clown, our little Taylor.

So here is the little guy clowning around:



He looked so cute. His costume did look a little Elton John-ish, which I must admit was slightly disturbing. It must have been the glasses. Freaky. But still, he was happy and cute and so I moved on.

He was so glad to see me when I showed up at school to take pictures. He got a weight lifter rubber ducky from his teacher that he was very excited about. He even made sure to set it up on top of the Challenger sign so it could be in all the pictures with him. Only a minute or so into the car ride home he became distraught and told me he was upset that he didn't wear an actual costume (dog, power ranger, clown, etc...). I received a lecture letting me know it was all my fault. Awww crap. I guess it was. I probably should have let him wear the Red Power Ranger costume. I guess kids and moms just don't think alike.

Millcreek Canyon

Over the weekend we went up Millcreek Canyon. It was more or less a celebration of Amy's (Dave's sister) birthday even though we never sang happy birthday. We cooked tin foil dinners on the fire and made s'mores. It was good times. Here are a few pictures to document the festivities:

Here is Amy with some of the little girls- Sara, Livvy, Zoey, & Brenna



Sara obviously enjoyed her s'more. I think she enjoyed it so much she went cross-eyed.



She also enjoyed a quarter of a watermelon... She wanted more but we couldn't find a knife to cut the rest of the watermelon. I find it interesting how she can easily hold and gobble down this watermelon but if I ask her to do a simple task like carry a floaty toy to the pool, it's just too darn heavy. I'm no genius but I can do the math on that one...



Do you think Livvy could get her mouth open any bigger? She is all about the food all of the time. And how nice of Sara to be her personal assistant...



I Lalalalalove this picture of Taylor. He was standing by the river watching Nate fish.



Daddy and Sara- so sweet.



See the pained expression on my face? This would be the result of Livvy attempting to pull my hair out of my head. She would grab onto my hair and throw her body all the way back, laughing like the wild child that she is. My hair was the only thing between her and the dirt. It was funny for a second and then not so much.

Holy Jalapeno!

It's been over a year since we (and by we, I mean ME) did some re-decorating at Dave's dental office. It was a huge week-long project that my sister-in-law, Rachel, helped me with while Dave went on a scuba diving trip. We pulled down wallpaper, primed, painted, put up wainscoting, textured walls...blah blah blah... it was a mess. I don't know if I ever posted pictures of that. I'll have to check. If not, I will someday and not because I want you to see how great it looks now, but how "wallpapery" it looked before.

At the time I really wanted to have the wallpaper pulled down in Dave's office and have that painted as well. There is just something about plaid wallpaper that makes me shudder and I felt that it must be removed. I had my sister begin pulling down wallpaper in there. She only got so far and yeah, that's about where that project began and ended. For the last year and a half Dave has been camped out in an office looking like this:



You can't see the plaid wallpaper because he removed most of it before I got there with the camera. However, you can see the D and the J that we painted on the wall with primer in our delirium back when we did our big re-deocorating project. That was a bad idea.

The biggest problem for me with his office looking like a junk-fest is that if he leaves his office door open, anyone walking by can see right in. Not pretty. I've walked by it, looked into it, and been rather irritated by it for the last year or so- mainly because I know that I'm the one who will have to fix it eventually. I haven't been irritated enough to do anything about it- until now.

Seeing as how we are having a baby in just a couple weeks I told Dave that we had to get this done before the baby comes. Babies tend to complicate things with the whole feeding schedule. So anyway, Friday was the big day. We tore his office apart and started the whole de-uglying process.

After a few minutes of discussion and realizing that we needed more paint, I sent Dave to the store to pick out his color of choice for the office. He's the one who spends his time in there, he may as well pick the color. He came back with Jalapeno something or other. It looked a bit more like pea soup to me when we opened the bucket. Thankfully it dried on much darker.

So here it is folks:



Now, before you go and do something crazy like call it ugly, please take into consideration that when I took this picture, the paint was still wet, the blue tape was still up, the flash was on, and everything had not been put back in its proper place. I think that by putting a few things on the walls, it will look like butta. Really. It will. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Doesn't Dave just look thrilled to be there? I wasn't interested in entertaining any of his complaints since he managed to completely by-pass the major re-do with a scuba trip but he surprised me and didn't complain at all. It was like spending the day with a happy-go-lucky Bob the Builder.

And here's a picture of me washing wallpaper goo off the walls. Wallpaper. Bad bad idea.

37 weeks and counting...

It appears that the incubation of this little mister is coming to a close. Yikes! Three more weeks. I've decided that I am more than happy to let him enjoy his last few weeks inside without any interruption. Why rush him? I guess a lot of my insight on this comes from the realization that I am already managing 3 other kiddos and one more will only complicate things. And of course I mean complicate in a good way. We are very excited to meet the newest addition to our family!

Dave took a couple pictures of me today, you know, for documentation, posterity and such.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Alright peeps, you asked for it, so here it is:

Chocolate Chip Cookies



1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs on at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes.

Chef's notes:

• I was trying to use all the tips and tricks I could come up with to make these good. I spooned the flour into the 1 cup measure and then leveled it off with a knife. I read somewhere that dipping the measuring cup into the flour and then leveling it off packed the flour tighter, making for too much flour and therefore, a dryer cookie.
• I put in 1 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup m&ms- the kids thought that was fab.
• Instead of walnuts, we dumped in a bunch of ground up almonds.
• I baked the cookies on baking stones.
• Enjoy! And remember that at least one person in the room should be in their undies for optimum cookie performance.