Come on Halloween!

Isn't my husband so cute? Here we are eating ourselves to death on a date from this last weekend. I was showing him how cool I am that I brought my camera with us and that it was stored in its beautiful new case. Keith bought me a pink camera. Ever heard the story of my only bad experience of sharing a birthday with my older sister? My parents have it on video I think. I open my presents that consists mainly of underwear and a new slip to wear to church, and Wendy opens a hot pink Barbie camera. I then proceed to have a nervous breakdown and run upstairs. I even remember this birthday. It was traumatic. Keith said he bought me a pink camera to make up for that terrible experience. Funny huh? Anyway, Keith and I have never been a couple that has a weekly date night, but I swear all we do is go on dates now. I think we are prepping ourselves for the date drought that will inevitably follow after the birth of Baby Boy #3 (if he ever comes out). My kids love getting a babysitter too. They act like total freaks whenever a babysitter comes over.

Keith is a good date. He always opens the door and he generally plans what we do. We went to Magleby's (sooooooooooooo good) for prime rib, crab legs, the works, and then we went and saw The Social Network. We both really liked it and neither one of us have stopped talking about how yummy our dinner was.

Speaking of yummy, I have been making a lot of these lately . . .

Pumpkin cookies are about our only Halloween tradition. I start making them at the beginning of September and generally make a batch a week until Thanksgiving. I always bring them to Keith's work too. Sometimes I add cream cheese frosting. And sometimes all I eat all day long is pumpkin cookies. Yummers.

Last night we started a new Halloween tradition by carving our first pumpkins as a family. I know we are totally lame, we have been married for over six years and just barely carved our first pumpkins. Our kids would have absolutely nothing to do with touching the goo on the inside, so basically Keith carved pumpkins with our dull kitchen knives and the boys and I watched and told him what to do.

Here is Griffin getting an engineering description from Dad on why you should allow wax to drip into the bottom of the pumpkin.

They both wanted "smiley faced" pumpkins, not spooky ones.

I don't think Keith did this on purpose, but don't the pumpkin faces resemble their owners? Like Benson's pumpkin looks like Benson and Griffin's looks like Griffin?

So proud of their glowing pumpkins!

Also, if you live close by I strongly recommend you stop by our house. Keith insists on buying HUGE candy to give out to the trick or treaters. I hope I don't eat it all by Saturday.

Baby Update: I am at an "almost 3" and feeling completely miserable. Any guesses as to when baby will come? Halloween? We shall see.

Before it is over . . .

My new mamamobile. Don't be jealous! I love minivans and we picked ours up yesterday. Is it weird that I feel like a REAL MOM now? My sister said I will never get checked out in my car again. Keith disagreed. He said I have never looked hotter! What do you think?


My pregnant days are still here (sadly), but they are quickly approaching their end (hopefully). I am progressing at a slow rate now and still have contractions all day long that apparently do nothing. I just keep praying that my water will break. My doc is out of town this week and since I adore her, I am hoping that baby boy comes next week. At this point (37 weeks) all of my shirts are too small and my belly likes to poke out of the bottom because this baby is a low rider. My face is chubby and looks like it has dirt all over it. Let's not even discuss the size of my rear end. . .

Still, I feel like I cannot complain because I really do have good pregnancies and I wanted to document a little about it before this baby comes out and my pregnant body is forgotten.

Let's talk cravings . . .

1. Definitely watermelon. This summer I would buy a watermelon and it would be gone in a day. Perhaps that is why it looks like I swallowed a watermelon, because I did!

2. Celery. And peanut butter. Or ranch. Delish.

3. Diet coke and chocolate, pretty sure this craving did not come from pregnancy because I always want this.

4. Bubble gum, but I can hardly stand sugarless gum at all.

5. During the second trimester, all I wanted was a deli sandwich.

Foods I can't stand . . .

1. I generally love peppers but haven't really been able to stomach them since becoming with child.

2. Ice cream is not tempting.

3. I totally craved milk with my other boys, but not so much this time.

Pregnancy Pros
This is the first pregnancy I recall getting awesome hair. It is way thicker and nicer. I will be really sad when that ends.
Griffin loves to snuggle my huge pregnant belly. It makes a good pillow and he is constantly laying on it. I am really going to miss that. In fact, he is laying on it right now.
You actually have an excuse to wearing sweatpants all day long.

I don't believe now would be a good time for me to discuss the cons of pregnancy. I am much too far along for that. Love handles, heartburn (I have almost consumed an entire bottle of 96 Tums in the past three months), dirty face, extreme amounts of weight gain, no energy, cankles, the list goes on and on.

I would say all in all this pregnancy has been pretty darn good. It still seems unbelievable that we will have a baby soon. My guess for the date this boy comes has been Halloween since the beginning. I guessed Benson's and Griffin's birthdays correctly, so we will see if I still have the knack for it. For my sake, I hope it is much sooner than that.

Oh yeah, and Keith ordered me a pink camera and I think it is coming today. Hopefully this means more blog posts with pictures eh? I make no guarantees.

Baby Baby

For those of you who are interested . . .

Yesterday I had my first appointment where I was "checked." I am at a 2. Yikes. I am only 35 weeks.

I was up all night with awesome back labor. It finally went away when I took a long bubble bath at 6:30 this morning. Anyone else experience back labor? Any advice? This is new to me.

My hospital bag still isn't packed.

I don't have a diaper bag. Or an outfit picked out for this baby to wear home from the hospital. Or a name. Or anything hung on the walls in the baby's room.

However, I did call all of my backup today to warn them to sleep with their phones and pack a bag. I guess I better pack mine, especially since I am having a contraction as I type this.

Here's to wishing I last a few more weeks . . .

Just keep swimming . . .

A special thanks to my sister Mari for helping with this post (she was the photographer). Still no camera . . . I better get one before this baby comes. My sister Mari just recently moved close by and we are loving it. She comes out at least once a week to play and swim, plus she is totally helpful and no joke has already watched my children three times overnight since moving here. Basically, she is a life and sanity saver! If you don't have an extremely helpful sibling living close by, I highly recommend it. Seriously, it may be worth paying them to do so!


These pictures of me and the boys (sorry the baby is underwater) would be a good summary of my life over the past few months. Although my apologies go out to all those who have to witness me in swimwear, I am so grateful for our community pool that overlooks a lake and the mountains and is heated all year round. It is the best thing that could have ever happened to this pregnant lady. We go every day, sometimes twice. I think one day we even went three times.
All summer long I kept saying that I was going to put my kids into swimming lessons, but we never made it out of our own pool long enough to sign up anywhere. And although I still totally intend on doing so, I must say we have made some significant progress on our own. Here we are hanging out in the "deep end."
Last summer Benson finally began venturing out on his own with a life jacket. This year we got him some $4.00 goggles from Wally World and the kid went nuts. He dives for rings and toys at the bottom of the pool, can swim the width (we haven't tried the length yet) of the pool, float on his back, swim a little on his back, will jump in anywhere and is all around a blast to take to the pool. He does all of this floating device free by the way.
Benson also recently participated in his first primary program presentation where he was supposed to give a talk on how he knows Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love him. He came up with the talk on his own and we practiced and practiced so he could have it memorized. Keith promised Benson that if he gave his talk and jumped off the diving board that he could have whatever he wanted at the toy store (Bribe? Yes!). Cute little Benson gave his talk like a champ. He said "I know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me because I have so many blessings. I have a good family, lots of friends, and plenty of food to eat. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen." And he did it all by himself. The best part was that you couldn't see his face, just his fuzzy white hair by the microphone.

We figured we would just get him a toy for his talk, because he had absolutely no interest in jumping off of the diving board. We were later proved wrong . . .
I love and hate that this little guy is growing from a toddler to a big kid. So bittersweet.

Man, he is going to get one sweet prize at the toy store. We decided that baby brother is going to bring the present with him when he is born. Don't be shocked if Benson gets a new car because we are just bursting with parenting pride. I am not sure you could find a happier bunch of swimming fish.
Here is a video of the boys jumping off the board (Griffin has been doing it for a while, but he wears his gigantic wings still). And don't listen to me talking to my neighbor in the background. The first day Benson learned this trick, I was at the pool for 3 1/2 hours watching them jump over and over and over again. Should I be shocked that my hair is green? Totally worth it . . .

P.S. Guess who got new carpet upstairs last week and is getting new tile in her bathrooms today?! Keith decided our sweet baby needed new flooring before he came. We are virtually a nesting mess around here.