getting ready for the baby's arrival!

i'm officially full term now - 37 weeks pregnant. it seemed to come out of nowhere; it seems like just yesterday we were getting the ultrasound where we learned that we're having ANOTHER boy, and all of a sudden, here we are, and i realized we haven't done ANYTHING to get ready for this baby. whoops. i guess things like that can sneak up on you when you've got other children to take care of - between homeschooling trevor, swim classes for both boys, and doing my best just to get through every day w/ the pain i've been having this pregnancy, i just haven't had the time or energy to do the things that needed to be done before this newest addition arrives.

well, that all changed this past weekend. i enlisted my husband's help in setting up the crib and rearranging the kids' room to make it fit. it took us a little while to remember how the crib is supposed to get put together, and i still need to find info on retrofitting it to make it so it's no longer a drop-side crib, since those aren't considered safe anymore. but the baby's "corner" is set up and ready for him now:

rather than buying yet another dresser and trying to find a place to put it, we decided to use the 9-cubby shelf we already had and just get more bins for storing clothes. i think it's gonna work really well, PLUS it's super cute. :) we also got a couple of under-bed bags for things like blankets and sheets to that we don't have to worry about finding a place to store those bulkier items. it was a smart move - i spent about $50 on things for this baby's room (5 canvas bins and 2 under-bed bags; we already had a few canvas bins for the shelf) instead of hundreds on a dresser that we don't actually have the room for. :)

the kids has a blast this last couple weeks w/ helping me make goodies to give to the nurses in the hospital when the time comes for me to actually have this baby. we forgot to get pictures of everything we made, but that's ok. i got all these recipes from pinterest - monster magic cookie bars (though we didn't have any m&m's, so i doubled the amount of chocolate chips), nutella no bake cookies, jello cookies, and self-frosting nutella swirl mini cupcakes.

nutella no bake cookies

self-frosting nutella swirl mini cupcakes

we made up 5 plates of treats - 1 for the l&d nurses, and 4 for the nurses in the mother/baby unit - and stuck them in the freezer so they'll be ready to go when we need them. we made sure to put a little of everything on each plate - and we sure weren't disappointed when there were extras for us to enjoy! :) the kids weren't big fans of any of it except the jello cookies. i'm going to have to educate their tastebuds on the wonders of nutella. they just don't seem to know what they're missing!

last up on our preparations for this baby was a maternity photo session w/ tamie peterson photography. i LOVE how these turned out! i was worried i'd end up looking like a giant magenta blimp, but i didn't. i just look happy and pregnant, which was what i wanted. i'm so glad to have talented friends to help capture these moments in our lives! :)

all that's left to do now is install the carseat and have the baby! :)

memorial day weekend!

we had an AWESOME weekend - jon got friday AND monday off this year, so we had lots of time to spend as a family and enjoy the holiday.

of course, we made sure to remember what it's really about - not the bbq's or swimming or anything like that - it's to celebrate our veterans, the living and fallen heroes who've sacrificed so much to make our country what it is today: free! we have the freedom to choose our religion or no religion at all. we have the freedom to say what we want. we have the freedom to read/watch/listen to what we want. we have the freedom to support OR loathe our government and the leaders that have been elected. we have the freedom to vote for those leaders so we can find ways to make the changes we think are best. in all, we have the freedom to live our lives the way we see fit. and it's all thanks to our military, past, present, and future - those who's survived and those who haven't.

i'm so lucky to be able to say so many in my life have served their country. countless friends, cousins, an uncle, my dad, and my husband. we've faced war, last-minute deployments to the other side of the world, and so much more. i even gave birth to our 2nd son w/out my husband there b/c he was defending freedom in the middle east. we've made countless sacrifices, as have hundreds of thousands of other military families over the course of our country's history, but it's all been worth it b/c we believe in our freedom. we believe in our RIGHT to that freedom, and we believe in fighting to keep it after it was so hard-won back in the 18th century. we owe it to our predecessors, ourselves, and our children to keep working for a free nation so that we can give the generations to come the best life possible.

so what did we do to celebrate? we spent time together. we don't get that chance as often as we'd like, so we made the most of our weekend. after having been through 2 deployments, we make sure to treasure every moment we have together. my husband isn't in the military anymore, but we will always remember the lessons we learned while he was serving his country. we treasure our family above everything else in our lives, so we make sure that when we get to spend time together, we make the most of it.

friday, jon and the boys went for a ride on the train. they went downtown to see a little bit of the denver day of rock. the kids were SO excited when daddy took them to the dollar store to get glowsticks AND necklaces; they were over the moon when they stopped at mcdonalds for some fries before heading home.

on saturday, we spent some time getting things set up for the baby who's set to arrive any day now. i'll save that for a later post though. :)

as usual, we went to church on sunday and spent the afternoon at home, just enjoying each others' company.

monday morning was one of my favorite ward traditions: the memorial day picnic breakfast. they had eggs, bacon, pancakes, and fruit for everyone. after we had our fill, the kids got to play on the playground for a while before we headed home.

we rested for a while before the kids INSISTED they needed to go back to the park - jon took them while i took care of a few things at home.

when they got back, we decided to go bowling - fun city has bowling for $1/game on mondays, so we decided to take advantage of that. to be honest, i should have just watched; bowling at nearly 37 weeks pregnant was definitely NOT the smartest idea i've ever had. i grannied it most of the time, and that was fine. it was when i decided to try and bowl "properly" that i had issues - i lost my balance and almost fell. in trying to keep myself from falling, i hurt myself worse than if i'd just let gravity have its way w/ me. after that, i let the kids bowl most of my frames for me.

afterward, we headed over the food court at the mall for dinner. of course the kids LOVED that - chickfila is probably their favorite place in the world these days. when we'd finished dinner, we headed to nella's for some frozen yogurt.

 

at that point, it was time to head home and get the kids cleaned up - we'd had a long, but fun-filled weekend. a bubble bath and a good night's rest was exactly what the kids needed to finish off a great family weekend. :)

container garden, learning about giving, and homemade fruit snacks

i've been dying to have a garden since i got married. in south carolina, it was mostly laziness that prevented me from planting one. since we moved to denver though, we've been living in a garden level apartment - our windows are at ground level, so we don't really have anywhere that we could plant things have them grow well. this year i said, "enough!" i wanted a garden, so i planted one! granted, it's a container garden on the windowsill in my bedroom, but hey, it's better than nothing. i got a small strawberry plant and some sweet mint from home depot. them we planted basil, oregano, cilantro, green onions, and bibb lettuce. the mint LOVES the window and is growing like crazy! i've already had to cut off a bunch of leaves from it, and i'll have to do it again soon. my poor little strawberry plant is struggling b/c it just isn't getting the sunlight it needs to produce fruit. :( the other herbs are doing well, though growing slowly. the lettuce is frustrating me. it's supposed to be easy to grow, and yet, 3 of the 5 that i planted didn't even sprout! the 2 that sprouted are growing pretty well, i guess, but it's gonna be a while before we'll be able to eat any of it. i know things like this grow better outside in real dirt, but this is the best i can do - plastic containers w/ potting mix in my bedroom window. hopefully i'll get SOMETHING from all of them this summer, but only time will tell.

as part of a lesson in giving, sharing, and compassion, the kids helped me gather up all the food we had that we didn't need and likely wouldn't eat before it went bad to take to the jeffco action center. our stake has teamed up w/ them for the last couple years to help out where we can - making food and clothing donations, blankets in the winter, etc. several of the young men in the stake have focused their eagle scout projects on helping the action center as well, so i figured, why not contribute the things we have a surplus of as well? so we loaded up 2 rubbermaid totes full of non-perishables and made our way over to donate them to those less fortunate than us.

we talked about how even though we don't have a lot of money, we're very lucky b/c we have the food we need and a house to live in. i explained to the kids that not everyone has a house to live in or clean clothes to wear, so if we are able to help them, that's what heavenly father wants us to do. by taking our extra food to the action center, we were following jesus' example and helping those in need. it might seem small to us, but to someone who really needs it, it could change everything. the kids were very happy to help others and loved the idea of taking the things we don't need to those who do need them. they even asked to go back the next day to give more things! i'm so glad to have 2 such wonderful, compassionate children who can see things beyond themselves at such a young age. they are truly a blessing!

a little project i've been wanting to try for awhile and just never got around to was a recipe for homemade fruit snacks i found on pinterest. for the life of me, i CANNOT find the recipe online again, otherwise i'd post the link here for you, but it was pretty simple. they looked good, but were pretty flavorless.

here's the recipe i used: pour 1/3 c 100% fruit juice into small saucepan. sprinkle w/ 3 packages unflavored gelatin. let stand 5 minutes. heat over medium and stir till gelatin is completely dissolved (i also added about 3 drops of food coloring b/c it was a weird yellowish color and i wanted them to be purple). pour into molds (a measuring cup w/ a spout is great for minimizing messes) and let stand about 20 minutes to cool and set. for me, this recipe made 12 one inch fruit snacks w/ just a TINY bit left over.

i'll definitely try this again, but instead of using 100% fruit juice, i'll use juice concentrate. another option would be to use flavored jello instead of unflavored. these just didn't taste like ANYTHING. i used berry flavored juice, which was recommended by the person who'd posted the recipe, but i was very disappointed w/ the results. we ate them, but the kids didn't like them much. i figure, what's the point in making a treat that's healthy if no one LIKES it? so we'll try again, but i'm gonna tweak the recipe and let you know how it turns out next time.

scott's birthday & our roadtrip

scott turned 3 on april 12! we went out for ice cream (and yes, even though it was in the 80's, scott decided he needed to wear his winter hat. he's also wearing his lightning mcqueen boots. silly boy!):

we ended up having to postpone his party though - we all came down w/ the flu the day after his birthday. :( when we were all feeling better, we went to chuck e. cheese to celebrate. i didn't get any pictures, sadly, but we had a good time. a few friends came w/ us, and we got to eat pizza, breadsticks, cake, and ice cream! we also got a ton of tokens to play games and win prizes,which was really fun as well. both kids got a mini styrofoam rocket and launcher; trevor also got an inflatable green crayon and some candy, and scott chose a mini basketball. overall, it was a good day. :)

oh, and scott LOVES the gift trevor picked out for him - check it out: GOGGLES! he put them on all by himself:

the following week, we took a roadtrip to utah to see my dad graduate from college w/ a degree in history education. for some reason, his camera didn't take ANY pictures, even though i swear i heard it make the picture-taking noises, so i dunno what happened. jon managed to get a video of him walking across the stage though, so it wasn't a total loss. i have issues w/ loading videos to photobucket though - it just never works - so oh well. we did get this picture of the boys w/ their grandpa:

and this one at a rest stop just outside glenwood sorings, colorado on the drive home (this rest stop actually doubles as the entrance to the place jon and i went horseback riding during our anniversary trip last summer!):