Pilgrims and Indians

Cutest Pilgrims and Indian ever!

Christmas time! Christmas time! Christmas time is here! :) I can't believe that it's almost December - woohoo! This is my favorite time of the year. Parties, desserts, family time, traditions, presents... etc, etc.... there's just so much I love about the holidays. Thanksgiving is definitely one of them and we had a great one. I was sooo happy because Ben ended up getting Thanksgiving Day off (hooray!). I was bummed at first because he was supposed to go in on Friday to work, so he headed off Friday morning around 6:30 and much to my surprise was home shortly after 9am. I guess they got through with their patients and Ben got to have a super short day! And he had Saturday and Sunday off as well, so easy peasy. :) I was just so relieved and happy to have Ben home with us for Thanksgiving. What a blessing! We headed to Gilbert on Wednesday evening to spend a couple nights at Ben's parents house. We spent that night making my mother-in-law's famous potato rolls (love them!). On Thursday we cooked most of the day and somehow it wasn't chaotic and was actually relaxing. It was probably due to the fact that we were a small group and we weren't having tons of extended family come visit, so there wasn't much pressure to have stuff done at a certain time or anything. The menu was yummy and Ben and I did lots of our favorite Thanksgiving recipes: chestnut apple stuffing (THE best!!), cranberry sauce, green beans with tomatoes, maple glazed turkey, cider gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and of course mashed potatoes, pie, and all the yummy potato rolls (you'll notice from the links that we're a little obsessed with martha recipes). It was quite the feast and we enjoyed plenty of leftovers later. That evening Ben's parents were super nice and sent us off to the movies to see Bond while they stayed with the kids and cleaned up dinner. Awesome! Aren't they the coolest?! :) I love this new James Bond, btw... way cooler than Pierce Brosnan! On Friday some of the family did Black Friday shopping - I avoided that this year, but Ben did go run a quick errand to Walmart during all the craziness and happened to get Kung Fu Panda for 9 dollars. Good deal! :) The girls started up work on a new sewing project - we're making Happy Birthday banners - we got a good chunk of the work done over the weekend and they're going to be super cute when they're all done! We also all went and saw Bolt - cute movie... the hamster is hillarious! Friday evening we went to the Mesa Temple to see them turn on the Christmas lights - it was a lovely evening - just cold enough to need a sweater but we weren't freezing our hiney's off (not that I don't LOVE seeing the temple lights in Salt Lake, but that's always part of the experience... watching the lights while feeling like your appendages are going to fall off... but it's a great excuse for hot chocolate!). Saturday morning we went to the zoo and once again, the weather was great! The kids really loved the carousel and we even got to pet the sting rays. We also did some shopping and ate out for dinner and soon we headed back to our neglected house. Today we got started decorating for Christmas, but we still need to hang the ornaments on the tree. It's a lot of work to decorate for Christmas! But I sure to love the end result. Hooray for the holidays!

Pre-Thanksgiving Fun!

Is everyone excited for turkey and mashed potatoes?!! I am!! This morning Emma had her Thanksgiving Feast at preschool. She was VERY excited for her ride to come this morning! I'm kind of wishing I would have gone too, because I'm sure all the kids in their pilgrim and Indian attire were very cute. Emma wore her pilgrim outfit (the one her Grandma Dangerfield made for her last Thanksgiving). She was very happy when she got home and told me she ate lots of yummy food! I'll be sure to post pictures of Emma in her pilgrim dress in a future Thanksgiving post - the plan is to have Becca dress up as an Indian, so that should be fun! :)

While Emma was celebrating Thanksgiving at preschool, Becca and I had fun too! I signed her up to take a FREE class (amazing! it was actually free!!) at the Gymboree Play and Music center. Becca was seriously in heaven - they have tons of fun indoor play equipment, squishy mats, balls, slides, climbers, etc to play on. It's a 45 minute class with an instructor who bases the activities on a theme (the theme for our class today was "up and down") - they play and sing songs and Becca was just so happy. Becca's favorite part was the parachute activities. Anyway - it was a fun morning. After the class, they told me about what you get when you enroll in a monthly membership. I'm considering it for a Christmas present for Becca, but I was glad that they didn't harass me into enrolling just because I took advantage of their free class. :) The best part for Becca was it was a fun activity for just me and mommy, while Emma was at school. She definitely liked the attention! :)

Saturdays should be for playing...

I was so happy to have Ben home this past weekend! His rotation this month has been pretty busy and he hasn't had weekends off, but since he was between rotations over the weekend, we had him home to play! We spent Saturday morning hiking, eating lunch, and doing a little shopping. We hiked at Thunderbird Park and the weather was lovely! Becca wanted to walk the entire thing without holding hands, but we made her hold hands through a few places so she wouldn't collide into jagged rocks. She's such an independent little girl. :) Emma toted around her little backpack for most of the hike - it held snacks and her fisher-price camera... it wasn't until she started adding "rock treasures" to her pack that she decided it was too heavy and handed it over to mommy and daddy to carry. We later ate lunch at Whole Foods and then browsed through the Container Store (it just opened over the summer) - they had a lot of unique stocking stuffers, btw. In the next store, Ben was so kind as to watch the kids while I tried on some maternity clothes. Somehow I got out of there with just a much-needed pair of pants. :) Later in the afternoon we left the kiddos with a sitter and we went to see Twilight! Ben and I both really enjoyed it... it's definitely been getting relatively poor reviews, but it was worth seeing in our opinion. We ended our night going out to dinner at the Elephant Bar. Mmmmm... I recommend the chocolate lava cake. Here's to fun weekends with our hubby's! :)

Look what I did!

Look Jodi! I did it! And it wasn't even hard. Becca's hair took a lot longer to do though - it's just so short and fine and I needed to use 8 bands instead of 6. But I'm so proud of myself. :)

Number 200

Hey cool! This is my 200th post! Too bad the only thing this post will be about is in response to getting tagged.

8 Favorite TV Shows


1. Office

2. Jon and Kate plus 8 (does anyone else watch that show? I love it!)

3. Dancing shows! (Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance)

4. Medium (I'm sad they're not showing episodes right now)

5. Iron Chef America

6. Good Eats

7. Top Chef

8. I can't think of an 8th


8 Favorite Restaurants


1. Macaroni Grill

2. Oreganos

3. P.F. Changs (LOVE the lettuce wraps and the Great Wall of Chocolate!)

4. Charleston's (especially their bread pudding - we say that it tastes like Christmas)

5. Lon's (only been there once, but LOVED it!)

6. Cheesecake Factory (never actually eaten any cheesecake there, but love their orange chicken) :)

7. Z Tejas

8. the Tree Room at Sundance


8 Books You'd Recommend
(I'm pretty sure I'm the last person someone would come to for book recommendations, because I have a reputation for never finishing books I start... but nonetheless, the following are my favorites)

1. Harry Potter series

2. Narnia series

3. Twilight series

4. The Hobbit

5. Holes

6. The Book of Three (and the other books in that series)

7. Angels and Demons

8. The Book of Mormon :)


8 Things that happened yesterday


1. Saw Emma off to preschool (and was happy I didn't have to do the driving)

2. Went grocery shopping with Becca

3. Took a detour into the Walmart McDonald's for a mid-morning snack. :)

4. Talked with my mom on the phone

5. Put away the laundry (that was a big accomplishment for me!)

6. Enjoyed having Ben home early from work

7. Baked rolls all afternoon just to have them not turn out well... :(

8. Took Emma to Dance class


8 Things to look forward to


1. Thanksgiving! I'm actually looking forward to cooking - and I'm just crossing my fingers that Ben doesn't have to work that day.

2. Disneyland with my family at Christmas - can't wait!!

3. Going to Tucson with Ben this weekend

4. Being 20 weeks along this Friday! Half way!!

5. Having Ben be done with interviews and hopefully successfully matching with a residency we want come March

6. Getting a van (I can't believe I'm actually excited about that!)

7. Buying our first home (have NO IDEA when that day will finally come, but I'm definitely looking forward to it!)

8. April 10th - the due date for our little boy


8 Things on my wish list


1. A new mattress

2. Double jogging stroller

3. A getaway vacation with Ben (and without the kids)

4. More energy

5. A shopping spree at Target to get more clothes for myself and the kids

6. To see Emma and Becca both get hugs from Mickey at Disneyland

7. Cooler weather (it has cooled down a bit, but I would love it to be a little more brisk)

8. A Wii


8 Things I love about Fall

1. Cooler weather! (See above)

2. Changing leaves (I'm glad I got to go to Utah in September and see some of that)

3. Wearing sweaters (oh! look at how cute 7 month old Becca is in a sweater!)

4. Having the kids play outside without getting all sweaty

5. Halloween and Thanksgiving

6. Lower electricity bills (I'm with you on that Amanda!)

7. Starting to think about Christmas

8. Pie!


8 People I tag


1. Mom

2. Dad

3. Sarah

4. Jodi

5. Lacy

6. Katie

7. Leah

8. Aaron

The verdict is in...

I had my ultrasound today!!! Ben had to be at a residency interview during the appointment, but he gave me the go-ahead to find out without him. I tried to make it fun for him with a little treasure hunt when he got home (thank goodness he got done early today - I couldn't have waited any longer to tell him!!)













I almost fooled Ben with the pink envelope. :) We're soooo excited to be having a boy - I was honestly surprised! I don't know why, but I went into that ultrasound thinking "well, this has got to be another girl". I was wrong and I'm so happy to be having a boy - I'm also a little freaked out - never had a boy before... I don't know what to do with a boy!!

Ready or not... it's holiday time!

Can you believe that it's Thanksgiving time?! So fun! With Halloween over, I'm already getting hungry for turkey and mashed potatoes! :) Even though I'm ready to move on to the next holiday, Halloween was a lot of fun. Emma had her preschool Halloween party in the morning - it was great to be able to go and see her cute class and help out a little. She has the greatest teachers and she sure loves it! In the evening we went to Ben's parents neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Emma and Becca both got so much candy, and Becca in particular loved going door to door.

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At one point Becca was literally dragging her pumpkin of candy behind her because it was getting so heavy. We all tried helping to carry it, but she outright refused any assistance - maybe because she was afraid we would take all her candy and never give it back. Anyway, we were getting a kick out of watching her devotedly carry that load of candy around. This girl loves her sweets!

Mmm... hot dogs, cookies, and paint

Well, to start out - bummer news - the doctor tried really hard to figure out the gender of the baby for me today. But that darn umbilical cord was draped carefully over the area in question and he was unable to tell. Sigh. My actual ultrasound appt isn't for 2 more weeks, so patience will have to be required as I anxiously wait FOREVER to find out.

We had a little Halloween gathering yesterday - one of many, it seems. Emma has her preschool Halloween party on Friday. I'm really excited for that one because I volunteered myself to go and help. It should be fun! Anyway, Emma's favorite part of the party yesterday was painting her pumpkin. She worked diligently painting hers purple for a good 30 minutes. She hardly wanted to leave it to go decorate her sugar cookie. Becca's favorite part was her mummy dog (hot dog wrapped cleverly in bread like a mummy - very cute Liora!). She ate the whole thing - I don't know where it all goes, but she eats a lot - She even tried eating the paint for her pumpkin but quickly realized that it was gross and started crying. Poor silly thing.

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Pumpkins and Candy

Well, I'm super bummed because we went to a corn maze last Saturday, but when I went to get out my camera and take a picture, my battery was dead - bummer! I was so sad because I had got the kids dressed in Halloween attire with orange ribbons in their hair just so I could get some good fall pictures with them in the pumpkin patch and such. Phooey! Nevertheless, it was a good morning - hot, but fun (a healthy 95 degrees... not exactly fall weather). They had lots of fun stuff to do other than the corn maze, like a bounce house, train, petting zoo, corn box and such. Ben wanted to do the tomato cannon, but we only had enough cash to do either that or the train. We figured Emma would like the train more. :) We topped off the outing by getting some kettle corn, apple cinnamon syrup, and jalapeno strawberry jam (Ben's choice - not mine). Afterwords we had lunch at Fuddruckers. It seems tradition that when I get around 15 weeks along in my pregnancy I have to go out for a celebratory hamburger. I hate hamburgers while I'm morning sick, but around this time I start to feel better and my appetite for a huge hamburger returns. Yummy!

Yesterday I tried to compensate for the fact that I was pictureless the weekend before. Since I didn't get pictures in the pumpkin patch, I figured I could take some outside the grocery store, since we were picking some out to take home. :) By zooming in you don't even realize that we were outside of the Fry's. :) In the afternoon we carved our first pumpkins of the Halloween season. We just did one big one and then a little one for Emma. Emma drew the face on and Ben carved it out exactly how she had drawn it - she was very proud! Becca joined in the fun by trying to eat the pumpkin goo - that's my Becca for you! She eats everything! She quickly discovered, however, that it wasn't so tasty. We used our newly carved jack-o-lanterns to help in decorating our trunk for Halloween. We're usually lame and don't put much effort into decorating our trunk for these events, but we decided to be cool and decorate with spiderwebs, pumpkins, a strobe light and sound effects. I feel like we don't really mean business though until we have a van to do trunk or treat out of. ;) But we did our best with our Altima trunk.

The kids absolutely loved the trick or treating. This was Becca's first time being old enough to really trick or treat and she was thrilled about it! She really took it seriously and insisted on carrying her pumpkin full of candy, even as it began to drag along the ground. She even did her own little version of saying "trick-or-treat", with the correct intonation, but not really saying the words - it was funny. Anyway, Emma was dressed as a beautiful princess and Becca as a jester (I craftily made her costume out of felt and hot glue - it probably won't last long, but I think she looks cute!). Ben and I have been enjoying eating their candy after they go to bed, but I'm already getting ill from it. I fear there is only more candy to come with several more parties this week and actual trick or treating on Halloween night. Bring on the goodies!

P.S. I hope to find out the gender of the baby on Wednesday. I have an appt with my doctor and I'm just hoping he'll take a sneak peak with the ultrasound for me. So, as is tradition, cast your votes on the side poll! Remember it seems to be boy season, however, we haven't had much luck getting boys in this family. :)

Home Sweet Kitchen

Since I've been feeling almost myself lately (other than the going to bed at 8pm thing), I've been getting back to my normal routines. It feels so good! I actually have missed running errands, cleaning my house, and cooking! Who would have thought? Well, the cooking in particular I've been glad to get back to. I've had some good luck lately with some new recipes. I feel like I'm kind of taking a chance when I try something new, because it's the worst when you spend time cooking something and it doesn't turn out great. My rule of thumb for recipes has been to not make a recipe card for something unless I've already made it and loved it. That way when I go back through my recipe box for meals for the week, I'm only choosing from stuff I know will turn out. However, once a week or so, I try making something new.. usually from an Everyday Food magazine. I've actually rarely made something from these magazines that we don't end up enjoying. So, I rarely post about recipes on my blog, but seeing as I've been so proud to be feeling well enough to be back in the kitchen, I think it's appropriate. Last week we tried out Chili Chicken Tacos. It's a slow cooker recipe that turned out great and is really made super yummy by adding the suggested toppers of sour cream, lime, cilantro, and cheese. Mmmmm. Last night we were also excited to find a great Thai meal - Spicy Coconut Chicken Casserole. I guess this is once again another chicken recipe, but way different. The curry and coconut flavors were really great. And squeezing on some lemon makes it extra tasty. I used boneless chicken breasts instead of legs (eww bone!). The recipe requires Thai red curry paste. They didn't have this at Fry's, so I later ran to AJ's and got it there. AJ's has everything exotic and yummy (but way too expensive to do all your grocery shopping there). Anyway, the recipe was worth the hassle, and I have lots of curry paste left for future cooking. :)

Hip hip hooray for Nursery!

I feel like I've really been Becca-focused in a lot of my recent posts, but she's been hitting many milestones in her growth and I have to document it! :) I really do love Emma too. ;) Anyway, Becca had her first day of nursery today. Hooray!! Having Ben and I both teaching most weeks in YM and YW, we have been most anxious for her to start nursery so we can cease the shuffling that always seems to happen each week during church. It was so lovely to sit in Gospel Doctrine and teach YW without worrying about little Becca. She screamed when I first left, but seems to have calmed down quickly and did well - she has her older sister Emma in nursery too right now (for a couple of months), so I'm sure that helped to have a familiar face to keep her happy. Emma said Becca had fun playing in nursery and liked eating crackers and marshmallows. :)

Lovely Conference Weekend

We had a pleasant General Conference weekend hanging out with Ben's family. On Saturday night while the boys were at Priesthood session, we took the kids to a play in Tempe, "Miss Nelson is Missing". The play, of course, is based on the children's picture book. We all really enjoyed it - even Becca, who I thought wouldn't be entertained longer than 10 minutes! Anyway, it was a fun evening. The picture above was taken after the play - they wanted to go outside and look at the lake. :) Sunday, we had a nice day of watching conference, eating, and going for a walk through the neighborhood. What pleasant weather we're finally having! It's cooling down just enough that I can finally go outside without melting!

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So, great news! Becca's paci-free! We had a little 'ceremony' on Sunday night and threw them all out. Becca waved good bye with the rest of us and clapped. She even threw one of them in the garbage for us. She may have seemed fine with it at the time, but when it was time for bed she had a little panic attack, signing for her pacifier and looking all over for one (on her end table, under the bed, in the garbage). She cried for a while before settling down to bed. Thankfully, though, she seems to be alright today - she took her nap without getting sad and seemed rather happy all day today, despite being pacifier-less. I just put her to bed and so far I haven't heard a peep. What a joy! I really hate pacifiers - they're gross and annoying to always feel like you have to have one on you in case they get fussy. But, despite how much she seemed to 'need' it, she seems to be getting over it pretty fast.

We've recently discovered an awesome show! I've heard great things about it for a while, but had never watched it - Planet Earth is amazing! They are playing it on Discovery Channel on Sunday evenings and now we want to buy the DVD's. Although, on our TV we can watch it in HD (which looks stunning!), but we can't play DVD's in HD (or BluRay for that matter), so for now maybe we'll just keep them saved to the DVR and watch them that way.

Musically Inclined

Becca spent her first night in her big girl bed on Saturday! Well, it's hard to call it a big girl bed because it's so tiny. When Emma was 18 months old, we switched her out of her crib, but we never got her a toddler bed and instead just got her a twin size one. But this time around, we thought it would be best to get the toddler size since we'll be wanting the two to share a room when the new baby comes and I think a toddler bed is the only thing that would fit in there. But Becca seems to be adjusting well. The first night she hopped out of her bed a few times to play with her toys before finally getting back in herself to fall asleep. What a clever girl! In the past few nights she's fallen out of the bed a few times and we've had to go in and get her and put her back in. It has little railings on the top half, so she must be flipping around a lot in her sleep and still falling off. I suspect she'll get better at staying put in the next few weeks. I just think she's so cute sleeping in a bed. :)

I took this video this morning of Becca playing the harmonica. Am I the only one that thinks this is funny? Well, it really shows her weird sense of humor... she's just so goofy and gives us those crooked toothy smiles all the time. I just love her.

Busy days in Utah

We're back home after a great week in Utah. I can't believe how busy we were! Being still morning sick I wasn't sure I'd be able to do much during the week, but I really started to feel much better during my stay there. After getting back home, I'm still feeling pretty darn good - it's nice to know I'm on the upswing of getting better and reaching more pleasant times in this pregnancy. So, my parents came on Thursday in the early afternoon - we chatted for a while and gave them the tour of the house - since this was their first time seeing it. They got the lucky privilege of sleeping on the air mattress in Becca's bedroom (while Becca spent the night in the playpen in our big closet). We took a little outing to Trader Joes while they were here. I talk about the place all the time, because it's one of my favorite places to buy great food. They were glad to finally see what all the fuss was about and it was a good excuse to stock up on car snacks for our drive to Utah the next day. The drive went well - I didn't even throw up... however, Becca did! We only had about 10 minutes left till home when she threw up all over herself and the carseat. The poor girl is known for this - we suspect she gets really motion sick and car rides can be rough for her. I guess it was good that we were so close to home, or that would have made for a really miserable trip. We stopped a lot on our drive up - which was much needed considering we each had to take turns sitting in between the two car seats - it was a tight fit, but we made it! We did a lot of fun stuff while in Utah - I'll make a list of our happenings:

• Farmer's Market- They have a great farmer's market in downtown Salt Lake every Saturday. The best part were all the samples! Even better than Costco! Mom and Dad loaded up on produce for the week (peaches, apples, corn, watermelon, salsa, etc) - so yummy. We also bought an eggplant - it reminded me of myself (wearing a purple shirt and feeling rather wide around the middle), so I had my picture taken with it.
  
• Park visits - We spent a couple afternoons at local parks, playing tennis, walking, and letting the kids play. I really was trying to soak in the cooler weather while I could!
• Children's Museum- As is tradition, we spent a morning at the Discovery Center at the Gateway. What a great place! This was the first time that Becca really got something out of it as well. It's fun to see her grow up and really be able to play.
• IKEA- We may have an IKEA in Arizona, but we don't make it there very often since it's about a 30 minute drive away. So, it's always nice to make an visit there while in Utah with it only about 10 minutes from the house. Emma enjoys the play area and it's a nice inexpensive lunch outing. We even bought a few things, including some yummy chocolate.
  
• So You Think You Can Dance!!! - Totally AWESOME! My sister and I got tickets a couple months ago. She's actually never watched the show, but I couldn't go alone! Now she says she'll watch next season, since it was so awesome! The top 12 dancers from this past season performed all the most popular dances from the show. I was just in awe the whole time. 3 of the dancers were from Utah, so there was lots of screaming and plenty of support for the hometown faves. :) It may not be David Archuleta, but c'mon, isn't Gev just so cute! My favorite dance was the Bleeding Love performance with Chelsea and Mark. It was amazing and even cooler to see it live! My other fave was the hip hop dance by Comfort and Twitch - amazing!! The video below is not from the tour show, of course, but one I pulled off of You Tube from the show itself. I wish I could dance! Could that be a show? So You Wish You Could Dance?!

• Hogle Zoo - The weather was so great the day we went to the zoo; it just felt so nice to be outside! Becca loved riding the train and even exhibited her skills in signing train. When we were heading into the zoo, I asked Emma what animals she wanted to see and she said, "Dolphins!". I was sorry to disappoint her with the fact that there were no dolphins at the zoo. But there were penguins and she liked that. :)
  
• Provo time!- It's never a complete Utah visit until we've spent sometime in lovely Provo. :) So many memories. Since my brother Aaron is going to BYU right now, we had a good excuse to drive down for a visit. We met up with Aaron after his workday was over and drove over Gandolfo's for dinner (we call it "creepy basement Gandolfos"... the one on center street.. but it's the best one!) and then we mini-golfed at Cascade. What a great night!
• Wheeler Farm- Another favorite place to visit. We fed the ducks (despite the all the crazy scary geese attacking us for bread!), ate a picnic lunch, rode the wagon, visited the animals, and Emma rode a pony. A lovely afternoon indeed.
  
• Great-grandma's house- We love to see my grandma and grandpa in Salt Lake while we're there. Emma loves swinging in their backyard and she helped great-grandpa pick tomatoes and beans from their garden.
• Picnic in the canyon- The leaves are starting to change to fall colors up in the mountains and it was definitely nice to see. We ate our picnic lunch and then walked through the trails a bit.
• Corn Maze!- We did this maze last year at Thanksgiving Point. It's a really great event. They have a ton of kids activities in addition to the big corn maze. We let the kids play first. Emma got to dress up like a princess, jump on the giant inflatable pillow, ride the cow train, and slide down some huge slides. We totally got lost in the maze. Aaron and Sarah split up from us and got out in like 20 minutes, but it took the rest of us an hour I think - and we chose the easy maze. Apparently from above, the maze is shaped like David Archuletta - funny! After the maze we went to Cafe Rio for dinner... mmmm...
  

Anyway, it was a great week - the kids did well on the flight home. There were extra seats on the plane, so Becca got to have her own seat - she enjoyed not being in a car seat and Emma loved watching out the window and drinking apple juice. I loved that the flight was only 1hr and 30 minutes. :)

Lots of stuff on my mind

My parents are coming for a quick visit tomorrow. They've been in Palm Springs this week at a resort vacationing - how nice! So, since they're only 4 hours away from us (as opposed to 10-12), they are going to come see us tomorrow after checking out of their hotel. They'll be spending the night and then the next morning we (the kids and I) will drive to Utah with them to spend the week. At the end of the week we will fly home. So - there's the plan for the next week and half. I'm really excited! I'm hoping I'll do okay on the drive to Utah - I'm still nauseous (not horribly, and I am having many good days intermixed with bad). Today was a little worse, which is probably a good thing, because I don't usually have 2 bad days in a row. Well, seeing as my parents are coming to visit, I needed to make sure my house was clean. Ben's been doing much of the cleaning lately, but mopping and cleaning the bathrooms and such have been more neglected. Ben's rotation this month has been at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and they have him on a pretty rough schedule. He's spending the night at the hospital every fourth day - he doesn't have weekends off even. Anyway, he's at the hospital tonight which means I needed to really get down to cleaning despite that I am husband-less. Well, I got a lot done and now I don't think I'll be embarrassed by having my mom and dad see my house. I don't really know how I did it, considering I was feeling so cruddy - I must be really motivated. :) I even got Emma's room organized yesterday (or mostly organized - there are still some things to do). I got some great advice from the previous post about my cluttery Emma room woes. One thing that was suggested was to put the toys and such in clear storage boxes and keep them up high. So, the idea now is that most of her stuff is up where she has to ask to get it down. Today for quiet time I told her she could pick one box to play with during the hour - she picked her art/craft box. So, she made a bit of a mess with the stuff in there, but at least it was all easily cleaned up - later in the afternoon she was able to toss all her markers and coloring books and such back into the box and back up on the shelf in her closet it went. Wonderful!! No more scary messes that are too disorganized to tame. So, right now she has boxes for the following: legos, art stuff, make up/princess stuff, dvd's (lately she's figured out how to put her own dvd's in and start movies without asking, so now she can't), and dress up clothes. I still want to box up her musical instruments, puzzles, and a few other things. I'd like the only things left out to be her books and her kitchen stuff, so she at least has a couple things that she can get to easily without bugging mommy. Anyway, I've rambled way too long about this - but I'm just thrilled!

A few more random thoughts - I'm getting mosquito bites like crazy lately! I've hardly been leaving the house, so I must be getting bit during the night or something. I keep waking up and discovering 2 or 3 more itchy mosquito bites. I hate it! I currently have one right on my face - lovely - and a couple on my legs and one on my foot. I'm an itchy mess - as if I don't already have enough issues.
On a nicer note, after the kids bath this morning I plopped them on the couch in their towels while I went to gather their clothes - they looked so cute all wet and wrapped up, so I took a picture.



We're also getting ready to put Becca in a toddler bed (which we'll be moving in with Emma closer to when the baby comes) - We decided to put a pillow in her crib to sleep on for the next few weeks before we throw her in a bed so she can get used to using one. She seriously loves it and I'm really surprised at how well she stays on it - when I check on her before going to bed myself, she's usually still snuggled in on her pillow. Last night was really funny - she lately really likes her baby dolls and this random squirrel friend, so she took them to bed with her. Well, when I checked her a few hours later, she had them nicely placed on the pillow beside her - so funny. I had to take a picture and she shielded her eyes from the flash when I did so. :) And another very random thing - I saw this video this morning. I thought it was so amusing - I really don't enjoy cats (or dogs for that matter), but this just made me giggle, and kind of creeped me out. :)

3 is a crowd

Well, the time has come to finally post about the fact that I'm prego with number 3! Most of the people that live around me and see me often already know this, but for all my lovely friends that live elsewhere that I don't get to see much, this should be new news for you. :) We are very excited about the idea of having a 3rd little one to terrorize our house... honestly I get a little overwhelmed if I think about it too much, but I just love our girls so much, how can I not be anxious to have another! Not to say that this one will be another girl - I'm holding out hope, for Ben's sake, that this will be a boy - but I really would be thrilled to have 3 girls. I love girls! Either way, I'll be pretty excited. We should be finding out the gender around the beginning of November - the due date is April 10th (according to the most recent ultrasound I got). So this puts me 10 weeks today. I've been anxious to blab about this on my blog, so that I can stop pretending that I feel great and everything is super. I've been feeling pretty crappy lately and very tired. My nice hubby has been doing all the cleaning for the past month. I'm truly blessed... and also very anxious to be feeling myself again. And I guess the best part of officially announcing this is that now I can put a baby countdown on my blog! Hooray! ;) I've opted against the floating fetus one and will try out a cute one I've seen around lately of a rather shapely mommy-to-be. I wish I really did look like that!

And even though I've been feeling blecky lately, Becca's been staying rather chipper - her latest love is bananas, and they make her very happy indeed. :)