The home stretch

29 weeks
I finally decided to put up a picture of what looks like a pregnant belly. For a long time it just looked like I hadn't really worked out in ages (and I really haven't been doing much), and needed to lose some weight around the middle. The belly has grown immensely in the last month, filling out my sides and pushing into my back. I don't know if it's because he's a boy, but I hurt in places I didn't think I would. It might be that I already have two kids to keep up with as well. He's pretty active, kicking and punching, and getting all out of sorts when I wake up to roll over at night or get up with one of the girls sometimes. And if I start talking during one of these noctural awakenings, the poor kid freaks out. I'm interested to see how his personality will play out in the next year or so, because looking back on my pregnancy with Jilly, she displayed a lot of tendencies in the womb that are evident in her personality. Not that it's surprising, I just didn't notice it nearly as much with Evelyn as I did with Jilly.
Besides the pregnancy, which is constantly in front of me physically and mentally, here are pictures from the week:
Ben's renewed passion for Legos. He took them from his parents over Christmas break, and over the last few days has completed about 6 models. The girls love them, especially the part about dumping the box all over the office floor.
Ev and Jill got Duplos for Christmas, and there are two Lego kitties. This is the cat getting its hair done. Jilly carts these things all over the place, one of her MANY security "blankets."

Adventures in Snowmen

The children and I built our first snowman ever in Idaho over Christmas. (Ben would have helped, but he was driving his Dad home from knee surgery, a worthy cause). It was a good first effort, but the snow just wasn't right for snowman building. Too powdery.
Only a 2/3 finished snowman. It was mostly me building it, and Evelyn posing for pictures or running around excitedly.
"Mommy, what are you doing?" All Jilly knew was that Frosty is a snowman on TV, and he has an awesome theme song that she can sing.
All finished, except for the face. Which we never got around to because it was dang cold outside and Jilly kept taking her gloves off to eat the snow. Which leads to cold hands, which leads to whining......
But back to Utah, where it SNOWED this week. At least in my terms it did. We ended up getting about 14". Plenty of snow for a snowman.
Here he is, with a scarf even. (Some kid left it on the playground a few feet away, where it had sat for a few days. I thought it was good snowman material). Pretty sizable and fun to put together. This time the snow was great. Evelyn even helped shape him.
The after-snowman party. For refreshments? Snow. A lot of it. Did you know that building snowmen will give you lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions? I didn't. Too bad this little boy isn't due until April. I doubt there will be enough snow to build one then. I'll have to scrub my floors instead.

Gripe of the day

About a month ago, the battery in my watch died. Naturally, I want to get it working again. I finally remembered to take it with me shopping, and was already in Target, so I stopped by the jewelry counter to get a battery. That's how I'd done it before, like 8 years ago.

"Did you buy your watch here?"
"No."
"Then we can't replace the battery. We can't be liable if it breaks in the process."
"Well, if I open it, and put the battery in, and put the cap back on, will you give me the battery?"
"No, because we can't be liable if your watch breaks."
"You won't give me a battery. At all?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Are all stores this hard to get your watch battery replaced?"
"Yes, I'm afraid." (By this point I'm getting really irritated).
"So where the heck do I go to get a new battery?"
"Um, there's a small shop in the mall....."

Are you kidding me? I can't even buy a freaking battery for my watch because if I put it in, the watch might explode? Give me a break.

Pregnancy does wonderful things for your patience. After this, I briskly walked to check out, while my darling daughters screamed fighting over the Dora the Explorer book we got from the library the entire time the cashier was ringing us up.

I love shopping.

Christmas, and then some

I don't think I've posted any pictures for 8 weeks, or something ridiculous like that. So if you're needing a way to feel overwhelmed, all of these pictures are for you.

We headed out to Idaho first to see "Grandma Chickens" (they have chickens, it's much easier for the girls to remember who they are by this name). We saw Santa Claus (played by my in-laws home teacher) at this awesome Christmas village set-up. It even had the Salt Lake Temple in miniature. The girls thought it was pretty cool.
What did Evelyn ask Santa for Christmas? You guessed it, panties. Poor Santa, being only 15 I think, was blushing a little.
This is what Evelyn thinks about getting her hair fixed.
Jilly showing off her princess Cinderella paraphernalia at the grandparents. She is such a cheese ball.

Then off to Washington for a week (Grandpa and Grandma cows), where there was actually a white Christmas. This was a phenomenon not often repeated in all my years living there. It was pretty fun, and pretty darn cold. We took these tie-dye shots, here's our family picture for the year.

The girls were supposed to do something cute. But at the end of a photo shoot, what do you expect?
The first picture of only us since our first year of marriage. Showing off a belly that obviously isn't mine.
Jilly admiring her new snowflake jammies on Christmas Eve. They had sparkles you know, a great delight to any little girl.
We went sledding before all the snow melted, Ben taking Evelyn down the hill many times, and over this jump. She never cried, and just laughed hilariously whenever they crashed. Now I hope to find a sled here at home, hoping they haven't sold out with all the snow we've had the last couple days.
Mom Cluff went shopping with Evelyn one day we were in Idaho and found these cheap New Year's toys on sale, and packed up a big box for the kids to play on New Year's Eve. They had fun making noise they wouldn't be able to normally. Jill liked the crown the best even when it fell over her eyes and made her look like Jordi from Star Trek. Fun times.

All's well that end's well, and we are enjoying some quiet time at home detoxing from staying up way too late talking and playing Wii, eating tooooo muuuuch sugar, being sick, and relative spoiling by grandparents. Now I just need to dig my van out from the 12"+ snowfall we've had over the last 24 hours (and still counting) so I can actually leave the parking lot to do some grocery shopping. More on the exciting snow development soon.

Happy Holidays

We hope everyone will enjoy their holiday seasons, whether at home or at the grandparents. Drive safely, it seems there is more than enough snow to go around this time. A few days back, we were driving on the freeway, in a snowstorm, in morning traffic. A slightly tense situation. The girls wanted to listen to their "kid songs," and one came up about calling 911 in case of an emergency. We weren't really listening to the song, just watching cars drive too fast and fishtail, and all the sudden we hear sirens and engines honking and were trying to figure out where it was coming from. Well, it was from the chorus of the song. Ben found it less than amusing, although I was laughing. We went to the next track to avoid bad karma.

I apologize for the lack of pictures lately. We didn't even get a family picture taken this fall, I think we're an every-other-year family. Hopefully the turning of the year will result in the end of the blogging blahs!

Merry Christmas!

Best of 2008

I've been blogged out as of late, and busy, but I finally had inspiration for a post. These are my nominations for the best of 2008 in our house:

1. Fabric shaver. If you don't know what this is (I've known about them for awhile but had no idea how valuable they were), it's a small, hand-held shaver that will suck in and cut off the pills on sweaters, fleece, blankets, or anything else that develops linty little balls. I've saved about 5 pieces of clothing thus far, not counting all the clothes Ben has taken the shaver to. Truly amazing. It's like wearing new fleece pants and sweaters. Love it.

2. Mary Kay eye make-up remover. The only one that doesn't burn my eyeballs out.

3. Jilly's transformation from baby shrimp to an average-sized toddler.

4. Evelyn's names for her parents. It went from 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' to 'Mudder' and my full name. Ben is labeled 'Fadder' and 'hon,' short for "honey." Such a formal child.

5. The Honda mini-van. We love it, and so do our kids.

6. Gas prices. The great evil earlier this year, but now make our holiday travels much more affordable. If you had asked me in July, I really thought gas would be tipping $5/gallon by this point. To be paying the prices now I paid in high school for gas is unbelievable.

7. Pilates. I originally discovered this exercise after I had Evelyn, and was faithful up until last Christmas in doing it a couple times a week. I got burned out or lazy. I'm not sure which. But after I started getting back aches at 4 months along, I decided I needed to do something or I was going to be miserable come April. Back to the mat I went (with pregnancy pilates), and I can button up my jeans again where I wasn't able to a month ago. And no back aches, popping hips, or stiff muscles. I love Pilates.

8. Being out on the farm last spring. It's nice to do some physical labor, get dirty once in a while, and not live in the city.

9. The sleep bible. Otherwise titled, "Healthy sleep habits, happy child." I'm dead serious, this has saved my sanity with Jillian.

10. Starfall.com. Evelyn's new best friend. Her computer operation skills have grown exponentially. A good thing now, but something I may curse later.

11. Reading. I was feeling 'dumb' earlier this year, so I started to pick up and plow through books again. I recently started to re-read my college textbooks, and I'm actually enjoying it this time around. I've forgotten a lot of the valuable stuff I learned, and it's been really fun re-discovering why I got a Bachelor's degree.

12. Watching my children's excitement for holidays build. I don't think they quite got Thanksgiving, except that it had something to do with turkeys and we visited my grandparents a few hours north of here, but they're still talking about Halloween. How "creeeeepy" it is, and how ghosts live in the dark, and that they got to dress up in their animal suits. As of a few days ago, "Baby brudder" is going to wear the monkey suit next year according to the girls.

13. Ben's completion of coursework for his Master's degree. He won't have to take classes next semester, which means he won't have homework, which means he gets to see us more! It also means he won't be in the middle of writing a term paper when I go into labor, a very good thing for me. Now all he needs to do is write his thesis.

Pregnancy Brain.

And boy, do I have it. Maybe it's because I'm having a boy. He's killing off my brain cells now so I won't notice him getting away with murder when he's older. In the last few days I have:

Lost my debit card in Costco, apparently just dropping it on the floor after I went through the cashier line. Thankfully, someone took it to the Membership desk so I could get it back.

Broke my large Pyrex mixing bowl by watching it fall onto the floor out of the fridge (major delayed reaction time). I didn't know those things could shatter into that many pieces.

Made some delicious cookies, that weren't quite done when the timer went off. So I meant to leave them in the oven for 2 more minutes. Wait, make that 15 minutes. Buttery, melt-in-your mouth cookies turned into burned, crispy critter cookies.

85 - the number of times I have knocked over, dropped, spilled, or run into my children (my burgeoning belly is now a blind spot). When pregnancy books talk about a loss of grace, none of this was mentioned as far as I can remember. But isn't that the point? I'm not remembering. Haha.

And my children seem to be finding more ways into mischief. Today they scribbled on library books, the computer screen, washed Jilly's hair at the sink with handsoap (which consequently dribbled in her eyes, making her scream, making her wet her pants, etc.), among other minor disasters. Maybe my hearing is temporarily going. I can no longer sense when trouble is brewing, or have that natural timer of "my children have been quiet for longer than 3 minutes, I'd better make sure they're not destroying something."

Other than this, the pregnancy is great. This kid is going to be bigger than my girls. My belly is as big now as I was at 28 weeks with the girls. And I'm only 22 weeks. Watch out girls, the blind spot is only going to get bigger.