Get him out Mommy!

Tonight as I was relaxing on the couch with the girls, Evelyn plops over to me, yells a couple of times into my belly, and then tells me this really long sentence:

"Mommmy, I want you to go to the hospital now to get the baby out in the water and then I can put a diaper on him and watch a movie with him."

"You want him out right now?"

"Yeah, so I can hold him."

"YEAH!" yells Jilly. Anything remotely exciting is a cause to be yelled about with her. 

The whole "get the baby out in the water" thing comes from some video clips I showed Ev and Jilly on Babycenter.com. One was a water birth, very relaxed mom, no screaming, carnage, etc. So I figured I was safe showing it to them. I wanted them to know how this baby was going to get out into the world. They LOVED watching it. They thought it was so cool. Now one of their favorite pastimes is watching "baby movies" and movies of themselves as babies. Little kids are so cool. 

"It's called a Star Destroyer Mommy!"

Darth Sader!

If anyone has not figured it out by now, my husband is a huge Star Wars fan and is properly indoctrinating my children into Star Wars culture. We have an office for him in our apartment that is filled with his numerous books and collectibles from all over. Over the closet door hangs a beach towel with Darth Vader, the Emperor, and one of the large triangle-shaped star ships (he's gonna tease me later because I can't remember the name). Evelyn is sleeping in the office again because the sister-room-sharing fell apart last week (colds), and wakes up wailing at 10:30 pm last night.
"Evelyn, what's wrong?"
"Darth Sader's LOOKING at me! WAAAAAHHHH!"
We both started laughing. Darth Vader is now buried in the closet, to Evelyn's relief.

I think I've been talking too much about the baby lately. Jilly's turning back into one, or else her molars are coming in. She's gone back to having too many potty accidents, waking up at night, needing her bottle, and wanting to wear diapers. Um, no. This is not cool. She loves coming up to me with her blanket and binky in tow (yes, she still has a binky. It needs to say bye-bye, but I'm also afraid of a major reversion coming around when the bouncing baby boy arrives. Anyone experienced with this?) and snuggling up to make baby noises. She used to not do this. In Evelyn's conversation with Grandma Chicken the other day, "Drandma, sometimes I wish I was a baby. Then Mommy would snuggle me all day." Totally out of left field. Maybe they'll get their jealousy out before this kid gets here. And maybe that is complete wishful thinking.

As of yesterday, Ben is finally feeling some validation that what he's pursuing educationally has some merit. He heard back from University of California-Irvine announcing he was accepted to a Ph.D. program! So now we now for sure moving come the end of the summer, but where is still up in the air because there are six more colleges to hear back from. I asked the girls yesterday if they wanted to go to California. Evelyn says, "Yes!! Calithornia!" I asked her if she knew what was in 'Calithornia.' I told her about the beach and Disneyland. All very exciting to her of course. When Ben comes home Jilly yells, "Daddy! We're going to California!" We'll see.

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.