Fishies

Can I just say how much I love our backyard? Buying this pool was pretty much the best thing ever. Chelsea LOVES being in the water and I get to relax poolside in my zero-gravity lawn chair, sipping iced coffee and reading my Kindle. It's bliss, interrupted with lots of "Mommy - watch me! Mommy - watch this!"

And then, naptime for this studmuffin is over and I have to go back to active parenting again. The pool is shallow enough that he can be in it, in his lifejacket, without me, but I definitely have to be out there, watching a little closer. Life is about to change drastically for these two. I hope we're ready!

They came!

So I spent the past few months turning my blog into hard cover books. I added LOTS of photos and stories and all of my blog posts and pictures. We used Blurb and found a coupon for 30% off so for all 4 books, each with over 100 full colour pages, it cost $179, shipping included. I am pumped!!

That is all.

Summer time

- Today was pretty much perfect. I've trained a few people to work at my store, so I was able to take a Saturday morning off! I was determined to tackle cleaning the garage. The kids wanted to swim, but the pool was chilly, so I gave them a hose and some buckets and they played for almost 2 hours.

- While cleaning the garage, I finally found the bouncy chair that I've been searching for weeks. The baby can come now that it's been found! ;)

- Speaking of baby - 16 days. I'm getting super excited. I'm beyond excited to meet this baby but I'm also super excited to finish this pregnancy. I feel like I have a bowling ball dropping into my pelvis. It is incredibly painful. I freely admit that I have quite the waddle. Here's the thing. I don't think the baby has gotten the memo that it is NOT coming out that way, so it can stop trying to burrow into my pelvic bones. Crawl back up a few inches baby and give yourself some room!

- I will miss feeling the baby move inside me. I'm so curious to see if it's a boy or girl. I just want to know. I was able to hold my good friend's sweet brand new baby boy and it made me excited to realize that soon our family will be complete with our new babe.

- I have a few more days at work, then I move onto 14 months off. I've definitely had a challenging year, but I survived and feel like I've learned more this past year than in previous years. I love being off and this year will be a great transition year, because Chelsea goes to Kindergarten. I'm glad I'll be home for that!

-  I went through all my baby boy and girl stuff and I realized that all my recieving blankets are faded from use. I think I'm going to go buy some fabric and sew a few more nice new bright ones - possibly with owls. Just sayin'.

- Alright, I am beat. We spent the afternoon at Altona pool after spending the morning cleaning and playing in water. I'm so ready for bed!

He turned 3!

A few weeks ago, I realized I had really slacked off in the birthday planning area for Gavin. A lot of our friends don't have young kids Gavin's age, so we weren't sure who to invite, so we kept it small and fairly simple.

I had a friend of mine make up a few cupcake toppers and sent these colourful cupcakes to daycare. Gavin is really easy to please, so he was pumped! 

Of course, I whipped up a fun Mario cake and topped it with toys I found at Walmart. Gavin was so excited about the toys that I don't think he looked at the rest of the cake at all.

 Gavin loves bouncy castles and getting his face painted so I hired a local talent from town to do some face painting and one of my friends owns two bouncy castles and was kind enough to lend them to us.

  

Here's Gavin, waiting eagerly to see his cake. I totally goofed and didn't take any pictures of the decorations, but we had about 25 balloons, Mario themed plates and napkins and Happy Birthday banner. Guess you'll just have to take my word for that.

 Opening presents.

 His first two wheeler. It came with a long handle so I won't have to bend over to push him.

 And some of the balloons that Grandma Pat gave Gavin. Notice I'm saying some. There were a lot of balloons at this party!

Happy birthday Buddy. You are pretty awesome. Love ya!

I'm pregnant and I know it.

Don't take this post the wrong way. It is written in jest, truly. I am excited to be having another baby, but I'm finding that pregnancy, the 3rd time around, is harder to embrace.

Things you may not remember about being giantly pregnant:

- Well meaning people will comment on the "glow" that you and all pregnant women have. It's not glow - it's sweat. Seriously - I am running 10 degrees hotter than the general population, trying to squeeze my massive belly into some sort of summer wear so that I can still be outside.

- I've gained an insane amount of weight, and no matter what you tell me, I don't believe that "it's all water." Nope. It's fat. It's true. For whatever reason, God decided that I needed to be round, soft, voluptuous, and well padded, especially in the backside area. I'm sure there is some fantastic reason that my lovehandles and rear need to be well padded to protect the baby, but I'm still trying to figure out what we are protecting the baby from!
- getting up to pee 4-5 times a night. Because I'm always so stinkin' hot, I drink ice water like it's going out of style. This is fine during the day, but getting up at night because "OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE TO PEE" only to sit down and think to myself, "trickle, dribble?"

- waking up at 2:30 every night with insane heartburn. Now, I had heartburn much earlier with my other two pregnancies, so again, I can't really complain. But when you are trying to sleep for a few consecutive hours, waking up during the night to chow down on some Tums isn't really on the list of top 100 things I'd like to do instead of sleeping.

- Flip flops are my best friend. Not only does wearing flip flops mean that I don't have to put socks on because I can't handle how they cut into my ankles, but I also don't have to bend down to put them on. Bonus. However, I am extremely clumsy at the best of times and this seems heightened when experiencing the wonder that is pregnancy and I've almost taken a nosedive into the carpet more times than I can count.

- cankles and sausage toes. By the end of the day, my feet are swollen and I swear I can feel my ankles rolling onto the tops of my feet.

- the number of comments you receive when you go out in public. Yes, I am due in 22 days. Yes, I am sure. No, it's not twins. Yup, it can be pretty uncomfortable.


Now, just because I think it's interesting, here are a couple of comparison pictures.

Everyone keeps talking about how my belly is getting bigger, but really, in the past month, I haven't seen a lot of change, and I went from measuring a few weeks ahead to bang on, so I'll let you decide. (And yes, apparently I've spent some time in the sun with the kids in the past month!) Pardon the super serious expression on my face.

And for fun, based on belly shape, I'm still sticking with my theory that this is a boy!

Because I'm having a baby in 38 days, we are trying to make the most of the nice days and fill them with fun activities. Morden had a family fun day that we decided to check out. We were able to get our faces painted by the wonderful "Facepainting by Jo." Usually the line is hours long, but this time, we only had to wait about 20 minutes! Gavin giggled the whole time and kept repeating, "Mom, I Mario. I have mustache."

We also spent a day at the zoo. I'd show you all the amazing photos we took, but when I started blogging I realized that I only had the usual egg photo....

and then a whole bunch of the following photos. The kids fed the prairiedogs THE ENTIRE TIME.

If you are heading to the zoo, just know that these little guys love popcorn twists. The kids at one point had 8 or 9 around them at once. Who cares about the lions, tigers and bears - bring on the "squirrels" as Gavin called them.

And a family walk - it's fun going for walks and adventures without a stroller. Guess we only have a few more weeks of this before #3 appears!

Alright, I know this post is lame, but hey, a post is a post and I'm going to sleep!