No baby yet

The long-awaited time for our new little girl to be born seems to continue to elude us. My goal was to make it through this past Saturday, so now that Saturday is past I am starting to already get a bit antsy. I actually felt more likely to have the baby around 34 weeks than I do now! I am beginning to think that this little one is either trying to hibernate for the winter or she is going to follow her sisters' previous examples and need to be encouraged with a large quantity of Pitocin. Meanwhile, I will continue to consume endless chocolate and gain more unsightly weight!

Special times with daddy
Tyler recently took S. on her first official "date." She picked out her favorite dress, had her hair and makeup done, and even wore a little necklace. She was very excited. She ordered chocolate chip pancakes, but I doubt the pancakes will be what she remembers. Rather, great time alone with daddy!

P. made her own opportunity to connect with daddy. While daddy was worshiping at the piano, P. sat down and joined right in. She was nothing but smiles ... and so was daddy. Our two little girls are priceless gems.

Our first garage sale
Years overdue, Tyler and I took part in our subdivision's annual garage sale this month. It took us two weekends to go through everything in our basement and eight hours to get rid of it. We let the kids pick which toys we sold, but S. and P. had a hard time letting go stuffed animals. P. actually found that the place she liked most was right in the stuffed animal tub! Although I was totally exhausted afterward, it felt really good to cut down on the amount of stuff we had accumulated over the past eight years and we are getting pretty close to actually having a clean and organized basement. (Translation: A place for the kids to go nuts this winter! What can they possibly do to cement floors and concrete walls? Ummm, don't answer that; I would like to live in this little Utopian idea for awhile.)

Funny faces
As part of the garage sale clean-up, we dug all of the baby toys out of our basement storage. The kids took full advantage catching up with items they haven't seen in over a year, but I think P. had the most fun. One morning after breakfast, I caught her cracking up at herself while making funny faces into a mirrored toy.

Doing school
Even though she is only three, S. has been eager to join E. in "doing school." I try to include at least one hands-on project a week in either science or history for E., so when it is doable S. gets to join us. Here she is modeling clay. While E. made a tablet with his name written in cuneiform, S. eventually decided that she would rather use the screwdriver to eat the clay. It was pretty gross and I tried to get her to stop, but compared to some of the other things she has been eating lately I figured this might be one of the least things to hurt her!

Time with Cousin Heath
Tyler's cousin was in town this past week for a conference and he postponed his travels home so that he could visit with us for a night. It has been a long time since we have seen him--I think almost two years--and it was good to catch up. Because getting out the door with a slow, slow preggo woman and three kiddos took awhile, we didn't have much time to "sightsee" so we went to our favorite local park/farm before taking him to the airport. Heath works within the agricultural industry and our youngest two have barely set foot on an actual farm! Here are some photo highlights, although I bet that Heath has much better pics because all E. did was ask that Heath take his picture. =) (Thanks for visiting Heath! Maybe at some point we will make it to NY to see you and your family!)

First day of school

While the local school bus was driving through picking up the neighborhood kids for their first day of school, Tyler and I were loading our kiddos into the van for a trip to the zoo. Almost all of the county and city schools were in session and the temp had finally fallen back into the 80s, so we thought it would be the perfect morning for a trip out. We visited the stingray exhibit, the children's zoo, and the butterfly dome before we all decided that we were hot and tired and ready to go. Interestingly, the kids recalled petting the guinea pigs as their favorite part, even over getting to "pet" the stingrays. (Family, don't get any ideas--we do not want a surprise guinea pig at Christmastime!)

As for E.'s first day of school, we are going to officially start with a full schedule on Monday. We have already been doing phonics, reading, and penmanship for the past few weeks because he has been utterly bored in the afternoons. He is hesitant about starting history because he "doesn't know anything about history." We are going to focus on the ancients this year though and I think it might end up being one of his favorite subjects.

P. pretending to bite the goat. Why? We don't know why!
Daddy feeding P. to the alpaca.
Petting a couple of guinea pigs.At the stingray pool.

Backlog of blogs

The month of July went by fast and furiously. Hot and humidiously, too! Not finding any time to blog throughout the month made me believe that I may actually have a life. Either that or I am too tired and pregnant to withstand my normal late night blogging sessions. Let's pretend it is the former!

So do I suddenly have a plethora of time now that it is August? Unfortunately, no. But I do have our van getting repaired right now and it is going to be a 6 hour job. So I have to spend all day sitting at Bread Co, sipping a cool drink, and not having any children pull on my leg. What a painful predicament I am in. Maybe they will need to keep the van overnight and I will be forced to get a hotel room too ... ;)

A friend's spontaneous visit
One great event this past month was a visit from an old college roommate, Laurie. She came in town for the weekend and it was great spending time with her and our other roommate Becky. We went downtown to a children's water/sculpture park one day. The kids had a blast and it was great catching up with friends.

Birthday celebrations continue
Tyler's mom and stepdad came into town for S.'s birthday. They brought Cousin Ashlynn, too. It was a nice, relaxing weekend. S. received cards and gifts for more than a week after her birthday, so every time she saw a card of any sort (including some of the thank you cards I was trying to send out!) she would rip them open thinking they were for her. Her musical and message cards are on her dresser and still get daily use to give she and P. momentary dancing breaks!



Dancin' it up
Speaking of dancing, one of the gifts we got for S. was the "Just Dance" Wii game. All three of the kids love it and it is nice that they can all participate without actually needing a controller to feel like they are involved. Every time I put that game in for them, it just makes me laugh watching them trying to match the moves. It really is like having a dance party!




First Cardinals game
When we lived in KY, Tyler and I would frequent Reds games. Not having kids allowed us to be spontaneous enough to park along the river, walk the bridge, and buy $6 nosebleed tickets whenever we wanted. Being in the stadium and seeing the Cinci skyline and the Ohio River just made for a great time out. In Chicago, Wrigleyville was like nothing we had experienced before. We took E. to his first ever ball game there and Cubs fans are seriously die hard. The excitement and enthusiasm extended well beyond the stadium. We had nosebleed seats, E. was somewhat disappointed that he wasn't actually playing, but the experience was priceless and it had that memorable Chicago feel (with the trains going by during the game and all).

We recently have been brainstorming things to do with E. so that it is just the three of us. When Cardinals tickets were on sale for almost 70% the retail price, we snagged them. We thought he would absolutely love it. While he did have fun, and despite our good seats, E. had a hard time seeing where the ball was in the stadium lights. For the first half of the game I think he was more interested in the peanuts we were eating. During the second half of the game, he was so stoked about a baseball that he got that we joked that we could have just gone to WalMart and purchased him a new baseball instead of actually coming to the game! I hope it was a good bonding time for him with just mom and dad though. As for Tyler and I, the thrill of the baseball stadium has seemed to have worn off. We were so stinking hot that sitting in an air-conditioned car on the way home was our bliss for the night. We breathed a sigh of relief from the constant humidity while E. continually played catch with his new ball ... all the way home.
Summer camp
One of our last big events for the month was a week long summer camp. E. attended the sports camp and I volunteered during the mornings for the art camp. E. had a great time and he said the worst part about the camp was coming home each night. (I tried not to take that personally!) He got to show off some of what he learned during the closing ceremony and then we all enjoyed a reception. P. was particularly pleased with herself when she nabbed a green-frosted cupcake after the reception was over while we chatted with friends. True to the picture below, she only ended up eating the frosting ... or at least wearing it!

A little celebration dance

E. had his last soccer game this past weekend. He has been wanting a hat trick for a few weeks and this week he actually did it. Tyler took about twenty videos during the game and captured two of his goals. Note the "celebration dance" after his third goal. We were cracking up.





This was his first season playing soccer and he had so much fun that he doesn't want to try any of the other sports. So, right now, the plan is to sign him up for fall soccer. (Pending Baby Sparks arrival, of course. Not sure how up I will be for all of the practices and games with a newborn in tow!) Here is a picture of E.'s team after the game, ending with a record of 5-1-2.


Down on the farm
Earlier in the week, the kids and I went to a place called Suson Farm. (Basically, a small farm with farm animals. Very important for the city folk, who don't know what things like sheep are!) While we were there, the oddest thing happened. At the far end of the farm they have a bull, somewhat near the pasture for the horses, donkey, and mule. The bull almost scared us because he just carried on the whole time we were there ... stomping, snorting, etc. Well, a group of high school girls walked up to see the horses and immediately the horses, the donkey, and the mule all ran over to them. Very odd when there were 5-10 people already at the fence--including us--who didn't peak their interest at all for the prior 10 minutes. But the really peculiar thing was that one of the high school girls shrieked, "Oh, a cow!" and went prancing and mooing--literally!--over toward the bull. One of her friends laughed and said, "She really likes cows. She has a special connection with them." Yeah, special connection or not, that was one angry bull! The next thing I know, I don't hear the bull making a sound. I turned around, fully expecting to see him try and charge her, but he is up at the fence letting this mooing girl pet him! It was like he became a little puppy dog. So bizarre. If a cable network is ever looking for a cow whisperer, she would be just the person!

Packing it on

I received some bad news. I went to the doctor and found out that I gained 10 lbs this past month! (Let's not break that down to how much I was packing on each week.) I suspected that my "fat feeling" wasn't just a feeling! I do normally have at least one double digit weigh-in with each pregnancy; I was just really hoping to avoid it this time around. The really stinky part is that this 10 lbs probably isn't fluid and a significant portion isn't baby, so these pounds will be hanging around for quite awhile after delivery. Maybe I should start planning my post-pregnancy workout schedule now. [Thinking long and hard ...] Nah!

Trip to Ohio
The kids and I spent Memorial Day weekend with my family. We haven't seen them since Christmas, so the long weekend and my nephew's 8th birthday party gave us a good excuse to make the trip. Unfortunately my fanatical weather-checking obsession didn't rear its ugly head and I packed for 70 degree weather while upper-80/90 degree weather was dished out. Regardless of the heat and the plethora of capri pants on hand, the kids had a great time playing outside, cooling off on a Slip-n-Slide, and having sleepovers with their cousins. And until our very long drive home, I had a great time too.

One humorous note was that once we got off of the interstate on our trip in, we saw quite a few farmers out working the fields. S. was so intrigued by the tractors. I hadn't thought about the fact that she probably didn't remember ever seeing tractors before. So I told her that maybe she would get to ride on Papa's tractor. To the joy of the kids, Papa had saved mowing his side field until we were in town.


There was a pinata at the birthday party and P. was chosen to be the first to take some swings. She could have hit that thing all day without making a dent, but she sure had fun trying!



On our last morning there, we got E. up and going on a bicycle. We bought him a new bike a few months back but don't have any flat land around us for practicing. So one of my big goals for the weekend was to get him on his cousin's bike and get him going. After a handful of bailouts in the grass, he was doing great. Next feat: teach him how to turn and, most importantly, stop!

My spontaneous moment

I am not a spontaneous person. Scheduling something two days in advance is spontaneous to me. But when I saw the great forecast on Tuesday morning and knew that my husband needed to sleep all day to recover from his back-to-back midnight shifts, I decided to get out of the house with the kids. And, thankfully, it was a good decision. So much so that I might even try being spontaneous again, but not any time soon!

With numerous options open, we decided to go to a local attraction called Grant's Farm. S. absolutely loved it and just kept saying, "I love this, Mom!" We have been there numerous times since moving here, but E. was the only one who remembered visiting. We rode the tram, watched the elephant show, brushed the goats, and saw some really cool animals. (Grandpa, we even saw a 5 week old mustang!)

I tried a few times for a group photo. P. was more interested in finding her water bottle though!

At the elephant show.
In the goat pen. There are easily over 100 young goats in there! I try not to think about where the goats go when they outgrow this area ... because there are no other goats located on the farm. Goat cheese ... goat meat ... glue ... maybe a secret ingredient in Budweiser ... ewww.
A free-roaming peacock that met us out on the road as soon as we arrived on the tram. It was stunning!
After gathering up his courage, a video of E. feeding a camel. S. wouldn't even think of it--she was certain he would bite!


At the zoo
While Grant's Farm is pretty cool, we also like visiting the zoo. We went one day back in March when the temperature reached 70 degrees. We were there with thousands of other people ... on a Wednesday morning at that! But going early on a spring morning yielded a lot of active animal encounters. One of our favorite parts was the penguins. We had just watched Happy Feet the week before and the penguins were very chatty during their breakfast. Again, S. was amazed. It is like she is discovering the world and everything is really coming to life for her.

With the penguins.


On the carousel. Can you catch a glimpse of Ty and the kids?







P. speaks
P. is becoming quite the little talker. She will come into the room, walk up to me, and proceed to tell me a story about ... well, something! Just this week she said S.'s full name for the first time. She can also say the dog's full name and is now choosing what she would like to eat and wear by pointing at her choice and saying, "that one." It is really cute. She also follows the dog around the house telling him, "no, no, no." Chester doesn't think that is so cute. It is amazing how fast she is growing up and how her personality is really emerging.

More baby steps

You may recall that some weeks ago I mentioned that our little P. took her first steps. Since then she went a little stagnant, not venturing off more than one step and choosing to crawl around instead ... until this week! She is now letting go of the furniture and our fingers more quickly and letting her two little legs take her where they can. It is fun to celebrate with her as a family as she discovers a new "talent." Enjoy the video!



Unseasonably warm
Like most of the nation, it has been really warm for November. We have been trying to take advantage of the nice weather and have been going on some hikes. I think walking trails may be my favorite outdoor activity. The kids can have the freedom to run and explore without getting into too much trouble and it is quiet. I especially like that it is quiet. I suspect that I am going to be one of those crotchety old ladies who turns her hearing aid off to block everyone out. =)