What we've been up to - part 2

Besides hosting my sister and her kids, my mom came to visit for a few days. Isabella and her cousin, M, have so much fun together, but they don't get to see each other that much. I was so glad when my mom told me she was bringing my niece with her, I knew the girls would have a blast!

What we've been up to - part 1

It's been awhile since I've updated, between hosting visitors and my exhaustion, I haven't been on the computer too much. I'm 4 weeks or less away from delivery, since I will more than likely be induced around 39 weeks if I haven't gone on my own by then. I've never been pregnant this long, I had already had Isabella by now. I'm very glad this little one (or big one!) is deciding to make itself at home a little while longer, my dream is to be able to have the baby released from the hospital the same time as me, I don't know what that's like, but in my mind it's amazing. :) The heat, but mostly the humidity, is zapping me, and I don't even do anything. I pretty much sit outside watching Isabella play all day. Thank goodness for naps (for her and me) in cool, air conditioned comfort! I feel like I've accomplished a lot these days, when I just get a good meal on the table for supper, and then all cleaned up. I'm so glad I got all the baby stuff ready a month or so ago, because now my energy level is zilcho and my weird pelvic pain is back with a vengeance, making it SO hard to walk, I told Monte he should get me an electric scooter, but he didn't really go for the idea! :) Anyway, enough of the complaining, it's nothing like what I went through the first four months, and it will very soon all be worth it! I'm trying to remember to offer it up for many of you, especially those who are hoping and praying for a baby.

Monte has been crazy busy with work lately, with no end in sight to the craziness. He's been having to work every weekend, too. It's good since he's bringing in extra money with all the extra weekends of work, but bad in that we don't see him nearly as much as we are used to. A certain Daddy's girl is REALLY missing him, and doesn't understand that when he is finally home he still has lots of work to do on the computer and phone, and can't play with her every minute. But I know that I sure appreciate all he does for our family! He's very stressed right now, and I know that part of it is that he travels all over, and now that the baby will be here shortly, he worries about being far away from home when the time arrives.

On to the pictures!

Playing in the sprinkler on a hot day.

Helping weed the garden, she absolutely loves to garden!

We got a new couch, and she thinks it is SO cool that she can recline in it, even though her feet don't come close to needing the footrest up! Our old couch was literally being held together with duct tape (no joke!!). I did have a slip cover over it, so it looked decent, but it was definitely time for a new, much more comfortable one.


My sister and her kids came for a couple days, as always, the cousins had a blast, and my sister and I enjoyed chatting and looking at recipes. :)

Pool Time

I got this little blue pool for $2 a few years ago, Isabella has gotten almost daily summer use out of it the last two summers, so I wasn't too heartbroken when the air started leaking. By the way, here's her first time in it!

She's loving her new replacement pool, this is how she's spending the majority of her days now, especially since we are in a heat wave!

Garage Sale Finds

Our city wide garage sales were held a couple of weeks ago, normally I love going to them, but this year I wasn't as excited for two reasons, I just got rid of tons of stuff that I donated to our church rummage sale, and I wasn't in the mood to accumulate too much more. Also, being almost 8 months pregnant, and walking all over in the heat and humidity didn't sound too appealing to me. But in the end, I couldn't resist, once I saw all the activity around town, I decided to check just a couple sales out, then a couple more, then a couple more, etc! Isabella and I had a lot of fun, but it definitely was HOT. I really did limit myself this year, though, since we are making room for baby. I ended up getting a bouncy seat for the baby, other than the toys missing (which I've already replaced) it seems barely used, and even has batteries in it. We had an older blue one that was a hand me down, for Isabella, but it didn't do all the things this one does, so I'm replacing that one with this one. I also picked up a few baby toys (which I immediately disinfected since I'm a germ-a-phobe), and Isabella got a princess back pack, Barbie things, Tuck from The Wonder Pets, which she loves now, and her favorite - a Baby Alive doll for 25 cents! She was SO excited about her Baby Alive. Some other things I got were a few baby clothes (not pictured since that would give away the gender!), and a pair of khaki maternity shorts and sleeveless maternity top (not pictured because I wear at least the shorts every. single. day!). They are the ONLY shorts I have that fit me right now, so they are either being worn or washed at all times. In total, I spent right around 12 dollars on everything!

Attack of the Geese

We spent some time yesterday walking around our favorite trail, it was really nice family time together, despite the heat, humidity, and my swollen feet! The geese there are VERY friendly, you can tell they are used to getting fed. As soon as they would see us, they would all come right up to us. Isabella had a lot of fun feeding them corn!

Daddy's Girl

4th of July

Isabella is home after spending six days with her grandma and grandpa, she had so much fun, and we had a great 4th of July weekend there. We were joking that we weren't going to let her go back, when we got there she had a big bruise from her knee all the way down to her ankle, she was covered in mosquito bites (thankfully we don't have hardly any mosquitoes at our place), and she was a little sunburned. Ha! She loved being on the farm, and grandma and grandpa have all sorts of things just for the grandkids, from a swing set, a sandbox with blue sand, and the favorite - a pool! She even had a play date with another little girl her age while there. She loves going there because "Mama" devotes ALL of her attention to her, and plays with her the entire time, definitely not a luxury she gets at home!

Vacation

With the baby coming this summer, we weren't going to do much for a summer vacation this year. Then we decided if all went well at my doctor's appt. last week (which it did), and if he said it was okay for me to go (which he did), we would take off for a few days and have one last vacation as a family of 3. We left for the Twin Cities right after Church on Sunday, so we did our Father's Day celebrating on Saturday. I made Monte's favorite meal, Sweet and Sour Chicken, along with Father's Day cupcakes for dessert.

I didn't bother printing off directions for the hotel, because I figured we could just plug in the address in our GPS. Little did we know that it was a brand new hotel, so the GPS couldn't find it. It was quite the fiasco trying to find it, but after some help from St. Anthony, we stumbled upon it! It had an adorable little toddler waterpark area, which Isabella LOVED!

She got in the big pool with Daddy the first day, but the next two days she just wanted to be in the pool pictured above, she had so much fun!

We spent one of the days at the Mall of America, we went to Underwater World
there, and had a blast. Isabella could not get over the fact that there were sharks swimming over her head (you walk through a tunnel where everything swims all around and over you). This picture was taken there, the pictures taken in the tunnels didn't turn out very good because of the lighting.

We let her pick out a souvenir from our trip at the gift shop there. She chose a purple sea turtle, and that thing has hardly left her side. She took it everywhere with her while we were on vacation.

Here we're eating lunch overlooking the theme park, Nickelodeon Universe. I love that she loved just watching all the rides and activities, and never once wanted to go on any of them.

We also went to the huge Cabela's in the suburb we stayed at, ate at some of our favorite restaurants, and went to an amazing outlet mall

with 100 outlet stores! Monte told me I was an absolute pleasure to shop with while pregnant, since I wasn't about to buy any clothes for myself right now, ha! So I didn't have a desire to go in any stores for myself. Monte got some great deals on clothes for work at the Old Navy outlet. There was a book store there where I got two big Taste of Home cookbooks for $4 each! One is all desserts (of course!) and the other is all freezer cooking recipes, that might come in handy with a new baby.

The only bad part of the trip was that after walking around the Mall of America all day, I was up almost all night with contractions. I took my medication, which slowed them down some, but the medication has some bad side effects, so then I was up because my med was making me short of breath, and my heart race. But thankfully, all seems to be well, and I'm back to having my normal random contractions every now and then.

It was such a fun trip, and so much fun for us to see Isabella having so much fun!

This was in the hotel before we left, once again she's not letting go of her sea turtle.

Sweet Summer Days

We have been enjoying some great summer days lately. We have been spending almost every waking moment outside now that our rainy weather has (hopefully) ended for a while. I took these first two pictures this morning, she hit the 3 and a half mark, and is looking so grown up!

We have a lake that's only a five minute drive from our house. There is also a park there, since she and I both love going there, I try to take her there as much as possible. I usually pack a picnic lunch, so we can stay for quite a while.

I remember washing my toys as a child, and Monte said he did too, so she comes by it naturally. :) I don't think there's ever a speck of dirt on that little car of hers! One of the times she always has to wash her toys is when Daddy is changing oil in one the of the vehicles.

Some indoor dress up fun.

She and I eat our lunch every day outside on the porch - so much fun, and easy clean up too!

There's been a lot of bubble chasing.

And bubble blowing . . .

All this time outside makes for some awesome, long naps for her. I have even been squeezing in a cat nap for myself in the afternoons. The weather has been mild, in the upper 70's, which I love, but I am looking forward to being able to get out her sprinkler and little pool if it warms up some more.

Weekend of Firsts

We had quite the exciting Memorial Day weekend around here! Monte had Friday through Monday off, so starting out on Friday we spent most of the day and evening out at a lake near here. Our friend from college, who we haven't seen in over a year, invited us to come out since he was camping there. There is a really nice state park there, and Isabella had a BLAST throwing rocks in the water, swinging at the playground, roasting marshmallows, and fishing. We've taken her fishing several times before, but she hadn't ever caught anything. Her luck changed on Friday, though. She caught four little bluegills, they were tiny, but she didn't care, it was so much fun for all of us! Afterward, we went to a really nice restaurant overlooking the lake, and now I HAVE to go back. I can't believe we live so close to it, and have never been there before, it had the ultimate salad bar, right up my alley.

On Saturday, we decided to take Isabella to her first movie, the new Shrek movie. I think her favorite part was the popcorn and drinking Daddy's Cherry Coke, she had never really had pop before. After that, we went to a carnival that was in town for the weekend where she got to ride one of the rides.

Sunday was when our visitors came, my sister and her kids, and my parents both came out to visit. My parents stayed until Monday, and my sister stayed until Tuesday.

The girls spent HOURS on the swing set.

A random picture thrown in . . . because I like it. :)

We went to the zoo on Monday, also.

And that sums up our weekend, very fun, and also very tiring for this pregnant lady!