Duh.

I just spent a good chunk of time shopping the Gap's newborn girl site before I remembered I'm having a boy.

Summer vacation (finally)

Ed's busy season is winding down and to celebrate the start of what we consider summer break we left the kids with their grandparents and headed out for a whole day of boating all by ourselves. Now we've been boating together since high school but we have never once been out all by ourselves. It was awesome. Even Ed, who rarely just relaxes, was looking awfully relaxed after a couple hours.

We plan to do this more often because as much as we like our friends and our families, we really just like each other the best. :)

Getting big

but not quite this big!Jemma is obsessed with shoes! She puts on whatever you leave out--she's totally capable at walking in Ava's flip-flops and she can get Jack's sandals on and off with the straps. And if you actually put her shoes on she squeals, "shoes on! shoes on!"

A few minutes later:

The best part is when she's done, she'll go throw them in your closet!

Somehow

I ended up with the big kids and none of the littles so we headed to the pool where I actually got to do this!:

(my belly did a great job holding my pages in place)

Bathing beauties.

It's official.

I finally talked Ed into doing the Portland Marathon again this year and I am super excited to go and just watch (and enjoy a weekend in Portland) this time around. Although it is more than a little depressing that 8 months ago I could run 26 miles and now a 30 minute walk leaves me winded. Ugh. Anyway, the race is just 10 days after my due date but I fully intend to have this baby early (I'm picking September 16 but I'll take within a week plus or minus of that). My babies cook faster than most and I don't intend to have a 10-pounder...which is what I told my doctor who said, "if you can deliver a nine pound baby, you can deliever a ten pound baby." To which I said, "I know I can, I'm just not going to." And because he's delivered all three of my chubs, he went ahead and changed the subject. So we'll see.

But just so you know I'm not exaggerating, here's sweet Jemma Jane, two weeks early and as fat as can be:

Jack has been swimming like a fish--he jumps in, holds his breath under water and has started some sort of paddle that seems to keep him afloat. All without lessons. Although the other day he jumped in and said, "I almost drownded but my feet saved me!"

Lately

we have had a ton of adventures and I keep fogetting my camera!

Today we went to the morning movie, out for lunch, shopping, and to the library and the only picture I have to show for it is Ava carrying in a load of our finds:

She got that copy of the Littles (one of her favorite series) for completing the summer reading program and the stack of books under it is her last American Girl series...Kaya. It's always a big score when the whole series is ready and waiting to be checked out at once!

Today I'm thankful for Ava. I have had the most massive allergies starting yesterday and I slept horrible last night so this morning, after breakfast, I went back to bed while Ava ran the show out here. Ahh, the light at the end of the tunnel.
In other news, Ed and I had a fantastic summer night on Friday--no kids, yummy dinner out, ice cream cones on a walk, and then Ed helped me pick buckets of flowers at the flower farm for a wedding Saturday.

To clarify.

That last picture did not do my belly justice. I am getting very big. Here's a shot taken the day after that is a bit more realistic but still not even close (Ava has an amazing ability to make me look smaller on camera--I feel like that should be useful in the months to come.):

I passed Jack in the hallway and he, with a quick double take, says, "Whoa! Let me look at you. Your belly is getting huge!" And that is that.

29 weeks.

The baby is now 15 inches long and weighs 2 1/2 pounds and from now on will start chubbing up, which, since he's one of mine, means he will start seriously packing on the pounds. Which I like, since I have already gained a ridiculous amount--it's nice when you can finally blame it on the baby. His eyes are starting to open and his toenails can be seen. He can hear all the crazy kids here which should make him right at home in a couple months. And he just may have a name (but don't bother asking what it is--we won't spill till we're sure)!

Today....

I am thankful for this handsome bugger whose turn it is to stay up late with me and cuddle. He is sweet, funny, tender, and brave:

AND I am most thankful for Ed who late this afternoon was 10 hours from home but who is driving all the way back here because he knows how much we want him to come home, even though he'll get here in the middle of the night and head out again bright and early but he thinks it's worth it just to have a bowl of cereal with his monkeys.

Yesterday....

I was thankful for this monkey, who I let stay up way past bedtime cause she was so darn cute:

And thanks to having an older brother and sister, this is her usual get-up:

a baby and a gun, what more do you need?

32.

I am officially another year older and, hopefully, wiser.

This was a good year. Full.

And I had a good birthday. Every year my kids are disappointed that I don't have a kid party so this year we met some friends and many little kids for a movie and then lunch at the park. And then we napped and read magazines till Ed got home in time to take me to dinner.

A good day and the only picture I have is this:

Which I love.

Cousins and best friends, what's better than that?

Some Jack.

Jack is obsessed with his bow and arrows--it's pretty much all he talks about or wants to play with and I finally had to draw the line at him taking it to bed with him!

*****

The other day he looked at me with his sweet little face and said, "Mom? Is this baby actually coming for reals? I mean is it going to be a real baby or what??"

*****

And this morning he was super cuddly and I said, "Jack, why are you so full of hugs today?" And he said, "Daddy gave me a really big one so I have some left over!"

Kamiak Butte

We finished the 3-day weekend with a hike at Kamiak. It's so much fun to take the kids there these days because they can do the whole 3 1/2 mile loop without a single complaint and Jemma just hitches a ride in the backpack.

Marshmallow and ginger snap sandwiches at the top!

Today...

we're thankful for the pool, hummus and toasted pitas for dinner, and Baskin Robbins' dollar scoop night!

Fillin' the little love tanks

Happy 4th of July!

This is one of my very favorite hoildays!

It was a little dark and windy but that didn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm for the pool:

Makin' mud pies.

Yum.

Four little boys that just turned two!

The one time of year he gets to play with fire. And he takes full advantage of it!

The fireworks!

Jemma took a little nap before we loaded her up to head to the big fireworks--she started out a little sleepy with her dolly but she got very excited on the way over and kicked her little feet.

Jack got to try on the "fire-fire" gear!

And he shared his hat.

Jemma settled in with a bag of honeycomb. She's at the age where every loud noise freaks her out (even the kids yelling across the house!) but she only cried for a second when they started and then she was too mesmerized to make a peep.

Staking out our spot.

Cousin secrets.

Dancing to the Kingpins!

This was a great year of fireworks--I don't know how people skip out on these!

Well, lookey here!

Jack's been talking about riding his bike without the training wheels and he finally talked Ed into letting him try on Saturday. I was busy doing something in the house but neither or Ed or I thought he would really be able to do it so I let them head out front without me. But about 10 seconds later, Ed ran in the house and said I better get out there! And sure he enough he was all set to cruise, training wheel-free!

On Ava's old bike because we didn't want to take his wheels off unless he could actually do it.

Starting out.

Woo-hoo!

Totally got it!

He looked super confident and I'm happy our doubts didn't rub off on him at all!

It wasn't a totally successful day though. Ava crashed into the back of me while I was taking his picture and she totally bit it, with a nice big scab under her nose to show for it. And poor Jem was running around and tripped and got some road rash up her arm. Jack somehow was the only one to make it crash-free!

3-day weekend!!

Ed got home on Friday at 4:30 in the afternoon (a very happy miracle) and I jetted out for a quick wedding meeting and then on my way home I was practically giddy with the anticipation of a 3-day weekend and, even more important, an entire Saturday with absolutely nothing we had to do (the first in maybe 3 months!). I came home to house-full of wild, happy kids (Ed included). But within 10 minutes of finishing dinner, I walked in and found this:

and then about a 1/2 hour later, this:
and then later still, this:

(movie-time cuddles in bed, which is why the kids' eyes are all funny from the flash).

I could not stop cracking up because Ed exists on less than 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night and I generally get another 2 or 3 after he gets up. I cannot fathom how he does it without ever really needing to make up the sleep at some point (and he can't fathom how I could possibly need that much sleep!). But after weeks of walking fields in the heat and big important meetings, he finally could not keep his eyes open!

However, he was somehow up at 5:00am the next morning, raring to go (while I slept till at least 8:00) so the joke didn't last long!

Today...

We're thankful for dinner at the pool:

Where we were pretty much the only people there:
And all we were missing was a magazine for me!

Whoops.

I wanted to get a shot of Ava on the big slide so Ed could see but the one time I had my camera she had quite the whoops. She was turned around, upside down, whacked her head on the slide and came up bottoms first. But she just hopped on over to the stairs and the lifeguard even said, "you are a really brave girl!"

Shootin' birds

Even more.

My parents had been out of town for a long time and when they finally got home, they saved us from complete boredom by having us out for spaghetti and ice cream on the deck. And after dinner, I took a walk all.by.myself (no stroller or 15 million questions from a certain someone named Jack).

Flying a kite with grandpa.

While Ava did crafts with a cup of hot chocolate:

Jack was also busy stacking wood--he loves doing chores!