Third Trimester Ughs & Complaints

Aside from the usual laundry list of aches, pains, insomnia and countless potty visits of pregnancy, lately I've been feeling nauseous again and completely exhausted (even more so than usual third trimester energy drain), and a visit to the OB today to discuss my latest round of bloodwork shed some light on the situation.

I miserably failed my 1-hour glucose tolerance test, and judging by how (almost impressively) badly I failed the test, she said that she'd be incredibly surprised if I pass the 3-hour/4-blood-draw test that I'm taking next Monday. So, it looks like gestational diabetes may be the cause of my queasy stomach lately. I was borderline diabetic when I was pregnant with Sutton, so it isn't a complete shock, but something I was hoping to avoid nonetheless. I guess I'll have to wait until the new bloodwork results come back to see just how bad it is - I'm praying that it isn't bad enough to need insulin and will be able to be controlled with diet alone. Either way, I will likely need to do 4x daily finger pricks to monitor my blood sugar levels, and I'm not looking forward to that at all - y'all know how much I love needles :(

Along with that great news, she also told me that I am still severely anemic despite the fact that I've been taking iron supplements for several months now. My hemoglobin count was only between a 7-8 (normal is between 12-16). She tripled my iron dosage (which ought to feel wonderful on my unsettled stomach), so hopefully once I get that into my system it will help erradicate some of this extra fatigue I've been fighting. I hate feeling like I'm completely out of control of my body, and I can't wait for all of this to be over. The only upside to all of this is that the doctors will be even more closely monitoring the baby's size (GD babies can get really big), so there's a chance that I might get to be induced before September 21st if he gets too big and his lungs are mature enough to induce. I wouldn't turn down the opportunity to be un-pregnant sooner rather than later.

I guess this post should serve as a great big warning and pre-apology in case I seem to be acting cranky, mean, irritable or miserable over the next few weeks - I'm really not feeling myself these days.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yep, that's right, it's my birthday today! I have to say that it has been the best birthday EVER too! I woke up this morning to presents and a big breakfast - Sawyer has been telling me for over a month now that he knew exactly what gift he wanted to get for me, and he was so good about not telling me his surprise. Last night Mitch took the boys shopping, and they made a point of not even telling me where they were going. Sawyer was so secretive that at one point he said "When we get home from...um, the place that we're going...can we go swimming?" Sutton came home from shopping and said "I'm not going to tell you your surprise," and even after spending two more hours playing with them, no one uttered a word about it! I can't believe the restraint they both showed! Turns out that Sawyer's special present was a new dress that I can wear over my bathing suit at the pool. Love it!

Today we celebrated my birthday at the Splash of Summer Bash at our community clubhouse. We've lived in the area for three years now, but this is the first year we've ever gone to the party, and I'm so glad we did! It was way more fun than I thought it was going to be, and it wasn't nearly as crowded as I had thought it would be. The boys were convinced that it was my birthday party (a party with hundreds of strangers - who knew I was so popular? ;)), and it was definitely the coolest birthday party I've ever had :)

There were four different inflatables (three with water/pools and one jump house), a bungee trampoline and a rock climbing tower. The boys pretty much stuck to the basic bounce house, mostly because the ground was so hot that it was a pain to keep taking their shoes off to go in and out of them (the high today is supposed to be 105!).

We had a BBQ chicken and brisket lunch catered by JR's Texas BBQ - yum! Daddy let the kids indulge in all the goodies they were serving including orange soda, M&M cookies and Cheetos with lunch. The kids were in sugar heaven!

Afterwards we checked out some of the activity booths while the kids grooved to the tunes the DJ was playing. We played with all kinds of bubble making wands, got some temporary tattoos (there were twenty different bins of thousands of tattoos to choose from!), and made some craft projects (there were six different projects including funny oversized sunglasses, foam visors, fans and more).

They played ring toss and each won four pieces of candy from the big candy bucket (more sugar!).

We stopped by another booth for some cotton candy and popcorn (OMG could they have served any more sugar here?!?). The boys loved the popcorn, but neither of them really liked the cotton candy.

Then it was pool time!

We spent a long time cooling off and playing in the pool, and then made one last sugar stop at the snow cone stand!

The watermelon snow cone got a thumbs up rating from Sawyer!

Finally we cooled off inside for awhile with a magician and balloon artist. Check out Sawyer's awesome balloon motorcycle!

SO much to do, SO much fun, and SUCH a great birthday! Can you believe that the entire party and all the food, activities and entertainment were included in the admission price - only $13 for our entire family to spend the whole day there! Just taking the family out to lunch at JR's Texas BBQ alone would have cost us twice that much! The boys are all passed out on the couch right now taking a little snooze after all the festivities, and I'm enjoying a few minutes of peace and quiet. Tonight we're going to go to my parent's house for cake and ice cream to celebrate - it's Uncle Joe's birthday too!

"MOM"

At four-years-old, Sawyer is measurably less interested in writing, letters and numbers than Sutton is at three-years-old. Sutton's fascination with letters and numbers borders on obsessive at times...taking time to stop and read every sign in the grocery store, every road sign we pass, and bombarding Mom and Dad with a constant barrage of "How do you spell booster seat? Grass? Green? Street? Tire? Yellow Truck?" ad nauseum as we drive down the road.

Sutton's obsession definitely helps to drive Sawyer towards learning more, his competitive nature challenged by his little brother's fascination. Still, Sawyer seems more content to just know his letters and numbers, and isn't that interested in trying to write them out just yet. That's why I was surprised when he walked up to me the other day, proudly grinning a mile wide, and announced to me, "Hey Mom, look...I made this for you. It's your name."

I love it! Somehow, somewhere, some way, everything seemed to click into place for him, and he has been practicing writing his letters and his own name for the past couple of days now too. When I picked him up from school on Tuesday, he grabbed a piece of artwork out of his cubby and showed me that, for the first time ever, he had written his own name on the back of it! Sure, the S looked like a Z, and the y was squeezed in there as an afterthought, but he DID it. I'm so proud...and so is he ♥

Weekend Fun

Jonathan, Sawyer, Rachel, Ryland & Sutton


It was H-O-T here again this weekend, with temperatures reaching 104 on Saturday, so we decided to beat the heat and head somewhere where the A/C was cranking on someone else's dime...we ended up at the mall where we met up with the boys' cousins who live a couple of hours away from us. We have a few big malls in our area, but we don't actually go there very often, so the kids had a lot of fun.


Our first stop was the Lego store where we spent some time building and creating - the boys especially had a blast creating their own mini-fig people. Next we headed over to Build-a-Bear where the kids all made their own stuffed pals. We haven't been there in over a year, so it was fun to see how the kids have grown up and changed - this time they were both really excited to stuff their own animals and make a wish on the little stuffed heart that goes inside them (last year they were both scared of the stuffing machine). We finished our day with a trip through the Disney store, some mini Cinnabons and lemonade before heading back out in the heat to come home. It's always so nice spending time with our extended family! ♥



Sutton getting ready to stuff his creation - a Yorkie dog that he named Colby after my mom's Yorkie.

Sutton and Colby (modeling a pair of swim trunks that we got last year at BAB).

Sawyer made a camo bear, just like the one his cousin Ryland had. He begged me all morning yesterday to make his bear some special new clothes, so we ended up with this Batman outfit to match the cape and mask that Sawyer has.

He love, love, loves his bear and the new Batman garb!

Nothing rounds out a hot weekend better than ooey gooey s'mores!

Collage Birdhouses

Check out our new post over at Mom's Crafty Space - today we made brightly colored collage birdhouses for our feathered friends! Get all the details over at our new blog!

Pool Time

Our new (to us) pool is finally up, and the kids are loving it! I have to admit that I'm really loving it too! It has been so nice to be able to jump in and take a quick dip to cool off when the weather hits the triple digits, not to mention that it's great at helping to take the pressure off of my swollen belly. It's 12' around and just under 3' deep, so it's absolutely the perfect size for the boys.



Mitch is working on putting down pavers so that we can keep the side yard clean and keep the sand (from leveling the yard) out of the pool. Right now we're only partially done, so we haven't been completely successful at keeping the sand out of the pool, but we're trying, really we are! We bought a pool vacuum to suck it up, but unfortunately our filter isn't strong enough to work it (so, if anyone knows of anyone selling a heavier duty pool filter for cheap, let me know!).



Mitch also extended the side-yard fence so that it's 6' tall and not so easy for neighbor kids to climb over. The gate is locked with a keyed lock, and the keys are kept in our kitchen cupboard, so we haven't had any issues with uninvited guests since we extended the fence. Now, if the heat would subside just a little bit, maybe I could get the new fence parts painted sometime before Baby Boy gets here!



Once the pavers are all down and the yard is cleaned up, we'll give the exterior of the pool a good scrub down so it will be nice and cleaned up too!

(Thanks for being so patient and waiting almost two weeks to see these pictures, Grandma! I know you've been anxious to see it!)

New Craft Blog

Check out our new blog!

I decided to start a new blog, specifically for the arts and craft projects that the boys and I do! We've had a TON of visitors to our family blog over these past few weeks, thanks to a few of our projects being featured on other blogs (thank you!!!), so I decided it was probably time to separate out our family stuff from the fun project stuff...because I'm pretty sure that Grandma would rather read about the boys' first day of school than my toilet paper roll creations, and our other readers are probably more interested in our Everlasting Sandcastles and Dying Wool Roving than reading about our family's adventures at the local zoo. (Hint, hint...those are the two newest craft posts on the new blog, so check 'em out!) :)

I'll still be keeping up with posting on both blogs, and everyone is welcome to read whichever blog you'd prefer (or both!), but I thought I'd keep things sorted out just to make navigation easier! I love and appreciate each and every comment and new follower that this blog has gotten recently, so please take a minute to stop by and check out our new "sister site!" I've archived and added June's projects to the new blog, so if you'd like to link to any of those projects, please do so from Mom's Crafty Space. Thanks so much! ♥

Happy Independence Day!

We spent the day with lots and lots of swimming, jumping and splashing in the pool. Hope you all had a safe and fun 4th of July too!

Happy 3rd of July!

The city of Lincoln almost lost their fireworks show this year due to all the budget cuts, but fortunately private groups were able to raise enough funds to host their own fireworks display for the town. Unfortunately, by the time they were able to raise the funds there were no aerial fireworks vendors left who were available to host the show on the 4th, so they opted instead to have a July 3rd display. I think it worked out perfectly!



We got to the park about an hour before showtime, and there was still plenty of room to set up our blanket and chairs. We snagged a parking spot at the boys' school, so we only had to walk about a block and a half too!


Making silly faces makes the time pass quickly!

All snuggled up and waiting for the sun to go down ♥

Poor Sutton took quite a fall earlier today when he tripped over a beach towel he was wearing, so he's sporting a nice fat lip and a scratched up nose tonight :(

I might as well get in on this funny face thing too!

Finally, after an hour of silly faces, dancing with glow sticks and being bombarded by Junebugs, it was SHOWTIME!!!

I was having a blast shooting the fireworks with my big camera this year - the exposure time was totally unpredictable (anywhere from 1/6 sec to 10 seconds depending on the # of fireworks and how bright they were), and I wasn't really even sure what I was shooting, so it was fun to come home and see that I'd captured some of these action shots.

The city put on a fantastic show!!! It went on for such a long time - there were two or three times that they shot off a bunch of finale-worthy fireworks, and we all cheered and thought it was over, but then it kept on going! Sutton was snuggled up in my lap, and after every firework he'd give me a running commentary, "Glittery...that one's like a star...that one's like a spider...like a palm tree..." but after awhile I noticed that he had gone quiet and was barely able to keep his eyes open.

Curled up with Daddy, Sawyer didn't make it to the end either...

Even when the finale booms were so loud that I had to cover Sutton's ears for him, Sawyer didn't wake up at all!

On our walk back to the car, the entire street across from the park was lined with the BIG finale-sized fireworks that you buy from the stands, and they were all being set off at the same time. It was SO noisy, but really, really cool! We all had a wonderful night...and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all this late-night excitement will encourage the boys to sleep in a little in the morning! :)

Happy Anniversary!

I can't believe that it has been NINE years since our wedding (and 12 years since we first started dating!)...it really doesn't seem like it's been that long...until I look at these pictures and see how young we were! Wow, I feel old now ;)



Happy anniversary sweetie! I love you more and more every day, and I'm so proud of the incredible husband and father you've grown to be. You mean the world to us, and we love you SO much! XOXOXOX

Salad Spinner "Fireworks"

It's been awhile since we've done any salad spinner spin-art, so I decided to let Sutton give it a whirl (haha!) while Sawyer and Mitch were off at karate class last night.

First we watered down some red and blue tempera paint so that it would be easier to suck up with the eyedroppers and easier to spin.

Sutton has really mastered his dropper skills since the last time we tried this activity! Note: now is the time to put down some plastic/newpapers/paper towels/etc underneath your spinner. The paint will start to accumulate and puddle, and in the end it will end up ALL over your work area if you don't put something down...just sayin' :)


Give your paper a few good squirts of paint to ensure that you'll get the "fireworks" results you want.

Now it's time for the fun part...spinning the heck out of the salad spinner! This part was a huge hit because Sutton now has the coordination to do the whole project by himself...such a hit, in fact, that we made about three times the amount of spin art that I was expecting to!

Voila! Red, White and Blue Magic! Every time Sutton opened the salad spinner to check out his work he'd say "Boom! Look at that cool firework, Mom!"

We added some patriotic star garland from the dollar store and gave our stairs a sparkling 4th of July makeover!