ZOO TRIP #2

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So Christian planned this really fun day of going out to the Zoo. Last time we went on the hottest day of the year. It was like 105 degrees with humidity. So we thought it would be fun to go on a spring day where the heat wouldn't be so intense. It turned out that we went on the hottest day of the year (again!) so far. It got up to 90 degress in Asheboro. What are the chances? Maybe we'll have to make our next trip for winter and hope for the hottest day in December. Oh well... We had a really fun trip this time too. Even though we all had colds and didn't feel our best, it didn't stop us!


Now I know all of you are wondering how on earth I was able to walk that LOOOONG stretch across the zoo. Well, I am apparently unstoppable when I have my belly belt supporter. That sucker helped me so much that I didn't have very much pain in my hips (it's usually pretty bad). Christian and I kept joking how that much walking was going to put me into early labor. I have my doctor's appointment today for a regular check up and then my Glucose screening which means no sugar until I get there at 1:30, which is TORTURE for me. I can do it though! I'm officially 27 weeks which means I just started my 3rd trimester. I'm hoping this will be my shortest trimester yet :) We'll have to see though.



On a sad note, Christian's Grandma passed away on Monday Night and we will be attending her funeral on Saturday. Christian was asked to sing a few songs for the funeral, at which I'm sure he'll do an amazing job.



Also, I think we're getting closer to picking a baby name. We actually talked about it and AGREED that we BOTH like ONE name so far. SCORE!!!!

HIGHS AND LOWS

Last Saturday we went to Durham out in RTP for the GSK Sizzling Saturday Family Fun Day (I'm pretty sure that's not what it's called. But I can't remember the name of it.) We had a really good time. The weather was gorgeous and we were able to eat tons of free food and the girls really enjoyed some of the kiddie rides. Mia was very skeptical to start and kept telling me she was scared but eventually warmed up to the fun things around her. A favorite was the free cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, and soda that we binged on. Not only were there free snacks but they had Chick-Fil-A too. I was in heaven.


Later that evening I had the girls sit and we did little pedicures. They love it when I paint their toe nails and since I have some really quick drying toe nail polish it goes by pretty fast without any mess. It's such a fun thing to do with them.

The rest of the week started off as planned. I worked Monday and then was able to attend my friend, Emily's birthday dinner out in Cary. It was nice to get out of the house for a little while. However, when I got home from work on Wednesday Christian informed me that Mia had a temperature of 102.8 degrees. She was really miserable. The next morning she woke up completely hot still and the fever haden't broke. I layered Motrin and Tylenol until I got her temperature down to 100 degrees. I realized that she was cutting her Canine molars and thus unbelievably cranky and unconsolable. This lasted all Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. This may have been one of the most challenging and unrewarding weeks of my whole life. Mia is still pretty cranky but on the upside, one of her canines are poking thru so I'm hoping that the next will be on it's way and she'll be able to feel better. We do plan on going Strawberry picking and going out to Asheboro to the zoo on Monday and Tuesday. Maybe that will help to get her mind off everything. Poor thing!

LESS STRESSED

Well I am exactly 25 weeks today. And because I am unbelievably optimistic that I will go into labor 2 weeks early (like I did with Kalea and Mia) I'm aiming for August 11th-ish. I only have 3 more months! However, for some reason I have been way more stressed with this pregnancy. With Kalea I think I was just blissfully unaware of what was to come. For Mia I kind of knew what to expect since I already had a girl. But I feel like a boy is a whole new ball game. I have been so easily stressed out with this pregnancy with things that normally wouldn't stress me out. Anywhere from picking a name to how in the world are we doing to afford all of these boy clothes, blankets, etc. It hasn't been easy since Christian has been getting a kick out of not wanting to talk about boy names. Every time I would bring it up his response would be, "I already know what I'm going to name IT" and that's all I would get. And then my blood pressure would rise. However, this Sunday has been a major breakthrough for me. I finally got him to tell me what name he wanted to name the baby... which I'm not going to disclose since it's not final. It was needless to say a huge relief. Another one of the biggest relief's I've had is my absolute new favorite person, Michelle Chapman. Not only was she unbelievably kind by making this boy a beautiful Hawaiian blanket and burp cloths, she also gave me a TON of clothes to get me started with this little guy. She was so sweet to carry the bag full of clothes to my car after church that when I got home I had no idea how heavy it was. I literally had to drag it across my floor because it was so packed full. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, Michelle. I don't think I can express how grateful I feel to have such a wonderful friend. She literally lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. She probably has no idea how thankful I am... but she will now after reading this.

We had a really busy Mother's Day. We went to church at 11 and this time Mia stayed in Nursery. We have about a 40 % chance that she'll actually stay. Then we headed over to my mom and dad's house where we were able to talk to Elder Alo. It was really nice to talk to him. He sounded really well. It's funny cause we all talked to him on Christmas and he sounded like good 'ole Lane. But this time he sounded much more like a missionary. He is such an amazing example to me as a little brother. I look up to him a lot. I was also able to go through some of my old stuff that my mom had pulled out of the attic. Some lost "treasures" I guess you could call them. 2 of the funniest things was this wood napkin holder that i made in a woodworking class I took in 8th grade. It says "Kris". So naturally i gave it to my father-in-law to impress him. I told him it was to remind him that there's always room for improvement. I'm pretty sure he LOVED it :) The other thing I found was an old picture of me from Merry Miss when I was about 10. Um.... I really wish I could post this picture but I fear that many of you would throw up on your computers and I'd be completely responsible. Not only was this picture pretty terrible with a pioneer type dress, awesome Young Women's pendent my dad bought me without know it was for Personal Progress completion (about 5 years early) and some pretty wicked-awesome hair and glasses, underneath the picture it said, "I have unique talents". It pretty much should have said, "this girl is special".

One thing I am really excited about is that I am getting my hair done FINALLY on Thursday. It's gotten to the length of a horse's mane with about 5 inch roots hanging out up there. It's in need of some serious TLC. These prenatal vitamins make it grow so fast! I like it long, but DANG! My friend Stephanie is going to come over with her boyfriend and eat dinner with us and then work on this mane over here. I think we're going to darken it up again just so that it's lower maintenance. She always does such a good job.

Passy Broken

So I finally did it. I took away Mia's pacifier on Wednesday. It's been pretty stressful around here. I think we must have had 10-15 pacifiers all over the house that I slowly threw away. Then when I knew we were down to just one I snipped the end when she wasn't around. That night we went to have Scriptures and she put it in her mouth. She looked at it kind of funny and brought it up to me and said, "Mommy, I broke passy." I felt really guilty but just kept telling her that I was sorry it was broken. That night she didn't sleep until after 10:30. It was really hard. (I tried not to have a panic attack.) Nobody tells you that not only is it hard for the child, but it was such a comfort for her to have it for the BOTH of us. It makes me feel really sad to see her "best friend" gone. She was soooo attached. Each night since has gotten better. Almost every night she's cried for at least 20 minutes. It breaks my heart and can be extremely frustrating since you can't exactly reason with a 2 year old to stop crying. Did I mention that the first night Christian got home around 9 from his softball game and went into Mia's room to calm her down. He came back downstairs about 30 minutes later and I asked him what he was doing up there. He said, "I don't know... she just was just talking to me." It's so cute to me that Mia had so much to say to her Daddy. After about 10 more minutes of her crying Christian went up there with an ice cream sandwich. I don't know if it helped or made things worse that he kept going in there but I love that it shows that he has a tender spot for his little girl.

Anyways, Mia's doing better. The crying isn't as extensive and she seems to be adjusting alright. She still asks for it every day. And them some days she just simply comes up to me and says "Passy's broken" and then walks away. It's like she's reminding me that she hasn't quite forgotten but that she's coping with the fact. I just hope that in 3 1/2 to 4 months from now she won't want it at all... cause that's when her baby brother gets here. I remember the feeling of being sad when I was pregnant with Mia and Kalea was only 2. It was hard for me to let go of Kalea being the "baby". I'm definitely feeling that way again. I still look at Mia as my baby but I know that I need to let her grow up and now slow her down. She talks so much now. She's constantly cracking us up with little things she does and says.

Here are some of our favorites that Mia says:

"babysoup"- bathing suit
"shhh! quiet"
"Kay-ya time out!" - that's her telling Kalea to go to time out
"goos" - shoes
"ah welcome" - you're welcome
"mawoo powa" - Lucky Charms (they call it Marshmallow Power)

WEEK IN REVIEW

We did SO much this week with the girls. It was really busy but tons of fun. I feel like I have tons to post so this may be a LONG one. Don't feel like you have to read and look at it all :)

WEDNESDAY

Kalea, Mia and I went to the Library for a fun reading time they do every Wednesday at 11am for the 3-4 year olds in Wake Forest. I thought this would be something really fun to do. Apparently the girls thought otherwise. The librarian read a book, then the kids would get up and dance around to a wiggles song. Then another book, then a Bean Bag game.... and so on. Kalea and Mia decided that they would just stare at all of the kids and not participate which kind of irritated me. Kalea barely cracked a smile. but it was something new so we're going to give it a try for the next couple of weeks. I think it is something they will learn to enjoy. Did I mention that I'm trying to teach myself how to crochet? It's not going well.

THURSDAY

Thursday was a lot of fun. We went to NC State's Farm Day with Aunt Crystal, Aunt Alice, Aunt Jessica, and Aunt Celeste (all kids included :) The highlight I think for the girls was holding the baby chicks. I had to keep reminding Mia to not squeeze. Kalea had so much fun with her cousin Lily. You can tell that Lily is such a great big sister to all 5 of her younger siblings. She helped me out a lot with the girls. We were able to see sheep, cows, horses, goats, turkeys, chicks, and eat some ice cream as a fun treat. Did I mention all of this was free?! Afterwards we went to visit my dad since he works at home a lot now. The girls had a great time over there with Grandpa Alo.

Holding baby chicks

In the tractor with Lily

Mia was my little shadow the whole time.

Spencer is a STUD!

Petting at sheep

Getting in the Tractor

Thursday has not ended yet. We also went to Christian's softball game that evening. It felt like a much longer game then it actually was. The girls and I watched from the bleachers where there was a grass field next to us so the girls could run around a little bit. A funny story: Kalea and Mia found a captepillar crawling around followed it from one end of the bleachers all the way to the other end. After moving our seat 3 times Mia got restless and decided she wanted to go see Daddy in the dug out. So I picked her up and made my way over there. And guess who ended up stepping on that catepillar and crushing all of Kalea's dreams. ME! I didn't even see the little bugger. Kalea looked up at me with the saddest face and said, "The catepillar was supposed to turn into a beautiful butterfly." I felt so bad but ended up laughing so hard that tears came out of my eyes. ( I really did feel bad ) Kalea reassured me by saying, "It's ok Mommy, I still love you." Luckily we found a bigger and better catepillar for the kids to harrass.

FRIDAY

I don't honestly remember what I did Friday except work and watch a movie. Plus I still don't know how to crochet.

SATURDAY

After staying up way too late the night before Christian reminded me that it was our turn to go and clean the ward building. I was EXHAUSTED so I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Christian tried to reach the person with the key so I thought maybe we were gonna get lucky. But EVEN LUCKIER Christian's brother Cletus had a key so we were able to perform our act of service. We spent our whole afternoon there cleaning. I think I probably should have taken pictures of it because anyone who knows me, probably doesn't believe me. But yes, we did it with kids in tow. Afterwards, I crashed and slept for a few hours before heading over to Andrew and Lisa's house for a BBQ. It was lots of fun. We all played outside and enjoyed the nice weather. We didn't stay out too late though since we knew we had to drive 3 hours at 6am to Virginia... that's right, this post ain't over yet.

SUNDAY

Finally! We woke up at 5:30 am and drove all the way to Virginia, just outside of Richmond. We were able to attend my cousin Kahea's baby's blessing. We had such a good time visiting with them. Despite everyone being exhausted, we were all in really high spirits. Afterwards we ate some really good food at Darryl's dads house and spent the rest of the afternoon. We didn't leave until about 5:30 that evening and got home just in time for bed time. On kind of a sad/frustrating note: While trying to hurry and get ready for church, I was cleaning out the car and throwing trash into a plastic bag. I realized last night that my glasses were probably in there. I unpacked and searched like crazy but they were no where to be found. I remember having a feeling that I needed to double check the bag that I threw away but I was in such a hurry. And then the "still small voice" kept telling me to go back and look in the trash can but I kept getting distracted with Mia, trying to pay attention. And a whole number of excuses that are not good enough. Anyways, my dear sweet cousin is going to try and find them for me today. I've prayed a lot and I really hope that we are able to find them. Anyways, here are some pictures of the fun times we had with my favorite cousin and her kids!

Tumbles

Well as most of you know how Kalea fell down the stairs a little over a month ago. It absolutely terrified me since I was at work and was not able to be there for her. She took 3 steps and fell the rest of the way... Luckily she only suffered a small cut on her head and nothing else. Well Mia had her turn this week. She fell ALL THE WAY down the stairs. She is fine also. She has some bruising next to her eye and scratched her finger up, but that is all. It has gotten to the point where I am terrified of my children even walking down the stairs now. I have to be with them every time and have pulled out the baby gate and made them stay with me unless they tell me they want to go up. Christian is going to install a child-sized railing for them to hold onto so it's not just a hand on the wall. I would really want to see our stairs get carpeted but we really don't have the money for that. Plus I know Christian is not thrilled with the idea. But I feel like carpet has more traction then just hardwood stairs. I've NEVER fallen all the way down on carpeted stairs. The carpet seems to give you a little more footing. I guess I'm just showing my frustration on here because this is our children's safety here. It's so scary to know that something worse could have happened to them both. They seriously could have been injured with broken bones, concussions, any number of things. Children can fall and die from a fall down the stairs. It just terrifies me and completely stresses me out. I want my children to be safe and sometimes I hate the fact that I can't protect them from everything.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!