the last two weeks

So a lot has happened in the last two weeks.   Let me catch you up on our life.  We left off at Amos' birthday party.

The next day was a big one for us as Jason preached at our church!  The week hadn't left much time to for him to prepare as we had a bunch of house stuff come up and getting ready for Amos' party on Saturday.  The Lord was faithful, as always, and used Jason to share His word with our church!  It was wonderful!

After that, we sent the boys off with Nana and Papa and got ready ourselves to head on our mini-vacation to South Dakota.  Because Jason hadn't got to go with us to California, we decided to do a mini-vacation together and he chose South Dakota.  I think he knew that the only place he was going to get me to hike in the summer was somewhere cooler!  We stayed at a B&B in the Blackhills, had wonderful food, and made it over to the Badlands.

Check out our fun!  I think I took more pictures of just Jason and me than I have since having children.

 Our hike to the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Great Pyrenees - Harney Peak.

 Jason collected rocks for the boys along the way!

 The hike was so picturesque.  Every time you turned you saw a different landscape.

 We're almost to the top!  Our exhausted face pictures.

 That night we headed into a little town to enjoy the highest rated restaurant there.  Their menu consisted of the filet mignon wrapped in bacon and that was it!  Here's Jason enjoying dessert.  He gave me the option of walking around for a little bit or having dessert.  When I chose dessert he commented how much loves when I'm pregnant.  He has more icecream in his life.

The next morning we got to head east to the Badlands.  It's crazy to be driving along farming fields and then come to this:

 Baby #3 was at the Badlands.

 Jason doing a little more extreme exploring than this pregnant lady was prepared to do.

That night we dined at an Indian restaurant in Rapid City!  It was sooo wonderful.  It made me wish that we had something like this in Joplin.  Jason asked if they wanted to relocate.  Then we enjoyed a little of their downtown life with more ice cream.

Jason had been dealing with a cold the whole trip, that night he woke up coughing and couldn't go back to sleep.  Eventually I woke too and we decided to hit the road early - at 4:30 to be exact.  But that meant that after 15 hours on the road, we made it back to Lebanon in time to see the boys before they went to bed!  What a sweet reunion.

The next day brought a whole new adventure..  When we had left on vacation, things with our house selling seemed to be at a bit of a standstill and we feared we may be pushing the closing back even later.  However, Friday morning we got the good call from our realtor that, in fact, they wanted to move the closing date up, to the following Friday.  That meant we had to pack up the house and move out in 7 days.  I was torn between excitement and stress.  Jason thought it would be an adventure.  I don't think he has the same feelings now, 7 days later.

We were blessed with such wonderful help!  Not to mention three different places to store all our stuff.  Jason couldn't believe how much we had.  I must do a good job of storing it.  After lots of packing, countless loads, hours of cleaning, and a few last minute repairs, we were officially out of our home by 10:00 pm Thursday!

And here's the best news:  we are homeless! Ha ha!  But it's true.  It never felt like it was really going to happen until this morning at 10 a.m. when we signed the last paper.  Don't worry, we aren't living on the street.  We have another house under contract, and are living with my parents until that all finalizes.

We did squeeze in some fun time with the boys on Thursday.  They have been such troopers.  After being gone for a week on our mini-vacation, and then having different people watch them so we could get packed up, we could tell that they were feeling a bit unsettled too!  So we made Thursday our fun day and had Panera for breakfast, jumped to our hearts content at the House of Bounce, then went to Chick-fi-la for lunch.

They took good naps that afternoon.  Then we said goodbye to our house.  It was definitely bittersweet, just thinking about bringing them both home from the hospital here, and all the wonderful memories that followed.  Silas just started calling this place home.  But we are very excited for a new house with lots more room and all the memories to come.

The best is yet to come!

moose man turns 3

This was such a fun birthday!  Unlike his first and second birthdays, Amos has been talking about it for  a few weeks and looking forward to what he was going to do and who he was celebrating with.  He even had specific food and present requests.  In fact, the lucky boy got to celebrate twice.  With how the 5th fell this year, we decided to postpone his party until the 12th so that more friends could come.  But that didn't stop us from celebrating as a family on the actual date.

He woke up to balloons and really wasn't too sure what that was all about.

He quickly found the presents and thought it was time to open them up too!

Later, Nana and Papa and Grammy and Gramps surprised by coming for the birthday dinner and bringing presents.  What could be better than having both sets of grandparents (almost) all to yourself.

It didn't take him long to want to try out all his new stuff.

Per request, we had pizza and macaroni and cheese for dinner.  Followed by cake and homemade icecream.

But that wasn't the end of our celebrating.  After waiting a whole long week, we celebrated all over again.  Amos was OK with that.  Although he was a little disappointed when he found out he wasn't turning four at this party, he had to wait the entire year.

If you've been around Amos much, you know his bike is one of his favorite things. May have something to do with how much Dad likes bikes, but it made it easy to come up with an idea for his party.  We invited all his friends over for a bike race.

Here they are energizing up!

And here's different parts of the obstacle course race.

We are blessed by wonderful friends and family!

Happy Birthday Amos!  Stop growing up so fast!

1st Birthday

 2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

baby bump #3: week 22

Week 22 Stats:

You know its your 3rd baby when you have to get onto the computer to know what week your on.  I think with Amos, I always knew which DAY I was on.  That could be part of the reason why this pregnancy is going SO fast.

How big is baby: a spaghetti squash.  Seems big.

Maternity clothes:  Oh yeah, and now complete strangers know I'm pregnant.

Sleep:  Can't sleep on my stomach any more and can't sleep on my back.  Starting to have some hip issues

Best moment this week:  Celebrating Amos' birthday.  It reminded me how fast life goes by. 

Movement:  Some major kicks, but for the most part, still pretty small movements.

Food craving:  No real cravings.

Food aversions:  Every so often I'll get nauseous and everything will sound bad, but other than that, I don't have any aversions right now.

Gender: Still don't know the gender, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to wait until baby is born to find out.

Labor signs: n/a

Belly button:  Definitely still in.

What I miss:  Being able to breath deep.

What I'm not loving:  The come and go nausea 

What I'm looking forward to:  Vacation next week!  No picking up toys for at least 4 days!

What I'm loving:  Amos talking about the baby almost every morning at breakfast.

Milestones:  No major baby milestones, but we did get our appraisal on our house done this week.  Waiting to hear back and know for sure if we're moving!

our 4th of july

We headed down to the lake for some early 4th of July celebrating on the 3rd.  But after having so much fun, we decided to spend the night and hang out the next day.  Amos was excited about the big sleepover until it was actually time to go to bed.  Then he wanted to be at home in his bed.  With some coaxing, he made it to sleep, dreaming about jumping off the boat more the next day.

We only got to see some family in passing, but it was still nice to spend the days relaxing and eating too much good food.  The boys loved every bit of it.  Here they are being goofy in the cabin.

And we spent a lot of time on the boat and in the water.

 Silas will be ready to be a daredevil next year.  This year, he took it pretty easy.

silas john - 20 months

1.  We've read books together for a long time, but now he goes into his room by himself to look at books.  I'll go looking for him and just find him sitting on the floor surrounded by books!

2.  We'll leave this one open-ended, but it's funny how early certain traits present themselves.

3.  Just recently I threw a pillow in the bed with Silas.  He loved it and says "Pillow" every night.

4.  Not only his belly button, but anyone's he can see.

5.  Amos can hear his name spoken through a closed door, Silas can hear if someone is getting something to eat.  He's quick to be at your side asking for his share.

6.  Silas' favorite form of attack is the head butt.

7.  He's just starting to run.  Too bad it looks more like a speed-walker than a runner.

8.  This kinda goes without saying.

9.  I continue to be amazed by how quickly his vocabulary is developing.  Everyday he's using a new word that I didn't know he knew.

10.  I usually try to exercise while the boys are watching Sesame Street, but without fail, Silas will wander in and start helping or mimicking.  You should see this boy do a squat.

a baby and a beard

We had our ultrasound this week!  It's not quite as exciting when you aren't finding out the gender, but it was still fun to see Baby bouncing around in there and find out that everything looks perfect.  The ultrasound also confirmed that baby is measuring for a Nov. 14th due date.  That means I'm actually 20 weeks along.  Half-way.

Can you tell if we are having a boy or girl?  Baby didn't give us much to work with. Once the tech switched over to 3D/4D all she could get was the baby lying face down!

Something else is growing at our house beside my belly?  You may not recognize this man come November because he's planning on not shaving it off until then.  Wonder which will be bigger?  The baby or his beard?  Here's Jason on his 30th birthday with the boys!

Week 20 stats

How big is baby: as heavy as a can of pop and as long as a banana

Maternity clothes:  Not much variety.  So if you see me wearing the same thing all the time, try not to mention it.

Sleep: It seems like something different hurts every morning, but luckily it wears away pretty quickly.

Best moment this week: The ultrasound.  Jason came with me and then we went out to celebrate his birthday early while my mom and sister watched the boys.

Movement:  I found out that my placenta is on the front side of my uterus, which explains why I didn't feel this baby moving around near as early as I did Silas.  But movement really seems to be picking up now.

Food cravings: I just really haven't had much of an appetite recently.  

Food aversions:  Breakfast, ha!

Gender: If anything, the ultrasound made me more uncertain about the gender.  I had been thinking girl, but now I have no idea.

Labor signs: Nope

Belly button in or out: in

What I miss:  sitting on the floor without hip pain

What I'm not loving:  Bending down to pick up things.  

What I'm looking forward to:  We're taking a mini-vacation to South Dakota mid-July!  We've booked the B&B and everything!  

What I'm loving:  Amos coming up with ridiculous names for the Baby.  Wanka Wanka, anyone?

Milestones:  Half-way mark!