Ready to Go!

I stayed home with Will so he could take a nap while Sterling took Ruthie to the Treehouse Museum this afternoon (his day off and our pass expires April 1st so we wanted to get some trips in). My plan was to put all our random papers (tax forms, insurance cards, things I've pulled out and haven't re-filed, etc.) away since there wouldn't be any kids around to terrorize my efforts.

I got distracted by thinking about how I should clear a space in our food storage room so that as I SLOWLY (ya know, the two toddler thing?, I'm thinkin' packing for an average of an hour a day is about what I'll be able to do) pack I'll have somewhere to put boxes. So I thought to myself, I should pack this bookshelf, then I can stack boxes along this wall. Which led to….packing my books.

I have given myself several lectures in my head about how we have to SERIOUSLY downsize for this move to Miami. We are sharing a moving van. We have amassed WAY too much stuff in this house (this is what happens when you get an incredible deal on a place to live and have a ton more room than you were used to). And I feel like it's time to de-junk anyway.

I've decided you can't de-junk books. Well, besides Sterling's shelf. I left that untouched in the hopes that I can DI them all…haha. So I have a few…maybe four…neat and tidy little boxes of books stacked along the wall.

I can officially say I'm ready to move to Miami. After looking longingly at each and every book that I have read at least three or four times (I only buy the books I REALLY love) I decided that my life would be complete if that is all that moves with us to Miami. I don't really need anything else.

I couldn't even give up my second copies of A Lantern In Her Hand (it's out of print) or Slave Dancer (I don't know why I have two copies, but it might come in handy) or Ender's Game (one for lending to people and one for staying on my shelf). I did find out I'm missing the 4th book of the Boxcar Children. I'm a little put out about that since I can see myself reading that out loud to Ruthie in a couple of years. She's also going to love my beautiful copies of Little House on the Prairie, the BFG, the Ordinary Princess, A Barrel of Laughs A Vale of Tears…oh yes, those books are definitely coming with us to Miami!

(PS Dad, I found your copy of the Citadel and All Things Bright and Beautiful and I will return them to you, thanks! Oh, and Wyatt, I pulled out all your P90X so I will get those to you too. I also found all the old Star Trek dvds that Sterling borrowed from a friend…we'll return those too. Anyone else think we have something of theirs that I should be looking for?!?! Haha.)

(PPS If anyone ever needs gift ideas Sterling and I need 1-3 and 7 of the Ranger's Apprentice. For some reason we own 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. Haha)

Newsy Monday

• Our biggest news first, we FINALLY heard back from the University of Utah. Sterling was wait listed, or placed on the alternate list. Sterling has actually been MORE excited about Miami's dual degree program, but obviously the $$ we'd save staying at the U would have been nice. There is still a chance that someone will decide not to go to the U before the start date, and in that case, depending on where we sit on the list, we'd have a chance to go to the U. The issues we foresee with that is that Miami starts two months earlier (because of the masters classes for the dual degree) and that is when most of that movement happens. If we're already in Miami, and Sterling has already started school, you actually can't switch. I, for one, am REALLY excited for Miami. Sterling is also really excited about the program and the sunshine and really, if not for the extra expenses, I think we would have chosen Miami over the U anyway. Stupid money. The fun thing about knowing this is that I can start planning--which is such a relief! The last couple weeks I've been watching all the other med school couples making steps towards moving and making decisions and I have been itching to start too!
• In other, not as big of news, I found some GREAT deals on maternity tops at Kid to Kid today. I love it when you get some really nice, brand-new looking, $40 tops for a mere 6.99. I went in there looking for some blue jeans for Ruth and a couple t-shirts for Will. No luck in either department. I did, however, see a Puma track jacket in Will's size that was the most adorable thing in my life. I was good and didn't buy it. I'm already sad about it. 
• Continuing with the news, my brother-in-law Jared turned 40 and my sister threw him a big surprise 70's themed party. I won FIRST place for costume! (I do have to say, I didn't realize I was sucking up to the judges when I wore my mother's old dress and boots from the 70's, I had no idea she'd be judging!!!) Sterling looked pretty stellar in his super tight plaid pants, but I do have to say my brother Wyatt took the cake. He looked like Chip off Napoleon. It was awful. I liked it. We were ALSO on the winning team (all the games had points) and that was pretty awesome too. I was supposed to see how many free throws I could hit out of 6. I was 0-6. It was a little bit more than embarrassing(especially since my current boss-I'm covering a maternity leave in Morgan-was on my team). I can't believe my skills have gone down that much. In my defense, I hit the rim or board almost every time. And I can do over 20 boy push-ups, while pregnant, which is more than any of my sisters--except for maybe Megan, who did not respond to the poll on our family website. I actually did that many push-ups just a couple weeks ago at a Relief Society Olympics activity. There was a 9+ months pregnant lady on our team and then a bunch of 70+ year olds. So I pretty much did every single one of the active events. I did them. And then I was sore for a week after. Sigh. I really should start working out.
• Now that I have rambled long enough to drive anyone crazy, here are some pictures:

Andrea took these, and she got a LITTLE crazy that my camera takes pictures so fast. So crazy, that this one with Sterling's head cut off is one of her best. And somehow, sadly, we didn't get a picture of Wyatt. I sure hope someone did, because it was amazing, really!

See how huge I am already? This third baby thing is no joke. Mom said she wore this dress when she was pregnant with Andrea. 

Too bad you can't see the plaid of Sterling's pants that well.

There were really some stellar costumes. It was great. And it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't add a couple ADORABLE photos of my little man!

He thinks standing up is a ninja move. Haha!

Haircuts, Dyes, and 19 Weeks

Okay, so this post should really be three posts, but as always I'm lazy and you might as well see our last week all in one place, right?!?!

On Thursday night I was giving Will and Ruth a bath and decided that Will's hair was DEFINITELY too shaggy and so I pulled him out and cut it right then. Now I'm sad. But I do love his hair cut. It's a torn feeling. His hair wouldn't do anything but lay flat on his head, so I wanted it shorter so I could spike it up. He did have a lot of hair-enough to fill our dust pan over flowing! At the same time, now he looks SO BIG! Sigh. I think it's cute but sad every time I look at him.

I don't think he understands that we are all cheering because we want him to WALK, not just because he is a handsome devil standing up on his own.

See that bruise by his eye? It has now darkened to a deep blue and purple and spread to his top eyelid, making for some awesome eye make-up. Poor boy. Playgrounds with 2 yr old sisters can be a little rough.

Oh my handsome boy. I just love you SO SO SO much! (Especially that funny grin right now that shows your molars and the spaces where your canines should be.)

His haircut led to cutting Sterling's hair, so I took a picture of both my menfolk-but Will wasn't totally enthused about the idea.

On to 18.5 weeks. I have definitely poked out MUCH sooner than with my first two kids. Although, I can still do up one pair of my regular jeans and if I wear a hoodie nobody can tell I'm pregnant. But in a skirt and tight shirt-it's getting somewhat apparent. It always FEELS like you are bigger than you are. Then I see pictures and realize that if I wear anything somewhat loose, you can't tell. But hey. Still fun to document. Fun things about being this far along:

I'm not sick

I can feel this girly kick ALL the time

I'm not sick

Did I mention I'm not sick?

Hallelujah.

 It should be mentioned that to get the two pictures shown above, Sterling took about TWO HUNDRED (no joke, I had to go through and delete them) because he got a little camera happy. He hasn't used my new camera very often and he was a little hyper and a little excited that you could take pictures so fast. It made for a lot of crazy pictures. Haha.

And on to the third post of this post: I dyed my hair. For the first time in my life. I wanted to get some red. Sterling wanted me to go platinum blonde--completely. Silly guy, I told him that would be ridiculous. He held firm. I compromised and did a little of both--although I wish there was more red, and that I had gone a little more vibrant red (the stylist talked me out of it cause she thought it wouldn't take that well, but then it took beautifully and she said she should have thought of the fact that I'd never dyed my hair before, because apparently that helps).

I also chopped a good two inches off. At first I was a bit sad. Now I am on day three of not washing my hair (I have started using dry shampoo, and I am in love, seriously Sterling thinks it smells better on day three because of the dry shampoo smell) and this morning all I did was  brush it and it looked exactly like these pictures---and I remembered how EASY this cut is for me and I am so glad I cut it.

 I didn't want a super crazy dye job, not because I didn't WANT it, but because I knew I didn't want to upkeep it. So she didn't dye the top layers of my hair so they lay nicely over the colors and make it look like there is hardly any dyed hair at all--plus it covers up the roots so it can grow out forever and never need a touch-up. 

On the flip-side, all I have to do is pull my hair back with a bobby pin and get some fun color popping out all over the place! I really, really like it. More than I thought I would. This morning I purposely bobby pinned it back to show as much color as possible.

See? Put it all down and you can barely tell it is dyed. Although with the layers in the back you can always see it back there.

 And to add more craziness to this post, here are my cute kids in the van:

Will does this new thing where he fake laughs. It is seriously the FUNNIEST thing in my life. He opens his mouth SUPER wide (see below picture) and makes a little laughing/coughing sound. Then we all laugh hysterically so he does it again and again. 

Ruth told her nursery leaders twice yesterday that she had to go potty--yay! When they got me the second time they found me in the chapel (it was ward conference so we were combined) and Ruth told me the whole story of how she said she had to go potty, and they told her they had to find her mom 'in sacament' and then she saw me and then we went to the potty! It was such a long story, with all her steps, and such big words (I mean, sacrament?!?!) I just couldn't believe how grown-up she sounded!!!! Oh my kids are the greatest. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Around These Parts

I got on here because I wanted to post something while I waited for my ice cream to melt enough that I could scoop it (I usually try to keep ice cream in our chest freezer because it is easier to scoop, but it got put in our fridge-freezer and then it is horribly solidly frozen). While that is being remedied, here are some items that have been happening around our house:

Our house thinks that it is spring and we have these beautiful tulips popping out in our front lawn:

In other news, Sterling let me buy a new hard drive today. The one we had was SUPPOSEDLY mac and pc compatible. What a joke. After much trial and tribulation, I decided it wasn't worth my time to deal with it anymore. So we got a hard drive that is solely mac compatible, as well as double the space (yay!). You have no idea how happy this makes me. We had Stake Conference this Sunday and one of the talks was on goal making. My goal is to have Ruth and Will's baby books caught up before I have this baby. But due to the hard drive issue, I was not making much headway because the basic file saving and organizing was such a hassle. Hopefully now I can spend a couple weeks organizing and putting four years worth of pictures onto the mac hard drive, and move on at a much more rapid pace. The idea is also to get up in the morning BEFORE my kids wake up to work on it (on days I don't work) so we will also see how that goes. Gotta utilize the time I'm not feeling sick before another baby creates havoc in our lives, right? (a very, very good kind of havoc)

On a completely different note, Sterling and I went with my sister Megan and most of her kids to see Disney on Ice with Ruth. It was really good. I liked Ariel's part the best--which is funny since she isn't usually my favorite. Ruth was ENTHRALLED. She had a little antsy moment before intermission, but mostly she sat and watched and got very concerned when the princesses went behind the curtain--where'd they go? haha. Devaney and Ruth in their suitable princess attire:

Our cousin Clay's son Isaac was baptized on Saturday and so I had some fun french braiding Ruth's hair. I can't believe how well she sits, or how long her hair is getting! But getting a picture….wowza, she was not having it.

This is when I promised her chocolate if she smiled.

This was her pretty hair.

And this face...

And this one????

Although she does look really precious in this one.

The only other real news of note is that my parents got a dog. She is BEAUTIFUL and she has the SOFTEST fur imaginable. You just want to bury your whole face into it. This picture of Jack and Roxie made me think of Wyatt and Dolly.

We have also watched Frozen. I am now a huge fan. I LOVE every little bit of it. But mostly Olaf. I think he is the best side-kick character that Disney has ever come up with. Every thing he did and said made me laugh out loud. I am definitely pregnant though because I cried through the first half and then laughed so hard I was almost crying through the second half. Sigh. It really is a stellar movie though.

Now, back to my ice cream...

One Girl, One Boy, AND….

I am seventeen weeks (ish? I always tell myself I'm further along then I am and then I lose track) and so I wasn't technically scheduled for an ultrasound. Luckily, my doc took pity on my impatience and let me have a quick one this morning so I didn't have to wait another three weeks. Positively, absolutely, it is a……

GIRL!

I couldn't be more excited, of course! I can't wait to go back to Target and buy a matching dress with the one I just got for Ruthie! Too bad ultrasounds aren't in color, but I'm guessing this girl has brown hair and brown eyes. 

This looks a lot more clear in real life, but look at that cute little profile!

I couldn't pass up this picture. I don't know why I love it so much, I'm not even usually a big fan of ultrasound pictures. But that tiny little leg! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! I just want to touch it and hold it and see it! 

We have a pretty easy time agreeing on girls names. Much, much easier than boy names. We're pretty positive this girly will be Molly Fay. Sterling LOVES the name Molly, and as he has often pointed out, it fits all my criteria: Gender specific, easy to pronounce, and an obvious spelling. Fay is my mom's middle name and I think it goes really nicely. I've already started teaching Ruthie that she's going to have a little sister named Molly. So…we could pull a Will and change it the day we have her, but that's the idea we have now. :)

Cutest Kids Alive

 It has already been expressed on this blog that my kids are the cutest. They are. But these pictures are especially cute. It should also be noted that Will looks especially big. And that makes me especially sad.  Sigh. 

Will's new trick of standing up for unlimited amounts of time accompanied with loads of giggling and lots of clapping by the audience:

There has never been a cuter picture. Those dark eyes. Those red cheeks. Those funny teeth because he has his molars and not his canines. That perfect smile. He's so handsome. Oh my little man, I just love you to pieces!

This is probably the cutest picture I have ever taken of the both of them together. Will is standing up, so he doesn't look all squished, Ruth is being nice and not choke-holding him. They both are looking at the camera. Will's car is not the greatest, but that couldn't be helped. Oh I have the two cutest children alive.

Siblings. 

And just so you aren't deceived that these two are as angelic as they look…let me tell you about what happened AFTER the pictures. Sterling worked, so I was flying solo at church today. I had to use the bathroom too many times and it is really difficult to take both kids with you into a stall! Then I told the nursery leaders Ruthie had panties on and that I couldn't come back for an hour cause I'd be teaching. She had an accident. I had extra clothes-but not a church outfit. So she wore a pink-striped long-sleeve shirt under her dress without tights or socks. Sigh. Then Will's bottle leaked but I didn't notice. The front of his shirt was SOPPING by the end of Relief Society. So I took my half-clad children and left as soon as church was over. 

Thank you to the lady who took Will while I got Ruth cleaned up. And thank you to the lady who gave Ruth hugs when she banged her head and I was already trying to manage two bags and a baby in my arms. And thank you to the family who sat behind us and adopted Will when he decided to crawl back there and fed him and hugged him for the rest of Sacrament Meeting. 

Now…back to the cuteness of those pictures. My kids really ARE the cutest, bestest, greatest, most wonderfully beautiful kids alive. I'm so happy they're mine!

Rainy Days

I know we need the rain. But oh, these rainy days are not my cup of tea. At all. I saw a ray of sunshine on Friday morning and called my sister to go outside and get a walk in. But it was windy. And it was a cold wind. She chickened and said we had to go indoors. So we headed to the Hill Aerospace Museum. Ruth had a lovely time. 

Harriet and Ruthie

 K, those little aviator outfits have got to be THE cutest things on their little bodies! 

This lady had Ruth hold one end of a light bulb and then touched a thing on the table to make the light bulb turn on in their hands. Ruth thought it was pretty cool.

Ruth wanted to touch it too!

My sister squishing' her babe.

Cutest boy ever.

Remember how these two are three weeks apart? That's kinda crazy.

Cute picture of Oskar.

Will liked pushing this massive toy barrel around.

Most of the simulators were for ages 8 and over, but Ruth got to sit in a couple and she thought it was pretty awesome.

My sister, Andrea, and Harriet.

Those blue eyes and that blue suit. Looking good Eli!

She didn't really understand this simulator but she though it was interesting anyway.

It looks like Ruth is her little assistant. Love it.

The instructor was teaching Emeline about…some kind of force???…and I caught this picture right as she pulled her arms in and started to spin SUPER SUPER fast. It was awesome. She was a little unsure. Haha.

Emeline was also the brave one who said she would be electrocuted. Several times. Then she conducted the electricity…and her hair stood on end! It was pretty fun stuff. 

This little one is pretty much the cutest little girly girl there ever was. I got her out of the house without a skirt on (we only have so many!) but not without pink.

It was actually a pretty awesome little place--I had no idea that the aerospace museum had a children's room with so many activities! We also looked at some planes, but not many. When we got there the children's area was only open for a little bit longer, so we headed straight to that and then the kids were pretty done when that area closed. It's ok, luckily it's an awesome free activity that we can go back to again and again. Although, not multiple days in a row. So rain, can you please stop? That would be great. Or maybe just rain every night so we can get out of this drought but I can get outside with my kids? Please? Sigh.