Fun Weekend

We had a great weekend-it started Saturday morning, with the simple act of Nate sleeping in until 7:30am. Yay! I had a charity run/walk in the morning so I wasn't able to take advantage of it, but it was a good thing I went to the race. I was motivated by the rest of the runners to try and run some of the race-I ended up running two of the 3.5 miles. That was plenty. In fact, I'm still sore today. My last run was beginning of February so that probably has something to do with it (and the aches and pains of being thirty four weeks pregnant!) After the race the charity held a raffle drawing for different baskets of prizes and an iPad 2. Lucky me, I ended up winning the iPad! I was speechless. I had my sister and BIL walk me to my car to be sure I was protected ;) What a nifty toy. I haven't had a lot of time to download applications and play with the different programs but I'm super excited.

Later that day, my parents took Nate that afternoon so hubby and I could see a movie and have dinner together-and enjoy a quiet night at home! We picked Nate up the next morning. It was nice to get a good night's rest. The following morning I got some time to myself, got my haircut and then headed off to our Baby Sprinkle (shower) for Aaron! It was so much fun to celebrate Aaron with family and friends. Here are a few pictures--



My sister made a diaper cake--it had bottles,pacifiers,shampoo/lotion,washcloth and a gift card at the top. And of course diapers! :)


My sister also made these awesome cupcakes-recipe is from Magnolia's (a famous shop in NYC)



Super yum bruschetta


Awesome wine bar where the sprinkle took place


Socializing with friends



Chilling with my sisters



34 weeks pregnant!

Aaron is so loved, already! I can't wait to finish shopping for him. Also on the positive side: we're getting new carpet in our bedrooms this upcoming weekend,hooray! The house really needs it. I'm tired of steam cleaning our ivory carpet it feels like every other month-it shows EVERYTHING. I'm so happy we got carpet that matches our dark tile, I can't wait to walk on something softer as well. Then we can get Aaron's room ready. We also started to buy new shades/blinds for our windows-something else our house really needs to help keep heat and light out. So far we have Nate's playroom and the kitchen done but we'd like to do all the bedrooms and our great room too. I'll have to post pictures when things get more completed :)

I have been blessed the last two weeks to have Josh's mom watch Nate one day a week for four hours. I'm missing her now though-she is on vacation for three to four weeks. It has been a win-win situation for everyone! Josh's mom recently retired so I imagine she will be a huge help to me in the future. In some ways I think we planned having another child right as far as the age difference-but I'm bummed that Nate doesn't nap anymore or doesn't go to school, so that doesn't allow me to have much of a break. He also wakes up between 6-7am usually in the morning and Josh doesn't get home until 6pm, so that leaves me with a twelve hour day five days a week to keep him busy and occupied. I cherish the time I have with Nate,don't get me wrong, but especially now that I'm eight months pregnant, I wish I had some sit down/me time during the day. I'm too busy keeping him busy-partly because I'm feeling some early guilt about being more home bound this summer when Aaron is around and the weather is warm.

I could have Nate in school if he was potty trained...things were looking up in that area for a while but now he doesn't have interest again. He has a ton of interest in watching me go potty (mostly in public places,for whatever reason) but when we're home, notta. I don't pressure him much,but I wonder when that day will come when he snaps and is fully ready to embrace it. I'd love to have him in summer camps or other classes that allow me to drop him off. We're anxious on one hand and yet on the other we're thinking he could regress when Aaron is born anyway. We'll just have to wait and see, as frustrating as that can be. It would be nice not to have two in diapers!

We're also trying to work on keeping Nate in his room at night. We've gotten into a bad habit of letting him lay with us (poor us, just wanting some sleep). Some nights are fine and he doesn't even try- others take some coaxing and usually one of us laying with him until he falls asleep. Ugh. Another up and down coaster.

That's about the latest and greatest going on with our household!

A Day With Thomas!

This past weekend my parents and I took Nate to see one of his favorite characters-Thomas the train! The main point of excitement for the kids was being able to see Thomas the train in real life form and get to take a ride. We drove about an hour and a half to get to the railroad where the event was taking place. I ended up being so glad that we got there fairly early in the morning to do all of the other fun Thomas related activities before we did the actual Thomas ride around noon. It was such a busy and popular event, parking would have been hard to come by later in the afternoon (plus it was warm and you were almost shoulder to shoulder with people!) Nate is also a little shy around large crowds of kids-he'll usually stand back and watch them all rather than participate, so it was nice in the morning that we fairly had toys and activity areas to ourselves.

We started out playing with stamps, coloring, playing with train sets...and Nate's second favorite part of all, getting Thomas tattoos! Ultimately he loved seeing the actual Thomas train riding into the station and just wanted to sit and stare at it as it sat waiting for people to board/get off. There was an inside area where Thomas movies played and storytime took place every few minutes (I'm so proud of my little boy-he was the only one who sat still in his seat throughout the whole story!) He was so proud to show off his tattoos to any kids who would look his way.

The actual train ride itself wasn't too exciting-not great scenery or anything and the train just moved backwards a few minutes and then forward to where we started. We did however get the closest seats to the Thomas train and our seats happened to be in a comfy lounge area, so we didn't do bad! After the ride we visited the gift shop-oh so dangerous. Nate was a great boy inside there. It was so hard to decide what to get for him, there were so many fun things. Anything from Thomas umbrellas, lunchboxes, cards, bath toys, sunglasses, plates....you could get whatever you wanted in Thomas! I bought a couple things and my parents bought him a handful too. Nate didn't see the majority of what we got so he may find them later in his Easter baskets ;)

I was surprised he didn't pass out coming home from all the excitement. I was happy he seemed to have a good time and was still excited about Thomas this morning-playing with the balloon he got, wanting to watch Thomas videos...really glad we got him tickets to go for his birthday.

This photo album personalized with Smilebox

We were busy with this event while Josh was hiking in the Grand Canyon with friends from work. He had a good time overall, but not surprisingly came home tired and with sore legs and feet. He took a lot of great canyon pictures and even got to see some deer,a fox, squirrels and heard bats. I think it was an experience he might be interested in repeating-sometime :)

Goodbye, Charlie

No, our beta fish didn't take a dive off the deep end...today we gave him away to a good home (just as good as ours,anyway!) After some thought we decided to give him away to a friend we knew who wanted one and would continue to take good care of him. With only eight weeks left or so left until Aaron makes his debut, we're starting to re-evaluate some responsibilities. Unfortunately, we decided until the kids were old enough to take care of their own fish that Charlie needed to go.

I continuously get more shocked that time is passing us by so quickly. Eight more weeks! I'm now almost thirty one weeks along. I've been seeing a PA at my OBGYN office lately, and basically after my next appt in two weeks she would like for me to schedule the rest of my appointments with the doctors. Not for any medical conditions or anything, just to get to know them each a little-because within a month it's possible one of them will be there with me at 2am! What seemed like a slow start to the pregnancy hasn't turned out that way. If anything, I'm starting to get anxious to get Aaron's room finished up and everything cleaned,bought,etc. Here's a recent bump picture from last week :



Josh is leaving later this week for his hiking excursion to the Grand Canyon with some friends from work. As long as I'm not feeling crummy, Nate and I already have lots of plans while he's gone. In particular-on Saturday I'm taking him up north to Globe to see Thomas the Train! It's called "A Day with Thomas"-he'll get to take a 25 minute ride on a Thomas engine and then there's lots of Thomas related activities to do there. I can't wait to see his reaction.

Here are some other pictures from the last two weeks--


Jousting at the Rennaissance Festival-Nate enjoyed seeing the horses



Checking out the wooden toys with daddy


Intently watching the drum show



Meet The Creature--Nate is too scared to really pet or hold any exotic animals (that aren't dogs anyway!) so he preferred just watching the hen,bunny and guinea pigs from a distance



The view at the Arizona Diamondbacks spring training game-they have a gorgeous new training facility!


Barely got a few autographs (sorry, don't know the player!)



This is the life