Spring Break-ers

We just got back into school after another almost 2.5 weeks off. It was pretty awesome in particular to have lazy mornings - a lot of times we wouldn't do any activities until the afternoon so we could slack and stay in pajamas all morning long! I'd say I let myself slack some in general, as I also don't have too many pictures. Josh was in Japan one of the weeks the kids had off so there was some definite big time slacking then! ;)

We had a few playdates with friends at parks and a bouncing place. We went to Scottsdale one afternoon to visit a library we hadn't been to before that I heard was neat and then treated ourselves to dessert at a well known, tourist-y spot called Sugar Bowl.

Before daddy left out of town, he took off a few days of work to spend with us. The first day we went out to breakfast and then the zoo for almost five hours!

The day after that we went out to lunch, went to a play place called Makatu's Island and then we even took them to "the junk store" (as the boys call it) to pick out a few pieces of candy. It's just a large, candy filled warehouse essentially. That was the boys' ultimate idea of a perfect day!

I took them to the movie theater to see Zootopia - so cute! We went to the San Tan mall (outside shopping center)  so we could browse at books and puppies. We also went to our close mall nearby so we could use some money for the Cheesecake Factory, yum!

The boys also got to spend some time with both their Nana and Grandmother. They spent St Patrick's Day with Nana, so they got to do some St Patty's and Easter related fun!

Digging for gold in green shaving cream

Coloring eggs!

Much more to the boys' delight they got to spend the NIGHT at Nana's house too! (mommy was excited because I got to have a little night out) That evening they had a glow-in-the dark egg hunt. I'm glad my dudes got to have some of this Easter fun since our holiday stuff is buried! :(

We had breakfast at the Chandler airport (one of our favorites!) before meeting up with Grandmother, where they got to go to some outside event a museum was putting on.

Another day Grandmother watched the kiddos some for us while Josh and I took care of some house business. They went to one of their favorite parks.

Other than lots of free time playing at home some too, that about sums up our break! We're *thisclose* to having our house ready for market. Three months of continuous work later!

Pregnancy update : Just started the second trimester, yay! The "honeymoon" phase of pregnancy as I like to call it, at least most of the time. I'm starting to notice a little bit of increased energy and less nausea...but still having periods of some. Hopefully it will continue decreasing overall. Another appointment next week (I'll be 15 weeks) and then I should know when our "big" appointment will be (next ultrasound to see the gender). I CAN. NOT. WAIT. It has been difficult to be patient since with both boys I knew the gender already by this point. Most of those close to me know that patience is not my best quality ;) I may have even done a little begging with my OB office to see if they would let me do an US next week. Alas...no...The boys have just made it known that they would like to come along the next time I go so they can see baby and find out what we're having, too! One big family party.

BIGGER News!

No, no, we have not sold our house. We are still working on our house even, not up for sale yet (we hope it will be this time next month). Getting there.

No, this news I think is even better and bigger than that - we are expecting! Yes, we decided our lives weren't crazy enough yet, and that there was much more cuteness we could leave the world with.

Our public reveal - just to clarify, the last basket color is purple, not pink. We plan to find out the gender the end of April! Also, notice the Lily flowers?...that was done with full intent to keep her memory with us.

We have known since January, but only this week revealed the news to the boys and our families (this would make me almost twelve weeks along, just nearing the end of the first trimester). For whatever reason I was feeling a bit more anxious this time around, wanting to wait until closer the end of the first trimester to be sure things were going good with baby. Since that was clarified this week, and because I'm starting to show and for other reasons, we decided to make it public news. How liberating! It's nice for everyone to know....to understand if I'm not feeling well, to understand not further committing ourselves to responsibilities, etc. It feels as if a weight has been lifted!

The boys seem excited. Unanimously everyone hopes for a little girl, according to the boys, because, "we haven't had one of those before", Josh because he knows I've wanted to have a girl for so long and because he too is ready to dote on a little gal. Do I even need to discuss the girl reasons for wanting a girl? The adorableness, nails, tea parties, Barbies! Not to mention I'm the only one in a sea of boys, it'd be nice to have a buddy. Ultimately, of course, a healthy baby is what we desire. If we have another boy, well, I know how those work too :) And ours are undoubtedly cute. The end of April can't come soon enough to know. I happened to know with Aaron pretty early because we were unable to hear a heartbeat, so they had to do an US at 13 weeks. I'm being told I need to wait until around week 20 to know the sex of this one.

So, needless to say, another reason we're moving forward with getting a bigger house. We want each child to have their own room, I want a bigger kitchen, perhaps a swimming pool, and a 3 car garage would be nice so that Josh has his own space for his woodworking leaving room for him to also park in the garage. All of that and hopefully also in the same area as we currently live :) Too much to ask? I'm hoping not.

Ideally we knew we needed to get started right away in hopes that we can at least be in a new house by the time baby arrives (oh, which by the way, is estimated to be September 20th!)  It would be nice to be settled and everything too, but at least moved. I hope the process somehow doesn't take as long as what I'm afraid it will be. Guess everything will just work out as its  meant to!

Yeah, 2016 has proved to be a huge year for us already with new things on the horizon. In some ways daunting, but exciting too!