Love Life!

Photo's from the photo shoot with Brooke's "magical, traveling dress" a non maternity dress that fit an 8 mo pregnant woman is magic in my book!!

I don't really feel like posting this week. But to be honest if I didn't I would be doing myself a serious injustice! We have had a memorable week in this house and if I don't write any of it down it will go to the wind and be lost forever. SO I am going to post about it!... at least the major parts of it!

Monday was fantastic. It started rough and slow. I mean painfully slow. You see we changed the clocks Sunday and let me tell you that my poor body and my poor kids were just not ready to adjust to the new schedule. But thankfully Natalie was there to help motivate us to start forcing our bodies into a regular schedule the way that we should be functioning. So after getting a very slow start to our morning and forcing poor Natalie to wait almost a full half hour for us to finish getting ready, Natalie, Jackson, and My girls and I all made our way to Denver to go to the Children's museum which was fantastic! The fire station renovations have finally been finished and the girls had a great time playing in there. Well, to be honest Eliza had a great time in there and would have liked to have stayed longer but both Alayna and Jackson were a bit freaked out by that area so we kept it short and found other things that were more interesting to them. Eliza played in the 'store' for a while of course and even got Alayna really involved in the play this time which was great to watch. In the bubble room Eliza has officially mastered the human bubble but managed to take out Jackson in the process leaving him with some serious soap in his eyes and one very wet shoe and sock. Whoops. I'm glad he was such a good sport about it! After that we played airplanes for a little while before giving in to the 'starving' children and taking them outside to play on the playground and eat a picnic lunch. After lunch we spent a good chunk of time in the 'babies and toddlers' area. That was the area that was everyone's favorite this time!

Eliza inside the bubble!

 Jackson and Eliza in the bubble... right before the 'spill' Alayna liked to watch but wouldn't get any closer than that!



Tuesday I had a baby appointment. It went well, everything seems to be on target, I am measuring about a week big currently which motivates me to want this little man to make a quick appearance before he gets too big!! But we also scheduled an ultrasound for next week to double check his size and position seeing as how we are on the home stretch for getting through this pregnancy. He still gets the hiccups at least once a day and must be enjoying his ability to put his mommy through different methods of torture. Most of them involve finding muscles that he hasn't had a chance to yet abuse and then kicks, stretches, and maneuvers them until I feel like I am begging him for mercy!
After my appointment I took the girls to Greeley for a brunch with some old friends. I had a great time socializing and the girls had a fantastic time getting to play with the other kids and of course all the animals (bunny, kitten, dog). That was a fantastic morning and then the afternoon was spent at the park of course!

Wednesday we went to Loveland and hung out with my mom. Ran some errands and worked on little things here and there. It was also Mike's birthday so Happy birthday to Mike, I am sure that Lindsay spoiled him rotten!!

Thursday was an interesting and perfect day all the way around. It did not go the way I planned but I hadn't actually planned anything so it was perfection at it's best! I took the girls to play over at the Mott's house for the morning. Bethany and I were figuring out baby shower stuff for next weekend and then we got to chatting.... some time in there we fed the kids and then continued chatting... sometime after about 6-7 hours of crashing at my friends house I finally loaded my girls up and took us all home. I fear I may have overstayed my welcome by the end of the day but boy was it ever the perfect day! Bethany is like a sister for me I don't feel all wore out from a conversation instead I feel rejuvenated and excited about life! That is a FANTASTIC feeling!

Friday was spent at home. It was the only day of the week that I think we spent more hours in our house than out of it! I managed to get snookered into taking the girls to the park again, but honestly who can resist 75 degree weather after all the cold of winter! The week of weather could not have been beat! the park was awesome and we didn't even stay very long! By the end of the day I could feel the week of non-stop running catching up to me and I was exhausted which also meant that the girls were also dead beat tired so we were all a bit on edge by the end of the day.

Saturday I told Ben I needed and break and took myself on a morning date to do some shopping for a skirt... (fail) that would fit my abnormally shaped belly and not make me feel like a balloon! Well 5 stores later I came home slightly deflated and without a skirt or dress that could cover the belly. Ben managed to fix the funny noise coming from the car and check the breaks all while watching the kids (it's quite the feat, trust me... even Ben noticed how much harder it is!). When I came home kind of bummed Ben volunteered and took all of us girls over to Flatirons mall to look around and shop around for something that might solve my "I have nothing to wear because I'm too big" problem. HAHA... first off I couldn't get over the sticker shock of shopping at a mall and we only found one skirt that would work at all... much to my dismay that one skirt was $70 and there was NO WAY I was spending that kind of money on a skirt I need to get me through 3 weeks! So if I wear the exact same outfit to church for the next 3 weeks that is why. Don't judge! :-)
After our mall adventure we went to dinner and Eliza wowed her daddy by properly identifying a soccer uniform... I have no idea how that kid can tell these things with how little she has been exposed to it but she knows what most sports uniforms are and can properly identify them... it must be her daddy's blood coming through. That and her uncanny ability to identify cars and who drives 'X' kind of car. It is strange... but cute!

Sunday, it was an excellent day. The girls did well in church and have had a good day overall. Both of them are so tired they crashed in about 10 min of being in the house. Church was great and dinner with the Merritt's was fantastic! I am again reminded of what an excellent cook Diane is and hope that someday I can measure up to that kind of cooking... otherwise Ben is going to have to just suffer though my 'learning curve' indefinitely! poor guy. So that was the week here. I hope everyone else had a fantastic week too!

Pre-School

So it's been just a little over a week since my last post... this is good progress for me!
I am always amazed at how a week that really doesn't have a lot set in stone can be so incredibly busy. This week has been one for the record books. Early on in the week I had a good long time out in my head, one of those times that you really start to question your parenting and why exactly is it that I have periods of time that I don't exactly enjoy my children and the mundane parts of being a parent. When the thought of scrubbing one more floor, cleaning up one more spill, or picking up one more set of toys that have been scattered all over the floor makes me want to scream and cry all at once. Not to mention the sudden influx of extra grumpy and moody children... wait is it really them or just the raging hormones that is making their mommy extra moody?? None the less, I had this timeout in my head where while reading one of my friends blogs it occured to me that my children (and I) are changing, all the time. They go through phases of life different changes that make things more difficult and make me feel like I not only don't know my kid but I don't like the changes either.

So I set a new goal this week to get to know my girls again. Learn about them, their likes and dislikes and to spend more honest quality time with them. The easiest solution to this for me was to start some preschool at home. I started doing some internet research to find something that could hold both girls interest and would be simple enough that I would actually stick to the plan. Thankfully I found my solution! We are now working on the ABC's one day at a time and it takes a couple of hours a day. But because of this new effort I have found that all of us girls are much happier. Ideally we are doing 'school' 2x a day once first thing in the morning after we get dressed and once after naps. I tried doing it all at once in the morning but found that I completely lost the girls interest in the middle of it so now we split it up. Mostly we just do simple paper crafts but it sure has been fun for us! I am keeping the pages we do to make an ABC book for each girl that they made themselves!

 The A crafts:

Now that we have started preschool we have been much happier... That and the slightly bi-polar weather has really been helping us! Monday and Tuesday were beautiful we spent all day Tuesday outside playing at one park or another with just us and then with the Reedy's. The weather was so nice that even the wind calmed down for a little while it was wonderful! Much to my dismay I forgot how quickly you can get a sunburn in these parts and all three of us ended up with our base layer burn on Tuesday. From now on I hope to do better about the sunscreen for us!

The girls on the walk/park date #1, notice the shoeless child I see this as a sign for the rest of summer... at least until the ground can start burning her feet!

Wednesday was a good day as well.  Speaking of the bi-polar weather it got cold on us but that didn't really deter us from playing and having a good time. We went to Loveland that day and played there for a while. The girls and I did preschool with Aunt Heidi that day (it was fun, even if she wont admit it she loved it!) and other than that it was a really relaxing day.

Thursday the weather didn't get a whole lot better, but it wasn't terrible either.We did not get the snow they had anticipated, at least not that I ever saw. I made an early trip the to doctors office for Eliza who is now sporting a dual ear infection thanks to the awesome runny nose she has had. But thankfully those are quick to get over with the help of antibiotics!  We had playgroup over here at our house with the Mott girls they all had such a great time. Eliza was itching for some good friend time with how much we had been sick in the last few weeks it was great to have someone other than her sister to play with. They made the house into a bit of a war zone but it was worth every bit of fun that we all had together playing games and laughing with eachother! The clean up was easy too since it was all just toys that needed to be put away!

Friday was a difficult but big day for the Merritt household. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed... I mean that literally and figurativly. This baby boy sure is making me uncomfortable and I must have tossed around a lot after Ben left for work considering the position I woke up in. I was grumpy and moody but pressed on anyway. Eliza decided (again) that she really wanted to go get her ears pierced so I finally gave in. We made a day of it and I forced her through it when we finally got to the point of putting them in. She did really well and carried her earrings that she picked out around and showed them to everyone she was so excited about it... at least until she was sitting on the bench about to get them done. She panicked at that point and I was extra thankful for having Grandma there to help out because it required someone holding her hands down to get it done. She was pleased with them after the fact and has only asked once to have them taken out when I cleaned them the first time. I think she looks so adorable with them. We ask Alayna if she wanted to get hers done at the same time she looked at us like we were nuts and said no. And still tells us no every time Eliza tried to talk her into it. haha she's no dummy she doesn't want to tolerate whatever it is that is making Eliza so mad when we clean them! Someday when she changes her mind we'll act on that but until then I will relish not having to fight with two kids about cleaning!
Ben went snow caving with the scouts that evening and we missed seeing him before he had to leave with Eliza's now accessories so we sent him a picture!

Saturday was beautiful once again! The warm weather has reappeared and we are so thankful. We did preschool again in stages but it didn't work as well this time... must have just been the day but oh well we got it done. We are still trying to figure each other out (the girls and I) and how to make our schedules work together better. But we went for another walk, played in Grandma's back yard and then came home for lunch and naps. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and trying to not kill one another with all the mixes of emotion and exhaustion!

35 weeks.