Summertime

Our weather has been a little crazy lately (lots of rain, and even cold, then to 90+º and a whole lot of humidity) but it is definitely summertime! (unlike in some places... sorry to my sister Emily in Idaho, where they've recently had snow...) We took advantage of the mostly nice weather (and half-price Tuesday) to go to the zoo the other day. The kids really enjoyed it, but I didn't get too many pictures. Jaina wasn't feeling top notch, apparently, because she chose to ride in the stroller most of the time, but Reilly was a trooper as we navigated through the 21 school buses of elementary school children to see some of the animals. It was fun, and we'll have to do it again sometime soon. Preferably after school is out...  I'm always a little torn at zoos. I love seeing the animals up close, and showing them to my kids, but I wish they didn't have to be in the zoo, epecially one this small, that only has so much room and funding. Still, the baby giraffe was so much fun to see, and there was a very friendly (I think he was hoping we had brought his breakfast) porcupine, too!

The other night we were outside and Jeremy took pictures of all of us. These are some pretty typical faces these days for Jaina...

And here's me at 35 weeks pregnant... 3-5 weeks to go, depending on if my blood pressure behaves itself this time around or not...

Keeping Busy

We have been a little crazy around here the last two weeks. These two are constantly busy, and I feel like I spend a lot of time feeding them, cleaning up after them, and helping them clean up and exchange toys!

I have also been trying to get a few projects done, one of which is this car seat canopy. I was going to make two: one boy-ish and one girl-ish. When I was finished with it, I was really glad I had gone with gender neutral instead. It wasn't hard, but was a lot of work, it seemed like! Let's hope the baby likes it!

There has been a lot of enthusiasm about puzzles around here lately. The kids enjoyed doing one with daddy the other night, and they do a few every day. Jaina can even do the 24-piece ones we have mostly by herself now!

Needing a distraction, traveling, and having a little extra time spent sitting around waiting for patients in Palmer's main clinic, Jeremy managed to read his way through the entire Harry Potter series over the last few months. Here he is finishing the last book while Reilly watches a movie...

That's it for now! We've had baby showers and yard sales, appointments, BBQ's, and all sorts of other things to keep us busy, but we don't get pictures of everything (thankfully)... There's a trip to the zoo and a few pictures we took the other night to add in here in a few days... For now, here's Jaina sporting a schnazzy 60's hairstyle early one morning, and Reilly enjoying some lunch. :)

Five Years and Going Strong

Five years ago today I married my best friend. I know, it sounds cliche, but he really was. I remember while he was on his mission and I was at BYU, I could imagine myself marrying someone else, but the thought of not getting to have such a close relationship with Jeremy (and not getting to see him all the time) as a result just made me want to cry. I was so happy that things worked out between us and that I never had to give up my favorite person!
It has been a busy five years! Four houses (not counting living with my parents twice and his once), a cross-country move, a lot of crazy school, and almost 3 children later, here we are. And I'm so glad. I love you Jeremy, and I look forward to what the next five years brings for us!

Random Collection of Pics and Thoughts

Jeremy already started making comments about how our blog hasn't been updated in like a week. Doesn't he realize life just isn't that exciting around here? ;-)

So here is a pic I don't think I ever posted. It's 3 weeks ago (or so) and it was almost all the know pregnancies in our ward, in order of due dates (all between early May and August). We took it at Jamie's (far right) baby shower. (She just had her baby boy this morning! Yay!) Since then there are two other people that should be added to lineup after Rachel, our August due date. I tell you, it's going to be a crazy summer around here!

Here is a sweet picture of Jaina sleeping with her true loves: her pacifier and The Elephant. With 1 o'clock church, we usually have success putting her down around 11 or 11:30, then have to get her up at 12:30. It's not much compared to her normal 2-3 hour nap, but it still really helps her make it through our 3-hour block!

Here is an awesome picture Jeremy took at the St. George temple during his 9-day trip there and Las Vegas. Sadly, there really aren't that many pictures, and I haven't actually found one with him in it...

Instead of "Las Vegas" souvenirs (like the D.C. ones), Jeremy visited the Disney Store and a Disney outlet and brought the kids a couple shirts and things from there. They were greeted with much rejoicing, and they are still excited about them. Somehow I haven't taken any pictures of any of their stuff though. So here are pictures of the shirt he brought me and the baby. We can put one of them in his/her baby book, depending on which gender we end up with. :)

The day after Jeremy got back, he had to go to class for about an hour in the morning, then he had a several-hour break. So I decided to take the kids to the park while we waited for him. Sadly, it had rained the night before and the equipment was pretty wet, though the ground wasn't bad. I managed to entertain them for over an hour by just walking around and talking to the ducks, squirrels, and flowers, but it wasn't easy. We did see the cutest duck family, and managed to get pretty close to them. I took this pic with my phone (for my mom, though I never sent it to her) - the ducklings were literally the smallest ones I've ever seen (even though they don't look like it in the pic...)

(Last part, I promise:)
This last Monday Jeremy didn't really have any classes, so we decided to try to make it to the temple one more time before I got too big and uncomfortable to be driving that far. We both did some initiatory, then took advantage of the beautiful day and Jeremy took the kids on a "carriage ride" while I drove around a bit and visited a site or two. Here is a pic I took for my dad (with my phone) of the new "Arrival Center." It's pretty nice!

After that we realized it might be the best time we would have to visit Carthage (we hadn't ever been in the almost-3-years we've lived here; I've never felt like we would be able to keep the kids quiet enough not to disturb others on the tour, and it is another 30-ish minutes from Nauvoo. Usually we don't have time for much but the temple) so we headed down (across? I got totally disoriented) the Mississippi to check it out. It was really cool, and the kids did as well as a 2- and 3-year-old could. I enjoyed getting to see it, and I'm glad we took the time. 

By the time we got home that night (at about bedtime) we were all exhausted, but it was a good day, and I'm glad we had the chance to go!

Update on Us!

I haven't been very good at blogging the last few weeks, but really, not that much has been happening that would be of any interest! Mostly I have a few random pictures to show first:

Here are the kiddos having a little picnic lunch during Conference...um... 2? weeks ago? It was probably 3 actually... We get that look a lot from Jaina...

Here are Reilly and Jaina in the dress and shirt Grandpa and Grandma Kerrigan brought them from their cruise! They are pretty cool, and though the dress fits a little big, if Jaina keeps growing at this rate, it could even be too small by the end of summer! I never know what size to get for her anymore...

(No comment on Reilly's hair or expression...)

Our kids favorite breakfast is cereal. Seriously. They almost always eat an assortment of Oatmeal Squares, Frosted Mini Wheats, and Crispix, with Raisin Bran Crunch recently added into the equation since Daddy introduced it.

Speaking of Daddy, Jeremy left last Monday night to spend time in Las Vegas touring an office or two, attending the NUCCA Conference, and hanging out with our friends the Noordas. He has been gone 8 days now, and we are so excited to have him back late tomorrow night! It has been a rather interesting week. It didn't help that our dryer decided to die a night or two before Jeremy left. We paid $40 for the washer AND the dryer 3 years ago, so we can't complain too much, but it's still an annoyance, especially when we have lots of rainy days like we've had lately. Thankfully there has been SOME sun, and I upgraded my "clothesline" to dry a few loads outside. I have to say that the only "clothes" I enjoy hanging out are the diapers. For some reason they're so much prettier than a load of towels...

My wonderful mom took 6 days out of her life to come visit us and take care of us for a lot of Jeremy's trip. We found some great prices on a ticket flying into Cedar Rapids, and it has been so worth it to have her here! The kids were so excited for her to get here, and thoroughly enjoyed all the attention and fun. The only damper in the week was poor Jaina, who ran a high fever Saturday and Saturday night. I'm having to chalk it up to teething, because she hasn't had any other symptoms other than being a little extra crabby lately... anyway, here are a few pictures from today, shortly before my mom left!

These kiddos are sure going to miss their Grandma!

This is what we had for dinner tonight:

I just couldn't resist; it sounded so good! (German pancakes)

And one more thing: Last week we took a few pics in the same dress Jaina wore LAST year for Easter (it actually fits now, and is almost too short) to compare to the one in the post below. Here they are. I can't believe how big she's getting!

Easter Weekend

Hey, I'm not quite as far behind as usual... :)

The Thursday afternoon before Easter weekend we suddenly decided to get out of town and go to Chicago for a few nights. It was a little crazy, and that is the first time I've done all the packing for everyone, by myself. Normally it would just be a little stressful, but doing it while pregnant was a little intense... We left town about 5:30 pm and pulled into Chicago (well, Glenview, about 2 blocks from the Chicago Temple) at nearly 9 that night. Of course our kids were all keyed up and had a hard time getting to sleep that night. We did have a nice 2-room suite that Jeremy scored on Hotwire, in a really nice hotel. Here are some pics from our hotel. The inner courtyard (above the lobby) was really awesome.

We went with some friends, and had the opportunity of doing a temple session together, while they watched our kids Friday. (we watched theirs later in the day) It was so nice - I really don't remember the last time we were in a session together! Friday evening we took the kids back to see the temple (they had been asking and asking!),

visited an LDS bookstore, and ordered Giordano's Chicago-style pizza.  After that we walked around an amazing electronics/appliance store called ABT. Pretty awesome. We were sad to learn it was a stand-alone store. We probably could have spent hours there, even with the kids. They even had a huge fishtank, which the kids thought was pretty cool. We drove home the next morning, not quite in time to catch General Conference. Thankfully, we have to watch it on the Internet anyway, so we just started really late...  

Easter Sunday we had a fun breakfast of Aebleskivers (pancake puffs) and cinnamon rolls (not homemade), talked about what Easter is really about, and then let the kids get dressed up in their new Sunday clothes and hunt for Easter eggs outside. They had a pretty good time, even if it was a little cold!  I think Jaina was slightly traumatized when I took her candy away after she had six or seven pieces. I've made a mental note to find different things to fill some of the eggs with next year... The are actually still working on their Easter bunnies. :)

Here is a picture of them on Easter last year (when we were in the Twin Cities for the weekend):

And here are pictures of them last Sunday! (they were better at posing last year, apparently...)