May.

I am never going to catch up. Though I really should. The other day Jeremy asked me if I was "digitally nesting" because I had the sudden urge to get Katy's first-year scrapbook at least mostly done before this next baby arrives. I was scrapbooking like crazy (since I have to do our whole family scrapbook pages, then draw from that to make up Katy's book) and I'm currently in April of 2011, where she's about 10 months old, so we're getting there...

Anyway, May.

Not much happened, again. Mostly because on a good day, this is still how I looked. (You know it's a good day because I have real clothes on, and I've relocated from bed to... anywhere else.)

Now that the morning sickness is more or less (unless I eat very much salad or chocolate, or don't get enough sleep) gone, I can look back and just be relieved it's over. At the time it never feels like I'm going to survive like this for days, let alone months. Seriously my biggest fear during it all was getting through all that yuckiness and then miscarrying or something, knowing I couldn't purposefully put myself through that again anytime again in the near future. So grateful everything seems to be going fine!

I did manage to get the kids out once a week or so (and Jeremy tried to get them out 1-2 times as well). It was nice that Reilly and Jaina were still in school during most of the first trimester. Even if it was only half-day kindergarten and pre-school 3 times a week, it kept them from going too stir crazy.  We made it to the Kid's Club at Superstition Mall (Thursday mornings) a couple times, too. They loved that they got a free carousel ride. :)  (Sorry for all the phone pics - they don't turn out that great...)

We did make it down to Pima the first of May for my sister-in-law's baby shower. The car ride was fairly rough, even with all the zofran, but I'm glad we went. I haven't been there for a shower for any of my nieces and nephews yet (because we've lived out-of-state so much) until now! It was fun to see everyone. :)

I'm really struggling to remember what we did for our anniversary. It was number 8! I can't believe we've been married 8 years! (or that we have almost 4 children...) I'm sure we did SOMETHING (maybe Jeremy remembers) but I'll bet it wasn't terribly exciting. Maybe next year. :) The 10-year celebration is going to be great!

The only other big event that happened in May was Reilly's kindergarten graduation. I don't think I had one of those, but apparently it's a thing now. It was basically an end-of-the-year program with some little diplomas and hats thrown in. Quite cute. :) Jaina was at her last day of preschool during it, so she is missing in the pictures.

More April Adventures

The second week of April Reilly's school had their "Spring Sing." They did a Disney theme, and all of the classes did a couple songs (Not too bad, since there's only one class per grade) plus a few special instrumental numbers. It was a beautiful evening, and they were handing out free popcorn and snow cones. His charter school's campus was closing at the end of this school year (after 19? years) so this year's Sing was a big deal. We weren't too emotional, since we'd only been there about 4 months, but at that point I was still super stressed about WHERE my kids were going to go to school the next year. Anyway, the songs were fun. What the kids lacked in beauty (singing-wise), they made up for in enthusiasm. If you're really, really, really bored, here is the Youtube video of a few clips from the night. (I put it up for Grandmas; Reilly's class is at 1:24)

Other fun happenings in early April:  We got a juicer, which we've been using several times a week ever since. Jeremy has mostly taken over the juicing, and he has been doing his best to boost our immune system with all the fun combinations he comes up with.

We finally painted some frames and put up a bunch of "ancestor" pics that we've talked about off and on for years. Plus, we got a plant at Ikea several months ago that was -really- outgrowing its pot, and I just finally re-potted it in this nice big red bowl.

 Jeremy built a tent with the kids one evening and they watched a movie in it. They thought it was pretty awesome, and a day or two later, Jaina and Katy made their own version of a "tent..."  They spent a lot of time together while Reilly was at his afternoon kindergarten. Another picture of where they found our little Christmas tree (that somehow escaped being packed away with the rest of the decor) and decorated it with their My Little Pony stuff. They were very proud.

Also, it was about this time that we found out we were expecting in December. I knew that before long I would be pretty sick, so we tried to fit a couple things in before that happened. One activity we had been putting off was a trip to the Phoenix Zoo. A random sweet lady I met at a Barnes & Noble once had given us two buddy passes to get in free, and we also got Culture Passes from the library, that gave us two more free admissions. And since Katy was still under 3, we all got in for free! It's probably a good thing, because in April it's already pretty toasty, and my kids weren't super impressed with the heat, the hills, and the lack of animals that were out. It was still a spring schedule, and the zoo didn't open until 9 or 10. We were there close to opening, but lots of animals were already out of the heat, sleeping. There was so much walking for not that much to see! It made me miss the Niabi Zoo we would always go to when we lived in Iowa. It was like $5 to get in (half price on Tuesdays), had all the "good" animals, was flat, and wasn't too much walking. It was perfect for toddlers/preschoolers!
But we still had a good time and saw some neat animals. The elephants weren't interested in being looked at, the one orangutan was entertaining, they got to see some really tiny monkeys pretty close up, the giraffes were neat, and they loved the Little People farm playplace. The petting zoo only had goats, but they enjoyed petting them, and enjoying the washing stations (for their hands) even more... I don't think we'll be hitting the Phoenix Zoo again anytime soon, but when we do, we'll probably try to go in the winter months. (I should add that we realized our stroller's tires were flat soon after they took this picture of us, and we had to take it back to the car. Katy, especially got overtired from all the walking in the heat...)

And a few more fun shots. The one of Katy is her being in trouble for getting into my make up...

Girl Time (April 6th-7th)

Jeremy has some appointments down in the Gila Valley on the Saturday of General Conference, so after watching a little bit of it with us, he took Reilly and drove down there. So Jaina, Katy, and I had some fun watching Conference together, shopping the half-off sale at Goodwill, eating out at Texas Roadhouse (since I had some free kids' meal tokens), and having ice cream. I'll let you guess which was their favorite.

We also made a huge mess of the family room. Well, most of that was me, because I got out all of my old paper-scrapbook stuff to finish off a few long-neglected pages that I couldn't digitally for whatever reasons. (Mostly professional pictures we had had taken.) We're talking 4-5-year-old stuff.  But every time I get all that stuff out (usually at Conference time) I remember what a crazy-ridiculous mess it was, and how frustrating it was to get anything done, and I am so grateful for digital scrapbooking! (Even if I'm about 2.5 years behind there as well... working on it!)

Sure do love my girls!

Easter Weekend Eggstravaganza 2013

Jeremy's parents, sister, and our niece came down to spend Easter with us. We had a great time! The day before Easter we got together with Jeremy's Aunt Nicole and her family for a birthday celebration at Chuck E. Cheese over on the other side of town. Our kids hadn't been to their favorite birthday hangout in at least 6 months, so they were pretty excited. After we had had our fill of fun, we drove back home and had some quick dinner, and after that Nicole and her boys rejoined us for an egg-dying frenzy. There were SO many eggs involved! Jeremy had even put together some natural dyes (from different foods like red cabbage, coffee, turmeric, etc.) that we tried out. That was fun.

Easter morning the kiddos all got their little baskets and put on the cute clothes Grandma had bought them the day before. We managed to get a couple pictures in before we left for church. It is -so- hard to get a picture of all of those kids smiling/looking at the camera at once! It was a pretty day outside, and not too hot, though, which was really nice!

After church they had a little egg hunt with a bunch of the eggs they had dyed the night before. I think they did it at least four times, and we were careful to keep those eggs separate from ones we might actually want to eat over the next few days...

Monday was even more excitement! I think since the year year BOB turned into Chase Field, Jeremy's dad has gone to the Opening Day game. And if we're in the state, he's always tried to take us all with him. This year the kids were all a little older and the weather was just right, and it was a little nicer than when we went 2 years ago (when Katy was a baby, and it was super cold!). The kids' favorite part was riding the light rail and all the snacks, I think, as well as the playground. Oh, and the fact that some of their favorite people, JR and Jenny, got to come with us too... I think Reilly was the only one that enjoyed the game itself. The poor kid (with his non-sporty parents) has very little idea of how everything works, but he was happy to cheer for the Diamondbacks whenever anything good happened! The game was kind of a late one, and by the time we got home, everyone was a little exhausted. Fun times though, and good memories!