Graduation picture

I was a little slow to get Avery's preschool graduation pictures, they've been ready for 2 months at least. But after finally getting them today I am so pleased with how it turned out. SO adorable, I just love this picture! :)

Jack and his Book of Mormon

Jack is currently sitting on the fireplace "reading" his Book of Mormon. He just realized that there are pictures in it and shouted excitedly "Oh, Mom! There are pictures in here. Look! It's Jesus Christ!" I loved that. 

Then he found a picture of Nephi and got excited again. Now he's jabbering about Nephi and Jesus Christ (never just saying Jesus) and Nephi's bad brothers.
I love him, and I love that he actually listens to us when we're teaching him. So sweet.

House stuff

Off and on for the last month or so we've been working on moving bedrooms around and trying to finish decorating them. Bedrooms are often last on our list and don't get much attention. So it's been fun to make them look pretty and finished. The boys room is 100% done as of today! Yay! (until I decide to add or change something else, that is!)

We've also been working on our bedroom, which is a lot of fun. We've never really picked colors for our room or hung things on the walls. In any of our places. Master bedrooms are supposed to be pretty and relaxing, a retreat, right? Now mine will be (soon, we're still working on it!)

The sewing room/baby room is last on the list, it'll take the most organization and set up. It'll be done before the baby is born.

So here are some pics of the boys room(somehow I don't have a before pic. weird. And some sneak peek pictures of our room. I'm very excited about our room! : )

This is a collage I'm working, frames are painted now I just need the filler. Also, I'm excited about spray painting our lamps! They used to be black, the yellow color isn't showing up quite right, it's kind of a dull mustard color. Sounds ugly, oh well.

Room should be finished by the end of the week, I'll post pictures of the whole room then. best part...all the frames cost less than $10!! woo hoo!

It's Official...

We have a Kindergartener! 

Avery had his first day of school yesterday, and I think he had fun! He loved recess and said it's his favorite, and the only thing he could remember besides that was lunch. Must have been good. His teacher seems super nice and I think he'll make friends pretty quickly. Later in the day he did remember that he went to PE and the library. Maybe his memory will improve!

It was much easier for me than I thought, I made it through dropping him off before I cried at all. Jack and I distracted ourselves with a morning of shopping, that seemed to work out pretty well. We'll try not to make a habit of it! : )

I think for Avery the biggest adjustment at first will be nap time. He still takes a nap at home and I soon found out that "rest time" was not enough to make him happy and rested for the evening. There were several melt downs, it was sad. Sonic and a trip to the library and Daddy's office helped a little bit.
Today was better, but I made him rest with me when we got home. I'm sure he'll get used to it, it'll just take a bit of time.

The other cute thing is that he slips up and sometimes refers to teachers and the principal as "Brother" or "Sister" so-and-so. I guess we'll have to talk about the difference between church and school, so the teachers don't get confused or think we're crazy! : )

I miss my boy while he's away, but I'm glad to know he's having fun and that he gets to come home every day!

"Back" to school night

Last night was the Kindergarten back to school night at Avery's new school. We loaded up all his school supplies and headed over. I was more nervous than Avery I think.

He got to pick his spot at the table, there are little cubbies underneath his supplies are in. His class room is super cute, and his teacher seems really nice. We also met the principle, and walked around a bit to see where everything is and where we drop him off and pick him up each day. He loved it, and is so so excited to go to school next week.

Somehow I also signed up for volunteer positions in his classroom and parties, and joined the PTSA. not exactly sure how that happened! : ) I'll be glad to be involved though, I think it will be good for Avery and me.

Also...with the smiles Avery produces for pictures, I'm a little nervous for school pictures. I foresee some awkward pictures this year! : )

I asked Jack what we're going to do while Avery's in school and he shouted "I'm gonna do school with you at home!". That should be fun, I'm looking forward to some one on one time with Jack, we haven't gotten much of that.

Omaha #2

The rain stopped and the weather was pretty perfect for a trip to the zoo. Overcast and about 80 degrees, awesome.
We have heard such great things about the Omaha Zoo, so at first we were a little disappointed, it seemed a lot like other zoos, so we decided to ride the train to see a lot of the bigger animals. Jack fell asleep on the train which was good, we did get to see lots of fun animals on our ride.
After the train we started walking again, both boys were tired of walking so we were glad we took the double stroller. Though with both boys in it it was quite heavy to push! Andy was a trooper though and did most of the pushing!

 It really got fun for us when we found the Ape House, Cat House, and other indoor big animal exhibits. We wish we'd gone the opposite direction when we got into the zoo, I think we would have liked it better right away! Next time we'll know. The Ape House was probably our favorite, all the apes were so interactive. They would come up to the window and stare at people, jump around, put there hands on the glass. It was so awesome. The boys loved climbing up and watching them all. There were tons of look out places, so it wasn't too crowded with so many places to see them.

We loved it though, so...if you go to the Omaha Zoo start with the indoor exhibits, they're the best!

The Butterfly Garden was also very cool, we had to watch where we were stepping, but there were tons of gorgeous huge butterflies. For some reason Avery was a little afraid of them, so we left the garden pretty quickly. but it was really neat.

We were there for about 3 hours, which is just about the perfect amount of time for little kids. We probably didn't see everything, but we had a great time. We got in the van just as it was starting to rain again.
Next was dinner and swimming again...after a short nap for mom and dad! :)

The next day we did a little shopping before heading home, we hit up Costco and the mall for a bit. Then we leisurely made our way back home. We got home in the afternoon, so it was nice to have the evening to relax. And as a bonus we came home to tons more ripe tomatoes in our garden, they are now nicely peeled and frozen waiting to be made into salsa!! : )

Omaha #1

A few weeks ago we decided it would be fun to take a little vacation to Omaha, NE. We've heard good things about the zoo there, and we wanted to get away but not have to drive too far/long.

So we left Thursday afternoon and headed up, we didn't realize that the highway was flooded about half way there, so we had to take a long detour that added about an hour onto our drive. It was a nice, pretty drive though and we spent the time reading a book out loud, watching a movie and talking.

We checked into our hotel (thanks priceline!!) and went swimming. I was too busy swimming with the boys to take any pictures at the pool, it was an awesome pool though. I've never seen a zero entry pool at a hotel before, and it was big. They boys had so much fun, and ever since we bought them life jackets our swimming experiences have been so much more relaxing for me.

The next morning we woke up to rain, we were worried it would mess up our zoo plans. So we started the day going to the temple, and the visitors center next door. The sister missionary that took us on the tour did an amazing job with the boys, she talked to them most of the time and was great at saying things in a way that was fun and that they understood. They got to dress up and help her push buttons and even pull a hand cart.

At the temple we asked a temple goer to pause and take a family picture for us, the boys liked walking around the pretty temple grounds and loved that Andy and I were married there. So here we are, in front of the temple doors 6 years 8 months and  15 days after we were sealed, plus 2 1/2 kids. : )
I think the Temple doors are so pretty!

 For fun...us in front of the same doors

They say it's a she : )

So...I posted a while back that we're expecting baby #3. Thus the lack of blogging and my attempts at catching up! We're very excited, of course.

We didn't tell the boys, or anyone else, for a few weeks after we found out. We had hoped to make it longer before telling, but my body quickly decided it knew what was going on and wanted everyone who looked at me to figure out quickly that I'm pregnant. So we told people our happy news earlier than planned!
At our first appointment the baby was a little stinker (which seems to be a trend) and the Dr. couldn't find the heartbeat so we were lucky and got to see it on ultrasounds. The boy were so excited to see our little baby on the computer and even more excited that we got to bring a picture home with us!

On August 1st we had our big ultrasound appointment. Even before I was pregnant Avery asked for a "girl baby". So after we told him we were having a baby he has insisted this whole time that it is a girl, and if we suggested otherwise (saying things like "we don't know know what Heavenly Father will send us yet, but if it's a boy we'll love it just the same" to which he would reply very seriously "But I've been asking for a girl baby.").
We loved being able to see the baby moving around in there, and hear the heartbeat. And luckily for Avery the technician (2 actually, since the first wasn't 100% positive, the baby wasn't helping at all on that one. She's was being much too modest!) confirmed his wishes, and we're having a girl!
Avery was grinning from ear to ear at the news, we all were really, but he was especially excited!

It still hasn't sunk in for me, I think it'll take a little more than a week. We're very excited though, and have already started thinking about names. Shopping for girl stuff is a little overwhelming so far, we haven't really bought anything...there's just so much more girl things than boy stuff! I'm used to boy stuff...! : )
I haven't really taken many belly pictures, this one here is the only one and it's from almost a month ago. I need to take another to compare...Maybe. :)

Summertime fun!

This summer we've done some fun things, on our own and with family.

We bought the boys a little pool as part of one of their birthday presents. They've loved having it in the back yard on hot days that I don't feel like taking them to the pool! (And there have been plenty of those!!) We've since moved it to the back deck, so I can see it while I'm inside. I like that. :)

 We also went roller skating while Andy's family was in town. That was...interesting. Andy and I had tons of fun. But then, we have better balance then our 3 and 5 year olds! Jack lsort of liked wearing the skates at first, he mostly "skated" around the pool table while holding my hand, then spent the remainder of the time crying while Andy and I skated. Ooops.

 Avery made it around the rink one time holding our hands, but then also spent his time sitting out or skating around the pool table by himself. He had fun, but I think it'll be a while before we try that again!

 We (the boys and I) went to the children's museum with my sister and her kids one day. We started off eating lunch at CiCi's then headed down to the museum, it was a lot of fun. The boys had a blast, I only wish it was closer so we could go more often. They had a blast though and it was nice to get out of the blistering heat and do something fun with the cousins. (Jack thinks all friends are cousins, because we do so much with "the cousins".)