Happy 8th Birthday Noah!

Newsflash: I’m going to blame my lack of blogging on pregnancy.  I have had a serious lack of motivation in all departments.  It’s funny to me that this is my third pregnancy, yet it feels so completely different -- so different, in fact, that I feel like I’ve never done it before.  My doctor said that each pregnancy is usually a little harder (i.e. aches, pains, nausea).  That being said, I don’t know how some women can have 10 kids or more.  Okay, enough complaining!

My amazing husband cooking me dinner, I love him in an apron!

Noah turned EIGHT!  I can’t believe how fast time goes, to think he only has ten years left until he goes to college.  My mom was able to come out for the weekend and celebrate with us.  The kids were in heaven having her around, and Amelia was her little shadow!  Noah’s birthday list had three things on it: the Lego “Black Pearl” ship, a puppet, and the Lego City police station.  Between his parents and both sets of grandparents, he got all three and was SOOOO excited!  He has seriously spent at least 18 hours building and playing Legos since he opened his presents on Sunday.   If we didn’t make him sit down to eat, I’m not sure we would see him.

When my mom and I were at Toy R Us buying Noah’s present, we saw these little miniature princess figures.  I bought a few so that Amelia would have something to open when Noah was opening his gifts.  One of them was Snow White, and it’s adorable because Amelia calls her, “Snow Wipe.”  We must have heard “Snow Wipe” about a hundred times over the weekend; she was very excited about her present.

Baby Time

In case you haven’t heard, Mike and I are expecting our third child!  We are thrilled and can’t wait for our little bundle of joy.  The due date it February 15^th, 2012, but maybe we’ll be having a Valentine’s baby.

Noah is so very excited; he’s such a great big bother to Amelia … I am so lucky to have such an awesome seven-year-old.  I’m not sure how much Amelia really understands the concept of me having a baby.  We’ll tell her, “Mommy has a baby in her tummy,” and Amelia will say she has a baby in her tummy, too!  But if she likes this baby anywhere as much as she loves her baby dolls, I think we’ll be okay.

Noah started 2^nd grade today and that really hit me!  I think partly because I remember entering 2^nd grade so vividly; it was a few months after my family moved to Park City, and I just remember life seeming so important from then on.  Amelia has already asked me two dozen times why Noah isn’t home.  I keep telling her he’s at school, so she runs and gets her princess backpack and says, “I go to school too!”  After playing together every day this summer, I think the transition of Noah being back in school will definitely be the hardest on Amelia.  I was looking forward to the routine and also getting to spend some one-on-one time with Amelia before the baby comes.

Unfortunately, I’m still battling morning sickness, which is especially frustrating since it was gone by this point with both Noah and Amelia.  But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that any day now I’ll wake up and feel like my old self!  I will say that, overall, the morning sickness with this pregnancy isn’t nearly as bad as the last two, meaning that I’ve only actually thrown up a handful of times.  Whereas, with the prior two pregnancies, this unpleasant experience occurred all day long . . . maybe I’m paying for it by it not going away.  I don’t know which is worse.  

6,847 Miles, 57 Hours

We drove through 10 states covering 3,847 miles over our six-week car trip, which was 57 hours in the car. It was an adventure, to say the least!  The highlight was getting to see so much family, some of which I had not previously had the pleasure of meeting (more on that later).  The hardest part was that Amelia only took ONE 30-minute nap during all that time on the road, and Noah NEVER slept!

Mike's Sister, Shelley, went to the OC Fair with us.

We'd loved getting to see Grandma Sandy and Angus!

 

 

Uncle Al and Amelia snuggling; they were buddies after playing in the pool!

After leaving Utah, we headed to Orange, California, to spend the last two weeks of our trip with Mike’s family.  It was so enjoyable to go into Ray and Nancy’s pool every day; Noah seriously turned a different color after spending so much time in the water.  We were able to go the beach a few times; Amelia was obsessed with the ocean!  She has no fear of the waves and would just try and run into them and then laugh hysterically! 

Nancy almost had Amelia swimming on her own; she's one amazing Grandma!

Mike’s dad, Ray, was home for one of the weeks, and I swear you would have thought Noah was his shadow!  They worked on Noah’s boat for Boy Scouts -- it turned out awesome, I think he might win another "Best in Show."

We had so much fun taking the kids to Disneyland.  It was Amelia’s first time, and I think it was a bit overwhelming.  However, she was SOOO excited to see Minnie Mouse and get to take a picture with her.  It worked out perfectly because, Ray and Nancy came with us and basically took care of Amelia.  She lasted for seven hours and rode about every ride for her age, so they took her home so that Mike and I could spend the rest of the day with Noah.  We expected terrible wait lines since it was the middle of summer but, miraculously, we never waited for more than 30 minutes and rode all but one of the rides we wanted to.

We ended the road trip with a stop in Sun City, Arizona to see Mike’s grandma (Nancy’s mom) and some other of his close family members.  It was great for me to get to meet some of the aunts that I had heard so many wonderful things about!

Mountain Living

So it turns out that it's hard to blog when all I have is my iPad, so this entry will be pretty brief.  We've been in Utah for a little over two weeks and have had lots of fun, even though I'm convinced the heat is following me!  

We've spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law Amie, my nephew Kai and niece Aria.  They invited us to the 4th of July Celebration in their neighborhood (Highland Park) which was fun because we got to be in a parade.  They decorated a scooter for Noah to ride.  Amelia was going to ride in the wagon with Aria but wanted only to be held by Amie -- she's seriously obsessed with Amie!

We've done a lot of hiking in the surrounding canyons!  I had no idea what an amazing place I grew up in and how much I took it for granted! 

And I have to mention that I have been so happy to be able to go to all my favorite restaurants!  I think I've been to Cafe Rio four times already!  I'm excited for Mike to get into town tonight, as I've been saving my favorite place for a date with him since it's his favorite too...the Red Iguana.

Last but not least, we've had a fun time with my mom!  I literally have calluses on my fingers from playing and shuffling cards (so far I'm in the lead).    *Ü*

Happy Anniversary!

This Saturday Mike and I will be celebrating our 5^th wedding anniversary; I can truly say each year is better than the last.  I feel so lucky to have married not only to the man of my dreams, but also my best friend!  It is because of our love and understanding for one another that I really do believe in “soulmates”!  Funny enough, our last three anniversaries we’ve been at friends’ weddings and not always together … and this June 23^rd finds us at my cousin’s wedding, but at least we’ll be together!  

We celebrated our anniversary early this past Saturday, and we had an AMAZING night out in Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth.  We planned it at the last minute, since my trip to Utah got moved up and realized that we wouldn’t be able to celebrate for a few weeks unless we did it that night.  When we drove to Fort Worth, we didn’t even know where we were going to eat.  However, the stars aligned and we saw this restaurant on a rooftop, about six floors up … I doubted we would get in since it was eight o’clock on Saturday night – but 25 minutes later, we were on the roof at a table overlooking the sun setting on the square.  The meal and atmosphere were wonderful, and I don’t think we could have planned a better evening!

Noah LOVED dance camp this past week.  He came home every day very eager to tell me all about what they did.  I was eagerly looking forward to Friday, when Amelia and I got to attend the “Red Carpet Premier” of his music video.  Amelia was quite ecstatic when she saw “Oah” and ran up to him on the red carpet and didn’t let go of him until the video finished playing on the screen.  I loved seeing the video and can only imagine the kind of hold it will have over him when he’s in high school . . . or I can imagine watching it be shown at his wedding reception!  I could only figure out how to post the video as a separate blog post, so the video is the previous post.

Going from one extreme to the other, Noah started Boy Scout camp yesterday and came home saying he might like it even more than dance camp!  He got to shoot BB guns and a bow and arrow.  His “buddy” at camp is his good friend Jonathan (who was also on his baseball team), which makes camp even more fun.

We took Amelia to her first movie, "Mirror, Mirror" at the dollar theater.  She sat perfectly still for about two-thirds of the movie; the last third was a different story.  Luckily, the theater was basically empty except for us and an older couple.  At one point, Amelia crawled to the aisle . . . the next thing I knew, she was running down the aisle and quickly turned into another row, went to the older couple and hugged the lady’s knee!  I think she thought it was us, because she had quite a look of shock on her face when she realized they were strangers.

"Boyfriend" - Noah Thompson Starring as Justin Bieber

Summer and the livin's easy.

I can’t believe summer is here!  Noah finished 1^st grade, and we’re so proud of how hard he worked all year (he got straight A’s on all six report cards).  His favorite subjects are math and science;  it’s been great to see how he’s thrived since moving to Texas.  

After school ended, for the first week we just relaxed, went to the pool almost every day, went to concerts in the park, watched fireworks at the lake, stayed up late watching movies, had family dance parties and ate a lot of popsicles!  It’s pretty hot here… around 95°F most every day, so I will definitely be ready to head to Utah soon.

Mike and I had a fun Saturday – his work rented a Catamaran, and we got to sail around Lake Lewisville for about 4-1/2 hours.  There was roughly 40 people from his work there, and I truly enjoy being around his work friends… we all had such a great time on the boat.  I will definitely look forward to going again next year.

Noah started dance camp this week, and he came home today pumped about it!  They are making a music video and will have a “red carpet premier” this Friday.  I explained before I signed him up that he might be the only boy, and his response was, “Oh yeah, me and all the ladies!”  It turns out he is the ONLY boy along with 25 girls, so he’ll being starring as Justin Bieber in the music video and have back-up dancers … ay ay ay.  

 Noah has gotten into building Lego "movie" sets and then making mini movies, the one above is his latest.