Happy Father's Day

It was a simple, but very nice Father's Day today. I am very thankful to have such a loving husband. Justin is an awesome daddy and Katelyn loves him. Justin helps me out so much. More than I give him credit for. He even let me sleep in today, on his special day. I love and appreciate him more and more every year that we are together.


I am also very thankful for the Father's in my life. Lucky me, I get three Father's. My Dad, Dale (my step-father), and Justin's dad, Dean. It's great having the love and support and three great men in our family.

happy father's day

Stuck

I brought this little chair in from the garage yesterday
and Katelyn has taken to locking herself into it.
Only one problem: she can't get out.
At least one of us has a seat to sit on now.
help! I'm stuck!

3 years of Kate

This is Katelyn the day she was born.

She had the rosiest little cheeks.

I meant to post this yesterday on her actual Birthday,

but forgot at the end of the day.

1st birthday (almost has a head of hair)

2nd birthday (sportin' the mullet)

3rd birthday (beautiful, thick hair-finally!)

I can't believe how fast these babies grow up. It's

fun watching her learn and grow and turn into a

very sweet little girl.

Pool Fun

Before we moved into the new house, we were lucky

enough to get to enjoy the pool at the apartment complex

for a couple of weeks. (I desperately miss it!) It was so fun!

This is our first day out at the pool and Katelyn was super excited! They even had a 1' kiddie pool for the little people.
This was a different day, but even Justin got in on the fun.

I'm not sure if she has a future in dance or not...

The Girls' Room

The Girls' Room

Michelle painted the room from dark forest green,

to this lovely blue. A white strip goes across the middle

of the wall and the letters are framed by white paint.

This will be where the new baby sleeps.

Thank you Michelle for your awesome work!

Kate's Dora Birthday Party

We celebrated Katelyn's 3rd birthday today.

She was so excited and anxious for her friends to

get here so she could start the party.

Some of the activities included: Fishing, Bean Bag Toss and...

The Dora Pinata!

Look at all that loot!


I went with cupcakes this year, nice and easy.

Katelyn sang "Happy Birthday" to herself along with the rest of us.
Katelyn had so much fun having some friends over

to help her celebrate. Thank you all for being there!
The happy Birthday Girl-We love you!

Pregnancy & Birth Class

Pregnancy: So I am just around the corner to 28 weeks of pregnancy. It has been going so much faster than my first pregnancy...at least once I got past being so sick. Once that was over, things have really been going well. I feel like I have been more relaxed this time around and have been able to enjoy being pregnant more. Maybe it helps that I am not working a job that was really hard physically when pregnant.

Even though things have been going well, pregnancy sure does bring some interesting changes to a woman's body. Thanks to sickness in the first trimester, the weight gain has been really good so far. Most of the time I feel pretty good physically. I feel like I have been able to be a lot more active with this pregnancy-going on more walks and things. I haven't been walking much lately because the weather has been quite hot recently. The other problem I am having with walking now, is that whenever I walk I get a very sore crotch (sorry if that's too much information). This has been happening for 2 or 3 months and I couldn't figure out what was going on. After talking to another expecting friend-she suggested that I may have varicose veins down there. I haven't had it checked out, but I can't think of any other reason it hurts. It's like being kicked in the crotch every day. It even hurts a lot at night when I sleep. Who knew you would need an ice pack before giving birth!

The only other thing that has happened is that I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I was borderline with Katelyn, but didn't get so lucky this time around. I was pretty upset about it and was feeling guilty that it happened because I am so overweight, but the Diabetes educator explained that it has way more to do with your family history and unfortunately Diabetes runs in my family. I was really nervous about having to poke my finger every day and then found out I would have to do it four times a day. Yikes! Well, that has gone better than expected and my fingers aren't sore at all really. The diet has been surprisingly easy as well, for the most part anyway. The other day I was going through chocolate withdrawals pretty bad, but I was able to find a couple of things that could work: Peanut/Chocolate Granola bars and Weight Watchers chocolate cakes (they are about as big as my thumb, but it satisfies the chocolate craving after dinner). Anyway, I'm pretty serious about following the rules, not only for myself, but because I don't want a big, huge, unhealthy baby either. I really feel that this is a blessing in disguise and it has motivated me to get myself together once and for all.

Birth Class: We took a birth class last month called "Birthing From Within" and I loved it! Since having Katelyn, I have been on a long learning-journey about child birth. I won't go into a lot of detail. I know there are a lot of different opinions out there and this is very personal to me. The only thing I will say is that I was able to go from being completely freaked out about childbirth, to having that fear taken away altogether. I am actually looking forward to my next birth experience and am excited to be a part of such a great work. These are a few pictures from class.

I really like this quote

Our instructor (2 to the left of me), Kristina French

My Doula, Amanda (1 to the left of me) and some of

the other really cool expecting moms.

Some of the "birth art" we got to do in class

Mine on the left, Justin's on the right

Below: taming our birth fears, ROARR!-don't make fun!

Lots of Changes

We got to move in to the new house last Friday and we are just loving every minute of being back in a house. The great thing is that this house is entirely usable, not just the main floor. Not only that it doesn't smell like it's 100 years old. I have room for everything and everyone. We are just very happy that we have been blessed to get this house.

My sister in law, Michelle came down last Friday along with my mom and Justin's parents, to help us move in. Michelle and Ethan stayed behind when everyone else left and she has been helping me decorate and get things in order. She is very talented-if you want proof, just look at her blog. She painted the "girls" room for me and it is almost finished. I will post pictures of her work when it is complete.

The great thing about the house is that we didn't have to do anything to it, unlike our house in Newport that was 100 years old (literally). We're just doing some painting in a few rooms to make it our own, but that's mostly it. It's GREAT!

living room

looking toward dining room/kitchen

family room (not quite done yet)

other half of family room=play room!

.30 acre lot-very large back yard

and very low maintenance-perfect!

Random Pictures

Our sweet little girl on Mother's Day. I couldn't have paid her to smile for this picture...Nap time!

A friend asked us to watch her cute little boy for a couple of hours last week. I realized it was the first time we had had a non-family friend over for Katelyn. She had a great time, but was a little upset when he wouldn't dance and twirl with her.

I love it! They sleep the exact same way :) Justin paid me back for this shot the next day by taking a picture of me sleeping with Katelyn. I will not be posting that one though.

Blog Slacker

I have sure been slacking on the ol' blog lately. I think I will do better once we get high speed Internet again.

Update: Last fast Sunday we asked our family members to fast with us for the sale of our house in Newport. One week later, we get a call from our Realtor with an offer. It was a really, really cool experience, to say the least. A few weeks later we closed and moved the rest of our things down here and decided we'd start looking more seriously for a home to buy. Well, we found a home that we both felt really, really good about and went to see it three times. We felt good about making an offer and after a couple of counter offers back and forth, we finally reached a mutual agreement and they accepted. If all goes well, we should be in the house by the 30th of this month. I am very excited to have more space and get settled down here once and for all. And I am especially excited that we will be in a house before baby #2 arrives. We will have to switch wards, which I am kind of sad about. I haven't gotten to know people in my ward as much as I would have liked to, but Katelyn just loves her nursery, so I hate to have to switch her again. Hopefully she will like the new one just as much. Luckily we won't be very far from this ward so we hope we can stay in touch with those we have met here.

Funny story: Today Katelyn was "reading" a picture book to me. (It's a little book with pictures of animals). Well, she got to the last picture- of a cow and instead of saying "cow" she said "mommy". Ahhh...out of the mouths of babes, right? Not a good sign.

Pregnancy: Second Trimester=G-R-E-A-T!!!!!!

That's all for now!