up in the air

I don't know if you noticed in the photo above, but Terry's ladder is resting on...air.

He was at his cousin's new house yesterday scraping some wallpaper backing off the high, high wall above their staircase. One side of the ladder was on the ground of course, and the other, well, was just against the wall. It seemed dangerous but perhaps if I knew anything about physics, I could tell you how this worked. But it did work, safely, and they got the wallpaper backing down. Yay for Terry!

in case you didn't know...

In case you didn't know...I'm pregnant! I'm 18 weeks along, due at the end of January. Being our third child, I wasn't in a hurry to get the news out there. I thought it would make the early stuff go by quicker if I didn't tell people until I was about showing. So that's what we did. Now I'm definitely showing, though I think I gained less weight at this point when I was pregnant with Evie, though hopefully I won't gain 60 pounds like I did with Noah... I had a horrible dream last night that Terry and I had a huge yelling fight and he called me a fat bleepidy bleep. All I remember is the fat part though. Of course, he doesn't think that. =)

We are not planning on finding out the gender since we have clothes and everything for both a girl and boy. I am excited for a surprise, but it is more work coming up with two names, which we're working on, but no where near ready.

We are a little bit nervous for a third b/c our house, already quite loud and chaotic, will only get more so! I keep hearing that 3 is a lot different than 2, being outnumbered by your kids. So we are anticipating that change.

So that's that.

time to get up Steph

The first morning Steph was here, Noah spent like 15 minutes at the floor of her bedroom door asking her to get up. Since the jet engine fan was on in her room, she didn't hear him. I felt bad for him and finally let him in.

This is the 2nd day after I let them in. She was already awake and they lost no time in jumping on her and the bed.

This is just as Noah jumped on Steph's belly =) HAHA!

Cutie!

a new park

My sister was here during this last week of August. She hadn't seen our house and just wanted to see me, her niece and nephew and funny Terry. I tried very hard to keep us busy so she wouldn't just leave us and therefore we drove an hour to this new park. The kids were entertained, we ate out at q'doba (ya baby) and then did a little shopping.

Steph is helping Evie down Noah's favorite roller-thingy slide. Evie wasn't such a fan...

This park was really awesome. And it was such a gorgeous day. I was so glad we went.

Noah likes to do stuff with his sister, like going down this slide. He kept trying to get her to go down the roller slide but she didn't want anything to do with it.

As I said, he loved this one. And in the left background you can see the other play area made in the shape of a pirate ship!

It was also like a sprinkler park! To let the fun begin, you just had to put your hand on this blue sensor thing and they'd come on by timer and the water would just drain away.

Noah got a lot more wet than his sister.

Hmmmmm, what will he do?

Run through of course!

Stephanie and I were dorks, standing right in front of the sprayer to the right. All of them are on timers so while it wasn't on initially, it certainly came on in time to get us good.

Steph got it worse =0

Scaling the pirate ship

Y...again

After playing at Storybook Island and watching Bo swim in a lake, we headed to the Y for some swimming of our own. See, even daddy was there! Yay! Everything is better with daddy, as I always say.

This boy is getting so good at holding his breath. He was having daddy count and the highest he made it was 10, when he came up spluttering =)

Evie loved the noodles, though one got stuck under her belly, rocking her forward so her face was in danger of staying under the water. Good thing daddy rescued her.

Evie will hold her breath a little also. I should really get them into swimming lessons. Noah especially...

Storybook Island...again

After Redlodge, we spent a couple days home with my folks. We stayed busy all day Thursday since we were leaving the next day. First we hit Storybook Island, then pizza with Bo (my dad's dog) while he swam, then the kids went swimming at the Y. Phew. They were tired out for sure and so were we!

I went to Storybook last time I was home in July but this time Terry was finally with us. As we were going in, we were talking about how he was never with me when I've taken the kids, 4 or 5 times in the last couple years. I didn't think he'd ever been to the park... But then he remembered the photo below that we had in our wedding slide show.

We went to the Storybook Island together with Stephanie right before or after my brother's high school graduation. So that puts it back a ways b/c we weren't married yet though we were engaged, probably 2003, the year before we even got married! Crazy. So here we are on Noah's favorite slide. I'm scolding Terry for who knows what, b/c we thought it would be funny =) And it's pathetic that I still have those capris...

Okay, back to present day. This was quite cute b/c Noah was all about holding Evie's hand and looking after her. What a sweet boy.

Here Terry is helping Evie get onto Noah's favorite slide that I also scolded Terry on in 2003!

Poor Piglet. At Pooh's house all the characters got sat on... This was a favorite that the kids didn't want to leave.

Roo?

Chillaxing on Rabbit like it's aint no thang

Tigger

Eeyore

And Pooh!

High five Piglet

This is a new addition since I was little. Prince Charming is apparently a polygamist...

Handsome prince

Toto

Evie was trying to climb Yogi or something...

The kids await the train driver to take their tickets for the ride

There's a lot of sitting on animals isn't there?

No idea

Leaving the park

Red Lodge - Day 3

Day 3 brought our exit from the cabin in Redlodge. Here is our getaway vehicle, the Rialta! Can you believe we had 8 people in there?

Evie is the cutest. Sometimes I want to freeze her just as she is, she's so fun and cuddly still.

Right before we left, we celebrated Alice's birthday, which was in about a week. A black pearl necklace. I liked it a lot!

Here is the view of the cabin when you come in the door and look to the right. Terry slept on that couch the first night. We pulled the teal curtains when the kids went to bed. Noah slept on the brown couch in the very back after Shari and Jesse shared it the first night - not a good night for them. Behind Shari is a twin bed that I slept in the first night (terrible springs in my sides!) and Evie slept in the rest of the time. To the left of the twin is a queen bed that we all took turns sleeping in!

Here is the dining room to the left of the door when you walk in.

The kitchen. The brown stove is the wood burner and the only heat source in the place.

Here is a corner bedroom with the most privacy, though no doors and only curtains to the hallway. We all took turns in this bed. As you might have noticed, every night was musical beds... =)

Here are the steep, steep stairs to the attic where there are 4 full size beds!

The bathroom

The back corner of the cabin with that queen bed. And you can see the corner of me and Evie's twin bed.

The view from the queen bed shows the twin bed and brown couch and mattress. Around the corner was the living room again. Just a big circle.

Daddy got a work out doing this with the kids

Good bye cabin!

Terry, Noah, Evie and I spent the last part of the drive home in the back of the Rialta. Terry is cleaning Noah's Dorito fingers.

Evie needs her's done next...

Here is the view to the front. Just pretend you don't see Jesse sitting in that folding chair... Hey, there were only 7 seat belts and 8 people!