34.5 weeks

It has really hit me that I only have a few short weeks until we are a family of four. Kyle snapped these pictures at 30 weeks after church one Sunday (I have not taken any other belly shots! Kyle's rarely home for me to do it!) You can imagine that I am now even more round. Over the weekend, Kyle and I were snuggled up playing lego's with Grant and watching a movie and I realized that we only had a few more quiet Sunday evenings where Grant could have our entire focus. I am kind of nostalgic, nervous, and excited all at once. Since I did hardly anything to prepare for Grant (my heart couldn't handle coming home to a lot of baby stuff without a baby), I feel like I am scrambling around like a first timer with this baby.

I had an ultrasound at 33 weeks and baby boy was measuring 5.8 lbs and was almost a full two weeks ahead of schedule. That moved my new due date from May 26th to May 15th which is only a few weeks away! Kyle will be taking a summer class that begins May 14th and finishes the week of July 4th (are we crazy for punishment or what?!) and so between him finishing his semester, I feel like time is slipping by too quickly! My doctor is really pushing me to have an induction so that baby doesn't weigh 10 lbs, but I would really like to experience what going into labor on my own is like (Pitocin and I did not get along well last time around). Officially now, I am trying to do what I can to get my body ready in hopes that he will come naturally around my "new" due date (or a few days before since Kyle has to start classes!). Please pass along your tips and tricks for starting labor, or some of the things that were really good coping/distraction methods in your labor. With Grant, I wasn't able to do anything on my own terms since they had to monitor him so closely. I was strapped to a bed for 27 hours and I would really like this experience to be totally different. Best part is, I know that after this labor is done, I will actually get to hold and snuggle my baby and take time to recover, instead of immediately worrying if he would stabilize and survive the surgeries in store for him. We feel so new to having a newborn and I am so excited to have the "normal" experience and bring home a baby who is a few days old instead of being almost 3 months old!

Easter Sunday

Apparently I have only pulled out the camera for Easter related things recently! Sorry for the overload on posts. On Sunday morning, Kyle and I had our own little egg hunt and I had to try to stall Grant in my room after his bath so the Easter bunny could do his thing (thank heavens they cancelled bishopric meetings that morning... usually Kyle is gone at 6: 30am and Grant and I are in a mad rush to get to church on time!) He was being hysterical, running right up to the camera and striking his own little funny poses.

After our mini photo shoot, we got down to business and let him go hunt through the house. Once he discovered some of the eggs had candy, he was very serious!

We might have to have semi annual egg hunts... they really are so fun!

Grandma's Egg Hunt

After the little boys had finished coloring their eggs, Grandma and Grandpa gathered the kids together for their first ever cousin egg hunt. Easter Egg hunts have always been a bug deal in my family and it was fun to see our kids doing it too. Karina got a head start, but she wasn't interested in much more than finding candy with crinkly paper.

Russell and Grant both needed some initial coaching, but they caught on fast enough.

Once most of the eggs were found, the kids had to look for their baskets too. Grant found his buried under pillows on the chair.

Caption: "All right!! I won the Easter Egg hunt!!" Oh his faces crack me up!

The glasses were a big hit. Russell reportedly likes to wear them and say "I'm a cool dude".

Grant received an Easter book from Grandma Jer when she was here the week before in which the characters from the comic "Peanuts" experience an Easter Egg hunt. Of course, Lucy tries to dominate the hunt, but in the background, Snoopy is secretly taking the eggs so he can redistribute them and be the "Easter Beagle" as Linus calls him. Grant was therefor convinced that Nate's dog, Snoopy, was the one who brought all the eggs. Grant calls him "Poo-See" and told everyone that Snoopy brought the eggs. 

Dying Easter Eggs

My brother Nate and his family were visiting my parents from their home in DC for a week between general conference and Easter. I managed to leave the camera home most days (toting a toddler and a pregnant belly was enough for me!) but I did have it this particular morning when the grandkids got to try their hand at coloring Easter eggs. All of my siblings came to town at some point during the visit, along with my grandparents from Colorado. The pictures can speak pretty well for themselves.

This is my incredibly methodical and careful egg coloring kid. He wanted Grandpa to sit right by him and he was ever so careful with each egg he touched.

This is Russell. I worry for any thing small or delicate that crosses his path. He and Grant could not be more opposite in their coloring methods. He enjoyed throwing the eggs into the coloring cups and then throwing them onto the granite countertops. I don't think a single one of his eggs survived. :)

My Grandpa was content to sit and watch the little boys in action.

Blurry, but the best I got. At least everyone was looking in my general direction.

When Karina woke up, she got to pretend she was a part of the party.

Happy Birthday Grant!

On March 20th, my little hero turned three years old. Since daddy was at work all day and had to be at class that night (plus an hour early for a meeting with his professor), we put off really celebrating until the weekend. On his actual birthday, we did go out with a friend and her kids (she has a child who shares Grant's birthday and her husband is in Kyle's same MBA class, so we were both school widows)to get some ice cream at least and not make it the lamest birthday ever. I was grateful that Grant's concept of time is still pretty vague so we could just party on another day. He told me that he wanted to have a Curious George party (his absolute favorite thing in the whole world), but then the week before, he also wanted to have Mickey and Elmo. Luckily by the time it rolled around, he was settled on George! Here he is demonstrating his thinking face. Curious George walks around like this all the time and Grant has totally picked it up. He will pace up and down the floors alternating which finger is by his mouth saying "hhmmm" ever so studiously. It cracks us up.

We were lucky to have Kyle's parents in town for the weekend and so we had a low key party with both sets of grandparents. Grant could hardly wait for Papa Spunk (my dad) to show up so he could rip into his presents!

Birthdays are so fun with a little boy who totally gets the concept! During nap time, Jerolyn and I made these darling monkey cupcakes.

It took a while for Grant to start catching on that he was no longer two. Now he will tell people he is "free", but hold up four fingers. That pinky is just too hard to keep tucked in!

The candles proved to be no problem this year. I remember last year trying desperately to get him to learn to blow (since it is a very helpful skill to have following heart surgery to clear out his lungs) and he had very little concept of it. This year, we lit the candles twice just because they kept getting blown out so quickly!

He finally has figured out that cake is good stuff... remember his first birthday (click HERE) or even last year where it was still a challenge to get him near a cake (click HERE ).

Grant thoroughly enjoyed playing with the undivided attention of his two grandmas (who he currently calls Ma-Ha's)... he is a lucky little kid!

Happy birthday Grant! We love you so much and are so glad you are a part of our family. We continue to pray that you get to celebrate many more wonderful birthdays with us!