Vacation and Re-purposing

Emrie, Molly and I went to Gilbert for a whole week just last week to see my sister Rochelle who was visiting also. Chad sadly couldn't come since he was so busy with school and work but we still had some fun. I got to stay with my in-laws for a couple days and Rochelle at my Grandma's house for some of the week which was really nice. Here's the kids. Emrie, Molly, Lincoln (rochelle's newest- he's a month younger than molly), and Elijah.
She is getting so big....so talkative. She also worked very hard the day before yesterday trying to roll over. She was so so persistant and would not lay still, just grunting trying to get over, and that night she finally did it, all on her own! She's also started trying to sit up wherever you put her, even in her little bathtub. She just wants to grow up fast I guess.

Superstition Mall does a Kids Club every Thursday at 10 for free with music and the kids get a free Merry-Go-Round ride. Here's Emrie with her clown nose on...she loved that thing.

Lots of swimming in Grandma's backyard. Kids eating their popsicles, Emrie kinda looks like one of the boys with her shirt off....So sad, that poor hair :D

The day I left we went to Chandler Aquatic Center and played. It was perfect temperature all around. So Fun!

Soooo....remember when I made some leggings for Emrie out of a long sleeve shirt a bought at old navy for $0.50? Well I just used the arms, so I had the whole body of the shirt to do something with. Well I found this post www.makeit-loveit/2010/05/re-purposing-shirts-to-skirt-with-tie.html and decided to go for it. It only took a couple hours :D

I also got out my little curling iron and curled Emries hair :D ha ha...Makes her look more like a girl for sure, what do you think?? Of course it's back straight by lunch no matter what product I put in it.

I'm itching to decide what else to make...since I still have 12 more shirts all different colors and stripes. If you have any suggestions let me know!

Festivals and Fairs

So we've been able to do a couple fun things these last few weeks. There was an annual kids music and arts festival in the park for free here which Emrie loved! You could pay $3 for a wristband for them to have unlimited train rides and bounce house time, which we did. Here's daddy and Emrie on the train.
Molly was such a good sport for us. We were there for like 3 or so hours and she was happy the whole time...of course it helps that it was a nice day with a cool breeze and Lots of shade.

Emrie loved the bounce houses. What kid doesn't.

They had face painting, streamers and hoola hoops, toy instruments they could play, puppet making, painting, and balloon animals. Emrie had so much fun.

We also celebrated Chad's 27th birthday! He's getting up there :D He'd requested Chocolate Molten Cake (like at chilis) so I made little individual ones and they turned out very yummy!

And I forgot to post, but we also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! Can't believe we've been married for 5 years!

Labor day weekend we had the county fair, and I have to say county fairs are way better than state fairs. We saw all the animals:

Molly playing with her feet (she's been trying so hard to roll over the past couple days).

Bounce house slide. Man, emrie would come zooming down this thing. The second time she came down she goes "Wow!! That's FUN!" ha ha

And the carnival. We decided to go on a ride each, so we took turns watching the kids and went on the ship ride and then took Emrie on a ride.

It was a lot of fun. They had the Kent Family Circus that performed in the middle of the fair grounds and a variety show later that night that performed. Can't wait for next year.

Trip to the Valley

Kara came into town and haven't seen her in almost a year so we had to go down while she was there. I am really bad with remembering to take pictures so we didn't get any together :( But here are a couple we got of the kids:

Yes, her cheeks now sag and they look hilarious I think...there's a little more to kiss on now :D

We took Emrie to Tempe splash pad and she loved it. It's free and really neat actually

Thought this was pretty funny, the kids in fire hats playing with the car. You can tell it's hot outside they all have sweaty heads

And at the mall play area. They all got in this tube and sat there together, first time they saw each other. They were pretty excited to be together.

It's so fun to go visit family. Can't wait to go again and it was really nice to see and spend time with Kara. Can't wait till we're all together for Christmas!

Baby, July 4th and Blessing

We went to Gilbert for the past week and it was a lot of fun. Makenna helped me get some pictures of Molly finally since i keep forgetting and these are my favorites.

We went to Kyle and Sherry's for 4th of July and had a fabulous dinner topped with homemade icecream. YUMMY. I really want an icecream maker.

We also did Molly's baby blessing while we were there. We had it at the Andersen's with all the family and it was really really nice. I decided a couple months before I had her that I wanted to crochet her dress, but wanted it pretty. Sometimes crocheted clothes can look kinda funny. But I was really really happy with how it turned out.

I decided I wanted the ribbon in it to be a color instead of plain white, so I did some lavender ribbon to highlight it.

I need to get some better pictures of her in it before she gets too big. It was overall a really nice get away, and really nice to spend time with family.

Terrible Twos??

We've been leading up to this day for the past several weeks it seems. All the sudden destruction and tears and timeouts become extremly frequent throughout the day. Well, it all began on Saturday. Grandma and Grandpa Andersen came up on Friday night to pick up Chad's brother Ben from EFY and Saturday they came over bearing gifts for Emrie's birthday. She officially turned 2 on Monday, so we did most of the celebrating then. We decided to make her cake Elmo this year, which was fun since she actually kind of understood what was going on. Here's her cake:

Monday morning she woke up to find this trike (thank you Amber and Nathan!) She loves it and rides her "truck" everyday now.

Oma and Opa Kay sent her some Melissa and Doug puzzles which she set off to working on as soon as they were opened.

Saturday with the Andersen's. She has to hold one of these pillow pets everytime we go to the store, so she was pretty happy to have one of her own. She also got Tangled...which she is pretty obsessed with now.

Overall it was a really good day.

Emrie loves to cuddle with Molly and give her hugs. When she gets hurt it's Molly she wants a hug from. Here's some pictures I thought were cute.

Molly Nicole Andersen

SHE'S HERE!! Born at 5:23 am Saturday June 4th. Molly Nicole Andersen. She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She is so tiny!
Well, as you know I had my membranes stripped Thursday morning, but I was sure nothing was happening. I had no consistant contractions Thursday or Friday all day. Just contractions here and there like I'd been having all week anyways. We went to a ward BBQ Friday night and left there at 7 to come home and I told my mom not to expect anything. Well we sat down to watch Dan in Real Life about 8:30 and I start having contractions every 5-7 minutes out of nowhere. They started getting pretty uncomfortable so I decided to ditch the movie at 9:30 and go to bed. Well, they intensified quick and we decided we'd see how long through the night I could make it because of Emrie sleeping. Chad got a little sleep during the ones I could get through alone and then about 12:30 he started helping me and 1:30 I called my visiting teaching companion to come over. They were 3 minutes apart and lasting more than a minute and painful!

We got to the hospital at 2 am and I was dilated to a 6. I got the epidural at 3:30 (which was a very long hour and a half :D) and was checked again and was an 8. At a 9 they called the doctor and he got there about 5, broke my water and said lets get ready to push! So, we started pushing at 5:15 and 2 contractions later she was born at 5:23! Super quick!

I don't know how different they are. Molly does have darker hair (it's a light brown) well what she has anyways. This is Molly below:
This is Emrie as a baby:

The Andersens and my mom came that morning to visit and my mom stayed through the weekend till later this afternoon which was great! Emrie is adjusting. She loves to be close and touch and kiss kiss kiss the baby, but she's also acting up a little bit and pretty emotional.

My visiting teaching companion came to visit and she picked the baby up and Emrie said "No!" "Blanket" wanting her to put Molly back down. Then kept saying "My baby! No. My baby!" So I guess she's a little territorial already. We'll see how these next weeks go!

Week 39 Update

Well, I am 4 days from my due date today. The end of this pregnancy has been different from my last one. With Emrie I didn't dialate till due date at 3/4 cm or have any contractions till I actually went into labor. But last Thursday I had contractions all afternoon and evening and was sure it was it, but much to my disappointment and a little bit of relief they never intensified and ended up stopping, so I am still pregnant. I was so ready to have this baby until I actually started with contractions then I was very nervous and decided I didn't want to go into labor, then when it all stopped I was disappointed that I had gone through that much nerves and uncomfort for nothing and would have to do it all over again :D. Such a mixture of emotions.

I had an appointment this morning and I am 3 cm dilated and still 50% efaced. The doctor did strip my membranes as much as possible and with Emrie I had my membranes stripped on a Thursday afternoon and had her Saturday afternoon. So, we'll see if that works again this time around...if so I could have her this weekend! But won't get my hopes up. If not I have an induction scheduled for next Thursday at 7:30.

I know I look beautiful :D ha ha All my shirts are too short to cover my tummy.

By the way, we got out the pack n play, swing, carseat and stuff and Emrie has decided they are her new toys. I have to kick her out of the swing constantly. But she loves swinging her babies. Hopefully she's more used to them once the baby's actually in them and doesn't mess with it as much.