Killin it

I have time to kill.  What better way to do that than to take pictures?

Remember my sweet little nephew who had stomach surgery at five days old?  Well, he and my sister came for a brief visit to say au revoir to my missionary sis and I snapped a few pictures of them.  And hey, if you’re interested in reading about it, she posted details about the whole process on her blog.  It’s quite amazing.

Such an intense look on this kid sometimes.  He is a spitting image of his dad, that’s for sure.  And you would have never known about his harrowing ordeal so early on in life.  What a trooper. 

  He was very generous with his smiles, to everyone around him.  I can’t wait for my baby to get here!  Hurry the crap up kid!

   

And there ya have it.

In other baby news I’m just hangin out, fattening up this baby.  I very much see the appeal of inductions or scheduled c-sections to know that there is truly an end in sight!  Sigh…but I am very very grateful that I still feel great.  I don’t swell, I sleep fine, my heartburn has let up tremendously, my blood pressure is great and with the exception of some minor waddling, I can still walk.  Although I made the mistake of running around with my girls last night.  My pelvis is paying the price for that.

Technically, I am not due for another 6 days (my “first” due date came and went…whatta joke.)  But that doesn’t stop people from saying the strangest things…like getting annoyed that I am still pregnant.  ha!  Forgive me, I am so sorry!

So here’s to making it to 40+ weeks!  Because I’ll surely still be pregnant this time come Monday.

She doesn’t get those baby blues from me.

Oh and just in case you were wondering….

http://haveyouhadthatbabyyet.com/

(Thanks Kell)

Gettin’ dressed

Today is the second day in a row where Miss Munchkin has dressed her older sister.  I’m talkin full on picked out the clothes from her drawers. From the headband all the way down to her skivvies.  She actually looks pretty cute today!

Speaking of dressed…Miss Munchkin loves to wear a lot of clothes.  A LOT.  The other day we counted seven shirts.  I don’t supervise the girls when they get dressed.  They are competent enough to do that on their own and to be honest, it’s amusing to me to see what they put together every day.  Things rarely match but that’s the beauty of it. 

The other day I took M to the Dr. with me when she informed me that she needed to go potty.  I hauled her into the potty whereupon I realized she had on two leotards, two pairs of leggings, two skirts and three shirts.  Let’s just say that bathroom break took 20 minutes and I was throwin clothes over the door like it was a dressing room.  I just laughed the whole time.

And if you notice in the picture M’s dress is dirty.  That’s because it’s day number three for that dress.  And why yes she does indeed have another dress underneath, as well as leggings.  Don’t worry, I made her take off the purple number.  She emerged with a shirt and a skirt…over the other dress.

Love these silly girls.

Denial

 

I’m so blessed and so fortunate to have three amazing sisters!  What would I do without them?  Go crazy.  I also have seven brothers.  They’re cool and all but a girl needs a sister. 

My littlest sis just turned 21 over the weekend.  We are tight.  She’s one of the funniest people I know.  She’s obsessed with things like Baja hoodies, good looking black men and while I’m sharing this picture…the Lakers. 

                                      

She has her own language.  It consists of “totes inappropes, presh, ten, awk, sitch, sicky sicky nar nar, literagitimately, strugs, strugglin” and so many others but my brain is literally melting typing those out. Yeah.  Literally.  Brains.  All over the keyboard.  In a puddle.

Forgive me if you ever hear me using those phrases.  Because I do.  Too often.  I blame her.

And of course she is like a second (third, fourth?) mother to my girls.  Oh how they love her.

So why am I in denial? Because she is leaving us!  For 18 months!  She’s going here:

She is serving a mission for our church.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I am so happy for her, she is going to be absolutely amazing.  The people will love her.  It will be an experience like no other and she will cherish it for the rest of her life.

But.

I’m going to miss her.  A lot.

And I’m kind of hoping this boy decides to come before she leaves.  Because you know, I’d like them to meet.  For at least a day.  Or two.

He’s got a couple weeks.  Let’s go kiddo. 

Take a guess…

I thought I’d amuse myself with this…

Anybody care to take a guess on when this little boy is coming?

I am 37.5(ish??) weeks.  Both girls were born right at 40 weeks and not a day early.

However, this time around I’ve been given three due dates. Yup.  Three.

January 27th.  February 4th and February 6th.

So….which is it? If you’re right, maybe I’ll give you a present.  Maybe.

Humor me.  And no, I have no “centimeters dilated and percentage effaced” stats because I don’t let them check me until I’m in labor (because it’s pointless…I went from nothing to baby in 5 hours with Munchkin)  So it’s seriously up in the air!

In the meantime I’ll be staring at these blue clothes and trying to picture putting an actual boy in them.  Can’t wait!

Lemonade

Isn’t it funny, how at the end of summer everyone gripes about how it’s too hot and they wish for cooler weather?  80 degrees feels like torture around September.  We beg for rain and sweaters and jackets and jeans.  Then after a couple months of cool temperatures (I’m talking 50-60 degrees) we rejoice in 80 degrees!  Everyone goes to the beach, we play at the park, update our Facebook to make everyone jealous and post pictures of our kids in swim suits. 

Aren’t Californians a little ridiculous? 

I digress.

We had such a week last week where the weather was magnificent. 

Diva asked to have a lemonade stand.  We held it outside at my parents’ and had the uncles and aunt come outside a buy a few cups of slightly sour, watered down lemonade.  They were good sports.

It was a hit!

Not quite sure why she drew a sad face on that sign?  Perhaps to guilt trip people into buying her wares?

Mmm….backwash.

They made bank.

Oh the innocence of youth. 

36ish

 

Don’t mind the terrible quality. It’s taken from my non-iPhone.

I’m getting close!  I can almost smell him now. 

As much as I enjoy pregnancy, I will fully admit I am done.  I am ready.  I am over it.  Maybe it’s because technically I have been pregnant for over a year, with a few months break in between.   I have waited a looong time to have this kid. I just want to hold my baby.  To kiss him.  To cuddle him, to dress him, to feed him.  Will he have hair?  Will he look like me?  Like the husband?  Will he be cute? (C’mon every mom worries about this.)  These last few weeks are always so agonizingly slow.

Surprisingly I’m not dreading labor.  I actually enjoyed it last time around (to an extent). I just hope this one goes as smoothly.  Can I handle another non-medicated birth?  We’ll see. 

For now though I’m feeling plenty of pushes and head-butts to the cervix (OUCH), lots of bladder squishing, cute little hiccups, bum all up in my ribs, and elbows, knees and feet sticking out in odd ways.  And the braxton hicks contractions are always fun. 

As for the name?  It’s a secret.  Well not really.  Some people I’ve told, others I am not as forthcoming.  It’s a good name.  Unique, masculine and I can’t wait until I can use it for real!

P.S.  Diva is watching me write this post.  She told me, “You look awesome in that picture.  Very stylish.”   She has low expectations.

Rollin

We have a fabulous roll recipe in our fam.  I’m actually not a huge fan of rolls in general but these are the BEST.  Light, fluffy, slightly sweet and just delicious.  And I have yet to make them myself because I’m sure I’ll make some grievous error and ruin the entire lot.  So I leave the roll making to my mom.  I don’t even know if I’m allowed to share the recipe, it might be in the family vault. 

The girls had a blast helping grandma.  Brings back memories of helping my mom roll these up when I was a little girl.  And I gotta say, my mom has a lot of patience.  She had to correct quite a few roll ups done by a 3.5 year old. 

Diva did surprisingly well.  She was very careful.

 

Mmmm…the dough is just as delicious.

Not quite miss Munchkin.  Not quite.

And I didn’t even think to get a picture of the finished product.  Just trust me when I say it was heavenly.

Oh and by the way, if you haven’t seen this on Facebook, here is proof of our little Christmas visitor.  May he rest in peace.  Did I mention there was two?  One visited at night, was shooed out and the other came in while we were asleep.  He was actually snoozin when we first saw him.  Apparently they can chew through the aluminum vents below your microwave.  Watch out for that.

 

I have a few posts in the works…stuff to catch up on.  So for now, enjoy this picture of my little cutie having a blast sledding in Utah. Don’t be fooled by this picture, we had to search high and low for a good spot to sled since it hadn’t snowed in quite awhile. 

Bake Fest 2011

 It’s tradition that the women in the family get together a few days before Christmas and bake the crap out of my mom’s kitchen.  Although we were missing my oldest sister very  much.  Read previous post about her baby having surgery.

Everything is from scratch and the treats are fabulous if I do say so myself.

We bake all day and to the dismay of the men in the family, give away 90% of what we’ve created.  I love it.

  

And we had two extra helpers this year.  Munchkin wasn’t quite sure about the Lemon Ricotta cookie dough.  She didn’t like it.  Don’t mind creepster dog in the background.  I’m sure he was hoping she’d drop some.

We listened to some wonderful music of course and also some not-so-wonderful music. Let’s just say Justin Bieber’s “Little Drummer Boy” is…well…completely and utterly the WORST.  There should never be rapping in Christmas music.  Never ever.  NEVER. 

   

                                  

The spread.  We had:

Lemon Ricotta Cookies

Fudge

Gingersnaps

Almond Poppy Seed Bread

Cocoa Gingerbread Brownies

Cheeseballs

Mint Brownies

Candy Cane Kiss Cookies

I’m lacking on the other recipes as they’ve been in our family for years and I can’t remember where they came from, so I’ll have to scan them and add later.  Because believe me, you’ll want them.