Baby update!

I figure I better get in another update because before I know it Hadley will be here! I have about 5 1/2 weeks left! So here's what's been going on with the pregnancy the past couple months! In mid August I put together a to-do list of things I really wanted to get done before the baby comes. It included: Cleaning out both storage rooms, Cleaning out the toy room, Cleaning out the basement bathroom (it had somehow become a 3rd storage room), Washing walls, windows, doors, baseboards on the main floor , Get Jaxon's room done (paint, bed stuff, decorations)
It was going to be a lot of work but I knew mentally, I needed to get it all done. So I started the beginning of Sept and have spent a lot of time trying to get it all done. As of this morning, I can finally say that everything listed above is D.O.N.E!!!! I am so happy about it! The basement took awhile but the great thing is I was able to donate a large amount as well as fill out the back of my dad's truck with a load to the dump. Cleaning like that feels so nice!
Jaxon's rooms was quite the ordeal for me. It took me a long time to decide what I wanted to do with his room. I kept thinking I wanted to paint it blue and bought bedding for his room awhile back. Jax helped me decide that we wanted dinosaurs in the room. After looking around the Internet and in stores for ideas, I finally decided what I wanted to do and what colors to go with. I also decided that we would just paint his room a tan color instead of blue-that way if we decide to change the decor in the future or change kids around rooms, the color wouldn't be such a factor....like the BRIGHT pink room next door to his! :) So I got the paint and painted the first coat Monday night. Tuesday morning my mom watched Jax so I could paint the second coat....I was so ready for it to be done! After I painted the second coat I could tell there was something wrong. It was very streaky and different colors. By the afternoon I called my dad for help. He was nice enough to come over and confirm that yes, the walls were not the same color. The paint hadn't been mixed well at the store and I didn't stir it well enough at home. Dang. So....I went back to the store, got some more paint, and my dad stayed and helped me repaint it again! Whew....3rd time was the charm and the room looks great! I hurried and did the touch-ups to the baseboards and ceilings this morning and put all the furniture back! I have ordered all the decorations but are waiting to receive them. I also bought material for a dino blanket for him. We are going to put it up at my mom's this weekend so it will be done shortly as well. It feels so nice to know his room will be done before the baby comes! I have been wanting to do his room since we moved in 3 years ago! ;)
So what else. I am still feeling pretty good. I stopped running right at 28 weeks and have just been walking instead. I don't get as good as a workout, but at least it is something. I have really enjoyed going out walking 3 days a week with 2 other of the YW leaders in the ward. We walk at 5:30 for an hour and the weather has been perfect!
My belly is big. I had a friend ask me the other day (while touching my stomach) "Does your doctor think your baby is going to be HUGE?!?!?!" ;) Nice right? No, I know I am bigger than I was with the other two. It's a good thing I work from home because I LIVE in comfy clothes! I think I have gained 24 lbs so far. I definitely have the pregnancy waddle. The only bad thing about working out is that I have to bend over to tie my shoes! I wake up at least 2 times a night to go to the bathroom and it's quite the effort to roll out of bed! It's awesome! ;)
Hadley is still quite the little mover. Sometimes she kicks/hits so hard it REALLY hurts! I'm not one that loves to have Scott feel my belly move but love for him to watch it. It is REALLY easy to actually see her moving in my belly! Scott thinks it's the craziest thing that you can actually see the movements. Jade is weired out by it too. The other day I felt her moving a ton and Jax was playing by me so I put a water bottle on my belly and told Jax to watch. The bottle kept moving from Hadley kicking. Jax thought it was the funniest thing ever! The issue that weird Jax out is my belly button. I told him one time that it would "pop out" soon. Since then he tells me every few days "Mom, I don't want your button to pop out. Let me see. Nope, it's just flat (which it is, def not an innie right now!) I realized just a few days ago that in his mind he probably thought I literally meant that my belly button would fall out....since I said it would "Pop" out. He had no idea I just meant it would stick out! I can now see why he was so concerned!
My tiredness has come back a little, but definitely not nearly as bad as it was the first trimester! It would probably help if I could sleep all night long, but we know that is not going to happen any time soon!
The past few days I have started having a lot of swelling in my hands and feet. Not a lot of fun. I called the Dr yesterday because I never swelling with the other two and I wasn't sure what I should be concerned about. The nurse said as long as I didn't have headaches or nausea that I didn't need to come in. She said I need to increase my fluid intake and lay down and put my feet up as much as possible. So what did I do? Paint Jax's room twice....take the kids to the park, Jade to dance. It's easy to say I don't do "Lay down and put your feet up" very well. ;) I did come home last night and went to my bed at 8:00 and stayed there until I went to sleep at 10:00. It was nice.
We are waiting for now on getting her a crib and setting it up in Jade's room. I plan on having her in my room for at least 4 months so we decided that 1-there was no reason to crowd Jade's room when she wasn't sleeping in there yet and 2-She will need nothing for Christmas, so why not have Santa bring her a crib! :) In a couple of weeks we will bring up the side sleeper and set up things in our room. It is going to be a little crowded in there by the time we bring up the sleeper as well as the recliner from the front room, but it's ok. I am planning on bringing up the recliner as well.
We are all so excited for her to come. 5 1/2 weeks still seems so far away, but I'm sure she will be here before we know it!

Ok...so I don't love pregnancy pics, but it is what it is right?!?! :)
33 wks

34 wks

First Day of SChool!

Jax has been waiting for preschool to start for a LONG time! After he took swimming lessons there and saw the train table, he was excited to go. He was also excited to start because he knew once he preschool started, he would be able to go to daycare less. He doesn't hate daycare but he is definitely ready to not be going all the time. Everyday he would wake up we would have this conversation:
Jax: Mom, what day is it?
Mom: Collene's day

Jax: (Cry, whine) No.....I don't want to go! I want to stay home!

That being said, he NEVER cries when we drop him off and is always happy when I pick him up. I know he was fine while he was there, I just think after 4 years he was ready to do something else.

I will say that Scott and I have been a little nervous for him to start preschool. We have had this conversation at least 3 or 4 times a week all summer
Mom/Dad: Jax, what happens if we hit (or push, take a toy, say bad words) at Miss Amee's?
Jax: I can't go there anymore and have to go back to Collene's
Mom/Dad: Yep, that's right. We have to be really nice if we want to go and play at Miss Amee's ok?
Jax: OK, I will be!

The day finally came Wed (09/07), for him to start school. He woke up and asked "Is it Miss Amee's day?" He was soooo excited! He didn't bat an eye when I dropped him off, in fact I'm sure he would have more liked me to just drop him off at the curb and drive away! I was worried when I picked him up to see how it went. He was in such a good mood. He grabbed my hand and kissed it and told me that when I washed it the kiss would still stay forever and then he showed me his "Kissing Hand" paper they had done. Miss Amee said he was great and even brought her a toy that someone had put back in the wrong place! Today was much of the same. He was happy to go and when I picked him up and asked if he was good he said he was. I asked if he had to go to a time out and he said "Nope, but the yellow shirt girl did!"

I am so glad he is loving preschool and hope it continues to be a great experience for him! He is getting so big and I love him to pieces!

So excited to start school!

showing off his transformer backpack!

Izzie and Jax!
Jade wanted a pic with him too! She got herself all dressed...including makeup before we left!
Miss Amee and Jax! We love her!

Bowling

I signed the kids up at the beginning of the summer in the "Kids Bowl Free" summer program. It is a program where they could bowl 2 free games a day, we only had to pay for shoes. Brandee took the kids twice during the summer. I decided that we should try to take them one more time so on the last day of the program we headed off to bowl.
I wish I could say it was such a good time.....not so much. It was one of those days where I tried to do something fun with the kids but they had some different ideas! Jade was upset from the beginning because she was not bowling well and Jax had a higher score. Jax didn't want to listen, wanted a million different balls, always wanted it to be his turn and the biggest problem was the whining and crying that came from him wanting some toy out of the toy machine. Whew....let's just say by the time the 2 games were over Scott and I were VERY ready to head home! Jax fell asleep on the way home, which I usually really try to avoid (so he isn't up all night), but after the bowling experience I was TOTALLY ok with it!
Some days are just like this and I've realized along the way it's ok!

Girls Camp

Catching up again!

Getting ready for girls camp this year was a little crazy. I was called as camp director in Jan and then released the end of Feb and called into YW. Another camcalled in April....only to be released the first part of June. A third, and very brave, camp director was called the middle of June and then we had 4 weeks left to get camp completely planned. Mel, our camp director, was AWESOME!!! She was so organized and ended up pulling off a fantastic camp! We came up with a Harry Potter type theme titled "Camp Acadamy of Wisdom and Worthiness". The girls had so much fun with it!
Jade wasn't way excited for me to go overnight, since I have never left before, but the kids did really well. Roy had them on Tuesday, Scott had them in the afternoon and then they slept at my mom's house. My mom said around 10:00 just before Jax fell asleep he started crying and said he was ready to go home. Jade assured him it was ok and he went to sleep shortly after. My mom had them during the day on Wed and they had fun going to see the parade floats at the expo center! Scott picked them up after work and also took the day off on Thursday to watch them. I got home Thurs by about 2:00 to some very happy kids, who were also sooo excited to see me! Always nice to come home to that! I missed my family but must admit the 2 days away from "mom" was a nice break!

The camping part I actually really enjoyed! The girls were all great while we were there. We set up tents, played games, did crafts, enjoyed some adult talk, ate some great food, had some great devotionals, went on a hike, watched the girls do some awesome skits (The laurels Harry Potter skit was awesome!)....performed in a leader skit, and actually got some great sleep!

A Few highlights from camp were:

Wednesday night devotional:

Heather and Amber put on a hilarious rap that talked about being worthy and then followed it up with an awesome, and very spiritual devotional around the camp fire. They talked about the worth of each girl and Heavenly Father's love for them. Then they had each girl and leader go around and say why they are worth it to their Heavenly Father. I said "I know I am worth it because my Heavenly Father has blessed me with two of his children and trusts me to raise them". It was a great spiritual experience. After the devotional we gave each girl a wand that Amber's husband had hand carved. As leaders we had chosen a word for each girl that described that girl and then a scroll with a few things that we felt were reasons that word described her. It was a good experience for me because we had prayerfully and thoughtfully come up with the words. The first time Heather and I tried to come up with the words we hadn't prayed about it first and we couldn't come up with anything. We went home, prayed about it, and the next few days the words came so much easier.

Our Hike:
It is no secret that I don't love hiking. I don't even slightly like hiking. It's just not my thing. Though I love being in nature, love working out in general, hiking up steep hills in the heat is so not my thing. But....I spent my time up at this camp ground whining as a girl and wasn't about to do it as a leader! ;) Because there were so many of us leaders pregnant, we started out on the hike thinking we would just do a short and easy hike. When we got to the point in the hike where we could continue on or turn back there was one priesthood leader who wanted to go up to the tower (The same tower I very clearly remember HATING climbing to as teenager!). Nobody volunteered wanting to go except one leader. This one leader said "Come on girls, let's just girl. We can do hard things!" And with that, it was decided up we would go and AMAZINGLY enough....no one complained-the entire time! All of our girls were troopers. We took them all up to the tower and they were all ok with it! They did so great and we were all so proud of them! Overall I think we hiked 5 miles and we had a really good time and it was a really good experience for the girls. I think "I can do hard things" is something I will remember for a long time!

So, that is a pretty good summary from camp. I am glad I was able to go and was also glad when I was going home on Thursday :). I am grateful for girls camp and the great, spiritual experience it allows the girls to have!

1/2 way up on the hike