Baby Update

Hey Friends and Family,

Just wanted to fill you in on how the baby is doing. I am finally about 18 weeks along (or starting my 5th month of pregnancy). I am feeling better than the first part, but not completely back to normal. I still need daily naps. We had an ultrasound yesterday and enjoyed watching the little baby for about 45 minutes. The heart beat was great. All the measurements were within normal limits. The baby is weighing about 7 ounces right now. I am feeling the baby move so much more this week than before. It's always reasuring feeling the movements. I have enclosed a picture we got from the ultrasound. It's a profile picture of the face and the body. Hope you like it!

Oh, and it's a girl!

Maternity Bins

Due to having a lot of sisters. . . most being older than me, I have 3 HUGE bins full of maternity clothes that we pass around. I am the only one in the family procreating at this time, but my Lil' sister may decide to start a family in the next year or two. We decided to go through the maternity clothes together and see what is still in style, not stained etc. We had a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Uncle T

Aunt Nancy made 24 hr cake (a birthday tradition) and we celebrated Uncle Terryl's birthday while they visited us.

The hunt for the Christmas Tree

My parents came up along with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Terryl to cut down a Christmas tree. We did it on my families traditional day, the first Sat of December. The weather was AMAZING, especially for western Oregon. I have gotten used to kneeling in the mud and rain to cut down the tree. We all found something we liked.

Grant and I sawing down the tree. Scottie is watching on the side letting us know how we're doing. Luckily the trunk was pretty small.

Uncle T, Scottie and Grant. Cool dudes after being MANLY chopping down their Christmas Trees.

Grant helping Grandma try to straighten the tree.

Grant had a Great time decorating the tree. We got the stuff out right away to decorate it.

The world through Grant's Eyes

Grant wanted to borrow the camera and take pictures. Since I could erase them I let him go for it. It was really interesting what things he felt were important to take pictures of. I have about 20 random shots of the table he set, scotttie, the fridge, some pictures he colored etc. I thought he did a good job on this picture of Scottie and I.

Of course his car is one of the pictures he feels is VERY important. Along with is toes.

Cashing in Life Insurance

Every year Jeff jumps on the roof with a smile on his face to hang up Christmas lights. Or atleast I wish every year he would. I usually have to negotiate and bribe that I'll make cookies just to get him up there. It NEVER fails that out of his mouth comes "You just want me to climb on the roof so you can cash in on my life insurance if I fall off."

I had painted most of the trim on our house in August. I had one last piece in the front to do, but found out I was pregnant and my balance seemed to have left me. Jeff painted the last part after he hung up the lights.

Thanksgiving time

We drove up to Jeff's families house the night before Thanksgiving. The traffic was SO bad I considered stopping at my girlfiends house in Albany until the traffic got better. We had a great Thanksgiving day with WONDERFUL food as usual, and the kids enjoyed playing with cousins. We drove back home on Thanksgiving day.

It's never a gathering at Jeff's families house unless there is a game of peanuckle going on.

In the garage at Jeff's parents house there is a "harry potter" door. The kids had a BALL daring eachother to go in there.

I wanted to document that my Father-in-law does do dishes. Even if it is only 1 x a year. haha.

The boys cousins are in Karate. Jeff convinced them to show him some of their moves and he would show them his. Jeff has never taken Karate in his life, and I believe pulled a muscle. He is about to try and get his leg up in the air in this shot. It was really funny. Scottie was on his way to help him.

Finally posting!

Hey family and friends. I am finally putting up pictures from October. We had a lot of fun and have been very busy. It's been a bit exhausting for me too. Mostly because we are expecting baby #3 and I am pretty sick and VERY tired. Our due date is May 23 and we are very excited. We will hopefully find out what this baby is around Christmas time. Jeff has been busy with School and work and I have been busy working and trying to keep from loosing my lunch and sanity. haha. We have really appreciated both sets of parents. These passed 4 weeks have been full of Grandma's and Grandpas and lots of attention which the boys needed and I didn't have the energy to give them. Thanks both Mom's and Dad's.

Happy Halloween!

On Halloween night Grant decided he didn't want to be a fireman after all but an elephant. Which he was last year. Embarrassingly enough both boys were the same as they were last year. I should have just used last years picture. ha ha.

Here the boys are ready for the church Trunk or Treat party.

Two little frogies

We have some close friends who are also our neighbors. The boys ADORE their daughter, here is Scottie and Clara dressed alike in their halloween costumes. We hadn't planned this, but it turned out cute they were both frogs for halloween.

Birthday party

The first thing Scott said on his Birthday when we wished him Happy Birthday was "Elmo cake". Good thing Elmo is supposed to be a red monster, this fits the red monster description. haha.

Preparing for Halloween

After getting back from our trip to La Grande we hit the ground running. We decided to carve pumpkins as a family. Grant actually stuck his hand in and cleaned out his pumpkin for the first time this year. Scottie, was a little unsure about things.

Trip to La Grande

The boys sat back and kicked their feet up for a week while their Grandma and I worked for 3 days making and canning Grape juice. We still didn't finish all of the grapes, but it was a great learning experience. The boys had a great time visiting Grandma and Grandpa. They got to do a lot of things.

Instead of carving pumpkins Grandma and Grandpa thought it would be fun to make cupcakes and decorate them. The boys REALLY enjoyed it too. Here is Grant's creation.

I had just announced that it was bedtime and to pick out a story to read. Both boys said they didn't want ME to read a story but GRANDPA. Sheesh!

On our trip to Boise I got to see my BEST friend Heather, her brand new house and new baby girl Shae. It was a short, but great visit.

We drove over to Boise for the day so the boys could see their cousins. Here is Scottie and Jason playing Jason's Garden. All the kids hit it off right away. You'd never have guessed they hadn't seen eachother for over a year.

Scottie riding horses with Uncle Dan and Bonnie. They warmed up after feeding them apples we picked at G-ma and G-pa's house.

The boys have been afraid of horses before, but for some reason if Uncle Dan and Bonnie were with them, they were willing to ride. Here is Grant riding with Aunt Bonnie.

Scottie's face in the picture shows how much he adores his Grandpa. He really enjoyed being there and said the word Grandpa A MILLION times day. He had to know where Grandpa was at all times.

It was a windy cold day, but we decided to go to the park anyways. The boys had a ball and so did Grandma and Grandpa. Here is my Mom pushing Grant on the tire swing.

Little Change.

I had book club at my house a few weeks ago and after the discussion some of the ladies decided to tease me a bit because I STILL had paint chips taped to my wall from a year ago. They started talking about colors and I mentioned I was going to go with a nice brown in my kitchen and Maree said "oh Liz do something bold and drastic", so this is for you Maree. It's about as bold as I get. haha. I think it turned out well. This is the before picture and below is the after. Our biggest thing was finding a red that matched our chocolate brown curtains. I like the change it's made. Nothing like a good group of friends to push you past your comfort zone. I'm going back to my bubble for a while now. ha ha.

The After. I should have taken the picture at the same time of day as I took the other one . . but you get the point. I really like it and it is DRASTIC. I will say I am so glad I got online and read tips on painting red walls. If your interested ALWAYS get a grey primer and have them darken it, paint that on before you even start. HUGE difference! I only did 2 coats of red and it turned out so dark and rich. LOVING IT! Thanks for the inspiration Maree.

Pears anyone?

I have never canned in my life, nor had much interest in doing so until this year. I got all the canning supplies earlier this summer but didn't have anything to can. Then at church they offered 40 lb boxes of pears from the church pear farm in Medford. I bought 2 and decided that would be my first canning experience. I was a bit nervous having never canned before and my first attempt would be on 80 lb's of pears, but it all worked out. Here is a picture that Jeff took of me the first night. I did it in the evenings right before bedtime and it took me about 2 nights to can all 80 lbs. I think the boxes were only 20 lb boxes because I didn't get as many quarts as my mom calculated I should. My girlfriend loaned me her water bath caner so I had 2 going at once and it was GREAT! Thanks Emy! Glad my kids love pears! Scottie ate so many before I was able to get to canning that he had pear diarrhea. Was that TMI? Only a Mom would post about poop on her blog. haha.

I got a bunch of supplies from the company I am working for, and the boys LOVE playing in the boxes the supplies come in. They pretended they were on pirate ships.

Mother of the Year

I thought I would share my experience that I had yesterday with Scottie that is sure to get me a nomination for Mother of the Year. Jeff had school this weekend and came home with a couple of treats. He had one of those 100 cal pack fig newtons and the boys REALLY wanted me to open it. I said no, and later I hear Scottie repeatedly say "Cake-a-treat , Cake-a-treat" I think to myself "We don't have any pancakes what could he be talking about?" I walk into the kitchen where he is sitting on the floor with the package of fig newtons opened and a BUTCHER KNIFE. To my horror he had grabbed the package, walked into the kitchen, opened a kitchen drawer that had the butcher knives (I didn't know he could reach let alone know where they were!) and sat on the floor with a HUGE butcher knife and cut the package open. He had the knife lieing next to him and the package opened with a big smile of achievement. AHHH! There goes my award. haha.

Scroll down to the bottom and watch.

I got these a few years ago from a girlfriend at work. I have saved them for over 4 years! Everytime I see them I just laugh and I admit I can't help but dance along as I am watching my computer screen. Scroll down to the bottom of my blog and tell me what you think! Make sure to pause my playlist so you can hear the music on both video's! ;)

True First Day of School

This was Jeff's TRUE first day of school. He got to drop off Grant and see Grant's school and then headed to the University. He has already had a TON of homework before he even started and he is feeling a bit overwhelmed. But we know this is all worth it.

You can see the grey primer coat I put on the trim. I hope to cover it with white paint soon. We'll see . . . you know how those projects go. hee hee..

My craigslist deals!

I was really looking for a trike, but thought I would see if there were any bunkbeds posted. I saw that this one had just posted. The ones we got are a honey oak, but the EXACT same design as these. The lady had posted at 3:00 or so and I got to her house before the other 6 people and paid her by 5:30. I got these for $200. She bought them 3 years ago for $800. Grant is excited to get them set-up after Scottie's birthday.

I wanted to buy Scottie a trike for his birthday at the end of October. After looking at some stores I realized they are running for $50+. Not that he isn't worth $50 to me, but I SO did not want to spend that. I got on Craigslist.com and found this one for $25. The owner lived less than a mile from me. I found out this trike usually goes for $150+ . . . I felt like $25 was a good bargain. Don't tell Scottie what he is getting for his b-day. It's hiding and a surprise.

First day of School! Just drop me off Mom!

Grant was SO excited to start pre-school this year. We signed him up back in March and he has been talking about it ever since then. His famous request is "Just drop me off Mommy. You not come in. Just drop me off." Hard to believe my baby is growing up! He picked out a Cars backpack with wheels. This picture is as we left the house to "Drop him off". I didn't honor his request completely, I walked him to his class room and made sure the teacher saw him. He wasn't very happy about that.

Grant standing right in front of his new pre-school class. By the time we got there, he was a little nervous and not smiling as much. He was very brave. He is very much like his Daddy when it comes to school. Jeff says when he was young, he thought the whole point of school was going to recess. . . .when I picked up Grant he said his favorite part was playing on the playground and that's all I could get out of him. Like father like son.

Crashing the Family Reunion

The Olson family invited us to their annual Labor Day weekend camp out at Dorena Lake. We were actually in town at the time and drove up for the day. We had SO MUCH fun visiting with them and watching all the kids play. My favorite part was watching Jessica and their other cousins trying to dunk Melissa (no offense Melissa, it was just really funny). Jeff talked with my Uncle Greg for a long time about bikes and got some great information from him. (My Uncle Greg is a HUGE biker). We played at Cottage Grove Lake instead of Dorena lake because it seems Dorena lake has Toxic Algea in it. They didn't have a sign posted at the lake about the toxic algea and it wasn't until the Olson's were done playing in the lake all day and back at camp that they found a notice by the bathrooms at camp notifying of the toxic algea. Ugh. That's why we decided to go to Cottage Grove lake instead.

Grant and Scottie playing and throwing rocks.

My cousins Jessica and Melissa with their other cousins watching the kids swim at the lake.

Grandma Robbins and Aunt Kathy watching everyone play around at Cottage Grove Lake.

Scottie and I at Cottage Grove Lake with the Olson Family reunion.

Playing with the "Telascope"

With my new job as a Paremedical Examiner the boys see me with my Stethascope sometimes. Grant wanted to play with the "Telescope" and he and Scottie thought it was SO neat to listen to eachother's hearts. Scottie kept lifting his shirt and holding the bell piece to his chest. It was really cute.

Grant thought that Scottie would like to hear the heart in his feet.

Grant thought his dump truck would like to hear his heart too! As you can see the Stethascope ear pieces are around the dump truck. Crazy kid.

Secret Agent Man

I knew this hat would be used. I got it when I was in the singles ward and we had a free market. It folds up into a small circle and fits in a purse. Scottie and Grant LOVE playing with it. It is too big and rolls around Scottie's head but he thinks he is hiding.

Day at the lake

There is a lake about 7miles from our house and the boys really enjoyed playing in the sand and rocks for hours. We went up to hang out with the church youth group. The boys enjoyed watching the boats take off full of kids to go inter-tubing. Had I known the lake was this nice, I would have been there ALL summer!