8 is Great!!

At her party yesterday with some great girls.  Was so nice to have everyone get along and not be disappointed it wasn't the coolest hippest party on the block.  They played a few games Mckayla came up with and led (just Mckayla's style), decorated some corkboard frames with all manner of artsy stuff, had cupcakes, and played dress up.  Great!

I can't believe our big girl, our Kayla pie is really 8 years old today.  She's such an intelligent, creative, beautiful little girl, although I fear I can't say little girl any more.  Thankfully she still retains her childlikeness, not in an immature way, but she's certainly not a tween yet.  While some of her peers know about Justin Beiber and iCarly, not Mckayla (ok, she knows of iCarly but doesn't watch it).  I'm so grateful for that too.  We're grateful for so many things about our Mckayla

I did say she isn't a tween but I have to laugh at this pic with earbuds in listening to music on my phone

I mentioned how creative she is didn't I?  We routinely find photos and more often videos on our phones from productions she's put on.  I believe this was a photo shoot she put together for her Little Mermaid production.

Kayla is such a good big sister

Comforting Katie high above the ground on the ropes course we did up at Snowbird a few weeks ago

She even humors her feisty little brother who is all boy most of the time

And she is just so beautiful from day 1 to 100 to now.  We love you babe, Happy Birthday!!

Happy Halloween!

In trying to get caught up and be current with blogging I'm just going to throw this post and a bunch of pics up now then catch up all that's happened before this (nothing huge, no big announcements or anything, no worries) later on.
We of course had to start Halloween off by going to Gardner Village to see the witches last week.  Crowded, but a good time had by all.

Man they're adorable! 

We had more Halloween fun last Thursday with the annual little party thing at the pool I work at.  A little haunted house they walk through that all the kids did great in (past years Mckayla wouldn't go in), games in the gym, then a giant cookie and drink at the end.

Aren't they just the cutest?  Yeah I think so too :)

Katie is getting so big

Talmage was full of poses for us.

Yes you saw a beach ball on this belly of mine.  That was my costume for my 2 water fitness classes I teach on Thursdays.

This is one of my very favorite patrons, Suzanne, who dressed up for the class that night too.  She has lost over 100lbs on her own and keeps it off.  She works out way more than I do right now!  She's such a hard worker and I do love those

Friday afternoon we headed downtown to Grandma Marla's work for their fun activities.  They had 4 floors of trick or treating!  We only made it through 2 and the kids buckets were full.  They had fun decorating picture frames and enjoying some treats.  Thanks Grandma!

Fun! 

Right Talm?

Talm was SO excited to see another Transformer.  Meet Bumblebee.  Don't you just love their poses?  Be afraid

Saturday we went to a 5k and kids race Monster Dash.  I had wanted to do another very popular Halloween race, but it just didn't work out, so we did this instead.  And it was lots of fun too.  A free kids race after which Talm and Kate ran (Mckayla not interested I guess).  I certainly did not win the race (actually had some pretty bad kidney pain we're looking into, I seem fine today though and baby is great, no worries), but I did win the costume contest!  :)  I ironicaly won a 25+lb pumpkin that they readily handed me.  Hey thanks  :)

Yes it was cold, but not bad until 20 minutes or so after the race.  Jer did a great job painting my belly the 3 times I needed it, this time freehand, no stencil penciling, but I think this version turned out the best.

After going out for breakfast with the kids we headed to Wheeler Farm for a cyclocross event going on.  Cyclocross is a cool mix of road and mtn biking where you have to jump off your bike to go over obstacles.  I SO want to try it!  They had a kid race that Talmage wanted to do so we signed him up.  Jer had to push him along several parts and his darn training wheel kept coming loose (we're actually putting time into teaching him to ride a 2 wheeler now that he's interested), but he had a good time and the girls hung out on the playground in the middle of the course the whole time + wonderful sunshine, it was a great time.

Dad helping him along

He had some added motivation getting to these pumpkins he could pummel through.  He loved that

Sweet happy boy.  I'm proud of him for wanting to do it and sticking through it (it was a long race, like 20 minutes!) and having a great time even being the slowest kid (which we of course didn't tell him, no reason to, he was there to have fun and try something new).

One of the sponsors there had a tent full of these balance bikes for kids to borrow and try.  We have a pink one for Kate but I didn't bring it.  Jer and I were observing the other kids riding them around and oh my word!  There were some maniac fast strider kids.  Really motivated us to get our kids out and riding more.  Anyway, Kate had a good time on this one and we even found her riding it up onto this rock, LOL!

Then of course Halloween actually came!  We started the day off with the kids Halloween parade at school.  It was a wierd moment to just be sitting there with Jer and Katie who is so not a little baby any more.  Seems like we've always had 2 kids with us and at least one as a baby.  Not so.....until next year anyway  :)

My mom made her this costume and it's cute of course with it's purple boas, but  special too because it's made entirely from fabric that was my Grandma Allan's.  She would love seeing my kids in their costumes.  

She loved her accessories (witch broom and skeleton necklace) and face paint and has cute purple and black striped socks which you can't see great but are there.  The great hat held a rat and a couple green bugs too

Just big handsome Talmy  :)

That night we went and visited my parents, Jer's dad, then headed back to our house once it was dark (Talm insisted we not go out till it was dark) and trick or treated the neighborhood.  Another one of those weird moments when we realized this is probably the first year since we started taking kids out that we didn't have a stroller.  Kate did great until the last little bit when she asked to go home.  So I carried her home and into the house where she promptly removed her costume in the living room, put her PJ's on, and crawled in our bed to watch a movie.  Guess Halloween just did her in!  Grandma Marla and Cam came over to visit us later than night which was great since the kids would have been completely asleep had we thrown them in the car.

Happy Halloween!!!

The big ultrasound! We're having....

A beautiful little baby boy OR girl  :)

Nope, not finding out.  Jer who normally doesn't care about baby stuff like car seats and linens and room design and clothes and such suggested not finding out, so, ok.  I'm all for finding out, but we have boy and girl stuff, it's probably our last baby, so why not?  I know, I know, there are a millions reasons you could give me to find out

Sweet little side bum shot of baby laying on his/her bent legs.  Don't bother looking for a gender, I already did
and if  by some way you do see a gender DON'T say anything  :)

Mckayla called this the baby's running arm, love it!

So baby looks good, we'll get the radiology reading later.  I do appear to have a low lying placenta though, so we'll need to look at it again via ultrasound close to 30 weeks (end of November).  If it doesn't move up it could threaten our ability to deliver at the birth center due to bleeding risk when my cervix which the placenta right now is close to, dilates, separating the placenta from my uterus thus causing a lot of bleeding.  The ultrasound guy and midwives sounded confident it would move up though, so I'll hope and pray for that and we'll deal with the matter after the next ultrasound.

Sweet little baby, I tell ya, an athlete already, always moving.  Kind of looks like hiccups here, and I love the little hand opening and closing and fingers toward the face too.  How neat!

Kaity rocks out

I'm actually making an effort to up date our poorly neglected family blog, so here's 1 of 20 posts I've got. Enjoy!  This girl loves to dance!

First day of school

For not just Mckayla this year, but Talmage too!  Kayla started 2nd grade again in the Magnet (gifted) program in our district.  She really likes it and I really like her in it.  She's challenged and interested and has good kids in her class.  It's neat to see her and her friends socializing even more like I might remember in elementary school.  Like certain kids fit certain social spots in class and they seem more like a team than just a class of kids.  Right now she's writing a comic book for her friend Ian.

I assure you we are raising her a little crunchy, but not hippie, she just likes this outfit.  Buying her designer shoes that are popular with the kids these days (on sale with a coupon of course) was a new thing, she was very excited!

Talmage went to his testing the first week and we got to meet his sweet little teacher.  And I say little because she really is like 5 feet tall, has the highest little cartoon voice and is so enthusiastic voice.  A perfect kindergarten teacher!  All those characteristics are positive things, I think she's great and so does Talmage.  During his testing it was taking a little while and she told us she was able to challenge him/test him more so that was fun to hear.  No idea if he'll end up like Mckayla, but it's totally fine if not.  It will be really fun to watch him develop this year.

We trailer biked both kids to school as a family for their first days at school

While Mckayla's first day wasn't really emotional for me and I didn't think it would be for Talm's either, it was.  My sweet little boy was going into school without me and it was going to continue that way.  He's such a big boy and was and is so ready to go.  When I've had to walk him in if we're a few minutes late he runs ahead of me and tries to shoo me away "I know the way Mom, I'm fine".

My big boy, wish we'd gotten a better picture of him, but I assure you, he's cute none the less

One reason we put Talmage in PM kindergarten was so he could ride the school bus home with Mckayla.  He enjoys it, although not as much as I thought he would (sometimes he seems like he doesn't like how long the bus ride is).  The bus unfortunately doesn't take the kids to their houses, but with students from the entire west side of the valley at that one school, I imagine it just isn't logistical, so they drop them off at local middle schools on the west side of the district.  I was nervous originally when Mckayla first started taking the bus, I couldn't imagine just assuming she'd end up on the right bus and off at the right stop and fretted terrible when the bus was late, but we've been fine.  So I had a little anxiety sending Talm with her, but their teachers are great about letting her come and pick him up and rejoin her class walking out to the bus.  All has been well except for one day a few weeks ago where Mckayla somehow just forgot her little brother, and boarded the bus without him.  We get a phone call from the school saying "we have Talmage in the office, I guess Mckayla didn't come to school today so could you please come get him".  Um, YES she did go to school today, I'm glad you have Talmage, but where the heck is Mckayla then??  So they start making phone calls to the transportation people at Granite who contact the bus driver who tells us the kids said Mckayla got off at a bus stop a few minutes ago, a stop she never gets off at.  Did I mention we were 20 minutes away coming back from our 9th Anniversary lunch date??  We were planning on picking them up on our way home and now we have one kid waiting at his school and the other 20 minutes away off her bus and who knows where now!  Did she stay at the stop, did she go inside, did she walk to the library nearby, did she decide to walk home (which I never believed she would do, but I guess you never know)?  So we madly drive over there, and guess what, she's not there.  Talk about freaking out!  We drove the way home she would take if she walked home after a police man there told us he drove around and didn't see her.  Well, she's not at home.   Where is our child??  We were basically constantly on the phone with their school, district transportation, even the district police.  Turns out the bus driver thought she was someone else and she was indeed on the bus and was about to get off at the right stop.  So the office staff there brought her inside till we could get her, we ran to get Talm, and finally reunited with Mckayla.  I feared she would be just fret with worry riding on a bus for 30 minutes realizing she didn't pick up her brother and where is he now.  Yeah, in a total morph of behavior unlike typical Mckayla, she was just fine and didn't even realize she'd forgotten Talmage till we picked her up.  He was way more upset than she was.  I just don't understand her complete lack of memory here, but we didn't get mad at her, both kids were safe, all was handled, and we now send her to school with a note everyday saying whether to take the bus or not and where to get off at.  Shouldn't last forever, but for now it does.  Yay for bus rides  :)

Love these guys!

Since I still haven't gotten around to Katie's bday post.....

Enjoy this picture of her! 

Yep, tis true.  We're pregnant AND going to have a baby I think!  We're about 10 weeks along and with Mckayla by my side holding my hand we all heard a heartbeat yesterday!  Still not out of the woods, but a big relief.  We're hopeful for the best and really look forward to a little one joining our family.

I'm feeling pretty good, pretty typically pregnant; lots of worry, lots of hope, some nausea, some exhaustion, and lots of hormones/emotions/moodiness :)
The kids know and are excited.  Mckayla likes to touch my belly (yes there is a bit already, is getting hard to hide!), Talm hugs my belly and asks me how many more days, and Kaity asks every day if today is the day the baby is coming.  It's going to be a long pregnancy  :)  already has felt like an almost year long first trimester, but I hope it will be a long pregnancy, about 6 more months to be precise.  We're praying and hopeful and appreciate all the thoughts and prayers that have been sent our way

Yay!

St George Ironman Trip

Dang, hate when I get behind.  I'm sure I'm skipping some life changing event......oh yeah, Katie's birthday, I'll be back...