2021 Recap

 January

January was a pretty uneventful month. We celebrated a new year with some fun couples (one of my favorite new year's we've had). We moved Lucy to her own room and got our room back (always the nicest feeling...even though I do end up missing them a little bit haha)

February

February was actually more eventful than usual. We took a family staycation, which was actually one of the more fun ones we've taken. We also started figuring out what to do during the witching hour while it's too dark and cold outside.

March

We celebrated (is that the right word??) being home for a whole year. I only say celebrate because it's been really nice working from home this whole time. I also went and visited my best friend a few times, including once in March.

April

We had a GREAT Easter this year, one I was proud of how much I accomplished for it. Based on Lucy's 10-month update, it was finally starting to get warm enough to be outside more, which is always nice!

May

May might have been our busiest month of the year! We celebrated Cara's 4th birthday (STILL can't believe she's THAT big already). We went to the dinosaur drive through event, which the girls really liked (even though it ended way messy for us haha). I had a really nice Mother's Day, they are getting better and better each year. We also had a family day at the Zoo, which is always fun for me!

June

We had a fun, eventful, unexpected Memorial Day Weekend (yes, this is technically in May, but I posted about it in June). We had such a fun 1st birthday party for Lucy, one that I was pretty proud of! We celebrated Larry for Father's Day. 

July

In July we had a decent 4th of July (not the best, but not the worst...this holiday is still finicky for me). We celebrated Larry's birthday with a fun day away for him haha. We were planning for our 4th baby AND found out later I am pregnant (such fun news!).

August

Unfortunately, the sickness from the pregnancy hit HARD in August, so all I posted about was my first pregnancy update.

September

September got a little more exciting, this month I was constantly getting sick (because of the new schooling and pregnancy), but we found ways to have fun still. Cara started school and loves it still! And we had a fun Labor Day Weekend (I really loved the 3 day weekends we had this year!).  

October

October was one of my favorite months since it was my New York trip with Stace. Unfortunately, I was feeling a little better, but everyone else was so sick! We also had a very fun Halloween!

November

We celebrated Gwen's 3rd birthday (3??! what??). We took her out for our 1:1 dates with her, which were tons of fun! We also had a low-key Thanksgiving this month.

December 

We tried to do a fun Vegas Vacation this month (but it didn't go NEARLY as planned as I had hoped). We all were feeling well enough to get our Santa picture, which was fun! I got some unfortunate news about one of my sisters right before Christmas, but we were still able to celebrated Christmas Day, which also didn't go as well as I had hoped, but the kids had fun so that's all that matters. 

So the year didn't end as great as it started, but knowing we're adding a new little one next year is an exciting moment. Now that I'm finally starting to figure out how I want to do holidays and free moments with our kids I'm glad this is our last one so that next year can be the start of a GREAT many years as a complete family.

Christmas 2021

So, Christmas this year was very...off. I got some news a couple days prior that Jordyn (a younger sister) had had some health issues and ended up in a coma. The outlook wasn't great, and she was declared brain dead on Christmas morning. Luckily, she was able to donate a bunch of her organs and save some lives (and those people all got calls Christmas morning about their own miracle coming).

Despite the downer news, we made the most of our holiday weekend. We made some gingerbread houses on the 15th (I forgot to take pics). We went to Marie's on the 18th for gifts and dinner...we were supposed to drive through some light display, but we got caught in a horrible traffic jam on the way up and we didn't end up having time for that. But the girls did get to do a craft with Marie, and they all seemed to like that. 

I was feeling sick a bunch of the time before Christmas so that put delays on wrapping (I had a whole plan to have my shopping done by the 1st and my wrapping done by the 15th so that I could just enjoy the last 10 days before Christmas...that didn't work) and soaking in the movies. I did watch a bunch of the cheesy Netflix ones while I wrapped so that was nice. 

The girls also got their own advent calendars (Paw Patrol for Gwen and LOL dolls..or whatever...for Cara). They looked forward each day to getting to open a new tab and getting their little chocolate. That was probably my favorite part of the holiday.

LOVE having snow for Christmas

We did go drive through our neighborhood and see lights and decorations on the 23rd. The girls always love that...but I believe it's mostly because they don't have to be buckled and get to walk around the car haha. We had more houses decorated for Christmas than Halloween, but the Halloween ones were more fun, so it was kind of "eh" again. Hopefully next year we'll be able to drive to the places they map out on KSL for fun neighborhoods...or go to the Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point...something that's really decorated up. 

Christmas Eve, we went to my Grandma's for breakfast with Cindy and Andy (and their families and even Andy's puppy). Breakfast was good and it was fun seeing everyone and getting to open gifts. However, my Grandma's house just feels smaller and smaller each year and so it gets cramped very quickly. And she's getting so easily confused so I always feel bad. But we still had fun. After nap time that day I "made" cookies with the girls...I wanted to make them from scratch, but I had gotten these Mrs. Field's "already made, ready to be baked" cookies so we decided to just do those. They were good, but it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped it would be.

I'm so bummed this ended up blurry, but it's the 
Only stocking shot I got so it's going on the blog

Christmas Day, we got up and opened gifts. The girls seemed to love everything. Unfortunately, I put ALL of everyone else's gifts under the tree already and I had only gotten the girls 5 gifts (one from each person) so when they came down it didn't look like MUCH had been added. They did get excited about their stockings, but I didn't get a picture of that. We didn't get any snow, which is always a bummer for me, and since we had already seen family, we didn't go anywhere. So, after opening gifts we just kind of hung out. It felt boring (even though the girls had so much fun playing with their new toys). I think because I was feeling bummed already and then not having anything to do (I didn't get any presents to "play" with) just made me feel stir crazy. Maybe in future years I need to make sure a game or building toy (like Legos) is part of the gifts so we can do that as a family? 

Once gifts were opened, I was getting antsy to get things cleaned up I started to wonder if I'm the only person who gets loves the build up to Christmas, but gets too anxious to actually enjoy the day. The mess was driving me crazy. Luckily during nap time we were able to open all gifts (plastic wraps and ties and all that stuff) and get them sorted and any messy ones got moved to the closet...away from little hands. I watched a happy movie as well to help get me out of my funk. 

Today is nice, we'll just do our regular grocery shopping and laundry. I also found out the Packer's played on Christmas day (I hadn't seen anything about a game) so I'm going to watch that later. We'll pack up our Christmas stuff to be put away and get ready for the new year (that's my absolute favorite part of the year). Just get back into a regular routine to get back to normal. 

I really feel that next year the holidays will be better. No more pregnancies to make me lazy, by the time the holidays come around this new baby will be about 6 months, which makes it easier. So, this next year can be the start of our family traditions for each year, and I can make it the best ever! 

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had a great day.

That Time We Attempted a Family Vegas Vacation

So initially I was going to be posting about our first real family vacation in a loong time. I made so many great plans and packing went so smoothly, and I was so excited. It was going to be great! When we left for the trip, I kept kind of thinking about how I didn't take our family road trip pic or play "Holiday Road" (I love playing that for road trips), but I didn't think it was that important. 

When I planned this, we were going to see a Lion Habitat, the Shark Reef Aquarium, The Hulk at Madame Tussaud's, go on the High Roller, eat at the Sugar Factory, plan a day at the Adventure Dome, go to the Children's Museum, play at a container park...so many fun things! I was going to do a big breakfast every morning and let the girls pick whatever they wanted. I even did a grocery order to our AirBnB for eggs, milk, juice, etc. We brought bacon, cereal, waffle mix and our maker. It was going to be GREAT! About a week before the trip, Cara gets Pink Eye and I got the flu, so we were nervous, but by the time we left were both doing great. The day we left Gwen started to get pink eye, but we had some eye drops for Cara we brought with us to help her get over it.

The drive down went so well, the girls hardly had any melt downs, we only had to make one stop for stretching, bathrooms, and water refills (in Toquerville, so we had only a tiny bit left of our drive). While that city felt a little cult-ish, it wasn't a horrible stop. Unfortunately, the 2nd half of our drive was the biggest part of the elevation change, and my right ear just wouldn't pop, no matter what I did - yawn, chewing, swallowing, rubbing over and over - it just wouldn't pop. By the time we got to the house my ear and jaw were KILLING me! We decided to order dinner to be delivered so that we didn't have to go out, I was almost in tears over the pain.

Unfortunately, dinner didn't go as great. They had trouble with my order and had weird issues with the chicken nuggets for the girls...it was weird. We put the girls to bed and just relaxed while I tried to get my ear to feel better. 

Luckily the next morning my ear and jaw were filling much better so I thought it would be on the mend. We went out to a playground to let the girls play before the Lion Habitat opened up. I kept thinking how many germs were on the playground, but we made sure to clean hands as much as we could before leaving. We headed over to the Lion Habitat and had the coolest experience. We got to see the workers feed the lions and get really close to them. We got to see their one giraffe paint a scarf and were so close we could almost touch him. Then we let the girls feed lettuce to the giraffes, they seemed to love that. We were about to leave when ALL the lions suddenly burst out roaring for about 2 minutes...it was the coolest sound and experience. We're not sure why they did (one of the female lions was making a cough roar sound so we assumed that started it, but no idea what it was). I tried to record it, but they stopped right as I started. 

We went back to the house for nap time, but it was kind of later than normal, so nap time didn't go as well as we had hoped, but it was fine enough..so I thought. After that we went to the Shark Reef Aquarium. What I didn't know is that the big Rose Bowl game (Utes VS Oregon) was playing nearby so parking was a firm $25, no matter what. I thought we'd be parked for a while so I convinced Larry it was fine. We went and did the aquarium, and it was REALLY cool. However, I was starting to rush the girls because I was getting stressed on time (we had a bunch of things to squeeze in and traffic on the strip was a nightmare - I can't believe I forgot that part). So while we enjoyed the visit, it was quicker than it should've been, in hindsight. We then drove over to Madame Tussaud's. Luckily that parking was free, but we did have a ways to walk. The girls were kind of getting tired, but I figured it would be worth it once we got there.

We got there. Then I quickly realized this one might have been a waste of money because we only went to see the hulk and the girls had NO idea who anyone else was in the whole museum. So it wasn't as exciting. I couldn't even kind of explain who the people were because they hadn't seen most of the movies/shows or heard most of the music of the people so we basically just rushed through that as well. They did end up liking the hulk part and they got to do a 4d movie (Lucy and I waited outside for that one). So it wasn't a total loss, but not worth what we spent. By this time we decided it was dinner time (a very late dinner) so we were walking looking for the restaurant I found, the girls all having meltdowns because they were getting tired and hungry and I'm just yelling at them to stop whining and just keep going (yes I feel horrible about how I was with them). Around this time my ear and jaw were starting to hurt all over again so I was getting extra cranky. We FINALLY find it and by the time food comes, Lucy is in full melt down mode and won't touch her food. Not only that, but she just keeps crying, nothing is settling her. After me taking a few bites of my food, I take her out of the restaurant so that those around us weren't TOTALLY disturbed. She would NOT calm down for anything. So we took the rest of our food to go and then decided we were done for the night. Unfortunately, Cara was starting to cry because I told her we could have ice cream after dinner, but we were NOT sticking around for that so I told her we could have it another night (she didn't like that answer). 

So now we have the LONG walk back to our car, all 3 girls crying over something or other, I'm in a TON of pain, Larry's just trying to keep the peace because all his girls are freaking out right now. It was a NIGHTMARE!

So by the time we get home and get the girls down for bed I'm commiserating to Larry about how horrible the night went and how I'm in so much pain and I don't know how I'm going to do the rest of the vacation in pain like this. But he was nice enough to remind me that it was just the first day and we have plenty of days to have fun and learn from our bad moments. 

We decided to make Saturday a recoup day to let everyone recover from this first day. We had plans to meet up with my dad and some of the "misfit" kids for dinner, but other than that we'd take it as a chill day. I still made a big breakfast, but we were lazy all day. It was a nice day, but my jaw went back to hurting really bad as we got closer to dinner time. I still couldn't open my jaw very well to eat (it felt like after I got my wisdom teeth out). We were able to make it through dinner fine enough and visit for a while, but the girls got restless and wanted to leave so we headed home after a few hours together.

After the girls went down I started to make comments to Larry about how my eyes were burning like I was tired, but I didn't feel tired. We watched a movie and while we were watching it my eyes were watering pretty bad. By the time the movie was over I wiped my eye and noticed I had the same green goop that the girls got right before their pink eye showed up so I had a feeling I was getting it too. I already had plans to go to the Urgent Care nearby in the morning so I figured if I did get it I'd already be at a medical facility. 

This morning and my eyes were so gooped up I could hardly open them so I just knew I had pink eye. We had breakfast and went to the insta care and they confirmed I had pink eye and a bad ear infection so they set me up with antibiotics and eye drop prescriptions. We decided we were done with our vacation at that point, I couldn't keep saying "we just need to get through the vacation and then we can take care of ourselves." So we went back to the Airbnb and packed up. I reached out to the host to let them know we'd come down with some sickness and needed to check out early. They were nice enough to refund us a couple days. We stopped by the pharmacy on our way out to fill my prescriptions and hit the road. Luckily the drive home wasn't too bad, we got home late and Lucy got a little fussy towards the end, but no accidents and snacks aplenty with movies so it worked out. We got home, had pizza for dinner, and then put the girls down. 

Not a flattering pic...but this is how it started

How I looked once we got home

I made sure to wipe down EVERY single hard surface as I unpacked it and then put every cloth item into laundry piles to be washed. I'll make sure to get those done within the two days we have left of our time off so that everything can be cleaned. I'm kind of glad to have these two days to clean and just try and get healthy as much as possible. Poor Lucy might have pink eye too - her eyes are very very goopy (not red yet, but very goopy). So we'll see how this week goes. All I know is we aren't leaving the house for the next 2 weeks to just get healthy and we're not doing anymore public outings for as long as we can keep that up. Just indoor or backyard fun for a while. 

So that was our hellcation recap. It was NOT a great one. I have decided no more family vacations while we have little little kids. Maybe little weekend getaways, but nothing big vacation like. Our next big one will be our Disney trip we have planned in a few years. Lesson has been learned! Also, apparently I've been horrible at getting pics for things we've done. I need to do better with this....once I feel better.

5 months (Weeks 18 - 22)

 

Compare/Contrast: Well lucky me got the 'Vid this pregnancy. With all the colds I've gotten and then that it's been a rough 1st half of pregnancy. Luckily, the symptoms went away within a week so I got a quick version of it (although I can tell my nose isn't as strong as it used to be). Also, working from home means less talking time (I used to do the talking/bonding on my drive to and from work), but I do my best to talk after dropping Cara off at school and on my way to pick her up and then anytime I shower.

I took a sick day...the girls decided to join me

The movements are interesting. Just like with Lucy it felt like it took a while to feel them, but around 19 weeks I started to. This baby seems to really like my daily Orange Julius drink...I tend to get wiggles after I drink that. I started to realize in the morning and after dinner is a guaranteed movement time, I love having a time I know it's coming.

I'm definitely soaking in the fact that this is the last time I'm doing this. Everything is the last: The last time I'll be wearing maternity clothes, the last time I'll be using my doppler, the last time I can gorge on my favorite treats whenever I feel like haha. Speaking of the doppler, I'm still doing my weekly checks and the heartrate really is lower than the other babies. Sometimes I get up to 150, but it's mostly 130s and 140s. I made sure to check often when I had all the sicknesses. 

Speaking of sickness, I still have to take my anti-nausea medicine. Not all the time, somewhere between each day to every few days, but it's crazy that I still get sick...this is definitely the longest that has lasted.

A non-maternity shirt actually fit me!!

Best Moments This Month: Movements, movements, and more movements and finding out what makes this one move more haha. 

The anatomy scan is always a fun one (as long as you get good news haha). Luckily the lady was able to make sure I didn't even get a peak of the gender (she turned the tv off when she was in the lower body area taking measurements) I got to see lots of cute movements and the legs and profile and hands (the profile is my favorite). It was just a great visit - I even got fries and a milkshake from JCWs afterwards.

I love our annual Santa pic tradition...watching our family grow

I also went Christmas shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving (not when I'd usually go out, but it was the only time I had) and found a couple cute outfits that are pretty neutral that we can use for the coming home outfit. I'm not sure which I love more so I'll just wash and bring both and see which we feel like at that moment. Luckily, whichever we don't use we can still use as a regular newborn outfit. 

What I'm Looking Forward To: Just finding more ways to soak in the pregnancy and for the new year so I can get more nesting done (that bug has bitten HARD, but with the holidays it's hard to do much more than shopping and wrapping haha). We also have a vacation coming up that I'm really excited to go on, it's basically the closest we're going to get to a final babymoon and it should be a really fun one!

Gwen's 1:1 Day with Mom and Dad

I have been so excited to have a 1:1 date with Gwen. It has felt like she's really needed it lately. I realized she's been overlooked a bit, but mostly because she's shyer and just prefers to be in the background rather than front and center. However, with all that I knew she'd benefit from having some good dates.

I decided I wanted to take her to the aquarium. When we got there, I knew it would be best to let her lead the way. She kept saying she didn't want to go to the shark area because sharks were scary and I thought that was funny because it's my favorite spot, so I just let her decide. I realized she doesn't have a great sense of direction because we ended up where the bees are several, SEVERAL times haha. But she seemed to really like leading the way and deciding where we went. I did help her a couple times, where I told her "If we go this way that's the jelly fish" so she'd go that way. 

I ended up convincing her to go to the shark area and she loved it, which I knew she would, so that was a win. When we were there, it was getting close to lunch time and I was getting so hungry, so I asked her if she wanted to eat, and she said she wasn't hungry yet. We walked past the little food area, and she asked if that was where we were getting lunch, but I told her no, we'd get lunch somewhere else. She then decided she wanted to take the elevator upstairs. When we did, she saw tables and said she wanted to eat there so I told her we could go get a snack at the food place and bring it back up to eat. We got a cake pop for her and some chips for me (the garden salsa sun chips). Her cake pop was actually really good, but she also wanted to have some of my chips too haha. After that I convinced her we should go get lunch, so we went to Penny Ann's Cafe. I heard so many good things about it, so I was excited to try it. 

Oddly enough they sat us at the counter, rather than a table. I think they tend to do that with parties of two because there ended up being a few of us by the time we were done. I got Gwen a grilled cheese and I got a burger. Mine came with a pickle, which I love, and Gwen asked me for a bite and ended up eating more of that than I got haha. We finished up and headed home and Gwen kept saying she had such a fun day with me. I was SO happy. I think her getting to choose so much of where we went made her come out of her shell a bit more and gave us some good bonding moments.

I got home and we put the girls down for a nap. Poor Cara caught pink eye and has been so goopy in her eyes, so sleeping is good, but she has a hard time waking up because her eyes are gooped together.

After their nap Larry took Gwen out. He decided since we had SO many Nickel City cards and she didn't get a ton of time to play at her party that it would be fun to take her to do that. From the sounds of it they also had a really great time. Especially since she could decide what games they played, and he'd play with her and only her. There was no split attention. After that he took her out to Leatherby's for dinner and ice cream. 

They got home right before bedtime and Gwen kept talking about how she had so much fun. They came home with some fun little prizes that she couldn't wait to show Cara. 

I absolutely love that we've started doing 1:1 dates with the girls (we aim to do 2 a year for all kids). They seem to love them, and I look forward to how it helps us bond with them in the future. 

Thanksgiving 2021

Happy Thanksgiving! I really am beginning to love this holiday, I love the food, the family, the parade, all of it! 

I decided I wanted to make a big breakfast for the day since that would give us a good start to the day, make it so we ate a light lunch, and then we'd be ready for a big dinner. We made pancakes, yum!

This year we got a little extra bit of parade because I found it starting at 7 on one channel, and then realized the one I was looking for was the one that started later on another channel, so we got an extra hour of parade...and I didn't hate it. The girls really loved seeing the different balloons, especially Lucy (everytime a balloon came on she'd point and yell out like she was trying to tell us "Hey! There's a big colorful thing on the TV!! Look! You're going to miss it!" haha). It was such a great start to the day.

After the parade we let the girls play and draw and color until lunch time. We ate a light lunch and then put the girls down. I made our cobbler to take to dinner and then took a shower and did my hair and got ready for dinner.

We got the girls up and dressed and brushed so we could head to dinner at Grandma Cameron's. We got there a little before dinner so we could visit for a minute. We had a big dinner that the girls actually ate most of, which was good for us (they are all in a phase where they fight dinner right now). We had dessert and then the girls got to play with toys and run around while we sat and chatted. The girls were so silly running around and laughing, Lucy really started to come out of her shell at this point and was giggling so much.

After visiting we decided to head home. We have half our cobbler left over so that's nice, but no food leftover (obviously that was left there). So since I love having leftovers we're going to have another dinner on Sunday night so we can have the leftovers I love, I'm very excited about that. 

So another great Thanksgiving in the books and it was pretty low stress and lots of fun, family time. Now to move on to Christmas!

Gwen is 3

Gwen Gwen, or Kitty, or Fastest Runner, as she likes to be called is the sweetest little angel...and I do mean angel! She has the most perfectly curly, naturally highlighted blond hair, chunky cheeks and perfectly round belly and tushy from anyone else I know! She's always so silly with her little games and names she wants to be called. She still just likes to sit back and watch things and not lead too much, but she has SUCH an imagination. She makes up songs and stories all the time. The best is she'll say thank you without being prompted all the time (she's so polite). She's super shy, but so was I so I'm not surprised at all. I'm also amazed to say she didn't really have "terrible twos", at least not nearly as bad as other kids or Cara (and Cara wasn't really bad either). I constantly forgot she was 2, honestly, she's so much smarter for her age and so much more mature, I can tell she's brilliant and will continue to be. I absolutely love you to the moon and back and then some!

For her birthday this year we planned to go to Nickel City and have fun in the arcade. We planned to order her cake from Coldstone and food from the arcade. We booked the party a month or so in advance so everything was set. Then the week leading up to her birthday I realized I had forgotten to get her a gift so I had one planned for Christmas that I could get at the closest store that I figured worked for her birthday. I didn't wrap it very well and it just felt like everything got chaotic right before her birthday. The night before her party we went to order the cake, but found out it was too late and we couldn't get one in time for her party. We made a backup plan we'll just have to grab one from the store and have them decorate it and call it good (boring, but like she'll know the difference).I kept telling Larry at least we had the big party booked and had informed people in time so it should be a good turn out. 

Flash Forward to today, we booked the party for 5:00, but decided to head to the arcade early so the girls could play for a while before the party started. We got to the front and mentioned we were there for Gwen's party. The guy looked at his party papers and said he didn't see one for Gwen. We were so confused so I had Larry pull up the confirmation email and show the guy. He mentioned they don't send confirmation emails and took a look at it and pointed out that it was for a Nickel City in Illinois...which does us absolutely no good. He also mentioned all their party rooms were booked so he couldn't get us in either way.

Well we figured we'd at least pay to get everyone in, let them play and then just celebrate in their sitting area for food (it's separate from the arcade) and just make the most of it. We left the cake in the car (it felt cold enough that it should be okay). Well around 4:30 I went to go order the pizzas (the guy said they just needed about 20 minutes to make a few pizzas) and when the guy looked at the pizza area, he said they were completely out. I was shocked! This was a Saturday, when they are open until midnight, and they are just out of pizza? They didn't have any other food options besides ice cream so I didn't understand how they planned to operate the rest of the night without this. We couldn't have a party at dinner time without any food so I told Larry we needed to plan to move the party elsewhere.

Unfortunately, on a Saturday regular restaurant can't accommodate such large parties so we ended up at Pizza Pie Cafe. Not bad, since it had a lot of options, and we lucked out when we got there that they had a couple large tables next to each other that we could fit everyone in. Unfortunately, I found out right after we got there that another large group had reserved that area, but since they hadn't put up signs the other group just had to find other tables. I felt bad we got their reservation, but it wasn't something we did intentionally, so we made the most of it. 

Only pic from her actual party

We were luckily able to get food, open gifts, sing her the birthday song (in fact, everyone in the whole area was singing to her, even people who didn't know us...I thought that was sweet), and have cake so it worked out. It was just extremely stressful and annoying. When we got home tonight we went to figure out why our reservation went to the wrong place and realized when you google Nickel City, the main one in Illinois is the first one to come up, you have to click the link for Nickel City Orem! So now Larry has to try and get the deposit we put down back. 

In the end, all she'll remember is that she had a good birthday and I doubt she'll really remember her 3rd birthday party. We plan to have 1:1 dates next weekend with her so IF she remembers anything, hopefully it's that. At the very least we have a bunch of Nickel City cards to play with so that's a win.

Halloween 2021

So just like almost every other year I definitely felt like we didn't do as much as I had hoped for Halloween this year, but with constant colds, my New York Trip, and just being pregnant it was a recipe for a lazy year. However, I still made the most of it so here's what we actually got to do this time around:

Sept 11th: costume shopping - this is a big part of Halloween, of course, but picking out costumes is so fun. Initially we didn't think we'd have a Spirit store open near us so we were just going to look online and have the girls pick from the options there, but then I saw our store nearby did open so we went and let them look around. Larry and I always do a theme so we went with Paw Patrol (since the girls love it), he chose Mayor Humdinger, I will be Chickaletta, which we found both online at a good price. Gwen ended up going with our theme opting for a Skye costume, but Cara picked something that is just so Cara - the hulk! With Lucy we figured we'd recycle the old Lion one Gwen wore when was almost 1 (she's so much bigger than Cara or Lucy is at that age), but when we tried it on it was a little too small so we're doing Gwen's dog costume from last year (see Trick or Treating portion below for pic).

16th: Cornbelly's - we had a discount coupon for Cornbelly's and even though Cara was still fighting an ear infection, she had been on antibiotics for a couple days and everyone said they were feeling good enough to get out of the house so we ventured to Cornbelly's. We were able to take the girls on some rides, let them play on some playgrounds (They have multiple ones there), go through a gravity house, and even do a bit of the corn maze (The girls got sick of that kind of quickly and so we left at that point to go out to dinner). Even though we didn't do nearly as much as you could've done, we still had a few hours of fun for the day :)

25th: pumpkin carving - we didn't really do a pumpkin patch this year (Cornbelly's had pumpkins for grabs, but we didn't get them there), so we just grabbed some large ones from Costco. I love the ones there since they are large and not expensive. Monday night we had the girls pick out their favorite designs from a book we got. Normally the girls want nothing to do with pumpkin guts, but it's my favorite part haha. This year, however, Cara loved pulling out the guts. She thought the slimy-ness of it was so cool. After carving was done we found some candles to light them up and marveled at the work. I love pumpkin carving night most of all haha.

27th: decoration drive - I had seen some houses in our neighborhood and in the one  across the street so I figured a drive around both to look at decorations when it started to get dark would be so much fun! Turns out between the two 'hoods there were really only a couple hand full of houses that actually had any decent decorations (although many with a huge spider web...makes me wonder who had the deal on those haha). I was bummed we didn't get to see as many as I had hoped, but the girls had a lot of fun - though that may have been mostly because they got to be in the car unbuckled so that was just the fun part for them haha. 

30th and 31st: Trick or Treating - in Utah it's a big deal if Halloween ends up on a Sunday and there's this whole "should we go out Saturday or Sunday" debate. I was all for going out either night, figuring we'd just play it by ear. Well then Tori mentioned having an overnight and having Lilly and the girls go out on Saturday so I figured why not? I know I'd love to go both nights so that's what we did. Saturday night we went one direction from our house and went until the girls were done walking and man were there SO many people out. We didn't go all out with our costumes (mostly because we started late since we had Lilly's birthday party until around 7 that night), but still neighbors got the gyst of it (and seemed to go crazy for Gwen's costume). Then Sunday we all got dressed up and did the face paint and the whole shebang; then we went out, much earlier, and started in the other direction from our house and I went until the girls were tired again. It didn't feel like as many people were out and not as many houses were lit up, but it was Halloween, dang it, and my girls were going to have fun. Overall, I didn't go all out like normal, but we had a TON of fun and it was the Halloween I had always dreamed of. I'm so glad this is (or should be) my last Halloween pregnant and I'm so excited at the idea of taking all my kids out next year (if not then, then the following year). My girls have been so excited to get all the candy they got (and boy did they score big) and it was so cute hearing "I said trick or treat and they gave me candy" or "look a candy bowl on the porch" comments. Everyone loved their costumes, although Lucy wanted nothing to do with any costume haha. 

And now Halloween is over and the girls are down and we can get excited for Gwen's birthday and Thanksgiving and I'm so so excited for the other holidays and to get my Christmas shopping started. 

4 Months (weeks 14 - 17)

 

Compare/Contrast: Well the sickness thing was made more fun this time with 4 colds (one right after the other) all of September and a little into October. Then I had to have my 2nd covid shot around the 23rd of September and THAT, on top of everything else, made it the most miserable weekend of my life! I would never want to re-do that time.

Sleep is like normal. When I sleep, it's great, but I have to roll back and forth a lot. I'm also a little nervous at how quickly I've gotten so big. I know it's just because my ab muscles are shot and my uterus is expanding so quickly (little baby has a whole ocean to swim in in there at this point haha).

Finding the heartbeat on the doppler is a bit different this time, it's a little harder, but I think it's just mostly because of my excess skin I still have.

I still absolutely love tomato and look forward to my bacon, tomato, and cheese sandwiches for lunch almost every day. I love that I can eat more now and getting full doesn't make me super sick anymore. 

Best Moments This Month: The biggest and best moment was definitely going to New York with Stace. This was such a great trip and it was so much fun to get away. Not to mention it helped me get away when I was feeling constantly sick and so it helped me feel better and get back to normal and take care of my (still a little) sick family when I got back.

The doppler and finding the heartbeat are always great moments! When I had my 16 week appointment they couldn't find it as easily so we got to have an ultrasound and it was a relief for me. It was really really quick, but I could see movements and a full skull (I was nervous about that this time for some reason). I loved that appointment.

Feeling better is also a great moment. I tried to go off my medicine, but I noticed I got too sick if I was hungry and it got to be too much. BUT I am down to only 1 pill a day - yay! The best is no more colds and I'm feeling more productive (just this last week) and helpful with the family. Things are feeling so much more normal and I'm loving it.

Our Halloween month has been fun, not as productive as other years, but I've decided to enjoy what we can do rather than stress about what we didn't do. 

And lastly, feeling movements. This baby is starting to make itself known and I LOVE it! It's my absolute favorite part and I'm going to do all I can to soak in the rest of this pregnancy.



What I'm Looking Forward To: Definitely the anatomy scan scheduled for Nov 22nd. And, of course, the holidays coming up. I love those! Oh and we have a family vacation planned for the first weekend in December and I'm so excited for that, it's going to be SO much fun!

When Sickness Took Over Our House

So let me just say how miserable this last (almost) month has been! Cara started school on September 2nd and on the 5th she was acting very down and sad. I thought she was depressed, but then Larry said she mentioned her ear hurting and we realized it was probably a sickness from starting school. We got her some Tylenol and let her rest the rest of the night. 

I was keeping on top of temperature checks and she'd go back and forth on having a fever. She never had one when it was school day so I'd let her go back. Well after another week Lucy started to act sick and then it hit me. And it just kept going. Luckily Larry and Gwen never caught anything, but we could not get it to stop going back and forth between the rest of us. I'd have maybe a couple good days and then be back down. I had a feeling mine was just because I'm pregnant so my immune system isn't as good as it usually is, but couldn't figure out Cara and Lucy. We were giving them medicine, I got humidifiers, letting them rest....everything we could think of. I didn't feel we needed to go to the doctor because they never had high fevers and I figured as long as they could rest and get medicine it would go away. 

I finally had to call my midwives to ask what I could take for a cough because I couldn't stop coughing. Especially after my 2nd covid dose, I was up coughing ALL night long and my nose was plugged up so I couldn't breath on top of everything. I ended up stealing the girls humidifier so I could breath at night before my New York trip. 

Luckily, while I was away I was feeling so much better and Larry said the girls were doing great and didn't have issues. He even took them out to Nickel City to have fun. When I got back, though, it hit the fan! Cara ended up having to come home early on Tuesday with a fever of 102. She came home and immediately went to bed and slept for hours. Up until Thursday she was sleeping ALL day and night long and would hardly eat anything. I was really getting worried so I finally made a doctor appointment for Thursday morning. They said she most likely had an ear infection and possibly sinus infection so they prescribed amoxicillin for her that we immediately got right then. She didn't love it (and still cries a little when she has to take it), but it's been helping her feel so much better already. We are keeping this weekend open in case everyone is feeling a little sick, but hopefully we can get out a bit and get some fresh air (our house is smelling a little lived in and needs us to get out haha).

Anyways, I'm glad I'm feeling so much better and can help take care of any sick kiddos, but I hope they can stay not sick for a while! We are definitely using hand sanitizer a lot more and I'm washing my hands any chance I get to keep it at bay for me at the very least!

Journey back home

Well our day to come back to reality has arrived. We have had such a great trip it felt like a good stopping point. My feet and legs were too sore to continue walking through a city and I was antsy to see my family again (especially after a couple early days haha).

The ride home wasn't the best, though. Yes, the shuttle we were able to take straight from the city to the airport was nice, but finding it took some help from some nice strangers who directed us in the right direction. And it wasn't cheap, but much more convenient than subways, trains, and airport trams with all our luggage.

The Newark airport was the absolute worst airport I think I've ever been to. It was the Wal Mart of airports - 10 TSA spot options, but only 2 were open, meaning we spent at least 45 minutes in line to get to it. Stace had issues getting her bags through security that amounted to now having her kindle out of her bag (seemed a bit overdramatic for a non computer), and then there weren't many food options around our gate so it felt like we had slim pickings (we were flying over lunch time and knew we'd need real food). Then the most annoying part - we had to go to the gate to find out when we could board and they informed us that we weren't supposed to have any carry ons (we both had the standard 2). NO WHERE on our ticket did it say that, but they said it said "basic economy" which means no bags. I don't understand that, especially when we saw people with 4 large bags going on the plane. I'll never fly United ever again because of this! We were able to get an exception to our bags and get on the flight - and even got people to move so we could sit together, but they didn't have movie options, just direct TV so if a movie started soon, you could watch that, but otherwise you just had to watch what was on when it was on. Oh and no caption options, which I like to have. The flight home was extremely bumpy and I was way too tired to read, I ended up sleeping most of the way (even with that it felt like such a looong flight). Because of all the turbulence I felt so sick and had a pressure headache by the time we landed, we were SO ready to get into a car to get home. I still had quite a bit of food left over too so it felt like I had overspent on that...just all over felt gross and like I needed an apple or something healthy.

Luckily, Larry was able to get the girls up earlier and meet us at the airport within a decent time frame and we were able to get Stacey to her mom's house to start her drive home (I felt SO bad she still had such a long leg ahead of her, but she made it home perfectly fine). I was good enough until after dinner, but then my sinuses started hurting SO badly. I've had trouble winking my left eye or clenching my jaw. I'm SO exhausted and ready for bed. The girls are down now so I think I'm going to skip unpacking and go to bed and take care of that stuff tomorrow! Good night blogging world - it was such a nice trip and I'm definitely ready for bed!

Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, 9/11 Museum, China Town and Serendipity

Good day! Let me just say if you had asked me around 3 how today was I would said "eh...it wasn't terrible, but not as awesome as yesterday", but now that we've reached the end of the day I can say it was another great one!

We had a very early start as we had to be to the Battery Park ferry to the statue by 9 so we had to get up around 6, get ready, go eat breakfast, and head to the park. Breakfast got a little scary because we went to this market/breakfast place and while were were eating these two strange guys came over on Citi Bikes and just acted very weird. We were at the only table outside so maybe they were just waiting for that, but they kept circling us and giving each other weird looks. It made me VERY uncomfortable. We ended up texting our husbands just in case. I knew Larry wouldn't read mine until he woke up so I told him if he didn't get another text from me by 8 to call someone and then told him our location and as many details of the guys as I could see. I also made sure to say out loud "okay, so they'll just meet us at the park and I told them we'd give them their tickets when we meet up" to make it sound like we were expected somewhere and it would be noticed if we went missing. Maybe I was being paranoid, but rather safe than sorry in a new city (especially on a dark and VERY deserted corner). 

We finished up breakfast and headed down to Battery Park. We were a little early and I was VERY sore and had a huge apple juice to drink (I couldn't find a small one in the market) so we sat on a bench to just rest for a second. We then walked over to stand in line for the ferry. Luckily we planned ahead and knew today would be the gloomiest day so we got lucky when it started raining, but we had the proper jackets and hats. Stace did NOT fair well on the ferry ride to the statue and I felt SO bad. She forgot to take her Dramamine so it was very very rough for her, We got to the island and she had to sit, but once she got her bearings she felt so much better. We could only get tickets up to the pedestal, but it was still a cool view and how close you get to her is still really cool. Unfortunately, you couldn't even see Manhattan from the city with how cloudy it was. We definitely climbed a ton of steps! We ended up taking our time going through the gift shops (I was looking for this wind up statue toy I saw last time that I hate that I didn't get, but they didn't have it...Stace had to find a spot that had motion sickness meds...luckily they had one). So we had to rush over to Ellis Island. We knew we had to get some food there since we had to rush to the 9/11 museum after this so I got some chips while Stace ordered real food (I just didn't feel hungry enough to need it). We didn't get to see too much of the Ellis Island museum...nothing like what I was telling her we'd see so it was kind of a bummer. But we had to hurry and get back to our ferry to take us back. The ferry rides were still a bit rough for her and I felt so bad because I knew how horrible feeling nauseas like that was. But once we were back on the island she was doing good and we rushed over to the 9/11 museum. 

We got there just in time for our reservation and ended up seeing so much more of the museum this time. They took out the parts that really made me cry last time so that helped, but seeing all the "missing persons" posters they had for people you knew were from the towers was heartbreaking enough to make me tear up a bit. We also got to see the airport camera footage of a couple of the terrorists going through security...that felt crazy and surreal. They looked so normal and not nervous or anything...weird. We spent about 2 hours in the museum and it felt SO weird coming out and back into the normal city. After seeing that same area filled with dust, fires, papers, and sad and bloody people for so long it was so weird to see the opposite of it. I felt like we had time traveled. We of course had to see the pools they had there too.

After that we had time to head over to China Town. Stace really wanted to see that and Little Italy and since Little Italy was such a treasure I figured maybe China Town would be just as cool. It wasn't. We made it a block and a half and turned around. Unless you went there for a reason, it just wasn't worth seeing. On our way back to the hotel Stace decided we really needed a good place for dinner after the way the day had started. She looked up "must see" places on her phone and mentioned Serendipity. Now I had mentioned going when we originally started planning this trip, but she was like "eh...whatever" about it so I didn't push it. When she mentioned it now I was like "YES! We NEED to go there tonight!" so we planned that, but we had some time to kill.

Now here was when I had a kind of exciting moment. Since we had extra time and I had two large hoodies for my mom I decided there was NO way I could squeeze both into my bag so I needed to exchange one for a shirt for me (she only asked for one hoodie so that wasn't a big deal). We went to the store armed with our receipt and the sweater and when I went to the store owner he threw a MAJOR fit. The address on the receipt wasn't the same as his store (but I KNEW it was the right receipt and the address on the receipt wasn't even a store, it was some bank or something). He kept saying I was lying and it was 100% not his store. I asked him to print off a receipt to show me and saw the one he printed did actually have his address. He threw SUCH a fit that I just walked away  saying "yeah, yeah, whatever" while Stace bought some pens. I was so angry though because I knew it was his store so we went back to our hotel (not too far away) so I could find the right receipt. I couldn't find one with his address, but when I looked at the receipt at the store next door (the one I actually bought my mom's sweater) I saw the time stamps were so close together, I also found the pics I had sent to my mom that were from his store (with the owner even in one of them) and they were time stamped as the same as the receipt. I googled the name of the store on the receipt and it came up his actual address so I was SURE he was trying to run some sort of scam. Then we realized we could look at the receipt Stace just got for her pens and sure enough it had the same information as my receipt. We stormed back (I have never walked to fast even though I was extremely sore). I showed him both receipts and he asked how we paid, when we told him Visa he immediately apologized and said we were right. I was still so angry, but Stace reminded me he was saying sorry and I needed to forgive him. I told him the sweater I wanted to exchange (it was much thinner so it wouldn't take as much room as the one I was exchanging) and he even helped me pick a good size. He also threw in these $100 bill magnets that we normally wouldn't buy, but they were free so why not? He must have said sorry about 50 times and explained his machine prints visa receipts weird and said he needed me to understand. I told him I did and I'm fine and I thanked him for doing the exchange. I felt VERY happy with my victory though, not to mention proud of myself for standing up for myself (the old me would've apologized and walked away crying over such confrontation). I'm using this ugly magnet as a lesson for my girls: don't be afraid to back down when you know you're right, but also don't be afraid to admit you are wrong and apologize!

After that we headed to Serendipity for dinner and it was the best way to end the night. We talked about our Peak and Pit of the trip (a tradition I like to do). We even asked the locals how they did trick or treating (turns out the apartment dwellers that hand out candy just sit on their stoop for trick-or-treaters). We both agreed yesterday was the funnest day, but we definitely ended the trip on a high note. I was happy to get a caesar salad (I had wanted one since yesterday at lunch haha) and then we both got big frozen hot chocolates....they were AMAZING!! We couldn't even finish our food, Stace got the appetizer nachos and both plates were almost larger than the table we were at haha. 

Overall I'm very very pleased with how this trip went. Stace and I travel very well together and between the two of us we can figure almost anything out. I'm so hoping that tomorrow's travel day is a smooth one. I'm excited to get home and see my family, but I am definitely dreading figuring out how to get to the airport...I'm not a nervous flyer, but I am a nervous airport traveler...I hate the timing and being on someone else's control. Plus we're flying United...I haven't flown anything but Delta in a very very long time! Wish us luck!

Friend's Experience & Apartment, Wicked, and A Lovely Sunset Cruise

Oh man was today one for the BOOOKS!! Yes I'm VERY VERY sore after yesterday but it was an absolute blast and I'm kind of sad it's over...I wish I had planned today's stuff for the last day of our trip, but oh well. Let me go back a little and explain what helped make today great! Originally the idea of coming to New York stemmed around going to the Friends Pop Up...it's always switching cities, but New York is always one of them so we figured that would the safe bet. Then when we booked the trip we couldn't find ANY October dates for it and we were really bummed. I kept holding out hope it would open, but up till last month I never saw anything. For today we had originally made reservations for Rockefeller Center for the morning. Stace didn't say she cared to go, but we had the time and I figured it's a New York thing so it might be cool to see. Then about a week before our trip she mentioned that the Friends Pop Up finally had October dates and I saw Saturday morning was open. I immediately booked it and said "see ya later Rockefeller!" haha. I figured we could at least see the building from the outside, we just lost our seeing the city from high above reservation, but I knew that the Empire State Building was just as good, if not better so we were fine.

We had to start this morning pretty early, we stopped at this Chelsea Bagel place for breakfast and it was AMAZING! We just got bagels and a smoothie, but they were so yummy! I might need to do more bagels once we get back home haha. We then headed over to the Friend's Pop Up. We had to wait outside, but then saw the gift shop was open so we "walked" that. It was VERY tiny, but I found a cute onesie for the baby and a cool book about ALL the episodes that I was excited to get. Stace got found some goodies too, but we both agreed they could've had a TON more haha. 

How could I pass THIS up?

We finally went out and waiting in line and when we got to go in we were giddy with excitement! They did a great job of staggering people so you didn't feel rushed, they took TONS of photos in so many fun spaces from the show. Being in the apartments was by far the coolest thing. We were literally in heaven and I wanted to soak it all up for as long as I could! We went through the cough in front of the fountain, the apartments and hallway, the "pivot" couch stairway, the marble dog "switching apartments" part, and then ended at Central Perk. It was GREAT!!! Like I can't even tell you how great it was! I almost wish I drank coffee because you could order it at Central Perk, but I just can't stand it so it isn't worth the wasted money.

After we finished that we saw we had just enough time to go by the Friend's Apartment. We knew it wasn't the real one, but the one they used for outside shots, but it was still really really cool to see (once we did finally find it haha). They even had a couple tour groups going there around the same time, we luckily got our pics in before they could crash ours haha.

After that we headed over to where Gershwin Theater was (where our Wicked would be shown) and then stopped for lunch at nearby place. We had to rush, but our waiter was VERY nice about it (I told him the second he brought our water that we were in a rush so the quicker we could get out the best and I think he was happy to do that so it would give him more to wait on to get more tips). We had JUST enough time to eat, pay, and then walk to the theater. 

Now Wicked...that was an AMAZING performance. I was SO excited we got to see it at the biggest theater and in New York City...definitely not off-broadway haha. It was so much fun to watch and the acting and music were amazing! It was hard not to love it. Of course, I always get choked up when the actors all come out and bow and totally teared up when the main ones came out haha. They did a great job and totally deserved the praise.

After the play we headed to dinner, we ran into Hell's Kitchen and knowing the name sounded familiar we ate there. One great thing about New York is since they made the whole "vaccine to eat inside" mandate all restaurants have an outside seating area so we got to eat outside a lot. The weather has been nice so far and it's been nice, however at Hell's Kitchen you still have to show your card to go in to use the restroom...that was crazy haha. We both ordered the 2 tacos entree figuring that should feed us a bunch for our late night....turns out the tacos are VERY tiny and it felt more like a snack than a dinner. They were good though. I got the chicken and Stace got the steak and we swapped one so we both got one of each. 

After dinner we headed to the Circle Line Cruise dock for our sunset cruise. The streets going out felt VERY sketchy and I was a little nervous about walking back and how iffy it would be. Like I said, Larry and I avoided night time as much as we could so being two girls made me feel pretty nervous about being out so late. Luckily, the boat tour was SO great! We saw so many awesome sites, and seeing the skylines all lit up was awesome! We got some great info about different parts of the city (seems the edge has all the really fun stuff like an indoor skating rink, a top golf type range, and a concert/movie in the dark venue...lots of great thing). We even got to see the Statue of Liberty up close and get  some really good shots. I actually felt better on the boat because I realized everyone there had to be a tourist so we wouldn't be the only ones leaving the area so late. It got a little chilly and I was getting hungry so I ordered some hot chocolate and a pretzel to share with Stace. The pretzel was super salty so that was unfortunate, but the hot chocolate was nice....VERY hot!

I was pretty obsessed with her this trip!

Walking back to our hotel wasn't too bad after all. We found some well lit and busy-ish streets and even ran into Madison Square Gardens (I always wanted to see that in person). We did end up walking past some homeless and desperate people, which was really sad to see them all under their blankets in front of a church, but otherwise it was a great day.

It's SUPER late and we have a super early day tomorrow, but I'm SO happy with our choices for today. It was a GREAT day that I'll remember forever!! Now to get as much sleep as I can for tomorrow!