The Big Reveal

Last night we revealed that we're having a girl. And tomorrow at 5am I'm going to the hospital, and hopefully we'll meet miss Terra Lynne Tieman shortly after.

PARTY!!!!!!!!

So Jason keeps bugging me to put this on the blog.

Some of my friends are throwing a party next week.

It's kind of like a baby shower- but since the babies gender is a secret the only gifts would be something useful like diapers.... or.... diapers.

Anyway- there will be food and such and we're going ot announce the secret- YUP! We're going to tell whether it's a boy or a girl that will join our little family.

All the info can be found HERE.

If you have questions or need directions or something just leave a comment and I'll let you know!

Aria Renee

Here's a pre-baby update about Aria along with some pictures

Aria still won't talk but she communicates pretty well without words.

She has so much personality- her nursery leader claims to be "addicted" to Aria, because she's just so much fun.

She is very social- she loves other people, and plays really well with other kids. She especially loves babies, and kids younger/smaller than herself.



Can you say 'static electricity'?



She's a climber/runner/jumper and she makes us so very nervous sometimes. But she's very well coordinated and generally knows her limits. She actually seems less likely to get hurt than our cautious little Parker- because even though she is all over the place she is totally in control of herself.

We haven't really worked much on potty training- we just sit her on the potty before bed for a few minutes, she does often pee in the potty and has started occasionally telling us when she needs to poop- so she can go in the potty. I think she's ready for us to really get to work on this- we just need to get around to doing it.

Aria loves water. The pool, splash parks, bath time, washing her hands in the sink--- you name it- she just LOVES the water.

She is a really good (though sometimes messy) eater. Because of her oral issues (which I'm planning on posting about soon) she still struggles with some aspects of eating- bu mostly she's great. Her favorite foods are fruit of any kind and pasta.


Feeding herself yogurt



She is such a little diva sometimes. When she doesn't want something she'll push it away and throw her head to the side like she's totally 'snubbing' it.

She also stamps her feet when she doesn't get what she wants. It's hilarious (though we try not to let her see that we think so)

We love this little bug!

Pregnancy Update

I am 37.5 weeks pregnant, which means I have only three weeks left until my due date. So I probably have 4 weeks left until this baby is born.

This pregnancy has been harder than my first two. Around 21 weeks I felt awful- back pain, exhaustion, etc. I told Jason that I felt the same as I had felt after 36 weeks with Parker and Aria. Then I joked about how I hope I don't feel so awful for the rest of the pregnancy- because that would be a long time....Well, It has been a long time- I never ended up feeling any better. Always tired, always sore for the last 16 weeks.

Now, I am incredibly grateful to be able to have this baby and that so many things are going so well- so I don't want to sound all whiny- but this pregnancy has been exponentially harder than my others.

Something else that is different with this pregnancy: nesting.

Some days I just have an overwhelming need to clean or organize something.

Great Idea Jennifer! Let's crawl around on all fours and scrub all of the floorboards.

Or reorganize Aria's dresser and get the babies clothes out and ready at 6 in the morning.

I can't explain it, it's just something that I 'must' do at the time. I didn't experience this with the other two.



30 Weeks

Here I am at 37 weeks:

Believe it or not, the bay has already dropped a bunch in that picture-- I carry high...really high.

At both of my last appointments I was 10% effaced and 1cm dilated

A Parker Update

This blog may soon be overrun with pictures of a tiny little newborn- so I'll take this time to update on my firstborn. And throw in some random pictures as well.

Parker is such a good brother he loves to play with Aria, and he'll get so soft and give her the sweetest hugs and kisses. Then he'll run and jump and wrestle with her the next minute.

And she loves him- you can tell she just thinks that Parker is the coolest thing- and she wants to be with him- or do whatever he is doing.

Relaxing in the chair while he was sick one day

Parker is so into trains lately.

He has had a train table with a pile of trains for a couple of years now- some of the trains were Thomas (and friends).

One day at the library Jason had the genius idea to get a Thomas the Train book. Parker was super excited to read a book that had his toy train in it- and immediately, he was obsessed. We've checked out piles of different Thomas books from the library and even a couple of movies.

He talks all day about which trains are big, and which are small- which are fast or slow. He's never loved his train table as much as he does now.

Parker enjoys making up words: Dr Suess style.

One day he came up with the word snerl. As in 'a terrible snerl' (obviously) and spent the next few days calling people terrible snerls, and asking questions about terrible snerls.

He'll also use his made up words as part of his pretend play- which is a constant for him (and most 3 year-olds, I'm sure) For example, one day he told me that we needed to go shopping, we were going to go to a store called "burliack" and that this store was so far away that we would have to fly there in a helicopter.

Pretending: Playing 'birthday' with friends

Also, a major development that has been coming recently is that Parker likes people. He likes people other than just Jason and myself. He likes kids at church and playgroup and will even talk or interact with kids he doesn't know. He was such an introvert for a while that this is HUGE!

Of course, Parker still loves to read- and he still loves Peter Pan.

Believe it or not- Parker (and Aria, too) treat baby food fruits like desert. Parker will eat extra dinner if it means he gets "baby-food-peaches" when he's done. Both kids love eating jars of baby food as long as it's fruit.

I've got no problem with it- it's cheap, quick and easy, and healthy enough.

Parker is such a well behaved kid.

He is a 3 year old so he isn't perfect, he still tries our patience but he is really such a good kid.

I had no problem taking the kids to the hospital and doctor with me last week when they had to spend almost two hours in waiting rooms-

He's so good that I guess a couple teachers in primary have come up with the phrase "What would Parker do?" saying that is the way to teach kids how to be reverent- just do what Parker does.

While Parker being a calm, well-behaved kid is no surprise to anyone who has known him- it may shock you to find out that he has these hyper-active moments lately.

He'll suddenly start running around in circles and just laughing and making noise. It's hilarious and exhausting to watch.

 Hanging out by the pool at the Murphy's house:

Parker is curious and loves to learn. He is so smart and he amazes us with some of the things he puts together or comes up with.

I so love this boy- He makes me laugh and smile everyday and I feel so blessed to get to be his mom. I can't believe he's 3-1/2. He's getting big too fast for my liking- but it's great to watch him grow.

Hiding

Aria, using my shirt as a hiding place:

Chairs

It's funny what will keep kids amused sometimes

Easter

So maybe I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I won't apologize- I'm 34 weeks pregnant- work full time and try to spend every extra second with my kids. After they're in bed I either spend time with Jason or try to keep up with my long list of 'to-do' projects (mostly sewing). This just isn't a top priority, I guess- So I'll continue to post- mostly behind by a month or so.

Anyway, here's Easter 2011:

We got up and got showered/dressed, then we came downstairs and the kids (Parker) found the Easter baskets

This is about what Aria looked like for the rest of the day (and many days since)

That baby, always by her side

 Parker's favorite part of his Easter basket:

 Pirate stuff

Then off to church. Parker was, of course, too nervous to go up and sing with the primary kids. But then he was so upset afterwards- that he missed his chance. Well, upset is maybe not the right word- it may be more like distraught or in agony.

After church my parents and my grandmother came over for dinner, egg dying and an egg hunt

The egg hunt:

This next video cracks me up. Parker is a super smart kid- but he has his blonde moments.

If you listen, Jason is trying to hint to Parker to look all around near his feet to find and egg nearby.

I love that Parker just spins in circles looking right at his feet.

Then opening up the eggs

 The Easter bunny left some money inside a few of the eggs- so Parker went and got his play wallet to put his money in.

Later that week Parker picked out a toy to buy with his money- he seemed to think it was pretty cool to hand over some money and get to take his toy home.

5 Years

Today is my 5th wedding anniversary

 

Those first two pictures were taken by my old roommate for our engagement photos

Anybody else remember when I was a red-head? Or when I changed the color of my hair every month?

Times have changed, huh?

Best Day Ever! May 12th 2006

Obviously, I wasn't a blogger back then- so I thought I would post some about our honeymoon.

For our wedding night we stayed at the Marriot at Desert Ridge, and in the morning we went over to my parents' house and had brunch with a bunch of family and opened our wedding presents with everyone there. Then, we left for our honeymoon:

We went to San Diego-- we drove out to save money, and we left on Saturday the 13th (the day after our wedding) - we cleaned up the car from after the wedding, but left the 'JUST MARRIED' on the back window and got honked at a few times.

We stayed at the Marriot in La Jolla, and though we brought a little food, we ate out a ton- I don't even want to think about how many calories I ate that week.

We visited Sea World:



Me, holding a starfish



at Sea World you have to pay just to park there- and Jason asked the guy if we got in free since we were on our honeymoon- they let us pay just the motorcycle price (which was about half) so that was pretty cool

We also went to the San Diego Zoo:



Look at what a stud I married



 We went to a couple of beaches- and we hunted for seashells

 And Jason took me to Balboa Park, which I had never heard of, but it was beautiful

 We went shopping and just hung out



Me, being cool- drinking my Jamba Juice



It was so fun to just hang out with Jason 24/7

We also went to the San Diego Temple while we were there.

It was an awesome trip- I got to be with the coolest guy on the planet all day and see some awesome stuff.

Rock On

I was baking cantaloupe pecan bread (which is soooooo good) and Parker stole some of my ingredients to use as drums

He makes me smile