Father's Day

Saturday night Jess took Neely to hang out in our room so the older two and I could work on some crafts for Father's Day.  (We'd already done some while he was at work, and Neely did hers then)  Paige and Cason were so excited.  Cason did lots of bison themed gifts, since Jess loves them.  Drawings of a herd of bison, and one of Jess walking his pet bison on a leash.  :)

In the morning I was getting up early to make a surprise quiche for him, because it's one of his favorite breakfasts.  Paige asked me to wake her up too, so she could work on one more thing while I cooked.  

 

 It was sweet, she looked so tired, but just hopped right out of bed without a word and got to work quietly.  

Pretty soon Cason woke up and came out to help set up the "display" at the table. 

Then they got Jess from the room and led him out to see his surprises. 

Neely came out too, and took credit for all of the gifts.  "I did it ALL BY MYSELF!" she told him.

He put on his new shirt and they got out the Hot Wheels to give him his "massage".

Paige surprised him with the extra one she'd done while I made breakfast.  Not sure where she got the idea but she did this little garden diorama type of thing.

Neely sat on the couch talking about her picture with daddy, while I finished the quiche. 

Other than breakfast and the gifts, we had no real plan for the day, just to do whatever Jess wanted.  He decided what he wanted was a trip to the mall, to check out the Lego store.  They had a cute little station to design your own minifigs.  They came in sets of 3, so naturally Jess told them each to design one.  They all love Legos, Paige loves to build, Cason mostly likes to play with the minifigs, and Neely likes it ALL.  So they were in heaven.

They went around checking out all the displays.

At the back of the store is a whole wall where you can get cups and fill them with individual pieces-whatever size, shape, color.  We filled a couple of cups and got ready to check out.  Jess dropped his cup in the middle of the store and the lid popped off.  Somehow he only spilled a few of the blocks, but it was hilarious.  I kept picturing him scrambling around trying to grab them and it made me laugh so hard.  Other than me laughing at him in the store(and actually he kind of liked that too) I think he was pretty happy with his Father's Day.

Harry Potter Nerds

I was 23 weeks on Sunday.  This pregnancy is flying by. 

 Our nerdy children are so into Harry Potter, even Neely.  They play HP all the time.  Paige is always Hermione, and Neely and Cason trade off between being Harry and Ron.  They run around on their brooms(whatever toy they find that's a similar enough shape) and make me pretend to be Aunt Petunia or Professor McGonagall.  Then they play quidditch, and usually Neely gets injured, tells me "somefing happen to my bones" and has to stay in the hospital wing(my bed), while the other two feed her swigs out of a water bottle(or Skelegrow, as they call it) until she has regrown her bones and can return to normal life.

 She's so into it, today she came up to me and asked out of nowhere, "Mama, how you spell Hogwarts?"  Haha. 

Speaking of Harry Potter, at bedtime, we've been reading "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".  Paige likes to email family members lately, and she and Jess will email while he's at work.  She left her email open, and I check it often to make sure she's not getting spam or something.  She'd left it open to an email exchange between her and Jess.  It made me laugh pretty hard.  She comes up with some funny ways to say things sometimes.  (Sorry for the weird cropping, I didn't want her email address to show up)

If a Tree Falls in the Front Yard and We Sleep Right Through It, Did It Make A Sound?

I thought of a couple of things Neely has been saying that I forgot in my last post.  She likes to fake different types of discomfort to get sympathy and make us all fawn over her.  Her favorites are "Moooom, I'm hooooooot."  "Mom, I'm huuuungry."  "Mom, I'm tiiiiiiired." She always says it with a funny face, trying to look all sad and pathetic but trying not to smile.  She added a new one later on-"Mom, I'm oooonly."  which means "lonely".  Haha.  Impossible.

The other day I woke up to our doorbell.  I knew it was still pretty early, so for a second I was a little confused and thought Jess was leaving for work but had locked himself out and needed back in for some reason.  But then I realized he was in the bathroom getting ready.  So I went to the living room and peeked out to see our neighbor at the door.  For a minute I thought there was a tornado coming and we'd slept through the sirens or something.  So I opened it and he asked if I'd seen our tree.  So I stepped outside to see this:

Ha.  It BARELY missed the car, thank goodness.

 

When I got the kids up later, they were all shocked.  They just stared for a minute, and then Paige goes "Well, it'll be easier to climb!"  They did have fun on it for a while.

 

 Our landlord spent like 8 hours out there with a chainsaw, chopping it up so he could haul it off. 

The last couple of weeks, out of nowhere, I started wondering if we should get another ultrasound to double check the gender.  I still FEEL like it's a boy, but I probably did too much reading online and started getting nervous since our ultrasound was done pretty early.  I started imagining Cason's disappointment if the baby was born and didn't turn out to be the brother he was planning on.  Plus, since this was the first time I really thought I had a feeling, I started thinking that probably meant I was wrong.  Ha.  I'm so weird.  Jess is used to it, so he reassured me that it's a boy, but also told me to go ahead and schedule another ultrasound to double check. 

So I made an appointment for this morning.  The lady knew we had been told it was a boy, but wanted to check again now that we're at 22 weeks.  She totally scared me and made a weird face and said ".....you know what?......."  I was shocked, but started planning how to break it to Cason gently in my mind because she totally fooled me.  (He was there, but was playing with blocks and not paying attention to us)  Then of course she said "It IS a boy!"

One of the first things she said during the ultrasound was "You said you're only 22 weeks?"  Ha.  She looked pretty surprised so I asked "Why?  Is he big?"  She said "Yeah, he looks really big."  I have pretty much planned on it anyway, since they've progressively gotten bigger.  She said he has big feet too.  Our kids are lucky that way, the boys take after me and have big feet and the girls have smaller feet.  Worked out nicely for them.
 

 It was a fun ultrasound, he was sleepy and seemed to just be trying to get comfy most of the time.  We got to see a little peek in the 3D which we've never done before.  It was pretty cool, but he kept putting his fists up over his face so we didn't see too much of him.  

I was in a baby mood, so we spent the rest of the day going to different baby boutiques, and Babies R Us.  We didn't actually get anything yet, just planned what things we still need.  Paige and Cason both had to use the bathroom at Babies R Us, so Neely and I sat down on a bench.  I was going to take some pictures of us, when she started modeling.  She was striking all kinds of poses!

 

 

Then she remembered I existed and included me in a couple.

Neely and Cason(or Dora and Boots, or Sonic and Tails)

Neely and Cason are always buddies, but lately they've been extra cute together.  Last week they were hanging out in Cason's room before bedtime.  I kept peeking in to check on them and they were so cute every time.  Cason was sitting in his armchair "reading" a comic to Neely.  

She'd be walking around or playing with his toys while half listening to him.  The last time I peeked in I heard Cason laughing so hard he could barely speak, and could tell it was that special laugh he reserves for "poop" jokes.  Sure enough I listened for a minute and heard him making up a story, but inserting the word "poop" for other words.  Oh man.  Neely would be half listening, but then would crack up when she heard it.  Geez.

She is usually "not Neewee", but "Dora" or "Baby Sonic"(The hedgehog).  Depending on which she wants to be called that day, Cason is either "Boots" (Dora's monkey sidekick) or "Tails", (Sonic's fox sidekick).  She calls him those things as often as she calls him Cason.  He just answers to them automatically. 

She starts raising her voice any time she's upset, and we'll tell her "Neely, please be quiet" and she'll just get frantic and tell us "NO!  I not be quiet.  I gotta be WOUDER!"  Jess loves that.

Her favorite thing to talk about lately is what different animals/things like to do.  The first time she asked it was "Mama?  What sloths wike to do?"  It took me a bit to figure out she was saying sloths, so I kept asking.  She finally got frustrated and told me "They wike to cwimb in the wainfowest."  She'll ask me about all kinds of people, animals, and objects, wondering what they like to do.  If we ask what Neely likes to do she says "I wike to wearn wif mama". 

She'll also tell me a random fact or thought, and then say "Know what else?" and tell me another.  So cute.

Burgers and a Belly Pic

Saturday morning we had breakfast, played with kites some more, 

posed for 22 week belly pics...

 

...and found a turtle

 

 Then headed for S&B Burger Joint for lunch.  When we took Dad, Trudi, and Colton there during their visit, we tried a different location and it wasn't as good an experience.  Their food was still great but we waited FOREVER and the building was tiny and cramped.  So we took Cassie and Alex to the one downtown.  Unfortunately they could only make 3 of their burgers, because they had to cook out of their catering truck(The building didn't have power because of the tornados Friday night).  We couldn't order our favorites, but it forced us to try something new.  They were still great, but not as good as the ones we love most.

Paige got Arby's, and ate that since they have a peanut butter based burger.

Then we went home, where Cassie and Alex packed up and abandoned us. 

Imposter

Saturday morning we got up and Neely immediately saw Alex waking up on the couch and assumed daddy was home from his trip.  It was weird, because as soon as she saw his face I could tell she knew he looked different, but she sort of gradually accepted that daddy must just look different now.  Ha.  She kept calling him daddy all day.  We cracked up every time.  I kept thinking about what would happen when Jess came home and she saw them both in the same room.  It was weird, because she wanted to play with him and be carried by him and all of that, and called him daddy, but at the same time I could tell she didn't feel quite as comfortable as she does with Jess.  She just acted a bit different.  I texted Jess and he thought it was hilarious that she swapped him out so easily.  We showed her a picture of each of them, side by side, and she immediately pointed out the real daddy, and looked at Alex with a funny expression.  She still called him daddy though.  Ha.  She'd been the one to bring Jess up the most often since he left.  She kept asking "Mama, when daddy will come home?" and one time told me "Daddy meeds(needs) to come home now."  So I guess maybe she missed having her daddy enough that she was willing to take a different one temporarily.  Haha.

They brought the kids some kites, so we had fun with those out front for a while that morning.

It was our first day since Jess left that we had no chance of a tornado, so it was nice to finally leave the house and not have to worry about that.

We went to the zoo...

Then headed home, and Neely fell asleep on the drive.  I put her in my bed, where she slept for an unusually long time, considering she doesn't usually nap at all.  Must have been worn out from our long night in the storm shelter, and then the zoo. 

While she napped the older two played out front with squirt guns and the fun beach ball sprinkler Aunt Mindy and Uncle Randy sent.  (Thank you-it was a hit!)

Mindy threw the beach ball in as an extra, with the cloud shelves Uncle Randy made for the baby.  I had seen some on Etsy months ago, that I loved, and when we first found out I was pregnant (but weren't telling anyone else yet) I asked if we could pay him to make us one like it.  Of course they didn't let us pay, and he made two!  They're bigger than I expected, and perfect!  I can't wait to paint them.  Wish we could move right into our house when we get back to Kingman and set up the baby's room right away.  I was also in Target and found a perfect crib sheet and set of receiving blankets.  Here's the baby posing with the new stuff.

Anyway, Saturday night Jess got in at about 10 pm.  I was so glad to go pick him up.  Cassie and Alex kept the kids for me so I could pick him up alone.  When we got home he got the sweetest hugs, especially from Cason!  I swear I thought Cason was crying for a second, and hugged him SO tight, and for SO long.  I wish I'd thought to get out my camera, not only for that, but also to get video of Neely's reaction to him.  It was exactly what I thought would happen.  She was playing a game on Cassie's iPad, and Jess said hi to her.  She looked happy to see him, stared for a second, looked over at Alex, back at Jess, and back at Alex.  She seemed to be trying to figure who the heck this imposter really had been all day long.  It was so funny.  She gave Jess a hug and went back to her game.  She called Alex by his actual name for the rest of their visit.  :)