Cason is FIVE!

This soccer playing fellow turned five on Sunday. 

 He'd been counting down the days for quite a while.  Saturday we had to go to Las Vegas, because Jess had to go to a meeting.  It started out as probably the most stressful day trip I've ever been a part of.  Ha.  The kids were tired from their sleepover with Alex and Faith the night before, and everyone was yelling all at the same time while we were rushing to find the Apple store and get my new phone in time to get Jess to his meeting.  We did eventually manage to get me a new phone(mine had been broken for almost two weeks), and got lunch. 

 

Then we dropped Jess off for his meeting and the kids and I went to Party City so Cason could find some stuff for the Iron Man party he wanted.  I got probably the grumpiest I ever have with the kids during the drive because everyone was fighting while I struggled to find my way through Vegas, (and navigation has NEVER been my thing).  I was so grumpy I made Cason(our sensitive one) cry.  The girls didn't care a bit that I was mad.  Well, Neely did, but she just got mad back.  Ha.  We eventually found what we needed, and went back for Jess.  After that, we took them to Chuck E. Cheese for the birthday boy.  By then, our day was much better.  Especially for the kids of course, who got to run around playing games for a couple of hours.  I mostly watched from a booth, one I could BARELY fit into.

 Cason was everywhere, I never even got a picture of him.  The only one I got of the girls is this one of them on a "ride", which they were enjoying even if it doesn't look like it at all.  Ha.

Then we ate and took Cason to Toys R Us for a birthday boy shopping spree.  He picked out some Iron Man and War Machine toys.

He had his party here at Grama's house the next day.  

While we prepared, Paige managed to blow up her first ever balloon.

 He loved it, and later told me it was "probably his best birthday ever." 

He was funny, blew the candles out the second we started singing "Happy Birthday" to him.  Later he told me "I just kinda forgot cuz I haven't been to any birthdays in a while."  Ha. 

He loved all his gifts, but was VERY stoic as he opened them, and would quietly say "thank you" while barely moving his mouth.  :)  He gets embarrassed by that stuff.  Guess we'll have to talk to him about smiling so people know he likes their gifts.  Ha.

Oh, I was also 34 weeks on his birthday.

"Cars Can Drive"

Aivree had a birthday party a couple of weekends ago, which Neely and I missed because Neely was sick.  Paige and Cason did cute Mickey and Minnie cards for her.  I can't find a picture of Cason's.  :(

Here's the one Paige did though.

We had a couple of weeks left of summer to just hang out together.

Grama came home the weekend before school started and they were SO happy to see her.  Cason had been asking daily how much longer until he'd see her.  

 Paige started back to school last week.  Since we moved home we decided to put her back in school.  I really liked homeschooling her and I still think it's awesome for lots of kids.  She just is such a social butterfly and gets a lot of enjoyment out of being at school with classmates that I felt like she was less excited to learn, which is most important to me.  Plus, what makes me think I'M qualified to teach her?  Haha.  She was VERY excited.  Especially when she found out she'd have daily math homework this year.  I notice she still wants some time to play before DOING that homework each night though.  :)

The other two are having fun together.

 Paige and Cason both started soccer practice.  They're both excited, but Cason is SOOOO excited.  He gets dressed about 4 hours before practice each day, cleats and shin guards and all.  Around 8:30 am he starts asking me "how many minutes 'til soccer practice?"  He has never (so far) cared much about sports-he's more of a robots and superheroes kinda guy.  Apparently soccer is his thing though.  He works SOOOO hard at practice.  He has a coach who takes it fairly seriously apparently, because they do way more running than I've ever seen kids that age have to do.  Including having to run when they aren't paying attention to the coach.  Ha.  Cason is always the one who IS paying attention, and he runs as hard as he possibly can the whole time.  It's so cute, he hustles harder than anyone in history. 

 His team is "The Hound Dogs".  

Neely has been doing lots of drawing.  Lots of "fwiends".  She likes to tell me who each one is and how they feel.  There's usually a "happy" guy, someone who's sad because they lost a toy, and sometimes a guy who "doesn't fink(think)".  Ha. 

She asked me to do a boat for her one day so she could put "fwiends" in it.  I love her little waves beneath it.

 One day while drawing she was having some tea.  Cason asked her if she wanted to come play with him and she asked him to let her finish her "coffee" first.  Ha. 

I've missed some belly pics, so here's two Sundays ago-32 weeks...

...aaaand this last Sunday, 33 weeks.

It's at the point now where I'm getting the twin comments or the "any day now huh?" from strangers.  Ha.  People who know me well claim I'm not very big.  Don't worry family-I'm not sensitive about having a big baby belly.  Kinda like it in fact.  At least now, while I still have 2 or 3 shirts that SEMI fit.   

I had a doctors appointment yesterday.  Grama kept Cason, but Neely wanted to come, so she and I met Jess at the office.  She made a friend in the waiting room, a little girl a bit younger than her.  The girl didn't talk, but managed to befriend Neely anyway, by approaching her with a big smile and handing her a Smurf toy.  Neely accepted it, smiled at the girl, and they stared for a few seconds.  I guess Neely wanted to make conversation, because she did this cute hand gesture like she was going to say something important and told the girl "Cars can drive."  Haha.  We were cracking up.  Now we like to randomly say it to each other the same way she did. 

A Robot Punched Her In The Face

The morning after we got home, Jess went straight over to start unloading the U-Haul.  I got the kids up and ready, and fed them breakfast, and we met him over there, right about the time Grampa and Grammy both showed up to help.

The kids had seen Grampa the night before, but this was the first time they saw Grammy since before we moved in January. 

Grammy entertained the kids, especially the girls.

Jess, Grampa, and Cason did all the hard work, while I moved some smaller boxes and looked for things we would need soon.  Cason was awesome, carrying seriously heavy boxes and refusing help because he's way too buff.

It was really impressive actually, some of it seriously was heavy and it was really hot out too.  He took a much needed rest after a bit.

Everything was in by lunch time!  Not bad.  

We had lots of little things to take care of for the next day or so, but a couple of days later the kids had a couple of sleepovers.  One night Alex and Faith, and a couple of nights later they had Lily spend the night.  Veronica and both girls hung out for a while first though.  Neely and Aivree were really cute on the porch swing together.  

Apparently Neely was shy.

She's not shy around Cason though.  He's her "fwiend."

She woke up the other day and told us all about her dream, which included a robot that punched her in the face.  She still brings it up at least once a day and shows us just how he punched her.  She goes "The wobot punch me in the face, wike THIS!" and then fake punches herself and goes "HA!!!" every time.

AAAAAND....last Sunday I hit 31 weeks:

Moving Day(s)

First of all, a few weeks ago Neely started this little "Pfff" thing when she's amused by something but not enough to really laugh about it.  Here's a little taste(Sort of-these ones are especially forced since I was trying to get her to do it on video):

We had one last week in Oklahoma, which was filled mostly with swimming lessons and packing boxes.  We bought a set of (conveniently) 3 goggles for swim, which they all loved. 

Mostly Neely though, I had to force her to give them up each day after letting her wear them for a while.  She was the only toddler wearing goggles at her class.  Ha.

Packing wasn't nearly as bad as I worried it would be. We had the majority of it done, and Jess got the U-Haul Friday night and started loading it up.    The kids played with the trailer a bit, and we all got a million mosquito bites.

We picked Jenni up at the airport on Saturday, because she's a fantastic best friend and flew here to help with stuff I couldn't help Jess with while pregnant, and to take turns driving with me on the way home.  

After getting her from the airport we went straight to lunch, where Neely did her first drawing that we could recognize for what it was supposed to be.  It was a robot.

Jenni and Jess spent all afternoon and evening loading the truck.  Jenni even did a lot of cleaning.  I made a few attempts to be helpful but got shut down pretty quickly, and eventually gave up and mostly watched from a rocking chair.  Maybe moving at 30 weeks pregnant is actually the perfect time to move.

We just BARELY got all our stuff in.  Technically we didn't, we had to leave a couple things behind that we had planned to keep, but nothing I couldn't live without.  We also packed the explorer FULL, which Jess pulled on a trailer behind the U-Haul.

We didn't plan well, so we had to sleep on the floor in the living room on a few mattresses-even our poor guest.

 Our nice neighbors came out to see us off.  The kids had some sweet goodbyes, which Gia thought she had to be a part of.  She did actually have a lengthy goodbye herself, with Kevin, the dad, who she might be in love with.

Jenni, the kids and I got in the Pilot, Jess and Gia got in the U-Haul and we were off.

The drive was so much nicer having Jenni there to help, and to talk to, although the kids didn't do much napping.  They were SO good that first day.  We stayed the night in Albequerque, and left after breakfast in the morning.

 The second day of driving still went well, but felt even longer, and the kids had a harder time.  They were still great, considering how long we were driving, but we definitely had more fighting over phones and the kindle.  Cason's hair was even pulled "accidentally".  But we made it.  I dropped Jenni off at her house, and her girls were so cute, watching for their mama from the window.

A lot of my family came to greet us, but I didn't think to get pictures.  Or maybe my phone had died by then?  I don't remember honestly.  Ha.  

The kids passed out pretty early.

 I was 30 weeks the day we left, and I did have Jess take a picture of me early in the morning before we left, but I am too embarrassed to post that one here.  So here's my 30.5 week belly from after we were back in AZ.

Swimming Lessons

A few days ago Cason played a joke on me and left this note on my back.  

He asked Jess how to spell it and laughed hysterically when I found it on my back.  :)

This week the kids had swimming lessons.  Paige is the only one who's taken them, and she was a baby.  I just never really wanted to do the ones on the weekend because it was only one day a week, and I liked the ones at the outdoor pools better, but they were all week and once we had more than one kid I had no idea how I would manage it alone. 

Since going swimming during Grampa and Grama Trudi's visit, I felt bad because the kids all love the water but the older two were kind of nervous to get their heads in the water at all, or float on their backs or anything.  So I had Jess ask about lessons at the counter up front, and it worked out nicely because the older two could take a beginner's class together at the same time that I could take a parent and tot class with Neely.  If they hadn't been at the same time we couldn't have done it because I'm not the type to drop them off and leave, but there would be no way I could keep little fish Neely from trying to get in the pool during their lesson.  So it worked out perfectly.  It's also a two week session, so it was last week, Monday-Thursday, and will be this next week too, and then we move! 

During Neely's class I kept peeking over at the other two, (their class was like 20 feet away from us) and they were doing good, but looked nervous.  By the second or third day I would look over and there was already a HUGE difference.  The last day this week Neely and I finished early, so we were playing in the fountain area, and I watched the big kids.  Cason was floating on his back, kicking his feet, looking all comfortable.  When their class finished up, they swam over and Paige kept putting her head under and swimming toward me under water all on her own.  So it's made a huge difference really quickly. 

 Neely is BIG on the water, so she loves it every day.  She's the only girl in her class, and easily the most into it.  The others will be crying at first because the water's still chilly(it's a morning class) and Neely's grabbing my hand and trying to pull me into the deeper water with her.  She jumps off the side with no hesitation and cracks up when she hits the water.  The one thing she doesn't like is when I have to put her on her back in the water, she doesn't like not being in control of what position she's in.  

They're all worn out after class, as you can see from this pic on the way to Tae Kwon Do. 

 

The last class they came out looking especially happy, so I knew something was up.  They were excited to show me the medals they'd received.  Paige got Most Improved and Cason got Best Attendance.

 

 

Tiger Cho seems to have a soft spot for Cason, which is cute. 

Since this is our last free weekend here (We'll be loading the truck next Saturday and leaving Sunday) we decided to try a restaurant we haven't been to and make one more visit to the zoo.  We tried Hideaway Pizza, which was really good. 

 

 My favorite part was the fried mushrooms we got first though.

 Then we went to the zoo.  We didn't get there until about 6:45, and they close at 8.  It was so nice, there were like 15 other people there total.  Jess and the kids ran ahead to try and make it to Stingray Bay so they could touch the stingrays before 7(when they close it).  Neely and I walked slowly along, and when we got there I didn't see Jess or the kids anywhere.  Somehow they got lost and we found it, which is a miracle, since I am NOT the navigator in the family.  Still, the pregnant lady and the 2 year old beat them there at a walk(waddle).   It's really not shocking.  The OKC Zoo is really nice, but their maps are awful.  We usually spend so much time searching for certain exhibits I get mad and want to give up. 

So I texted them and we waited on a bench for them to find us. 

 

 We wanted to see the bears, since we'd never made it there before.  We had a nice closeup view of a rhino on our way there.

 We also went through a cave of nocturnal creatures.  It was too dark for pictures, but it was a really cool room, TONS of bats flying around and some sleeping upside down.  Owls and a possum and creepy spiders.  

The bears seemed like they were overheating, they were all hyperventilating and just lying there.  Meanwhile, there was a beautiful river through their exhibit, with waterfalls and calm areas for them to swim.  I guess they'd rather lie there and try to breathe the hot, humid air though. 

 I liked this one, with his tongue hanging out "like he was dead" Cason said. 

Paige said "the bears are cute, but their giant teeth make me feel kinda queasy."  

Anyway, I'll finish this post with a picture of my belly today at 29 weeks...

 

....and Neely this morning when she insisted on wearing a pair of Jess's socks with her Dora shoes.