29 hours

We left Friday at 2pm to go to Brimley and Sault Sainte Marie in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. It takes five long hours to drive there. We got back this evening at 7pm and out of the 29 hours we were gone we spent probably 13 or more hours in the car.

Jeremy has had over half of his rotations up there and we wanted to see it too.

The boys love sleeping in hotels and eating in restaurants so despite the long hours in the car they had fun

Scenic overlook

This is what Hyrum thinks of throwing rocks in Lake Superior in 40 degree weather and horridly cold wind

Hunter didn't want to leave despite the rest of us feeling slightly frost-bitten

Tree-climbing

I love, love, love this picture of Hyrum. I love his goofy faces and goofy smiles but I can't ever seem to get a "normal" picture of him where he actually looks like himself - today I did.

Speaking of goofy...

Happy HALLOWEEN!!!

ZooBoo & Jackson

My brother Zac and sister-in-law Joy had their third baby a couple weeks ago-Jackson-so we wanted to come down and meet him in case I am too large to travel back for his baby blessing in December. I'm so glad we did! The Pittsburgh zoo was having a Halloween celebration so we brought the boys' costumes and they had a blast with their cousins getting candy and looking at animals. We were also able to enjoy Sunday with Brigg & Hava up in Erie. Hunter certainly proved that his lungs are completely healthy by throwing some first rate fits this trip.

Somehow I forgot to take a picture of Jackson. He is quite the cutie and seems to be a really good baby so far. He hardly cried at all! (I want babies like that, please).

I had a slight panic attack coming home from Erie Sunday night. Even though Jackson is a great baby it was something about being around a newborn that had me realizing what exactly goes into taking care of a baby. These were my thoughts silent and spoken aloud to Jeremy the whole way home...

"What were we THINKING getting pregnant again so fast???"

"I am not in any way ready for another baby let alone TWO new babies!"

"I can't do this"

"Help"

Well, as my brother pointed out, sorry it's too late! I am feeling better now thanks to a lot of prayer and reading and re-reading this scripture over and over and over again.
Matthew 11:28-30

Poop Camp Graduate

I have sadly neglected to mention Hyrum's star performance at Poop Camp this year. We started on August 15th and it's safe to say he was completely potty-trained by the 17th or 18th, even at night he just gets up to go!!! The first couple of days were a bit tricky with a few accidents because I think he was hoping we would give up and put him back in his beloved diapers but by the end of the 2nd day he knew we weren't going to give up so he just went with it. What a pro. Every time he went he got one treat and a sticker and after 10-15 stickers he could choose a dollar store present and that really kept him going. When the chart was full we celebrated at Jump City.

I think it helped that he was older and I think it was worth it to wait longer (at least for Hyrum) and not have to deal with too many accidents. Too bad we'll still have 3 in diapers for about a year starting in January-oh well maybe Hunter will go sooner!

Here is a photo I found of Hunter that Jeremy took a couple months ago, I think it perfectly represents him

3 months

Today is October 10th. In exactly 3 months it will be January 10th and I will be exactly 38 weeks pregnant. I have decided (99%) I do NOT want to go beyond 38 weeks and if things are not progressing on their own then I will be induced or something. So that means that I have 3 months or less before my twin babies arrive!!! It seems soon when I think of them being here but super far away when I think about being preggo that much longer...sigh! Overall I can't wait until they show their cute little faces!

Here I am today at 25 weeks

Here I was at 36 weeks with Hyrum

Here I am at 32 weeks with Hunter. Hmmm. I seem to be about the same size in all of these pictures. These just might be the last preggo pictures that will be viewed to the public :)

My new best friend (sorry Jeremy). This has been a fun development over the last week. I may have to give up eating altogether.

My friend Andrea gave me two big garbage bags full of girl clothes!!!
(Thank you!) I made Jeremy look at them with me and his comment was 'Wow. These are really different from boy clothes.'

My cute boys before general conference and after a regular run to the cider mill for pumpkin donuts

Strutting their stuff in their new twin church outfits. I wasn't sure if I liked them on the rack but they definitely look cute on.

Here Hyrum is enjoying a pumpkin donut today

Picking out a pumpkin

Hunter loved 'patting' the horses.

FIVE

Jeremy and I celebrated the big 5th Anniversary tonight! Our actual anniversary is on August 7th so even though we're a month and a half late I guess at least we celebrated!

Jeremy let me pick Olive Garden because I was craving their fagioli chili soup and breadsticks and their stuffed chicken marsala. We even split a piece of black tie for dessert. Yum! I was full after one bowl of soup and half a breadstick (darn this belly!) so of course, per my tradition, I brought my entire dinner home. Lunch will be especially good tomorrow. Then I spent one of my Godiva chocolate gift cards from Mother's Day and we exchanged cards-I love getting cards from Jeremy.

(This is a picture of us about a month ago I think.)

Here are a couple wedding photos. I haven't looked through our wedding albums for a long time and it was fun. That was one perfect day. I love this man and not a day goes by that I don't wonder how I lucked out to meet and marry him! Well I guess it really wasn't luck :)

22 Weeks

We had a fun week.
Here I am in all of my 22 week glory. HUGE! But if it's any consolation to me (which it really isn't) Moms carrying twins usually are showing like they are about 8 weeks further along if they were just carrying one. So I'm showing like I would be around 30 weeks. Yikes!

We had a re-visit to The Parlour-couldn't help ourselves! Plus we had to share the discovery with our fellow ice cream fans the Smyers. Brad actually finished the entire banana split and yes he felt sick after. Jeremy is holding up his hand for a size comparison to my brownie sundae.

The boys played their first arcade games

I have always been nervous to have a girl but I must admit I'm getting a bit more excited about it. It helped when my Mom sent me some dresses and shoes she had kept from when I was a baby. I am the most excited about the blessing dress (white one on the right) that my Grammy made and my Mom and I were both blessed in! Cool.

We had car races down the driveway

Hunter has become quite the dipper, if he won't eat just throw a little ranch on it or on the side and he is one happy boy. As a plus, he gets it all over his face too.

The boys enjoyed their first bouncing on a trampoline! They had a blast and laughed a lot.

Still my baby

We had a couple of fun playdates with friends, Hyrum of course went to preschool, and we had two dental parties (one at our house). There are 5 first year dental students in our ward, 1 second year and 3 of us fourth years so it's fun we have a good crowd now. We had about 15 adults and 8 kids over one night and it was a tight squeeze. I must admit when I saw the first years, my first thought was 'oh I'm so glad that's not us again!' As fun as this adventure has been, it feels so good to be almost done!!!!!