Another quiz

How well do you know your logos? I got 17 out of 20 right. Try it!

Disneyland

We got to Disneyland an hour before it opened so that we could be at the very front when the turnstiles opened. It was a good thing too, because it was super crowded. Colin and Gabe were very anxious to get inside, as you can imagine.

Gabe was especially anxious because he could see the train inside the park and kept seeing it come and leave. He was bawling, saying, "Choo-choo go bye-bye!!!!" We had to give him lots of cookies before we even got in. It didn't help that he woke up at 4:30 that morning.

We were using RideMax, and it turned out to be a lifesafer because it was so crowded that it was hard to even walk around the park. Thanks to Ridemax though, we mostly walked onto all the rides, including Peter Pan and Dumbo, which had hour long waits later in the day.

Colin refused to go on Dumbo at first, until he saw Gabe and I go on it and relized that you could control the elephant. Colin loves anything mechanical, so he was sold, and went on it with Granny. He loved it and it ended up being one of his favorite rides on the day.

Gabe was partial to Casey Jr's train. He was too excited to even look at the camera. We were all excited to get to ride in the cage car of the train.

We had park-hopper tickets (thanks to e-bay), so we spent a couple of hours at California Adventure. Here is Colin cooling off.

Gabe and I got to go on the Chew-Chew train while the rest went on a ride we couldn't.

Here is Colin later in the day back at Disneyland on Winnie the Pooh.

The one ride that we couldn't avoid a long line for the were the Finding Nemo Submarines. We finally gave in and got in the hour long line at 9:00 or so. Gabe had fallen asleep at 7:30 in his stroller, so Granny stayed with him while the rest of us waited. Here is a picture Colin took of Mom and Dad while he was bored out of his mind. Not longer after this he broke out in tears because he was so exhausted. He did love the ride though.

Granny and Gabe.

We didn't get to Blythe until around 2 in the morning. Of course the boys slept the whole way home (and so did I. Poor Chad). It was a long long day, but very fun.

My pregnancy so far

Well, one of the pluses of not revealing my pregnancy for the first four months is that I wasn't tempted to bore all of you with the boring details that consume the mind of a pregnant woman. Since the cat is out the bag though, I figured I would catch you all up to speed with a brief synopsis (okay, not so brief) of how it has gone so far, along with some of the details:

I found out I was pregnant on December 12th. We decided to keep it a secret for awhile because, hey, how else can it be a surprise when it is number 3? We knew my parents were coming to visit us after Christmas and thought that maybe we could keep it a secret until then, and that maybe, just maybe we could keep it a secret until we went to visit them in March.

My due date is on my sister Christie's birthday, August 20th. I am at 18 weeks. I will have another ultrasound at 26 weeks or so because I have placenta previa and we will see then if it has resolved itself. I am not too worried at this point, and neither is my midwife, because I haven't had any bleeding.

We had an ultrasound and found out last Monday, the day before we left for Blythe, that it is another boy. Of course part of me wanted a girl, but I am so excited and honestly didn't feel disappointed when we found out, and Chad feels the same way. The idea of three boys really tickles us. No name yet.

I wasn't as pukey this pregnancy as I was with Colin, but did occasionally throw up from about 7 weeks 'til 10, and it wasn't the nausea that I felt before. Food still sounded good, I just had a gagging sensation all the time. Chewing gum helped a lot. The fact that anything helped at all made me very grateful because nothing helped when I was pregnant with Colin (expect Unisom - more on that later). At 10 weeks I got progressively more and more nauseous over a few days until I couldn't hold anything down or get up off the couch without vomiting. Not good when you are taking care of three kids, one of which isn't your own. At this point I started taking Unisom again, and it completely took care of the vomiting, expect when I over-ate. At this point I also had to reveal my pregnancy secret to the Jeppsons that live in Charlotte, mostly to explain to Sabina why I was lying on the couch when she came over to get Evan one day while Evan and Colin were upstairs watching The Simpsons Movie (Colin knows how to work the DVD player, I swear they haven't been allowed to watch it since).

I am so so happy to be well into my second trimester. I was just so tired all through the first. So tired. So very tired. I was in bed most nights by 8:30, and cursed Gabe every day for trying to give up naps already. One night I stayed up until 11 for a party, and I felt like I had a hangover the next day (or what I imagine a hangover feels like). I feel GREAT now though, expect for being in that gross chubby middle ground before looking super pregnant. I have been in maternity pants for a couple of weeks now but maternity shirts are still pretty big and sometimes I cringe when I think that my tummy still has almost five more months of growing to do. It's bugging me a lot less than it did with the previous two pregnancies though.

I think that is about it - another plus of keeping it a secret is that because I wasn't talking about it or being asked questions about it, it has gone by so much more quickly this time. Woohoo!

Surprise, part II

This is the shirt I was wearing when my mom picked me up.

I was wrong

My daffodils did bloom right before we left and we got to see them.

Surprise!

I had a surprise for my mom when she went to go pick me up at the airport. Can you tell what it is by her reaction? More details to come later.....

Shhhh, don't tell!

We are in Anaheim right now. We flew in this morning. Colin is sleeping in the bed next to Chad, and he doesn't know that we are going to Disneyland in the morning. I am so excited!

We told Gabe the secret weeks ago, thinking that he couldn't communicate enough to spill the beans, but he has been talking about it so much to Colin. The good thing is that Colin just thinks that Gabe is confused. Gabe will says something like, "Go to Mickey Mouse house!" (in his broken language) and Colin will just say, "No Gabey, we aren't going to Disneyland!" Just today they got into a argument about it when we passed Disneyland on our way to the hotel. I am sure Gabe is just thinking, "You just wait Colin. You think you are so smart, but you'll see."

Throwdown with Bobby Flay

Have you seen this show? Chad and I watch it together faithfully (which isn't hard with DVR!), and have a million little jokes that we share about it now. The basic premise is this - Bobby Flay travels all over the US, visiting chefs who are known for making the "best" of a certain dish. Bobby challenges them to a "throwdown" making the dish, and then judges come in and decide who wins. It is a fun show because they showcase a new local chef every week and you get to see two interpretations of classic dishes. All of this in only a half hour - which means no drawn-out time fillers.

We didn't start watching this show when it first aired (it is in it's fourth season now), so we have had a lot of re-runs to watch. For some reason, we happened to catch them in just the right order and did not see Bobby Flay win a single episode out of probably the first 10 or 12 episodes that we watched. We were like, "C'mon judges, stop favoring the locals! Who cares about tradition when you can have Bobby Flay's habanero infused pudding!" (Okay, he didn't really make that, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did!) I mean seriously, Bobby Flay can't ever win? Rigged!Anyway, when we finally caught the episode where Bobby Flay bested the lady who cooks the macaroni and cheese that Oprah judged as being the best in the world, part of me was cheering for Bobby, but part of me was just sad for the local lady who was known for this one thing! I mean, Bobby Flay has Iron Chef and everyone knows who he is, couldn't he leave the macaroni title to the nice lady?

Bobby's record has gotten better with each season, so we are catching more and more episodes where he wins, and I still always feel a little sad for the chefs who lose. Especially since they don't have their own Food Network test kitchen assistants coming up with all their recipes for them and reigning them in with their "heat"!

Oh, and I must mention that out of all the Food Network chefs, Bobby Flay is the one whose food I most want to sample, even if I am a wuss with spicy food. I mean, I am a total cheapo (the entertainment book is my best friend), but I might be willing someday to spend an extraordinary amount of money to eat, no, experience his food.

On a side note, the new season of "Top Chef" began last night on Bravo. Hooray!

Yum

On Tuesday I decided to make a nice dinner because Chad was leaving to Richmond the next day. I made a roast chicken using a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. Skidilie-dumptious-scrumptious. I whole-heartedly endorse this recipe.

He's in!

Colin checked the mail on Tuesday and came running into the house yelling, "I got my letter!" He recognized the logo in the corner and knew it was the letter telling us whether or not he got into a magnet school.

He did! He got into our first choice - the Chinese Immersion program. We are so excited!

Finished reading Eclipse

I made a long comment about it under my earlier post. If you want to talk about it, check it out.

Where Have I Been?

Seriously, why did I have NO idea it was the end of Daylight Savings this morning?

At what I thought was 8:10, I was printing something out and getting ready to head out the door with the family for church (we live about 35 minutes away and it starts at 9 am. Woohoo, we were actually going to be on time!) and when I looked at the time on the computer, it said 9:10. WHA?! I had to go turn on the TV to verify that all of the clocks in my house where wrong and then it finally hit me why! I still had to google it though to make sure that it was actually the end of Daylight Savings today, on MARCH 9th. So early!

We knew at that point that we had completely missed sacrament meeting and just focused on getting there in time for classes.

When I got there, one of the other nursery leaders was just setting up some stuff and it turns out that she had no idea either. We only had 11 kids in nursery when we normally have around 18, so I am guessing that there were a lot of confused people this morning.

I swear they did not announce it in church last Sunday. What is up with that?

New Moon

Thursday 10:30 am: My friend Shannon, who is helping me with preschool, tells me that I can borrow her copy of "New Moon."

3:00 pm: I pick it up at her house

7:00-11 pm: I read the book, with a few breaks to deal with kids and watch Throwdown with Bobby Flay (crepes) with Chad.

Friday 8:30 am: pick it back up

12 noon : finish it

I think it is safe to say that I am officially hooked. This book was a lot more satisying to me than "Twilight" and I can't tell you how many tears were shed over it. Yeah, I am a dork, but that's okay :o) I am used to it.

I also have Shannon's copy of "Eclipse" in my posession. I am not allowing myself to touch it today.

Crowns

We did Preschool at my house on Tuesday and made crowns. The kids really loved it. I thought this was cute picture of Colin. Not the greatest picture of Gabe, but I wanted to show the train he drew on his crown(you can kinda tell what it is on the right there towards the top).

Mud Pies!

Why is Gabe standing in the middle of the backyard, soaking and screaming?

Well, these are the "before" pictures......

Mean mommy had to hose them off after they made mud pies!

FHE

Last night's FHE....well, the lesson just turned into a wrestling match.

Then we had Candyland, where Colin fell apart because he got sent back to Mr. Mint when he was almost about to win. Here he is after pulling it together again, but you can see that his cheeks are still wet.

Gabe's way of playing Candyland is putting his man into the train and pulling him around. After Candyland we got to make Jiffy Pop (warning: the package specifically says not to use it on a flat-top stove but we chose to risk it) By the way, is Jiffy Pop always pretty chewy, or did we just get a stale pack?

Didn't spiritually get much out of the evening, but it is always good to try anyway, and to spend time having fun together!

How well do you know your candy bars?

Take this quiz and see if you are a candy bar expert! Chad and I tied with a score of 13 correct. I really want a candy bar now.

Adventures in Babysitting

Oh. My. Goodness.

I babysat three brothers all day on Thursday (for free for once). Their mom had some really important things to get done and I didn't mind. I knew they were handfuls because of previous experiences in preschool and nursery, but I have never watched them before. I kept a close eye on them for the first hour or so, but I saw that all the boys were playing surprisingly well together so I went downstairs and went about my usual business while they played upstairs. Well, quite awhile later, the youngest boy, who recently turned two, came downstairs with no pants or a diaper on and he was completely soaked. His older brother informed me that he had been playing in my bathroom. I ran up there to see what had happened, and found this......

Wet balls of toilet paper stuck to the wall, along with the dismantled roll itself.

The rest of the roll in my toilet. I dug it all out with a plastic hanger and at the very bottom was another roll of toilet paper. Thank goodness he didn't try to flush it. The toilet wads were also all over the floor and even on the mirror.

The toilet roll holder torn out of the wall.

I felt very mixed emotions about all of this. I mean, on one hand, it is just plain frustrating and angering. That was not an easy thing to clean up while watching 5 kids. On the other hand, I felt bad that I hadn't kept an eye on him better. I honestly did not realize he was capable of causing so much mischief. If he were my own kid I probably have known him well enough to know to keep an eye on him. And trust me, after that incident, he did not leave my sight. I made all the kids stay in the playroom and I planted myself right outside the open door with a book.

I felt guilty telling the mom why he was wearing different clothes when she came to get him, but she was just really relieved he hadn't flooded the house. His oldest brother informed me that he has done stuff like this before.

Does this fall into the"lot in life" category?