I can CAN!!!

Oh my!  Just what on earth have I turned into????  Take a look at the "fruits of my labor".  Haha, no pun intended.  I actually did all of this!  15 jars of salsa and 42 jars of pears.  Holy moly.  A friend of mine gave me a ton tomatoes and jalepenos from her garden and 15 jars later I had me some canned salsa.  Then, last Monday, Casey and I took the kids and picked 60lbs of pears at a friends orchard.  It took all freakin day long and I was beginning to question what I had gotten myself into, but the end result is so exciting.  Once again, who'd of thunk I'd ever endeavor on such a thing?  Oh, and Casey even helped me can all the pears.  Who'd of thunk that one either??  Yay for us and our pears and salsa...

Paige's first day...

My Paigey girl started her second year of preschool at Happy Hearts.  And she was excited!  Mostly to see her friend Adam again.  She really missed him.  (We'll see if she makes any girl friends this year :) 

She wanted me to curl her hair "like a princess" and then half way through decided it was taking too long and made several attempts to escape.  I got it as best I could without burning her with the hot curling iron.  I think it's pretty cute.  I wish she would let me curl her hair everyday....

She's not too sure about her new teacher yet....

But that's just Paige and her stranger anxiety...

Weird to think I now have 3 mornings a week to myself.  That's almost 9 hours of me-time!  Hmmm....I'm thinking I better take advantage of that before little baby boy joins our family.

Look Mom! No hands!

Summer 2010

Here's what we did all summer long.....

Caiden got pretty comfortable on the kneeboard....

....and Paige in the water with Papa...

Fun times at the pool.....

Both kids took swim lessons....Caiden was the smallest and youngest in his class (by far) but he actually kept up with the big kids quite well. I was super impressed....

He was so excited to learn to jump off the diving board with no life jacket and no help in the water...Yay!  He definitely walked away from swim lessons a stronger and more skilled swimmer....

And this girl....

 .....she owes me 25 bucks!!

This is the girl that doesn't liked to be splashed, or put her head under water...just float and twirl in her bright pink floaty.  We did the Mommy and Me class, which was all moms and their kids no older than 18 months, and then there was me and my 4 yr old.  A little awkward. 

I did my best to convince her to try to blow bubbles....

and after 2 weeks this was the best "jump" I could get out of her....

.....could be impressive if the water were more than 6 inches deep.

Oh well.  It's not like I'm trying to raise an Olympic swimmer here.  Maybe next summer....

It's a.....

BOY!!  Today I had my ultrasound and we discovered that we are having a boy!  Casey and Caiden are especially excited and Paige is doing...ok.  She wasn't overly thrilled when I told her it was a boy, but she didn't get too upset either.  I told her she would still help me feed the baby and hold the baby and dress the baby and she said "Can we buy him new shoes?"  Why, sure! Whereas Caiden insisted that he didn't want "two sisters that will bug me forever".  So everyone is excited and I am most happy and thankful that everything and everyone appears to be healthy.  The radiologist still has to review everything in detail and then report it to my doctor, but I'm thinking all is well. 

It is amazing how technology has improved even in the last 5 years.  We sat and watched this baby's thumb go in and out of his mouth.  Already taking after his big brother!  Caiden was also sucking his thumb in his ultrasound.  We got a picture of it but it's not very clear.  Even with the advanced technology, I still sometimes felt like Rachel on Friends as the ultrasound tech. would point out different things like "here's the kidneys" and "here's the stomach" and "here's the bladder" - uh-huh, yeah I see all of that too.  Not!  One thing about this baby is that he is situated very low.  The guy had a hard time getting all of the measurements.  He had me rolling from side to side and I kept feeling the baby kick back when he'd push on my belly.  I kept thinking myself, even before the ultrasound, that this baby felt really low.  All the movements I feel are much lower than I remember in my other 2 pregnancies.  My doctor says the uterus is up where it's supposed to be; this baby just chooses to situate himself very low down.  My bladder is not too appreciative of this.  So hopefully as he gets bigger he'll move himself up a bit. 

Speaking of big, Caiden took one look at the picture and said "whoa! he has a big head!"  I also noticed that, but I'm choosing to overlook it and deny it because the thought of giving birth to one more big-headed baby is just too much for me to handle right now.  So here's to our newest little boy to be!

First Grade

Caiden had a successful day of first grade.  We had met his teacher the day before and he was super excited that 2 of his friends from last year are in his class again.  So once he had on his favorite new Lego Batman shirt and a packed lunch, he couldn't get out of the door fast enough. 

We parked and walked him to his class.  Once inside, I saw a roomful of silent, nervous, adorable little first graders (and only one hysterically crying little boy).  Natually I had to take a picture of him at his desk.  Love the "seriously, mom???"  look....

So I hung out for a few minutes until Paige kept saying "Can we go now???"  Then....it was time to go.  I stood outside and just felt like I didn't want to leave.  I wasn't necessarily sad, but I just felt like I wanted to stand outside the builiding for a minute.  Probably would have if Paige hadn't been pulling me to the car.  Anyway, I kept myself busy all day occasionally thinking/stressing whether or not he was having fun.  Then....time to pick him up.  He gets in the car and says "First grade is fun!!"  Yay!  Thanks to lunch and 2 recesses, he loves, loves school.  I don't hear much about what they learn, but I hear about everything that goes on at lunch and recess.  He is so funny!