Ross

At Lauren's best friend's b-day party they were having a pool/water party out back. It had chilled down quite a bit so the kids were kind of cold. I told Ethan to take off his swim top because the sun shinning right onto his skin might make him a bit more warm.

"Um, mom? I don't think I should because I don't think that would be very appropriate in front of all these girls."

Haha. I had to explain that there is a difference between normal activities and swimming. It really is okay to just wear swim trunks when you're a boy and the occasion calls for it. Really.

Now that I've got less than 100 days left I thought I'd put up a prego widget. I love these on other blogs as a quick way to see how far along people are. So there it is on the side.

Oh and "Hello 3rd Trimester!" So far it sucks. But there are only 3 months left of this so there is hope.

I had it pointed out to me by a very indignant, un-named, person that I have done a huge post on Ethan and I've done a huge post on Lily, but I've failed to do a proper post on Princess Lauren. So here it is.
At the aquarium after blessing her new baby twin girl cousins On the beach with cousin Boston
In the tree where she belongs
The three amigos
Being cheeky
In her Hanna Montana gear. Yeah, I know. In my defence we know nothing about her other than Lauren thinks she's pretty and therefore loves her. Seriously, we haven't even seen a Hanna Montana anything and she still fell in love with her. From what I've heard she isn't exactly the most fantastic role model, but we'll deal with that later. Commercialism...
What's that? Why are my kids on an antique fire truck. Why because my parents own one, of course! Because don't you know that the perfect thing to go with a hundred year old school to live in is a real life fire truck from the same era? What's that? Why yes my parents are eccentric. No, no I will never live in a school myself and own a fire truck, but the grand kids think it's great anyway.
Lauren has been making some huge accomplishments herself lately.
-Can tell you what the letter at the begining of a word is by the sound. What does Lauren start with? Llllll, Llllll, L!!!
-Is getting really close to knowing all her letters by sight.
-Can write her letters all pretty good for a four year old.
-Is making more elaborate stick figure drawings! Ha, they are so funny. I should post a picture of one.
She still has another year left until she starts Kindergarten, another year of preschool with mommy, and I swear with how well she's doing she'll be a reader before she even starts. She loves to learn and is easy to teach. And acts like a huge princess all the time. Can't forget that.

Here is the super boyish car seat I bought and paid for several months ago that's been hanging out in my closet. And the kiddopotomus thingy I really wanted that I got at Other Mother for a couple bucks!!! Yes, I was excited. Along with all the other really super cute like new clothes I scored on. Someone stop me.

Here I've been getting all things baby ready for my little guy. Ethan helpfully got his doggy out from his bedroom and put it in here for his little brother(that he is so super excited for!).
Also in baby preparation, Lily has been stepping forward and making some huge milestones lately! My big girl!
First, she got her very first puffy braid! Oh so cute.
Next, she has officially weaned from nursing, at all. And we've been holding strong for over a month now to the point that she doesn't even do her "put, put" noise thing asking to nurse. I'll miss it, but I think we are both ready and prepared for this.
And this is just a picture of her with her gorgeous/scruffy daddy.
In case you were wondering, yes she does love the "Meows" and will be upset when they are big enough to go back to the shelter for adoption.
And then there is the thing I'm most excited about. Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not against a co-sleeping arrangement. I let my little babies nurse to sleep while I'm laying on my side sleeping myself. They get more sleep, I get more sleep, it works for us. Then whenever I wake up, I just move them into the bassinet next to my bed, or playpen as they get older, until they are around a year old. Lily's room is on a different floor than us so this time I was very hesitant to move her all the way down there to her new room. However, we got a queen sized bed and I started laying down with her at night and she has been sleeping in her own room now for a few months! As a matter of fact last night I told her to go to bed, she wasn't happy about it(cried the whole way there), but she went in and got into her own bed and went to sleep. What a big girl!

If you want an explanation, I had just gotten back from Costco and was putting stuff away while the kids were watching Scooby Doo. I guess Charmin is as comfy as they say because this is how I found Lily a little bit later.

Apparently there is no in between, no compromise. You must choose one or the other, or in my case, none at at.

The other day while browsing through a bookstore, an older lady probably in her late 40s asked me if I needed any help. I told her I had no idea what I was looking for, just a good book to read. She kindly offered to show me something she has been reading and so I followed her to be polite, even though I highly doubted we would have anything in common as far as books go.
So a second later I found myself in front of these romance novels that practically make me blush just looking at them. Book seller lady is gushing about how much she loves these books while I'm standing there trying to come up with a sensitive way of saying, "No way!"

"Ummm, you know, I kind of like reading books without a lot of... um... questionable content in them...?"

"Oh, well, I have just the thing then!"

A minute later I'm standing in front of a section titled 'RELIGIOUS.' Greeeeat.
Not that I'm against religious books, there are just a very specific kind of religious books that I will read.
So she starts pulling these books out for me and saying how they are about Amish life and stuff.

What!!! How the heck did we go from sleazy romance novels to books on Amish living???

Sorry, but just because I don't like to read about Fabio's throbbing whatever, doesn't mean I automatically skip right on over to the extreme opposite. But then again, I am Mormon, don't drink, smoke, swear, steal, read questionable books... might as well be living in a convent! Or an Amish Farm. Oh wait, I'm using a computer and the internet, that won't work out too well. Curse you technology!

Ethan accomplished a lot this year!

*Was put into the accelerated learning classes and excelled!

*Was student of the week for his school a few months ago.

*Had perfect scores on his report cards!

*Was off the charts on his Kindergarten state testing.

We couldn't be more proud of him! I was always having his different teachers tell me what a great kid his is and how well he does in school. In art in particular I was always told how creative he was. He even had one of his projects he decided to do as a bi-plane passed around to the different teachers in the school because the teacher was so impressed by it. He had a really fantastic teacher this year. I'm so glad that he got a teacher that you can tell really enjoys what she does. Mrs. Kinney was so kind and sweet. Ethan tells me all the time how much he likes her.

Now he's on to first grade where I'm told he's more than ready to go. He's a reader and right where he needs to be academically to do well in 1st. He just has to wait 11 weeks to start and he's already excited about his new teacher Mrs. York.

Today I'm sick. I still have mornings where I wake up and my stomach is trying it's hardest to expel whatever is in there. Today is one of those days. My feet and legs are puffy, making my toes look like little sausages, and they feel like lead. Really I don't feel like I could walk if I even tried to get off this couch.

As for the little guy, well he's quite active these days. I think he's jealous of his big bro getting to run around and play t-ball because it feels like he's trying to escape. I'm a bit surprised at just how strong he is already. I don't remember any of my other kids being able to hurt me by the time I was 23 weeks along. Of course my belly has never been quite this big at 23 weeks along either, yuck.

Last week I had the extreme pleasure of ridding my house of two full girls clothes bins. If you haven't heard of Other Mother, look it up. I took the two bins that Lily has grown out of there and got store credit. They only take the things that look new or like new, and they give you credit for 47% of what they mark it at. I was pretty excited to find out I get 70 something bucks of free kids clothes from there. They have clothes marked at $1 to $5 depending on brand and quality. The newborn little boy clothes I got look like they came off the rack at the store, Baby Gap, Gymboree, ect. And Ethan scored a pair of pants and a shirt that don't look like they have ever been worn. Yea for free stuff!

As if the fact that my stomach is being testy today isn't enough, the black Hawk helicopter that is at Ethan's school today sounded like it was trying to rip my roof off at like 8 am this morning. I thought Lily was going to have a heart attack. Ethan's school is directly behind my house and today is the second to last day of school so they're doing a fun day outside. Their fun day includes getting to tour the inside of the helicopter. Yippee. Okay, Ethan is excited even if it sound horribly boring to me.

And that's pretty much everything I want to share for now. I think I've got pictures from our last two fun filled weekends, but that would require me getting up to get the camera. Sooo lazy this morning.