Our First Camping Experience

A little over a month ago, Josh and I went on our first camp out together.  It was SO fun.  Our good friends, the Nelson's and Lopez's, set it all up and we just joined in.  It was a great night.  Luckily, we got to go before all of the heat hit.  Here are some pics of our experience.
(Above is Andrew enjoying his dinner that was cooked over the fire).
There were a ton of horses there.  These people from Texas come up every year to help herd stray cattle, and I guess they were all staying at this camp.  So, we got to go over and pet the horses and such.  They were even nice enough to let the kids sit on the horses. 

Andrew kept saying, "Horse!  Nay!!!!!"  It was so cute.

Check out that sweet face.

We fit a pack-n-play and a queen size blow up mattress in this four man tent.  It fit, but just barely.  Poor Josh blew up our huge mattress with nothing but his lungs because I forgot the blow dryer at home.  Not a good wife moment.  He was quite dizzy after blowing it up, but thank goodness we had it.  I like the luxuries of modern day camping. 

This is at breakfast in the morning.  I just love those guys.

Wow, here start the pics I took on my camera.  Look at the difference in quality.  We just have a little point and shoot.  My friend Danica is a professional photographer, (the best one I've ever met for that matter...no joke), and look at the difference!  Wow!  Maybe it's time to invest in a new DSLR.  Perhaps an income should come first though, huh?

Andrew was OBSESSED with this water fountain.  He played at it for like 30 minutes.  It's the kind with a pedal to make the water work. 

Very blurry, but here we are!

Andrew LOVES Ellie!  They are only a month apart in age.  So cute!

Who doesn't love playing with fire?

OK, this is the funniest thing.  Anna is SUCH a girl!  Here we are camping in flip flops!....and the whole time she was so worried that her feet were dirty.  She used wipe after wipe after wipe to keep her feet clean.  She would spend five minutes cleaning her feet, walk around for five minutes, and then repeat.  We tried to convince her that camping just gets us a little dirty and it's fine.  Nope.  She wouldn't hear any of it. 

It was a great trip.  As soon as we got there, Anna was begging to go to sleep so that she could go in the tent.  What's better than roasting marshmallows, enjoying nature, and being with friends and family?  Nothing.

Mall Toys

 Just a few pics I snapped at the mall the other day.  My kids LOVE to play on the "mall toys".  They could stay there all day.  It's fun to watch them.  Andrew is always knocking people out of the way so he can get down the slide.  So, there's always a little disciplining going on too but it's all good. 

Beatin' the Heat

 One of our favorite Saturday activities is to go to the City Gardens downtown.  The kids LOVE it.  We've had temperatures over 103 everyday for almost two weeks, so anything to beat the heat is just a good idea.  Check out our pics

Pregnancy!

Holy cow!  Am I really almost 27 weeks pregnant?  Wow.  It is just going by so fast.  We will blink and our little Daniel will be here.  Sometimes I feel a little self conscience about writing details of my pregnancy on my blog, but I always love reading other peoples stories.  Plus, this is my "blog journal" so I'm counting this post as a documenting blog for Daniel to read later.  (Yea, we'll see if that ever happens).  ;-)

This pregnancy has been wonderful so far.  In the first trimester, I felt incredibly sick but actually only threw up twice, (thank goodness).  However, I picked the two worst days to throw up...the day we moved and the day we drove half way across country.  Yea, those weren't timed very well.  I had to just throw up and keep on truckin'.  Being a mom is tough!  My sickness lasted for what seemed like forever.  It probably didn't really go away until about 20 weeks or so.  That is very comparable to how Anna's pregnancy was, which really made me think this baby was going to be a girl.  I guess old wive's tales just aren't always true.  Josh is still rubbing that one in. 

I have been super, super tired this pregnancy.  Much more than with the other two.  Of course, a large part of that is that I have "the other two" to keep me running around all the time.  Thankfully, the tiredness phase has pretty much passed.  I still take naps here and there but nothing like I used to.  It was ridiculous.  Every single day, I would take about an hour and a half nap while Andrew was sleeping.  Plus, I was getting 8+ hours of sleep each night.  I just felt completely drained all of the time.  I really began to wonder if that would ever go away.  Thankfully it did and now nap time can be productive,...(or not).  ;-)

My emotions have been pretty moderate.  No huge mood swings.  There have been some but not too bad.  I don't know, maybe you should ask Josh his opinion on that one.  I just remember driving in the car when I was pregnant with Anna and crying for completely no reason.  I just needed to cry.  Yea, none of that this time.  I think we're all thankful for that. 

Here I am at 21 weeks pregnant at the Saint Louis Zoo.

 One super weird thing that has happened is that I have become ALLERGIC TO MY WEDDING RING!  Say what?  I know.  It's crazy.  I've developed an allergy to the metal in my ring.  Talk about a bummer.  It makes my finger super red and itchy and even pussy.  TMI?  Yea, I know.  It's awful though.  I can't even wear it for 8 hours.  When I do, it will be irritated for weeks.  I've given up on trying to wear it all together.  No more wedding ring for me.  I asked my doctor about it, and she said that it will probably go away about 6 weeks after the baby comes.  Oh, I hope so.  She said that pregnancy will mess with the ph levels in your body.  I sure hope it all gets resolved when I'm done.  I like my ring.  :-( 
She also told me that one of her patients also had something crazy happen to her skin.  This patient grew a huge, brown mole smack dab in the middle of her forehead.  The girl was obviously upset about it but 6 weeks after she delivered, it completely went away.  I guess things could be worse.  ;-)
This is me on the 4th of July after a very long and exhausting, (but fun), day.  Don't look too closely.  ;-)  I'm 26 weeks in this photo.  I grew a lot in 5 weeks!  I also gained 10 POUNDS in 6 weeks.  Yea, that's ridiculous. 

  This picture is from my last appointment.  At my 20 week utlrasound, they were pretty sure it was a boy but wanted to be certain.  They also couldn't see a valve in his heart very well, so I got to have another ultrasound.  So, I went on Monday and I began to get nervous because the tech was really struggling to see this valve.  She finally was able to and said everything looked normal.  So, that was good.  And yes, he still is a boy.  ;-)
As if three ultrasounds aren't enough....  My doctor wants to do yet another ultrasound in 5 weeks to make sure he is growing well enough.  He's only in the 33rd percentile.  She says that anything between the 25th and the 75th percentile is normal but she knows that I have big babies.  So, she expected that number to be a bit higher.  She said that my due date is probably just off.  Well, I already knew that.  ;-)  Anyways, she wants to do a check just to make sure he is continuing to grow at a rate that makes her happy.  She also told me that he could just be a smaller baby and it's really nothing to be concerned with.  She just wants to keep an eye on things. 
Look, he's totally flexing.  What a boy!

This is probably way more information than you ever wanted to know about this pregnancy, but again, it's a good way for me to document!  We can't wait to see this little buddy!