Yes, we are still pregnant, the due date is Friday and we are ready any day now. I have tried walking and moving around a lot to encourage any sign of a contraction but to no avail. We are moving in 2 1/2 weeks so we really want this little guy to come in the next week, pray for us that he does please.
If you have any great ideas on how to get this little guy motivated to leave my uterus please leave a comment.
Ever since last summer our boys have been mildly obsessed with going to the chain restaurant Chili's. I don't know exactly why, maybe it was the big chili on the sign that was intriguing to them, I really have no idea. But somewhere along the way Alan and I told them that when Daddy gets a job we would go to Chili's. So then every time we passed a Chili's the boys would remind us that when Daddy got a job we would go to Chili's, this was usually followed by a lot of yeah's and hoorays and clapping. I don't know what exactly they thought would happen when we went to Chili's but they were exited about it. Well, as many of you know Alan took a job offer at a company called Microseismic, it is in Houston and we are moving there in about a month, so we realized we needed to take the boys to Chili's. In fact that was one of the first things they told us when we told them about the job.
Here our the boys and Dad waiting for a table, the boys loved the little device they give you so you know when it's your turn.
Sammy and Daddy at our table.
Mommy and Jakie, this kid loves to make funny faces and so it is hard for me to find "nice" pictures of him.
The boys loved coloring before the meal and getting their own cups with straws. I don't know if it met their expectations, but it was nice to celebrate Alan's new job. Congratulations Alan!
So I am nearing the 38 week mark of this pregnancy and I thought I would play a little game on here to see you can guess the weight of baby Nathan John (yes that is his name) and his length and the date you think he will come. I don't know if there will be a prize or not for this, mostly because we are moving as soon as this little guy is born and I don't know when I would get to that but if you win you will have the satisfaction of knowing you are a great guesser.
So leave your guesses in the comments section. If it helps any (and I don't think it will) Sammy and Jakie were around 17 1/2 inches and between 5 lbs 5 oz and 5 lbs 14 oz and they were born 5 weeks early and my due date is May 28th for Nathan.
This week the boys have been very involved with making train tracks and running cars and trains over them.
Sam has worked really hard on his drawing skills. If you can't tell this is a picture of his mommy. The circle in the middle is baby Nathan in my belly, he even drew the umbilical cord if you can see it.
a little better picture of it
I was busy making a baby shower cake, it was the first I have done for pay, it was challenging because of the humidity here, but it turned out alright I guess. I didn't think of taking a picture of it until it was already in a box.
I thought it was time to document how big I am, I wanted to compare how big I am now at 36 weeks with how big I was with the boys when I delivered them, that was around 35 weeks but I didn't get a picture then, this will have to do. I have already packed my old pictures so I will have to wait to show a side by side of both the pics. Friday I will be at 37 weeks. Yikes, that is really soon.
This is just a random picture of me reading to the boys, I have been reading to them a lot because I haven't been able to play with them and find myself sitting a lot more than usual.
We have taken pretty much the same picture in the same spot for the past three years so I have to share how the boys have changed over the last couple of years. It is funny because the shirt they are wearing is the same shirt they are wearing in the last picture, I guess we need to buy some new shirts, they look way too small on them now.
2008
2009
2010
Over the last couple of weeks I have had this photo bug where I have felt the need to document more of the boys lives in pictures. This may have to do with the fact that I know that there is a baby coming soon and that my focus may be on other things, but whatever the cause the boys haven't exactly wanted to be the perfect models for me in fact I think they have felt more like victims of my insistence on always taking pictures.
This last week we went up to visit my Uncle Tracy and Aunt Glenda in McKinney Texas after dropping Alan off at the Love Field Airport. We got there a little early and decided to go to the park and wait for them to get home from church. Obviously this was the perfect opportunity to take pictures, right? Jacob was less than thrilled about it and Sam wouldn't sit still.
This is a typical Jacob scowl which he has perfected through the years and really loves to pull out during a photo shoot. Unfortunately this was the only "usable" shot because all the other shots were of the back of their heads. Later that week we went to the zoo and I once again attempted to take pictures of the boys. Sam was willing.
Jacob was not.
I attempted to get him to cooperate several times, I will not tell you I am above a bribe to get a good picture, but even that didn't seem to work. So Sam in his brilliance decided to take things into his own hands and get Jacob to smile.
This seemed to do the trick.
Unfortunately Sam decided all of his good pictures were taken by then so this is what I ended up with.
Oh Well, I will just have to try again. Lucky them.
It was time for new Bluebell pictures since the bluebells are out in full bloom now. Samuel is the one in green, Jacob is in blue. It is a lot of pictures so if you like pictures great, if not sorry.
Our Easter festivities started on Saturday morning with dying eggs. I saw in a magazine a fun way for kids to dye eggs that made it easier for them using a whisk. The boys had a lot of fun doing it themselves.
Next we had an Easter egg hunt in the back of our house, the boys had so many eggs that they didn't all fit in their buckets.
Here are their Easter baskets that the Easter Bunny brought. Our battery died the night before Easter morning so I didn't get any Easter day pictures, but we had a fun meal and dessert with friends. We all had a great time.
So I was recently inspired by one of our friends blogs (Missy and Lyndon to be precise) where she made a tent for her girls out of felt. I have long had a fascination with the little felt food I had seen on etsy and thought that the idea was great but I really didn't have the desire to actually make anything out of felt until I saw Missy's blog and the wonderful job she did. I looked online and found some ideas and this is what I came up with. I have been working on it for a while and just recently finished (for the most part) it. (I still have to make the corn to go on the stalk.)
Front door, mail box and bird feeder
The garden, with carrots, cabbage, soon to be corn, and flowers. All the pieces remove and that is the kids favorite thing about it.
Apple tree with basket, the apples are supposed to go in the basket when not on the tree, but they usually end up as ammo for the boys to throw at each other.
The fish pond, the fish have paper clips in the mouths so the boys can use their magnetic fishing rod to catch them.
The boys enjoying one of the windows, as you can see the flowers didn't stay in the flower box either.
This was a fun project but I am glad it is almost completed, it took a lot of figuring out. And don't look too close because I made a lot of mistakes, but the kids don't seem to care.
Alan has been pretty busy with school, his thesis paper, different conferences, looking for jobs, making posters, giving talks etc. that we don't have a lot of family time. But last Saturday Alan took part of the morning off from his usual work to just hang out with the boys and they loved it. Here are the boys in their pjs reading the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Alan built the boys this marble ramp thing we saw in a Family Fun magazine. It didn't really work but they had fun making it. And we are still having "fun" picking up all the marbles that can be found in every crevice of the house. It's a good thing that there are not any little ones about yet to eat them.
