How Brendan plays Skee Ball and Proof that we do more than sit at home and play the Wii

This past week, we enjoyed a trip to the Prince William County Fair and it was pretty awesome.

We got to hang out with the Anderssons so Brendan was stoked to be with his best buddy, Josh. They were holding hands all evening and it was so cute. Brendan loved the fair but it was even better since he got to share the night with Josh.

 

The rides were pretty awesome too although the only one I got to enjoy was the ferris wheel, but it was still fun.

Brendan got to go down a giant slide again and he loved it as much as he did last year.

Chris also took him on a spinning ride and Brendan just ended up laying down on Chris’s lap for the whole thing. But he got off smiling and loving it so it was worth it.

Needless to say, Brendan cried when it was time to go home but soon stopped when we got some fried dough, which is what I was really looking forward to. It was as good as I hoped. The night was exactly what I needed- some quality time with my family and good friends, delicious treats and getting to watch my little boy have the time of his life.

Seeing a turtle in our yard was also a highlight for Brendan this week. This little guy moved faster that I thought he would- I thought turtles were supposed to be slow? He was definitely not- he quickly ran away once Chris put him down.

This is as close as Brendan would get to him, which is funny since he got to pet a python at a library sponsored program and he wasn’t afraid of that at all. I guess a turtle’s head is a little more intimidating than the tail of a giant snake.

We also spent some time at the Washington National Cathedral since I still hadn’t seen it. It was pretty amazing and much bigger than I thought.

The inside of the church is just as impressive- very ornate and very beautiful.

After being super good while we walked around inside, Brendan enjoyed running and jumping around the grounds.

And here’s a shot of my giant belly. Today someone asked me when I was due and if there was just one baby. It totally made me feel awesome. And sadly, she is not the first to ask me that question. Oh well, only FOUR more weeks to go. Can you believe it? I can’t!

Proof that I may be the laziest mother…

Brendan has been enjoying some quality Wii time lately and the boy is seriously becoming a pro at the New Super Mario Brothers game. The Wii has really come in handy for when we need an activity and it’s too hot to play outside.

I have to be careful though because Brendan would play all day long if I let him- but I don’t. It’s just nice to have some down time so I can rest and relax a little.

Watching random videos about marble races, Thomas trains or Nintendo games on YouTube is also another favorite activity. 

He loves it.

But don’t worry, we’ve been up to other more stimulating activities as well. These are just the only pictures I have to show for the past few weeks. :)

A bit overwhelmed

I only have 8 weeks left of this pregnancy… it’s very strange to write that because it seems like such a small number but September 19th seems so far away still- especially in this heat that we’ve been having here. Of course the summer that I’m pregnant has to be a record-breaking summer with temperatures in the 100’s far too often. This has been a hard summer so far. We’ve been trying to find things to do inside (since air conditioning is a must for me) and we’ve managed to tag-along to a pool with a friend a handful of times but it seems that the majority of the time we are just hanging out at home. Brendan has been anxious to play with his friends and get out to the park but it’s just too hot. Poor kid. I’m struggling to find activities to do with him to keep him entertained but hopefully the heat will back off a little so we can resume normal summer activities.

My parents came out at the end of June to visit with us and to help watch Brendan while I was supposed to be at Girls Camp.

Unfortunately the night before I was supposed to leave for camp, I had horrible, intense pain in my stomach- which has turned out to be gallstones and am now on a lovely restricted diet (goodbye delicious fatty, greasy foods) for the rest of this pregnancy. I ended up missing most of camp since I was in and out of the doctor’s for tests and still in some pain- I had no idea gallstones could hurt so bad- and I was bummed that I couldn’t be there. I’m glad my parents were here to help out though since Chris and I were in urgent care that first night for about 3 hours until 1:00am. It would have been even worse if we had had to drag Brendan out of bed and sit around the doctor’s office all night with a cranky three year old. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

We did get to do a few touristy things with them while they were here luckily. We hit up DC (again it was so stinkin’ hot) and got to see some of the sights.

We even ventured out to Mt Vernon the Saturday before they left. We hadn’t visited there yet so it was a new adventure for all of us and it turned out to be pretty cool.

The grounds and gardens were amazingly beautiful, which I probably would have enjoyed even more if it hadn’t been so hot. But it was well worth it and I’m glad that we could go with my parents.

Their visit seemed way too short though and Brendan was so sad to see them leave. The day after they left, he asked if we could go to Grampy and Grammy’s house and cried when I said “not today” (an answer he gets quite often from me these days). I know he’s looking forward to seeing them again soon shortly after his baby brother is born.

Speaking of his baby brother, I still haven’t done much to prepare for this baby, including deciding on a name. Chris and I have very different tastes in names and boy names just seem to be hard for us. Chris is still rooting for Baxter but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s starting to stress me out that we don’t have a name chosen now that the clock is ticking. I also haven’t done much to get the nursery ready either. No bedding picked out, no furniture bought, and no clothes purchased (sort of). In general, I’ve done a shockingly small amount of shopping for this baby, which is very odd for me. In short, the only thing I’ve done is sort through Brendan’s baby clothes to see what will work for baby #2 and my mom ended up washing most of them for me since I only got as far as throwing them in a pile in the nursery. I probably wouldn’t have done it yet if it weren’t for her. We’ve got a ton to do in a short amount of time now and I’ve starting keeping a list of everything I’ve got to accomplish, which is stressing me out even more when I look at it or add three new things to it. Add to that the fact that I’m not sleeping well, I feel gianormous, I’m sweaty all of the time because of the heat, I’ve got KILLER heartburn, and I’m exhausted from trying to deal with Brendan. Needless to say, I’m ready for this summer to be over and the baby to be here… if only I can get everything on my list checked off.

And then a pipe in our bathroom had to burst. It was not a fun way to be awoken at 6:30 in the morning to water gushing out the wall behind the toilet. Since it happened on the top floor, the water managed to flood our main floor and basement in areas where the water seeped down through the ceiling and walls. We were lucky enough to get it fixed that same day but went for most of the day with no running water and no air conditioning. It was not fun. I’m just glad that Chris was home when it happened and knew how to shut off the main water valve (something I now know!) and could work from home that day to help me out with the clean-up and watching after Brendan. Now we’re just waiting to get some walls and ceilings patched up, which is luckily the worst of the damage.

On a funnier note, here’s a picture of Brendan after he slathered half a jar of hair pomade onto his head. This just shows how attentive I am these days. He was so proud of himself for doing his “daddy hair”. He is still very much a daddy’s boy and wants to do everything his dad does, so in a way this was so sweet.

But it took a lot of shampoo to get it all out of his hair.

Some things that I forgot to post back in June

There’s no real reason for this post other than I realized I had some pictures I wanted to post that I had completely forgotten about- so here they are with minimal words.

Enjoying water activities in our “yard” with his buddy.

 

These were all taken at Chris’ work party. Brendan loved the mini golf!

Brendan going down a waterslide

They had a giant waterslide for the kids to enjoy and Brendan gave it a go. He almost chickened out when he got to the top but luckily there was a little girl behind him to tell him to go down, and so he did. I think it scared him more than anything and he decided that once was enough.

Back in the end of May, Chris’ grandma also got baptized and he’s neglected to do a post so I thought I’d at least include a photo from the few that he took. We’re so thrilled that Pumpkin made the decision to be baptized and Chris has promised that he’ll devote a post to that weekend very soon.

Summer is going by fast luckily and I’m already at 29 weeks! Here’s to hoping that the weather cools down some (yeah right).

My So-Called Life

The heat here is really getting to me so all we seem to be doing lately is sitting inside my nice, cool, air conditioned house. I feel bad for Brendan since he deserves to be out playing and having fun but I’m just not up to it most of the time.

So we end up doing this a lot- me sitting on our porch in the shade while Brendan occupies himself.

  It’s so hot that I don’t even care when Brendan squirts me with his little water gun. In fact, I encourage him to squirt me to help cool me down.

I’ve been doing some baking as well since I’m always in the mood to eat and Brendan helps by licking the bowl clean. He loves to help me bake and cook.

I’ve been feeling guilty for not doing fun things this summer so I made Chris take us to a cute park that a friend told me about that has a short train ride and an awesome carousel for kids. Here we are enjoying the train ride. Brendan was so excited and loved when the train would blow its whistle. We even got to go through a tunnel and Brendan thought that was pretty cool too.

The carousel was a big hit too. Brendan had so much fun and every time they circled around, he would wave happily to me. This is the second time he’s been on a carousel (the first was in Spokane- remember that, Angela!) and I think he enjoyed it a bit more this time.

Once again, the heat got to me so we didn’t last very long. Brendan got to ride the train and carousel and play on the playground, and then it was back in the car to head home. Brendan didn’t seem to upset though- he was pretty worn out from all the excitement.

And we recently found out that Brendan officially qualifies for speech therapy through a local program in our school district called Child Find. It’s taken 4 months to go through all the assessments and meetings but it is finally official- the only down side is that we have to wait until school starts in September again. I hate waiting but I’m looking forward to Brendan getting some awesome help. He’s doing much better and is constantly talking and using new words, but now his big problem is articulation. I probably only understand him about 70% of the time and I’m his mom. So until we start his therapy, we’re trying to get him to pronounce things correctly and break some of his bad habits. The big one we’re working on is “daddy”- Brendan has a tendency to favor the “w” sound and so he says “da-wee” even though he can say it correctly. It’s getting really old correcting him over and over and over, but hopefully it makes a difference. I just love that he’s talking so much more and we’re now able to have little conversations together. It’s so cool. He surprised me the other day by pretending to ride the broom like a horse and saying “Yee-haw! Ride ‘em cowboy!” I have no idea where he picked that up from! And today he was talking about telescopes- also have no idea where that come from. But I love it.

Zach Attack!

This post is about the time when Valerie flew to Texas to be with some friends and Zach Parry Esquire flew to Virginia to hang out with Brendan and Myself.

First, a couple of things to know about Zach:

1. Yes, he is indeed the same Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell. As most of you know, he dyes his hair dark brown for his current role on Raising the Bar.

2. Zach is absolutely a lego maniac.

3. Zach still tours with his band "Zach Attack," which features Kelly on backing vocals, Lisa on bass, and Slater on drums.

Okay, the story begins with Valerie leaving for Texas. Now, I've never been a big fan of Texas; however, I did approve of Valerie going there to be with some friends because she deserved a little break and it had been many years since she'd seen these particular friends.

This was the first time Valerie would be away from Brendan overnight. I don't know about Valerie, but Brendan cried a little at first. Every day he would ask "Where's Mommy? and every day I would tell him "Your mommy was very naughty, so she got sent to Texas." Then we'd both cry.


Valerie left Thursday and Zach came into town on Friday morning. His flight left Vegas at 1:00AM, had a layover in Minnesota, then finally made its way down to D.C. around 11:00 AM. When Zach finally made his way out of the airport we embraced each other and Zach lifted me up off the ground. He doesn't know this, but I even lifted my leg up behind me when we hugged; just like in the movies.

And that was how we began our weekend of a real-life episode of My Two Dads.





Obviously, I was the cool dad with the beard and Zach was the boring, strict dad with the highly fashionable sweaters. And Brendan got to be the girl with the long, teased hair and hunky boyfriend played by Ricky Schroeder (Who, for your information, is now a Mormon).




Due to formatting issues I have to work around the photos I already uploaded into this post. It won't let me change the order of the pictures I put in, so this post will be in reverse order of how our weekend actually went. The coolest part of the picture above is, and I'm sure we can all agree, Zach's shirt. The shirt is a charcoal color. Slightly faded in the shoulders and neck region. Made in Indonesia entirely of a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend. It portrays a person dancing like a robot. The person dances a few moves, then gets pounded on the head by an actual robot. I assume it's because they weren't dancing up to real robot standards. As a side note, Zach is standing by some waterfall that we went to in northern Virginia. The signs in the bathroom stated "If you fall in the water, you will die." In hindsight, I'm not sure if that was a reference to the waterfall or the toilets. Fortunately, we all made it out alive. Brendan loved it because he got to throw rocks in the water. I loved it because I got to throw rocks in the water. Zach loved it because he got to take great pictures with his cool camera.


Next topic. Pictured above is Brendan sleeping. This was after a long day traveling across D.C.
Anyone that knows Brendan knows that he only sleeps when absolutely necessary, but that's how tired he was. Of course, he woke up once shortly thereafter and ran around and knocked on all the windows outside the Cathedral and tried to jump in the fountain outside the cathedral as well. The cathedral itself was pretty breath-taking. Lots of details, hundreds of stained glass windows, and statues of every kind (including two grotesques, one of Darth Vader's head and one of a raccoon. Both designs picked out by elementary school kids back in the eighties. True story. They're so high up they can only be seen with a zoom lens, but they really are there).

Prior to going to the cathedral we went to the botanical garden right next door to the Capitol building. Zach is an avid botanist and always looks for any chance to explore new plant life inside a hot glass and metal environment (another reason why Zach was the lame dad and I was the cool one). Actually, in hindsight Zach said the botanical garden was probably his least favorite part of the trip. I'm not sure if that included the red eye flight over here or not. But the garden was neat if you like plants alot. It had a cool view of the Capitol building from inside it and it was probably Brendan's favorite part of the trip because he got to spray water and play in the dirt, but for your average Paul Reiser-type of person, the garden was kind of boring. So we took the tour, went up a really slow elevator, saw the plants from a catwalk, played in the kids botany section, then headed out.

Maybe the botanical garden would have seemed cooler if we hadn't just come from the Library of Congress, which happened to be one of the huge highlights of the weekend. The Libaray actually consists of three buildings. One, pictured above, is the one one usually shown in movies and pictures and it's obvious why when you first walk in. The building is immense and almost as ornate and detailed as the National Cathedral. It's certainly more colorful and vibrant. Lots of statues, detailed paintings, and a rotunda with a painted celing somewhat similar to the Capitol. When we first went to the Library of Congress we could only enter certain parts of the building. You have to have a library card to get in to the sections that actually have the books. So the second time we went, we had to go to another Library of Congress building and get our official library cards. Library cards are suppossed to be issued only to "serious" researchers, but we managed to get one even though our purposes were less than serious. The building where you get your card was a major letdown. It reminded us of an elementary school with primary colors used on the doors and lots of laminate floor tiles.

For anyone that tours D.C. the Library of Congress is a must-see.

When we first went to the Library of Congress we accessed the building through a series of
underground tunnels that connected the Capitol to the Library. That means that prior to going to the Library of Congress we spent some time on an official tour of the Capitol. The two of us(that's right, two of us. The first day of the trip Brendan hung out with his friend Josh while Zach and I saw some sights.) started the tour off with a movie on how great the checks and balances system is and how effective the current democratic process is. I'm not sure why they bother showing fictional movies like that before they start you on the tour.

At the tour they give you headphones and briskly herd you around to the rotunda and senate/representatives buildings. The rotunda was impressive and the guide gave some interesting insights into the history of the artwork and the various disgruntled artists that contributed to the work over the years. One angry artist painted his face into a tree as an act of definance before being fired.

The most intriguing part of the tour was when we finished and the guide asked for us to hand him our headphones. We were in the back of the group at the time. We were in a bit of a hurry to get going, but I was content to wait until everyone else turned in their headphones in front of us. However, in a classic Zach move, Zach took my headphones and his own and handed them to a tourist from Hawaii while we took off. The look on her face was priceless as she went from surprised to confused, then to annoyed, and finally to angry as she realized what had happened.

When we left the airport to start touring the city we first had to get some nourishment. The obvious solution was to buy jumbo slices of pizza. Hence, we went to Jumbo Slice Pizza. Or at least we tried to. I'm still not sure what the name of the place was that we ate at. We were looking for a recommended pizza place called Jumbo Slice Pizza. What we found were three shops all on the same block with giant signs that said "Jumbo Slice Pizza." It seemed that one was legitimate, and the other two were jumping on the jumbo slice bandwagon to gain customers. Anyway, whatever one we went to, it had really big slices and it was good. But don't be fooled by the picture above. What looks like ham and canadian bacon is actually turkey. The place we went to didn't sell pork products, but we were surprised when we found out we weren't really eating pork. Couldn't tell the difference.

Again, due to the formatting issues, my pictures are in random order and this post is at the mercy of the Blogger settings. One evening we went downtown to see the national mall including the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and other nearby memorials. The night pictures were some of the best, but most of them wouldn't load into this post. Try to picture big, white monuments with the sun down, but lit up by large lamps and camera flashes.

As shown in the picture, this was a very tiring weekend for us all, but especially Brendan. He would wake up early every morning so he could wake up his second dad by spraying him with a water gun. I'd get Brendan up and the first thing he would say was "Spray Zach?" Then we'd spend pretty much every moment of each day on the go driving to places including the masonic temple, Mt. Vernon, Olive Garden (Only becuase Zach had a gift card, not because we'd normally go to a place like that), a pupuseria, the Supreme Court, the Washington D.C. temple, and many other places.

While looking at the photo I noticed Brendan was missing a shoe. I guess that's what happens when you have two dads. There's no mom to keep an eye on those things, so Brendan gets run ragged dragged around D.C., with only one shoe, he probably had dirty underwear on, his hair was not combed properly, and he was likely being fed popsicles and soda for every meal. For Valerie's purposes, if anything like that did happen, it was Zach's fault.

We definitely made the most of our time. On Tuesday Zach had another long flight back to his family and Brendan and I had a joyful reunion with Valerie at the airport. Her arrival was nearly delayed by her almost missing her flight, but thanks to baby #2 in her belly she was able to cruise through security in a wheelchair and bypass all the long lines. We're back to being a nuclear family and it feels good.

A Girls Weekend

This past Memorial Day weekend, Chris and I spent the holiday apart which would usually not make for an awesome weekend but this was the exception.  I got the chance to spend 5 days with four of my best buddies from college while Chris had Zach, who is the reason Chris and I first met, come stay at our place. Chris will blog about his weekend another time, but this post is all about me and the 4 lovely women that I got to spend my time with. I headed down to Austin, TX last Thursday and met up with my fabulous friends Tara, MaryAnn, Bekah and Lindsay. We all lived on the same floor in the dorms at BYU and have managed to keep the friendships alive even after 10 years. Having never been to Texas before, I was a little surprised by how normal and awesome Austin is- which wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting a lot more cowboy hats, giant belt buckles and pickup trucks but instead Austin felt completely hip and urban. My opinion of Texas has greatly improved since my trip but maybe that was because I got to spend this trip with such great company.

Three out of the five of us were pregnant and showing, and I was glad that I was not the only one that needed to be constantly eating but I was jealous of Tara and Bekah’s very flat stomachs.

I hope the girls know what an awesome time I had despite my lack of pictures. I was having too much fun to bust out my camera and be bothered with taking photos- I just wanted to enjoy as much time as I could with these women. Now though I’m sad that I don’t have more photos of all the awesome things that we did (and ate) but let me tell you, this weekend was jammed packed with fun. We went tubing, ate some killer BBQ, hiked and walked a lot, enjoyed a bit of the city atmosphere, and ate one of the best cupcakes I’ve ever had.  This is something that I hope we do much  more often than once in every 10 years, but this weekend was priceless for me and a much-needed vacation from my everyday life. And next time, I hope we have the complete crew there- we missed you Christine, Jenn and Teagan!

Even though it was much-needed, I still missed my family like crazy and couldn’t wait to see them again. I barely made my flight out of the Austin airport and ended up using my “delicate condition” to my advantage by claiming need of a wheelchair to breeze through the insanely long security line. I thought I had got to the airport with plenty of time to spare but I hadn’t counted on the enormous number of post-holiday travelers who were also trying to fly out Tuesday morning. Luckily this giant pregnant belly is good for something and they gave me a wheelchair without a question and I was able to make my flight with about less than 5 minutes to spare.

When I finally got home, I was rewarded with the sweetest smiles, kisses and snuggles from my child who is not usually very keen on being snuggly. It was awesome and I took full advantage of it.

Of course, it didn’t last long. The next morning, Brendan was back to normal and wouldn’t even smile for me when I tried taking some photos of him.

To my wonderful friends- thanks for the awesome conversations, fun activities and good food. You guys are so inspiring to me and I can’t wait to see you all again!Thanks to Chris (and Zach too) for taking care of Brendan while I was gone- it was such a treat for me and I know it probably wasn’t the easiest.