More life lately ...

A little of life lately for you again this gorgeous Friday! The weather here is going to get up to 70 degrees today and I just can hardly believe it. This has been such a warm, mild winter so far. I know we are going to take advantage of the great weather and spend a lot of this weekend outside playing in the backyard and letting Conner practice his bike riding skills. Fun times this weekend!

Last week we had Pastries with Parents at the boys' school and I braved it on my own because Jason had a meeting he couldn't miss. Of course it rained that day, so I was already gearing up for the extra challenging trek from the car into the building. Right as we pulled into the parking lot the front and center drop-off lane spot opened up and it was glorious!! I definitely was thanking the Lord for that unexpected bright spot in my morning. Once we got inside I realized I had no plan for getting the donuts and both boys to a table. On a whim, I told the boys to hold hands and stay with me. As we walked, I turned around a few times to make sure they were still there and guided them along. I was so impressed that it worked so well...they are getting so much easier!! Mamas with kiddos littler than mine...there's hope!

I tried to get pics of the boys eating and then asked for them to sit on my lap for a selfie...no way, Jose! So these blurry, face-stuffing pics will have to do. It's more realistic anyway.

While they were at school I went shopping for baby shower gifts and got my wedding ring cleaned and inspected. It was cold and rainy pretty much the entire day, so after I got the kids home from school we took warm afternoon baths, made race car shaped sugar cookies for an afternoon snack and cuddled on the couch to watch Big Hero 6. It was the perfect afternoon.

SUGAR COOKIES!!!

More cuddling on the couch...

Jason had bible study that night so I put the boys to bed and went to bed early after my long day of shopping. Something about this third pregnancy has me down for the count during the 7 o'clock hour most nights.

The next morning we got up and got ready for the day and then the boys started playing together so well! A favorite game they play lately is the "let's take a nap" game. Sounds fun, right? There were lots of giggles and sweet moments. I was able to sit on the couch, drink my cup of coffee, and watch them play, all while feeling baby sister's sweet baby kicks in my belly. It was a great start to my Friday, that's for sure!

After our relaxed morning, we headed to Urban Air in Frisco for a play date with my Fresh Spirit ladies. The kids had a great time and it was one of the better experienced at a play date for me since they both played pretty darn well independent of me. Although, Hudson kept running down these ramps to a random exit door, so that was frustrating. But, he eventually stopped that and the rest of the time was great.

After we jumped for about an hour and a half we headed home for lunch and Hudson's nap. I set Conner up with a movie and started packing for my girls weekend! Kylee picked me up around 4:30 and we headed out. First we got manicures, which was a nice treat, then decided on Panera for dinner. There was lots of talking and catching up...life's been so busy lately that we haven't seen much of each other. After dinner we headed to the lake house on Lake Athens where we were staying with the other girls in our life group.

Saturday was filled with LOTS of girl talk, some shopping, eating, relaxing, and we finished off the night playing Disney Trivial Pursuit and watching Something Borrowed. I took zero pictures. We just had a great time being together without distractions or responsibilities and it was an awesome weekend getaway! I love these ladies so much and am thankful to continue getting to know each other and doing life alongside each other.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast and got our stuff together at a leisurely pace. Even though I was away on a girls weekend I was super curious how things were going at home. Jason was good at keeping me updated with text messages. He had gotten the boys up and ready and stuck to our usual routine. He took them to get kolaches and made it up to church super early. Haha! I got a couple of sweet pics that morning of my babies...

When I got home we had the most relaxing afternoon just chilling out as a family. Jason commented on how much louder and more wild they were after I got home. Geez, thanks kids for saving the crazy for Mommy. Now I know why I needed a girls weekend!

I do feel like I need to pause for a minute and give mad props to my awesome husband. There is no way I'd be able to get away for a weekend if he didn't carry on like a rock star while I'm gone. That's something he's always been great at from the very beginning of having kids. I wanted him to be fully comfortable in all aspects of being alone with the kids and he agreed. He may not do it how I would have done it...but that's ok! I'm so grateful to him for always being the awesome dad and husband he is. We are so thankful he is ours!!

And...back to the movie! (Name that movie)

Monday was a lazy day at home and I had a little set-back in my sinus infection. I felt pretty terrible, but I made dinner anyway. That's about all I did besides taking care of the kids. What did I make? The most random meal ever. Baked potatoes, corn (frozen microwavable bag), and diced fresh peaches. Who makes weirdo meals like that? Apparently I do. And apparently it was my kids' favorite meal. Weird? Yes. Awesome? Double Yes. Conner said, and I quote, "I love, love, love your dinner, Mommy!"

Day. Made.

And he wanted to take a picture of me...in my pjs at dinner. Whatev.

Tuesday was filled with doctors appointments and 2 trips to Target. I reverted back to my chicken nuggets for the kids, take-out for Mommy and Daddy after the kids went to bed...and while it was delicious, I missed eating all together as a family. I'm so happy that the hard work preparing meals and getting dinner ready for when Jason walks through the door is paying off! Now we just need our new dining table. Jason is picking it up this morning from Grand Prairie, so that will be a fun project this weekend!

Wednesday was filled with lots of laundry and time-outs. Fun! Keeping it real over here, people. Every day isn't amazing, but I love my little family whether they are angels or having a rough day. Because, really, we all have rough days, don't we? Little kids are no exception. 

Here I am just laying on the couch, humming the circus theme song in my head... ;)

Every morning Jason texts me either that he's on the vanpool, or at work, or both. I realize that back in the days before cell phones your husband just went to work in the morning and then you saw him again when he walked back through the door at 6pm. I get it. I really do. But, now that we have cell phones, it's so easy to send a quick text for peace of mind. When I'm pregnant, I also get a little crazy about knowing where Jason is. So, yesterday morning Jason and I had this text convo and I thought it was hilarious. Jason is terrible at spell checking his text messages ... and I use correct grammar in all of mine, including punctuation. We are complete opposites, so I have to have fun with it or it will drive me crazy...

Conner is getting to be such a great helper. Here he is vacuuming the breakfast crumbs off the floor. He's also recently mastered refilling the boys' water bottles for school, including putting the lids back on, fetching diapers for me when I have to change Hudson downstairs, throwing dirty diapers in the diaper genie, opening his own string cheese .... it's happening at the perfect time! I can't wait to see him be my little helper when baby sister arrives. 

Yesterday I also got a haircut ... my last one was in July! It was just a trim, so it's hard to tell much of a difference. It's getting so long. I just love it!

And here I am this morning, ready to head out for Fresh Spirit with my ladies! The kids are playing nicely (for the most part), Jason is doing a little work from home and I am catching up on my blogging. When we head out, Jason is going to go pick up our new table and I couldn't be more excited!

Today is the day we move the boys into the same room, so that's what our afternoon will be filled with ... getting their room ready.


Happy Friday, y'all!!

Bumpdate - 31 weeks

Yesterday I had my ultrasound to check baby girl's size, since I have had 2 big boys, and it went great! She's measuring 2 weeks ahead...but the ultrasound tech acted like that wasn't a huge deal. We got to double check that she's indeed a girl, but no pics of her face. She was pressed up against the wall of the uterus, so no fluid=no picture. We caught glimpses of her sweet face, and she was sucking her thumb, so that was cute. Everything else looked great and it was awesome to be able to see her again. Jason had a meeting at work, so he wasn't able to come, but Kylee came with me and it was so good having her there.

We didn't get a pic today, but back in November I had my 20-week ultrasound to find out the gender and here's our pic with the sweet ultrasound tech! I just love her.

It was a full house that day, Jason, Kylee, and Jason's mom all came to that appointment. There were many tears and cheers when the tech wrote "NO DOUBT IT'S A GIRL" on the screen. It's a memory I'll never forget.

This is the best profile pic we got at that 20-week appointment.

I had an idea to have framed 5x7's of each of the kids in the kitchen because we have giant countertops that go on forever. My sweet friend Sarah took our family photos back in November, so I had the perfect photos of each of the boys to use, and I used this ultrasound pic of our sweet girl in her frame for now. I love having pictures of my babies out for me to see every day!

And a project I need to get started on...covering the letters of her name with scrapbook paper. I had picked out these patterns before looking at anything else, so I'm going to take another look at the color of sheets and changing pad covers I registered for to see if they go together. I may be checking out Hobby Lobby for some more paper ideas. ;)

On Monday I think I was getting over a sinus infection so we had s chill day at home playing and watching movies. The "nesting" instinct hit hard and I made a giant list of things I want to get done between now and the end of March. I tried to break each project down into several smaller, doable steps so that we can knock things off a little at a time instead of having to have an entire afternoon to do it all.

Happy Wednesday, friends!!

Babymoon #3 Recap

We had a 5 day babymoon in the middle of January and we had the best time! It was nice to get away and spend some really good quality time together. We missed the boys, but we knew they were in great hands with Jason's parents.

We started our vacation on a Wednesday morning, so Big B and SuSu came over to pick the boys up from our house. They kept the boys at their house during the day and our house at night. It worked out really well. The first thing we did after the boys left was finish cleaning our house. Ha! Then I headed over to DryBar Plano to get a blowout and some pampering while Jason got in some much appreciated xBox time. It was a great way to start our vacation on the right foot. I was able to disconnect from my mom role and embrace my wife role. Here I am with my hair done ... ready to get the vacation started! {Side Note: This was my 2nd time to get a blowout from DryBar and I. Am. Hooked. I think I prefer this to a mani/pedi! It's my kind of pampering, for sure.}

First we headed to Christian Brothers to drop off my van for some extra work to be done. I know, so romantic!! But to be honest ... getting simple, menial things like that done without the kids is 1000 times easier and it checks something off my list ... which is something I thoroughly like doing.

So, after that we headed to downtown McKinney and ate lunch at Mellow Mushroom. We stuffed our faces with the delicious pizza and had lots of really good conversation. After that we headed to Target to get our groceries for our time away. We got some Starbucks, walked slowly, and with no kids! It was wonderful! Then we got on the road and headed to the farm. We got there mid-afternoon and my MIL had made it so nice for us. Blankets folded over couches, towels and sheets freshly washed, and the place smelled amazing. And my most favorite part - it was QUIET. I mean, the view out the back windows was so peaceful and it was just nice to feel like we were out there all alone!

After we got settled we put on our boots and bundled up for a walk out on the property. We walked out to the spot where my in-laws are thinking of building a house, checked out the ponds, and then sat on the bench swing for a while. It was awesome.

This is the big pond my in-laws share with their neighbor. It was way up with all the rain we've had.

Checking out the pond and enjoying the fresh air.

This is the little pond just North of the house that flows into the bigger pond. It was much bigger than the last time I saw it.

And after all that walking around in the grass and mud, we headed over to the bench swing to sit and enjoy the outdoors some more. It was so relaxing and the breeze was wonderful. 

That night we were still so full from lunch that we had popcorn for dinner. Ha! We took advantage of all the TV channels they have and recorded some HGTV (can anyone say, Fixer Upper?!) and several movies to watch later on during the trip. We had rented the Maze Runner Scortch Trials at Redbox, so we watched that, too. It was so good!

The next day we had to return our Redbox, so after our eggs, bacon, and toast breakfast, we headed to town to do that and then on our way back stopped by the section of the property that we have considered building a small garage apartment someday. It's the section of land where the cows are and there was a lot of mud in that section, too. But we got up to the highest point and the spot we've been considering and laid out some sticks to mark out our imaginary 4 corners and dreamed a little. We like the idea of having a place to retreat to every once in a while and a place for Jason to have space to work on DIY/building projects. Who knows if we'll ever save up enough money to do it, or if we'll have the time to make it happen ... but it's fun to dream about something like that together. This would be the view of the driveway to the road we'd have to put in. There's a little pond where the trees are on the left. 

We spent a lot of the rest of that day relaxing, watching TV, making food, and talking. Lots of great conversations and my sweet husband humoring my planning/nesting needs. ;)

Friday we woke up early and got ready to have our day "in the city." I had Fresh Spirit (my moms group that meets twice a month at our church) that day and wanted to go even though we were on our vacation. We swung by Christian Brothers to pick up the van, and I stopped by Starbucks on my way. It was nice to show up with hands free for my purse and drink, and not have to wrangle the boys from the car to their classes. That in and of itself was a vacation! ;) It was a great meeting on how to be a good friend when your friend is going through a rough time. Lots of great, practical advice and I can't wait to use some of it! While I was at the church, Jason played more xBox at home. It was nice to squeeze in some normal "me" time for each of us during our vacation. When I got home we ditched the van and headed to grab lunch at Chipotle. We had so much Italian food that week, so it was a nice break to have some Mexican.

Next up ... kitchen table shopping. We currently have a round 4-seater table in our eat-in kitchen. Now that we are becoming a family of 5 ... we need a bigger table! We spent about an hour and a half shopping and ended up finding a great table at Ashley Furniture that will be ready for pick up in a couple of weeks. We got 6 blue chairs to go with it. I think it's going to be perfect!

After shopping, we drove over to the mall to see Star Wars. After the first 10 minutes I leaned over to Jason and asked him if we were supposed to know who anyone was. Haha! Overall I thought it was awesome! I'm a huge JJ Abrams fan, and I think he did an awesome job with this movie. 

We got out of the theater around 6:30, so we headed to dinner. I had heard awesome things about Fireside Pies in Plano, so we decided to go there. We got there and the wait was 45 minutes and I honestly can't tell you the last time we waited that long for a restaurant. When we have the kids with us we get to restaurants around 5:00 and there is no wait. When we go out on dates, it's not usually on a weekend night, so there's no wait. But, we were kidless and had no babysitter to hurry home to relieve, so we walked down the stretch of shops, held hands, and talked. My stomach started feeling a little tight with Braxton Hicks contractions, so we headed back to the bench in front of the restaurant to wait for our table. It was chilly outside and there was lots of interesting people watching.

The dinner was delicious and we loved the ambiance inside. It was dark, but loud. We had the apple crumble with cinnamon ice cream for dessert and it was perfect!

Then we drove home and all the way I had more Braxton Hicks contractions. It started to make me nervous, so when we finally got back to the farm I practically jumped in bed and called it a night.

We woke up the next morning and had zero plans. The weather was cold and rainy, so we stayed inside in our comfy clothes all day and watched Fixer Upper, planned out our meals for the week, watched 2 movies and relaxed. It was fabulous!

So, every morning we made coffee and it made like half of what it should have based on the amount of water I poured into it. We just thought it was a little weird, but didn't really know what was going on. So on Saturday since we didn't have any plans, Jason, my sweet engineer of a husband, decided to check it out. Turns out, it had a TON of coffee grounds stuck in the section where the water was and had clogged up quite a bit. He spent about half an hour fixing and cleaning out the coffee maker. LIKE A BOSS.

Sunday morning we got a text from SuSu that Conner was wheezing and needed a breathing treatment. Nothing helps bring you back to reality quite like knowing your kids need you. So we hustled getting everything cleaned up and packed up so we could head home. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home and got back to see our boys just after they ate lunch. Hudson was already down for a nap and Conner gave us the biggest hugs when we came in. The house was in GREAT shape - all the laundry was done and put away, the dishwasher was empty and all the dishes were clean, and the toys were picked up. It was a really nice way to come home. Hudson ended up needing a diaper change before falling asleep, so he missed his nap that day, but the hugs we got from him when we walked into his room were awesome. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out together as a family. It was a great end to our weekend!

We are so thankful for awesome grandparents who love spending time with our kids and helping out pretty much whenever we ask. Jason's parents allowed us to have awesome uninterrupted time away and let us stay at their farm while we were away. My parents are our usual babysitters and we are beyond grateful. I know our kids are making awesome memories with their grandparents when they have one-on-one time with them like that, and it makes my heart so happy.

Life lately...

January is flying by ... am I right?! We had such a fun time over the holidays spending lots of quality family time, but I will admit that it's nice to finally be back into a routine. Jason went back to work for a week and a half and then we took our babymoon for 5 glorious days and got back on Sunday. It was wonderful! The boys stayed with Jason's parents and had the best time. I know January is more than half over, but we are finally back into a routine now that we are back from our vacation. So to back track a little, let me go over our fun and eventful January so far!

On the first day back to school after the holidays we celebrated Conner's birthday at school. He picked out the most simple chocolate chip cookies from Target that he wanted to have and he was pumped that I came to his "party."

His class sang "Happy Birthday" to him and the other little boy who had a birthday over the break. He really wanted to sit in my lap. I loved every second of it. ;)

Then they sang their prayer...

Then he got to eat his cookie! I wish I had brought some cute plates and/or napkins, but I didn't even think about it. It's ok - all he wanted was the cookie.

The best pic of him with his birthday crown...he wasn't feeling it. Haha!

 This was our dinner one night - homemade mac 'n' cheese, lil smokies, and roasted veggies. The kids LOVED it! I kind of just threw it together with what we had in our fridge...so I felt like supermom. 

Hudson has been such a little cuddle bug lately, saying a lot of:

"Mommy, will you carry me?"

"Mommy, will you sit with me?"

"Mommy, can I hold you?"

And when he wants to cuddle 99% of the time I oblige. Mama's gotta clean the house sometimes...

He also is kind of a grump when I get him up from naps. He frowns a lot and whines. BUT he has the cutest frown I ever did see. Usually some snuggles and quiet help with the moodiness. 

Then later they BOTH wanted to snuggle and I was like, "heck, YES" I will stop cleaning and organizing for this sweet moment. I'm realizing lately that my time with just my 2 boys is limited, so I am soaking up our time together before baby sister arrives. Life will be even sweeter ... but different. 

So ... there is no shame in my game. I may have asked for the boys help taking off my boots now that I'm in my third trimester. I mean, I need to teach them how to be the most helpful for the weeks ahead. It's my job.

These two boys have been playing so well together lately. I feel like it's been a long time coming, so I'm super thankful! They were upstairs in Conner's room and wanted to pretend to go to sleep. We are moving Hudson into Conner's room in a couple of weeks, so to see them playing like this makes me so happy. I'm sure it'll be a tricky transition since we've never done this before, but I know it will be good for them and they will be closer friends because of it. To me, that's totally worth it.

I saw this on Facebook and thought it was so funny. Truly, this phase of life has turned me into a phone conversation-a-phobe. Seriously. My kids play great until I'm on the phone and then it's like they know. They KNOW. It's just not worth it to me to have that kind of anxiety while talking on the phone. I'd rather get a text and have time to respond when my kids aren't acting like monkeys. ;)

So, that's what's been going on lately for the Smiths! 

I'm headed to a girls weekend at Lake Athens this weekend with the girls in my life group. I'm excited to get away and have some great girl time. Hopefully someone will braid my hair. Haha! 

Happy Friday, friends!