One more week

One more week and baby Riley will be here! The fact that Blaine and I will be the parents of TWO children that soon is quickly setting in. I, personally, am both excited and terrified at the same time! I am already dreading the grocery shopping and errand running days ahead. How do other moms do it? I have a hard enough time with one kid! Oh well, I guess I will learn how to juggle everything soon enough.

Because Cannon's "only" child days are quickly coming to a close, Blaine and I have tried to have as much fun with him as my pregnant self will allow. :) For starters, Blaine joined Life Time Fitness again, an AMAZING gym close by our house. Joining the gym means that Blaine and Cannon can go swimming whenever they want, which over the last few weeks they have taken advantage of! Cannon loves to swim and splash around in the pool. This will also be a fun activity for Blaine and Cannon to do together when the new baby gets here and things get super busy around here. This is Cannon in his little swim suit get-up that has a floating device in the upper body area to help him learn to float:



Over the last week our little town of Draper, UT had its "Draper Days", consisting of a fun filled week of activities, mostly held in the park. We chose to participate on the last day of Draper Days, which was on Saturday. Cannon had fun riding a pony, seeing reptiles at the reptile exhibit, and eating his first sno-cone. Since it was so hot outside, we didn't stay too long. However, an hour worth of Draper Days is really all ya need! Here are some pictures:






Last Friday night Blaine and Cannon slept outside on our air mattress on the deck, since we don't have a tent. I chose to not participate in this little fun activity, but the boys had fun! Here they are sleeping outside:




Along with sleeping outside, riding ponies, and swimming a TON, Cannon also had fun watching "Rio" at the dollar theater a few weeks ago. He was actually pretty good for the first hour of the movie, but then had to step out once or twice for a break. Once the M&M's and popcorn were gone, so was he!

Well, that about sums up the last few fun things Cannon has enjoyed so far this summer. Once the baby is here, we hope to make a couple trips home to Washington and Oregon while I am on my maternity leave. So, hopefully there will still be some fun things to look forward to this summer after Riley arrives. :)

Even though I have just realized how long this post already is, I wanted to post one last picture of my tummy before the baby gets here. The first one is when I was 38 weeks pregnant with Cannon, and the second one is of me currently at 38 weeks. I thought it would be fun to compare them both. Take a look:

4th of July Weekend

We had a lot of fun over the holiday weekend! We spent the long weekend shopping, going out to eat, playing in the water at Jordanelle Reservoir with Blaine's aunt's family, and, of course, watching fireworks. This year was Cannon's first time watching fireworks. We drove to watch the awesome firework display in Sandy, Ut. Cannon seemed to really enjoy being dressed in his pajamas and snuggling up with Blaine and I under blankets in the back of our truck while watching the fireworks. In fact, he liked it so much that he was really upset and surprised to find out that we were not going to sleep outside on the truck after the show. It was kind of funny and sad how worked up he got about it. I told Blaine we would have to camp out in our backyard or something soon, since he enjoyed the idea of sleeping outside so much.

I also had my 36 week doctor appointment today, after the long and fun weekend. Everything is looking great and I am planning on being induced on July 26...three more weeks! Life will change for us very soon!

Jordanelle:



Flag fun:





Blaine is starting a tradition of eating a giant bowl of cherries on July 4th:


Having fun with poppers (or whatever you call them) before seeing fireworks :




Sandy Fireworks:




36 weeks and feeling great:

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there, especially to my dad, Blaine's dad, and Blaine! Dads do so much and I am grateful for them in my life. Have a great day dads!

Happy Father's Day honey! Cannon and I love you!

I love KSL!

I have recently discovered KSL.com and cannot stay off of my computer! It is so addicting! For those of you who do not live in Utah, KSL is a local online classifieds page with TONS of new and used items for sale. It is so easy to browse, buy, and even sale stuff on KSL (which I have now done all three). The two recent purchases that I have made on KSL, which I am proud enough to post on here, are Cannon's new firetruck toddler bed and an outdoor Little Tikes play castle. Before I bought these items on KSL, I researched them on the internet (product reviews, prices, etc.) and made my purchase. It is so easy! I don't know why I had never checked the site out before. Anyway, we got both items for a steal and I had to post pictures of them.

Even though Cannon will not be sleeping in his new firetruck bed for a few more months (his 2nd birthday to be exact), I wanted to get his new room ready before our baby girl gets here. Once the baby gets here, she will sleep in our room for the first two months, and will then sleep in the nursery, which will bump Cannon to the spare bedroom downstairs...poor little guy! We have considered keeping them both in the same room, but having a newborn who DOESN'T sleep through the night, and a toddler who DOES sleep through the night, doesn't seem like a good combination. I would hate for the baby to wake Cannon up and have two kids awake during the wee hours of the morning, instead of just one. So, down to the basement Cannon goes. Anyway, because the bed was used, it was a little dirty and missing all of the stickers that were originally on it, mainly the eye stickers in front of the bed, and a couple of stickers on each side of the bed. So, being the crafty girl that I am (haha, not even close!), I decided to head on over to Michael's Craft Store and pick up some felt material to make my own stickers to replace the old ones. After washing and scrubbing the bed out and attempting to make the bed look as good as new, this is how it turned out:





My second purchase was the Little Tikes outdoor castle that I love (maybe even more than Cannon does)! We actually just bought this thing last night, and Cannon seems to really enjoy opening and closing the little door, being lifted up into the tower and looking around(he's not quite big enough to do this on his own), and climbing up the little ladder to go down the slide. Here are some pictures of Cannon playing on it from this morning:





I also wanted to post some pictures of Cannon's first rodeo experience from last weekend's Herriman Rodeo. He loved petting the animals in the Kiddie Corral and watching the horses run around and the bull riding, or, in Cannon's words, the "jumping cows". :) Here are some pictures of Cannon with the rodeo animals:







And, last but not least, a belly shot from this week. Less than 8 weeks to go!:

Our spring, so far...

Spring is my favorite season. I love the thunderstorms, flowers in bloom, green grass, and warm weather following the cold winter months. The only bummer about spring here in Utah is that it doesn't stay long enough. The winter and summer months take over each year, leaving the fall and spring months short. Soon enough, the hot summer months will be upon us yet again...at least this summer we will have central air in our home!

Having an AC unit installed in our 14 year home was the kick off to our spring. I told Blaine that I did not want to endure another summer of being pregnant without AC. Since we moved into our house two years ago, we have relied on our swamp cooler to keep us cool when the weather is hot. Even though our swamp cooler did a fairly good job at keeping our house cool, and at a cheaper price than an AC unit, it had its problems. #1: The swamp cooler attracted bees toward it and then blew them into our house. #2: The tubing connected to the swamp cooler cracked twice, resulting in two separate occasions of flooding into the master bedroom and ceiling repair. #3: The swamp cooler doesn't cool a house passed 85 degrees outside. #4: If you have neighbors who smoke, the swamp cooler must be turned off so the smoke will not circulate through your house. #5: With a swamp cooler, you only stay completely cool by standing directly underneath it. There, that pretty much sums up our experience with a swamp cooling system. Bottom line, there is nothing quite like central air. Enough said.

Along with the excitement of getting AC in our home last month, we have been busy visiting with family and friends. My parents took a road trip down here to visit around Easter. We enjoyed spending Easter with them (and my brother and his wife who drove down from Idaho)and going to the Living Planet Aquarium for the first time, among other things. Cannon's favorite part of the aquarium was the sting ray exhibit because he could splash in the water and touch the sting rays! My mom also threw me a baby shower while she was here, which was fun.

The spring weather has also pulled us outside to enjoy daily trips to the park and pulling Cannon around the neighborhood in his new wagon...great investment by the way! We have finally found something Cannon will "sit" in and not constantly shout, "out, out, out!", like he does when in his car seat, stroller, and high chair.

And finally, over the last month, we have frequently visited the IFA Country Store. No, we are not landscaping our yard. Instead, we visit the store on a weekly basis to see the baby chicks, ducks, and rabbits that are for sale there. Cannon loves to go and gawk, point, and pet these baby animals. I really need to just take him to a farm and let him go wild.

Well, that is what we have been up to since spring hit. Here are some pictures of our spring activities...

Living Planet Aquarium fun:






Outside play:





New Wagon!:



Cannon at the IFA store:



I had to end with a picture of my belly shot from last week. 11 more weeks to go!: