Easter Surprise

Holidays are so dang fun with a little one!  Here are the pictures from our Easter Sunday :)

Aiden checking out his Easter basket.  We kept it simple because there was a big surprise waiting in the backyard ;)

Reese's peanut butter egg at 8 o'clock in the morning ;)

Showing Aiden his surprise :)

We won't normally do something this big for Easter, but we were thinking we should really get something since we have a backyard now. We had been thinking about getting one back in March, but we aren't ones to just "hand" things to Aiden, so when we thought about Easter coming up, we thought it was the perfect time to surprise him :)

And now you get a glimpse of our ugly backyard.  We moved in and the whole lawn was weeds.  Trent tried to revive the grass, but it seems to have all died off, so he'll be reseeding soon.  We're just happy to have a backyard, although it is pretty ugly..haha.

Traditional Easter family photo before Church.  37 1/2 weeks.

Aiden by our Easter display table :)

And tonight both of our families came by for Aiden's Easter egg hunt.

Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles got Aiden this little lawn mower. We saw one just like it that he loved at a birthday party and knew he had to have one ;)

I wish I'd gotten more pictures with the family :/

It was a wonderful Easter Sunday.  How grateful I am for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and His sacrifice for me.  I know He lives, and because He lives, we will all live again too.  Because of Him I will get to be with my sweet family forever!

Getting Close

I thought it would be nice to get a blog post in as my pregnancy is winding down.

How cute is he with his arms up like that?!

I got this picture of Aiden Sunday evening when I went in to check on him.  Every night when I check on him I leave thinking something like "my sweet boy" and this night I actually started to cry (just call me a hormonal pregnant lady!) and I'm teary while I write this post..haha. For the last month or so it's just really been hitting me that he won't be the only one anymore, and in some ways it makes me really sad.  Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled for the arrival of baby sister and I really can't wait to meet her.  But I'm also worried about how Aiden will feel. I don't want him to feel any less loved.  I know he will be puzzled when he walks into the hospital room and sees me holding baby sister, and it breaks my heart a little bit.  I do know, though, that the adjustment will be quick.  And I am excited for Aiden to come to the hospital and to finally be able to tell him, "THIS is baby sister!" and see him piece everything together.  Such mixed emotions!! We have really been trying to prepare him and talk about baby sister often.  And we've been trying to spend lots and lots of quality time doing everything he loves before she decides to make her arrival.  We are treasuring every moment with Aiden :)  

Enough of that, no more crying for me.  Now for the funny.  Aiden will randomly come up and just start patting my tummy and say, "Baby sister."  It's stinking cute!  But there was about a week a while back where he'd pat my boob instead..haha.  Don't feel embarrassed reading this, just laugh about it!  It was always when I was lying down, usually in the morning when he'd come wake me up, so my tummy was covered and all he could see was my top half.  When I was telling Trent I said, "Whoops, wrong bump!" :)

Anyway, it's been several weeks since I've posted about this pregnancy, in fact the last time was at 30 weeks after an ultrasound.

I got to have a final ultrasound about a week ago at 36 weeks.  Back at 30 weeks she was breech, but at this last one she was head down.  YAY!!  During the ultrasound the tech actually found that she was measuring more like 37 weeks and 3 days.  Of course no one knows the exact date of conception so the due date is just an estimate.  So it sounds like my due date is actually probably earlier than May 7th!  During the ultrasound it also looked like baby was weighing approximately 6 pounds 11 ounces!  What the heck?!  Aiden was 7 pounds 5 ounces (he was born at about 39 weeks) and we were surprised by that!  How do I have such big babies (for me at least!)?!  I guess the ultrasound always measures a bit high because they're mostly using the head as reference.  But apparently I really am "all baby" as everyone always tells me..haha.  I'm hoping she'll be about the same size as Aiden, but she may be a bit bigger!  The tech also printed off a few 3D sonograms for me, which I never got with Aiden, so that was kind of fun :)

This was also the appointment where I get to start having the dreaded pelvic exam where my OB checks my cervix.  And it actually wasn't as uncomfortable as I remember it being, thank goodness!  So last week I was 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced.  Leaving the appointment with all of this new information I was thinking, "Well dang, she could come any day now!"

Then Friday (the 11th) I lost my mucus plug.  With Aiden I lost my plug about a week before he was born, but I read that it could be anywhere from a few hours later to several weeks before anything happens, so I haven't been dwelling on it too much.

This last Wednesday was my 37 week appointment and I was dilated to a 3 1/2 and 80% effaced.  Pretty crazy because I was only dilated to a 3 when I went into labor with Aiden!

It's weird because I keep having these little signs that labor will be soon, but I haven't had any contractions or anything.  I am definitely ready to be done being pregnant, but I'm not necessarily anxious for her to come, if that makes sense.  I'm using all of the time I can to continue getting things done around the house, preparing for her arrival, and spending time with my boys :)  And now that it's Friday we'd almost like for her to just hold off until after Easter because we have some fun plans with Aiden for Sunday ;)  But of course, I have no say!  So when's the big day baby girl?! ;)

Just to close with a picture.  We took this Sunday before Church since we all had some navy going on :)  The camera was on a tripod and ended up a little crooked, whoops!  This was 36.5 weeks.

BYU/ASU Rugby

Yesterday, the 12th, was Kent's birthday.  We celebrated by going to see the BYU/ASU rugby game :)

Aiden was so happy on the ride up to Scottsdale :)

I realized after the game that I only really got pictures of Aiden and none of the game..haha.  But does that really surprise anyone?

Running away from Grandpa ;)

Sporting his sunnies :)

Watching the game :)

Playing with Grandpa :)

He is pure joy :)

Family pic after the game.  Too bad there are such bad shadows on Aiden's face :/  I am 36.5 weeks along here.

Aiden with Grandma and Grandpa.

Although it was like 90 degrees, there was a nice breeze and it was really nice to be outside :)  And BYU won!  Go Cougars!!

A Rainbow and a Shake

We aren't ones to really celebrate St. Patrick's Day, like I don't decorate for it or anything, but I do like to make sure we wear our green (I actually love to wear green b/c I have hazel eyes that change depending on what I'm wearing, and when I wear green my eyes look more green :)).  Today Aiden and I also made a rainbow craft, and this evening we made a St. Patty's Day shake, like we've done the last few years :)

Aiden's rainbow :)

I had pinned the craft on my Pinterest - here's the link.

It was fun to make!  Aiden really wanted to help me cut the strips of paper, which was a little tricky since you have to be pretty precise about making each color an inch shorter than the next.  Luckily he was content to help glue on the cotton balls :)

Shoving his rainbow into his bus ;)

I can't help it, he'll always be my beauty boy ;)

In our green :)  Mine almost looks light blue next to Aiden!

Angled a little more to show off baby sister.  I'll be 33 weeks on Wednesday!

Blowing bubbles when Daddy got home :)

Trent surprised me with these tulips when he got home!  We went on our first date 7 years ago today!

For our FHE treat we made our traditional St. Patty's Day shake, although this year we tried a new recipe (you can find it HERE). This one is supposed to be like the McDonald's shamrock shake.

We all enjoyed it ;)

I was trying to get a picture of my shake and Aiden kept jumping in..haha.

Hope you had all had a fun day!  Oh and here's my St. Patty's post from last year.  It's crazy to see how Aiden changes over a year!

Santa Monica Pier

January 17th

Well I said I'd finish posting about our LA Girl's Trip and here I am finally doing it ;)  So far I've only posted about our first day, January 16th, on the Ellen Show HERE.  The next day, Friday, the 17th, we spent much of the day at the Santa Monica Pier.  It was a beautiful day and we decided to rent bikes and ride along for a little bit.  Seems like a popular/touristy thing to do ;)

The classic ferris wheel shot.

Jill, Jen, myself, Meg, and Jordan.

And Amy and Bryn.

There were some fun homes!

We decided to just rent the bikes for an hour and I think we all agreed that that was just perfect.  That's really all we needed.  Then we grabbed some lunch at a food court.  Afterward we headed back down to the beach for a little bit.

The water was cold!  Notice Jen and Jordan's faces when the tide came in ;)

Sissies ;)

Candid :)

Jordan is due at the beginning of April with a baby boy, so we are almost exactly a month apart!  At this point Jordan was 28 weeks and I was 24.  Now she's 36 and I'm 32!!

Someone lost their balloons.

Don't know what we were thinking when we didn't bring our suits :/

Twinners.

That evening we had a reservation at Pizzeria Mozza.  I had an old article ripped out with good pizza places in the U.S. and this was on there, so we thought we'd try it out.

Jen and I shared the Bianca (white pizza).  I had been reading reviews a few weeks prior and people raved about the Fried Squash Blossoms w/ Ricotta for an appetizer and the Butterscotch Budino, Sea Salt & Rosemary Pine Nut Cookies for dessert, so I knew I wanted to try both of those, along with our pizza that night.  It was all very tasty :)

Jordan and I shared the Butterscotch Budino.  I know, totally dorky to take a picture with our food ;)  And clearly we got some sun ;)

We headed back to our hotel to get comfy, but were feeling a little lame, especially since the night before we called it a night around 7. So we decided to hop back in the van (ha!) and try to find a lookout point for the Hollywood sign.  We were using someone's phone to navigate, but there was some private party going on and the street was blocked off, so we ended up taking a twisty, turny detour up, up, up. We had no idea where we were going, but we kept driving and were noticing tons of cars and people headed somewhere.  We pulled into a parking spot, that just happened to be the very closest to the entrance, but we still didn't know where we were..haha.  Turns out we ended up at the Griffith Observatory and admission is free!! We were cracking up!  So we totally took advantage!  We felt a little silly because most of us were in pajamas/sweats and it seemed like a lot of people were there for date night.  Nonetheless we enjoyed the view!

The best shot I could get of the Hollywood sign - it was dark!

Amy and Bryn looking out.

As we drove back down the slope we happened upon a pack of wolves roaming - it was really creepy!  Anyway, it was a fun little adventure and then we were back to the hotel :)