22 weeks

sometimes i feel like i already look REALLY big, this picture, at least, helps me know i don't look like a planet....yet.

lawyering...

so kendall will get to try out his smarts a little sooner than we thought. last week we got a call from the firm kendall worked for his first year, and they want him to come and work for them from August until Jan. when his job with Squire Sanders starts. wow. for real? kendall called them when his job got pushed back to january and said if they had any work they wanted him to do, he was open to that. then we didn't hear anything for a while so we just figured we'd wait it out. and literally the day before kevin called him up we were discussing that our contract here goes through oct....can't move at the end of october people, that is when the unnamed wonder is supposed to make his appearance, so we thought we'd do month to month for november and move in december because moving at the end of december with christmas etc. didn't sound like fun to me. so that was our plan, for about 12 hours and then kevin called and offered this employment, which is great, to actually get paid? what? cool! but as a result kendall won't work in the clinic at ASU like he was going to which would have made him staff so we could stay at the on-campus housing, so he had to go in and talk with the housing people about the contract and somehow got them to make our contract through august with (actually) not that bad of a cancellation fee, so that's all good. but now we are on the hunt for a new place to live. we are open to renting or buying, but we need to talk to a mortgage broker first...anyone know of a good one to go to? just to see what we could qualify for, you know? so now, we need to move in about 2 months... to somewhere. i am just so proud of kendall, and getting an actual, steady paycheck for the first time in a long time, won't hurt either:) and i thought having our first car payment was a big deal....:) now if we could just name the baby....

let me hold you longer...

have you read this book? it's really a sweet book. my mother in law bought it and of course i cried when i read it. it's about a mom who is realizing that we catalogue all of our children's "firsts" but it's their "lasts" that slip past almost unnoticed sometimes and all of a sudden they are more grown up than we could have imagined. really sweet book. can't read it or think about it too much cause i'll cry again but it's like that isn't it? we wait for the first tooth and the first step but the day they don't make that cute noise when they say their "s" sounds anymore...when was that??? the day they don't sleep in a crib anymore or need you to help them get in their carseat or booster seat at home...i've gotta write these down. it's interesting to think that sometimes the "last" could be even more important than the first. the end of that chapter of their little lives and on to another where they don't cry themselves to sleep at night but just lay down and go to bed, when they don't point and grunt and get frustrated to tell you something but now they can say any word they want and they can tell you they want cereal or cheese or whatever. amazing children. let me hold you longer indeed....

bed update...

so far so good:) she slept well at nap and last night...keep the good karma coming:)

by 9:15am

got up

fed children

brought in avery's toddler bed we bought yesterday

cleaned toddler bed

took apart crib; put crib stuff away

put toddler bed in her room with her blankets on it etc.

loaded dishwasher

folded 3 loads of laundry

washed one load

dried one load (as if i had a lot to do with the washing and drying:):))

put away clothes

swept floors

swiffered floors

mopped floors

sat down and felt tired.

next: baths and change of clothes...then what?

wish us luck for naptime:

happy father's day!

happy day to all the dads out there! we have had a good day here, hopefully kendall thinks it's good too:) yesterday we went out with the family to T.C. Eggingtons....so good! for an early breakfast so the guys could hit the links together. fun times!

i have been working on the baby bedding...i just have to finish it up and then i will be free to read again or do anything else. in my mind it must get done but then...there's no where to put it yet because avery is still in the crib and i haven't found the toddler bed yet that we are getting her for her second birthday in August...so we wait:) but it's still cute, i think. use your imagination...

short side of dust ruffle

long side of dust ruffle

inside of long bumper pads

inside of short bumper pads (which kendall rightly says looks like a flag....oh well:))

outside of bumper pads

this is the quilt, just laid out on the floor, not sewn together....

it will all look nicer on the crib, i think...but there's a sort of sneak peek:)

i make kendall a "daddy blanket" for every child. ethan was born just after father's day in 05 and i wanted kendall to have something that was just for him and his boy...so i made a little blanket with minky (super soft but infuriating to sew with) around the edges. then when we had avery, i decided to make him one for his girl...also with minky to keep up the pattern. ethan and avery's are made of knit and are just two sides of the same knit but this time i couldn't find a knit i liked very much but i found some super cute flannel so one side is that and the other are flannel receiving blankets that i cut up that i got from...wait for it...goodwill (i know you are shocked!) because i didn't want to go buy MORE fabric when i could get a good quantity of fabric for what i needed for $.69 a blanket, and i bought two to make sure i had enough. that's a deal:)

the receiving blankets before

new "daddy blanket"

avery's

ethan's

so lots of sewing going on here...which i really like. a good thing about kendall doing bar prep at every possible moment is that i can sew and not feel badly about neglecting him:) next on the list....finish the quilt....

disgruntled...

i feel like writing a very frustrated post. i feel like being upset...but if i write it all down then i'll have to read it later and feel badly for feeling that way so i'm not, mostly because it wouldn't make sense if i wrote it down. suffice it to say, today is an ornery day for all of us.

*grrrrr*

SAS...

there is a place in Tempe called SAS fabric by the pound, and i am sure that many of you in this Arizona area have heard of it or been there. it is amazing. it's a large-ish store, filled to the brim with all manner of eclectic fabrics, notions, trims, buttons, patches, beads...on and on and on. just the kind of store i like, also it's sort of organized but it's got a feel to it where if i go in i know i'll have to look a bit to find what i need which i actually like, sort of like a treasure hunt. so i went today with the kiddos specifically to find some pom pom trim in an apple green color for the baby's bedding. and i found some!!!! so awesome. it was expensive so i didn't get as much as i had originally planned but they also had this twill tape/kind of trim in green and blue (perfect colors, since that's the "theme" i am using; green and blue) and it was only $.15 a yard! that's fifteen cents a YARD people...amazing. i think i ended up getting 15 yards and it costed next to nothing! i am so happy! and every time we go the kids have to get a feather...funny but ethan likes to tickle avery with it so i get him one:) today they also wanted to get a minature baby and very tiny bottle to feed the very tiny baby. we are a little bit obsessed with baby everything around here:) but if you ever need small babies or baby bottles, tiny rattles or tiny binkies for a baby shower, they have tons and they are only $.60 for 12! that is a bargain compared to how much they are at the regular stores! it is a bit far out to go but for novel things like that or ribbon/trims like i needed to get, it's awesome!

someone is getting a new bed...

but who is it????

with the arrival of little baby man about 4 months away (closer than it ever has been) we must now turn our attention to some practical, logistical matters.

one of our children needs a different bed. there are several options for how this could go....

1. ethan stays in his toddler bed (he still fits fine in it and likes it a lot) and avery gets a toddler bed (we got ethan his bed when he was two and he loved it, so we thought of making it a tradition) and baby gets crib (which avery is in now).

2. ethan gets a twin bed (which would probably swallow him whole but be the bed he grows up with), avery gets ethan's toddler bed and baby gets the white crib.

3. ethan keeps his bed, avery keeps the crib, but it gets converted to a toddler bed and baby gets a new crib.

so you see there are several things we could do. i was initially worried that avery would need to keep the crib because she might be attached to it but we have been talking to her about getting a different bed and now i don't think she'll have a problem (cross fingers). so i'm not sure what to do. any suggestions????

swimmingly...

is that a word? oh well. we are doing swimming lessons right now and, not as i expected, avery hates them! crazy girl. she loves to swim, loves baths, loves to be in the pool and she has screamed for each lesson we have had. almost the entire time. the only respite has been the hokey pokey song and a diving ring, but only for a minute or two. her grandpa is coming to video ethan and her today, for posterity, and i think all he may see is avery clinging to me and crying...sad day. ethan loves his lessons. he is doing really well from what i can see, peeking around avery's head while she buries her face in my shoulder and refuses to "kick kick kick" her feet.

avery loves to help, she says, "i want to help" about 40 times a day and we try to let her help as much as possible. this picture is when she was "helping" daddy study his stuff for the BAR exam. pretty sweet. she subsequently colored on part of that page with the pink highlighter when daddy wasn't looking...very helpful;)we have a large bag of starbursts from our houseboat trip and i pulled some out the other day to have a couple and they were ALL orange! what does that mean? good karma? i like to think so:)

i really want to go to IKEA today or tomorrow...i just like to go there and look around. maybe we'll make it today...

Out with the Old...

{toyota corolla...}

and in with the NEW!

{toyota sienna}

on saturday we went to go look at an SUV or something for the impending arrival of baby #3 (who is still nameless...). after about 10 minutes talking with a really nice manager lady at Big 2 Toyota in chandler kendall was convinced an SUV would probably not be the easiest thing to manuever three car seats in and still have cargo space for stroller etc. so we started looking at vans and came across this beauty. it's an 06 with 40K miles on it or something..real low. they gave us a really good deal, ergo why we did it now instead of later, which was my original inclination. the siennas have great crash test ratings and are really good vans (according to a million reviews i read from people and independent companies). hopefully we love it.

i am officially a "van mom" yay!

ultrasound pictures!

yahoooo!!!!! i finally got the CD to open and let me get the pictures off! whew! i don't really know what i did differently...capricious little thing! anyway...here he is...no good face shots...that's why we have to go back for a second one:)

on his back facing away from us, you can see his spine hear the bottom of the framesort of a profile, his arms up on his chestone of the freaky 3D oneswe got lots of good ones of his feet:) this one is perhaps my favorite one that she was able to catch...what's is he doing? looks like he's going to push off to swim or something, but i guess that's what he does all day huh?

done...

two nursing covers finished...whew! now on to the photography prop...and i bought some fabric today that may be for the new little man's bedding or accessories...i am excited to get thinking about that:):)

it's a....

BOY!!!

in keeping with the current trend of all the friends who are due around me...it's a boy. we are very excited and very happy to welcome another little man into our family! everything looked good with him, he weighs about 9 oz and the due date is right on, the ultrasound actually puts it on the 30th of oct and we had the 29th but we'll keep the 29th as the official one. the same happened with ethan, the ultrasound said the day after and he was actually born on that ultrasound date...so we shall see what transpires. he was not shy, though, about letting us know he was a boy, but we was hiding his face pretty well, tucking his chin down into his little chest, so we have to go back {oh darn!} for another ultrasound at my next appointment! yay for seeing him again. no pictures right now. they only printed out one of the "boy" shot and i'd rather not publicize that on the blog:) the others are on a CD which i, awesomely, can't get the computer to open right now. i'll try again tomorrow!



what's his name you say??? well we don't know yet. we are kicking around some suggestions and we'll let you know when we reach a verdict:)

fix it please!

does anyone know how to fix my layout? this weirdness that it is doing right now is really...weird. the first few posts are okay in a column but then the later ones spread out so much that it has bumped my stuff that is supposed to be in the right hand column down the page considerably. right now we are just on the minima layout from blogger, no fancy anything because i didn't know if that was affecting it. but i put a layout from leelou and from cutest blog on, and nothing changed. lame. any suggestions?


*****alright so what i did to "fix" it was to limit the posts on the page to two or three and that bypassed the ones that were making it wonky....so if you wanna see anything older, click on the "older posts" at the bottom button**************

random post with pictures...

kendall is very gifted in many ways, one of which is being able to fall asleep in almost any position at the drop of a hat. i've been talking to him before and watched him fall asleep. really amazing. in high school one time, he fell asleep on his stairs! on the stairs people! so i guess this comes as no surprise that this is how i found him the other night...
(does that even look comfortable?)

i washed our checkbook...man, it comes apart in a lot of pieces too:) i kept pulling pieces of paper out of the dryer. it was like that scarf trick that magicians do where the scarves just keep coming and coming out of his pocket! kind of sad really...what weird things have you washed?
(that flosser fell out of one of ethan's pockets...for some reason he likes to carry them around...)

i am progressing on my list of things i need to do. also, i had to get the prizes ready and mailed for those people that won my giveaways on my other blog, so in the mail today went two burp cloths to one person, a tote bag to another person, presents to the nieces, pictured below. that was really fun to make. erin if you see these before you receive them in the mail, pretend to be surprised:)
and also off in the mail is a box with two car seat canopy covers, and two burp cloths for a really nice girl who has twins! yay! i only seem to be making these things in multiples...anyone want one, just one at a time? i don't even know how long it takes me to make ONE, i just keep making them in twos:) but i think they turned out really cute:)

LAKE POWELL!!!

it was such a fun houseboat trip that we took a couple of weeks ago, thank you to mom and dad wilson for that graduation gift! we had 8 adults and our two kids with us, so it was full and happy:) kendall's grandparents, parents and brother (kraig) and his sweet wifey elise came with us (we missed katie!) and we all had a great time. the weather was overcast and it rained at night and in the mornings a bit but cleared up around lunch time. we were actually on the boat for about 3 days which i thought was good because more than that and i would probably still have sand in my teeth, hair etc.:) but it was really cool that we found some nice beaches and the kids loved playing in the sand and they actually went in the water a few times, even though it was cold. ethan is such a die-hard water kid. avery was a little more like...hello! that's cold! we had bonfires at night and we had s'mores and made "slugs" (biscuits roasted on a stick and filled with jelly etc.). very fun. my SIL elise and i were in charge of the food for our expedition and i think it went well:) we did have some leftovers (okay, a lot of leftovers) but our motto is "better too much than too little." and we had some good food; fajitas, best sloppy joe's ever (mama kara's recipe), hoagies, bbq chicken on the grill (which i tried a brine with and it went really well). so we were well fed too. the boat had a lot of space, it was bigger than i had envisioned it. there was a bedroom in the back with a sliding glass door to the back deck, two beds in the "lower berths" where we slept on one bed, ethan on the other and had room to put avery's pack and play, and there was another bedroom, then the couch made a bed, as well as the bank of seats by the table. i think it could sleep 12. there was a small deck on the front and a huge upper deck. very fun:) we did have some casualities...our tent got blown into lake powell and is now residing at the bottom and ethan's life jacket got blown away as well. there was some pretty fierce wind one night.

who's driving this thing???