Last Tuesday I took Sam to Target to get his 2-year pictures taken. I thought it would be nice to have some of him before the baby came. The lady got us all set up and ready to go. Once she led us into the darkened room, Sam was not feeling it. She tried to get him to sit down. He wouldn't. She tried to get him to stand on the red dot. He wouldn't. She asked him to look at the light. He turned the opposite direction and stared at the door. I offered him poptarts, cars, lollipops. Nothing worked. We left empty-handed 20 minutes later. Sam was more than happy to get out of there. He kept saying, "Pictures taken all done!" Too bad we didn't get to TAKE any pictures! I was kind of embarrassed to waste so much of that lady's time, but she admitted that we were probably the only people she'd see that day anyway... I'll have to remember to have baby girl's pictures taken more often so that she's used to it. I've only ever taken Sam once and he didn't like it then either.

Sam and I went with some friends to the Children's Museum. He really liked it and cried when we left. We also went to the pool a few times and he has learned how to go down the slide all by himself. When I was there with him alone, he went down the slide for 2 hours straight. So now my pool experience consists of standing at the bottom and making sure he doesn't drown when he gets out.

Dan's mom sent us a lot of Dan's old toys and things when we first moved into our house. In one of the boxes was this little vest that Dan's aunt made him. Today Sam wore it all day long. Even during nap time. When I got out the camera to take a picture, Sam wanted to show me the white car his great grandpa gave him. He sensibly calls it "great grandpa white car."

Then he showed me the blue car he got for his birthday. He calls it "birthday blue car."

Finally I got some shots of his sweet vest.

This week's excitement

Have you ever heard of nutria? Me neither. Not until this week. Last week I thought I saw some groundhogs near the lake and I told Dan how exciting it was. When he told the people he hometeaches, they told him that they were most likely not groundhogs and were probably nutrias. So then I looked that up online. Unfortunately, I think they were right.

Nutrias are nasty giant rat-like rodents (around 12 pounds) that live near water. They remind us of ROUS's from the Princess Bride, just smaller.

So gross!

Tuesday night, a friend of mine hosted a baby shower for me. It was so sweet of her! It was nice to visit with friends and hear about other people's experiences. Everyone was really generous and I'm getting more excited about having a little girl. (Not that I wasn't before...) The clothes are just so cute. Here's a picture I remembered to take after some people had already left.

And here's a picture of me with Keri, the hostess.

Other than that, this week contained playgroup, storytime at the library, a doctor's appointment, the birth of a new niece (YAY!) and a playdate. At the doc, he did an ultrasound to check the baby's position. She's still breech. He talked about possibly trying an external version in 3 weeks or so, which requires an epidural. And he said the success rate for them is between 40 and 50. Not great odds. I'm going to try harder this week to move around and hope that she gets the hint.

Here's my sassy pose from last week. (33+ weeks along.)

Dan used Sam's blocks to create tunnels on his train table. He loved it!

Projects

Admittedly, I didn't use the sewing machine I got for Christmas for a while. I was a little intimidated by it. But in the past few months, I've made a few different things with it. Please keep in mind I'm still a MAJOR beginner, but I thought I'd share some of the projects I've done.

The first thing I made was a set of dishtowel bibs, using a tutorial by my friend Sarah found here. Here's Sam modeling a bib I'm going to send to my niece. (Both of his were dirty.) I love these bibs because they're nice and big, absorbent, and you can just toss them in the washer.

I've made a few pillows for our couches using remmants from Joann's (so they were a lot cheaper than usual). I don't normally arrange them this way, I was just trying to fit them all in one picture.

I think it would be fun to make burp cloths cuter, so I want to sew flannel in the middle of plain ones, but when I went to buy some at Walmart, they didn't have the right kind. So I practiced on an old one of ours using a scrap of just plain cotton. I'm glad I practiced because I'm not really good yet!

Last, thanks to Amanda for showing me a tutorial on making carseat covers. First I made one for our baby girl. (I simplified the tutorial a little bit.)

And I just finished one for our nephew who's set to make his arrival in a few months.

Minnesota

First, I want to start out by saying that today in primary, Dan taught a lesson about Samson and spiritual strength, as you will. At the beginning of class, the kids arm wrestled each other. The strongest kid (age 8) then arm wrestled Dan. Dan won. Then that kid arm wrestled me. I am pleased to announce that I won! I was a little worried he would beat me, but I pulled through beautifully. What can I say - I'm that macho.

Second, and the main reason for this post, we went to Minnesota last weekend and I wanted to write about it. Actually, I wanted Dan to write about it, but he wasn't going to. So I've taken matters into my own hands. Dan's maternal grandpa and step-grandma live in Minnesota. Dan hadn't seen them in a really long time, and I had never met them, so we decided to spend the long weekend visiting with them. It was so much fun!

We spent two nights with Dan's aunt and uncle and their family in Wisconsin. They have a pool and the weather was actually quite hot, so it made for a nice combo.

Grandma Betty, Grandpa Jack, Dan, Sam, Dan's dad.

They had 3 dogs there, which kind of worried me. Sam would ride around on this train thing and terrorize the pit bull. I was so afraid that the pit bull would snap and terrorize Sam back, but fortunately, that never happened. Here's Sam riding the train after also discovering a purple helmet. He can't resist a good helmet.

We sat by the pool a lot and visited with Dan's parents (who flew out from Washington), aunt and uncle, cousins, and grandparents. By the end of the trip, we had gone to breakfast a few times, visited the St. Paul ward for church on Sunday, visited a nice free zoo called Como Zoo in St. Paul, and just enjoyed meeting family.

Gma and Gpa with Gpa's antique Ford truck. He's really into antique cars and motorcycles and used to have a larger collection. He scared Sam to death with the ooga horn. (I don't know how to spell ooga...)

Four generations.

Most of the gang.

Side story: Dan's cousin (who had the cutest Minnesota accent in the world) was talking about how it would be so weird to see a truck with longhorns on it like we see sometimes around Texas and how that is so bizarre. Well, we were driving around St. Paul and we came across this. You tell me which is more strange!

Como Zoo.

Sam and his great-grandpa both love cars. Here's Sam showing off his cars. Grandpa Jack gave Sam that white corvette as a present.

It was a really nice trip. I was also excited to cross 2 more states off of my "states to visit" list!

Happy 4th of July!

We might be busy on the fourth, so I wanted to post this now. Every week our library has a special hour for children ages 2-3. Sam loves it. They sing songs, the librarian reads a book, and sometimes they do a craft. Sam's favorite part is when the librarian walks around with a big bear puppet and gives each of the kids a hug. He loves to hug the bear. Maybe that will help ease his fear of other characters like Santa and the Easter bunny?

This week they made patriotic door hangers. Other than the big blue star and the "USA", which I placed, Sam either told me where he wanted the stars or put them on himself.

Sometimes he's so photogenic when he says, "Cheese!" Other times, not so much. But he's still a cutie to me!Hope you have a great fourth of July!

This past weekend, Dan and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. Each month we go to the temple and we switch off going in while the other watches Sam. While I was in the temple, Dan took Sam to a piano store because we had toyed with the idea of getting a digital piano for our anniversary. That was until we saw the price of digital pianos! So we basically ended up getting each other nothing. But that's okay.

It was nice to go to the temple on our anniversary and think about being there six years ago together. I also noticed that there were a few weddings that day which made me happy.

During Sam's nap, Dan worked on painting the study (pictures to come). Later that night, a friend watched Sam while Dan and I went to dinner at a nice South American restaurant. It was delicious! I'm sad I didn't take any pictures of our date, but now that I wrote it down, at least I won't forget. (I have already forgotten what we did on our first and second anniversaries...)

I love you, Dan! And here's a picture my dad took of us in Florida just so this post isn't picture-less.

Happy Father's Day yesterday! I am so blessed to have a great husband, father, brothers, grandfathers, etc. in my life. I have learned so much from them and appreciate their examples - especially my dad and Dan. I love them so much!

Yesterday I asked Dan to take a 29-week picture of me. I thought it would be fun to also go back and find a picture from when I was 29 weeks with Sam to compare. When I found it, I was so embarrassed to realize that I'm wearing the EXACT SAME THING - down to the necklace - that I did for the picture over 2 years ago. Well, at least it will be a true comparison, right? Sam on left, baby girl on right. I feel a lot bigger this time around.

I've been working on some projects that I wanted to complete before our baby comes along. Sam is really into modes of transportation, so I thought it would be fun to paint some silhouettes of various things to hang on his walls. I found images online, blew them up, traced them onto canvas, and painted them. Total project cost was around $12. (The 16x20 canvases were buy one get one free and I already had 3 of the paint colors.) We haven't hung them but maybe I'll post a picture of that after we do. Sam could identify all of them except the airplane, but I don't blame him. My bad.

Sam's been doing this weird yoga-type move where he bends over, puts his head to the floor, and lifts his arms. I tried to get him to do it on his own, but it's easier to get him to do it when I'm singing "Once There Was A Snowman" so you get to hear my beautiful voice.

Orange is his favorite color

When I go to get Sam out of his room first thing in the morning, the only way to get him to be still long enough for me to change his diaper is to ask him what he would like to wear that day. (If he gets to pick his outfit, he's more excited to put it on.) Every morning it's the same response, "Orange shirt! Orange shirt!" Too bad he only has 3 orange shirts. Once he's worn those, I try to make the others look appealing by pointing out the dinosaurs, basketballs, dump trucks, or other flashy images on them. It works sometimes.

As further evidence, he used only orange crayon on the picture he colored today at church. Orange is Dan's favorite color, too, so maybe Sam's just being like his BFF.

And here's Sam's new haircut, courtesy of Dan. I think he looks very handsome. He's got a cowlick in the front, so it looks kind of funny here, but Dan actually did a really great job.

Events

Here's what has been going on lately.

We went to the temple last weekend. I tried to take cute pictures of Sam since it was around his birthday, but he never really gave me the smile I was going for.

Especially after he fell down some stairs and hit his head...

We FINALLY finished touching up the stripes we painted in Sam's new room. (Note to those who are painting: DO NOT try to paint stripes on textured walls unless you have totally awesome tape. Otherwise you'll spend 20+ hours touching up your stripes.)

Notice how when I'm not trying hard to get Sam to smile, he totally hams it up for me and says "CHEESE!" We also put up bunk beds, but kept them separate.

(Showing off one of our curtain options. We went w/ the red ones.)

Yesterday we went to the children's museum.

Me at 27 weeks. When taking my picture, Dan always tells me to "be sassy." That's the best I can do.