30 Weeks and Signing

I can't believe I'm 30 weeks!  It gets a little bit scary when you hit the weeks that begin with "3"...that's it-it's go time!  Next week marks the single digit waiting game, and since school is starting then as well, time is going to FLY!

Measurements:
Waist: 39 1/2 inches
Weight: 143 lbs. 

Developments:
The bigger I get, the more uncomfortable I get.  However, I have to say I'm pretty comfortable!  Besides being constantly hot (seriously-just chopped all my hair off because I was sick of drying my hair!),  I still feel amazing.  I still LOVE being pregnant.  But, I have had to listen to my body more lately.  The Braxton-Hicks contractions have been happening more, but only when I am pushing myself too hard.  The bummer part is that pushing myself can be just trying to get the house vacuumed.  I notice that my back will hurt and my stomach will tighten and I have to just sit down and take a break.  As of right now, I just try to keep our dishes done, the kitchen clean (thanks to the wonderful summer ants), and the laudry kept up.  I will try to clean one room a day during Connor's nap, but that usually lasts until Thursday and then I use Connor's nap time to sleep!  That's another thing that has returned!  I am so tired by the time Connor naps.  If I don't nap, then I'm ready for bed super early.  I am SO incredibly thankful for my work schedule which allows me to be home with Connor during naptime-I think that'll be key here in the next 10 weeks.
She is getting the hiccups more and more.  Yesterday, it was six times!  They make my entire belly shake, but it's fun because I can tell exactly where she is.  Usually, they are low in my stomach, but every once in awhile I can track her movement by the shaking of my belly.  She's still very strong, but I can tell her movement is slowing down just a bit, so that must mean she's growing!
My doctor's appointments are still off by a week, so I don't go in until next week.  I will be going every other week until near the end of September! 

Connor:
My little love bug is growing.  Everyone keeps commenting on how tall he is looking!  He is running everywhere.  His current favorite toys are the different colored counting bears with the different colored cups.  I'm trying to teach him colors by sorting the bears into the cups since he LOVES putting things back into buckets and cups.  He's getting the hang of it with a couple of the colors, and holds each of the bears up like he does with his crayons, which is how he asks me what color it is.
His coloring is getting better too.  I just bought the triangular shaped crayons for him to help him learn how to hold the crayon better.  Up until now, he would hold the top.  Then he would get frustrated because he couldn't really see the color on the paper very well.  He will seriously sit there for 15 minutes at a time with such focus on his face-his attention span sometimes amazes me with certain things!
The newest thing lately is that instead of talking, he's decided to pick up sign language.  No joke, I haven't done signs with him in months, and a few nights ago at the dinner table I said "Are you all done", and he did the sign!  I was shocked!  So, I said it again, and sure enough-he did the sign!  Since then, he's also mastered "eat", which he did when he woke up to tell me he was hungry and "more" which I showed him when he wanted more crackers.  He picked that one up immediately, and it's perfect!  I'll take any form of communication I can get, and if it's sign language instead of tantrums, I'm a happy Mommy!

I am back to work now.  This week I worked 2 full days and helped my mom in her room this morning.  I'm BEAT!  It does feel good to be back in a daily routine again, and as many of you know, Connor loves his sitter and friends.  He's been such a happy boy since he's been back with her.  I've enjoyed my time with him this summer immensely, and feel incredibly grateful that we had so much time just the two of us until his sister arrives.  We've had so many fun memories, and although I don't think he'll remember all of our fun activities, we have a ton of pictures and blog posts to help show him later in life!

Beautiful Flagstaff

I wanted to make sure I got our last couple Flagstaff trips down because they were so much fun!  I don't quite remember having the heat get to me this much with Connor, but then again, I didn't have Connor to run after all day, and if I didn't want to go outside, I didn't have to. Lucky for me, I am married to a man that absolutely DESPISES the summers here.  I am married to two men: a. winter Ryan-happy go lucky, smiley, positive Ryan.  Then there's b. Summer Ryan-miserable, sweaty, complaining, negative Ryan.  And I get it.  Especially right now where I have sweat dripping from everywhere.  I feel like I can't wear dresses for fear of someone thinking I just peed my pants with the amount of sweat dripping my down my legs.  I digress.  (that's for you Jen!)  Nonetheless, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather just a quick drive away.

Ryan's grandma lives in Munds Park, and it's one of his favorite places to be.  He literally wanted to get married on her deck when we were brainstorming spots for our wedding 6 years ago.  It's full of a million special memories for him with his grandparents, siblings, and cousins.  So we make it up there as often as we can to visit.  Lately, we haven't been very good about that-weekends are quickly filled up with chores.  A few weeks ago, Ryan's Aunt Sandy and partner Rhonda were there for a visit.  (These are two of my favorite people!  I'll have to save this for another post, but I'm sad we won't visit their place in California this year).  We dropped everything and went up for an overnight stay to join the party.  They saw Connor last in December, so he's changed since then!  We ate at La Fonda's (which I love because you get sopapillas at the end of your meal with honey...yum!), and spent hours upon hours out on the deck.  Connor hardly came inside from his bubbles, throwing the ball around, and watching the birds and squirrels.  We took our nightly walk around the neighborhood, and got the scoop about what all the neighbors are doing.  Then, after Connor went down for bed, we had yet another one of our great late-night discussions with Sandy and Rhonda.  It's another part of what I love about being with them.  We talk about anything from politics (yikes!) to education (they are both in education as well) to life in general.  Then we wake up to the cool morning air with the fresh smell of pine trees!  What a difference from here!  We could even play at the park without fear of 2nd degree burns!

 My little cutie pie-I adore that smile!

 The Morgan Line

 Swinging with Daddy!

Sliding down the slide-he had to have done this 50 times!

Then we drove back down to the valley, all depressed when we saw the dustbowl of dirt and brown...I mean home sweet home!  It didn't take long before we decided to take another trip back up to the cool country.  The last week of July seemed perfect-Ryan had that Friday off, so we loaded up and headed up north-for the entire weekend this time!  We stopped by Anthem to see Grandma Vicki and Grandpa Dave, and then went to Munds Park for the night.  Connor quickly remembered the deck and playing, so he got right to it.  We had an amazing dinner cooked by Ryan's Grandma, and all went to bed early after the long day. 





Daddy and Connor inside the cabin



Blowing bubbles in the morning!

Eating dinner sitting on a pillow! Big boy!

Before checking into our hotel at Little America Saturday night, we hit the Deer Farm near Williams.  We've been wanting to take Connor there for awhile now, and it seemed like the perfect day to go!  We had some time before his nap, and it's not a huge place so off we went.  We saw a storm coming, but thought we could beat the storm and a cranky pants tantrum.  We did fairly well!  When we got there, we got sprinkled on a little bit, but nothing we couldn't handle.  The deer were anxious and ready to get the food we bought!  Connor was waving to them all like crazy!  We walked around to the other animals too, many of which were hiding from the rain.  He did get to pet a miniature horse and got the hang of feeding the deer.  By the time we got back to the exit, the storm hit hard.  We ran out to the car, which wasn't far, but we were SOAKED by the time we got inside! 
I have to enter a little sidenote here...actually, a big MomFail.  Earlier in the week, I was too lazy to wash my car myself and decided to take my good ole Trailblazer through the carwash.  I thought "Hey, it'll be fast, and maybe Connor will think it's cool".  Umm...the EXTREME opposite happened.  My poor child freaked out in the back seat.  I put on baby Einstein, his music, gave him his blankie, and pretty much climbed in the backseat with him.  Every time that big scary machine inched its way close to him again, the panic attack started again.  I. Felt. Awful.  Vowed I would never do that to him again and gave him a sucker when we got home.
Why would I tell you this embarrasing story of such a failure?  Because when that storm hit while we driving back to Flagstaff, you would have thought we were in the carwash again.  The rain on the windshield must have triggered that scary moment for him again, because he freaked out!  I climbed in the back seat, we turned on his music, and I distracted him by singing the ABC's and any other song I could think of.  Poor guy. :(
Here are some pictures from the happier part of that experience!

Then we got back to Flagstaff and hit all of our favorite spots: Bun Huggers, Macy's Coffee Shop, Beaver St. Brewery, Lumberyard, Mike and Rhonda's, and our favorite shops.  Connor even took one of his naps in his stroller while we walked around, had coffee and ate some lunch!  We also went to see the first day of the Cardinal's Training Camp.  We put Connor in the hiking backpack, and he had the best view!  It was awesome to see them go through all their rotations.  You can tell they are a bit rusty, so let's hope some more practice will make these guys better!  

Practicing 1-2-3 JUMP!

Enjoying some Railhead Red-Ryan's fave!

Can you tell how much we love Flagstaff??  Who knows, maybe one of these days life will lead us out of the heat and into the trees!  Until then, we'll enjoy our family get-aways!