Ready to Trick or Treat!!!

I have finally given up with Cash and Riley's naps! I still stick them in their room when Tripp naps, but I let them take a toy or two and they have their books to read.

I just need a little bit of time to myself during the day. I guess they still may need a nap every now and then as Riley did the other day. She fell asleep on the couch around 3:30 and didn't wake up until 5. I was glad she fell asleep because she was being a little twerp, but then she was up until about 10:30 that night.

She came into our room around 9:30 when she heard the thunder so we let her get into bed with us. Then she would not stop talking.

For the next hour we heard about the rainbow that was going to come with the rain, all the colors that were in that rainbow, her favorite color (purple) and Cash's favorite color (orange) and on and on...

Finally, I just turned on the Sprout network so she didn't feel the pressure to talk so much. She finally fell asleep!These are a few of my attempts to get a picture of the 3 of them in their Halloween shirts. These went a little better than the pictures at the pumpkin patch. I am practicing and getting them ready for pictures in their Halloween costumes and then Christmas photos!! Ugh.

We have had a couple showings on the house lately. I took the kids to Little Monkey Bizness while one showing was going on. They had fun running around and they were dying to paint. Besides Tripp trying to eat the paint a couple times...I know, you'd think he'd be past that stage by now, but the kids eats anything and everything you put in front of him...our trip went well! And the best part about this painting thing was that it wasn't at my house!

So I will be glad when we sell this house and have this baby! Of course that means moving and having a newborn to take care of, but I am ready...I think.

I did visit the hospital over last weekend.

My back had been feeling really achy all day Friday and that night I started getting a really tight, contraction type feeling in my stomach that just would not go away. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous too.

Now, I have never been in labor since I have had c-sections with all my kids, but I have heard those can be signs of labor so I got a little nervous. I woke up Saturday morning and still had that contraction thing going on, so I called my doctor.

I knew she would make me come in and she did.

They monitored me for a few hours and did some lab work.

Basically, they blamed it on me having such a big baby, this being my third pregnancy and that I need to drink a lot more water.

I have been drinking more water like they said and that has helped.

I go in for my sono on Tuesday to see how big this baby is so that will be fun. I don't see how this one can be any bigger than Tripp at almost 12 lbs, but we will see.

My mom is still convinced that its twins and they have just missed it in my other two ultrasounds.

I hate to stomp on her dreams, but its not twins again.

I don't think I could handle two newborns again!

We are excited for Halloween around here!

We might attempt to make our cookies today sometime.

We have tried on our costumes and they are all good with their choices!

Haven't carved our pumpkins yet.

Not sure if we will get to that or not. I might just let them decorate them with markers or something. Not sure I have the energy for carving, unless we wait for help from their dad. We will see.

Happy Halloween!!!

KC Pumpkin Patch

I have been wanting to take the kids to the KC Pumpkin Patch, but its always so busy on the weekends. My friend, Cathy offered to go with me during the week so I took her up on it. After going, I was really glad she came with me. If I would have taken them by myself, Tripp would spent a lot of time in the stroller or I would have went a little crazy.

It is just a really big place and there is so much to do. The kids just ran all over the place all afternoon. So, obviously, having two adults to chase them around was a very good thing.

The first thing we did was the jumping pillow. I kinda wished I could have done it too! Cash and Riley loved it. Tripp couldn't figure out how to get up on it so he was a little less than interested.

They all loved this water table. They had to pump this water down the tube and push the ducks out the other end. Didn't look too exciting to me, but the liked it and it was one of the few activities that kept them all in the same place for a little while.

Of course, they loved the train!

Cash liked this pumpkin slide.

We did a lot of sliding!

They had a maze made out of hay bales that was fun to go through.

They had goats, pigs and horses to feed.

Riley wanted in with the horses so badly! Actually, it was a pony and a donkey, but to her it was all the same.

Tripp was pretty excited about the swings, but these swings were a little hard for them to balance on so we didn't last too long.

Playing in the corn seemed to hold their attention for quite a while too. I like this idea much better than sand. It was a lot less messy!

I really tried to get a good photo of the 3 of them again in this chair. I took 5 or 6 pictures and this was the best. Again, I tried!

They were all pretty tired by the time we went through everything. We ate lunch and let them pick one last thing to do. Riley and Tripp visited the water table again and Cash wanted to jump. They were wiped out, but I know they had a lot of fun. Tripp is still saying "punkin patch, BOO" today. Good thing we have another pumpkin patch visit planned for this weekend!

Little Toots

This weekend we took the kids to the pumpkin patch. There is a winery close to our house~www.stonepillarvineyard.com~that opened up not too long ago. They always seem to have different events there so we decided to try the "Little Toots" pumpkin patch.

It was really cute.

They even had their winery open so there were many adults lined up to try their different wines. I will be back there for sure after this baby is born!

We told the kids that they could pick out any pumpkin they wanted.

Tripp was in love with this little pumpkin and wouldn't put it down. He kept walking around saying "punkin patch" with heavy emphasis on the "tch". He loved it.

Tempted for a minute...

Cash liked all the pumpkins, but he was searching for a big one.

Riley walked around forever trying to find her perfect pumpkin. She picked up probably about 2 dozen and if she couldn't carry it by herself, she didn't want it. It had to be just the right size, it had to be clean and had to have a long stem.

Tripp was already in the car, but I wanted to try and get a good picture of the three of them. It is so hard. Its hard to get them all to smile at the same time and Riley never wants to look at the camera. Half the time she is saying "cheese", but she is looking down at her feet or up at the sky. By the time I get her to look at the camera for a split second, I have lost the other two!

We tried.

Next weekend they are having Kidsfest at Stone Pillar so we may try it again.

Maybe we will have better luck!

San Fran

Like I mentioned earlier, Darin and I spent last weekend in San Fransisco. There is a heavy truck conference every year and Darin was asked to go so I got to tag along. Only thanks to my sister, Sarah, because without someone to watch our kids for a few days, we wouldn't have been able to go.

We left early Thursday morning and were in SF by noon!

Here are a few pictures of our weekend. We didn't do a whole lot besides go out to eat and try to relax.

My husband is the type of person that has to constantly be doing something. When we are at home, he rarely sits down and just does nothing. Even when the Michigan games are on, he is doing something during the commercials.

I am the opposite.

I have absolutely no problem just laying around and watching tv all day...that is when the kids aren't around. When I do get a whim to do laundry or clean out a closet, something along those lines, I just have to seize the moment and do it before the moment passes. I get things done when I need to, but I am okay if there are dishes in the sink when I go to bed. I can do them in the morning and nobody will ever know! =)

Not Darin, he washes as he goes.

I am not complaining.

I would rather have a husband that likes things clean and will do that cleaning himself, than one who is a slob.

There just has to be a happy medium.

So, that being said, the first few days of our vacations are usually spent doing something most of the day.

We walked around and explored downtown San Fran. Saw a lot of interesting people that's for sure. I have never been asked for my leftovers or money ~"just 80 cents to get my methadone" or "35 cents to make a phone call"~so many times in my life.

Now since I am hugely pregnant and look like, at about 6 1/2 months, that I might pop our a kid at any time, I can only do so much walking around the city.

When I needed to get back to the hotel, Darin would go to his meetings or workout, something like that.

One day we took the cable car down to the pier.

The cable car was so crowded that we had to stand. A couple people offered me their seats, but I said I would be okay standing. Partly because I didn't expect the ride to be as long as it was and partly because I didn't think I would fit in the tiny little space that I would have had to squeeze into. Needless to say, we took a cab on the way back to the hotel. The cable car was a neat experience and I am glad we did it, but I was grateful for my own seat in a car on the way back.

This is looking down at the top of Lombard Street
which is the crookedest street in the world. We never got down to the bottom, so a picture from the top was the best I could do.

This was a picture taken on one of the piers. Mainly we wanted to take a picture of the ship for Cash and this plane just happened to be flying by.

Not the best picture, but I had to take at least one of the two of us. I never think I look very swollen until I see pictures of myself. Its not as bad as it was with the twins, but still pretty swollen. Fun times.

We passed a dock where everyone was gathered around taking pictures so of course we had to see what that was all about. All these seals were getting their tan on. They were pretty funky smelling so we didn't hang around there too long. Snapped some pics we thought the kids would enjoy and then got out of there!

Everywhere we went people were stopped and looked like they were all waiting for something. We found out that they were all waiting to see the Blue Angels.

They are a US Navy aerial team that perform all sorts of rolls, loops, passes and different kinds of "tricks" in the air. It is actually pretty crazy to watch.

They are amazing.

As you can see in the couple of pictures, they fly so close together and do their tricks flying at such a high speed. It really gives you goose bumps to watch. I might try to get some of my video up if its not too annoying to watch, but you can also go to youtube and watch some better quality videos.

Look at how they are just perfectly spaced apart and they fly like that for quite a while! Again, its crazy and I couldn't handle the stress if the pilot was someone I knew.

We tried to get to Alcatraz, but they were booked solid for the 3 days we were there. Major bummer. I should have booked it before we even went out there, but i didn't know. I wanted to get to the Ghirardelli store out there too and we were so close, but this body couldn't handle any more walking and I had to get back to the hotel.

So, other than finding some fun places to eat, that is what our weekend consisted of. We of course found a place that had the Michigan game on, with sound by the way, so Darin didn't have to miss them get killed by Michigan State.

I compare Darin after a Michigan loss to the first time you workout after taking a long break. Its always worse the second day. The loss, your sore muscles, always hurt worse on day two, sometimes day three. But, he got over it and is hoping for at least one or two more wins for his beloved Wolverines this season. Just as long as that win isn't against Iowa, I am rooting for them too!

I took these pictures on the plane ride back home.

By the way, I am totally in favor of outlawing the reclining of airline seats.

There are not a lot of things that irritate me more than getting settled into my two by two space with my purse at my feet and thinking "this is gonna be a long flight" and having the person in front of me take the very first opportunity they get to slam their seat back into my knees.

Now, I am 6 feet tall and my knees already touch the back of the seat in front of me so taking away the tiny bit of the room I do have is really maddening . I don't know how people taller than me fly on longer flights like that.

So here is me, with my big belly, no room to move for 3 1/2 hours and the girl behind me is smacking her gum! I so longed for my Ipod to drown her out.

No such luck.

Not trying to complain. I just spent the weekend away on the company's dollar, but I just have to get it out.

So, since my belly prohibited the use of my table, I had to use Darin's.

Not happening...

We got home and the kids seemed like they were happy to see us. They were good while we were gone and Sarah had everything under control.

She even had to get the kids out of the house and get everything cleaned up because we had a showing! It was very positive and they said they loved our house. They would make an offer, but have not sold their own house yet so that was good to hear! The first people to take a look wanted to buy! We will see though if that trend continues. Our realtor has said it is a tough market right now so keep your fingers crossed for us!

Now its back to keeping the kids happy, the house clean and getting ready for the new baby!!!