Fun Outings in February

Although February was a pretty quiet, low-key month (as it's bound to be when you're eight months pregnant), we still managed to do a few fun things. The first big outing we did was going to the Dallas Zoo with some friends who have an annual pass and could get us in for free. Best decision ever! The zoo is like 45 minutes away and it just sounds like a lot of work to go by myself with the two boys, so I had never been. But it was really fun to go with a friend for me and for Dane, and to have another adult there. We all had a great morning!

First things first: a ride on the zoo merry-go-round. 

So many animals were right close up next to the windows for our kids to see. Amanda kept saying they had never seen all these animals so close--it was the best zoo day ever.

Hello Mr. Giraffe!

This gorilla lunged at the glass and acted like he was trying to grab the boys right before this! Pretty crazy!

Looking at the cougars. 

Graham is SO gentle at petting zoos. (Not.)

We did something REALLY fun and crazy in mid-February and went to the Great Wolf Lodge for an overnight stay. It's basically a family resort with a huge indoor water park and play area for kids. We wanted to do one big fun thing with the boys before the baby gets here, and this ended up being really fun. The kind of sad thing is that we are spoiled with the water park at the Fun Club near our house, because we get to swim at this sort of place all summer long, so I think Dane totally took it for granted, haha. But we had a good time, except that I was really exhausted and fighting a lot of contractions after chasing the boys around the pool area all Friday night and Saturday. It took me a few days to recover and feel better.

Graham LOVED the wave pool. He was so cute and happy to be there.

Big grin all the time.

He loved the slides in the baby section and wanted so badly to go down by himself. I finally let him slide down right behind me so I could catch him at the bottom when I got down and he LOVED it. 

Everyone was pretty tired out after so much fun there. We came home on Saturday and took some LONG naps.

I also took the boys to a working farm museum in Plano. They have these cute storytimes/preschool events once every few weeks, and I thought the boys would like to see the animals if nothing else. We went one year ago and I thought Graham would be a lot more excited about it at this age. He was, but he also was VERY distracted by the tractor just sitting in the middle of the yard to pull us on a ride at the end. He was super upset that we had to wait so long and basically whined the whole time during all the organized activities. Sometimes I wonder if the people who plan these sorts of events have ever been around children. I mean, most kids don't want to do a pretend craft gluing a person onto a paper when they're at a farm. Just let them run around and see the animals and have them toss some bean bags around or something. Graham just wandered around while Dane did the activities and it worked out fine.

Finally getting to sit on the tractor... imagining what it would be like to drive it.

He doesn't look like it, but once the tractor ride started going he was totally enthralled. 

And with the end of February we are now 100% in baby mode. Since I'm writing this halfway into March, we are now only a few days away from meeting our baby. I am past the point of being nervous and just ready to get it over with. I want to stop wondering when and how the birth is going to happen and starting each morning wondering if I'm going to go into labor or if I should be keeping track of my contractions. So far I haven't been as far along in labor as I was with the boys at this point, but I've also done a better job of taking it slow the last few weeks to try and keep everything at bay until Jackie gets here (tomorrow!). I am so excited to have her here while we go into the hospital so that we don't have to shuffle the boys off to someone's house randomly or make urgent phone calls in the middle of the night. And of course, we are just excited to meet our baby and to figure out once and for all what her name is going to be. It is all so surreal to know that it's going to happen this week. Let's do this!!

February

We went for a nice walk around a nature preserve near us with some friends. Graham was very stylish in his sunglasses.

They re-discovered their Mickey Mouse hats from Disneyland last year, but now they both want to wear the Tigger one and there's a lot of fighting about it. Hooray.

We cleaned our carpets one Saturday (OH MY GOSH IT'S AMAZING) and tried to distract the boys by letting them play on the Kindle together. It was cute until they both really wanted to play at the same time.

A new fancy donut place came to town, which has enormous-sized donuts with all sorts of toppings. They have a super long wait all the time, but we went for FHE one night and both boys were super excited to get a Cookie Monster donut.

Everyone wearing robes and hoods for book time at night.

Some of Tommy's second cousins came over for dinner.

We went to a Valentine's Day preschool party at the church and the kids exchanged valentines and played some games. Thank goodness for more organized and crafty moms than I am so my kids get to do fun things.

Doing a donut-eating contest with their mouths only.

Tommy and the boys "heart attacked" my mirror on Valentine's Day. So cute.

Dane spent his whole naptime reading this huge pile of books. 

This belly is getting out of control!

Poor Graham. He does NOT understand why he is not invited to go to Joy School when it is at someone else's house. This is his reaction when I drop Dane off without him. He screamed for at least fifteen minutes straight. It was so sad.

Why, why isn't he invited???

We got new bedside stands and the boys adopted the boxes as little personal hide-outs. Dane has really gotten into it and decorated it with markers all over, had Tommy cut out some windows, and taped cardboard pieces on the top to be "sirens" on the top. They're taking up our whole front room, but they're still enjoying them.

Tommy took the boys out on MLK day and let me have a day all to myself (my request before the baby comes). They went to the gym and swimming and out to eat at In-N-Out for lunch. It was a bit of a waste because I spent the whole time hemming curtains for our room--I should have relaxed a little bit more! But it was nice to get that done. 

Our new and updated bedroom--I feel like it's looking much better and I LOVE our new nightstands that have a cubby for the books so the top isn't just covered in books I'm in the middle of!!

A bad picture, but what it looks like with the curtains in our room now.

Joy School at our house, with Graham as the honorary fourth member.

The boys went and got free slurpees with some coupons we got the other day and could not have been happier.

Dane was so kind and kept picking flowers for me to put in my hair while we were working outside one Saturday.

Everyone all dressed up and ready for church!

Graham is SO funny. Remember how he doesn't talk very much? Well, this face right here--this is how he says "tomato." He does it every time we give him tomatoes to eat, because he used to think they were kind of sour (I guess?) and that he was really funny to make that face when he would eat them. This day, he came over to me in the kitchen and just looked at me making that face. I was laughing because he was smiling so cute, then he grabbed my hand and dragged me in to show me the book he was looking at--and pointed at the picture of tomatoes he was looking at. He had been telling me "tomatoes!" without even trying to say a word. It is so hilarious how he doesn't even try to talk.

a few things

- I am feeling MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR love for my boys in the afternoons right now. And for our house and backyard. Yesterday, the two of them went out in the backyard and played in the sandbox, then moved under the trampoline and dug around for a while, and then jumped on the trampoline and acted like life couldn't get any better. I sat inside with the windows open and watched them and thought about being productive but mostly just enjoyed their happiness and my peace and quiet. Does life GET any better?

I love, love, love when we get time outside, especially right now, as I appreciate the temporary nice weather and anticipate when it's going to start heating up. I am hoping we get maybe two months of good weather for walks after the baby is born before it's too hot. This morning we met some friends at the park and stayed there for 2.5 hours. Being outside is just magical--it's refreshing and happy and entertaining--for them and for me.

- Funny thing: Graham likes to pull books off the bookshelves in the front room--a normal toddler activity, right? But the funny thing is, that he always, always pulls the same books. Even when they're on different shelves or have been moved around. The one book he always finds is Dracula. He pulls it off and flips through it for a few minutes like he's reading it. I have no idea what this means or why he's so drawn to it... except for the obvious solution: he's signaling to us that he is a vampire.

Beware, the baby vampire.

- I set a goal at the new year to read 20 books between the beginning of the year and the baby being born. I just finished #17. I think I might actually do it! Thank you, audiobooks from the library, for making this possible!

- Some friends threw me a baby shower on Tuesday and all brought me gifts. It was so nice. I feel so spoiled because we have gotten so many hand-me-downs and lovely gifts that this baby is going to be so well-supplied. We are so grateful. I'm just bummed because I forgot to ask for a picture of all my lovely friends at the shower.

- I am 37 weeks along now with this pregnancy. I had a few rough weeks where I was sure I was going to go into labor super early and was stressed out, but now I am feeling very zen about life and very happy to be so far along. I am just going to move along not expecting anything to happen for at least two more weeks. Both boys were a week early, so we will see what happens with this one. I have enough to do to keep me busy for the next few weeks, but I'm also taking lots of naps and reading a lot and trying to relax and fill my cup so that I can feel emotionally ready for the upheaval of a newborn.

- Up next on my to-do list: Get the baby clothes out. Wash the bassinet I got secondhand. Put together the changing table and buy newborn diapers. Make a list of baby names to take to the hospital for our inevitable last-minute decision-making process. I can't think about much other than what to do to get ready for this baby!