Guy Time

 While Kim spent last Saturday morning getting some professional development hours in (so I can keep my Texas teaching license current), the guys had a great time together!

Soon after breakfast, they went swimming in our neighbors' pool. Then, they headed to a local hardware store which was celebrating its 1st birthday with all kinds of special things ... a "tour" of a new fire truck and free snow cones, popcorn, and cotton candy. Matt said that the boys had a great time! They even saw one of Ryan's friends from Sunday school (and one of Matt's coworkers from school) there!

Thanks for being such a fun daddy to our boys, Matt! :)

Apple Day

 I was so happy to be able to volunteer in Ian's classroom last Friday for their "Apple Day." My sweet friend Kati watched Ryan so I could really be involved in the special day! :)

It was even just a special treat to see Ian "in action" in his classroom -- interacting with his classmates, going through their morning routine, etc. (This momma would love to hear more details about school than Ian is willing to share on any given day. Ha!) All of us parent volunteers heard the whole class recite the pledge to the American & Christian flags. And we watched the kiddos finish their "apple tree cycle" pictures.

Then, Apple Day officially began. All three kindergarten classes participated and rotated between three stations. The first station was watching a Johnny Appleseed cartoon movie.

The second station included drawing, weighing, and measuring one of two apples each child had brought from home. One little boy in my group, Ben, brought a HUGE Honeycrisp apple. He was elated that he had to use all 100 teddy bear manipulatives in the balance ... and even that wasn't enough to even out the balance.

The final station included many different parts -- seeing the "star" inside the apple when it's cut open, getting a picture taken,

taking out and counting apple seeds, 

 making apple prints with paint,

 peel, coring, and cutting apples,

 and even decorating some construction paper apples.

The teachers cooked up the apples that the kids (and moms) cored, cut, and peeled and made it into applesauce. Ian said that he didn't really like it because it had "too many lumps" and "too much cinnamon."

The kids did some other fun activities in the classroom after we moms finished helping. Each child tried a yellow, green, and red apple slice and got to vote on the best color. What a fun day!

You'd think after all of the apple activities that Ian would've been all "appled-out." On the contrary, Ian insisted that he use our apple corer-peeler-slicer immediately when we got home from school. He peeled six apples almost completely on his own, which we used to make apple cake. Yum! Ryan was a willing helper (and taste-tester), too!

Ryan at the museum

As our due date approaches, I'm trying to get in lots more "just Ryan" time. :) One day last week, Ryan and I met up with some friends at The Woodlands' Children's Museum. We were apart more than together as the kids bounced back and forth between stations, but we all had fun!

Ryan & Ethan at the train table

Samuel, Ethan, and Ryan at the "grocery store"

Sammy, mopper extraordinaire :)

We enjoyed eating lunch together on the patio. Sammy, Kati, Ethan, and Ryan

Train Show

Last Saturday, our family drove to downtown Houston to check out a train show. We've been wanting to go for the past few years, but it's never worked out. We figured that our boys were at the perfect ages to really enjoy themselves.

Unfortunately, we ran into some snags along the way. Part of the interstate on the way there was completely closed down, and it ended up taking us 1.5 hours (instead of 45 minutes) to get there. The boys started out the day tired after a later night at small group the night before, and (as we found out later in the day) Ian had impetigo on his face, too.  Needless to say, we weren't at the train show all that long before Ian said he was "bored" and wanted to go home and Ryan seemed super, duper tired.
After everyone got naps that afternoon (and we got Ian started on some antibiotic later that day), life seemed better. In fact, over dinner both boys identified the train show as their "good thing" of the day. It was pretty impressive. We'll have to try the train show again another year (and check the road conditions before leaving our house :)) ...


There were lots and lots of model railroads set up around the convention center. It REALLY bothered Ryan that he couldn't touch the tracks and the trains.

Ian got to climb into a train car and push the horn. Ryan seemed interested in doing this, too, until we got to the front of the line.

More model trains ...

Ryan's favorite part of the train show was probably the "toddler play area" complete with trains, tracks, puzzles, and other toys.

Ian's favorite part was riding this "train." He had to pump a lever back and forth in order to propel the train car. It was so cute seeing the kids ride around along the circle track.

One of the neatest parts for Matt and me was this amazing Lego train display. Everything (even the train cars) were made of Legos. Super cool!

Getting Ready for Baby! :)

Tomorrow we hit the 30-week mark! Our baby (who we're officially calling Nathan Paul :)) is growing like crazy! It's fun to watch him move and kick as he contorts my tummy into all kinds of interesting shapes. :) We can't wait to meet him in just a few weeks!

My belly is definitely bigger than this pic taken almost three weeks ago. Many maternity shirts are now too short to cover my whole belly. Overall, I'm still feeling pretty good, though I've definitely re-entered a tired stage in the pregnancy. I've talked with the doctor about feeling lots more pressure and discomfort in this pregnancy over the past few weeks. He's reassured me that this is very normal for a third pregnancy since all of my muscles are stretched out. The great news is that he also said this pressure/discomfort should ease up as little Nathan gets even bigger and has to rest a little higher in my belly. For now, though, I'm trying to convince my active 2-year-old to play more games that require sitting down. :)

Since we're having another boy, we don't need to do much shopping to get ready for this new little one. We'll mainly just get out the bins of clothes, toys, and other assorted baby stuff out of our attic and wash it all! Hopefully, we'll accomplish that task in the next month or so! The two main itmes on our shopping list were car seats and bunk beds. Our current car seats will not fit three-across in our Honda Accord. After doing some researching and talking with friends, we've officially ordered some car seats that WILL fit three-across in our Honda Accord (yay!). They're due to arrive this week!

And we found a really neat set of bunk beds on Craiglist. We love that they have a ladder option AND a stairs option (along the right-hand side of the bed). They're sturdy, in good condition, and offer lots of storage, too! We got the beds about three weeks ago and just recently finished doing a little room re-decorating (including hanging Ryan's name on the wall, too).

The beds came with a matching chest of drawers ... which actually sort of coordinates with our existing dresser! Yay! :)

Ian has been sleeping in his bunk bed (almost always on the top bunk) ever since we got them set up. He loves the new bed and has transitioned very easily.

Ryan, on the other hand, hasn't adjusted as well to the bunk bed. I think he's slept there three nights. Each of the nights, he's fallen asleep relatively quickly -- with only one or two trips out of the room to ask us for a drink, a toy, to go to the bathroom, etc. -- and always sleeping "backwards" on the bed (often where the body pillows can no longer function as bed rails :)). But each of the three nights he's had a major issue in the middle of the night with waking up and then having a hard time going back to sleep. One night at about 1:30 a.m., he managed to make his way all the way down the stairs, get himself a cup of milk from the fridge, and come to our bedroom to ask us for "more milk, please."

After those few nights, we started asking him if he'd rather sleep back in his crib instead -- which he most certainly did! We've had much more continuous nights of sleep again, even though our early riser still gets up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. Since baby Nathan will likely sleep in our room for the first six months or so, we'll attempt to switch Ryan back into his lower bunk in another few months ... :)