At the tot lot..

With the weather being below 90 degrees this afternoon, I decided to take Joshua to the little playground in our neighborhood. It's official title is the "tot lot." He wasn't super excited, but I think that was mostly because there weren't other kids around and Mommy is pretty boring. He did enjoy getting out of the house and the walk over there though. No outing would be complete without the camera, so here are the pictures. One of the pictures is of Joshua blowing a kiss and then clapping for himself afterwards. He is always the first to congratulate himself on a job well done. :)

I came, I saw, I conquered... the Hobby Lobby

I am fairly certain that everyone is just dying to know how my Hobby Lobby shopping extravaganza went. Well let me tell you, it was excellent. Ryan and Joshua are most definitely off the hook in the birthday present category. How I managed to spend $60 when everything was 50% off is a little baffling, but I am ecstatic with all my purchases.
I was going to post a picture of all my spoils, but I figured that someone should be in suspense about what I'm getting for my birthday. My birthday is in just under two weeks, so I will dutifully stay out of everything until then. Then I'll post a picture or two.

In other random news, finding a scorpion on the premises every 6 days is getting annoying. It is also making me very paranoid about this Thursday(that would be the next 6th day). Scorpion season ends in November, so hurry up and get here November. Crazy(cuz I'm pregnant) and scared do not a good combination make.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Today is Ryan's birthday!! It's a little harder to do something super fun when it's on a Sunday, but we did have a really nice breakfast and then I made one of his favorite dinners. I got him the Office Season 3 which was a special edition that came with a Dwight bobble head, and a Dundie award. That doesn't mean much if you don't watch the show, but it's cool stuff. Joshua got him a movie made by one of the actors from Stargate Atlantis and that has a bunch of other Stargate actors in it. I can't remember the name of it right now, and it was a direct to DVD movie, but it seems like it will be cute.

Ryan wasn't feeling very well today so he and Joshua stayed home from church. It made my life much easier not having to take Joshua, but Joshua did end up missing a really cute activity in nursery. We have a courtyard in the middle of our building and one of the nursery workers took stuffed animals and had them "hidden" all over the courtyard. She said that the kids were going to go on an animal hunt in the jungle. How cute does that sound?

I've spending all my spare time the last few days working on the Instant Imprints of Tempe website. It has been a lot of fun getting back into my technology roots and using some of my skills that had gotten a bit rusty. I'll post a link to it when I get all done or once it is officially hosted somewhere. All the sitting in my computer chair means my feet/legs have swelled to yucky proportions. I retain a lot of water while pregnant and this time around it has been not quite as bad as with Joshua. I think now I know why it was so terrible before. When I was working at ASU, all I did was sit in a chair for 8 hours a day and work at a computer. You heard it here first, work is bad for your health. :)

Here is some other random news/events:
1. We assembled the tricycle we got for Joshua's first birthday. He is still too short to reach the pedals, but he loves pushing it around. He also loves standing on the back while Daddy pushes him around.
2. Joshua can talk like a pirate. He says "argh." It's more like "rrrrr/roar" but he is trying to talk like a pirate.
3. We taught Joshua to blow kisses tonight. It's also very cute. He has a little sound effect that goes with it, but it isn't quite a "mwah" sound.

Tomorrow I am planning a big outing to Hobby Lobby. All of their stickers are 50% off as well as some other awesome scrapbook deals. Hot diggity, I'm excited. I told Ryan he might get off the hook of buying me a birthday present as I do plan to indulge in all the scrappy goodness.

Well goodnight all!!

Couch climber & Party time!

Joshua has never been much of a climber to this point, which we have been pretty grateful for. However last night he finally climbed onto the couch all by himself. The best part of it was seeing his total sense of accomplishment. You could tell he was so pleased with himself. Those sort of moments are really the best part of being a parent.

------Party Time--------
Today we were invited to a Pool Party in Mesa. The Mother-in-law of one of the sweetest gals in my ward offered to throw a party for her grandson and his friends. The home was a little bit far away, but it was just gorgeous. Joshua and I both had a great time. Not too many folks were able to make it, which is a total shame. It was definitely one of the largest and most beautiful homes I have ever been to, that is for sure.
I ended up getting there before everyone else including the guest of honor. The host still had her hair in curlers, but it was okay. She told me I could take Joshua into the casita in the backyard where they had some toys. Well I was thinking that the casita was going to be a small pool house type thing, but I was way off. The casita was a house in it's own right and bigger than my house at 2,200 sq ft. Holy cannoli. They built this house in the back so they would have additional room for children/grandchildren to be able to play in.
They had built a fountain for the children to play in, which was a cross between a fountain and a wading pool. That was definitely Joshua's favorite part of the yard. They also had a swimming pool and jacuzzi. I'm really bummed that I left the camera at home because it would have been some great pictures.
One of the other ladies there made the comment that if she ever got invited back to the house, she would most definitely be coming. I'm with her, it was such a fun time and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Flagstaff Pictures

Well we are back from a fun weekend in Flagstaff. The weather was beautiful and the party was so much fun. Joshua did get his very first sunburn, but it isn't too severe and it doesn't seem to cause him any discomfort.
Click "Read More" to see all the pictures. You can also click on each slideshow and it will take you to a bigger version of the show.

Joshua and Anthony at Grandpa Taylor's funeral luncheon



Anthony's cake and present opening.


Pinata whacking



Misc. pictures from the whole weekend. Including the "lock up your daughters" photo shoot.

"Men on a mission"

Today I was checking out the Arizona Republic's website and I saw a headline that I thought was a bit troubling at first. It said, "Mormons exposed by 'Men on a Mission'." I figured someone had written some book or something about how evil us members of the church are or something.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a group of return missionaries are putting out a calendar to raise money for charities in the areas they served. I have to imagine that the pictures probably overstep some modesty boundaries. They also sell apparel on their website and the t-shirts are actually pretty cute. There is one of stick-figure missionaries that says "I heart Mormon boys"

In any case, good for a laugh and I was pleasantly surprised that the article was not what I originally thought it would be.

If you are interested the website is: http://www.menonamissioncalendar.com/
The azcentral article was found here.

New Baby Ticker

I updated the baby countdown, however it is now a little inaccurate. I do only have 83 days left to go(as of today), but I am actually only 27 weeks pregnant. I guess having a c-section at 39 weeks just wasn't something that they accounted for. :)

3 months to go!

We officially have a date and time for Morgan's arrival. Yay! My c-section is scheduled for December 5 at 9am. It seems so much more real now. It seems the 5th day of the month is also a good day for birthdays in my family. My b-day is October 5 and my Grandpa Morgan's birthday was February 5.

My Mom and I also discovered that her grand children's birthdays are forming a pattern. Samantha is February 9, Joshua is January 7, and then Morgan will be December 5. So they are each one month and two days apart. The next grandchild will have to be planned for November 3.

Having the baby at 39 weeks does mean my baby counter is slightly off, maybe I will have to see about setting up a new one.

Sick :(

I had been working on a big post about our Labor Day weekend and the latest baby #2 news, but I have had a horrible migraine the last day and a half. I'm starting to feel better now, so that post should be on the way soon!

Hectic two weeks

I scrapped the post I was writing because there is has been so much going on I couldn't see going into quite so much detail about it all.
We spent labor day weekend with family and friends and that was nice. Lunch with my family, a barbecue with some of Ryan's friends and scrapbooking with my SIL Tiffany. Maybe I'll try and post some of my layouts. We'll see how motivated I get about that.
The rest of the week I spent a day and a half or so with a mondo-migraine. Definitely no bueno.

Over the course of the week Ryan's grandfather's health deteriorated pretty rapidly and he slipped into a coma and ended up passing away early Saturday morning. We were able to go over Friday night and take the family dinner and pay our last respects. Saturday my Mom made dinner for the everyone, so we delivered the meal and spent a good deal of time there as well. Sunday we also went and spent some time with Ryan's family. It's always sad when a family member passes away, but he had been in so much pain you can't help but feel happy for him that he is in a much better place.
There will be a viewing on Wednesday evening and then the funeral will take place on Thursday morning.

Our nephew Anthony was having a birthday party this weekend in Flagstaff, which was decided should still go on. So this weekend we will be headed out of town for a nice party and some cooler weather.

Wow, it's been very busy and also enlightening. Big life events really help you put perspective on what matters in life.