babies are coming... 37 weeks

My sister, Tara, and I had our boys on the same day 7 years ago.  Since then, she had two more, and we thought our baby years were behind us.  So it was a super surprise when we found out that we were pregnant together again, our estimated due dates only three days apart!

She's having a girl, we're having a surprise!  I wanted to be surprised with Gwen and Drake, but Ryan wanted to know, so I agreed.  This time, I'm taking the reigns.  This might be our last baby, so why not do it the way I want to?  Luckily, Ryan eventually got on board and is down for a surprise.

Anyhow, Tara needed a last trip before the baby comes.  We try to have a mom/sisters trip every summer, but that stupid bar got in the way.  So we planned a last minute one, right before these bellies burst.

While it was not well documented with pictures, we had a ton of fun.  Pool, pedis, eating, talking, laughing... all things a girls weekend should be.

Tara's baby is going to be like 10 pounds!!

Now, because her baby is gigantic, she's scheduled to be induced on Friday.  I don't think I'll be going that early, so our babies won't share a birthday again.  :(

But let me tell you about my Drakey boy.  He is the sweetest thing.  He loves this baby so much, and he insists on taking care of me.  If I need to pick up anything, he says, "no mom, let me get that, you're pregnant".  If I need something from upstairs, he says, "I'll get it for you mom, you're pregnant".  He's my water boy, always refilling my water cup, and he's always wanting to touch and kiss my belly, and talks to the baby.  I love it.  

36 weeks

 A week ago, it was raining really hard here.  (it was awesome!!)  Well I was on my way to go get a facial my girlfriends gave me for graduation, and was going down the stairs to the girl's studio, when I slipped and fell down a few stairs.  It was scary, but more embarrassing since she heard me.  Anyway, since then, Drake reminds me before he goes to school each day to "wear your belly band, and hold on to the hand rails when you're going down stairs."  What a sweet heart.

Also... nesting.  This baby doesn't have any clothes yet.  I have three onesies, that need to be washed, no blankets, burp cloths, bottles, stroller, etc.  I started to panic the other day, and decided that maybe we should do a shower before the baby comes.  We were going to wait until after the birth so we know if it's a boy or girl, but we'll go ahead anyway.
But I do have a cute crib my friend Jen gave me, and I did buy and wash the crib sheet!  See, I'm getting ready.  ;)

 And here I am.  37 weeks pregnant.  Full term.  And I promise, I do put on clothes and make up most days.  But apparently I don't take pictures on those days to prove it.  

You can see that the baby's dropped.  Which means I have more room to eat more!  But I do pee about every 14 minutes.

37 weeks

I have a good friend who's been doing a weekly update on her blog about her pregnancy.  It's so cute, and now I wish I had been more diligent about documenting this.  I was fine doing without taking belly pictures, until I was looking for pictures of me pregnant with Gwen and Drake, and only found one picture of my belly with Gwen, and none with Drake!  So even though I feel extremely unattractive, I will take some pictures anyway so when I look for pregnant pictures in 7 or 17 years, I will have some.  

And still, just about everyday, Ryan and I will look at each other and say, "I can't believe we're having a baby!"  Still shocking.  Still exciting.  Can't wait to meet this baby!

..36...

McPhie celebration season has come to an end.

Gwen, Drake, and I all have birthdays in July, and then in the first couple of weeks of August is our anniversary, then Ryan's birthday.

Ryan's birthday came on a Friday.

Fridays are trial days.

So we sent him off to trial with a yummy waffle breakfast.

I got Ryan this watch for his birthday.

 But in typical Ryan fashion, he wants to exchange it.

Maybe for this one...

or this one.

Which one do you like better?  I thought about the light wood one, but thought it might get dirty.??  So here's some advice if any of you, for any reason, give Ryan a gift for any occasion, give him a gift card.  I still try and give him gifts, but they are just about always getting exchanged.  

It's okay.

Well he had a good trial (won on one count, lost on another; but he knew that one would be tough).  We celebrated with dinner and The Wolverine.  

It's a good one.  Even though Hugh Jackman was not in very good shape for it.

Not.

Yes, I just said "not".

Then we had family birthday party on Sunday.

 And I was too lazy to put 36 candles on the cake, so we had 3 candles + 6 candles.  It equals 36 in candle math.

Oh yah, and here are the kids with their As You Wish paintings from our family anniversary date.

Drake's hair is awesome

 Oh, and here's Drake's self portrait on the wall in school.

Notice the robot/lego arm, and the gun arm.
But no legs.
I love his creativity!

Happy birthday Ryan.

Lego Boy

Buster Brown is obsessed with Legos.  He watches videos about them all the time, and recently he has gotten into making his own.  Here's a sample of what he's been working on.



He is constantly asking how to earn money so he can buy more Legos.  I love it.
But I have a feeling I won't love it when we have a baby crawling around here putting everything it finds in his/her mouth.

First Day Of School

The kids have been wanting to go back to school for the last month.

They're starting a new school this year, and don't know many kids there, but were still beyond excited to do it.

So here they are.  Drake a second grader, and Gwen a fourth grader.

Drake insists on socks with his Toms

I die at their cuteness!

Also new and exciting for the kids is that they get to ride their bikes to school!

 In all their excitement, we got to school way early and had to wait for the gates to open.  Then once inside, we had to wait for teachers to come out and get their students.  They didn't want parents going inside the first day, so I didn't get pictures of them in their classrooms.

And then I worried all day that they'd get lost, or not make any friends, but they both were all smiles once school got out.  

It's going to be a good year!

...7...

My baby is SEVEN!

Family party the night before the big day.

Drake requested a pinata, and picked this one out.

 Mason trying to hit it was so cute!

 I didn't get a very good shot, so you may not be able to tell, but that would be a Lone Ranger cake.  I felt so bad.  It was crunch time for bar study, and I was planning on just buying a cake from a store.  But then when it came down to actually doing it, I couldn't.  I had to bake a cake, but took a short cut with a Lone Ranger Lego set on top.  He was stoked.  Phew.

 That night I kissed my sweet little SIX year old boy good bye forever.

I cuddled that sweet baby boy so hard!

And in the morning, he magically was my sweet SEVEN year old baby.

He slept with his new Lone Ranger set.

This may be his favorite present of the day.

The Lone Ranger silver mine. 

If you haven't noticed, Drake loves the Lone Ranger.

And he LOVES Legos. 

 It turned out to be one of the best days of bar study I had.

These two sat quietly at their table working on that silver mine for hours!

If only I could have purchased a huge expensive Lego set everyday to occupy them.

When you don't get a b-day party, you get to go to Perter Piper Pizza

Drake's birthday was up in the air.  He chose going to Jack's house in California and going to Legoland with him over having a birthday party.

The problem with that was we were planning on Ryan taking Thursday and Friday off for our trip, but then last minute Ryan had a trial that looked like it was going to go for Friday, so he wasn't able to get Friday off.  But then Thursday he found out it wouldn't go.  Ugh!

So we packed up fast and hit the road.   

These boys were so happy to be together again!

 So were these boys.

 Unfortunately, I had to close myself off and study the whole trip, including while the dads took the kids to Legoland.

It better be worth it.

I better pass the bar for missing out on this.

 At least I got to see my sister.  Tara and I are due only days apart!

This happened before, and our boys were born on the same day... maybe it could happen again?

Curleyhair girls 7 months pregnant.

Happy birthday buddy.

We love you!

...32...

More nights than not, this boy wanders into our bed in the middle of the night.

So I wake up like this.

I'm so blessed, not only because of this cute boy, but my nose swells up when I'm pregnant.

 And I guess since he's hijacking our bed, he feels the responsibility to make it.

 Drake had a primary teacher in our old ward who made the kids these "Drake was here" heart bean bags, so they could give service and leave it behind.

It's the cutest thing ever.

I love it!

I had a birthday.

I don't have any pictures of it, but my friends took me out a couple of days later and spoiled me with a new Coach purse.

Can you believe that!?

 So I'm 32, which I didn't feel like that was old, until I thanked my mom for birthing me 32 years ago.  That just sounds crazy.

At least I'm a nice round number, that is divisible by 4.  For some reason, I love numbers divisible by four.  It just makes me feel good.

While I'm "studying for the bar", I figure I might as well have some bread rising.

I think I've got my white bread down!

So yummy!  My house smells so good right now!

 This whole bar thing is a joke.

How am I supposed to study when I'm home with kids out on summer break?  I feel like I study 12 hours a day, but get done what I would be able to do in 4 hours if I were at the library.  :(

And finally, I'm 28 weeks!

That's officially 3rd trimester.

there's a baby in there!
I still can't believe it.

*baby's the size of a large eggplant (2.25 pounds)

*if I have to wear clothes, they better be stretchy

*the baby is very active, and the kids LOVE to feel the baby move

*I finally bought the first item of baby clothes, that only leaves everything else to acquire!

*I've gained 20 pounds so far...

My reduced sugar/salt diet started out well, but after a couple of birthdays with excuses to eat cake and ice cream for weeks, I'm off the wagon.  I need to get my act back together!

And now, back to studying!

mom, can I have a shaver?

Want to see one of the cutest selfies ever?

Behold-

 Gwen and Austin.  hashtagnofilter

I have put a serious limit on the kids screen time this summer.  No TV/games until chores are done, and the kids have read for at least 20 minutes.  Often this doesn't happen until 4:00 pm if it happens at all!  Sometimes I think it's harder on me than on them.  Like when I'm studying and the kids are driving me crazy and I want to say "just go watch a movie!" but then I remember they can't.  :p

For Drake the hardest part is that I have a lock on my phone, so he can't just pick it up and play Bad Piggies whenever he wants.  But he has learned that if my phone is locked all he can do is make an emergency call, OR go to camera and take pictures!  Seriously?  Doesn't that seem funny that a locked phone will take pictures?  I mean I get the convenience thing, but what about the privacy thing?  Anyway, I plugged my phone in tonight and discovered HUNDREDS of pictures like these:

 Including some not so flattering pictures of me buried in my books and computer with headphones on, tuning the world out.  But you can thank me for sparing you those pictures. 

Did I mention previously that the bar is ruining my summer?

Well it is.

Study all day everyday, and I'm still behind.

Perhaps because I still have to make time for this cuteness.

 This boy is so rad.

And Gwen and I also have been on a baking kick.

I don't know how many loaves of bread I've baked already this summer, I want to find the perfect recipe, so I'm slowly perfecting wheat bread, but also am figuring out the right combos for white, oatmeal, and potato breads too. Gluten-free we are not!

 And I told you last time how Gwen was making tons of cookies, well she's whipped out her first cake ever too.  All by herself!  My little Gwenny Crocker.

In other news:

25 weeks, and the baby is the size of rutabaga.  Yep, a rutabaga.  

Should I be concerned that the garbage bags are in the same spot they've been for months, and the other night Ryan didn't know where that was??

Maybe I should be concerned about the fact that Gwen asked me today for a shaver so she can shave the hair on her legs?!!?!?  Holy smokes, I'm not ready for this.

oh what do you do in the summertime...

Gwen is back at it in synchro.  It's really fun to watch her and how much she's improved over the last year.

First place!

 She's been working really hard to get her splits.

 Drake is killing it on swim team this year.  He's been put in the fast heat, and his relay team took second!  I love how proud he was of that.  I love that he doesn't complain about having to go to swim this year.  It's great what confidence does.

Second place freestyle relay!

We attacked Camelback with cousin Cloe.

I've been studying for the bar everywhere possible.  My best block of time is when the kids are in the pool each day.  Then Drake steals my phone and takes random pictures (like below) and plays Bad Piggies.  He's an addict.

Gwen made cookies almost everyday the first week of summer.

I had to tell her no more cookie making since it usually leads to a mess, and many calories consumed.  But I love that she can read a recipe, and do it all by herself!