Five years!

 Dean's breathing a sigh of relief as we leave the ceremony.  Or I guess you could interpret it as "what have I gotten myself into?!"

 I loved our cake!

When I first saw my bouquet, it wasn't what I expected and I was disappointed.  It was probably the only bridezilla-type moment I had that day (at least from my perspective.....my mom might remember differently).  But as the day went on I loved it more and more.  Now I regret not having it preserved!

The first few years seemed to go by slowly.  Now I can't believe we've suddenly been married for five years.  Today is Dean's day off so we're heading up to the zoo (with the kids, of course).  Then we're picking up our anniversary cake from The Cake Lady bakery....something I look forward to all year!

Mister Fix-it (times two)

A couple of our favorite toys have long been without working batteries.  Drew loves climbing on Grant's rocking horse, but he didn't even realize that a long, long time ago it actually made noise.  Another one of the boys' favorites is their electronic drum set.  It's one of those toys that comes out every month or so, but only stays out for a few days before it drives Dean and me crazy, and we hide it back under the china cabinet until one of them discovers it again.  It plays all kinds of techno music and they LOVE dancing to it!

When toys run out of batteries at our house, it takes months to replace them.  It's just not on the top of my priority list, and half the time I have no idea where to even find a screwdriver (Grant gets into them so we end up putting them in random, unreachable places.  Then we can't find them when we need them!). 

But the other night, I was resolved to finally change batteries in these toys.  Of course the boys both had to help.  Grant is obsessed with Dean's tools....and don't even try handing him one of those fake plastic ones!  So he and Drew took turns helping Dean unscrew the battery packs.  They were so intense.....so funny to watch boys with tools (and Grant is also obsessed with batteries, so this was the cat's meow for him!).  

 
 Grant's saying "No!  It's my turn!" in the background.  It drives him crazy that Drew has to have a turn every once in a while.

Success!!  Now Drew doesn't have to make his own "eeee!" noises while he's riding on the horsie (although he still does anyway). 

THREE little rascals!

A few of you already know this.....and I'm WAY late in posting it now. I'm pregnant! We wanted three kids, but we weren't planning on getting pregnant quite as early as we did. So right now I'm 14 weeks along, which is unbelievable to me.....it feels like I just found out a few weeks ago. Pretty much as soon as I found out (early Feb), I started telling almost everyone I saw. People would casually ask how things are going, and I'd just blurt it out. But a couple of weeks ago I realized that most people who don't see me regularly still don't know!

I'm due October 18, so this will be our third fall baby (Sept, Oct and Nov!). Our original "plan" was to maybe have our third child about a year from now.....so we'd have a spring baby to mix things up a little (and to have a little bit more separation between these two). Drew will be turning 25 months shortly after the baby is born (he and Grant are 22 months apart).

I felt okay during the first trimester.....almost always tired and nauseous at times. Maybe a little worse than with the boys, but not too much. I actually didn't have as many strong food aversions as I did with the boys (those two pregnancies were almost exactly the same), and I have actually been ravenous most of the time! Pregnancy has always cleared my skin, but this time it seems to be making me have more breakouts.

People ask if I'm hoping for a girl this time and tell me they're hoping for a girl for me (which is slightly offensive, because it insinuates that a boy would be a disappointment, or that a family isn't complete unless it has a girl in it. But that's a whole other story....). Of course I would love a girl, and I had even ordered a book on how to get pregnant with one sex or another. We just hadn't really gotten around to trying yet. And about a week after I found out I was pregnant, I read through the book in detail and realized we pretty much did everything you're supposed to do for a boy! And now, I think I'm fine with that.....I watch my boys and think to myself, "how could I not want another one of these?" (Of course there are some days when I think, "what in the world was I thinking, wanting three kids?!") You hear about so many people going through anguishing health issues with their babies and kids, and it makes you realize that the sex really is secondary.

I saw a blog once (can't find it now, of course!) where every week of her pregnancy, the girl wrote about a few random things about her mental state, nursery progress, etc. They were different each week, and I thought it was so interesting. So ideally I will do something like that. Although here recently, it's been hard getting motivated to blog at all.....so we'll see!

finally, some Easter pictures.....

Some Easter pictures, a week late.....

The boys had an egg hunt in our living room on Sunday morning. They had a blast! Drew understood the concept quite well, something Grant didn't understand at that age (but Grant didn't have a big brother to learn from). The morning went downhill, though, when the boys started fighting about candy (I knew this would happen.....next year I swear I'm boycotting candy for Easter!). And as we were getting ready for church, I was drying my hair in the downstairs bathroom and I heard a series of loud thuds. I just knew someone was falling down the stairs. Sure enough, Drew was laying at the bottom of the stairs when I ran out. And our stairs go straight down with no turns.....so falling down the stairs (especially from the top) is something that's always terrified me. Grant had apparently pushed him at the top of the stairs, without realizing what would happen. Thankfully and amazingly, Drew was fine. So needless to say, we had a fun morning!

After church, we took some pictures outside our house (you can see behind Drew all of the construction associated with our new brick fence at the end of our cul-de-sac...it is QUITE the mess, but it's been a super fun place for the boys to play).




Family picture, with some goofiness thrown in there (the boys were, in general, NOT cooperative during picture time!).



Our attempts at taking a picture of the boys together (click on them to see a bigger version...I think the last two are especially cute!):

Success!

I can't believe it happened, but I actually got a picture of both boys smiling for the camera at the same time. Grant was sitting on this overturned laundry basket in our bedroom, and Drew sat next to him. I said, "hold on guys, stay there....I'm gonna go get the camera." So I grabbed it from the study and came back in. Amazingly, they were still sitting there when I got back. I said, "say cheese!" and miraculously, they BOTH did!

The boys got haircuts this past weekend. They both desperately needed them (especially Drew). I'd been putting it off for so long because I wasn't thrilled about spending $17 (plus tip) to get their hair cut at Cool Cuts or one of those places. I had a haircut appointment this weekend and my haircut lady also cut the boys' hair. Grant did great, as always....he was just excited about getting a sucker at the end. And Drew did fine as long as he sat on my lap.....he happily ate his sucker and did great. And he looks super cute!!! I think he looks months older now. I'll post some more pictures later where his haircut is more obvious (although it's probably obvious enough from this picture.....you can actually see his ears!).