#3!!!!

I am thrilled to announce that Phil and I are expecting Arias #3 due October 15th!!! I am 14 weeks now and feeling great. I was pretty nauseated up until a few weeks ago. As long as I eat every few hours I'm good. And if I start to feel nauseous I chew some mint gum and it goes away immediately. I am not really showing, but everything seems to be expanding on a daily basis. Stomach, hips, butt, thighs, you name it.

I feel like I have already been pregnant forever, mostly because I thought I was pregnant way before I knew I was. Before I found out I had signed up for a triathlon and had started training. I was still nursing Jack at the time and I seriously was eating like a horse. I couldn't figure out why I was SO exhausted and SO hungry. I guess when you're trying to feed three people and working out pretty hard you're bound to suffer a little. My first blood test after I found out about the pregnancy showed ketones in my urine. Which they told me basically meant my body needed carbs and was starving. I couldn't believe that was possible after how much I had been eating! So I obviously am not doing the triathlon anymore and I decided to wean Jack. I was really sad about that and was feeling a lot of guilt. My biggest concern about having a baby this close to Jack was that Jack wouldn't get a lot of attention. But I stopped feeling so impossibly hungry, which was was good. And my blood levels are normal again.

I still don't feel like it's real. I think I felt the baby move. You'd think I'd be able to distinguish that by now. I know when I was pregnant with Jack I felt him around 14 weeks. Phil and I both are thinking this is a girl, but I guess we'll see! My ultrasound is scheduled for next month and I can't wait!

The Beach

We decided to head down to the beach in Galveston a few weeks ago and it ended up being the perfect day. It started out kind of rough because everyone and their dog must have had the same idea and it ended up taking us 2 and half hours to get there, instead of a little over an hour. But the wait was worth it. We found a great spot on the beach and the water couldn't have been more perfect. I couldn't believe how warm the water was. The last time I went to the beach was last July when we went to Newport Beach. Let's just say, I was pretty much freezing the entire time. Livi has always been a little more timid when it comes to water. But she was a lot more adventurous this time and even let Phil take her out really far. Jack on the other hand was giving me anxiety because he just wanted to swim away. He kept trying to go out further and further and when I would try and get him to turn towards the shore he would just let go of my hand and keep going. He would sit down and let the waves knock him over. One wave completely submerged him and laid him flat on his back. I hurry and picked him up and expected him to cry but he just sputtered a little and kept on going.

The best part of the whole day though, was watching Livi and Jack play in the sand. I can't believe it didn't bother them to be so dirty. But they were in hog heaven. Jack was doing face plants, rolling around and pretty much getting sand in every possible crack and crevice. When we first got there and put our towels town, Jack stepped off and touched the sand and hated it! He kept trying to brush the sand off. He did quite the 180. Livi loved to go in the water and rinse off, then come back soaking wet and cover herself in sand again.

It was such a perfect day. I literally love nothing more than spending time with my family. We will definitely be going back many times this summer!

Easter

There was a squirrel off to the side so he refused to look at the camera

covered in chocolate

This was by far the best Easter I've ever had, that I can remember anyway. There is something about sharing the holidays with kids that make them so much more amazing. We kind of had a week long celebration leading up to Easter. Livi had 3 Easter egg hunts so we were inundated with eggs and candy. The first egg hunt was at Discovery Green. There were 15,000 eggs spread out on the grass, and they had it divided in half. One side was for kids 0-2 and the other for 3 and up. They let the little kids go first so Livi was able to help Jack fill his bucket. Livi was so cute gathering the eggs when it was her turn. I kept telling her to grab as many as she could and we'd look at them later, because she would pick one up, shake it, inspect it a little and then move on. She still had her basket overflowing with eggs. Some of the eggs were filled with candy and the others had numbers so you could go claim your prize. On top of all their candy, they also got a jump rope, play doh, pop rocks, little lizards and frogs and some jewelry. We also went to a primary activity for another egg hunt and a few games.

We went over to a friends house for Easter dinner and had an Easter egg hunt with all of the little kids. I think this was Livi's favorite because she was with so many friends.

We went to the beach all day Saturday and got home to find 5 packages from Phil's parents and one from his grandma. They sent a ton of stuff. His mom sent the kids adorable Easter outfits, along with enough toys to stuff 10 Easter baskets. Phil spoke in sacrament meeting and talked about the last days of Christ and his resurrection. He did such a good job, even though he forgot he had a talk until the night before at 8:30. I would have been freaking out, but he pulled out a great talk.

Family Pictures

The other day my friend Amber asked if she could take our pictures so she could try out a new site for a shoot she had booked later that week. Umm, a free photo shoot with a really good photographer who happens to be my friend? She didn't have to ask me twice. We had a blast, especially Livi. I thought she would be camera shy, but she was running all over the place posing for the camera. Jack was a little tired so he didn't smile all the time like he normally does. I think the pictures turned out great and can't wait to get some of them framed.

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of course, there had to be one of Jack sucking his thumb with a handful of my hair.

New Car!

Last year after Jack was born Phil and I bought an '06 Honda Odyssey. I think we were too hasty in our decision because we soon discovered that neither of us loved it. Granted, we bought it because we got a screaming deal. However, we soon learned there is some truth to the adage, "too good to be true." I love other Odyssey's, but we kind of got a lemon. Within a few months we had spent a nice chunk of change fixing things. For the past several weeks Phil has been saying he wants to trade it in and get a new car. I was dragging my feet because the van was paid off and is working fine so I didn't think it was very prudent. Then one day I went to open Jack's door and it wouldn't budge. I had to open it from the inside. It worked fine after that, for some reason it was just that once, but it lit a fire under me so I called Phil and told him I was ready to get rid of the dang thing.

We have some friends with the Mazda CX9 and I love them, plus they had the best reviews for 7 seaters, so that's what we decided to go with. It's crazy to think you can wake up in the morning with not even a thought of getting a new car, and drive home in a new one a few hours later! Let me tell you, I am SOO glad we did it! I love it!

Bike Ride

Last month Phil had a conference in Austin so we tagged along and decided to make a weekend of it. We loaded up the bikes and trailer and decided to bike the trail around Lady Bird Lake. The weather was perfect and the lake had some really beautiful views. And some questionable ones too, but oh well. I'm not sure if it was under construction or if it's always like that. But every once in a while the trail would lead us away from the lake to some pretty random places, one of them being a power plant.

Livi, Jack and I dropped Phil off at his conference and headed over to the hotel to check in and when we got there Livi kept touching everything and saying, "sweet!!" She went in the bathroom, grabbed the cute little wrapped soap and started pumping her arms and said, "we have soap!! Sweet!!!" "There is a little bed for me by the window, sweet!!!" (a window seat) I absolutely love how excited she gets over the simplest things. Everything is "the best ever!!" It makes my job pretty easy I must say.

Rainbow Pancakes

Thanks to Pintrest, Livi and I made rainbow pancakes for breakfast on St. Patrick's day. While they were cooking Livi said, "This is the best day ever!" I couldn't bring myself to eat more than one, they looked a little too much like Play Doh to me. But Livi and Jack devoured them. We also had Reuben's for lunch and dinner. Man, I love me some Reuben.

That weekend we also loaded up with an obscene amount of candy and headed to the drive in to watch John Carter. Phil (especially Phil) and I love Tim Riggins. We hadn't been to the drive in since Jack was just a few months old and he slept the whole time, so this was a little different. He was all over the place and did not want to go to sleep even though it was two hours past his bed time. I could tell he was exhausted so I finally strapped him into his car seat, sat next to him, gave my hair so he could suck his thumb and he was asleep in no time.