Last Week of Summer Vacation

This has been the last week before school starts so I tried to fit in a few last summer adventures. We went to the river again one day. It was Dejah's swimming birthday party yesterday so we were able to get in a last summer swim as well.

On Monday I found out that I had failed my one hour glucose test. What! I have never failed that test before and I was bummed and stressed out. I did not want to have gestational diabetes! I had to do the dreaded 3 hour test. I wasn't able to go in until Thursday and I had bad dreams about it every night. Seesh! You have to have your blood drawn four times. You have to go in fasting at least 10 hours and they immediately make you drink the whole bottle of glucose (after they draw your blood first). That was for sure the worst part. With the one hour test you have to drink a small cup of it and it's awful but for the 3 hour test you have to drink a whole 10 oz bottle. It's pretty bad. Then you are still can't eat anything for the next three hours. That definitely made me a little sick. Surprisingly the three hours went pretty fast. I had my phone, movie player, iPod,  and a book. I went for a walk outside for a bit as well. I had to get poked 5 times as one didn't draw any blood. The last two definitely hurt pretty bad as my poor tiny pathetic veins were none too happy. I decided to celebrate such an awful thing by treating myself afterwards to Hawkins Pac Out and I got a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake. After all, it could have been the last  junk meal I got to enjoy without pricking my finger after every meal for the next 2 months. Luckily fairly early on Friday my nurse called me and told me that I had passed. Hallelujah! She said all four tests came back normal and to get diagnosed with gestational diabetes at least 2 of them have to come back abnormal. Crisis averted!  I knew when I scheduled my one hour glucose test at 2:45 pm I would be in trouble and I was right. I tried to just eat protein only but I was feeling sick and so I had two pieces of whole wheat bread with cheese about an hour before my test. I guess that must have thrown the numbers off. Next time I will do whatever it takes to get that test taken in the morning.

Class lists came out Friday afternoon. Corbin didn't get the teacher I wanted! Bummer. I have no idea who the other teacher is, I'm guessing she's a brand new teacher. Who knows, hopefully she will be awesome. I mean I was a new teacher once, we have to start somewhere. I am happy that the other kids in our ward that are in morning Kindergarten are in Corbin's class so that was some good news for sure. I was shocked that my friend who had requested the teacher we wanted and had special circumstances and was able to talk to the principal about it still didn't get her. Oh well that's kind of good news for me since now her son is in my son's class.

Yesterday we went to Meridian Pool for Dejah's birthday party. It was fun. The water was cold. They definitely don't heat the pool as much in August as they do in June. Afterwards we all ordered pizzas and went and ate them at Gabe and Christy's house. It was fun to chat with the family for a few hours. Dejah's grandma Harris made her a German chocolate cake. Bless her! It was so good. I'm so glad I don't have gestational diabetes so I could enjoy it, twice!

Corbin is very excited about going to school. He has his back pack full of his school supplies which he loves. Any time there is a TV commercial about going back to school or a character on a show going to school Corbin talks to me about it. A funny thing we overheard him say this week was when he said to Gabby, "honey I have to go to work."

Gabby says funny things all time time. She just loves to talk and sometimes she follows me around and won't stop talking to me. It's pretty funny. Today she said to Corbin, "will you please marry me?" She has also matured quite a bit in the last month or so. She cries much less and seems to keep herself more emotionally in control. I can pretty much talk her out of crying most of the time with a few words now which is awesome!

Piper is our little monster. So much so that we have decided to throw her a monster birthday party. We decided it was very fitting of her. She is super fiesty and she gets ticked if things don't go her way. I pretty much don't like to take her anywhere. We think so far her terrible twos (which technically haven't started) are like Corbin plus Gabby times 5. Wow! She can be a handful. She is also super duper funny. She's full of personality. My favorite thing is when she tries to tell Corbin off, "op it! Orbin!" Or when she tries to talk to Gabby and she yells out, "Abby!" I got tons of Piper pictures this week. What can I say, she's a cute Piper Monster.

Check out that $5 life jacket. Nice!

Don't drink the river water Piper.

If I had to pick a picture to capture Piper this would be it! Piper Monster! If you can't tell this is happy yelling.

Corbin found a huge slug on our walk at the park.

Hawkins gives you tons of fries so my kids were happy to scarf them down for me when I got home.

We had a little down poor Thursday night. 

Redfish Lake and Thrift Stores

All of my family went on our annual camping trip to Redfish Lake and we bailed this year. I wasn't up to going this year. It's a ton of work and I just didn't feel like it. It doesn't help that Scott doesn't like camping either so he's always ready to bail. Plus it just feels like we've traveled a lot this summer and I'm 7 months pregnant... the list goes on. Anyway we bailed. I'm a little sad on the one hand to miss out and that my kids missed out but I'm mostly really glad we didn't go. I think the people that went had a great time. At least I know all of the kids had a great time.

Scott had a crazy busy week this week. He went down to Texas on Monday and Tuesday and he was in charge of the ward party on Wednesday. He is so glad that is over. It was a good turn out and it was fun. The rest of the week he had to do a lot of things for elders quorum and work.

On Saturday I did a bunch of thrift store shopping and found some great stuff. I found a nice life jacket for Corbin for $5 and  nice short bike for Gabby for $5. On Saturday we went and cleaned the church and I fell in love with their vacuum. Our vacuum died on us and Scott said that Costco was selling vacuums so we decided to go and check them out...on a Saturday afternoon with the Piper beast during nap time. Piper was on the verge of screaming and having a tantrum the whole time. I wasn't loving any of the vacuums so just as we were about to escape Piper screamed and there was blood running down her face. Awesome! She got a bloody nose in Costco on a Saturday. We high tailed it to the bathrooms and then we high tailed it home. Later that day I decided to check out a few more thrift stores and ended up buying a vacuum for $10 at Goodwill. The great thing about Goodwill is you can return things, certain things you only get store credit but still for a thrift store that is awesome. I knew there was a reason Goodwill was my favorite. (I once bought a vacuum for $30 at the DI and it didn't work and they don't do returns there). I bought the vacuum and we tried it out and it worked great. For now we will use that. The vacuum I fell in love with at the church is only nearly $700. I'm thinking $10 sounds pretty good for now.

When the girls wear their "wedding dress" as Gabby refers to them they are quite the spectacle, but they are so cute.

Nice outfit Gabby.

Roaring Springs and the River

Monday was my sister in law Anna's birthday so I babysat her younger kids while she went out all day with Alex. It was kind of a long day for everyone I think. My house is pretty small and boring. The kids played in the sprinklers for awhile but other than that we were just hanging out in the house. On Tuesday my friend invited us to come with her to Roaring Springs Water park. I got in free with their gold pass and Corbin had the reduced price of $15. The girls would have been free but I knew there was no way we would get our moneys worth if we went with them. Luckily Scott was available and I left the girls with him. Corbin and I were with my friend and her kids from 11:00 to 4:00. Corbin loved it. He would have gone on every ride if he wasn't just a couple inches too short. We came home and ate dinner and decided to go back with the girls and meet Alex and Anna's family that night. As soon as I was there with the girls for 5 minutes I was grateful I was smart enough to keep them home earlier in the day. We played in the kitty section until it closed. Corbin was happy to get to play with his cousins for awhile and go on a few more rides. We definitely got our money's worth that's for sure. What a day. It was a kind of a bummer being pregnant because I couldn't go on any of the rides. Oh well, the sacrifices we make right? On the way home I decided to really make a day of it and we stopped and got shakes at Sonic on the way home.

On Friday we went on a picnic to the river. I made tin foil dinners in the oven. They were good. Unfortunately the bees agreed. We were getting swarmed and I was freaking out. We were able to take our food and eat mostly in peace further away from the river. The kids and Scott had a fun time playing in the river.

Other than that I have just been trying to do a last minute cram session with Corbin. I have basically only been reading with the kids all summer and its amazing how quickly they forget things. We have been reviewing the alphabet, numbers, and practicing writing. We have about two more weeks to cram before school starts. I can't believe it! Corbin is really excited. I'm nervous, anxious, and excited too. I loved school and I'm hoping Corbin will too.

Cousins and sprinklers.

A quick stop on our bike ride. I think I may look a little ridiculous riding my bike big pregnant while pulling 2 toddlers along side a preschooler!

Brave Corbin.

Cute Piper

Cute towel girls.

Enjoying our dinner for a few moments before the bees, the bees!

What a Week!

This week has been full of visitors, failures, and victories. Piper's potty training ended up being a big fat fail. I'm sure that's no surprise for most of you. She's young! I really thought she seemed ready and she was also very encouraging at moments of her potty training. I still swear by the potty training method I use. I just really disagree with the author about a couple of things. She swears that 22 months is the ideal age to potty train and that if a child is 22 months they can in fact be potty trained. Well I tried it with both of my girls and followed the program to a T and it was a big fat fail. I've had great success with that method with Corbin and Gabby at around 2 1/2. Failing with Piper wasn't nearly as devastating as it was with Gabby the first time. I will say that it was completely exhausting and I was so happy to put a diaper back on the Pipes on Thursday. I'm not going to rehash what I've done so many times with potty training but will link to potty training Gabby at 22 months. It's basically the same thing.The main difference is that Piper did show some encouraging steps along the way and Gabby did not. Luckily it was a positive experience for all my kids even though it sucked my week and my life away a little bit. They were more than happy to have snacks, treats, juice, and rewards. Not only that but we watched a lot of TV last week and as much as I hate to admit it things were much happier and calmer around here because of it. Oh well.

On Monday night Nicole and Rustin stayed at our house on their way home from the Oregon Coast. It was so fun to have them here. They took Scott and Corbin and Gabby to Chuck E Cheese. I stayed home with the potty training girl. After that they made us shakes and we just chatted the night away. It was so fun to talk with them. I surrendered at around 1:00 a.m. and they talked until almost 2:00. After breakfast they headed home. I hope they come and see us again!

On Tuesday we bought a van. I can't believe it. I've been searching and waiting for months. Scott checked it out on Saturday and took it to the mechanic as well. We just had to wait until his online bank could transfer the funds to his Zions Bank so we could pay the guy in cash. I asked my visiting teacher to come over during Piper's nap and we went and bought the van. The guy we bought the van from buys Honda Odysseys from people when their transmission goes out and he fixes it and then resales it. Well it must have been a desperate time for him because when we got the paper work from him we saw that he spent over $2,000 fixing the transmission and he sold it to us to $3,000. Who knows how much he bought it for and if he even made a profit. When we got home I decided to start searching craigslist for a small car to possibly buy so Scott can drive something with better gas mileage. You wouldn't believe the scraps of metal people are trying to sell and for the cost. It just confirmed to us even more what an amazing van we got for an even more amazing price. It's the blessings of tithing I'm telling you!

On Wednesday night Kelsey and Justin came and stayed at our house on their way home from Seattle. I couldn't do much as I was still potty training Piper and you can pretty much do nothing during that process. They had the misfortune of eating a potty training casserole I made on Saturday. After Piper went to bed we escaped and filled up on some Taco Bell and Sonic shakes (thank goodness! Ha). We had a fun time visiting with them as well.

On Friday night we went to Sizzlers as a whole family. We had 5 coupons. I did the summer reading program though the library and we got 3 free kids meals from that. Scott then had two coupons for steak and salad bar. We ordered 2 of those and I don't like steak so Scott got 2 steaks and I got the salad bar. It was yummy and mostly fun. Piper can be a beast at times although the beast was mostly contained.

Piper sucking down her first juice day one of Potty Training.

 

Corbin and Gabby holding a bunch of cash for our van!

Corbin got Scott to take him on the roof again and have a Popsicle. 

To say that my girls are a little clingy to me is a bit of an understatement. Gabby crashed on my big belly this afternoon.

Here she is!

My kids love Uncle Rustin.

Cute Aunt Colie.