Coming out of the fog

All I have to say about my lack of blogging these past two months is I am definitely playing the pregnancy card! With all three of my pregnancies, for the first trimester I am sick all day every day and I lose so much motivation because I feel so yucky. I absolutely hate not wanting to get things done, I am such a to-do lister. Plus blogging is something I struggle with even not being pregnant, so it's no surprise to me that this fell by the wayside :) So blogging, running, eating healthy, reading, and giving more than necessary to any task may have not taken top priority for these past 3 months, but I am happy to report that the things that matter most, Tyler, Cole, and Kate, did. I'm glad I felt good enough to still play, read stories, cuddle, cook (most days), and for the most part keep the house running. Big thanks goes out to my sweetie, who picked up all of the slack.

That being said, I am now feeling GREAT in comparison and ready to get back in the saddle. I'm picking up where I left off with my goals to accomplish before 30 and still feel good about getting those done. I'm running 4x a week in the mornings again and it's amazing how that just changes my whole day when I know I've worked out already. I feel so grateful.

I'm now 17 weeks and things are looking great so far. I love hearing that little heartbeat at my doctor visits and am looking forward to the ultrasound on the 26th. It's such a different feeling this time, going in to find out the baby's gender, because I completely don't care if we're having a boy or girl. We will be ecstatic either way. I'm going to say girl?

Things have been relatively quiet in a great way around here since we got back from our fun Christmas trip to Oregon. Getting away is always great, but it's also nice to get back into a routine and just relax at home too. We spent 10 days traveling over the holiday and drove hundreds and hundreds of miles, even doing 13 hours in one day on the way back. The kids were terrific considering, but we haven't driven more than 30 minutes at once since :)

And here are some memories we've been making recently :)

Cole has the biggest imagination and makes up the most random situations for us to be in throughout the course of a day. Just today I pretended to be a dragonslayer, person who was swallowed by a whale but got stuck in the middle tube and was safe, alien on the moon who had gills to breathe air and didn't need an air tank, and punch-balloon fighter (all his ideas and terminology). I love just playing along and letting him amaze me with his ideas. I don't know what having an extremely active imagination pans out to in adulthood, but I'm sure it will be a great quality for him now and always :)

This day he came to me with an empty vhs case, rubber band, and the (now)broken antennae tip off the stereo in his room. He wanted me to secure the case on his back with the rubberband around his tummy and put the broken antennae inside. The case was his lightning pack so he could fly and the tip was his supershooter to shoot the aliens with when he got to space. Here he goes, off to get the bad aliens!! I love this kid.

Kate is really doing new things daily these these last couple of weeks and it's so fun to see the differences between her and Cole now be more apparent. She loves to do all the normal 1.5 year old stuff, but has quite the love for cleaning and taking care of her dolls. With her own free will, she'll get the broom and pull the barstools out and attempt to sweep underneath as she's seen me do, and she can always be counted on to help me empty the dishwasher or pick up toys. She likes organization and cleanliness much more than her brother, and also in more interested in fine motor skill type things (using her spoon, putting small things in the right place, etc) than her brother ever was at this age. She is such a joy and we love having her sweetness in our home.

Loves to paint!
Let me see your muscles!! So true to their personalities!
Cole has such a sweet spot for Kate. It's not always evident, he for sure can get frustrated with her and push or yell, but usually it's more like this. He will randomly give her kisses, hugs, and he has the cutest "Kate" voice that he'll use to talk to her. It is the best part of being a mother, seeing them grow in love towards each other and learn how to love and be selfless by being around each other. They also both love to help me bake which makes me very happy.
Matching ties! Handsome. That jacket used to be Tyler's when he was Cole's age.
Tyler's Christmas present to me! I've wanted a banana holder, so he made me one in my favorite color! Utah red. I love it! Don't you think he should sell those through the bookstore?
We spent Christmas in Oregon with the Petersen side, but we also got to spend a day or two after that with Parker, Jenn, Jackson, Josh, and Tyce at my parent's which was wonderful. We had a family night where the boys were the stripling warriors. It was so fun.
Gotta love cousin tubs! Kate and Tyce had a cute little bond, I think they both kind of knew they were the littlest and sort of looked out for each other.
Like I mentioned, spent Christmas in Oregon which was wonderful. But all the driving was not so super :) The kids did great, thank goodness for a dvd player (which we only pull out on OR trips so it's a novelty for sure) and plenty of new snacks. This was what I usually saw when I looked back though:
Had some fun memories in OR, this one was my favorite: we wanted to go see Haceta, even in the pouring rain (it rained the whole time we were on the coast!) so Tyler, Jess, her fiancee Chad, and I headed out. We turned down this side road for a couple miles we like to run on cause it's so beautiful thinking it would be a cool little drive in the rain. It was, then we turned around and came to a tree that had fallen while we were down the road! It was HUGE and there was no way around. Luckily we were close to the main road and help was not too far away. We informed the ODOT about it and they sent out the parks guys to check it out. They determined it was such a big tree they would have to call in a professional faller to take care of it. We had to leave the car there overnight and when we came back the next day this was what it looked like: crazy!
Our Oregon family, minus Jordan, Jolene, and Austyn:
Happy face!
Christmas morning!! Wearing his new superhero gear my mom and I made him!

Same tradition we had, sitting at the top of the stairs for a picture before running down and seeing what Santa brought.
Pre-OR, we had a great family night at temple square looking at all the lights. Tyler brought hot chocolate and we had a nice little break during our wanderings, it was fun!
Touching the temple.
Cole was really excited to see Santa this year and tell him he wanted gummi sharks. I'm holding Kate off to the side because she didn't want anything to do with him!
Everyone loves cuddling with daddy.
I love that he loves cooking with me!
Our first snowman of the season! Poor Bob was knocked down within the hour by some neighborhood hooligans on their way home from school. We had fun making him!
He loves helping shovel. Too bad we haven't had much snow this year :(

This dollar store squishy stuff was such a hit and kept him occupied for days.
Loves those dolls!

Loves to pretend to go shopping or to the park with the dolls in the stroller.

Mom made this adorable countdown for Cole and Kate during December, they both looked forward to it every morning. They were paper tubes with treats inside!
Okay, this is far back, but here's mom carving the Thanksgiving turkey!!
We found the best Christmas tree!
Whew. All caught up. Life is good!