The Big 3-0h!

We celebrated a big birthday last week, Tyler turned 30! We decided the fun couldn't be contained to just a single day, so we did something fun for him each day the week leading up to it. I love his birthday and always try to make it a big deal, it's the only day of the year that is just for him (unlike other holidays when we all get something out of it) and I really want him to feel loved.

We counted down the days till his bday, starting with 7, and found little ways to surprise him each day - like a present to open from one of the kids, washing and cleaning out his truck, surprising him at work, or letting him take a nap :) It was a wonderful week.

I'm 6 months along now and still feeling super. I'm so grateful I am still able to run and walk in the mornings and just continue on with my normal life pretty much. He's moving around a lot at nights now, Cole has felt him kick a couple times and the look on his face is just priceless. It reminds me what a miracle it really is. Still haven't got a name picked out, boys are so much harder than girls! Another thing I'm looking forward to is a week-long trip with my mom and Tegan, we're flying to Texas to visit Christine, Walt, and Kai, then to DC to see Parker, Jenn, and the boys. I've never done a trip like this without Tyler or the kids for so long, I know I'll miss them lots but am really excited about some girl/me time.

Update on some of my 30 goals: I am moving right along with most, and need to get going on some. I have given away 2 Book of Mormons, made a new pie consistently each month, started memorizing "The Living Christ", completed 2.5 literature classics (reading Great Expectations now, it's large), and done several house projects. Another thing I started doing was indexing names for familysearch.org. It's amazing! Very very easy to get started on and then do as you can, go here to find out how to get started. It honestly takes minutes, is easy to figure out, and feels really rewarding to me to make names and information more accessible for people researching their family lines. I think everyone should do it.

Tyler has been busier with DJing lately and of course tons of scout things going on, as always. He is working on lots of projects around the house, I think the warmer weather has got us both motivated to get some things done. He works so hard to provide for us and he does an amazing job of balancing work and his responsibilities at home and church. I am so blessed to have him!

Although it's been warmer this past week, we have a huge storm coming in this weekend and we had another one the weekend before, in typical spring fashion. We got out and played a lot in the last one, not sure of when it will really be the last of the season. Cole loves to brush off the car, and Kate loves using the snow shovel to push the snow from the lawn onto the sidewalks. What helpers!

We were having baked potatoes and salad for dinner one night, and I had bought a head of lettuce from the store for salad which I usually don't do. Cole thought it was so cool, he loves lettuce, and he begged and begged to be able to eat the whole thing. He didn't finish it all, but had a great time taking huge bites out of it. It's so funny to me because I remember wanting the same thing at my grandma's when I was little, I'd ask for huge chunks of iceberg lettuce and walk around eating and loving it. Weird.
Here's the countdown for TP's bday.
Mom and Tegan came out for some shopping and we hit up Lagoon Trail the night before because the weather was so great. I love my little sister and how fun and full of personality she is, she is so silly! Can't wait to spend a week with her.
For lunch on Tyler's bday, I made BLT's and he had a chocolate milk (from Dari-Mart in Oregon, his absolute favorite) that he saved in the freezer for his special day. It was a yummy meal.
The birthday boy! Cole picked out a hat for him to wear while we sang to him, it was quite girly but looked great :) He requested a marionberry pie and that was yummy too. It was a really good eating day at our house. Doesn't 30 with 3 kids sound so old??! My turn in a couple months.
Kate obviously loved the pie as well :) Cole ate two slices, but he is a clean eater and that's boring.
Cole was dying to get out and throw water balloons this week, so we put sweats on under/over swimsuits (it wasn't a really warm day) and played outside with water balloons. It was a blast! We can't wait for summer.
Kate's balloon sprung a small leak and she was trying to drink it like a water fountain but kept squirting herself in the face. Cole and I were cracking up!
Another adorable cheesy face. I love that face.
Next post will have pictures of our trip!

An extra day

It being a leap year, having an "extra day" today made me feel motivated and when I feel motivated I usually get a blog done! A couple other things I accomplished today were: vacuumed and dusted downstairs, played lions with Kate, let Cole change into his jammies at 1 pm, laundry put away, had scripture study, chased kids around pretending to be a bear, and let kate and cole make the pancakes for dinner. Just a few of the super important things today. Tyler took the car to work which is fine, we usually just walk to where we need to go when he does (park or grocery store being the main places we "need" to go to) but when it's blizzardy snowing outside that also means homebound. Which I really didn't mind today, it was nice to have a stay inside and play day. Some days being stuck inside makes me go crazy and I think of an errand to run just to get out of the house, but today was fun. I feel blessed we are all healthy and that my kids have such great imaginations and easy going personalities. They make every situation better!

Other things that have been happening lately...Cole is still completely loving preschool. He's had a lot of fun things going on lately, like this day last week - Beach Day. They could wear swim attire to school and they did lots of fun water related indoors things. Yes he was quite cold walking to school, it was probably about 30 out. And check out my tulips coming up behind him! At least a couple inches tall. Tonight they are covered in 4 inches of snow, poor things.

Last weekend was a huge treat, Tyler and I cashed in on a present I gave him for Christmas, a getaway to our family cabin. We left the kids at mom and dads and headed up for a very fun couple of days. It was so beautiful and peaceful, exactly what we needed.
Can I just say how wonderful this guy is?? I could absolutely not have chosen a better husband, father, provider, etc. to be with forever. I found my high school journal while we were home and a list that I had made when I was 16 of what I wanted in a husband. It's so amazing to me that he fits every single quality I listed, some of them very specific, and I remember back then putting some things down that were "would be nice if he does this, but not a deal-breaker" type of things. He even had all of those! I am such a lucky girl to have the exact right guy for me. I love him so much!
Keeping with my goal/tradition of making a pie each month, this month I tried a custard pie called the "Tyler Pie". It was our 10th President John Tyler's favorite pie, so I made it in honor of him (President's Day this month) and my own Tyler, who loves custard pies. I spent forever on the crust, what with the pre-baking, etc., and it came out a little overdone but the custard part was perfect which was what I was most worried about. However, it was SUPER sweet, it tasted like a pecan pie without nuts. Not really my favorite, but glad I tried it!
I took the kiddos on a 3 mile walk the other day when the weather was nice and we ended up at Farmington Pond, which can usually be counted on for fowl to see and feed. These were NOT nice geese, I was actually taking this picture while heading towards Kate to stop the vicious birds from attacking my fearless daughter (Cole is behind my legs sort of whimpering). They were making this mean honking sound, like they were so hungry they wanted to take a bite of us, which they did shortly after this shot. I went to take Kate's hand and lead my children to safety, and one of them pecked at my foot and then bit my pants leg and was holding on! I was so mad at it for being so aggressive around my kids I kicked it off and we left the pond straightaway. I like the little ducks that just quack at you from the water so much better.

Just loved this face she was making at the bar the other day, I was getting her snack ready and turned around to see this. Cracked me up! She usually doesn't wait so patiently.
Here are my kids doing P90X! Tyler does it once in a while, and this morning Cole just asked if he could so then Kate had to de-shirt and join in as well. I was actually suprised with his attention span, he lasted for about 20 minutes, just adjusting the workout to how he wanted to do it, then when he was finished he ran and took a shower all by himself which he's never done before! He's so proud of his big muscles now.
We had a super fun family day in Salt Lake, one of the things we did was go to the new Natural History Museum. Cole's been talking about going to a dinosaur museum and this was so much fun. They had several spots on the floor like this where you could see through to an exhibit below that you could also walk over. It threw Kate off at first, she was walking so cautiously like she would fall through :) Yes, Cole is wearing sunglasses.

They also had this fun dress-up/play area for younger kids that we stayed at for a good half hour. Kate dressed up like a hummingbird and Cole was a wolf.
She was crosseyed for awhile trying to figure out what this long orange thing is on her head.
This was a fun water/river where they could put things in at the top and they would float down and then catch them with their nets.
Valentine's Day was so fun this year, I had 13 kids over at our place! Tyler had to work sort of late so I invited some kids from the neighborhood over for dinner and then hanging out so their parents could go on a date. I'm definitely doing it again next year, we had a blast. This was later in the night when a couple kids had left and everyone started to get a little crazy, we finally put a disney show on :)
Every Valentine's morning I love doing a little treasure hunt with clues for Cole (and now Kate) to find his bag of treats, this year it ended up in the tub. It was fun.
Heart shaped pancakes for Valentine's Dinner!!
Playing at the park.

My Valentine's Day present this year - a new piano!!! I walked upstairs after being gone for a few hours and there was a piano in my front room! I was totally surprised, I had no idea. I had wanted one for years since we moved in, but just hadn't happened. I love it and am excited to have music in our home as the kids grow up. Cole can play EIEIO while I play the rest of the Old McDonald song, and also the Jaws music which when he does Kate says "shark!" and they both go running to hide.

Here I am at 20 weeks. Feeling wonderful - not sick anymore, and not too large and uncomfortable. He's kicking around so much more, just starting this week. I love it!
Another fun preschool day was pajama day! You can't beat that. He has his knee pads on because he loves rollerblading to school.
Coming up in March, we have a HUGE birthday on the 11th with my sweetie turning 30, and then I'm taking off for a week towards the end of the month with mom and Tegan to visit Christine in Dallas and Park and Jenn in DC!! It's going to be a great month!

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!