Temple Square

We took the kids to Temple Square on Thursday. Since I have the girls up in SLC with me already, I had Zac and Eric meet me at my work. The kids were so excited. Not for the lights...but for the train ride on TRAX. My work is across the street from the Gallivan Center, so we only had 2 stops until Temple Square, but they loved it. We were only at Temple Square for about 20-30 minutes before we started heading back. The reason you ask? Aubrey's persistent, "I want to ride the train!" finally got to us. The second we got on the train Aubrey turns to me and says, "When are we going to the temple?" ARG! She was cute though when we saw the Christus and the misc picture of Jesus in the Visitor's Center. She kept on telling people that "That's Jesus! He's my brother!" Then Eric would get mad because HE is Aubrey's brother.

So Aubrey has been saying the funniest things lately. When we were going to daycare this week Aubrey says to me, "Mom, Superman flies huh." I said, "Yep he does." Then she said, "But batman, he FALLS with STYLE!" Then she starts giggling. Another time she just started laughing. I asked her what was so funny. She says "My tummy wants to eat that cloud! It goes, mmm boy that cloud sure looks good. But we aren't suppose to eat clouds. My tummy is so silly!" She has some imagination.

So on Friday Eric decided to cut his own hair. Aubrey came running upstairs and told Zac. Sure enough, Eric had cut the center part of his hair, and to the scalp on his side. Zac asked Eric why he cut his hair. Eric said he wanted to look cool. So Zac had him look in the mirror. Eric gasped and said, "I look stupid!" Zac told him yep, and you are going to school like that. Eric was not happy. Zac ended up buzzing his hair. At least it was Eric's hair not Aubrey's.

So most of you know by now, but my Dad and Diane are getting married. They haven't set a date yet, but it will be before March. I'm guessing their wedding will be in February, but don't quote me on that. It was quite the shock to us, but we are getting used to the idea. They made it "official" on Wednesday.

Depending on the weather, Dad and I will be coming up to Idaho this Saturday. If it's going to be snowing the whole drive though, we may end up staying. That is a long drive during storms. Our ward Christmas Party is this Friday, and since Zac and I are committee chairs we are going to be pretty busy all Friday setting up and getting everything ready for the party, and then busy during, and busy cleaning up after. Otherwise we would be leaving for Idaho on Friday night.

So Zac has been busy selling things on KSL and ebay. This is what happens when the kids get into the packing peanuts...

Crazy week

This week has been a crazy week. Work seemed to fly by. We ended up going to Zac's Aunt's house for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. When we were leaving Zac's Aunt gave Aubrey a toy dog. She has been taking it everywhere with her. We brought it to Dad's house and scared his dog Chaucer...it was pretty good. So Nathan found out on Monday that he got the job with the Utah Highway Patrol. He starts in 2 weeks and will be for Utah County. They are really excited. I guess they only had 1 open position in Utah County, the rest were for SLC. It was highly unlikely for him to get a Utah County position, but they want him for it. Congrats Nathan!

On Friday, I stopped at Dad's house for a moment. Dad came and sat by me and Devin and said, "I'm doing something crazy." I said, "What, putting up the Christmas tree?" For those of you who know my Dad he HATES putting up the tree. He goes, "No, I'm going on a date." So my Dad started dating this weekend. It sounds like it's getting serious pretty fast. As Devin said (and I am paraphrasing, I can't remember the EXACT words he used) "Dad doesn't do anything slow. He thought, maybe I'll get a dog in the summer (this was said after Christmas last year). The next day he came home with Chaucer. He said, I am thinking about maybe having the missionaries come live here. The next couple of days the missionaries were here. When he says he needs to be married to go on a mission, and by the way, I'm going on a date, he will be married by the end of the month." He ran into my Mom's best friend Diane the other day, and he asked her out for lunch. They spent most of Friday together, then he took her to Temple Square to see the lights last night and dinner. They are going out again tomorrow, etc. She will be coming to Sunday dinner. They really seemed to have clicked. They have a lot in common. My Dad works as an ordinance worker in the temple on Tuesday nights, so does she. She was my Young Women President growing up and I was good friends with one of her daughters. They both want to go on missions pretty much their entire retirement. She owns her home in Lehi, and her daughters are all married and live in Saratoga Springs. Their dates consisted mostly of talking about Mom. It's weird thinking about my Dad dating...it will be four years this January since my Mom died. I don't want him to be alone for the rest of his life, but it is still weird to think that our entire family can change so fast. I guess if he was going to date someone, I would want it to be someone who knew and loved my Mom, and could share in some stories about her. When he first told me, it almost felt like he was cheating on my Mom. I'm now starting to get used to the idea. I really do quite like Diane. She has some of the same characteristics as my Mom, which may be the reason why my Dad likes her. He may be furious that I'm posting this entry...but this affects me and my family, and this blog is like my journal. Dad was telling me that if they do get married, Diane has already said that she wants pictures of Mom up everywhere, like we have now. She wants us all to still talk about her. When we visit her grave, she wants to visit it with us. Dad told her that he is going to be buried with Mom. She said she wouldn't have it any other way. She has said a lot more other positive things about this. She seems to be understanding about our situation, and doesn't want to impose on it. So today at Sunday dinner my Dad told my Grandpa (who is in his 90's) that he went on some dates. My Grandpa's response, "Does she have a sister?" haha I laughed so hard. Anyways, I guess nothing really happened to ME this week, so I had to talk about other people's. :)

Thanksgiving a little early...

So we had our Thanksgiving dinner today at Dad's house. Justin and Lisa were coming through on their way to St. George, so we decided to have it early. It was some good eating. The kids always have fun when all the cousins are together. We pulled up to the house and the kids were playing flag football. Aubrey ran over and put on some flags, and Eric ran into the house. Aubrey loves ANY sport, and Eric is alright with baseball and basketball, but that's about it. We watched the BYU v. Utah game at Dad's house Saturday night. Again, tons of good food.

So the other day I came upstairs and saw Aubrey in the bathroom looking in the mirror. She looked like she had been crying. She was making a really sour grumpy looking face. I asked Aubrey what was wrong. She turns to me, smiles, and says, "Nothing, just practicing." Oh my. I had no idea my little girl practices being grumpy!

Bobby watches Eric in the morning before Kindergarten. The other day she let the boys play with some playdough in the kitchen. She came in and there was playdough everywhere! She asked them why would they make such a big mess. Eric looked up at her and said, "You didn't tell us not to." She goes, "You're right. You are absolutely right. I didn't tell you not to make a mess." He wasn't saying it to her with attitude, but innocently. That kid of ours! I guess five year-old logic can go a long way!

So our HOA lawsuit is still going on. It's been hard having hired an attorney in July because I don't know what the status is of our case all the time. It doesn't sound like it is resolving anytime soon. In fact, he just moved the court to join our title company, developer, realtor and loan officer. This case just got a lot bigger and complicated. We are somewhat frustrated. We never intended for it to go this big. Hopefully it won't be too much money either...I'm wishful thinking.

I've been preparing for a big homicide trial at work that takes place in two weeks. I had to go through over 500 autopsy and crime scene photos of this murder. DISGUSTING. I have never been so grossed out. I literally almost threw up a couple times. Then I had to blow-up 100 of those pics for the jury. I am suppose to go to the Ute Reservation next week to interview the witnesses and go back to the crime scene. I am trying to get out of going. So we will see how it turns out. It's a pretty interesting trial, I guess more interesting then asset forfeiture. :) So my work is having a "ROCK BAND FACE-OFF" on Tuesday. My chief attorney came in after lunch and set up his WII in the conference room. Then he ran into my office and told me that I am their singer. So we ran over and practiced for 3 1/2 hours. Apparently we have some good competition. I was just excited that I got paid to play nintendo for half my day. AND this was right after we all had to sit through an ethics training. :)

Zac has been busy with his internet classes that he is taking at UVU. He has been putting in a lot of hours trying to finish them up. Jennifer is growing so much! She has really started being vocal lately. She is really a good baby now. It's still really hard leaving her at daycare. The other day when I went to pick her up they handed me the wrong baby. Hmmmmm. I was NOT happy about that. AND they knew it. I guess it's the price you pay for working. If I could stay home with the kids, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's about it for us that last couple of weeks!

Back to Work I Go...

So I've been back to work for 2 weeks now...but life is just so busy I haven't been able to update! I got Eric and Aubrey's school pictures back, and just yesterday did Jennifer's 12 week picture. I can't believe she is already 12 weeks! The time has flown by! I'm really sad at how big she is getting.

I feel like I never even left work. Which is good and bad I guess. I was suppose to go to South Carolina this week to train some offices, luckily they thought I was still on maternity leave so they reassigned the training to another person. But the caveat is that I have to host the next group meeting in SLC in March. I got the approval from my office to do it, so I will take that trade any day!

The first day taking Jennifer and Aubrey to day care was really tough. In the nursery they had a new girl there who didn't speak ANY English. She had to ask me Jennifer's name 4 times, by the fourth time my eyes were watering up. Then I told her to feed Jennifer at 8:00. She just looked way confused. So I grabbed a bottle and pointed to the "8" on the clock. Oh my. That is how I left her at the day care. It was all I could do to not take her with me to work. They have one person that speaks English in the nursery, but she doesn't get there until 9 am, when I have to drop the girls off at 7:30.

My first day was hard to not see Jennifer. By the time I picked her up, she slept all the way home. Then I had to go to the gym to do my bootcamp thing, and by the time I came back, she was still asleep. I woke her up to feed her, and she fell back asleep. I held her for two hours before Zac told me to put her down. It was hard, I didn't even get to see a smile or ANYTHING that entire day! So to make up for it, I decided to do the bootcamp workout before work. Which became hard. I would be up in the night with Jennifer at 2:30 or 3:00, and then have to get ready for bootcamp immediately. So I basically got 4-5 hours of sleep total for the night. I couldn't handle that either. I only have to do the bootcamp thing until the middle of December. I have reached my pre-pregnancy weight now, so I am just going to build more muscle, etc.

Thursday night was the last night of our volleyball season. I guess we were tied for first place, so we had to play a tie-breaking game. I didn't get home until almost midnight. Then on Saturday we had a volleyball tournament the entire day. We took first place, so now we are playing in the last tournament next Saturday. I didn't know we even had a tournament, but Zac was great to watch not only my kids, but the other girls on the teams kids for the entire day.

Eric got sick on Thursday with the stomach flu. He has been sick for the past 3 Halloween's in a row! Luckily it didn't last too long. We were in charge of the ward's Trunk or Treat on Friday night. It went well. We made some homemade rootbeer and let the kids just go nuts! We did it from 4-5 so that people could still go trick or treating the regular way. Our neighbors are so great! There is a park by our house and houses are all around it. The entire circle of homes did a Harry Potter theme. Every house was something different...Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Azkaban, etc. The Bishop was Dumbeldore and gave the kids "sugar quills". They also got maps and wands and other toys. They went all out, it really was amazing how much work went into it! The kids had such a good time, except for Azkaban and the Forbidden Forest. They were a little too scared. The entire night Aubrey was taking FOREVER to go trick or treating. We were with a big group of people, and she was always last. We finally realized that she was blowing out the candles on EVERYONE'S jack'o'laterns! Oh my. She would actually lift the lid off the pumpkins and blow them out! It was a great time though even though it was raining off and on the entire time. Later that night we went over to our friend's house and played games until about 1 am.

So last night about 2:00 am, Aubrey woke up yelling for me. I was already up with Jennifer so I made Zac go see what Aubrey needed. Right when he sat on her bed, she threw up on him. Gross! So he changed her bed and clothes and got her back to sleep. Today, Zac has the stomach flu. I keep on telling him just to throw up and he will feel better, but apparently he has a "streak" of not throwing up, so he is doing everything he can to not throw up. Hopefully I don't get it! I don't have any time at all to take off of work. The sickness usually only lasts one day, so hopefully he can make it into work tomorrow. His birthday is on Tuesday, so I brought pies over to Dad's house for Sunday dinner. Zac was upset he couldn't even eat his birthday pies.

Night at the canyons

Not much happened this week for us. I am still loving the bootcamp. I didn't lose any weight this week, but I did lose 4% of body fat. I guess week 2 people usually don't lose much weight. I played volleyball twice this week for four hours. On Friday night I had a girls night out with my friend. I took Aubrey and Jennifer and my friend brought her girl Aubrey's age. We went out to dinner and went shopping after. Jennifer did pretty good. Aubrey was so excited that Eric got to stay home.

Eric and his friend Madison go to school together. I guess on Friday they had a hard day. My friend dropped off the kids at school, and Madison and Eric were arguing over who got to close the van door. So they both closed it. Madison pushed Eric and called him a "Mean boy". Eric walked away about five steps, then turned around and RAN at her and pushed her down. It was with such force that she rolled three times. She got up and started yelling at him. By the time school ended, they were friends again. We had a talk with Eric about not pushing, especially not girls. The whole time though, Zac was trying so hard not to laugh. We even had to leave the room during the "talk".

On Saturday we took the kids up to Provo Canyon to my favorite park, South Fork. We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows for smores over the fire. The kids had so much fun! They are still asking us to go back up. All of the leaves were changing color up in the canyon, it was so pretty. The kids loved making smores. After awhile though, Aubrey would just grab the chocolate and eat it without the other fixings. That is a girl of my heart. Jennifer did wonderful in the canyon. There is just something about being outside. She layed on the blanket for most of the time just being content.

Bootcamp

So I am hooked. I absolutely love the bootcamp! I felt like I had bruises over my entire body last week, but I loved it. Today we are working the arms again, so I need to psych myself up for it. The arms are my biggest weakness. I have lucked out and have had the trainer almost all to myself every day. I guess the other classes there have been 25-30 people in them. I have gotten more intense workouts since he is right there pushing me that much harder. I weighed in on Friday and have already lost 10 pounds! Alright, I know that most of that is water weight, but I'm still pretty happy about it. I only have 5 more pounds to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight. But I still have a ways to go to get completely toned. :) The bootcamp focuses on a different area of your body every day, either core/abs - arms - glutes/legs. Then on Friday's we do a circuit of everything. So last week I was lucky enough to have the core twice, and this week it will be the arms twice. It has been great having my dietician be my friend/neighbor. I have gotten a little special treatment, and I have been able to use all the programs before the group to help her troubleshoot any problems with the program. Zac has been great and has been very willing to watch all three kids every night while I go work out. During the morning I run 5 miles on the treadmill, but Jennifer is usually sleeping the entire time for me. I have been modifying my diet to have more whole-grains in it, so I made pizza on Saturday and made the dough with ALL wheat flour. It was really GOOD. I usually put 1 cup of wheat and 3 cups of white flour, but I think that from now on I will use all wheat. Zac liked it too, and you really couldn't tell that much of a difference. I am going to miss not having a garden in the winter. I was able to use my tomatoes, green peppers and onions for the pizza. So nice just to be able to walk outside to get your produce.

Jennifer is still a little congested, but gradually getting better every day. Aubrey had a fever all weekend, but is also getting better. Not much more has happened, nothing real exciting. I did play volleyball for 3 hours on Thursday night, which is always fun. :)

Long night

So last night I was up the ENTIRE night with Jennifer. She had a lot of mucus in her throat, not her nose, so she would choke every time we would lay her down. It was a little scary because she would choke so bad she couldn't breathe. So I stayed up with her holding her upright the entire night. We got into the doctor's first thing in the morning, and they said that it hadn't gotten into her lungs thankfully! I just have to keep on doing the saline drips, bulb syringe her nose even though nothing is in there, and put her next to the humidifier. (Which is everything we were doing last night) but that I probably have 2-3 more nights like last night. I am exhausted, and I start my boot camp today. My arms feel like dead weight from holding her all night. She is now almost 11 pounds. I'm hoping they are going to focus on the legs or abs today, not the arms. I wish Mountain Dew wouldn't affect my milk, but it does, and she would be up all night because of the caffeine. But I would sure love some right now!

Yesterday Zac blessed Jennifer. He did a really good job and is glad it's done. I'm glad she didn't scream throughout the blessing. She was having a pretty good fit before church. I asked Dad to take a picture of us at the church, and Eric kept on doing his "guitar pose"...so that is what he is doing in the picture. I learned the Michael Jackson dance "Thriller" this week. A group of us are doing it for the Stake talent show. Aubrey is really cute and tries to dance it with us. She has her monster claws perfected. :) We all went to D.I. and got some great dresses to ruin for our costumes.

This is a picture of Eric's first day of school. My friend/neighbor took this picture for us and gave it to me finally. :)

Oops!

So I finally got the battery recharged in my camera, went to take a picture and the camera slipped out and dropped on the kitchen floor. I completely broke it! Zac took it to work to try to fix it, but apparently when it fell, it stripped some gears out of it, and it won't turn on...oh no! I am having a hard time with this! I have already missed some monumental moments with Jennifer rolling over, Eric's first day of school, etc.

This past week I made salsa. I wasn't planning on canning at all this summer because of Jennifer. Dad told me that he had some tomatoes, I said I would take some home. I asked Zac to put them in the car. When we got home, I had Zac bring them into the house and he brings in four big bags of tomatoes. I couldn't believe it, then Zac goes, "I'm not done." He comes back into the house with two more bags! I had no idea that I was getting that many tomatoes! I hated to see them go to waste, so I decided to make some more salsa. I have a lot of onions and jalapenos in my garden, so we put them to use. I ended up making 40 pints of salsa. However, for SOME REASON while I was doing the water bath, I had FIVE jars burst on me! I have no idea why! When I put the salsa into the pints, the salsa was boiling, (like it's suppose to), and I put them straight into the boiling water bath, so I didn't really have a variation of temperature...I am really baffled as to why five of them broke.

So my neighbor/friend is a registered dietician and works with personal trainers. They are having a contest right now for the "biggest loser" to win $10,000, so I signed up. Since I just had a baby, I'm hoping I have a pretty good shot. It's not just based on weight, but fat percentage as well. Even if I don't win, it's a great excuse to have a personal trainer and get back in shape! I was in the best shape this pregnancy. I was doing four miles every day up until 5 days before I had Jennifer. So I'm not really too out of shape, but with this being my third baby, I'm just not losing the weight as fast as my first two kids. So I will meet with my personal trainer doing a "body bootcamp" 5 days a week for an hour a day, then I will do my own personal cardio for an hour a day as well. My friend is giving every participant diets according to the individual person, etc. I am really excited about it. I'm mainly excited to learn new exercises to help reach my goals. This contest starts next Monday, and will go through December. When I go back to work, they have the option of meeting at night as well to workout, so I can still keep it up.

Again, I'm disappointed about the camera, I really need to take some pictures of Jennifer. Maybe I will borrow Dad's camera occasionally. :)

Rolling over

Jennifer rolled over FOUR times yesterday! WHAT? She is only 2 1/2 weeks old! My other kids were months old before they rolled over. And of course, the battery on our camera is dead and we haven't been able to find the recharger. We were trying to get some good quality tummy time in with her, and she just refused to stay on her stomach. Zac started yelling for me, and I ran in the room just in time to see her roll over for the first time. Then she did it again, and again, and again. What a strong little girl!

Eric had his first day of school yesterday, and again, no battery for the camera. We think Eric hid the recharger, he tends to hide anything that has a plug. My neighbor took a picture of him at school, when she e-mails it I will post it. He had an amazing first day. He absolutely loved it. The next part is for journal reasons...Sunday night Zac gave Eric a father's blessing for the school year. In the blessing he blessed that the kids would be nice to Eric, etc. When I went and picked him up from school the first thing he said to me was, "Mom! It worked! Dad's blessing worked! Everyone was SO NICE!" He seemed to grow up over those hours while at kindergarten. When we were going to kindergarten he held my hand the entire way there. When I picked him up, he almost ran the entire way home, extremely excited to do his homework, and ready for the next day.

2 week fiasco

We had Jennifer's 2 week check-up. She is weighing in at 8 lb 3 oz and 21 inches long. She is in the 75% for her length and 50% for her weight. With both Eric and Aubrey I had their pictures taken when they were 2 weeks old. So I decided to carry on the tradition and have Jennifer's picture taken. Wow. It was quite the ordeal to get this pictures taken! We had to wait at Kiddie Kandids for 3 1/2 hours! I'm glad I did the pictures with the kids first since Jennifer was still asleep, but she was NOT having it for her picture! The picture that we got was literally in between crys! I could not get her to calm down. She refused to nurse, refused to take the binky, refused everything! During the pictures Aubrey goes, "Uh-oh, pee is starting to come out!" So I had to hurry and RUN her to the bathroom with Jennifer and Eric, but Aubrey wanted help to get ON the toilet (which was disgusting), but I couldn't help her because I had screaming Jennifer in my arms. She climbed on, went to the bathroom, got her hands VERY clean, then ran back to finish taking pictures. THEN Eric had to go to the bathroom! Are you kidding me? Apparently he didn't think about it when we were IN the bathroom with Aubrey. So we ran back to the bathroom, etc. Finally, I just told the lady taking Jennifer's picture that we were lucky we got the pic that we did, I just needed to get home. At one point in this, I had ALL three kids crying. Oh my. A little discouraging! Things would have been fine if we didn't have the long wait to even take the picture in the first place. I felt like everyone was staring at me as I was leaving the mall. I had Jennifer screaming in her car seat in one hand, Aubrey crying in the other hand while holding Eric's hand who was also crying. It may be awhile before I venture out on my own again. However, I did do a successful grocery shopping trip Monday night with all three kids by myself and it went smooth. Today they just weren't having it.

One week old

I can't believe she is already 1 1/2 weeks old! It has been a busy week! Jennifer has had jaundice, so I have had to go to the hospital every day for the past week to get her levels rechecked. Her points are now starting to go down, but luckily we never had to admit her in the hospital, although the doctor threatened it every day. I have been sick as well. I got a sinus infection right when I got out of the hospital, but didn't get the antibiotics until Wednesday. Then yesterday, I got mastitis. My fever was at 104.5 pretty much all day yesterday, with really bad chills. BUT, because I was already on antibiotics for my sinus infection, I already had a head start on getting better. Today I have a low grade fever, but I am feeling a lot better. It's hard to get better without any rest! :) The hard part about yesterday was that Zac had rented a drill for the cement from Home Depot, and my fever and chills didn't kick in until he was gone. So I called him because I was shaking so bad, I was afraid to hold Jennifer to change her diaper. He came back, but because we already paid for the rental, he had to get the holes drilled which took HOURS, so I was really sick and had to take care of the 3 kids. Miserable day. Days like this make me wish I had my mom to help me. It's hard to not have her here when pretty much everyone who has a new baby has their mom's to help them out. I know Steph can relate to this.

On Thursday Eric had his open house for kindergarten. We got to meet his new teacher, and find out where his locker is, coat hanger, bathrooms, etc. He is so excited. They already had homework for him too. We go take an assessment on Thursday to see where he stands education wise. We had to take some pictures for his homework so I have included some of those pics (the one of the family and himself).

I absolutely cannot STAND cat hair. So Zac and Barb got creative shaving Buster, with a mohawk and chops and all. Zac wanted me to post a picture of their creative work. AND Aubrey felt left out, so I have included a pic of her as well. She keeps on picking flowers everywhere she goes, and today, my Dad's yard was her pick. So she wanted her picture taken with the rose that she picked. She hasn't been pricked by a thorn yet, so hopefully it happens soon so she will stop picking flowers!

Day one and Smiling

Introducing...

Jennifer Kristine Nielson! She arrived last night at 9:01 p.m., and was 7 lbs 11 oz, 18 1/2 inches. I was suppose to start my induction at 8am yesterday, but they could not get me in until 10 am. They started the pitocin immediately, and I started to have contractions 2 minutes apart right away. The doctor couldn't come in to break my water until 12:45, and by this point, I was still only dialated to 2 cm. After he broke my water, the contractions started hitting really hard every 30 seconds. I lasted for 2 hours with the hard contractions, then finally called in the anethesiologist for my epidural. They checked me again at 6 pm, and I was only at 2 1/2 cm! How frustrating! I had a new nurse come in around 8:30 p.m. and she said I was finally at 4 1/2 cm. I guess the nurse that put my catheter in put it in the way of the babies head, so she couldn't come down. So this nurse moved it to the right spot, and I immediately felt major pressure. After 15 minutes I couldn't handle it and had Zac page the nurse and I was ready to go! The doctor ran over and I only had to push once and she came! This time around I didn't need any stitches or anything, and already recovery has been so much better! She is nursing beautifully, and so far doesn't even really cry. (I know that by this point she has only been here for 13 hours, but, I am VERY hopeful!) We are just excited to have our new little girl finally here! Aubrey and Eric were so cute when they saw her. Aubrey couldn't stop laughing she was so excited! A big thank you to Dad for letting the kids spend the night TWICE even though we had only planned on ONCE! The kids had a wonderful time!

Derby night

Zac and I got called as the ward activities chair people. So we had to get an activity together really quick. We ended up doing a potato derby on Friday (which was also my birthday). We had to have the activity quick since our new arrival is coming on Thursday. Zac has won the derby every year that he has participated. But not this year. He spent well over an hour on his potato car, and Aubrey kept on asking for one. He slapped one together in two minutes and handed it to her. Aubrey took FIRST PLACE! She was so excited! Zac had even made a trophy for the winner, so Aubrey got to take home the trophy. Eric wasn't so happy. He REALLY wanted to win bad! As we were getting in the car to go home, I told Aubrey to sit next to Eric. He goes, "Come on Aubrey, come sit next to the LOSER." I have no idea when he became so competitive!

During the potato derby, I started having contractions every couple of minutes the entire night. I was pretty excited. After we cleaned up the cultural hall, we went home, I took a shower, and laid on the bed waiting for Zac to finish his shower. Almost immediately the contractions stopped. DANG IT! At least we didn't actually make it to the hospital...that would have been a little embarrassing. I'm a little jealous that Brett and Rachel on their FIRST baby went early! I keep on telling myself that Thursday is not very far away...I am just SO UNCOMFORTABLE! I would think that by my 3rd I wouldn't have to be induced. But there is an upside to this, I am able to plan up to the day. My last day of work is Wednesday, and the kids are way excited to sleep at my Dad's house that night. Eric is able to bring in treats to daycare to tell his friends goodbye; we can get Eric's kindergarten registration finished; I'm able to get all my ducks in a row at work with timecards, etc; and we can still work on picking a name for this girl!

Zac is under the impression that his two-week "paternity leave" is to get projects done around the house. So he decided he is going to build the deck during this time. We will see. I'm not too enthusiastic about his plans. That's about it for me...just the waiting game.