Kadi's Birthday and Derek's Daddy Time

 I had an awesome birthday last weekend! A quarter of a century old and still going strong! ;) We partied with both sides of the family and, once again, I forgot to take pictures. I only took these pictures of my mom,  Kelly and Derek because I thought it was something I should document - Derek actually acting tired. Haha! He hadn't had a nap in two days and these were taken somewhere around 7pm I think. Nana and Aunt Bella were trying to help him get past a level in his favorite monster truck game and he looks... so excited. Right? Poor kid was just exhausted. We went home soon after and he fell asleep by the time we got onto the highway. :) Music to my ears...

Trying to figure out how not to blow up

 Pensive Derek is... pensive

 This is his first ever solo bug catch! Little critter was moseying along in the kitchen when Derek scooped him up and announced, "Mama! Bug!" He even offered to take it outside for me. What a kid!

These next few photos are from today. Derek loooooves to play video games with Mitchell. Well, sort of. Mitchell usually holds the live controller and Derek holds the dummy (battery pack removed) and pretends he's playing the game. His facial expressions and verbal cries of outrage (oh man! what THE heck?!) are super cute. :) Mitchell had a few spare minutes left from his lunch break before he had to go back to work and Derek was begging to play "race cars." Mitchell, being the fantastic daddy he is, flipped on the xbox for some quality bonding time. 

 Trying to tell Mitchell where he went wrong on that lap

 Cheese!

Sometimes you just get tired of losing to the "freaking hippie bus."

Surprise!

No, you're not seeing things - we've decided on a different name for this baby. Connor just wasn't sitting well with Mitchell or I and apparently Bryce has been Mitchell's favorite all along. That man! Why didn't he just say something?! Gah. Derek has been calling the baby Bryce off and on since I was about 26 weeks too. Seriously. Guess I'm the last to feel the Bryce-vibe but I like it better than Connor. Since we're quite sure we'll be sticking with Bryce William from now on (and since this blog is also meant to be a family yearbook for us), I went back and changed all the posts that mention "Connor" to Bryce. No need to confuse the kids in the future. :) Sorry if anyone has gotten monogrammed stuff. :S

Feeling a Little Sheep-ish?

Derek loves Shaun the Sheep. So does Mitchell. In fact, it's most often Mitchell who starts it by announcing after dinner, "Who wants to watch Shaun the Sheep?" :) Derek started doing this little Shaun the Sheep impression the other day. Too cute!

Bryce at 36 Weeks

We have the best ultrasound tech ever! She let me take video of Bryce and printed off a bunch of pictures for me. This kid is a chunk! He already weighs about 7 lbs and is measuring about 10 days ahead of schedule. He was still as a mouse so the tech could take all her measurements but when she tried to get a better look at his face, he wiggled back and turned his head away. Little punk. :)

Face Explaination

Heartbeat

Can you see his chubby little cheek?! He's so adorable!

 36 weeks 0 days

I guess most of you know but since this is more of a journal bit for me you get more details (or repeat details). I ended up having to go to Labor and Delivery at the hospital a little over a week ago. My doctor thought my water might have broken, so I dropped by to get checked out. Membranes were intact (my water hadn't broken) but I was 2 cm dilated and 40% effaced so the nurse called the on-call OB to be advised. The nurse came back about 10-15 min later and said rather casually, "So, are you feeling your contractions?" I'd been feeling what I thought were Braxton-Hicks (false labor pains) that were tight but not particularly painful... but apparently they were registering as big-time contractions and were coming every 2-6 minutes (sidenote: apparently I don't feel pain with upper-uterine contractions unless they're HUGE. I was feeling mostly upper-uterine contractions at this point). The contractions, coupled with the fact that I was dilated and effaced, meant that I was going to have to stay in the hospital for two hours so the nurses could keep an eye on me and make sure I wasn't actually going into labor. Thankfully, I hadn't changed at all (though the contractions stopped and started fairly regularly) and I could go home. Ever since though, I've been feeling some MAJOR contractions off and on throughout the day... especially after cleaning up or sitting in the car for a long time. I ended up calling Mitchell during the Relief Society Broadcast last Saturday in tears asking him to come get me. Really bad night. Understandably, I was rather nervous for this OB appointment today. The dr checked me and said I was barely a centimeter dilated. Wait, WHAT?! He said it wasn't uncommon for women to dilate and then close back up a bit, particularly since I'm not quite full term and especially since I'd been trying to take it easy and appease the contraction gods. Oh well. At least I can clean through the contractions and not be particularly worried. Plus, as of next Monday I'll be 37 weeks which is considered full term and Bryce can come whenever the heck he wants at that point. Mitchell even jokes that he's going to take me for a 5 hour car ride to really start my labor. HA! We'll see. I still have a huge list of things to get done before this baby comes so, as far as I'm concerned, he can take his time. Just as long as he doesn't come on the 14th - I'm not too thrilled about possibly sharing my birthday. ;)

Derek's "Baby" And The Proper Way to Eat Cereal

Derek has adopted a teddy bear. The past couple days, he's been calling this little guy his "baby" and telling me when is cries, needs a diaper and wants to be "colored" (ie, cuddled). He's probably getting this stuff from nursery and some of his little girl friends but I think it's super cute!

He's cuddling the bear and patting its back because it's crying

Isn't this the cutest? I love the reality check at the end, lol. Just in case you thought I was getting a little too comfortable with Derek handling babies...

Part Two: Derek has been asking for cereal for just about every meal. Usually I can talk him into something else but sometimes he refuses to eat anything but his beloved cereal. He can't sit still long enough to eat cereal with Silk (almond milk), but I finally found the solution to our dilemma - cereal and yogurt!! He found the best way to eat it, too...

Legs crossed, bowl in lap. Too cute!

200!!

Wow, this is my 200th blog post. I feel so accomplished. :) No really, this from the girl who couldn't keep a journal longer than a week? Who has never been able to keep track of ANYTHING?! One small step for mankind and one HUGE leap for Kadi. ;) It's been a great blessing to be able to go back and read my posts and see how life has progressed for me in the past four years. Granted, I really didn't start posting until Derek was born, but life really didn't vary much from day to day til then.

So what is the content of this momentous 200th post? Derek and his love for trains. Yep, nothing stellar, mind-blowing or insightful. Just recording those moments I want to remember. And Derek sure does occupy a lot of them. I pulled out this set of train tracks today because I just can't wait til Christmas. Really, why wait? He's got a big wheel coming for Christmas and the kid is OBSESSED with trains and train tracks right now. He's constantly pointing out the tracks when we cross or pass them and he's always on the lookout. Anyway, when I pulled out this little bag of tracks, his eyes went wide and, I kid you not, he gasped and clasped his hands to his chest before he started jumping up and down and yelling "TRACKS IN THE PARK! TRACKS IN THE PARK!" at the top of his lungs. The whole "tracks in the park" is referring to his current favorite movie, The Little Engine That Could (2011) on Netflix. There's one part where a young boys stumbles across train tracks in the park next to his school. Derek thinks any set of tracks are the tracks in the park. It's cute. :)

His train sounds are very authentic

At first he was happy to say "Cheese" every few seconds but after a while...

...my efforts were completely ignored. Shut in his own little world. SCORE!!

New Post!

Yep, feeling unoriginal today, so that's the title I'm sticking with. :) Derek has been learning how to dress himself lately and, while I'm not pushing him, I'm certainly encouraging him. I gave him an open ended go-put-on-a-shirt-so-we-can-go directive (he did have pants on at the time) and this was the response I got...

 T-shirt he slept in the night before (and decorated with oatmeal at breakfast), clip-on tie he refuses to wear for Sundays, and his favorite light-up Lightning McQueen shoes (impressively on the correct feet). Priceless.

This past Sunday Mitchell pulled out his Warhammer game to assemble some new pieces while Derek was napping. Naturally he was still assembling (some of these things have 20+ pieces!) when Derek woke up... and Derek made a bee-line for them. I love it when these two get together to "play" Warhammer. It's adorable! We'll teach Derek the rules of engagement later on but, for now, he sure does get a kick out of playing with "Daddy's toys."

Playing with Daddy

He was determined to take out Mitchell's guy

 Shooting something with the motorcycle. Apparently both accuracy and shot burst increase with the correct facial expressions. 

 The motorcycle suddenly sprouted wings and became airborne - see the tongue making a propeller sound?

What Happens in Sam Moon, Stays in Sam Moon...

...unless I bring my camera!! HAHAHAHA!!! Sam Moon is a jewelry store heaven. Jewelry and purses line the walls and nary a male is seen... except the not-so-little two year old boy with his mom, Nana and Aunt Bella looking for the perfect wedding hair piece. We didn't find anything similar to THE piece Aunt Bella saw at the bridal shop (but lots of pieces looked very pretty) so we decided to stop in to another part of Sam Moon that contains luggage and all kinds of gifts. Derek immediately dragged me to the back of the store to look at all the little toys and knick knacks and I spied a bin of rubber masks... and couldn't resist...

 I put this rubber horse head mask on him and helped him find Nana and Aunt Bella in another part of the store. Imagine turning around to see this 3'3" horse-headed toddler walking toward you.

What does the horse say?

 He's found yet another nose to pick

 This was the easiest mask for him to see out of

Demented Squirrel Dance

I wish I'd gotten video of our reaction to this picture. We laughed all the way out to the car.

After Sam Moon, we went to see Finding Nemo in 3D. Bella has been talking about taking Derek to see Finding Nemo in 3D for several months now, so we're glad she finally got to live her dream. ;) I was very pleasantly surprised and very relieved to see that Derek sat still for pretty much all but the last 20 minutes of the movie... and even then, he only switched between chairs and laps. We had the theater almost to ourselves except for one other family with a small toddler way down in front of us, so that really helped my stress level stay down. This theater served lunch, too, which was delicious!! Mitchell was even able to take an extended lunch to watch the movie with us, which was a huge bonus! What a perfect day! :D Thanks Mom and Bella for spending that precious time with us (and for getting me out of the house, lol). 

Dress Shopping!

My little sister is getting MARRIED! AHHHH!!!! She drove up to Dallas and we were able to spend some time together this weekend. Of course, when it came time to go dress shopping, we had to do a little research first. 

 This was hilarious. Kelly and Amy taught Derek how to scroll using the arrow buttons and he had a blast pointing at the dresses they pointed at and screwing up his face while he talked as if he had an opinion and wasn't just parroting what they were doing. HA! So cute!!

Online dress shopping with a toddler

Waiting for the bride to try on the first dress... and taken before the dress lady pointed to a sign that said, "No pictures please." Poo. Real-life dress shopping with a toddler is NOT recommended... but in the event that you don't have a babysitter handy, it can be done. Sort of. 

Wish you could've been here Val. We love you!

Sunday Best

I snagged a chance to get pictures of Derek in his Sunday best today... he's so handsome! We've given up trying to get him to keep his tie on but he still looks cute! :D Mitchell had a last-minute ward missionary meeting to go to after the three-hour block, so Derek and I hung out in the car listening to Mercy Me and sucking on Dum Dums. It was fun. :)

Isn't he a handsome little guy? Wish he'd keep his tie on though. :)

I love this kid!