Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

Woah time flies!  Tomorrow we’ll be one week away from the due date and, while I’ve had some contractions that have kept me on my toes, I’m feeling well and am definitely still pregnant.  Here’s a picture to prove it (Scott took this last night during our evening scripture study).  Look at that belly, can you believe it!?  Do I really look like that?  In the middle of a recent young women meeting at church a sixteen-year-old suddenly blurted out “Well, Sister Hale is preg-nant.”  I guess I must look like that.

Lately, we’ve basically been trying to get everything squared away for baby brother’s arrival.  We’ve rearranged Susanna’s room (now the kids’ room), bought a few pairs of socks, and washed Susanna’s gender neutral baby clothes, Scott and I went on our last child-free date for who knows how long (we took a gift certificate to Red Robin and then spent our own money on the new Harry Potter) as well as our last session at the temple together (for more information about temples, click here), and the three of us went on a little family outing to see if there were any sockeye at Ballard Locks’ fish ladder.  I don’t have any photographs of doing laundry or watching Harry Potter, but here’s a few from the locks:(This four-in-one is Susanna boogie-ing on Scott’s shoulders to a jazz band that was playing on the lawn there.)

We have also started back through the alphabet again.  This week we’re talking about the letter C. I found this classic sesame street excerpt to show Susanna.  She loves it.

It’s been pretty hot lately, and to stay cool we’ve mostly been visiting wading pools and beaches and eating popsicles and ice cream, but on Friday mornings Susanna and I have been going to the local community pool to swim.  On the left is her after a swim and the right is her eating a homemade lime popsicle. She loves

 

 

lime.  Or maybe it’s green because her favorite ice cream is mint…

We’ve also been trying to keep our garden cool and hydrated, and we now have some yellow tomatoes (and many green ones) as well as a small green pumpkin (yeah!) but we’ve not had much luck with our carrots.  This photograph is of Susanna watering the herbs on our deck.

One thing I haven’t been doing is quilting, but I suppose I’ll get to that again someday.  Or maybe baby brother will give me another couple of weeks and I’ll be able to crank it out!

Just for fun (because I love it), here’s a photograph of Susanna in a “tent” in her bedroom.

One Last Trip

We’re down to six weeks (more or less) before the baby comes, so we decided to take a little trip before my feet (not to mention my belly) are too swollen to endure travel.

Here’s a few happenings from our Salt Lake City visit.

New Nephews (and cousins)!

Welcome Caleb and Peter!

One of the first things that happened after we arrived is that Scott’s sister Lori delivered twins—eight weeks early!  Amazingly, they are not only doing well, but they went home today!  They are cute little guys (it was great to get to see the pair!) and we are very excited to have them join our family.  Good work, Lori, Jeremiah, and little Jamus on surviving a multiples pregnancy.  Now the easy part, right? (that’s a joke, but I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully)

Here’s a pair of bodysuits I made for the twins.  Well, I only did the appliqué turtles (I bought the bodysuits at Target).  Lor and Jer—and the rest of us—were expecting a boy and a girl but Lori actually delivered two boys.  After much debate I decided to give them the gendered set anyway—and who knows; maybe one of them will like pink!

Milo!

My brother and his wife recently had a baby and we got to meet him soon after arriving in Salt Lake City.  He is very cute.  We knew that already because his parents have done a good job of keeping us posted, but it was definitely a treat to meet him in person.  Susanna got to hold him—and she was in heaven.  Thanks, David and Miranda, for sharing your son with my toddler.  And thanks for the picture too (I took it from one of their blog posts).

Park City Reunion

One of the major impetuses to going on this trip was a little reunion my family planned in nearby Park City.  Everyone but Sarah, who is busy preaching the gospel in Peru, came.  This is a photograph we took hiking, but not everyone (including our own daughter) made it on the hike.  Other than hiking, we also had a great time eating, watching movies, talking, and climbing up and down the several thousand stairs to Park City’s main street.

Scofield Tributaries

While we were in Salt Lake Scott, Susanna, and I also escaped for a bit of family time in the mountains.  We drove out to a beautiful part of Central Utah Scott and I once vowed to return to, and found the perfect place to pitch a tent on the banks of Bear Creek.

Here’s a photograph of Susanna and I huddled in front of the fire in the early morning waiting for the sun to reach us.

And here are some works of art we created the night before:   The next day we drove to nearby Fish Creek and hiked until Scott got too many ticks and scratches to keep going— we had to abandon the real trail because of a broken bridge (I didn’t want to cross the river with all this extra weight on my front end).  Here’s a picture of our sleepy camper (I’m referring to the barely-awake Susanna, but, after the hours of tent aerobics Susanna had put us through the night before, we were all pretty tired).

We had a wonderful time!

We also went picnicking and miniature golfing at East Canyon with Scott’s parents, but didn’t get a photograph because we got distracted and left early when Susanna got her first wasp bite and it started raining.  Susanna loved playing with family; playing, swinging, and climbing with her cousin Jamus and watching cousin Matthew’s very entertaining preschool graduation ceremony, and then throwing his broken kite around the house. 

Scott took advantage of the opportunity to go fishing as much as possible and enjoyed the chance for more time with his little girl; I just listened to comments (compliments?) on how big I was and how obviously I was pregnant.  We both loved seeing our families and Susanna get to know each other, and we all had a splendid time.

Here’s a photograph of Susanna at Silver Lake at Brighton.