the weeks are flying by

Summer is in full effect and we are loving every minute!

 My little sweet pea spends most of her days dreaming peacefully. 

 And I spend a whole lot of mine cuddling her while she does. I love these precious moments where her favorite place to be is right on my chest. These days just go too quickly and I am trying to savor every second with her while she's still itty bitty. 

 

Big Brother doesn't seem quite as amused with my Emmerson cuddle time. He's been pushing every little button there is to push. Some days it takes everything in me not to lose my cool with him. And what makes it extra hard is that he goes from making me want to tear my hair out, to 2 minutes later doing or saying the sweetest thing imaginable. I'm trying to remember how much has changed in his little world lately and take each of his mini-meltdowns in stride. I know that eventually things will settle down and become more routine for him. 

I snuck this picture of him just as a little example of him pushing my buttons. Last week he started to take every paper/picture off of the fridge and throw them across the kitchen floor. After picking them up one too many times, I gave him a mini lecture about why we shouldn't do that and then being the smart momma that I am, I slid all of the papers up out of his reach. Problem solved. 

Until the next time I sat down to nurse Emme and then turned around to see this. 

Donovan carried his potty stool all the way downstairs so that he could reach all of the papers and... you guessed it... throw them all across the kitchen floor. 

He seems to outsmart me every. single. time. How is that possible from a 2 year old?!

 So the answer to all of our problems has been to keep Donovan as busy as possible. If he's preoccupied, then he's his old angelic self. So we've made trips to the park where he loooves the splash pad. 

 And we've been going to the local pool at least 3 mornings a week. 

 Donovan has so much fun playing in the water works area. 

 And here we are on the way to the beach. Donovan dressed himself and insisted on wearing his cowboy hat.

 While I fed and rocked our baby girl, Dustin played soccer and built sandcastles with Donovan. 

 We obviously wore him out because he couldn't keep his eyes open on the way home. 

And neither could his little sister. 

Donovan also got to go to his first baseball game with his Daddy and Grampie. Go Angels!

I can't tell which of these boys loved the game more. 

And here's the gang after church last week in the cafe. Donovan loves his after church donut with sprinkles and Auntie Linda and his Oma love to hang out with him while he indulges in his well earned treat. And check out super Dad feeding his girly girl a bottle. Dustin is so hands on with her. I am sooo grateful for all he does! 

Grammie came back for a visit this week too. She brought Donovan all sorts of gifts including these spidey jammies and some crafting goodies to keep Donovan busy. Here he is practicing his scissor cutting. 

And last but not least, we got out for our first sort of date night last night. Technically, Emmerson was with us so we weren't totally on our own. But having just one now seems like a cinch. We went to our friends Liz and Chad's house for a yummy dinner and some drinks. So fun! Thanks guys for a great night and thanks to Grammie for watching our boy. 

Another week has passed us by and we're grateful for each moment we've been spending together. 

Less than a month to go!

Lovely maternity wear for this week's pictures, eh guys? I usually have Dustin snap some pictures of me on Sundays when we get home from church but this weekend our church doors were closed. Roughly 7,000 people from our church took a 4 hour shift either on Saturday or Sunday to go out and serve the community. They estimated that over a million dollars worth of work would be done by us on these 2 days alone. How awesome is that? We want people to know that "church" goes beyond the 4 walls and it's more than internalizing a weekly message. It's also about being the hands and feet of Jesus. I was happy for the chance to serve and grateful that my mom volunteered to hang out with Donovan while Dustin and I, along with our Bible study group, did some major landscape work at one of the elementary schools in our district. 

I'm not going to lie. I was a bit nervous at how much work my belly and I would be up for. But thankfully the guys did most of the brunt work and I walked around sweeping up after them for most of the morning. 

It's hard to believe that this is my last week of work. Some days I feel like a champ and wonder if I'm exiting the show too early. But then this weekend, on Saturday, I was more exhausted than I'd EVER been! I could barely do anything at all and even asked Dustin to take Donovan outside for awhile so that I could nap for a bit. I think it was just exhaustion from the work week catching up with me. So maybe it will be good to have some time off. 

Not to mention that my nesting urge has kicked in and just looking around the house at how much there is to do makes my head spin. I'm sure I will keep myself very busy in these next few weeks. I'm especially hoping to sneak in a few beach days with my boy before little sister makes her official appearance. 

No labor signs yet. I'm still sleeping moderately well and am very grateful for it. We're all just anxious to meet her and bring her home within the next month! 

 I wanted to include a few pictures from the week of my favorite boys. Here's Daddy helping Donovan settle down for a nap. One of them looks ready to sleep and the other, not so much. 

 And this picture melts my heart! I love that Donovan is wearing his Home Depot apron with nothing but a t-shirt and diaper. He is always SO excited when his Dad gets home from baseball practice in the afternoons. 

I took a few random pictures of Donovan during his bath time last night and this is one of the only ones that didn't turn out blurry. I love that he just blabs away during bath time. He says the funniest things. Lately, he's been on a singing kick. I had no idea that he knew the words to some of his little songs. But now all of the sudden, he can belt out a little "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" like nobody's business. 

 On a random side note, my mom whipped up some pillows for Donovan's reading bench. They were the perfect finishing touch! I am beyond grateful for her talents and her willingness to always spoil us rotten!

Thanks Mom!

And last but not least, (speaking of being spoiled by my mom) we went garage saling this weekend at a huge community garage sale close by. This vintage Radio Flyer trike caught my eye immediately. $10 later, Oma made Donovan a very happy little boy. He's been ringing the bell on it all morning. :) 

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, too. 

Looking back

Exactly one year ago I began my maternity leave from work. Then the wait began for our precious little one to arrive. Each day that passed felt like an eternity and when my due date came and went I thought I was going to lose my mind. Thankfully I was joined in anticipatory misery by my good friend Lexi. Lexi is married to one of the pastors at our church. She was due with her little Lyla just a few days before I was due with Donovan. As we both drew nearer to our due dates we would email each other non stop. 

I'm having weird cramps have you had those? 

There's a full moon tonight, maybe this will be it!

Crap, I'm five days past... are you hanging in there? etc. etc. 

She really helped me to feel sane and put all of my anxieties at ease. 

The day finally came for Lexi and John. She text me when they went into the hospital and I was super excited when I got word that Lyla had indeed made her arrival safe and sound. 

Exactly two days later, after a post due date stress test, I was sent to the same hospital to begin the induction process to deliver our little guy. And as God would have it, I  was sent to the exact room where Lyla had been born 48 hours before! In fact, Lexi and John were just packing up their things as we were making our way in. 

The first few hours before pitocin began kicking my rear end things really got underway, we were able to spend some good q.t. with Lexi, John, and precious little Lyla. It was quite the coincidence. 

In the months that followed, we have tried our best to document their mini friendship each month at church. We've missed a few months in between but we captured most of them...

And now as these two cuties are getting ready to celebrate their first birthdays, we will also be celebrating another very special day together. Lyla and Donovan are getting dedicated at our church together in two weeks! 

It just seemed fitting for the two of them to share the celebration together, wouldn't you say?