The Season

As we are sitting around the kitchen table this morning eating cereal, Sophie says: "I wish daddy was here eating cereal too.  We need more of daddy!"  Then she remembered that we hadn't said a prayer before eating.  She volunteered to say it.  Here is an excerpt of her prayer:"Please bless daddy because he is working so hard.  Please bless Weston that he can be safe.  Please bless mommy that her baby can pop out..."
That last part was followed by many giggles.
Then, about two seconds after we all said amen, she asks if she can touch her bum.  When I ask why, she says, "because it's nummy!"  Again, many giggles follow.  What a silly girl my Sophie is.  She seems so grown up for her age... most of the time!
She misses Jason so much during "The Season" (as do we all).

By Season, I mean Fireworks Season.  It begins in May.  By June, it is in full swing, and we never quite know how late Jason will be working, or what emergency might arise.  The day after Father's Day is always the first day of a working spree that lasts about a month.  What do I mean by working spree?  No days off, and no telling what hours Jason will be working.  The fireworks business owns him.  Sometimes he gets calls at 4:00 in the morning and has to rush in to resolve a crisis.  Sometimes he has to make an emergency trip to Arizona and doesn't get home until 1:00 in the morning.  During "The Season," anything can happen, and it does! Many days are spent running frantically around town, dealing with a seemingly unending variety of problems.  Jason usually comes home, eats something, then passes out...but we never know what time that will be.  At the beginning of June, we continue our normal schedule.  Sometime around the first of July, I realize that our schedule has completely shifted so that we get a few minutes with daddy while he is eating, before he crashes.  Sometimes this happens WAY too late for little people, and we all end up sleeping in very late...yikes!  Well, except for Jason, who leaves around 5:30 or 6:00.
At the moment, we only have 7 days left of the official season, and I frankly cannot wait!
I thought it would be fun to make a post about some of the things the kids and I have been doing to keep busy these past few weeks...
1. Playing at the splash pad at the park.  The kids have so much fun running around, that it is virtually impossible to snap a non-blurry picture while we're there!

Weston usually flies around Spider Man style, which involves a lot of crouching and leaping.

If I'm really lucky, they'll pause for a split second...

2. Since sitting outside in the heat completely wipes out my pregnant body, we have spent a lot more time inside playing.  And for Weston, that has translated into hours of drawing, coloring, and learning to write words.  I thought this was a pretty good picture of Sponge Bob that he drew, although Spider Man, Star Wars, and Ghostbusters are the usual themes of his masterpieces.

3. This year we had a special treat and got to visit daddy at his temporary Season office, which is a double-wide trailer out at the Speedway.  You may notice the awesome Spider Man picture on Jason's wall, courtesy of Weston. On the window sill, you will also notice our family picture, the one that usually sits on our piano.  I told Jason to take it to work so that while all of his groups are coming in to settle their accounts and pay what is owed, they can remember that he is a real person with a family too!  (Sometimes in the past a few people have refused to pay, using the argument that TNT is a big company that can absorb the cost of their failure.)  Most people do very well so this is not an issue, but it is always helpful to have a picture of your adorable kids to remind the wanna-be free loaders that you have a family to feed too!  Apparently he has received many compliments on his beautiful family...who can blame them with kids as cute as ours!? :)

Weston and Sophie loved visiting daddy's office, and he even let them sit at his desk!  Weston, of course, immediately found some markers and began to draw...

4. Another thing we did this year for the first time was visit a fireworks booth!  The kids had never been to one, so one night we were able to go visit the booth that the Caron's were running (Taylor and Jason are good friends).  It was impressive!  They did a great job and thus raised a lot of money.     Good for them!                                                                                          

5. There has also been a fair share of general merriment and trouble making between these two:

I don't know why, but this Elmo costume is really popular.  I think I have at least a hundred pictures of the kids wearing it.  I don't know why I keep taking pictures of them being Elmo, except that they are so darn cute in that costume!

 

6. We have also been visiting family.  On the 4th, we went to Grandma Laurie's house.  Uncle Trevor always attempts to avoid the camera, but since he is a kid magnet (and I am always taking pics of the kids), his attempts are generally futile...

Aunt Shae-Leigh was looking particularly beautiful that day.

7. Fireworks, on the 4th of course!!  Usually we invite a bunch of people and make it a social occasion, but this year we decided instead to just stay at home and do fireworks with the kids in front of our own house.  I was initially really disappointed at the idea, but Jason was way to exhausted this year from his extra work load (he took on more territory than he has had in the past), so I just went with it.  To my surprise, it turned out to be super fun!  And the neighborhood kids really enjoyed the extra show, too.  I don't have the proper camera to take a good shot of the actual fireworks, but here is my attempt. Lame, I know!

This was the first year that Weston got into it and actually enjoyed the experience. He really liked sparklers and smoke bombs. Every time I tried to snap a shot of him, he struck a Spider Man pose.

Sophie was afraid of the loud noises this year, so she got to cuddle safely on the couch and watch Tangled.  I came in every few minutes to check on her...

8. Contrary to popular belief, the Season does not end on the 5th of July!  There is much work still to be done.  Meanwhile, since the young women are such an important part of my life, I cannot simply ignore them all for a month!  Especially when two of them just graduated from high school and one turned 18 on July 6.  Since Jason hasn't been around, the kids have been coming with me to visit these lovely ladies... which Weston and Sophie love!

Here is Shawna with Weston and Jessica with Sophie.  This picture is from Shawna's birthday!  Adorable.

9. Lots of doctor's appointments.  There is nothing fun to say about those!  Except, of course, when I had the ultrasound...but I already blogged about that.

10. Shae-Leigh always comes to spend time with us in June and July.  She has come twice already, and is spending the night again tonight... which we are looking forward to!  We want to spend as much time as possible with her since she'll be moving to Utah soon.

So, the marathon is almost over.  We have spent it well, I think!  I don't know how I would make it through without family.  My mom, Jason's mom, and Shae have all been life savers this year - per usual.  I look forward to a sense of normalcy gradually returning.  But until then, I really need to find a way to squeeze in as many chick flicks as possible!

We will wonder no longer...

Today was the all important 18 week ultrasound in the which I am assured that my baby's vital organs and body parts are all forming correctly...and when, of course, I am able to determine the gender of my developing baby. But as everyone knows, the baby must cooperate and be in the right position for any body parts between the legs (or lack thereof) to be visible. So, were we successful in determining the sex? The following conversation sums up the answer to that question nicely:

Me: "Weston, do you want to see the ultrasound pictures of the baby that I got from the doctor's office today?"

Weston: "No thanks, mom. I already know what a penis looks like."

After making this comment, Weston proceeded to explain (in some detail, I might add) just exactly what a penis looks like. Thanks for the anatomy lesson, dude!! I also found it rather hilarious that he thought the only picture I had was of the baby's "privates." What kind of a perv does my 5 year old think I am!? Fortunately, he is still ever so innocent... and I did eventually interest him in viewing the pictures of his little brother-to-be.

Here is the view of his, um, manhood:

And a pretty nice straight-on face shot where you can clearly make out one of the eyeballs:

Legs and feet:

Little baby feet!

Here you can see the top of the baby's head along with his hands and feet.  The hand on the bottom is clenched into a fist.

This was the least blury profile pic:

I'm going to interpret this last one as the baby telling me he's number one, although it also looks a bit like he's pretending to shoot a gun (like little boys do). 

When we had the mid-pregnancy ultrasound with Weston, it looked like he was pointing at us with both of his index fingers, kind of like, "hey mom and dad, I'll be out soon!"  In fact, what looked like index fingers to us were actually middle fingers... as soon as that reality sunk in, my first thought was, "oh no, he is already just like Jason!"

We are super excited about our son-to-be, and look forward to discussing arguing over a name for the next several months!

Ghostbusters, cuddle bugs, and Jedi

One of the things I was most excited about when I was pregnant with Sophie was the prospect of Weston having someone to play with.  Never did I imagine that they would be ghostbusters together!

As you can see, Weston really has his moves down...

Sophie doesn't have many ghostbuster moves, but she sure has got the look.  I particularly love the residue of strawberries on her face!

There was a period of time when I was so exhausted (and I guess Jason was too), that we didn't even notice the kids (usually just one or the other) crawling into bed with us in the middle of the night.  One morning, we woke up to both of them cuddled in our bed!

So cute!

During the months of morning sickness, I wasn't as vigilant about making sure the kids were properly dressed (well, you know, until we left the house of course).  One day I found them hanging out in the back yard this way, just chillin' on top of our water barrels engaged in some sort of silly conversation (which has since escaped my mind).  I particularly like Sophie's ensemble: Weston's sweat pants, a Disney princess pajama top, and heels!

I love that they are such good friends.

Lately, Weston has discovered the awesomeness that is Star Wars.  This light saber is his favorite toy, by far (at least for the time being)!

And of course if Weston is into it, so is Sophie.  She wants to be Princess Leah - not just for Halloween, but on most days.  Recently when we were visiting my brother's ward, she told the nursery leader there that her name was Princess Leah.  After being asked again, she finally conceded that her name was Sophie... Sophie Rapunzel, that is!

Who can complain?  I have my very own pair of Jedi in the house!

Easter

We were invited to a special Easter egg hunt with Joe, an older gentleman that works with Jason. He and his wife were helping out with their church Easter festivities anyway, and since they can't ever take their own grand kids to such events (because they live out of state), they were excited to have us come... well you know, at least the kids! Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty bad the day of the Easter egg hunt, so Jason and the kids went without me.

All excited for the hunt to begin!

Waiting in line to retrieve a prize...

Pretty excited about something...

Could it be the hot pink paint that got streaked in Sophie's hair?

Sophie was happy to have Joe as her egg-finding helper! 

The kids came home with some pretty awesome little toys and prizes... all which have since broken, of course.  But it sure was a fun adventure for them!  Weston was particularly thrilled with a little miniature skate board.  You would have thought that thing was the coolest toy on earth!

On Easter morning (the next day), I didn't have any trouble snapping happy pictures of Sophie, who discovered the movie Tangled in her basket.  She had been asking for that movie multiple times a day for many long weeks.

Weston was a bit more of a challenge.  He had been rebellious leading up to Easter (with full knowledge that the contents of his Easter basket would be a reflection of his behavior), so he only found a note in his basket that morning.  The note was from a compassionate Easter bunny who was sad to inform him that he had lost his basket this year.  I felt like crying, too, when I saw how devastated he was.  I was in the depths of morning sickness, lying miserably in bed.  I finally convinced him to come cuddle up with me so that I could comfort him. 

Sometimes consequences are as painful for the parents as they are for the kid!

Fortunately, kids are resilient.

I was finally able to get some semi-smiles out of Weston.

There's that goofy sad face (why does he do that!?)

Okay, here we finally have an actual, genuine smile!

After church we had our good friends, the Terry's, over for Easter dinner (which Jason made, of course).  Miraculously, I started to feel pretty decent and even ate a ton of food!  It was an absolutely wonderful day, and I was so grateful for the unexpected and glorious reprieve from morning sickness.  We always have fun when the Terry's come over.  It was a lovely Easter!

T-Ball

This is the first year that Weston has been old enough to participate in primary sports. In the beginning of March, t-ball began.  

Weston was excited to play with his friends, and I have to say that I quite enjoyed the lovely Spring air and visiting with the other moms!

None of them really knew what they were doing, but they sure did have fun.  Watching them was rather entertaining!

Listening attentively to one of their coaches...










Owen, one of Weston's best buddies, really liked the camera...every time I tried to get a picture of the two of them, he would jump in front of Weston!  I finally got one where you can at least see both of their faces...(ha ha ha!)

Another coach helping Weston warm up before he goes up to bat...

Looking pleased with himself...

Sophie was never bored... she spent most games either with grandpa or Sandy (Owen's mom), who she loves.  Who can blame her?

Weston also looked forward to seeing grandpa (who came to every single game) and took every chance he could to escape from playing for a moment to say hi and eat a snack (you know, because the game was so strenuous)!

Did I mention that Jason was one of the coaches?

This last picture is before a game...I think the kids were just being silly and pretending to sleep.

Jason and I both really like baseball, so we were happy Weston at least had the chance to begin understanding the game... and I think we all look forward to doing it again next year!