21 weeks

For all of you who have been asking for a belly shot...here it is. I am a little over 21 weeks. I got to have another ultrasound at my doctor appointment today and everything looked great! We still have a boy and a girl and they were both very active during the quick peek. I am feeling them a lot more now, which I love. I especially like that we know which one is on which side, so I usually know who it is that is kicking me. I can't believe how big I am getting already. I am also starting to feel more and more uncomfortable which is worrisome because I know the worst is still to come! That's all right, it will all be worth it.

Little Mother

Emma got to practice this week what it's going to be like having babies in the house. We took care of our friend's foster baby while they were away on vacation for several days. I realized how difficult it is to take care of a little baby while I am pregnant and tired. Thankfully, I had a HUGE helper in Emma. She was right there ready to take care of Dakota and to help me when I needed it. The poor girl had to make several trips up the stairs for me, and got to pick everything up off the floor that I dropped or needed for the baby. But, she was completely willing to do it. She loved to play with him too and to feed him and dress him. Lee and I were so happy to see how excited she was, because we know we are going to need a lot of her help in a few months!

Delivery Men

A girl in our ward got married last weekend, and the reception was at her parent's house. They live at the end of a long gravel road and there wasn't any parking so they asked a few men from the ward to drive shuttle vans from the field where people would be parking up to the house. It was a short drive, but they asked that they make it sort of fun. Well, all the members of the bishopric were asked to be shuttle drivers and they wanted to make it more than just a little fun. They decided to have theme vans. The Bishop had a "delivery van". He was dressed ready to deliver a baby and he even had an epidural hanging from the ceiling of the van. Peter, the other counselor, had a "disco van". He hung a disco ball and Christmas lights in his van, and he took out the captain seats and replaced them with bean bags. He even had a shag carpet! Lee decorated our van as the "aloha van". He wore his lavalava and other Hawaiian gear and played Brother Iz music. He decorated with leis and our tiki and even offered passengers macadamia nuts straight from Hawaii. It was pretty funny! Everybody had a great ride to the reception, and most of all the men had fun dressing up. If I didn't have such faith in our wonderful bishopric, I would wonder what actually went on in bishopric meetings!

First Harvest of the Year

Although this is a terrible picture of me (the shadows are funky, and yes, I am wearing socks with my capris), I had to post a picture of our monster weed. I pulled it from underneath the apple tree in our garden. I can't believe we had a weed that was taller than Lee, that's over 6 feet tall. How embarrassing! Thankfully, our garden is fenced off and blocked from view from the house by an arbor. So, nobody could see our humongous weed! Hopefully we can get a better harvest from our garden later in the summer. We shall see...

Father's Day

Emma was so excited to make breakfast in bed for Lee on Father's Day. We made him his favorite yummy danishes (thankfully all of his early morning meetings were canceled, and he didn't have bishopric meeting until right before 9:00 church, otherwise he probably wouldn't have gotten the danishes!) and Emma had picked out a new Canby Cougars t-shirt and hat for him. We are so thankful that we have such a good daddy who leads our home with the priesthood. He works so hard and takes good care of his family, but he always has time for fun and games too. I was reminded on Sunday what a great teacher he is. I was released as the Young Women President a few weeks ago and have been filling in as the Primary pianist since. It was Lee's turn to do the Bishopric Sharing Time this Sunday in Primary and he did a great job! He is even better one on one, he is always so loving and patient when he teaches Emma new things. I love him for that, and many others things too!

We went to my parents house for a Father's Day/my birthday barbeque. Too bad for the dads, but I was craving hamburgers and corn on the cob, so that's what we had and they didn't get much of a choice. That meant my dad had to barbeque his own Father's Day dinner. It hit the spot perfectly for me! We are also thankful for all our good grandpa's. It's so nice to be able to live close to my dad. He does so much for us and is always willing to help us. I love you Dad! Here's a picture of him with his new ham radio. He was in seventh heaven and was talking to all his buddies in his ward with it. For some strange reason, my sister Tenley had crowned him with the leis. He looks pretty cute! =-)

My two favorite dads:

I got my traditional strawberry shortcake for dessert. Yum! (Lanna-I know your necklace doesn't match my shirt, but my mom wanted to see it so I wore it anyway. Everybody loved it! Thanks again.) We had a fun day.

It's a...

(warning-graphic pictures ahead!)

girl...

...and a boy!

We couldn't be more thrilled. Lee is happy that he was right, Emma wanted a boy and a girl, and I am just glad they are healthy and look perfect. They are doing really well, they are both the same size (just under a pound each) and they are right on target size wise. So far we have had 7 ultrasounds, but I am still amazed every time that there are TWO babies in there! What a miracle and what a blessing for our family.

This is a picture of both their heads. We didn't get a good one of both of them, so this is the best I could post. I know the images are kind of hard to see. Our scanner isn't working so I had to take pictures of the actual ultrasound pictures.

We celebrated with my mom and my sisters by going to Red Robin for ice cream in the middle of the day. They surprised us with some fun balloons. It was fun to see the reactions of the servers when they realized we had both an "it's a girl" balloon AND an "it's a boy" balloon. This has definitey got to be one of my best birthdays ever!

Last Day of School

We got home from Great Wolf Lodge just in time for field day on Thursday, and then the last day of school on Friday. I don't have any pictures of field day though, because it got rained out! I don't ever remember not being able to have a field day because of rain. When the field day started it was just a little cool, then it started sprinkling, then it became a downpour and they had to call all the kids inside. I guess that's what you can expect for June in Oregon! Selfishly, I was a little glad. I was manning the dunk tank and the kids in the dunk tank kept splashing us. I was freezing so I wasn't too upset about having to quit!

Emma had a good last day of school (despite the cold, rainy weather again). She was a little sad to be leaving her teacher, Miss Lang. She had Miss Lang for both 1st and 2nd grades and she really loved her. We can't believe she will be moving on to 3rd grade. She is getting too old!

Great Wolf Lodge

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We went on a mini-vacation up to Grand Mound, WA and stayed at Great Wolf Lodge for three days. The lodge has an indoor waterpark which was perfect for the icky, rainy weather we've been having in the Northwest. We went with my parents and my two younger sisters. We had a great time together and it was the perfect way to start our summer (although Emma was actually missing part of her last week of school!). The waterpark was fun although it could have used a few more big slides. Emma had a blast and even braved the "Howlin' Tornado" several times. I was a little bummed because I expected there to be a lazy river. I knew I wouldn't be able to go on the big slides, so my plan was to plop myself in a tube and stay in the lazy river most of the time. I had to do it in the wave pool instead.

There were other fun things to do at the lodge. Lee and Emma especially liked the arcade. Lee hit the payload on one of the games and won Emma more than 800 tickets on that one game. She was thrilled! The tickets just kept coming and coming...

There was also a game called MagiQuest that you can play during your stay. We bought a wand and we could complete several quests and adventures with it. It was almost like a big scavenger hunt. There were tons of things throughout the lodge that would come to life when you waved the wand at them and the game sent you on quests to find them. It was fun to see and hear objects talk to you, even the adults (Lee and my dad) got into the game.

It was a fun trip and Emma was just asking when we can go back. We might not get to do much as far as traveling goes this summer, so hopefully the fun we had will be enough to last!

Here we go....

We've finally joined the world of blogging! I don't know how interesting or exciting our blog will be, but hopefully it will be a good way to keep in touch with family and friends. Stay tuned for future posts!