A little ice cream

A few days ago I did a little photo shoot out at Chagrin Falls. It is an adorable, charming little city.

I had to bring Luke and he was such a good boy, so at the end we treated the kiddies with an ice cream cone at this cute ice cream shop. 

Luke adores little miss Aurora. They are so funny together.

To see more from my recent shoots, go here.

You asked...

I guess it has been a while since I posted a belly picture. And since my sisters and friends have been asking, I finally got around to taking one-which is the hardest part considering I am now usually caught wearing Matt's clothes and they aren't the most flattering for a picture.

I can and can't believe that I'm already 33 weeks. This pregnancy flown by, until Matt started residency and now that I'm in my last few weeks, now it's kind of crawling by.
For the most part I am feeling pretty good, besides the constant pain in my tailbone and hips. The swollen feet aren't much fun either. I've been over the feeling sick and nauseous phase for quite a while and now I just have to make it through the aches and pain phase.

Well, these aren't the best pictures (something about seeing yourself 33 weeks pregnant just isn't very appealing), but it's as good as it's going to get! I don't realize how huge I really am until I see a picture of myself. It's no wonder people don't believe me when I tell them that I still have a month and a half left to go.

These are Matt's awesome photo-taking skills...

We have a few names we are playing around with, but nothing for sure. Names are so hard! I wish I could just hear one and fall in love with it and have it all ready and perfect for him...but that will never happen for us. 

I also had to switch to a new Ob/Gyn two weeks ago. It was not very fun leaving my old doctor who everyone adores and was just wonderful! However, I feel like we lucked out with our decision on my new one. He seems like he'll be really great and I am very happy that I went with him. And surprisingly he is LDS too! He works with Matt (occasionally), so that's fun too. Although, I must say it is quite the new experience to go to the county hospital in a big city. There is a lot of diversity and interesting things to see while I am there, and to go along with that Matt works there and sees a lot of crazy things in the labor and delivery dept. I think it's a good experience for both of us though.

Only a few more weeks to go!

A bit of an obsession

 In the last month we've realized that Luke especially loves doing puzzles. He's had a few of the ones where you put the chicken in the chicken spot, or the cow in the cow spot. Well, he got his first "jigsaw" puzzle back in May and it's gotten out of control since then....and I love it.

I love the Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles, they are great (you can find them for a great price at TJ Max-fyi). We took the 12 piece one to church and he'd dump it out and do it over and over again. Well just a few weeks ago his grandma Clark sent him a 48 piece puzzle in the mail. When he opened it he gave me the biggest hug and said, "thank you mom!!!" 

It was funny, but then I explained that it was from his grandma. 

I left the room and was very surprised to find out that he did the entire puzzle by himself. He doesn't get frustrated. He'll ask me for help and all I say is, "try another piece." He will work on them on and off all day long. It gives me a nice break or a chance to get things done. It's great!

When my parents were here my mom bought him two more big puzzles and an alphabet one. These pictures aren't even the half of it. He is a little obsessed, and it's great.

The little smartie.

Ma and Pop

We were lucky enough to have my parents come and visit for a week. It was so much fun! We LOVED having them here. We did a lot of eating good food, shopping, seeing some sites, playing and working. 

Surprisingly, I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but here are a few from the week.

The Festival of Tall Ships just so happened to be in Cleveland over the weekend. My dad is really into this kind of thing, so we headed downtown to see them on the Lake. It stunk horribly (maybe it was just me-pregnancy) like bird poop and dead fish, but I guess that's part of a being a shipmate! Nevertheless, they were pretty cool ships.

Among them was the famous Bounty ship, that they used in the 1962 filming of Mutiny on the Bounty. And a lot of other films, but probably the most popular are the last two Pirates of the Caribbean.

My dad sporting his Ohio State hat...he wanted to fit in with the locals.

The sun wasn't shining very bright, but for some reason I look retarded squinting in every picture. 

And notice Luke's finger, up his nose? Great family picture.

Matt has been working long, busy hours, so we did the ships and Amish country on his time off.

You can only have so many pictures of Amish people...really, they're all the same, but here is one from our most recent trip. This time we stopped at Heini's (sp?) Cheese Factory. Matt and I had been there before but didn't stay because it was insanely packed. We had so much fun this time around. We can't wait to go back again! We tested something like 50 different cheeses! And 10 different kinds of fudge (my favorite part, which is why the pregnant lady is allowed to try them more than once, hehe).

We came home with a lovely supply of some funky and delicious cheeses, dips, jerky and fudge.

My parents were EXTREMELY helpful while they were here. I just hope they didn't feel like we worked them too hard. The biggest thing was what my dad did. For those of you who don't know, my dad is a very highly skilled carpenter. And we no longer have rotted window sills!
THANK YOU DAD!!!!!

While he worked in the HOT humidity all day, my mom and I worked on weeding and yard stuff. Matt came out and started mowing. All in all, we got a lot done and this picture makes me happy. There is just something I love about having zero weeds (pretty flowers, that we'll have to plant next year) and a freshly mowed lawn.  I promise I wasn't behind a camera the whole time, I did actually help out. Surprisingly, I really enjoy doing yard work.

 It was so nice to have company for Luke and I, considering Matt is MIA. 

I'm so happy that my mom will be coming back in only 8 weeks (that's a little scary too) and then my ma-in-law too, for the baby. Let me say it again, WE LOVE VISITORS!
Especially our parents.

Thank you again Mom and Dad for coming out. We really appreciate everything you do for us. Luke especially misses you (and the news and flashlights). Please come back again soon.
We love you both so much!

4th of July festivities

This year we didn't do a whole lot for the 4th. Matt had started night float and had a three day weekend off-which was really nice! So we kind of just took it easy.

In the morning we went to the church for a ward breakfast.

And in the evening we drove out to watch some fireworks with some friends.
It was a great firework show, that Luke was pretty terrified of and they were selling snow cones and cotton candy for 50 cents...which made my night!

I wanted Luke to wear something festive...but only had the outfit that he wore last year. It was a little small, but good enough for one day. His belly only showed a few times. Haha.

Hope everyone had a great fourth of July!

Help

I'm now 31 weeks and am all the sudden feeling like it is crunch time around here! I know that if I keep putting things off, this little guy will be here before I know it and then it will be too late. 

We need to buy a double stroller and I have NO IDEA where to even begin looking.

What brands are good, what models, what you like about certain ones and what you don't like...please any help would be very much appreciated! 

Thank you!!!!!!

Little things around here that I am thankful for.

We are so blessed to be living comfortably in our new house that we love! The longer we are here the more and more we love it and are so thankful for the little things, that normally people might not even think of. So, I just wanted to make a little list.

• Outlets in the bathroom. Seriously. Our old apt didn't have any, I had to do my hair/makeup in the hallway for over three years. I kept all my hair stuff in the hall closet. It was fine, but it's so nice to be able to do my hair and makeup in our bathroom!
• A built-in dishwasher, right next to the sink. Our first year of marriage we didn't have a dishwasher, but after Luke was born I knew it was impossible for me to be doing all the dishes by hand, so we got a portable one, or whatever. It was so nice to have, but we had to walk across the kitchen to load it and then wheel it over to our sink to run it. It's also really nice to be able to run the kitchen sink while the dishwasher is running.
• Three-pronged outlets! Or whatever you call them, ya know, the ones that have the grounded, third plug in them. Everyone who has never been to Cleveland is probably thinking that there is no such thing as only a two-prong outlet (unless that's common in other countries-which I have yet to travel to). Well we've always had to use adapters and while it's not very safe, it's also again city code, but what are we supposed to do? Anyway, Matt and Bryce (thank you) just installed a bunch in our house.
• Carpet. While I love hardwood, because it's pretty and sanitary, I have really missed carpet. It's only in three places in our house, but it is just SO nice to have a place for my feet to get some relief. These hardwood floors are beating up my poor feet.
• A big cabinet/mirror in the bathroom. Again, our apt had a tiny, grungy, old, rusty, mirror that was disgusting and squeaked so loud when you opened it. I didn't dare keep anything in it for two years, it just was ancient. They ripped out the ugly old one, that all these old houses have, and installed a much bigger one with a lot of storage space. I just love it.
• Access to the front/side door and working door bells. Again, the old place, only our front doorbell worked, but it was always such a pain to have people come by because they almost always had to get through our neighbors to reach us. We'd hear old Ethel yell "Mista Claak!!!" (she eventually started saying our first names) and we'd have to hustle down the stairs to find someone waiting outside, because she wouldn't let them in, she'd only yell at them through the window.
• A backyard and garage that isn't full of dangerous junk. The old couple that we shared our house with before had lived there for like 7 years when we moved in, they also lived during the Depression and collected everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. (I once found an old jewelry box that my friend gave me when we were in the 3rd grade, that was a wooden box with bubbly, girly stickers all over it that I had finally thrown out (aren't I a good friend? jk) in our neighbors side of the garage and it was all dirty, because it had been sitting the garbage, but they had pulled it out and kept it). We always had to watch Luke like a hawk so he wouldn't drink some kind of car fluid or get into dangerous tools, or old garbage that was piled up in the backyard. 

These are just a few of the little things I love about our new house. 

More catching up, Amish Country

Matt's parents flew in for a few days for Matt's graduation. We had so much fun having them visit. We went shopping, ate yummy food, took a day trip to Amish Country and spent the rest of the time with graduation festivities.

Here are some of our pictures from beautiful Amish County in Holmes County, Ohio. And we were surprised to learn that it is the biggest Amish Country in the U.S.

We went to a little flee market where all of these buggies were lined up and some were full of children. They were so cute.

Breaking the rules, but I had to get this cute picture.

We ate lunch at a yummy Amish restaurant.

Luke LOVES his "dama and dampa(s)."

We also went and toured an Amish house (a very old one and a modern one), an Amish barn, an Amish school and went for a ride in a buggy with a very friendly, old, Amish man.

The school was very cute and interesting.

Notice the scripture written on the whiteboard?

At the Amish place we toured there was a fun playground that Luke played on with his grandma and grandpa and I got this funny picture.

Thanks again to Anne and Rob for visiting. Please come again soon!

We love and miss you guys!

Catch up from Williamsburg, Virginia

I finally grabbed a few pictures off the hard drive from our trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. 

Back in May we took a week long trip to VA as a graduation vacation.

We went to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. We were so happy that Dave, Meg and McKelle could join us for a few days, as well as Bryce, Maddy and Britton. The more the merrier!
We had so much fun. 

It was my first time there, and Matt's second. I highly recommend it, especially for any history buffs out there (i.e. Matt).

Here are a few pictures from the trip.

After touring around Colonial Williamsburg, where everyone is dressed up and acts as if they are living in the late 1700's, we headed over to the first mental hospital in the US. It was really sad and quite creepy, but very interesting. I don't know why we all wanted pictures in front of the building...but we did.

Little McKelle on the bus. She's so cute.

On a different day, before the rest of the gang showed up, Matt and I toured Jamestown (where the Pocahontas and John Smith story happened) and Yorktown. This is Matt (looking goofy) with Captain John Smith.

We visited a battle field in Yorktown and Matt stuffed Luke in a cannon.

The rest of the trip was posted previously, of us at Virgina Beach, playing at the pool and celebrating Mother's Day. Here's just one last picture from the pool, that I thought was worth posting.
Don't you love his hair? Haha.