Wheeler Farm

After the Church museum, we grabbed lunch at the Lion House which was a little tricky with 5 kids and only 3 adults to get them through a long cafeteria line. But the food was good and gave us the energy to go onto our trip to Wheeler Farm. Despite the hot sun, the kids had a lot of fun. 

Joy with her girls on the wagon ride around the farm

Grandma with Gideon and Kenz

I was shocked by how much snow was still on the mountains. Utah was suprisingly green and pretty for the middle of summer.

Utah: The first couple of days...

I anticipated the plane ride to be hard but it turns out that it was one of the easiest parts of my whole trip! Our friends let us borrow their portable DVD player which was really nice and helped occupy Kenzie on our 

2 1/2 hour flight from KY to Denver. Our layover in Denver was just a couple of hours but Mackenzie sure made it seem longer! She kept me busy not listening to me, running around like a wild child, running up stairs we didn't need to go up and throwing herself on the floor. I think it was so much harder because I was 8 months pregnant, carrying 3 bags, and she's much faster than me. The flight from Denver to Provo went well and we were excited to meet Keith's sister Katie and her husband Brandon at the airport.

Poor Brandon tried so hard to get Mackenzie on his good side but she just wasn't having it with all of the new people around. The next day she let Katie blow bubbles with her outside.

Keith's family came over for dessert Sunday night and upon my request, Brandon took Mackenzie kicking and screaming away from me and held her hostage outside with the family so that I could get a bit of a break from her and so she would interact with the family. It took a little while but she finally warmed up a bit and had fun. 

Grandma brought the parachute and the girls had a blast playing. Sophie and Kenzie are just 4 months apart but have very different personalities. They had a good time, though Eva and Mackenzie seemed to get along the best as the week went on.

Cousins (and a neighbor) blowing bubbles

Sophie and Kenz eating their pudding

It had been a year since I'd seen Serena. It's amazing how much babies develop and grow in that year, what a cute girl!

Keith's mom took me and Joy's family to the museum of Church history and art in downtown Salt Lake where they have a lot of beautiful paintings and artifacts. The kids had fun in these beds which were supposed to be like the bunks on the ships that came to America.

John Borrowman is a relative of Keith's

Upstairs in the museum was an area for kids. They had this magnet board so the kids could create quilt patterns.

They also had dress up clothes for both boys and girls to put on so they could dance

I thought this cradle was adorable, I want one!

The cousins in front of the Salt Lake Temple.

June

June- I wish my brain could think back that far! Good thing I have some pictures to remind me. I actually think these first few pics are from the end of May but here we go... we went to a handful of Birthday parties that Kenzie had a blast at. She can't wait for her Birthday now which is still a few months away.

 

The Birthday girl is sitting next to Kenzie in this one

Kenzie loves all of these boys which is great because I love their moms

This is at one of the parties and I just wanted to include it because I've been so lucky to make great friends here in Kentucky and Keith is always willing to let me go hang out and do girls nights which have been pretty frequent with the  laid back summer schedule. I have to soak it all in until this baby comes and I don't have a social life anymore.

Everett's pirate party was a blast, I wish I would have taken pictures of Tia's cute decorations and cake. These two are great buds.

We went out to Spaghetti Factory with our old neighbors for Neha's birthday. They were so sweet to think of a family friendly place to accommodate Mackenzie

I went into major nesting mode in June and hit up a lot of yard sales and have been busy painting and refinishing projects. This mirror is finished and hanging above Kenzie's bed right now.

We've spent a lot of time at the park and pool. At least a couple times a week, a group gets together and plays volleyball. I have to say one of the top 3 things I'm not digging about being pregnant in the summer is the fact that I can't play- I miss it!

We're still going strong with our baby swap and Mackenzie and Parker are still loving each other.

Just had to include this one because she is full of spunk and personality... not the easiest child but she's definitely entertaining.

Mackenzie snuck into my room and put her elephant to bed. She's really into babies right now and often I'll come into her room during nap/quiet time and she won't be sleeping because she's tucked the baby into bed. She'll say "shhh, baby's sleeping." I recently got the car seat out and washed it up so now she likes to put her babies in there to sleep.

We got a little vanity with all kinds of cute accessories at a yard sale and Mackenzie loves it. Her favorite is the nail polish and she especially likes to paint our nails. Keith's a good sport and lets her paint his fingers and toes.

Another yard sale find was a set of new sponge curlers for a quarter. We tried them out on Kenzie's wet hair one night and she had the cutest curls in the morning.

This is a gross picture taken right after the pool but I had to prove that I met the Duggars. They came to the Summit shopping center about 10 min. from our apt. and I had to go meet them and tell them how much I appreciated their values. Almost all of the kids were there- the littlest ones were sleeping in their bus. They were as nice in person as they are on TV. I might have gotten Keith to come with but he was in Pikeville Kentucky doing dental service with the school.

Tickled Pink

 I've wanted to paint Mackenzie's room since we moved in but I never managed to talk Keith into it. When we found out we were having another girl, Keith gave me the green light to paint. I seriously spent hours at Lowe's and on-line trying to pick a color and using virtual painting. Keith was so good to spend our date night last week picking out a pink color with me. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Our old neighbors the Mirsky's bought a condo recently and so they had all of the equipment to paint and let us borrow it.So Saturday after I finished hitting the yard sales, we got to work. Kenzie was amazingly good and stayed out in the living room playing and watching Curious George the whole time. I forgot to take a before but this was on the last wall right before our paint ran out and I had to run out and buy another quart.

 

And after:

 

I want to paint the changing table (thank you Grubbs!) but I love the jewelry holder from Neha and the little lamp I scored for a couple bucks this weekend.

I made that butterfly chandelier from a tutorial Adrienne posted when we first moved here and painted those letters and made the hanging poms a couple years ago in Rexburg. The rag quilt on her bed I meant to post but never did. I used another tutorial Adrienne found to make it using the layer cake 'It's a Hoot' by MoMo

 And here's the little angel sleeping on the couch while we painted. I'm so excited to have two girls!

A Last Break

With the end of Keith's 2nd year of school, he had another break which was much needed and appreciated! We had wanted to go to St. Louis but with our car having continual issues, funds ran out and we ended up having a fun time hanging out in our hometown.

First off, the zoo to check out the new Glacier Run. We've loved having a zoo pass as it's somewhere we all love to go over and over again.

These next few pictures were before our trip to Bernheim Forest. I can finally pull this little girls hair back in a ponytail. I can't get over how grown up she is starting to look.

We met up with friends at Bernheim Forest which is always beautiful. This particular day was a little too hot with temperatures hitting the 90's and bad humidity but we had fun and Kenz enjoyed running around.

 

Keith spent some quality time with Kenzie in the visitor's center building with the quirky nature objects while I tried to cool off and calm my contractions down. I am so not fun to take anywhere anymore. Every time we walk, I get painful, cramping contractions and if we go uphill I have to majorly slow down and stop to breathe every few minutes. The doctor said it's normal and I was worried about it for awhile but I'm getting used to it. So much for those work out plans though!

The only bad part about the break was saying goodbye to our good friends the Birds. They've been here the past couple of years we have and are moving on to Oregon. We had a little going away party at our apt. the night they left and I'm so mad I didn't get pictures. We'll miss them a lot and I know Mackenzie will miss their little girl Brynlie.

 

Brynlie came over to play while her parents packed and the girls spent a lot of time zipped up in Kenzie's tent with their babies.

For the rest of break, we spent time enjoying the sunshine outside and spent Saturday night at a baseball game with some friends. It was a lot of fun and something we want to do a few more times this season.
After a full week of leisure, Keith and I got the bug to start some projects we've been intending to do. First up, painting our kitchen table, and recovering the chairs. Here it is sanded down. We need to do a finishing coat and then I need to borrow a staple gun to put the fabric on the chairs. I'm majorly nesting and have about 5 projects I got for free or bought cheap at yard sales this weekend to work on so maybe I'll be good about taking before and after pics. No promises though!

Boy or Girl?

21 wks.

22 wks.

Who knew it would be so hard to find out the gender of our baby? We went in for a 20 week appointment on the 18th. I had a feeling the day before that we were not going to be know the gender and as a precaution, took orange juice and drank it right before. The feeling proved to be justified as we went in and immediately saw the baby's legs crossed and curled up. After a good 20 minutes, the ultrasound tech let me empty my bladder then come back. Baby still hadn't moved and wasn't cooperating for pictures in general. It seemed my uterus was split in two parts, one part filled with a curled up, sleeping, thumb sucking baby and the other side with most of the amniotic fluid. She let me go to my doctor's appointment then come back again. I jumped up and down, layed on my stomach to no avail, the baby was in the same stubborn position 10 minutes later. The tech was so nice and I think she was just as frustrated because she said she only gets babies this stubborn about every 2 months, and even then she can normally give a 80% prediction. She overrode the doctor and set up my appointment for the next week instead of the next month.

We went in on the morning of the 27th and the moment that wand was on my stomach, we had a leg shot and I said "It's a girl." The tech said, "I think you're right..." and kept prodding until she could determine it 100%. I was a little surprised because I've felt this whole pregnancy it was a boy but I knew if I could choose, I would choose a girl so I was really excited.

We also confirmed that the baby is in my back which is the reason for my smaller belly (don't be fooled, I've gained PLENTY of weight) and the reason for my back pain. I had pain last time but not shooting nerve pain like this. Also, baby has measured for Sep. 3rd the last 3 ultrasounds so that's the date I'm sticking to. Hooray for a healthy baby!!! I would endure any amount of pain for this pregnancy.