Bennett's sensitive side

Last night I was out with my small group girls and Jon was home with Bennett. Bennett was watching his newest favorite movie, "Finding Nemo". All of a sudden Bennett ran into Jon's office across the hall with tears streaming down his face, saying, "they took Nemo! The scary man took Nemo!". He's seen this movie at least 4 times now but he's obviously understanding more and more each time he watches it. He was so upset when the scuba diver caught Nemo in his net! So Jon watched the rest of the movie with him and said at the very end, he noticed Bennett was getting teary eyed again. He asked him if he was okay and Bennett said in a sad little voice, "yeah, I'm okay." Jon said, "are you happy his Daddy found him again?" and Bennett said, "yeah." Bennett must take after Jon. He cries easier than I do in some movies :) Ok, maybe not, but it has happened before!

Here's Bennett enjoying his new favorite treat, an "ice cream come" :

Tomorrow we're going the Omaha zoo. I can't wait!! (Even though my ankles will be the size of an elephant's by the end of the day.)

Welcome to the white sandy beaches of Iowa

Or not...but hey, we'll take what we can get! I'm almost embarrassed for my best friend in California to see this one :) Our playdate at Raccoon River Park turned into an impromptu swim in the lake after lunch (hence the ghetto swimwear Bennett's wearing!). The kids absolutely loved it and had a ton of fun. I just had to keep Bennett from drinking that nasty water, although possibly not the worst thing that's been in his mouth. That's debatable.

The Bump

Well, I'm almost 37 weeks along. I figure I should post a pic for my friends and family who haven't seen my baby belly in all it's glory. This has been an unbelievably easy pregnancy...until now. Now I'm big and feeling like it. Although the midwives have said they're pretty sure this baby will only be 7 - 7 1/2 lbs. Thank goodness, I hope they're right! I didn't have a day of morning sickness, I didn't have killer gallbladder attacks like I did with Bennett and have easily dealt with heartburn by keeping Tums with me at all times (which led to Bennett finding them and eating them on at least 3 occasions!) Now I'm starting to get achy ribs and back and a weird ligament pain so It'll be nice to not be pregnant anymore but I'm soaking in the last of our summer weather with my sweet, adorable, hilarious 2 yr old while he's still the only "baby" in the house. (And if I could just find time to paint the nursery and re-do that dresser for Bennett's room and get those last random boxes in the baby's room unpacked... Yes, people, I am and always will be the ultimate procrastinator.)

I took Bennett to a park this morning and then met my mom for lunch while she was working at the library. This is a really cool playground for anyone around Des Moines who wants to try a new spot. I'm not sure what its called but its basically between the Walker-Johnson softball fields and the Urbandale library.
He's so brave and fearless now. For some reason I didn't know if he could climb the blue rope ladder but he proved me wrong and was at the top in a matter of seconds. He's really into jumping off of things and is averaging about 2-4 head injuries per day. We're very proud of our little Evil Knievel.

Enjoying Boredom

Today has been a very lazy Saturday. I slept in, hung out with Bennett all morning doing nothing but watching TV (him), and reading magazines (me). We had a picnic lunch before the rain hit, Daddy and Bennett read some books and now its naptime (him) and more chill time (me).

I'm relishing this boredom because I only have 4 weeks until baby comes and these days will be a distant memory for a while. Not to mention my "before-baby-to-do list" is a half mile long so this should be my last Saturday of slacking!

Here's a snapshot of lazy Saturday:

Confessions of a 2 year old

This evening Bennett and I got home from Wal-Mart. He was playing inside and I was out in the garage grabbing a bunch of stuff from the car. I came back in several minutes later and Bennett's standing right by the back door waiting for me. Literally the second I saw his face I knew he was up to no good. He's standing there with his hands at his side and in his most serious voice he says, "I made a big mess of cereal". I told him to show me and sure enough, there was a box of Cheerios he'd dumped out. I just wish I could have captured that whole scene on tape. The guilt was written all over his face, it just made me smile. At least he's honest!!

This is him, shoving them in as quickly as possible while I'm trying to clean them up:

And this is his adorable face a little while later. Could you get mad at this??

The trip!!

Okay- this may be a long post but I wanted to include all of my favorite pics for those of you not on facebook (which most of you are, so kinda pointless!).

We left last Friday night around 10:30 after our husbands were done with their softball game. It was a long night in the car with a few hours of sleep and we got there around 1pm or so the next day. The cabin we stayed in was perfect and had great sleeping arrangements for all of us. Our first real day there, we went to an indoor waterpark pretty close by. It was a lot of fun because they had 2 large areas for little kids that Bennett and Colby could play in, plus a lazy river. Of course they wouldn't let the 8 months pregnant lady go down the huge waterslides but I definitely tried!!

Day 2: a short hike to a gorgeous little spot by a river. Lots of exploring for the little ones. They had a blast. Later that day we went to a cool place called Ober Gatlinberg. Its a ski resort in the winter and they have an alpine slide and all kinds of other water slides and kiddie rides in the summer. Again...no preggos on the slides. Big bummer. But Katie and I got a pretty good view of everything so it was pretty fun to watch them having so much fun. Bennett loved the ball pit at the playground.

Jon said Bennett laughed the whole way down this slide:


On the way up to the Alpine slide:

The whole gang:


Day 3: the Knoxville Zoo. This was a gorgeous zoo and they let all 7 of us in with our family's zoo pass (normally we just get two extra adults in for free). We realized the total cost of all of our admission for the day would have cost more than our entire pass cost!

Day 4: a long uphill hill hike up to a waterfall and a hike down in pouring rain. Not the ideal activity for my pregnant self but a memory nonetheless! The first three days of the trip were so much fun and the kids did so great that one mediocre day was tolerable. We decided to drive through the night again on the way home but stopped from about 2:30 - 7:30am at a motel. We got home around 2pm the next day (Thurs.).

The turtle the big boys brought home for the little boys...he made it all the way back to Iowa.

In the hot tub on the deck of our cabin:

All smiles before the ride home. Ha!

My parents are staying at our house right now (a temporary spot for them until their temporary condo is ready to rent until their house is built!) which I was very thankful to come home to-- good cooking and extra entertainment for Bennett!