Dr update and garden!

I went to the doctors today and everything looks fine. It was a quick in and out appointment so not much to report. I have my next one in 5 weeks and that will be the big appointment with the ultrasound. It will be so awesome to finally see this little one looking more like a person than a blob. I already posted on my pregnancy blog about this so this is double reading to some but I don't want to find out the gender of the baby but Darren does. So I guess we have some talking to do in the next month until the appointment. Ultimately I think I have the final say but we'll see if I can get him swayed to thinking it's a good idea as well. ;)

Here are a couple pictures of the garden. Can I say holy yum on home grown tomatoes! A couple have ripened and I have taken no time to gobble those suckers down. We also get way more zucchini than we know what to do with each week so our friends are gaining a lot of zucchinis in their homes as well since we can't find enough to do with it all. We have also had our cucumbers finally decide to make and appearance and banana peppers and I need to get out there and start eating our lettuce. Everything else is coming right along and will be pickable shortly. We planted a little late in the year so are going to be reaping a little later than most as well but it has been so worth it to have a garden, I love it!

Problem Solved

I was getting so sick of toys everywhere and not really having a home for them except to be thrown into the closet under the stairs so I bought a couple things to make it more organized and a rug so the girls wouldn't be walking on concrete in there. Now I just need to get to the rest of the house huh!?! ;) All in good time.

Time for things to settle down

We got back from Oregon this morning and had so much fun! Normally by the time we get home from a trip we are ready to be home but this trip could have lasted a little longer and we would have been happy. We got there on the 5th and on the 6th my brother Donny flew in from Azerbaijan where he has been for the last year in the Peace Corp. It was his birthday so we had a big dinner and cake at my sister Becky's house and the kids had fun playing in the pool.





























The next day on the 7th (which was Allison's birthday) we went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Washington. That was an absolute blast! It is a hotel with an indoor water park that is fun for big and little kids. We stayed there for a night but played at the park on the 7th and 8th.





















On the 9th we took family pictures since all of my siblings were home and haven't been since Emmie was 8 months old. We had our good friend and practically family member Jenn take them and they turned out great. We hung out for the day after that at my mom's house and let the cousins play. We also did a cake for Allison that day since it was less busy and she had a ton of fun digging into it.

Darren and I flew home today (the 10th). We are so tired since we had to wake up at 4am to get to the airport but it was so worth the trip. However we are a little tuckered out of travel and what not and are looking forward to catching things up around the house and getting back into our schedule of things.

So Lazy

I have been so tired lately. We normally are always out and about each day to get the wiggles out but lately I have just felt like my body is made out of lead. So sadly the kids have had to suffer to stare at the inside walls of our home for the last couple days. We have still made it out once each day but they haven't been our normal fun trips. They have been a lets run down the street to get some corn from the local grower or to the store to get a couple things to stir up for dinner. Or I made it to Target just to buy some DVDs that were on sale so I could pop them in player for Emmie to veg and watch. So maybe I shouldn't report on my bad attempts at being a mom for the last little bit but oh well. It will pass soon enough and my energy will pick back up I'm sure. So here are a couple pictures of the girls just hanging out around the house. (yes Emmie is in her pjs with hair not combed and it was almost 4pm but she still looks happy)

My dad and step mom Kit were here about a week and a half ago and I never posted anything about them being here so here are a few pictures from that as well. We had so much fun with them and it was nice that the girls warmed right up like no time had passed since seeing them even though it had been about a year. Of course we took them to Thanksgiving Point since it is so much fun. My dad was right at home with all the animals haha

Random but cool

So Allison is no longer nursing. I weaned Emmie at 11 months also but she did it more by herself by not really being interested in it anymore. But Allie is a little more upset about the whole thing. Last night was her second night going to bed without nursing and she lets us know she is not happy about the whole thing. At my last doctors appointment he let me know I kind of needed to speed up the whole weaning process since it's really not that good for my body to be dealing with a pregnancy and nursing baby. So there you have it, it's a done deal and no more of mama's milk for her.

Also Allison has been taking a few steps at a time a lot. She just tries so hard to keep up with Emmie though that she ends up face planting from trying to walk too fast. This little girl is in too much of a hurry to grow up!

In other news we got a letter from Darren's student loan letting us know we are officially paid off and no longer have a balance!!! This was so exciting to me as I HATE debt and have really pushed us to get rid of his loan before we accrued any interest and we did it!

So this is a totally random post but a couple things exciting to me.

Oh and to answer some email questions; no I don't plan on posting belly shots on this blog. Just not interested in putting that out there for everyone. I'll have pictures of me pregnant I'm sure but not of me posing for an actual shot of the baby belly. So I'm thinking I will do the pregnancy blog to be able to kind of have as a journal of this pregnancy since I didn't do that with either of the others. I will try to post weekly on Tuesdays since that is the day that I am a new week each week. I will have it private but you can leave me your email or email me your email so I can add you if you want (Tracijohnson@hotmail.com). But for those of you not interested in the private blog I will do a little update after each doctors appointment. So there you have it, I will please both people at once unless it gets to be too much to keep up with and then one will get a little less attention then the other.

And the due date is...

February 10th!

I had my doctors appointment today and that's what they're saying my due date is. It would be pretty crazy if it came on the 7th though because then Emmie, Allie and this baby would all be born on the 7th. I guess we'll see what happens. We have one active baby brewing in there. I could see it's little arms and legs flailing around the whole time he was doing the ultrasound, it was pretty funny to see. Sorry I'm too lazy to scan the ultrasound pictures into the computer so just picture a little black and white peanut looking thing on your screen with a big old head and toothpick arms and legs.

So I was just planning on posting little pregnancy updates on here and not using the blog that I made to tell everyone that we were pregnant but I have had a lot of people asking if I will do a pregnancy blog on there. So what do you think? Keep family and pregnancy stuff together or on different blogs? If I did a pregnancy blog I would make it private because I'm not interested in any and everyone reading/seeing all my pregnancy stuff alone. And Ashley I wouldn't be as brave as you to post all the cool stuff you post but would maybe just do little updates and belly shots every now and then. So let me know what the people want and I'll be happy to oblige.

So much to talk about

We have been super busy and there doesn't seem to be light at the end of the tunnel until mid August!!! We have been having a ton of fun and enjoying family and friends but can't seem to keep up with how fast we need to be running.

So here's a recap of the last month of the big things I can remember with some pictures to help make the reading more enjoyable...

June 27th we took off to Oregon for Darren's parents anniversary. We went to the temple Saturday and then out to dinner, had family pictures Monday and then took off to the beach for a couple days.

After the beach we went and stayed a couple days at my mom's house. We were going to go to a firework show with some of my sisters on the 4th but we put the babies to bed and stayed up talking instead. Darren flew home on the 6th but I stayed a couple extra days to be able to hang out with my mom and sisters some more. We had fun playing around in Becky's backyard all day one day but sadly have no pictures to show for it. Another day I went to my sister Laurie's house and Emmie was in heaven in their pool. She doesn't know how to swim so I had to jump in with her to keep that crazy fish from trying to drown herself. Even with me in there she kept putting her face under water and forgetting to plug her nose so she would end up with water in it. We need to take her to the pool at our gym and teach her the basics of swimming and holding her breath.














After the extra couple days in Oregon my mom and I jumped in the car and headed back to Utah. My mom stayed for 5 days and while she was here my brother Richie and his wife and kids came down for a day from Idaho and we all went to the museum and animal farm at Thanksgiving Point. It was a lot of fun but I didn't get out my camera and take any pictures. I wish I would have got some of Emmie and my niece Joanna eating watermelon in their panties in the backyard haha it was so cute. Emmie was drenched in the juices and had to go straight to the tub.

Also my mother and father in law were here and left and will be back in a week and stay for 3 weeks. My dad and step mom also get her tomorrow and will be here until Monday. My father in law jokes we are running a hotel around here. Although it seems that way it's fun to have the space to be able to put people up in and we are grateful people want to come see us.

I was supposed to have my first doctors appointment today but decided I wanted to be able to deliver at the nice new hospital here so had to switch doctors so my new appointment is set for this Thursday. I am at least 10 weeks right now we'll see if the first ultrasound makes my due date sooner or not since I have such messed up cycles it's hard to know when I ovulated. I took a picture today of my tummy since I already feel so much bigger but the picture doesn't make me look like anything at all so I'm not posting it.

So that's us the last little bit. Sorry it's seemed like we dropped off the face of the planet but we are back.