Down on the Farm

Do you spy little B in the garden?

We had a nice time at Grandpa and Grandma F's this weekend. We took the pop up camper down to rest for the winter in the machine shed (after one last night of camping in the back yard on Saturday). We spent some fun time in the garden picking eggplant, bell peppers, green beans, raspberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes galore!

Some of you may have already known that I was a bit nervous to be traveling far from home, as I reached 35 weeks gestation on Sunday, and that is when I had Bennett unexpectedly. The weekend went off without a hitch, and now I am safely sticking around home for the duration of this pregnancy.

Except today; I was a parent chaperone for the Little Flowers field trip to Apple Jack's apple orchard in Delano! I can't believe my baby is old enough for the 4 year old and up field trips now. We had a nice time learning about pollination, sampling apples, cider, and apple spice donuts, and taking a wagon ride through the orchard, but boy oh boy it was COLD! Luckily we were prepared, and wore our coats, hats, mittens, and Annalise even had on her scarf. Bennett had a nice morning at home, playing trains with Grandma.

The rest of the week is filled with stuff: I volunteer at Blooma tonight, Mike is headed off on a work trip on Wednesday morning-Thursday, the kids have a dentist appointment on Thursday (Bennett's first time), and other things which escape me right now. And of course TV- our tivo is filling up already, we are going to have to start discerning what merits high def, and what we can watch 20th century-style.

34 weeks, 3 days

Annalise took another belly shot for me. I should try to post this right next to the last one she took, because I think I've gotten significantly larger in the past week or so. We are approaching 35 weeks on Sunday, and that's an important milestone for me, since my water broke with Bennett during my 35th week. We are about as ready for this baby to come early as we were for Bennett to arrive a month early (not at all, that is).

We had an awesome weekend (THANK YOU, Grandpa and Grandma J!!!), starting with Chad and Karen's wedding on Friday night, in which Mike was a groomsman. The capital letter thanks are due to the fact that my parents took care of the kids at their house all weekend long!!! After the wedding and reception (at Brackett's Crossing- which brought back great memories of our own nuptials), we did something I haven't done for a very long time (and never whilst pregnant)- hung out with EE and KK at Al's Bar after 1 a.m.! We slept until a deliciously late hour on Saturday, and then attended the Gopher football game. We had dinner at M&S Grill downtown, and headed back to our house for a nice evening on the couch, watching a Tivo'd movie from HBO free preview weekend several weeks ago. We brought Starbuck's chai lattes and an assortment of pastries from Edelweiss (in P.L.- try it!) and had a late breakfast/brunch/snack with my parents and the kids.

Funny Annalisism-

Mike and I got a sitter for Saturday night, and went to Sweeney's bar in St. Paul to meet up with friends from UMM, as Gregg and Jena were visiting from SD. I was telling the girls this story, and they said I should be sure to blog this. I don't remember exactly when this happened, but it's worth retelling:

Annalise and Bennett have been bonding with their sibling in utero by putting their mouth up against my belly button and saying, "hi baby!" One morning we lifted the kids up into our bed so we wouldn't have to get up yet, and Annalise turned to my belly and said, "hi baby!" She then turned over, put her face near Mike's belly and said, "hi beer!" Out of the mouth of babes....

Nine Wonderful Years

Mike and I celebrated our nine year wedding anniversary last night by going out for an excellent dinner at Broder's with Annalise and Bennett. Times have certainly changed since B.C.! We're looking forward to next weekend to really celebrate in style. G and G are taking the kids for the weekend, because Mike is a groomsman in Chad and Karen's wedding on Friday the 19th. I'm so excited to spend some time with Mike, and the kids are REALLY excited to hang out at Grandpa and Grandma's.

Annalise started gymnastics again at The Little Gym, but now since she's in school all day, her class is after dinner. I think it will take a bit of adjusting, but it was fun to see her back on the bars and beam. Bennett has had two days of Play Pals now, and I think it is going to be another fun year with Teacher Lisa. He gets really tired on school days, and I'm glad that at least one of my children is still a napper.

I had an appointment with the midwife on Tuesday, and I'm measuring right on with my due date. Baby's heartbeat was in the 150's this time, where usually it's in the 160's. Those of you who think that indicates boy vs. girl- tell me which one is indicated by lower heart rates, I can't remember. I'll have to get Annalise to take a 32 week picture of my belly to post.

School Days

Annalise had a great first day of school. I think she's really going to have a great year. She came home from school very hungry- I think she'll figure out soon that she'll need to eat what's in her lunch box. I adjusted Bennett's naptime today, so we could leave the house shortly after 3 in order to pick Annalise up in time. Bennett is very happy to see his sister today, although we had a nice time playing together this morning.

Danielle and I went to see Hancock at the Hopkins Theatre on Monday night. It was nice to get out and see a movie! Bennett and I are going to Blooma tomorrow morning for prenatal yoga. All in all a very nice, fun, not too busy week.

September??!!! Really?

The longer I stay away, the harder this becomes to update...

Fastball is FINISHED for the season. Our family trekked to Mankato two weekends in a row, and got some good use of our pop up camper, which we parked at Bob's house for both weekends. Thanks, Bob and Kim! Mike was the pitcher for a team his old teammates put together for the second tournament weekend, and he had a lot of fun pitching. We had a nice time at the Children's Museum with Adryen, Darci, and Dustin. Bennett took a mini-session of gymnastics at The Little Gym, and had a great time. It was so fun to see him volunteer to be the first to do a stunt, and to hear him proclaim, "I did it!!!" after every forward roll, hang from the bars, etc.

We attended an ice cream social at Little Flowers, and met Annalise's new guide, Nadine. We had a few more playdates with classmates from Bennett's ECFE class this past school year. Annalise finished up a session of swimming lessons at Foss on Friday, and really made some great strides with putting her whole face in the water just over the past week or two.

Today was Annalise's first day of school, and she is attending all day!!!! I'm anticipating a very tired girl when Mike brings her home at 3:30 today. We had fun packing a lunch yesterday afternoon, and included a whole carrot- uncut. None of those baby carrots for this big girl!!

Bennett and I did a little Target shopping today, after our first conference with Teacher Lisa (who you may remember was Annalise's teacher too, when she was in Play Pals). We were looking for items for Bennett's big boy room, which is slowly coming together. We ordered bunk beds for the shared bedroom (Annalise's) this weekend, and they will arrive mid-October (BEFORE THE BABY- I'm telling you!!!).

The only other activity of note is our annual trip to the State Fair. Our kids enjoy it as much as we do- Annalise wanted to have cotton candy and rootbeer this year, and Bennett remembered Sweet Martha's cookies from last year. The kids went on the Giant Slide with Mike (since it had a sign cautioning against pregnant riding), and Bennett was the brave boy to try the bungee trampoline jumping in the Adventure Zone, right outside the grandstand. Annalise saw it first, and convinced us she HAD to try it, but then decided against doing so when she saw the tween-aged girls flipping forward and backward on the bungees, and thought she'd have to do that. Mike had already purchased the ticket, and Bennett said, "I'll do that!" And sure enough, he did. He waited in line, stood on the scale, handed his ticket to the ticket-taker, and waited behind two others for his turn. Then he climbed the ladder to the trampoline, and let some teenaged boy hook him into the harness. We were all amazed that this actually happened, remembering his freak out on the carousel at MOA over spring break in April, just a mere four + months ago.