Elliot's Beginnings

With only two months left, I feel like this is coming down to be a very problem free pregnancy. I feel very blessed. As I've already posted previously about, I announced to Ryan that we were expecting with a six-pack of Dr. Pepper. In April, we decided we were ready to tell the boys. We only didn't tell them sooner because it's hard to expect a 5- or 3-year-old to keep a secret. When Ryan told them, he took them into our bathroom and showed them each of the Dr. Pepper bottles and said "who's that?" They would tell him "Daddy Pop" and "Mommy Pepper" until they named them all. Then Ryan pulled out the sixth, and said, "Then who is this?" Karl thought it was another Baby Emmaline, Jared just said, "Baby Pop." Then Ryan explained that there was a baby in mommy's belly and we were going to have another baby in the family this year. The boys were very excited, especially; Karl mainly was because we were all excited. I think they'll be very loving big brothers to our little Elliot. I think Elliot is still yet to be a surprise for our little Emmaline.

May - 4M

As I progressed in this pregnancy I was very exhausted for the first couple months, as usual. I was afraid every Sunday that someone would suspect I was pregnant. But, even when I started telling people in June, they either didn't believe me or said I didn't even look pregnant; which is strange to hear when you feel so huge. But, all the same, they were excited for us. :-)

How I had decided to announce our news to family was to tell them I had a medical condition that I was seeing a doctor for, and that it was expected to change around the middle of October. It turned out to be a simple riddle but with some funny different reactions. My dad, for example, who had read the message first, took it a little further when he told my mom. She apparently was almost in tears thinking I may only have 'til October to live, when he let her read the message for herself. Then, realizing what it was about, her sadness was turned to joy. :-) Poor Mom! But kind of funny... ;)

June - 5M

 Since we found out we were having a boy, I've been feeling the constant desire to be getting things ready, and trying to not wonder too much what this delivery will be like. Ryan let me completely decide, this time, what the baby-theme for Elliot would be. I chose bugs, snakes, lizards, and turtles. So far we had some fun ideas of how to redecorate the baby-room for him, and we got a super cute baby blanket with bugs all over it for him from his Gramma Kris.

July - 6M

Something I've done differently with this pregnancy is exercise more. I've always felt that I don't have enough energy or agility, with my previous pregnancies, to do much more than walking. When I found out I was pregnant, this time, I was already taking kick-boxing classes once a week, whenever I could make it. So, as I got bigger I just kept going. I was a little surprised and happy with how much better I felt when I kept going to the classes. I didn't really occur to me before how much all the added weight of pregnancy can be a strain on your body. But, all the toning of kick-boxing has helped me bear the added weight better. I feel like I have less night-time muscle spasms and general soreness. I'm really grateful to the instructor and my friends in the class encouraging me to keep going.

August - 7M

 I have to be honest, I hope these last few weeks go by supper fast, so I'm trying to keep busy and distract myself. I can't believe I'll be getting even bigger still for two more months. Elliot's been doing well and kicking all the time. The boys have each gotten to feel him kick and have been very sympathetic towards him. Karl can't sit on my lap without saying, "Don't make me squish Baby Elliot!" We're all very excited to meet him and can't wait 'til he's here.

Treats for 2017

These are some of the new treat recipes I've tried so far this year.

Raspberry Chocolate Parfait

My mom sent me some of her home-freeze-dried raspberries. They've been great for just snacking or putting in cereal. But, I wanted to used them for one of those raspberry recipes that I always seem to skip in my cookbooks. I chose to make this Raspberry-Chocolate Parfait. It was basically just chocolate pudding, brownie pieces, and raspberries. It was soo good though!

Chocolate Sticky Buns

Originally meant to be caramel sticky buns, I made this to go with our breakfast casserole dinner one night. Jared was the one who chose that we should use chocolate flavored pudding instead of the butterscotch. It was delicious, but all leftover had to be counted as treats after that night.

Nutella Icebox Cake

 Ryan gets to pick a special treat when he gets a certain amount of projects done. For one of his treats he picked this creamy, chocolate, frozen cake I'd told him about. The recipe originally used chocolate grahm crackers, but Ryan wanted the honey kind. This a really good one, we all enjoyed it melting in our mouths. We'll definitely be doing this one again.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

I don't remember if I've ever had a strawberry-rhubarb pie before this year, but when we were visiting at Ryan's parent's house in NE, Ryan's sister, Alisha, made one from the rhubarb from her garden. It tasted amazing!! I've decided this is one of my top three favorite pies. When she came to visit on our fishing day, she was so thoughtful and brought me some of her rhubarb. A few days later, I was making my own pie and enjoying those wonderful flavors again. Luckily she brought me enough rhubarb that I was able to freeze some for one or two more pies. :-D

Helder Park

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

 

The kids and I had a park day at our local park, which is not something we do very often. The kids were a little surprised, I think, that we were going.

Emmaline just climbed up this bar-bridge, I only helped her near the top.

Karl and Emmaline having just climbed the tube slide.

You would've thought Emmaline went to the park all the time and had a personal trainer the way she was going at it. She was climbing up everything that could be climbed and going down every slide.  She made her way straight up to the biggest slide and without any hesitation, sat and slid down.

Up...

...Down, and repeat.

 

 

This boy was very sweet and wanted to turn the merry-go-round really slow for Emmaline. I offered to do it, but he wanted to.

Jared, from start to finish only wanted to see who he could make friends with. He ended up making friends with this cute little four-year-old named Bradey. They even gave each other hugs when it was time to say good-bye. 

Karl played with Jared and his friend too. When Karl would yell, "change!" they would run to a different toy.

I was a little nervous about Emmaline being on the tire swing, that she was going to fall right off; but, when I tried to hold her a little she just wanted my hands off! So, I let go of her and sure enough, she stayed on just fine. Even after the boys left, she wanted to keep swinging by herself.

Karl peaking out of the tube-bridge.

We had a fun time and it was really good for the kids to make new friends and get some energy out. It looks like I'll have to try and do this more often. :-)

John Ball Zoo

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

For JR Automation's company picnic this year, we went to John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids. Ryan had to work that day, then we went in the evening time. When we got there they had pet monkey toys for the boys to carry around on a lease/pole while we were there. They loved them. Jared named his JR Automation. Karl named his Sheriff. We also met Ryan's friend and co-worker, Chris, there and he spent the rest of the time there with us, usually with one or both of the boys holding his hand.

We then went to the JR pavilion to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. Once we were all full, we went into the zoo where we were given free ice creams or popsicles of our choice. The boys both got huge popsicles, which they enjoyed immensely up until they were melting way too much and I had to throw the rest away and wash their monkeys off for them. Karl stopped to see the penguin statues outside the aquarium. He has a special place in his heart for penguins.

We first passed the bird area, and Jared really liked the bald eagle and was very impressed by how big it's nest was. He and Ryan checked to see how big their wing spans were and what kind of bird they would be. We then moved on to seeing the wallabies. We would've got to pet them, but they were a little nervous of Ryan I think and hopped away. We left them be and went to look at some exotic birds and then pet some goats.

We stopped at this big bird cage of parakeets. Before you stepped into the cage you'd get a popsicle stick with bird-feed stuck to it. Ryan, with Emmaline, Jared, and Karl went in. Ryan just stood there and the birds came to him, and then kept coming and coming. I think he had about a dozen birds on him and Emmaline at one point. Karl was trying a little too hard to give his stick to the birds, so it kind of scared them away having a stick poked at them. But he was so cute. Ryan helped him to try and hold still. Jared did a good job waiting for birds and walking around to look at the different ones.

 

Something Karl loved was getting to pet the tortoise by the turtle and tortoise exhibit. As we were trying to move on, he ran back to pet the tortoise and feel it's little feet again, twice. Jared seemed really excited to see the monkeys and a bulletin with a picture of Olmec on it. He recognized it from his Spelunky game he likes to play with Ryan at home.

We saw a couple of big grizzlies, one from Yellowstone and one from Alaska. Jared and I were very excited to see the tapir and maned wolf. We had seen a couple videos about them earlier that day.
One of our last things to do, before heading back, was the camel ride. I talked to the boys about it before, and they weren't sure at first, but then decided they really wanted to do it. I decided to go up with them. It was a short ride, but pretty fun to do together. We rode a camel named Sarah. Jared and Karl commented on how bumpy the ride was, while we were riding. But, once we got down and were going back to Ryan, Karl shouted, "That was awesome!"

We like to go to the gift store each time we go to a zoo for the first time. This time, it was on JR, who had given us some gift cards to use while at the zoo.We like to try and pick something out that reminds us of something we did that day, if we can. So, I got a tortoise necklace. Karl got a penguin stuffed animal. For Emmaline I held up two little stuffed animals for her to choose from, and she snatched the giraffe and immediately started gibbering, smiling, and playing with it. Jared chose to get a ring-tailed lemur and Ryan a pocket knife key-chain. Chris was nice and gave his gift card to us, so Ryan picked out a penguin stuffed animal and got that for Chris, and brought it to work for him the next day.

We were able to get some more treats before we left, and then headed home. It was a great spending that time together exploring and seeing interesting animals.

Makey Bots

Monday, July 17, 2017

Ryan's been getting subscriptions from Make magazine, as a gift. They're right up his ally with articles about things like "computers, electronics, robotics, metalworking, and woodworking." Jared also likes to look at them because they can have some pretty interesting pictures. In one of the recent issues, Ryan and Jared were looking at this page about making these Makey Bots. Jared really wanted to make them, so I told him we could make them for learning-time one day.

It turned out to be a good project for the boys. It used things like straws, paper, yarn, and pieces of card board. Basically things that we found around the house that could work for making them. When it came to deciding what to use for the handles, I just cut up a black foam block we had left over from packing material.

 Jared drew his, mine and Ryan's, and Karl's bots. Karl drew Emmaline's bot. The boys also helped tape the straws on back and a few other things. Jared gave them all names.

Karl - Silly-Head

Mom and Dad - Boss of all Bots

Jared - Steve

Emmaline - Wizard-Eater Bot

When they were done and hung up, we tried them out. We found there were a few tweaks that needed to be made so they wouldn't break and fall down. Then, the boys had to take a little practice to get used to how to make them work. The concept was pulling down just enough to keep the tension so they didn't fall back down, while wiggling back and forth so the bot shimmied up the ropes. Jared really caught on, but Karl took a little more time. Emmaline just liked to sit and play around with them every now and again, and pretend she was doing it.

Zombie faces... I think...

When Ryan got home from work, then he tried out a race with the kids. I'm glad Jared wanted to do this. Hopefully we can keep an eye out and find more crafty projects for him to do like this.

Beach Day

I feel like 4th of July day is starting to become beach day for us here in Holland. This time we went to a different beach than the one we usually go to. This one was at Saugatuck Dunes State Park, south of Holland. Ryan's friend, Rachel, invited us to go with her family. While we were there, we met her husband's parents and siblings.

Her mother-in-law, Carol, was very friendly and talked to us a lot about the missionary work her parents did in their lives and asked questions about Ryan's mission and how our church does missionary work.

Ryan, right after board sledding into the water.

To get out to our spot on the beach, we ended up hiking maybe 25 or 30 minutes. It felt like that anyway. I typically love hiking, but at five and half months pregnant, I was struggling a little bit.

Ryan and Jared playing aimlessly in the sand.

Karl stayed with me and was about as slow as me, up until Ryan took him on his shoulders and carried him (and Emmaline in the carrier) almost all the rest of the way. I don't know how he does that, but it impresses me every time!

At the beach, the kids were excited at first to see Rachel and Chris and play in the water. But, after a while they just wanted to sit and eat their snacks and treats. That's all I wanted to do after all that hiking.

Ryan eating a bag of Doritos out in the water.

 Chris and his brothers and sister had a water board he had found and were taking turns walking really high up a hill behind us, and sliding down into the water. The hill was fairly steep, so it was a pretty fast slide down and some people went pretty far out into the water. It looked like a lot of fun.

After a while, Ryan took a turn to do it. We also watched Rachel do it a couple times, which was hilarious. She didn't want to get wet any more, so she would put her toes down to stop herself when she'd get near the water and skid to a stop in the sand.

Emmaline loves the water. She kept coming over to me and giving me her hands, so I could swing her around in the water. She's so cute when she's having so much fun.

 Ryan made sure the boys were taken out into the water a couple times while we were there, and had them practice some swimming a little bit.

He also made sure to take me out into the water and dunk me a couple times. I of course attempted to dunk him. He wanted to swim out pretty far, but I had to go back because it was too cold going out further.

When we were ready to head back to the cars, Ryan took the kids and kept at his usual pace. It's easier for him to take a big load if he doesn't have to do it slowly. So, I couldn't keep up with him, but Carol was nice to walk with me and make sure I didn't get lost on the trails.

She was great company, so it made the walk seem like it didn't take as long.

On the way home, our sandy, sleepy kids took some naps. We stopped at Checker's on the way to get some food. Then we went home to get cleaned up, eat, and relax a little after our fun, active day.