School's Out for the Summer!!!

A few end-of-the-school-year items:

Katelyn really wanted to be in the school talent show, so she wrote a piano song to play.  I was impressed that she's not nervous to play in front of the whole school!

 Owen is my little cooking helper, it's so cute.  He loves to help me make pasta.

 A picture I missed from Whitney's kindergarten graduation:

 Owen loves to "help mow the lawn".  As soon as he sees Eric out there he runs and grabs his lawn mower,  and he'll mow for seriously 30 minutes!

 I helped at the school field day, they had some great activities like this GIANT slide:

 And Water Wars- Kate's in the middle in blue

 the lady in charge really built this whole cardboard city with little forts and water gun refueling stations throughout, and the teachers were launching water balloons at them the whole time, it was AWESOME.

 And of the school year assembly- Katelyn and Whitney were both on the High Honor Roll, and Katelyn got the Queen of her class award!  Her good friend Mason was the king.  It was for the student who showed the school model of Accountability, Responsibility, and Respect. :)  Here they are with their awesome teacher Mrs. Dodge.

 Random: I took this picture one morning to show how I always hold Owen for the first few minutes after he wakes up in the morning- he scrunches up on top of my belly like that, it's so funny.  

 I've been going through a couple of watermelons per week (seriously) and this last one we opened was a BYU fan!  Haha.

 Also Whitney started T-ball this week, our first experience with baseball!  Eric had practiced with her a bunch playing catch, and it was so fun to see her learning to play!  Here she is trying to step on the base and get a kid out- although they don't really have "outs" in our wimpy t-ball league. :)

 I love this picture.  It is so WHITNEY.  Intense, intense, intense!  Her tongue is out, she's just taking off to run as a ball is hit.  She runs for every ball, and many times beats kids who are closer to it to start with!  She's starting to learn about positions though.

 Her first hit!

We're excited to watch some more games and see if her Murray genes shine through, because none of us Hansens went very far with baseball. :)

Pregnancy: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This will be my last pregnancy post, since I only have 10 days left!  

I just wanted to show some highlights now that it's almost over.

First, pre-pregnancy pics from last summer, to remind myself that I will be skinny again, someday!

Last summer was AMAZING, pretty much the best ever.

I took a lot of selfies!  Remember this:

and this:                                                               and this:

  

I did everything I wanted to do before jumping back on the pregnancy/nursing crazy train. :)

And here we are at week 5, this was the first day I started feeling sick- can you tell from the look on my face??  I should have known right then that I was having a girl!

Ugh that sickness is horrible.  Even with my friend Zofran that made it manageable.  Definitely one of the "BADS" of pregnancy.  

Now let's focus on possibly the one and only big positive of pregnancy (besides obviously the end result!): my hair. :)  

Definitely in the "GOOD" category, I have ADORED my hair this pregnancy!  Not only did it grow fast and thick, it has generally been luscious, smooth, and easy to manage and keep grease-free.  I have only been washing my hair twice a week since last summer and it has been AMAZING!  Life-changing to not have to start from scratch with wet hair every day!  I have had so much fun trying new hair styles and curling my hair and generally feeling like it was pretty cute.  And feeling cute really helps boost my happiness!  So that is one thing I'm definitely going to miss once post-partum sets in!!

lovin' the curls

even without doing anything to it it's not too bad, as seen here:

While morning sickness is BY FAR the worst part of pregnancy, like nothing else comes close for me, here is another of the BADS--THE LARGENESS!  

It was good for me to look back at these pictures and laugh because I thought I was HUGE at each stage haha! Like here at Thanksgiving when I was only 12 weeks along and I thought I was showing so hugely, oh my.  

 This was at Christmas, 16 weeks:

 And here's around Owen's birthday 20 weeks:

 And bah-BOOM!  Apparently I didn't take any pictures in February, this was the end of March.  This, 28 weeks, was one of my least favorite parts of this pregnancy, because my stomach had POPPED out so hugely and I was super uncomfortable and exhausted (around then I started taking iron) and everyone was asking me when I was due and I still had more than TWO MONTHS left!  Super depressing.

 more March

 my awesome watermelon comparison

 Then it was finally April, 

 And then May!  These are pictures that show me at Whitney's party.  I was SO relieved to finally make it to MAY!  Here I am from behind.  Everyone says "you can't even tell from behind that you're pregnant!" but really, I hope I look a little skinnier than that when I'm not pregnant!

 This is around then too- 36 weeks.  I guess I just carry my babies straight out in front!  It's good because I don't have too much back pain and she doesn't kick my ribs much, but it's BAD because my stomach skin cannot handle that much stretch and I have huge stretch marks.  Like the area around my belly button is one big stretch mark!  So I will always have extra skin there.  Not cute.  Too bad.  That's just part of being a mom :)

 And this is the last picture I've taken- 37 weeks!  I guess I should take another but I don't feel like I've really gotten bigger?  Anyway, I'm totally happy with how I look right now, because I'm SUPPOSED to be huge right before I deliver!  All my friends are so nice and are always saying that I'm the cutest pregnant girl ever, so I'm trying to just enjoy it!  Because I know I look better now than I will for like the next 3-6 months!!!

And last but not least, the UGLY.  These pictures don't do my ugly veins justice.  They are worse each pregnancy, but I am grateful they aren't as widespread or painful as my poor sister Allison's were!  And they haven't gotten much worse the last couple of months as I feared they would.  I'm excited for these to mostly go away in the next couple of months!

One last thought to end on- I was reading the post-partum section of my pregnancy book the other day, and this line cracked me up: "You may feel overwhelmed.  You may wonder if having a baby was really a good idea."  Hahaha.  I read it to Eric and he was like "you may wonder if having FOUR babies was really a good idea!"  which made me laugh even more.  Yes, having a new baby is going to make things crazy around here, but we are excited and ready!  Bring it on!

The Party Girl gets her party!

We planned for weeks, months even, and the day finally came!  Whitney's birthday party!  

She chose the movie Frozen for her theme, so this was my attempt at Elsa's Ice Palace on top of a snowy mountain for the cake.  I was unsure of it's coolness until Whitney saw the finished product and gasped- completely validating my work, so a huge smile of relief from me!

 It slipped, slid and all but collapsed by the end of the party under the weight of the homemade hard candy on top, prompting Eric to give me an engineering lecture using terms I've already forgotten, it was hilarious.  Apparently he would have been helpful in decorating the cake after all!

 Then here's how the party went- the kids arrived and got dressed up as Elsa or Sven the reindeer.  (This year Whitney and Katelyn have both opted to have fun costumes for their guests instead of a pinata- too costly to do both.  I"m happy because I think costumes are more fun!)

Here are Brody, WHitney, Lorena, Vivi and Damon, then in front Adrey and Bekah and Will.  Not pictured are our little neighbor girls who were predictably an hour late, and Whitney's cute friend Porter whose invitation apparently never made it home so he didn't know about the party!  Sad!

 Then we played "Do you want to build a snowman?"  You can see on the wall the awesome snowflakes Katelyn made for us to decorate with- she was a big help getting ready for the party!

 They each had a partner and supplies to make a snowman.

 We were going to have a 2-minute time limit, but it ended up taking them much longer than that! 

 Next we did 2 crafts- Katelyn supervised the Ice Bracelets...

 and we did Ice painting with epsom salt- it turned out pretty cool!

 Of course we had to have our obstacle course- Eric's like "why do we do this at every birthday party??" and it's true, we have always done one, but it's because it's always a hit!  The kids always love it and want to do it over and over!  To make it fit in with the theme we called it "Anna and Kristoff's Obstacle Course" because several times in the movie they are racing through the snow- away from wolves or the giant snowman or back to the castle.  So they went in pairs and had to jump off the deck, go through the tunnel, then (and Eric came up with this, he's a genius and so cute to be willing to do it) hop on the sled to be pulled by a reindeer...

 Here's Whitney and Brody on that part....

 then run through the pool, over a picnic table, then to the playground up the ladder and down the slide, then back to the deck. :)  Super fun.

 Then we had cake and ice cream and blue slush punch.  Isn't she cute?? :)

 I love how Whitney's smiling in this picture, feeling all special as her friends sang to her. :)

 Eating their treats.

 Some impromptu sleigh rides- it took a lot of "reindeer" to pull two kids!

 We opened presents, and this was a hilarious cats-meowing-happy-birthday card Vivi gave her.

 Lastly we played "unfreeze Anna and Hans"

 They were supposed to be on teams, but it kind of ended up being a free-for-all, with everyone sprinting back and forth to get more water.  It was fun!

 Whitney with her ice bracelet- they turned out pretty!

 And my little princess and reindeer. :)

 I'm not as into decorating as I am into planning fun activities, so our only decorations were the snowflakes in the kitchen and this Olaf on the front door, which Owen hugged the first time he saw him!  I drew it myself, thank you, proving I do have a tiny bit of artistic skill and I didn't need to print out a $10 poster like the people on the internet whose idea I used!

 After the party we went swimming and rockclimbing at the Provo Rec Center.

 And then Sunday was Whitney's real birthday!  As usual for her, she got up bright and early and opened all her presents!  Well actually this year she saved a couple for later in the morning haha.

We gave her the Frozen soundtrack:

 I love her expressive face- ponies from Grammy and Grandpa Jamie were exciting!

 And definitely her favorite present ended up being this sweet spy kit from Grandma and Grandpa Murray, full of gadgets that let you see around corners, change your voice,

 Shoot message darts, and see behind you (the glasses Katelyn has on).

 What a fun birthday!!!!  We love our Whitney Mae and she gets more fun every year. :)