Easter Time

Which is more exciting: Christmas or Easter? Christ being born or rising from the grave? Or, to a three year old, Santa or the Easter Bunny?

Ethan has been asking everyday for a week, "Is it Easter time?" That's been the first question when he wakes up in the morning and, once, when he woke up from a nap it was: "Did I sleep all the days and it's Easter time?"

Finally, yesterday morning, we got to tell him IT'S EASTER!! This is the happy Easter face
Then, started the mission, where did the bunny hide the basket? In the bathroom! Silly bunny.


(Don't know how I managed the get the I Love You hand signal, but it fits)
Worst part of the day, found out Mom wasn't feeling good and needed to stay home for the day. Fortunately, my dad brought over the goodies. (I wasn't fast enough to get a shot of E's basket) Here's Nugget's first Easter basket
And my new bag!!!
After lots of playing, tons of candy and a nap we headed up to Chuck and Diane's for an egg hunt and dinner. Yes, we still hunt for eggs, as adults, and its probably the most fun part of the day. The face in this picture is "Mom, I'm on the hunt, quit interrupting me for pictures" but I had to, Grandma needed to see too.
My boys cleaned up at the hunt, I think Michael ended up with 11 and Ethan was pretty close to that too. After the hunting we had a wonderful dinner, where E surprisingly kept asking for more and more ham (not usually one of his favorites) and, bonus, he didn't puke!
If you look at this next picture, between the two chairs, on the porch, is a robin. It sat on the porch for hours and then started flying into the door. We have no idea why but finally shut the blinds and it stopped.
Once we got home it had started to sleet outside. For the next 1/2 hour or so, we watched the fat fluffy flakes come down and Ethanrun around like a mad man.



Happy Easter!

Fishing, Take 2-Manitou Lake

We had much better luck today on our fishing trip. Not only did Ethan catch his first ever fish, it was the first fish of the season!! It was the second cast. He, mostly, cast it by himself. Then when he started reeling it in he told me he felt something. Sure enough, he reeled in a trout! Unfortunately, when Michael dipped it back in the water to clean it it got the hook loose and swam away, but we got pictures.

He wouldn't touch it

For the next 15-20 minutes he'd go from me to Michael asking; "Did you catch anything yet?" Way to rub it in buddy.

This is our chipmunk buddy, that came to steal pretzels
We got really messy, but that's what camping (that's what E calls it) is all about
We ended up taking home 4 fish that Michael caught. It's the first time in Colorado that he caught more then 1 fish during one of our day trips!

Fishing, Kind of

So our first fishing trip of the season turned out to be, kind of, a bust. Although, we got to enjoy some beautiful scenery on a beautiful day.
We have Spring fever and have wanted to get into the mountains since, well,we were last up there in the fall. This past Monday was a gorgeous day so we packed up, stopped for a fishing license and headed out towards Rampart Reservoir. Well, who knew that the access road doesn't open till May 1 (yes I failed to do that part of my research). As we were driving away we noticed another parking area that had quite a few cars and a trail. So we decided that we would see where that lead and after 15 minutes, or too difficult of a hike, we would turn around. We met a lady right at the beginning that told us it was a very easy hike in. After about 20 minutes we met a gentleman that told us it was at least another 3/4 a mile. So we decided to turn around, Ethan was devastated, he really wanted to fish. So we stopped at the creek, lured up his rod and threw a few casts out.

Now we can't wait till next time!!

Back to Reality

Looks like we made it home from our vacation just in time, or maybe the traveling affected me and nugget.
Caution: If you are squeamish about pregnancy/girlie issues please don't feel it necessary to continue.
I want to start by saying everything is ok, baby is still snug in the womb and I am not on any restricted activities.
Yesterday afternoon I started not feeling so hot and went to lay down. After a few minutes I had to go pee, for the millionth time. Afterward I noticed some blood and, kind of, freaked out. Unfortunately the doctor's office was already closed for the day so we were recommended to go to the hospital to get evaluated. Thankfully, I have the best mom ever and she came over right away to watch E.
We got settled into a labor & delivery trauma room at the hospital, where they hooked me up to monitors to watch baby and to see if I was having any steady contractions. After about an hour the nurse came in and ran a few tests; it was determined that my water had not broken and I was not dilated. There is a test they can preform to see if my body is going to go into labor within the next few weeks, but unfortunately because of the blood the test would not be accurate. After a few hours of observation and some uncomfortable testing we were released. We already had an appointment scheduled for today with my OB.
At our appointment today my doc decided to start me on anti-labor medication (a once a week shot), a steroid shot to help develop nugget's lungs (just in case), and an type of muscle relaxer in case I have too many contractions. We also had our appointments moved from every other week to every week. The doctor was great, he helped to calm our fears, if baby was born now there is very low risk of any long term damage and the biggest concern would be lung development. He will evaluate whether bed rest is necessary at each appointment.
What a way to end vacation huh?

Happy Birthday Old Man

(That dog didn't stand a chance)

Posers?

Nah!!

Guess Who Got a Haircut?

This crazy, shaggy boy just got his first professional haircut. Yeah, after last summer's incident, I did not attempt the clippers again, leave this job to the experts.
AND, this shaggy man got his "dirty thirty" locks chopped too! (Although he didn't get to sit in a cool car, they did let him play a video game during the cut)

During...(before near meltdown occurred, I think he just lost his patience)
After... there are ears under that hair!!!
After for Dad... (trying to find suitcases in a mess of a closet, hence the forced smile)

I am tired, Ethan has not slept well in the past two nights, therefore, Mom and Dad have not slept well. I think he's trying to prepare us for whats to come, and he doesn't take the hint that we need to get all the sleep we can now so that way we'll be well rested for nugget's arrival (yeah right). So, here are some pictures that I keep forgetting to upload

Washing the car with Dad, although our hose leaks and it was not warm enough to get soaked with hose water

An attempt at taking his shirt off (he has been very fond of getting naked lately)

Sharing with his buddy, Cooper. One rides while the other pushes
Then, they switch (for those of you that are not aware, for most people, sharing is not a "natural" skill, it has to be learned)
Smashing a lego robot to bits (this, on the other hand, seems to be a more natural skill)
And then posing, champion of the battle
We had a doctor's appointment yesterday for nugget, everything is going really well. We start going every other week once we're back from vacation. They also started testing me for a protein that is released that tells if I'm likely to go into labor early (pretty cool science-y stuff). I should get the results back within the next few days, I think they will be doing this every visit until we get closer to due date. If the test comes back positive, they can either give me medicine to prevent preterm labor or, if its close enough, a steroid that will help baby's lungs develop faster.