July Recap - Part 2

Just to keep wrapping up July... the boys and I spent a few days over at Lake Chelan with Granny Brenda, Papa Bob, Grandma, Grandpa, the Latimers, Keri, and the girls a few weeks ago. It was such a great trip. Traveling without John is always a little more demanding, but there were so many people to help and make the week relaxing.

Poor boys and their matching outfits. They don't know it's not cool yet!

James loves his life jacket.

Sweet sisters - Kenley and Claire.

The kids spent hours watching the boats and sea-doos in the water from the balcony.

My favorite part about the house: fully enclosed dock for the kids to play.

Playing bubbles, wait sorry, it's much more dramatic than that. Playing "BUBBLES!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!! BUBBLES!!!!!" with Grandpa.

This moment made me die laughing. Nate tried to pick up the yellow ball, but it kept rolling away from him. Instead of standing up and walking over to it, he sat there for at least a minute and tried to reach from that spot.

Messy Claire at dinner.

The kids loved playing with Austin and Travis.

Snuggles with Grandma.

The boys did a great job sleeping in the corner downstairs. They were probably just wiped out by the end of the day...

After a couple days at the house, the boys and I needed to get out for a bit. Sometimes a change of scenery makes everyone's attitudes better!

A trip to Safeway:

And to the drive-in for some milkshakes. If it were me, I would have gotten all of us a small vanilla milkshake to share. But, since John couldn't be with us, I asked myself: "What would John do?". Of course he would have bought them each large chocolate milkshakes... I compromised and bought them their own small strawberry shakes... that they didn't even get half way through, but loved their special treat!

Then we sat by the fence and watched the boats. They could have sat here all afternoon.

Playing balloons with Auntie Keri.

James wore this, um, hat most of the week. Looking good, buddy!

Nate was in heaven with so many balloons around.

Wish this picture wasn't blurry!

New baby was 6 or 7 weeks here, so this could technically be our first picture all together.

Cousins!

James made himself quite comfortable while eating breakfast.

James also carried around this baby doll most of the week. We don't have any dolls at our house, so maybe he was confused?

Sea-Doo rides with Grandpa!

Nate wanted to join him....

Until we put a life jacket on Nate. Then he cried just as much because he DIDN'T want to go!

 

Watching Kenley... With a death grip on those life jackets!

Kenley and James with Grandma and Grandpa.

And they decided to race.

I had such a fun drive home by myself too. The boys conked out right away so I got myself some Starbucks, rolled all the windows down, and cranked up the music. It was 95* most of the way home so I had to take full advantage of it!

 The other day James asked if he could have some caramel corn from Great Grandma, so I asked him to also get some for Nate.

Soon Nate will realize he got the raw end of the deal. But not yet.

Being Official

Baby #3 is on the way!

 

I had my first ultrasound this morning and confirmed another little bugger will be joining our family early in March! My official due date is March 7th, but it will be another scheduled c-section about a week early.

I am thrilled to have a third kiddo in the works, but I think this pregnancy to-date has been even tougher than the first two. Mostly because of the first two.... whom I love and adore and wouldn't trade for the world!!

After spending an entire week on the couch not keeping any food or liquid down around week 8, I finally got the same nausea medication I used with Nate and it has been much better since! I'm still in the completely exhausted phase, but the boys are good about naps and/or movies. 

I'm so thankful for another little blessing. Eek! Mom of three..... woah.

Blackberry Picking

The blackberry bushes behind our house are just starting to ripen so the boys and I headed out to do some picking/pruning the other day.

I was really impressed with how quickly they caught on to choosing only the ripe berries. Within the first few minutes we had a good bunch of berries.

Then Nate, in true Nate-form, saw those beautiful berries sitting so nicely in the bowl and decided it would be way more fun to grab two heaping fist-fulls and throw them in the air like confetti.

Shortly after picking up most of those berries, I asked James, Mr. Responsible, if he would hold the bowl for us so Nate couldn't dump them out. He agreed and when I wasn't looking, he started filling up his empty water bottle with the berries from the bowl. He assured me that we could get the berries out at home.... but squishy, juicy berries aren't really my thing.

Next time, the boys get empty water bottles to fill up with whatever they want. And I keep the bowl of ripe blackberries out of boy-reach!

July Recap - Part 1

Well, it has been a busy and relaxing and exciting and disturbing last month here at the Carruthers home. Sounds fun, huh? I'm just going to start where I left off..... 4th of July!

We started the holiday with some yard work. The boys were so helpful carrying around my rakes and yard tools. James even wanted to wear his gloves so he could be like mom.

4th of July evening we spent at John's mom's again. John spent months getting together about a gazillion less-than-legal fireworks and was very excited to blow things up.

Within the first half hour, Auntie Becca had some fun with Nate. I think the look suits him.

James loved playing football with Uncle Dave.

Brothers... White shirts on Carruthers boys at a Carruthers event = Was I crazy?

I just like this picture of Nate.

This next picture is record of a parenting fail moment. The boys discovered they could reach the dessert table early in the night and had been sneaking all sorts of goodies the entire evening. Later, I caught Nate  mid-grab going for a cookie. At that same moment, someone I hadn't talked to in a while walked up and started talking to me. So, I'm standing there, stolen cookie in hand, talking, and Nate starts to scream for the cookie. Not wanting to interrupt the person who was talking, I handed the cookie over to Nate and let him waddle his way over to Aunt Bambi. Screaming wins, worse things have happened....  :)

James didn't want to be outside to watch fireworks because they were "really loud" so Aunt Kim found a special spot on the chair where James could watch from inside the house. Such a nice Aunt. I don't think I'm that sympathetic!

Sleepy and sugared up Nate opted to sleep upstairs through the fireworks.

It was the best show yet. John outdid himself again. I swear one of these days someone's going to loose an arm!

** Thanks for the extra pictures Aunt Kim!  :) **