22 Week Fiesta!

We had this great idea to have a Mexican fiesta. We were going to invite friends and have all this amazing food and music and maybe even watch Three Amigos. What actually happened was we had no friends over, but I made honey lime enchiladas (amazing, by the way...got the recipe from my friend Jenny's blog), we wore sombreros for about 30 seconds, and we watched one youtube video of a mariachi band. That counts, right?




Happy 22 weeks, everybody!

Cape Disappointment

We spent the weekend trying to be cool, and thus "camping" on the Oregon Coast. It happened to coincide with the worst thunderstorms of the season, but also with a rare three-day weekend, so off we went. We went KOA camping, which turned out to be awesome, as we got our second night free. We had an indoor pool and warm showers, WiFi in our cabin (which had electricity and heat), not to mention the raccoons living under our cabin. I think it may have changed the way we camp forever.Above is one of our only pictures with somebody in it. There is a shipwreck in the background, dating back to 1906 or so. The rain was too heavy to take out our camera most of the time, and often too heavy to get me out of the car either.

We did a little Lewis & Clark tour, visiting Fort Stevens State Park, Fort Clatsop, Astoria, and Cape Disappointment (which Paul insists that he "did wrong," because we weren't disappointed at all). We happened to catch a special event at Fort Clatsop called "Wintering," in which we got to travel back in time and talk to members of the Lewis & Clark expedition in the (recreated) fort where they spent their winter in the Northwest.

Paul and Reece loved it. Paul had recently watched a documentary, so he picked the brains of the actors, who were actually quite savvy in their history. Reece got to trade some of his snacks for beads and buttons, which he carried around all day.

Recreated Fort Clatsop.

One of the actors.


Across the Columbia River and at the southwest-most tip of Washington.


On the way home we had our one last adventure, which was finding out that the road was flooded and having to backtrack and add an extra hour on to our drive home. Luckily Oregon is beautiful, even with all the rain.

So all in all we had a good time and may even try "being cool" again. We want to get in as many adventures as we can before little Skittles is born.

Goonies house (it says that on the map). We had a nice Goonie-filled tour of Astoria.

Ooh, Baby Baby!

Anybody who reads this blog already knows, but let's celebrate anyway: we're having a GIRL!!!

We had the 20 week ultrasound on Monday, after begging the doctor to let us find out before Christmas, only to be rejected. Had we found out, it surely would have increased the amount of pink in our suitcases.

We are super excited to welcome this little girl into our family. Reece has already taken to feeling my belly, including kissing and cuddling with it. Now we can start teaching him how to take care of a little sister. He is already so caring and loving and gentle that I'm sure he'll be an amazing big brother.

We saw some great profile shots during the ultrasound but we didn't get any super good pictures to take home. Here, at least, is proof she has a head:


Paul claims that when we got our first look of her, he knew it was a girl because she looked "more feminine." I think that just means that her head isn't quite as huge as Reece's head was. Thank goodness!

Sideways shot, but check out those guns on that arm! I don't think she'll have any trouble defending herself against her big brother.

And of course, her perfect little foot. She hasn't reached my ribs yet, so I still love this foot.

We're super excited and can't wait to meet our new little one. We're taking name suggestions, and may even consider naming her after a favorite aunt/uncle/friend, for the right price. Let the bidding begin!

Christmas Vacation

We spent the last two weeks in Utah and Colorado partying with family. We had a blast playing with family and enjoying plenty of snow. Grandma Nancy picked us up from the airport and we spent the day playing at her house. Reece immediately recognized snow, though the only time he's ever seen snow was in Switzerland this summer. They got nearly two feet of snow in 24 hours while we were in Sanpete, and another nice snowstorm while we were visiting Adam and Kerrie's family in Colorado. So Reece got plenty of chances to don his awesome boots and his "pirate" gloves (they have skulls and crossbones...he picked them out).

Reece LOVED Grandma Nancy's house. He even woke up super early so he could play with her train (mom took a nap on the floor next to the train).


This next picture is not indicative at all of Reece's time at Grandma Nancy's. He LOVED his grandma and had a blast at her house. But what's Christmas-time without a few tears?


We then headed down to Sanpete to spend some time with the Carr family. Reece had so many uncles around, he didn't know what to do. He eventually just started calling all adult males "Uncle," but did not hesitate to spend any and all of his time cajoling them into playing with him. Mama Wendy loved having four willing babysitters around. Dave and Teresa's family stopped by for a day on their way to Idaho and Reece got to see his other favorite person, Eva. In fact, while posting this blog Reece kept asking for "More Eva."




Reece also learned very quickly that he loves his Grandpa Mel. He took to calling him just "Mel," and never hesitated to cuddle up with "Mel" to get some cookies and some cartoons.


We got to spend some time painting Grandma and Grandpa Allred's new apartment in Wales and show off Reece's love of horsey rides to Great-Grandpa Allred. One of Reece's favorite games to play with dad is "pick the color of horse" and daddy Paul does a great job of making sure the black horse bounces the highest and eventually bucks you off (just like Grandpa's horses).


Now on to our Christmas Eve extravaganza. Paul and I made a game we called "Carranium," which is basically a rip off of the Cranium game, but involving activities catered to the Carr family Christmas traditions and history. Here's dad acting out a Christmas memory. It didn't take long for everyone to guess:



Our teams also took turns acting out the Nativity. Teams got points depending on how many elements of the Nativity they included in their 60 second presentation. Strangely enough, both teams included a caganer. They got points, but they were reluctant points.


Here's one of the "penalties" each team got if they landed on a yellow square. They don't seem to be suffering too much.




Our gingerbread house competition was spirited, though Grandma Terri's team kind of ran away with it.








Another of the competitions, each team wrote an original Christmas song, getting points for creativity, rhyming, and number of team participants. The teams tied on this one.






I think we'll probably try this game again. We had a blast. Other highlights included: watching Jim push Bryce down the hill (and ripping his pants in the process), Matthew and Jason both putting their own faces in the snow, Dena getting sent to stand under the "Mistletoe of Shame" (Reece kissed her out), and dad's penalty of running three times around Jim (the "ginger"bread penalty). Thanks to everybody for being such good sports and putting up with our crazy games.

Moving on, Reece has trouble differentiating between "pee" and "poo." Possibly too much information, but makes for some funny situations.




Rounding out the vacation, we got to spend a night with Great-Grandma Carr:


And I promise we spent some time in Colorado with Adam and Kerrie's family, but we hardly took any pictures. Here's a bit of proof:

Reece keeps asking for his "cousin's house," or for his "uncles." We had so much fun and loved seeing so many people we love. That's the best part of Christmas (that, and the presents), and I'm so grateful that I have such amazing family. We really are incredibly blessed. I would wax more prolific, but this is taking forever and Reece is threatening to eat an entire box of chocolates. Merry Christmas for the last time, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Pre-Christmas Christmas

We had a little pseudo-Christmas celebration this last Sunday. We are flying out to Utah/Colorado for the holidays and we didn't want to pack any big presents. So we had Reece open his "huge" presents a couple of weeks early. It was really fun, but Paul and I both now feel like Christmas is already over. For Reece it will be a wonderful surprise to get more presents next week at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and now that he knows Santa = presents, he gets a lot more excited when he sees Santa paraphernalia. These videos will be all sorts of fun for me to watch for years and years, but probably kind of boring for everyone else. Just so you know, it looks like a ton of presents, but we wrapped every possible thing to put under that tree. He really only got three presents (which is fine with me). Also we keep a tiny Christmas tree so the presents look more abundant by comparison. It's genius, I know.







This last one is just for fun. This is Paul Skyping his mom late one night. He tried to make her think she was seeing things. She was a good sport.



Now it's time for our real Christmas celebration. Reece and I head to Utah tomorrow for some quality family time and Paul joins us next week. We can't wait! Merry Christmas to everybody and please know that we love you. Unless you're one of those people who keeps trying to post SPAM in my comments section. I don't love you.

World's greatest cuddler

Reece is the best cuddler in the world. I just love it. He also tries to get out of bed at least three times before he actually goes to sleep. The reason he still tries it is because I give in so often. What can I say, I love to cuddle with him. Lately when we're away from home he'll ask for his bear or his blankey and then say "home...cuddle." Then as soon as we get home he grabs his bear, his blanket and his mama and we cuddle away. I just love love love that little boy.

I post this now because I'm trying to be strong and not go in to get him while he's calling for me (it's 10 PM and he's two hours past his bedtime...dad was babysitting, bless his heart). He keeps saying "Mama, cuddle!" How can a mom resist that? My answer: blogging about it. It worked, apparently, because he's now asleep. It was harder tonight too because he has a killer heat rash on his leg and he kept telling me about his "sore." Maybe if I go cuddle with him it'll go away...

Pregnancy: week 14

I have to edit this post a bit from what I previously said because Paul got mad at me. If you don't check our blog every hour, I was ranting about how pregnancy makes you feel fat. He said I'm not fat and I shouldn't complain because I'm healthy. I appreciate his support. So I am amending that rant to say that I am grateful to be healthy. It's so nice to go to the doctor and to feel like I'm doing everything I can do keep myself and my baby healthy. I am coming to accept that my body just needs to gain more weight than average during pregnancy, and that's going to have to be okay. I worked hard to get it off before, and I can do it again. So here I am at 14 weeks pregnant. I am SOOOOO glad to not be sick anymore.

So I know this is ridiculous, but I had a really smokin' hot picture that I took the same day, but I accidentally erased it. So you get this one instead. Not quite as smokin' hot, but probably closer to how I actually look.

Now the good stuff: I have started to feel the little flutterings of a baby in my belly. Nothing huge yet, but this is about the same time when I started to feel Reece kicking around in there. It's very exciting, and pretty much the only good part of pregnancy (besides getting the baby at the end, of course). I've talked to several women who loved pregnancy (my sister included) and I think they're all crazy. There are good things, but they're outweighed in my mind by all the crappy things. Remember: we're not taking the whole "getting a baby" thing into account. That's so awesome that it is obviously worth going through the 9-month gauntlet of pregnancy. Otherwise there's no way I would have done it again.

So with all that said, I am very grateful that I am healthy, that the baby seems to be healthy, and that Reece is healthy. Pregnancy is a miracle, even though it sucks sometimes.

Notice I didn't say that Paul is healthy. He actually broke his wrist this week. He had a pretty bad crash on his bike when his back tire hit the train tracks wrong. It was dark outside and he was wearing all black, so we're grateful he didn't get run over or hurt even worse. We're still waiting to hear if he needs a full cast, but he's in constant pain and has a hard time doing most simple tasks. I still wonder if he crashed on purpose just to get out of doing dishes and changing diapers. Hmm...probably not.

Notice Reece's pants go up to his chest. He's just so short and he insists that his pants don't touch his toes. I think it's adorable.

So that's our week. A little about Reece and I'll be done: he is amazing. He is so funny and a real jokester. When Kyle was in town he started spitting in people's faces. But he'd be sly about it. He'd go in for a kiss, then at the last minute he'd spit right in your face. Now when he does it he'll say "no no no" and then "Kyle" because he really only wants to spit in Kyle's face. It's sweet.

Another trick he plays is fake sleeping. He'll say "night night," then pretend to snore. Then, when he thinks he's lulled you into a false sense of security, he'll roar like a bear. This started when Paul would fake being asleep and Reece would growl to wake him up.

He is best friends with his teddy bear. He'll ask it questions like "Belly? 'Kay." Then he'll tickle the bear's belly (only after getting permission, of course). Or he'll put the bear in a basket and push him around the house (like Paul does to Reece). He always makes sure the bear gets enough to eat and drink at mealtimes, and he definitely gives the bear plenty of hugs and kisses.

One of my favorite things is a Reece cuddle. He LOVES to cuddle, and he's super good at it. He gets his blanket, his bear and his parent and just cuddles right in. He really is the sweetest boy. He's very obedient (most of the time...for now), he's very compassionate, and very funny. We couldn't love him more.

So you now wonder, with how awesome Reece is, how could I possibly complain about pregnancy? It's a funny thing being a parent and feeling your love grow for your kids. You definitely love your child more if you sacrifice for them, so by the time they're born you can't help but feel so much love because you've spent so many nauseous hours letting that love grow. Or something like that. I guess if the next kid isn't as cool as Reece, I may change my sentiments (kidding, kidding).