Gymnastics, Storytime and More

While we were in Columbus during the second polar vortex we experienced while in Ohio, I learned to find activities that the kids could do that gave our days some welcomed activity.

We made a bucket that has rice and beans in it that Davie can play with. It's such a great and simple toy! Literally hours of entertainment and depending on the size of your bucket and the kinds of toys you get for inside it the total cost can easily be under $10.

Lots of nice parks to go to if it wasn't freezing cold.

But like I said, there was a lot of this.

So when it was freezing outside we went to an indoor mall playground. Even though the boys liked this fountain better. 

Storytime

Can you guess the theme?

Davie loves storytime

Stomping like a dinosaur.

Kiddy art class. It was great because the whole class was only 30 min long.

The toughest part of this class was letting him do the project. Haha mommy control issues. 

St. Patrick's Day snow globe.

I hated driving in this stuff, wet, cold, icy, yuck.

We also signed up for and lived for our gymnastics class every week. 

One hour every day that the kids got to run around and jump on fluffy stuff.

Gymnastics had this GREAT trampoline that the kids absolutely loved. 

She LOVED running to the end.

This is the only picture I have of them together since they both wiggled and ran away so fast.

Macy was getting mobile and enjoyed this class a LOT.

Balance beam

He was pretty proud of himself

Snacks for our forts and books activity at the library. Our friends invited us to it and it was so great. Basically a bunch of families came and built little forts at the library and then read inside them.

Building our fort.

He was happier then he looks. I promise. 

Our Friend and her daddy. 

Hanging out in our fort.

Our friends who invited us. This activity was so basic, but it goes down in my books as one of the most fun ones. Who doesn't miss hanging out in a fort?!

The flashlight kind of took over the excitement after we built our fort and got inside. Davie loved shinning it in our eyes. 

Yummy public toys (yuck) at the end of story time. 

Destroying the house is always a reasonable option if there isn't 

story time, gymnastics, or art class that day.

Hey..... Where did all those diapers go??

Must. pull. out. every. baby. wipe.

SOOOO much snow scraping and it was COLD.

Play group trip to the zoo. Once the earth started warming up FINALLY.

3 little Monkeys and a gorilla ;)

37 Weeks

That is right ladies and gentlemen, I am now what they call FULL TERM.

Minus the day I have this little girl (and only if possible) this will probably be my last picture where I specifically feature my belly. Its so funny because this time around my pregnancy pants have literally been falling off, which is fairly normal in pregnancy because the pants are stretchy, but this time around my pants fall down from sun up to sun down. And yet I have managed to gain about 10 more pounds this go around. My conclusion/ fear is that it's all in my legs, and before you tease me my ankles and knees are so puffy this time and have been for months! Only so much of that can be fluid retention people.

I'm also really starting to feel physically done. My mind is half split between "yup lets get this baby out of there" and "oh my gosh how are we going to be able to finish all of our packing, keep the house clean and organized enough to show,  AND finish my thesis with two kids". 

Here's the full size picture of Davie showing me his "big belly" from the collage above. He saw David taking these pictures of me and started posing in the background. He is such a goof! But also so observant, darn I love him.

So my mental self is still a little wary about being ready to "technically" have my baby any day now. Something else that has made me wonder how much longer I'll be are the two appointments I had recently. I've been at a 1cm since about 35ish weeks and this last Friday I was still 1cm and 50% effaced. Well yesterday I was 2-3cm and 75% effaced, that could literally mean nothing BUT this is the third time my body has been pregnant so it could also mean SOMETHING. Haha, count on my to make lots of sense. 

This weekend was my Sugar & Spice themed baby shower, put on by my lovely sister Lauren.

As you can see it was very PINK and super cute. The food too was great, which is great for pregnant ladies and therefore extra mention worthy. 

There she is! So thankful for her and all her great planning, everything went perfectly. 

The New Dishwasher

Just in case you don't get it, the new dishwasher is ME! Poo! I hate washing dishes it really is my least favorite chore. There's just something about cleaning up cold coagulated and krusty food that I really despise. Just as David and I were nearing the finish line of projects our dishwasher decided to break. Luckily we got through at least one BIG load of dishes before it did. The night Mike and Lauren came and visited we got a lot of stuff dirty, literally twice as many dishes as usual ;)

This is David trying to see if the hoses are clogged, and of course they weren't. Every time the dishwasher ran it wouldn't drain, there would be 2 or 3 inches of water in the bottom and it was not cleaning the dishes properly. Also there was suddenly a rattling noise we had never heard before every time the washer ran. After looking it up on the internet we figured it was most likely a broken impeller (don't worry I didn't know what that was either). About a week later when David had time again he took the dishwasher apart and wah-lah, it was in fact a broken impeller. Here is what we think happened. 

I put my nice metal water bottle through the wash and the lid lost it's metal hinge, darn it. Honestly what are the chances? I was thinking I would have to throw it away because without the lid it was pretty useless, cue David to the rescue, as usual. He crafted a paperclip onto the lid to hold it together and my water bottle was saved!

The new paperclip hinge

I have come to the  conclusion that if this guy ever needs something to fall back on something besides medical school, chemical engineering or just plain being smart he could easily make money as a Jack of all Trades. He seriously figures out how to fix everything! Most of the time I'm glad, haha however, every once in a while though he will save/ fix something that to be honest I would have much rather been able to toss in the garbage. 

The original metal hinge

Back to how the impeller broke. David took apart the dishwasher and opened up the space that had the impeller and guess what we found?? My water bottle's little metal hinge and a broken impeller.

Nasty space the dishwasher goes in. David would like me to let you know that he vacuumed this space up before he put the dishwasher back.

Takin' stuff apart

 Broken impeller, basically all those little marks are supposed to have a half inch little fin on them. Those little fins help pump the water out of the dishwasher and into the drain/ garbage disposal. Like so.

Without those fins a dishwasher is pretty useless.  

This is a picture of the current state in our kitchen. Believe it or not I am actually not ashamed of the dirty dishes and I am about to brag. Between figuring out what was wrong finding the part and waiting for it in the mail all this dishwasher fixing stuff has taken about 2 weeks. Those dirty dishes you see above there are what I have to show for 2 weeks of David or I washing dishes. Also note that the left side of the sink has clean dishes. That is a pretty small pile for 2 weeks. AND to be extra honest I should include this picture as well...

haha our counter is so small we can't hold all of them. Back to why I am still actually quite proud of this pile of dirty dishes. This last week we realized that every time we washed dishes water was leaking out of the hose that is normally supposed to be attached to the dishwasher, creating yet another mess (at least it was under the sink). Anyways with no where for that water to go it was pretty gross so David and I had to resort to paper plates and using as few dishes as possible. And there you have it, I'm just glad the dishwasher was fixed before my Mama, David's Mom and Dad or our baby came. One more project finished!