Laundry? What laundry?

Whew, it's been a busy couple of months! I finally decided to just ignore the huge pile of laundry that needs to be folded, let my boy and girl play (and fight it out) on their own, stick a movie in for my little boy (he hasn't been feeling well today anyway... constipation issues... poor guy, he deserves a movie), postpone making a pizza crust for dinner tonight, and instead, just sit in front of the computer and do some blogging. I am so prone to writing run-on sentences, by the way... in case you hadn't noticed. Anyway, here's some of what we've been up to the last couple of months.

We found out that we're having a boy! I love this picture of his cute little hand. I'm 30 weeks along now, but feel like about 39 weeks. I can't believe I still have 10 more weeks of growing to do. My belly got huge very fast this time. Maybe it will just stay the same size from here on out? Yeah, probably not.

Hub has been gone a lot for about the last five or six months. He was going to be gone again for our anniversary (apparently we chose the wrong month to get married), so before he left, we took a quick trip to Italy. We went to Pisa. We were there for a total of about 24 hours, but it was still worth it because it was a cheap flight and a lot of fun! We couldn't resist doing the typical tourist thing and take pictures of us holding up the leaning tower, only we thought it would be even better if my baby belly did it. Looking at this picture, I'm amazed at how much more enormous my belly is now. I can't believe I felt like it was so big then... it is SO much bigger now.

I turned 30, and the nice ladies of the Relief Society presidency gave me this giant cupcake, which the kids and I enjoyed very much. I must say, that at 30, I feel a lot like this cupcake looks... round and droopy, but full of happiness... because everybody knows cupcakes are full of happiness.

We had this for lunch a few times. Rice cakes with peanut butter spread on top, raisins for the eyes, nose and mouth, and fruits and veggies for everything else. A favorite lunch around here now.

We went to the Black Forest one day, and came home with a cuckoo clock. It's hanging on our wall now, and whenever the kids hear it start to cuckoo, they race over to watch the little bird come out and flap its wings. I was happy to find out that the cuckoo can be turned off, so at night, we turn it off and make that bird stay inside its clock. It's amazing how loud that cuckoo sounds in the middle of the night.

Daddy came home from his final work trip (at least for awhile), and then immediately left again to attend his great-grandmother's funeral. When he came home, he brought some toys from his great-grandma's house that he used to play with as a child. The kiddos especially loved playing with the legos.

We finally put some sand in our sandbox, and the boys were in heaven. They got to play in it for probably just a few days before it started raining a lot. We hadn't had any rain for weeks before that, as you can tell from the yellow patches of grass in the picture. But now that the sun has come back, the kids have rediscovered the sandbox. My girl loves it too, although for the last couple of days, she has been more interested in looking for slugs on the underside of the sandbox lid, than actually playing in the sand.

We watched bees on the flowers. I think the bee flew away before I took this picture.

Snowflake learned how to open the door of her cage outside. Luckily, the hutch was attached to it, so she didn't escape. By the way, Snowflake has been a pain lately, but that's another story for another day.

I turned our unused coffee table into a bench. I wanted to take our rocking chair upstairs for when the baby arrives, but that left us with very little seating downstairs. I decided we might as well put the coffee table to good use, instead of having it just take up space in our house. It's not the most comfortable place to sit, but it works.

The kids and I also painted some shoe shelves that we bought at the hardware store to make shelves for their toys. I wanted to utilize the space under their loft beds, instead of having their toys taking up space in their Schranks (German closets).

One of these shelves was totally crooked when we put it together, but it still works great for holding toys.

My girl made me this sugar scrub at girl scouts one day. It was my Mother's Day gift. I'll have to post the recipe. It was nice.

And last but not least, my brothers came to visit. They just left earlier this week and we really miss them. We had so much fun with them here! I'll have to post the pictures from their visit later because I let my brother handle all the photos, since he had his camera out all the time anyway. It was nice to not have to juggle my camera along with my kids for a change. I'm excited to get a disc of pictures from him in the mail soon... hint, hint... if you happen to read this, J.

Even though it was sad to see my brothers go, we are so lucky because my dad came too, and he's actually here to stay. Since my mom got a job here and will be staying for awhile, my dad decided to come on over and get a job here too. I've got such lucky kids... they get to see two of their grandparents all the time. It's too bad we're so far from the other two, though.

Hub and I are lucky too. In fact, I better go get that pizza crust made so the kids can have a pizza party with Grammy and Grandpa tonight while hub and I go on a date. How great is that?