A Day at Lava

We have been so busy lately and I haven't blogged about any of it! So this will be the first out of a few post (I will be posting them with the date they happend.) I don't know if I will be able to blog about Aaron and Austin's past weekends since I wasn't there and I don't have any pics yet but they have been having tons of fun together (jet skiing, swimming, camping, and golfing)

It has been tons of fun having Aaron's sisters Chelsee and Mindee (plus her three kiddos) home for the past week. We took the day and went to Lava for some swimming fun (I was so excited because Aaron got off early and was able to come with us. We spent the day at the pool and went to the hot springs for the evening. Here are a couple of photos:

Sweet little baby Jakson being pulled by his Uncle Aaron

Austin playing with Grandma Jan in the pool

They are so much a like it scares me!

Mindee going down the slide-

Lava got some sweet new slides

I was not going to attempt them

But I can't wait to try them next summer

Grandpa and Austin taking a nap

(Austin was eating M&M's when he fell asleep

that's why his face is so dirty)

Pregnancy Update:

I really hate this picture -

I feel like such a whale now!

I am 32 1/2 weeks in this picture...I really think I should stop taking them because it makes me feel like such a cow...but what do you expect right! I will share more in the next post.

Baby Khloee is here!

My sister Cyndee had her baby girl Khloee on Thursday and I was lucky enough to spend all weekend with them.


Baby Khloee is so sweet and small! She was only 6 lbs. 1 oz. and is as cute as can be. She makes me very excited to get my baby girl here (only 8 weeks left). I was in heaven holding Khloee - I felt bad I was a little baby hog, but who wouldn't be she is to tiny and adorable! Yes I am a very proud Aunt!

Fun with KarLee & Keagan

Austin totally adores his cousins KarLee and Keagan. And he has loved tagging around with them the past few weeks they have been in town.

Wednesday I stold KarLee and Keagan from Grandma Jan. We watched Coraline (they have seen it like 6 times but wanted to watch it again) than we went outside to play with some sidewalk chalk...I knew KarLee would love it but I was surprised how much Austin enjoyed it too. After an hour or so of artistic work we decided to go take advantage of Grandma & Grandpa McLaughlan's pool. (I was really excited for this since the only time I don't feel like a million pounds is when I am in water.)

Aaron drew outlines of all the kids:

Keagan, KarLee, and Austin

Austin looks just like dad when he is hard at work!


KarLee doing an outline of Aaron

This was my wonderful outline they freehanded since I didn't feel like laying down...the picture pretty much looks like how I feel!

Austin really enjoys the slide with his daddy

KarLee, Austin, and Aaron

Austin is really good about holding onto the side

He sure does love his time with his daddy

Aaron is trying to teach Austin to float...

Austin's reaction is about the same as moms.

Austin sure will miss his cousins when they go back home this week. It's been nice to have someone entertain him a little...we sure wish they lived closer. It's really fun to watch him play with Keagan (I can tell Keagan gets sick of him easy) he just loves following him around and doing whatever Keagan does. KarLee is the mother figure of the group she is really cute with him and he loves her. It will be fun to see all of the Grandkids next summer together - the two babies will be old enough to play too.

One Busy Boy...

Our little Austin is nothin less than a busy body!! He is all over the place, never slows down, and doesn't take naps (well for mom he doesn't)

But it's so neat to see him grow up and discover things. He does some of the cutest things and even though I should get mad at a lot of them I can't help but laugh. I have been taking pictures like crazy lately with all the fun things he is doing. He is so stinkin cute!!! I love this kid so much - I am a little afraid that with all the love I have for Austin there won't be much room left for the baby...

Here are some of the funny things Austin has been up to.

Aaron has a golf ball caddie thingy and the ball stays in it unless you push a button - this made Austin mad that he couldn't get the ball out of it, so I got it out for him and two seconds later he wanted to put it back in. He was really concentrating, love the lips.

He has discovered that he can climb on chairs and reach anything - even though he can pretty much reach every counter and table with his height.

The kid LOVES balloons. I did a photo session with some balloons and he had a ball with them I even brought one back for him and the next morning he wouldn't eat his breakfast until I gave him the balloon - he was really happy after that.

My kid has a shoe fetish. He loves to put on shoes and walk around in them - even if they don't match...must get that from his dad! :)

Austin now has a new nickname..."Bam-Bam" I swear the kid is always hitting things. And he loves his bat.

He has always loved phones. I gave him my old cell phone a long time ago and lost it. We just found it and he has been in heaven. But the funny part is that he will pick up the phone and say hello and act like he is having a conversation, sometimes he even laughs - it's too cute!

Had to throw this pic in. When he wakes up he has awesome bed head!

Today I have been tryin to catch up on my photography editing and I let him play in the front room and all of the sudden I could hear him laughing so I peeked around the corner and I found this...he was pushing the chair around the room with Gizmo in it. It was so cute, it really tickled Austin. But Gizmo wasn't to happy.

He has discovered the broom...and was trying to help mom clean the kitchen floor.

One Last Hurrah!

Aaron and I decided we needed a little getaway before the baby gets here - from what everyone says once you have two kids you never get out...my question is who gets out with one kid?

Since money is a little tight we decided to keep it simple and cheap so we took at little trip to Twin Falls while Aaron's family watched Austin (they are so wonderful with him - thanks again guys). We picked a perfect weekend too because the week before Aaron and I were asked to speak in Sacrament on the 12th...we barely missed that one! Heck it's not like we are ever around on weekends anymore - everyone thinks we are new whenever we do make it to church. I know it's horrible. And I won't be around for the next 3 Sundays either...we are so inactive now.

We left Saturday afternoon to Twin and stopped at the Shoshone Falls first - it looks much better than last time we went 2 years ago, a lot more water. We were only there for a few minutes because this beached whale gets really hot, really easy.

That night we went to dinner and a movie - this was a treat for us since it's impossible to take Austin to movies now. It was nice!!! We stayed the night in Twin and came back the next day. A pretty quick trip but a much needed one for us.

Oh and of course as of Sunday I am now 30 weeks...so exciting but I am starting to feel the weight and big belly, it's getting harder to bend over.

What's in a Name?

Ok so as I said in the post before I can't decide on a name for my baby girl! It's driving me nuts. Aaron is no help on this subject.

With Austin I knew that his name going to be Austin Aaron, it was perfect and I loved it! I just didn't know that the name Austin was so popular. I have always wanted my kids to have neat names, not common names, but not weird names. I could never name my kid Fred or Bob or Sally. Aaron and I have a 100 boy names picked out (that's why we want a lot of boys) but no girl names.

Ever since high school I loved the name Destiny and that was the name we were going to use if Austin was a girl. This pregnancy we started out with one girl name McKenzee Marie - that was the only name I could come up with that I liked. For one thing I wanted her initials to be MMM just like mine. The only other M name I liked was Mylee (but I don't want people to think I named my daughter after Mylee Cyrus! Than my wonderful mother-in-law called last week and blabbed a bunch of names that I liked and now I hate the ones I thought of for the poll I posted a while ago. Oh and by the way if anyone is wondering about the "ee" at the end of the names it is a McLaughlan girl thing...all of the girl names end in "ee". It's tradition and Im not going to break it.

So what I am saying is I don't want my baby to be born and named just any name - it has to be perfect! That's just how I feel. So I need all the help I can get with finding the right name. Isn't it sad that I am stressing about this!

I posted a new poll with the new names I like. Some are the same.

HELP!!!

Hows it goin?

Well I thought I better post an update of what has been happening to the trio...

Aaron has been golfing...oh wait that's not an update, that's just the norm :) Oh I love my husband to death and I am glad he has a hobby that keeps him busy - I know I couldn't handle all of his attention! He has spoiled me a little lately by taking Austin with him when he has golfed.
I have been so busy with all of my sessions and editing it has helped me out so much and I really appreciate it. He even came and helped me with a session a few nights ago and was such a help with making the little girl smile! And now he is gone with his family to Bear Lake for the weekend and took Austin - they have been gone for only a few hours and I miss them! But I am getting caught up on my editing which is heaven right now! I stayed home because it didn't sound like much fun sleeping on the ground when you are 29 weeks pregnant and being out in the sun when you are sunburned all over!

Anyways to the fun stuff....oh wait this isn't much fun. The beginning of the week every time I would walk downstairs I would smell this sour smell and I couldn't figure out what it was than Tuesday morning when I went to wake up Austin I was for sure it was something in his room...I search and cleaned for over and hour an I looked over by his little night table in the corner by his crib and I found the source...



Yeap that's right, more water damage. It seems to happen every 6 months (6 months ago out main water line broke along with a pipe in our bathroom when we were out of town and it flooded our master bathroom and bedroom - 6 months earlier our furnace had problems and our 1/2 bath and hallway had water damage - 6 months earlier when we were trying to get the basement finished we had a pipe broke and flood the basement (that one has actually broke 2 or 3 times since we moved in) and those aren't counting all the little leaks we've had) But hey every pipe in our house is brand new now! Anyways you get the picture! But the weird thing is that we pulled back all the carpet in Austin's room where the water was and the plumber can and said he couldn't figure where the water was coming from and the next day all the water was dried up??? The plumber hasn't come back so we don't know what the problem is - we are thinking that when the big storm hit on Father's Day that maybe water got in and it somehow settled in the corner....who knows. So now I have a tore up nursery, the kicker is that I was going to paint and get the nursery decorated with the babies stuff since Aaron and Austin were going to be gone and of course I can't now. It seems that I can't get ready for babies...with Austin I didn't even have a place to live until he had been here a week and I didn't get to decorate his room much. And so I was so excited for this time. Guess not.

Ok this is turning into a novel - Here are some pics from the past week and what we've been doing.

I went with some friends and their kids to Ross Park yesterday and got really sunburned - even my legs got burned, and I even used sunscreen, more than once!

This is Austin and Raegyn (Jenna's little girl)

He has fun feeding her snacks!

Makes me a little hopeful that he will be a good big brother!

Last Saturday we went to the mall in Idaho Falls

Austin and Aaron did one of those photo painting booths - I love it!

As for me Sunday I started my 28th week of being pregnant, YAY!

I also had a doctors appointment on Wednesday - I was not happy. I have now gained 8 lbs (I know everyone says that's nothing but to me that's a lot since I started out 20 lbs over weight!! Anyways I was all depressed Wednesday. And I feel like I have just blown up the past week~ But I think I am starting to get over that because I will be 29 weeks and that means I only have 11 weeks left - I can see the light! I also feel her move all the time and I love it (well when Im not trying to sleep). It's always fun when you think you can feel a foot or elbow poke out. Even though I am stressing about her name - STILL! But I will write about that in a new post!