Girl's Nights

So in October I got to have two girl's nights with my sisters and mom within about a week of each other.  It was a hoot.

First night was conference weekend during the priesthood session.  (And yes Atticus went with us but oh well.)  We went to "Scary (Cherry) Hill" for some mini golf and other excitement.

See how scary it was?

 This is how he mini golfs. 

 It's quite similar to Stefanie's skills...  Actually more like my mom.  My mom was such a cheater!  I"m pretty sure if she got more than 4 strokes she'd just hit it a few times without counting.

My kid.

 I think we were supposed to be acting scared.

 Atticus was much better with his scared faces.

 And my mom.  Don't really know what you want me to say about this one.  I sure love her.

And we're obnoxious as well. 

This was my most favorite part of the evening.  We went to see this Frankenstein and Atticus who had been happily pretending to be scared of everything nearly wet himself.  All was well until we touched him and he started growling and his eyes flashed.  As I tried to explain to Atticus that it was just pretend, Frankenstein touched my bottom!  His hand moved up right where my bum was and I screamed, which did not help Atticus.  He was scared of everything the rest of the night and still talks about the big Frankenstein that growls at him.

Aren't we adorable in the jungle maze?  Can't believe they replaced the batting cages with this lameness. 

 We headed over to Station Park for some mediocre frozen yogurt while my cute mom stayed out in the cold to watch the fountains with my kid.

 Sam pretended like she was showing already and we took some super hot pregnancy pictures and Atticus showed us his big "Bobo tummy" too.

The second girl's night was with my sisters.  Stefanie won tickets to "Erin's Girl's Night" (Erin from radio.  Todd and Erin I think.)  It was at a hotel up by The U and they had a bunch of vendors with free crap plus there were manicures, pedicures, massages, a fire circus show and a bunch of other random stuff.  We also went to a class on zombies and ghost hunting.  It was mostly just an excuse to sit down but it was pretty lame.  It was just two guys trying to be funny.  They weren't.

We got our hair done and that was interesting.  Sam was very nervous about hers because the lady had no idea what she was doing.  (They were students) and the guy doing my hair smelled a bit like someone's bum.  And the girl who did Stefanie's, took about 4 hours to curl her hair.  Then Sam was super brave and got her eyebrows waxed.  I had to to talk her into it.

You can see why she was nervous about the hair.

More cutesie us being pregnant.  Sam is exactly 10 weeks behind me and she is having a girl as well.  We're pretty excited about it.

And now on to the thing that has had me laughing at random times for the past several weeks.  And I don't mean a little chuckle.  Even as I write this I can't stop laughing.  

So Stefanie signed up for a psychic reading at the end of the night.  Sam and I didn't dare because we were nervous about the awkwardness.  So instead we went with Stef to hers.  The lady looked like death.  Seriously.  She informed us that she used to be the head of payroll at The U and then quit to go to psychic school.  Really.  That's a thing.  And she quit her job to do it.  

There were only two chairs so Stef sat in one and Sam sat on my lap in the other one.  Psychic lady told us that she prefers that the people she's reading for ask questions rather than her just telling us things. It was hard to think of questions.  But anyway, Stef asked her first question and the lady said, "Well, let me look into that for you."  Then turned slightly  away from us and stared blankly into space.  Well, Sam and I lost it.  Actually Sam lost it, grabbed my leg and I lost it.  We were seriously hysterically trying to cover up our laughing with coughs (and failing) not five feet from this woman trying to see Stefanie's future.  I have no idea how Stef managed to hold it together.  I was seriously trying not to wet my pants.  We calmed down while she talked to Stefanie and then Stef asked another question and off she stared into the distance and we lost control again.  Sam grabbed my leg and through, what I'm sure were clenched teeth, was squealing "Sharli!  Sharli!"  In a desperate attempt to keep from laughing, while I was saying "Just think of something sad.  Think of people who are dead.  That is sad."  It didn't work.  We were laughing even harder this time.  Sam had to get up and walk across the room, leaving me there to laugh by myself.  This continued for a while and my favorite part was when psychic lady asked Stefanie how many kids she has and Stef answered truthfully that she has seven, the lady responded "No, I'm getting that you have two".  Then she went on to tell Stefanie that she doesn't need to worry that her kids have not all chosen career paths yet, because they will in time.  Stef's kids range in age from four to 18 so I'm glad she can relax about their life and career choices a bit now and stop pressuring them.  I finally got it together by thinking of the lady as just any weirdy that may approach me at the store and annoy me with awkwardness.  That's what I had to focus on.  

Here she is.  

Upon seeing this picture, Atticus asked if she made noise like the large Frankenstein at Scary Hill.  Yes, he thought she was a Halloween decoration.

Oh and we left right after this and by the time we got to the car, we were all three laughing so hard I was only able to back halfway out of my parking spot before the tears streaming down my face blurred my vision too much for safe driving.  We sat there for ten minutes laughing so hard I was near hysterics and screaming with laughter.  Stef started recording it, it was so obnoxious of us.  Oh and Sam was so worried she'd wet herself from laughing I tried to make her sit on my coat as that would be easier to wash than my car seats.  Then I couldn't stop laughing again that night as I was trying to fall asleep.  

The Longest Post That Ever Was.

So here's a bunch of pictures from the summer in an attempt to catch up on blogging.  Pretty much we haven't seen Dan since about May as he works to finish his masters (two more weeks!) and is working full time.  So we spent a lot of time down south hanging out with family.  (It helps ease Dan's guilt about not being home if we're not there.)  It was also helpful for me because I was so sick from pregnancy so others could help entertain Atticus.

We went boating with my family a few times and Atticus loved his "boat coat" this summer and started getting brave enough (along with the help of a trip to Bear Lake for a party with Dan's office) he started getting brave enough to try and swim and go in the water himself.  He even got grandma and grandpa in the water once.  He also loved "fishing" off the back of the boat and waving to whoever was skiing.

Swimming.

We spent a day at Tracy Aviary with some of my cousins and it was really fun.

This is my sister's daughter, Oaklee and my cousin Jake's son, Clive.  Obviously we didn't need to see the parrot man.

My son and I don't get out much so he was thrilled to have all these other kids to play with.

They let them feed some birds

Atticus wanted to do it again and again but was also super nervous and would run as soon as they ate the food from his hands.  This girl was so patient with him. 

This is my cousin Justin trying to make friends with some large bird.

He really enjoys making this face.  He is "mad for pretend".

I took this picture for Dan's amusement.

This is all of us that went.  We were only missing my parents (who were busy doing a wedding), my brother and his family (who live in Ohio), and my cousin Jared and his family (who live in...Philadelphia?  Maybe?).  Also there are four people pregnant in this picture with five babies.

4th of July Dan actually got to play with us!  We went down to Kaysville for the fireworks, where they, for some odd reason, (among many other horrendous choices) decided to play Let It Go from Frozen during the firework display.  My son now calls that the "Firework" song and sings it at the grocery store frequently (Because he helps me by holding open freezer doors and then I tell him to let them go.)  We did "sparklies" with his cousins and he was more pleased than these pictures let on.  Then he happily hung out with his dad.  The kid loved the fireworks and asked to go see more for months. 

 

For Pioneer Day, Atticus and I were down visiting again and we went to the fair in Bountiful with my sister, Stefanie and her kids, as is the tradition from our childhood.  (We grew up one house and one Jr. High school away from the park and Bubble)  Did I mention Stefanie recently moved from Spanish Fork to Kaysville?  So we see a lot more of her now and it is excellent.  Atticus loved every minute of the fair and still talks about it.  Especially the train ride ("It went by the potties!") and the things he got from the fishing booth. 

 

 

We went to the Bountiful parade that night with more of my family and mostly all I remember was sweating like a man.

Beautiful sunset as we waited for the fireworks that night.

Other summer fun included...

The finding and smooching of this unclaimed dog at the park.

Ice cream dates!

 Shopping with the Bronsons and sharing with his cousin Lydia.  Also where we found this great hat which he pretty much wore the rest of the summer.

Atticus got really into "doing yogas".

A rare hang out with Dan.  Atticus had to eat his sucker just like daddy.

He discovered the computers at the library and this may be the cutest picture ever.

We had a lot of good rainstorms which was awesome.  Atticus was constantly begging to go play in it.

Atticus is like me and loves the river so we went a few times to the river walk by the golf course.  One of those times, Atticus decided to go wading and once he fell and got his shorts (yes, those are shorts) wet, the stripping just continued and he rode home buck-naked

We of course found out we're having a baby girl (coming any day now...)  Atticus has named her Baby Bobo and when she comes wants to call her Emily (He got that from the movie Hocus Pocus)  He's really cute about things.  Snuggles and tickles my tummy.  He will occassionaly say he has a Bobo in his tummy too.  Earlier on, he would frequently take her out of my tummy to play with her or when I would tell him I couldn't wrestle with him because of the baby.  I love when he calls her his baby sister.  We announced to our families by putting him in a big brother tshirt and just letting them read it themselves.  My mom noticed right away.  I'm pretty sure my dad read it first and it didn't click.  At the Bronson's, the look on Renee's face when she read it was hilarious.  I wish I took a picture.  We waited until we found out she was a girl (although I'm still skeptical as the only reason they determined it was a girl was for the lack of being able to prove it was a boy.) until we took this picture to announce elsewhere.  (We were getting ready to move so it wasn't hard to pull out all this stuff.  And yes those are his Christmas jammies from last year.)
This pregnancy has been rough.  Atticus was fairly easy and I knew that even at the time.  I swear with this one I have had every rotten side effect that they warn you about.  Especially throwing up.  I was doing that multiple times a day until about 7 or 8 weeks ago.  So much puking in public happened...  On top of that I was having migraines and I was starving all the time.  ALL the time.  And food sounded absolutely disgusting.  Especially anything healthy.  I would throw up healthy food more than anything else.  Until about 26 weeks I had only gained three pounds.  I finally got on some medication that stopped the puking though food is still a guessing game and most sounds awful.  I eat a lot of toast and cereal.  And chocolate.
On top of all the pregnancy woes, I ended up in the ER around 13 weeks due to excessive bleeding.  It was midnight and we dragged Atticus with us for lack of anything else to do with him.  Long story short, all was well and they still have no idea why I was bleeding so much, plus Atticus loved seeing Bobo up on the ultrasound.  He knew from my ultrasound picture that that was the baby.  So then when he got to see it live (at about 2 in the morning) he was so excited.  He was hugging my arm, asking about the U.S. wand and was just so happy to see Baby Bobo moving around.   It was after that he started snuggling my tummy.

We maybe had cookies for dinner once or twice because that's all that sounded good to me and Dan wasn't home.

We got to go to the Ogden Temple openhouse with my family.  Atticus loves temples.  He talks about getting bigger to go to the temple and when he sees them, he yells the lyrics to I Love to See the Temple.  So he was thrilled and wanted to go back immediately.

Lots of times spent at my parent's house and helping grandpa

...And playing Fairy Princess Star Wars

We went to the Cache County Fair with Dan.

This kid loves himself a carousel. 

And all he wanted to wear all summer were his tank tops.

And of course we bought a house which we are loving.  And now my son stalks the little boy, Knight, across the street.  He loves having a little friend right there.  Our ward is great and the house is awesome.  And I'm so happy at the thought that we won't be moving again in 9 months.  This is, after all, the fourth place Atticus has lived.