Papa's Pumpkin Patch

So, long story short: the heater in my Jeep was broken and instead of spending $900 to fix it, my amazing hubby did research and watched YouTube videos to figure out how to do it himself BUT it was like a 16 hour process so Sutton and I were alone most of the weekend.

Saturday we headed to my parents house to hang out. About 2 seconds after we arrived, my mom twisted the heck out of her ankle and was laid up for the rest of the night. We'd planned to go to the free pumpkin patch near their house, but Mom had to miss out and it was just Sutton, Papa Bruce, and I. We had so much fun!

The first thing you saw when you got there was a giant slide. There was a hill you had to walk up to get to the top, and Sutton was nervous and made me hold his hand tightly on the way up. He also had to sit on my lap the first time down the slide. After that, he was good. He ran up the hill like 10 times and went down the slide backwards and forwards.

Then we found this corn box that was like a sandbox but with corn! That was a big hit. The little girl in this photo had some awesome parents who struck up a conversation with us and gave me advice about baby names and baby-wearing. :)

Making corn angels.

Papa Bruce paid for Sutton to take a little train ride, and he loved it, but had a death grip on the sides like this the entire time.

...and this is my dad. :)

See the playground and tires in the background of the above picture? It was like Sutton's paradise. Swings galore and lots of dirt-filled tires to climb on.

Sutton and Papa scaled a dirt hill.



On the way out, he had to go down the slide a few more times.

My parents had made turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, and homemade bread for us for dinner. We don't normally eat like that around our house! It was GOOD. For dessert, we got Cheesecake Brownie ice cream. In fancy bowls. Amazing.

And Sutton had to take a picture of my second helping of ice cream. :)

23 Weeks {Baby #2}

How far along? 23 weeks

Weight gain: 23 pounds. Holy cow. Doctor told me to lay off stuffing my face... Whoops.

Baby is the size of a(n): Grapefruit

Food cravings/aversions: Aside from Halloween candy? Not really any cravings. Mexican food generally sounds good. This isn't a craving, but just as documentation, I've been trying to eat an egg, toast, and banana for my breakfast each morning since Friday when I found out how much weight I'd gained. No more cereal.

Sleeping: Sleeping is good. I wish I had more of it. Work is crazy. This morning I woke up at 4:30am to pee and couldn't fall back asleep so I just got up and worked. What is wrong with me.

Milestones: Late this week, the baby will be viable outside the womb. Hooray! I remember being excited about this with Sutton too. I also realized that I'm in my 6th month. To me, that sounds further along than 23 weeks which makes me feel a little less bad about being so huge.

How I'm Feeling: Large. Very very large. And my belly feels so hard. I try not to think about how long I still have to go. Nausea will still randomly pop up, but no more puking. I felt like I might throw up last night and Sutton came and gave my belly a kiss to make me feel better. :)

Interesting things that happened this past week/anticdotes: At my doctor appointment Friday, the nurse went to find the heartbeat with the doppler. She found it but after about half a second, Baby Boy did a near 180 and flipped around so she had to go searching on the other side of my belly to get a good reading. Then when the doctor came in, he told me that because the baby had been moving around like a crazy person at our sonogram at 18 weeks, they needed to do another sonogram around 30 weeks to try again to get better measurements/pictures of his heart (but hey, who doesn't love an extra sonogram! No complaints here). Coupled with how much and how intensely I feel this little dude flipping around, I think it's safe to say we're gonna have a kid who won't sit still. Ever.

Family Photos {Us}

Prepare for picture overload. I took my boys and my camera out to the park last week to snap some updated photos of Sutton, and then Ginger came and got some of the three of us together. Thanks so much Ginger!

I'm posting like ALL of them because I couldn't narrow it down. :) There are several series of Sutton being Sutton that are hilarious to me.

The following is definitely Sutton at 3-years-old. We told him to stand in a specific spot, then we told him to smile. Here is what we get:

But Daddy can always get some real smiles out of him.

One of my all-time faves:

Another of my favorite favorites:

Sutton wasn't a fan of this, but you can't tell, right? :)

My face has some sun spots, but I still liked this one.