Guest Blogger: Grandma Linda

My mom offered to write a post for the blog, so I gladly took her up on it! This is from Grandma Linda:

The week of Ryan's fourth birthday, Grandpa Stan and I took him to Brown County State Park and stayed at the Abe Martin Lodge. Every year from January through March 31st, the state park inns offer a "2 nights for 1" deal Monday-Thursday. A bonus to the Abe Martin Lodge is their indoor water park. It is not as big as the commercial parks, but is the perfect size for an energetic pre-schooler who loves the water! For less than $100 we had two nights of lodging and free water park passes for 3 days.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and Ryan could not wait to get in the water. He went down the slide too many times to count and had a blast doing so! Grandpa Stan tried to keep up with him on the big slide, but after 7 or 8 trips up the slide himself, he was practically worn out. However, Ryan kept on going! Since we were there during the week, we had the facility to ourselves most of the time, allowing us to keep an eye on him much easier. They also had 3 bored lifeguards on duty, and they ended up playing with Ryan and entertaining him. What a deal...giving Grandma and Grandpa a little time to enjoy the spa and the lazy river.

When in our room, Ryan was easy to entertain. Mom had thoughtfully packed his Leapster, so we rotated a little TV with the Leapster and some games and coloring. Everywhere we went, people got a kick out of him. He always had a big smile on his face and was so pleasant. I was worried about his food allergies, but we got along great. He is a good little eater and is willing to try foods he can have. We also walked around Nashville and there was never a complaint from Ryan, even though I'm sure he would have rather have been in the pool!

We had a great time with our little buddy and look forward to doing this again!!!

Celebrating Ryan's birthday at Grandma Linda and Grandpa Stan's house.

Swimming with Grandpa Stan.
Going down the big slide!

Can I go again????

Grandpa Stan had fun, too!

Thanks for taking me, Grandma and Grandpa!

Ten on Tuesday: Catching Up...

To say that I'm a little behind on blogging is a major understatement. I thought my Ten on Tuesday should focus on some events I've forgotten to blog about. :)

1) New Year's Eve. Um, yeah...I never blogged about it until Saturday night. That's how terrible I've been with blogging this year! You won't see the post unless you go back to January 1st, as I faked the date on the post. :) The reason for that is because when I put my blog book together at the end of the year, I want my posts to be in chronological order of when they happened. Speaking of...

2) Blog books. Do you remember my first blog book that I made from Blurb? It took me about 6 months to compile and edit all of the posts. Needless to say, I was dreading having to start the book from all of my 2009 posts. However, they have updated the software and I'm finding out that it's not taking as long as the last version did. I've only been working on it for a week and am just about DONE. I'm even taking the time to change almost every layout and upload a higher resolution image from my computer to replace the grainy ones that I had on my blog. I just have to go back through and make a few adjustments, then I'll submit it. My goal is to have this book finished before Baby W. makes his/her arrival. Speaking of...

3) Baby Update. There's not really an update...just that I will hit the 35 week mark on Thursday. Whoo-hoo!

4) Showers. There was a surprise shower for us at our Bible study on Saturday night, and they gave us a huge package of diapers (216 to be exact), plus this beautiful new diaper bag that I had been wanting:

5) And more showers. Last night my "Bachelor" girls threw me a surprise "white trash" baby shower. Basically they each gave me a nice gift bag filled with random stuff from their babies' drawers, diaper bags, etc. Let's see...I got a diaper (unused, thankfully), a used tube of Desitin, samples of baby wipes and baby shampoo, plus some other cute things like a washcloth, onesie, etc. The last part of the gift was a card written in the style of Chris Harrison, the host of "The Bachelor." It read:

"Dear Kristy, We hope you have been enjoying your pregnancy with (group of dr's names). Should you choose to forego your individual credit card, please use this gift card to purchase as a couple in our exotic fantasy Babies 'R Us."

What a hoot!!! They also gave me a very generous gift card to Babies 'R Us. So now there is no reason for me to not have everything I need. Thanks, everyone!!

6) Getting Ready. Last weekend after feeling a little overwhelmed at Babies 'R Us, Joel and I came home and spent a few hours getting out all of our baby stuff. We set up the crib and the cradle and found the sheets for each. I've washed and ironed those and put them on the beds. It is so strange to see a crib in our house again! I feel much better now that we have those things ready.

7) Nesting. One of the best perks of pregnancy. :) I'm behind on my blogging because I've been working on several projects. Over the past few weeks I have cleaned out and organized several kitchen cabinets, our pantry, Reese's closet, the refrigerator, as well as deep cleaning several areas. I've even gotten Ryan involved.

8) The Olympics. I am just loving the Winter Olympics. It's bringing back fond memories of four years ago when I would watch them in the middle of the night with Ryan, who was just a month old. In fact, one night I took him to the ER when he was just 27 days old because he had a high temperature. As I waited with Ryan in a hospital bed for the test results from his spinal tap, I watched about 3-4 straight hours of Olympics coverage. It was then that I fell in love with the sport of curling. And after just learning that one of the Olympians is 5 1/2 months pregnant, I'm so disappointed in realizing that that could be me out there. If I'd only known, I would've been training these past four years... :)

9) Family Pictures. As you can tell from the new header, we went on Sunday for family pictures. Actually, the intent was to get Ryan's 4-year and Reese's 6-year pictures taken. But part of me wanted a family picture while I was pregnant...even though you can't tell from the picture that I'm expecting since Ryan is on my lap. We tried a shot focusing on the belly, but it was a little cheesy:

10) Fun Stuff Ahead. We have so many fun things to look forward to over the next few weeks including: A visit from my sister-in-law and her family this Thursday, my in-laws coming to spend the night on Friday, many March birthdays: my nephew, Quinn's; my niece, Grace's; my brother-in-law, Keith's; Reese's, and possibly the new baby's; and Spring Break at the end of the month--meaning only 3 weeks of work left for me!

Ryan's 4th Birthday Celebration!

Okay, so we didn't have a big celebration for Ryan's birthday, but we did go to Monkey Joe's...does that count? We took the kids there on Saturday morning and let them bounce until they couldn't bounce any longer.

Later that afternoon, Grandma Linda and Grandpa Stan came to wish Ryan a happy birthday.

Grandma Linda with the birthday boy.

Ryan and Grandpa Stan

Then we all watched Ryan open his presents. He was thrilled with every single thing he got.

One of his gifts was a marble racer. We've all been having fun putting different tracks together. Here's looking at you, kid!

Great-Grandma Worthington

On Saturday, February 6th, Great-Grandma Worthington passed away. It was just a little over a year ago that we said good-bye to Great-Grandpa Worthington. We are comforted by the fact that they are now reunited in heaven and will be watching over all of us. Over the past year, we have been fortunate enough to spend more time with Joel's grandma. The kids enjoyed going to her apartment and pulling out all of her stuffed animals and arranging them all over the place. :) Reese has expressed several times that she misses her great-grandma. She even wrote her a special note in her journal that says, "I love you. I know that you are up in heaven."
These pictures are from last Christmas, but I came across these on the computer and wanted to include them.

Grandma with Ryan and Owen.
We'll miss you, Grandma!

Mardi de Montfort 2010

The Eighth Annual Mardi de Montfort Dinner and Auction Gala was held this past Saturday. I was concerned about not having a formal maternity dress to wear, but my friend, Jen, came through by letting me borrow her dress she wore to prom...as a chaperone. :) It worked out perfectly...thanks, Jen!


I realized next year I need to do something other than straight hair because I did the same thing last year. Oh, well--it's different and more importantly, it doesn't cost anything!

I had a great time mingling with many of the parents from the school, some of whom are now my friends. It's been weird going from just a teacher at the school to now a teacher/parental role.

Polly and I met years ago when she used to teach 4th Grade. She now stays at home with her 5 beautiful kids, but we still try to get together for lunches about every few weeks!

Shannon--The best 2nd Grade teaching partner ever!!! :)

Lisa, Shannon, and me. Lisa teaches 1st Grade and is expecting her 3rd baby, too.

The entire night was just amazing. There was a silent auction followed by dinner and then a live auction. It is insane how much people will pay for certain things. For example, someone paid $4,400 for a parking space for the 1st semester of school. That's right...just for August through December. Then someone else paid about the same amount for the 2nd semester. There are days when I would probably pay that, too--just to be able to get in and out of carpool super quickly! The greatest part of the evening was being able to raise about $36,000 in freewill donations for the new playground. I cannot wait!!!

After the live auction was over, a great cover band called, "The Flying Toasters," entertained everyone with great music. I would've loved to have danced longer, but I was in heels and didn't want to pay for it the next day with my legs. I left around 12:15 a.m. but heard that the party was still going strong until 2 a.m. Impressive! Next year I'll make Joel go with me, and we'll shut the party down. Who am I kidding? We'll be so sleep deprived that we'll be lucky if we make it until midnight. :)

Babymoon: Day 2 at the Magic Kingdom

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to catch the bus to the Magic Kingdom. We got to the park right as it was opening at 9 a.m. The park was open until 11 p.m. that day if you were staying at one of the Disney resorts, so we knew that we had 14 fun-filled hours ahead of us. :)

To say that we had a blast was an understatement. It was so much fun to spend the entire day together at such a wonderful place. I felt bad that I wasn't able to go on the bigger roller coasters like Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but Joel was still able to do these while I went off and did a few things by myself.

Our favorites were the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor and the Jungle Cruise. We went to each of those attractions 4 different times if that tells you anything. I would've even gone to the Laugh Floor 4 more times and not just for the laughs...but for the heat and a place to sit! :)

Joel even talked me into going into the Haunted Mansion, which I have not visited since I was in 6th Grade. Luckily it wasn't as scary as I had remembered...but I think I could wait another 20 years before going again.

A trip to Disney would not be complete without a ride on the Mad Hatter's Spinning Teacups. I didn't know how I would fare on this ride being pregnant, so at first we barely turned the wheel. Then Joel pointed out that an elderly couple were going faster than we were, so we got that thing spinning pretty quickly!

All morning long I was looking forward to eating at Pinnochio's Haus for lunch. I remember loving their pizza so much when we went there last year. I was happy to find out that it was just as good as I had remembered. The only problem was that after I ate there for lunch, I wanted it for dinner, too. :) But even with me being a huge pizza lover, I just couldn't do it twice in one day. So I made Joel get it so I could live vicariously through him.

My favorite part of the day, besides the pizza, was getting to watch the fireworks show, "Wishes." It must have been the hormones, but I think I teared up several times. ;) After the beautiful fireworks display, we went on the Jungle Cruise one last time and then decided to take off around 9 p.m. I just couldn't make it until 11 p.m. as I was beat! But I was proud of myself for making it 12 hours despite being 8 months pregnant and having sore legs. I wasn't about to let any of that slow me down--I was going to enjoy my time in Disney!

One of the funniest things was having several people stop and talk to me, just because I'm expecting. I don't know how many parents of screaming toddlers stopped and looked at me and then made a comment like, "See what you have to look forward to???" Or other people would see screaming kids and say, "I bet you can't wait for that, huh?" I finally had to tell people, "No, we know all too well. This (pointing to my belly) is our third--the other two are at home because we're vacationing." :)

I have to thank Doug and Marsha for keeping the kids for the 4 days that we were gone. They even had to rearrange their work schedules to keep them until Monday, but we really appreciated it.

Our trip really brought us closer together. Now we have our little inside jokes like, "Four loops on the Jungle Cruise...if you didn't have fun, you must be in 'de-Nile.'" And my personal favorite, "The Laugh Floor: It's always funny, unless you're 'THAT guy.'" :) I know that two months from now, when I'm stressing out because the baby won't stop crying and I'm exhausted, I can just think about our weekend in Disney and remember what an awesome time we had. Thanks for being so spontaneous, Joel! I love you!!!

32 Weeks

I feel like I don't blog about the pregnancy that much. Actually, I don't feel like I've been blogging about anything lately. I'm hoping to get back into it soon--I really miss it!

I had my 32 week appointment on Tuesday, and everything is going well! The heartbeat was 147...any guesses based on that? I am still saying it's a boy, but Reese hopes I'm wrong. :)

Today I sent in my pre-registration for the hospital, which makes it seem all too real. Actually, it will seem even more real when we start putting up the crib and pulling out all of the baby stuff in the next few weeks.

My class gave me a gift card for my 1/2 birthday (so sweet!), so now I'm wanting to get a new diaper bag. The one I used for Reese and Ryan was always too small and I ended up taking along a separate bag for clothes and other items. If anyone has a bag that they absolutely love, I'd love to hear about it!

Our Babymoon: Day 1 in Disney

At Christmas time, Doug and Marsha graciously offered to watch the kids for us over the last weekend in January. Joel and I talked about possibly either doing a little road trip to Chicago or Cincinnati or just taking it easy and hanging around here.

Last Monday he called me from work and said, "Hey--do you want to go to Disney this weekend?" like it was the most casual thing in the world. I assumed he was joking, so I sarcastically said, "Sure! Sounds great!" Then he added, "No, I'm serious. What do you think?" Then I knew he was serious, so I asked for details. He rattled off all of these reasons why we should be taking off and heading for Florida, and suddenly I was swept up in thinking that we should go as well. Of course the practical part of me had a hard time with this plan, so I turned down his offer that night. That night I had a dream about being in Disney and woke up regretting my decision. So I called him at work and said, "Let's go to Disney!" His parents were so kind to agree to keep the kids an extra day so that we could save money on airfare. (Thanks, Doug and Marsha!) Marsha drove to Indy Friday around lunchtime and picked up the kids, then I left to pick up Joel to go to the airport.

We were really nervous that we were going to be stuck in North Carolina due to a big snowstorm that was coming through the area. Our take-off was delayed for several hours while we waited for the plane to be de-iced. Even though we made it to Orlando much later than we had planned, we didn't care because we were finally there!

The next morning we got up early and headed for Downtown Disney. The weather was in the 70's, and it was great to not have to wear a winter coat for a change. :) We spent the morning cruising on a little boat ride and shopping in the boutiques.

This is the only picture that we really have. I threw in my point-and-shoot camera instead of my Nikon, and didn't realize that the battery was low. I was really bummed because I love taking pictures. But it was kind of nice to just be able to enjoy myself and not have to carry around the big camera.

Later that afternoon we headed to Fantasia Golf to play a round of miniature golf. It was such a tough course with every hole being about 80-100 ft long. Of course we were only on the 2nd hole when it started to sprinkle. I have to point out that Joel scored a hole in one on this hole and earned the respect of the group of 7 guys playing in front of us. ;) I didn't fare too well on this fairway, but I blame the bulging belly getting in the way of my swing...ha ha!

One of the things we were most hoping to do was go to our favorite restaurant at the Polynesian Resort, 'Ohana. Joel must have tried to call at least 30 times between Tuesday and Saturday afternoon to see if we could get reservations, but he didn't have any luck. We did have reservations at a different restuarant at the same hotel, so we stopped by to see if we could get in. Sure enough, they said they could get us in within the hour. We were thrilled!!! 'Ohana is an all-you-can-eat dinner that they bring to your table in stages. We enjoyed pineapple coconut friendship bread, potstickers, chicken wings, lo mein noodles, steamed veggies, then they brought out skewers of turkey, pork, and steak. The dessert was pineapple bread pudding with ice cream and bananas foster sauce. Yum...My mouth is still watering. Let's just say one of us was happy to be wearing stretchy maternity pants. :)

We ended the night on a beach swing, watching the fireworks across the lake. Seriously--it could not have been more perfect!! We headed home shortly afterwards so we could get a good night's sleep for the next day's visit to the Magic Kingdom!!