Yeah...

So that widget says 0 days left till baby comes. Well, baby still isn't here. Since Jonah was 3 days early and Wyatt was 10 days early, I have to say that this whole waiting for the due date thing really stinks!

Easter

Finally getting around to posting about our Easter fun. We had a great time. Here are the boys and dad dyeing Easter eggs. I prefer not to get dye on the boys shirts so I make them take off their shirts and wear art smocks. I think it looks cute.

Max was working really hard on this egg so I had to show the finished product as well.

A friend in the ward has a park behind her house and so invited a few families over on the Saturday before Easter for lunch and an Easter egg hunt. It was great because we had considered going to a community hunt, but I know it would have been crazy. This was perfect. Every parent brought 15 eggs per child and then the dads went and hid them in the park while the kids played the game in the photo below, "What time is it Mr. Fox" where they get closer and closer to the "fox" until he says that it's lunchtime and everyone runs away screaming.

I love the completely uninhibited joy in the kids' faces. The only thing that matters at this moment is getting away from Mr. Fox and nothing could make them happier. 

After hunting and satiating their candy lust the boys wanted to play on the playground so I ended up with the baskets. Here is one of the few prego-belly shots we have of me. I've never been good about taking a lot pregnant tummy shots. Max keeps saying we should. We'll see.

On Easter morning, I was fighting a cold, the boys were both sniffly and Jonah was coughing, and it was Stake Conference...needless to say, we didn't end up going. We had an Easter egg hunt in our backyard as soon as the boys woke up--6:45 and then I was exhausted by about 10:00. Max took the boys on a walk to Mormon Handcart Park. (That's close to going to church, right?) Here are some of my favorite photos from their adventure. 
Jonah and Wyatt are really great friends right now. They play together all the time--fight together too--but mostly it is play. It's great to let them go out to the backyard and hear them making up games on the trampoline together.

I frequently get asked by strangers if they are twins. It is usually when they're sitting down since Jonah is a bit taller than Wyatt, but they do look A LOT alike. 
Oh, and last but not least, a Stirling family tradition--the egg tap. Each person holds an egg and on the count of three you tap the taller ends together. The egg that ended up "winning" this year was the Family Egg--one that Max wrote all of our names with white crayon on before dying it. It beat out 11 other eggs.

Spring Break and My Awesome Husband

I haven't been much for blogging lately. I think it is partially because Max and I have separate sides of our computer. I use my side mostly for Boot Scoot Bikes business stuff, but his side has all the family photos. So if I want to blog with photos, I have to go to his side, but then when I'm on his side I have to re-log in to blogger as me and not him. I know, I know, is it seriously that big of a deal to log into his side, sign out and then sign in of blogger to post? Have you seen that "everything's amazing, nobody's happy" clip from Conan O'Brien? I think my laziness falls under that category because that whole logging in and out ordeal takes all of about 1 minute.

Anyway...we've been doing some fun stuff since it has warmed up on a few select days, so I thought I'd try and record some of it. We went to the Coralville Lake spillway with some friends and let the boys run around. Don't worry, the lake isn't right on the other side of Wyatt. There is a parking lot that the lake has to flood first before water could go over the spillway. It is just a few feet down--it would still not be a great fall for a little kid, so that's why he's holding Daddy's hand.

There was a big pile of bark that ended up entertaining all the kids and Max for a good 15 mintues.

During Max's spring break (He had a whole week off! We're not used to this both being BYU grads) he took the boys camping over night. At first it was just going to be Jonah, but when we all went out to set up--before I went home to sleep on a real mattress (I'm not a wuss, just 8 months pregnant)--we could tell Wyatt was going to be devastated if he didn't get to sleep in the tent. So Max had both boys and they had a great time. 

Max is such an incredible dad. When he walks in the door from school the boys start screaming because they know it is play time. He gives them airplane rides in the laundry baskets--complete with the captain speaking over the intercom to ask where they want to go (usually the park or the museum) and to tell them at what altitude they will flying and whether or not any food will be served on the flight. He jumps on the trampoline with them even when his back or hip might hurt a little. One of their favorite games is "Whoa." It involves them slithering down as far as they can into their sleeping bags and having Max bounce them as high as he can. He makes up elaborate stories about a bear named Terrence who comes to play in the backyard--sometimes Snowman, Monkey, and even Santa Claus show up in the stories too. He takes them to parks and even tonight, he got all the fishing stuff to head down to a nearby pond for an hour before bedtime. I'm sure he'd be a great dad to a girl too, but I know he is a perfect boy dad, so our third little guy, who comes in just about a month, is lucky too.  

This last photo is in Nauvoo. I really wanted to go to the Nauvoo temple before having this baby because I know how hard it is to go with a nursing baby and we're only here till next June. I got to go to Nauvoo with my family on a church history tour when there was only the empty temple lot. Then, I got to go back with the BYU folk music ensemble group I played with while the temple was under construction. Now I've seen it fully completed. It is exquisitely simple and beautiful inside. It felt good to be in the temple. It's a couple hours away so we made a day trip out of it during Max's break and he took the boys to see some of the Nauvoo sights while I went to the temple. Here they are with Duke and Don who pulled them in the covered wagon. I think this was their favorite part, although Jonah has played with the sisal rope he got every day since then.

Late Winter/ Spring Time Fun

We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately. 

For JoySchool last week, Jonah got to go to the park and fly kites. They were going to make them but then the mom-in-charge found $1 kites and thought it would be more fun to have more time to fly the kite than to supervise 5 kids making kites that might not fly (and probably cheaper too). When we picked Jonah up that day, he was so excited, but thought that Wyatt and Mom needed kites too so we went and bought two more. Jonah's is Buzz Light Year. Wyatt immediately picked out Lightning McQueen at the store. Jonah told me I had to get Barbie because it was "so beautiful" and "moms like pretty things." 

This is another JoySchool activity. We do a monthly fieldtrip and for March, we went to a local maple syrup farm. It was really fun for the kids and really interesting too. Here is Jonah getting a turn to drill a tap-hole into a tree. 

I was a little disappointed though because, as some of you may know, I am a maple syrup snob. I actually once brought my own warm maple syrup in a little insulated mug to a ward pancake breakfast. I was hoping to find out a little bit more about making my own maple syrup because maple syrup can be rather pricy. Well, it turns out that Iowa is about the farthest west and south where maple syrup can even be produced (because freezing/thawing temperatures have a lot to do with it) and we want to live in the West. Also, it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to boil down to 1 gallon of maple syrup. I felt my dreams come crashing down around me as they gave us vanilla ice cream cones with maple syrup drizzled on top.

And these photos are just for fun. This is a Sunday afternoon. The boys are still in their church clothes, but have found ways to embellish them.

Pay It Forward

Pay It Forward

I don't usually do tags like this, but I thought this sounded kind of fun. I can already tell you what you will probably get--a hand-knit scarf or hat in this great green yarn I have been trying to think of ways to use. And I don't want to brag, but I'm a pretty good knitter. I actually wear shrugs, hats, scarves, and sweaters that I've made. You wouldn't be getting one of those hats made on a plastic ring. It would be "designer." :)

The Rules
1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me.

2. Winners must post this challenge on your blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

3. The gift that you send to your Three Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!

4. If you are not one of the Top Three Commenters on this post, you can still play along. Go ahead and start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same! SO, REMEMBER... it is good... :) Pass it forward.

Experiments and Underwear

Jonah came home from Joy School yesterday with a note saying he had done some experiments in school that day. He was telling Max about it tonight and we got the impression that they were seeing which sorts of things float and which sink. Max said that he could show the boys another experiment and thus began a very fun evening. 

First Max showed them the pepper/dish soap experiment. I followed that with the baking soda/vinegar experiment bubbling up and out of a tall cup. (I probably should have saved that for last because it was a big hit and would have made a true grand finale!) They wanted more experiments and so we got out food coloring and mixed yellow and blue, then blue and red, then red and yellow, and then all the colors. They still wanted more so we got out some magnets and paper clips. Max first said he could move the paper clip just by talking to it. He would tell the paper clip to go visit each of us and then move it across the paper. The boys then learned the secret and each took a turn "talking" to the paper clip. Since they still wanted more, we gathered various things for the old favorite, "Will it float?" 

The boys are at a really fun age right now and generally they are very good boys. Today at a Relief Society Enrichment activity a friend jokingly asked me if I wanted to teach parenting classes since my boys were cleaning up toys not because they were asked but just because they were done playing with them and then when I called Jonah over to come and get his coat on he ran across the gym and said, "I'm obeying!" Little does she know how often it takes 20 minutes and 50 requests (by me) for us to get down the stairs, coats on, and in the car. 

They are also really fun because they are interested and awed and excited by so many things. Like tonight with the experiments or earlier today when we went to buy new underwear. Wyatt got his first pairs of underwear. He was pretty thrilled to pick out some Cars underwear and only had two little accidents for his first day. Not bad! 

It just occurred to me last night that I hadn't bought Jonah new underwear for a while so as I did laundry I checked the size and yes, my 4 1/2-year-old was still wearing size 2-3 underwear. (I wonder if I should mention that in my parenting class.) So he got to pick out some new underwear, too. He is REALLY into pirates right now. (For example, when Max asked him to say the dinner prayer about 2 weeks ago he replied, "Arghh, yes, ye scallywag!") So he immediately picked out the skull and crossbones underwear at Target. It was a little scratchy--his term--when we opened it at home so of course it had to be washed and dried immediately and then promptly put on. When Max came home, the first thing Jonah said was, "I got skull and crossbones underwear," and then showed Max just in case the explanation wasn't clear enough. Tonight, after his pajamas were on and just before bed, he had to look at them one more time. I'm sure he'll be begging me to do laundry more since there was only one skull and crossbones pair in the set of three. 

To feel such excitement over such little things is really enviable, but I think it is also a little contagious. 

Just in case...

you didn't notice, that little widget says I am now in the double digit countdown till baby boy comes. My other two were early--3 days and then 10 days--so I'm planning on knocking off at least 7 days from that countdown.