Serendipitous

I was quite sick most of last week...we didn't get out of the house much. It's not too surprising then that Jane's adamant, oft-repeated request this morning was "Please can we go somewhere?!"

I'm not terribly confident in my current abilities to wrangle my own two children when away from home--that whole eight months pregnant thing. That meant we were looking for somewhere we could wander without too much worry of the girls escaping me. I opted for the Jordan River Temple, on Lisa's suggestion. Nice, right? Quietly walk around the temple while it's closed on Monday, no playground to lose children on, easily use a stroller so they can't run away...good plan.

Unless you factor in construction on the temple grounds. Not such a good plan after all.

We headed back in the direction of home, but Jane was just about heart-broken that we hadn't gotten out of the car. Not wanting to completely crush her spirits, I gave in and we went to the duck park.



It turned out even better than I could plan. The federal government provides free sack lunches during the summer. We just happened to show up at the right park at the right time and got free lunch for the girls. Yay!

Even better, my visiting teacher was also there with her two kids. We were able to visit while the kids ate and played together.

Nice timing, huh? That's what I call serendipitous.

33 and a half

Thursday marks 34 weeks for this pregnancy.


I don't think I look much bigger than I did in my last picture (24 weeks) but man, I feel huge. I can't stand up, I can't roll over, I can't put my socks on nicely...good thing it's summer so I can just wear sandals.

I'm not so much enjoying this part--big surprise for third trimester, huh. Besides being enormously uncomfortable, I'm tired and I keep having contractions and my pulled muscle from last time has come back with a vengeance and heartburn and this boy moves like a hockey player and congestion and and and...only six weeks until I can not be pregnant anymore. Six weeks. Six weeks isn't so long, right?

Just to cheer myself up, I thought I'd share two of my more noteworthy dreams of late. At Chris's suggestion, I'll even illustrate them for you, courtesy of Google Images.

First, I dreamed I was running a race.


It wasn't going well. I had that obnoxious pain in my side that you get from not breathing right (or something) while you're running. Man, it hurt, but I just HAD to keep running. It was a race! So I kept running. And it kept hurting. And I kept running. And it kept hurting...

Then I woke up. Turns out, my baby's head was fighting as hard as it could to eject itself straight through the side of my stomach. Easy fix...just shove the kid's head back the other way and go back to sleep. Ha. At least it didn't hurt anymore.

Another time, I was kidnapped by a family of vampires. They all lived in a huge mansion,


in which was hidden all of their collected family treasure. Unfortunately, said treasure could only be retrieved by a mortal. Enter me. My job was to follow the direction of the sun coming through the windows and thus be lead to the treasure's secret hiding place.


After much searching and following, I found the hidden location.


That's right. It was the door knobs. Each door in the house was adorned with nothing less than diamonds, disguised as door knobs.


I simply removed the diamond door knobs. The result: I was excessively rich and all of the vampires were permanently trapped inside the mansion (because they couldn't open any doors--get it?). Talk about a happy ending.

At least my brain can entertain itself while I can't really sleep at night.

Papa's Party

The annual Pyper Family Reunion was last Saturday, once again held in West Valley. I document in pictures:

...frisbee...

...races...

Jane didn't really get it. She started running, then immediately turned around and ran straight back to Grandpa. But Chris won his race. Yay!

...sawdust...

Megan's first-ever dig.


Jane got buried.


But she recovered.

The adults played, too.


It appears that Chris and I are getting old...because David wasn't there and I am sans-participation this year, Chris kept ending up in groups by himself. Sorry, babe.

...family pictures...

Two years ago, the menfolk all wore matching shirts. Remember that?


This year, we determined that it was the girls' turn. Matching hats it is.


There is one for Charyl, too, even though she couldn't come!

...and random cute pictures of people hanging out at the park...

So much fun can be pretty tiring.

Spontaneous Outings

I am certain that I am not the only one who occasionally experiences a burning and immediate desire to BE ANYWHERE BUT HOME. Don't get me wrong, I love my house. I am very comfortable at home, amongst my own family and my own things. But sometimes, I just have to get out. And something about being a pregnant stay-at-home mom only makes that feeling come more often...so, spontaneous outings it is. Because you never know when that feeling will strike.

Spontaneous Outing #2
Hogle Zoo

Lisa had a bout of the same "please get me out of the house now" phase, so we packed up all four kids (plus the three others who tag along no matter what we do...) and headed to the zoo, where I began my collection of pictures of the back of kids' heads.


Every once in a while I managed to catch a face or two.


The only problem with this spontaneous outing is that Chris was at work and wanted to come, but there wasn't enough notice. Next time! We'll all go together. And you can push the stroller. Please?

Spontaneous Outing #3
Temple Square

Today began rather traumatically. I didn't feel well--can I just say that it's horribly cruel to save all morning sickness until the third trimester?!--and Jane was not at all cooperating with anything I asked her to do. I also forgot that Grandma Karrie was coming to pick her up...needless to say, not the most peaceful morning ever. Once Jane left, I decided that Megan and I could do with some outside change of scenery.


Downtown it is.


She got wet. Can you tell?


You may by chance have noticed that this post only chronicled outings #2 and #3. #1 is still contained solely on Lisa's camera...as soon as I get the pictures, you, too, can enjoy all the splendor that was a picnic at Wheeler Farm.

Memorial Day Weekend

Once again, the obligatory holiday post that always takes me forever to write because, despite all the fun we did have, it never seems terribly noteworthy since it's all about the same thing every year... We did spice it up just a bit by having TWO barbeques instead of just one--one at our house, and one at a neighbor's. During ours, Jane and Megan entertained themselves (and everyone else) while getting a little exercise in while the food was cooking.



And that's about all I have as far as barbeque documentation. We did, however, plant our garden, which is more noteworthy. Or at least more picture-worthy.

I tried to find a "before" picture of this particular section of the backyard, but this is as close as I got. Not quite as wide as I'd hoped.


The ironic thing about our garden is that I was fairly certain we had decided not to have one at all this year, considering my current and continuing level of pregnant-ness, to be closely followed by a newborn who would occupy most attention during harvest time. So, rather than Chris having to run the entire show all by his lonesome, we just weren't going to do it.

Until, that is, Chris's parents offered raspberry starts. Chris started the whole garden process just so we could get those raspberries planted where we will forever want them and we'll be able to get the fruit in the next year or two.

It turned out to be a bit more involved than anticipated...well, I didn't anticipate it. Chris probably knew it from the beginning.

Step 1: Dig it up. That included railroad ties, paving stones, two tree stumps, and several dozen water pipes, most all of which appeared to be extremely excessive. The previous sprinkler system was not so well laid out.



Step 2: Till the ground. That was complicated because it included going through quite the chunks of live grass. One corner of the garden area was also about nine inches higher than the rest, meaning it all had to be leveled as well.


Step 3: Plant the raspberries. Ah, such a cute bonding moment between Jane, Megan, Grandpa Craig and Grandma Janet.


Step 4: Decide that if you're going to do it, do it all. So, dig a new trench for the railroad ties to nicely edge the garden. Put up a fence. Lay down weed mat. Plant tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. Buy seeds for (and intend to plant...) lettuce, carrots, onions, broccoli, and chives.


Step 5: Start taking daily time-lapse photos. If we keep remembering, we'll have a cool summer-growth slideshow/picture flipbook when all is said and done. Or we'll forget and have a few pictures of what it looked like at the beginning, so we can at least have before and after.


I look forward to eating fresh produce in a few short months. And by the way, we'll have way WAY too many tomatoes, so don't buy any in August. Just come to our house.