Family and Fun

 Painting Fun!
 Riley had so much fun painting pictures although she seemed uncertain about how messy her hands were at first. Then we had fun making hand prints for cards.

 Cousin Time
       I didn't take a lot of pictures from this trip. The first day I met Stacy in Coralville where we ate lunch then proceeded to the children's museum in the mall. This place is great. Its set up like a little town and there is a little for every age group.  I think Riley would have enjoyed it more if she was a little older but there was plenty she enjoyed.  She especially loved the farm room for younger kids and just ran around in there.  She also loved the nursery because there were lots of babies to take care of. Liam was running a pizza parlor down the street. He liked to keep a clean shop.
       The kids had a blast even though it was really hot and humid the whole time. They enjoyed playing in the kiddy pool together and throwing water balloons. Riley just liked to save hers though. Stacy also made a homemade bubble solution that they really enjoyed. We just grabbed things from around the house that looked like they would make great bubbles. I enjoyed the slotted spatula because it made really big bubbles. The solution had corn syrup in it so it was really sticky but the bubbles seemed to last for a while. A yellow kitten also showed up this weekend and was dubbed Jerry by Liam. He was really thin but I think he is fattening up now.

 

Olivia's 1st Birthday Party

Olivia had a lot of fun. Although like most 1 year olds she didn't know what the fuss was about or what she was supposed to do with a giant cupcake. Stacy and I worked and made all the cupcakes and the food. It was a taco bar with a lot of fun sides.  Liam helped Olivia unwrap all of her gifts

Kansas City

We had a lot of fun visiting Liberty and catching up with family.  Riley enjoyed the zoo, she didn't even mind when it rained on us. We didn't really visit a lot of the other attractions in the city but Uncle Steve gave us a tour and it seems there would be a number of things to choose to do with your weekend.  Riley took to Aunt Kris and Uncle Steve right away and we had fun getting to know each other again. We had a BBQ night where Sarah, Greg, Sue and Skip came over the food was great and we stayed up way too late talking.

 First corn of the season! Yum

 Baby News
  Baby Number 3 is due on January 14 which is an odd coincidence really because I think that is the night that Kyla died.  We are really excited and are just hoping for the best. Tomorrow we will be 15 weeks and i just get excited at every week that goes by and everything is still going well.  We had an appointment at the perinatal center at Mercy in Des moines at 10 weeks and they did an ultrasound to help with the timeline and it was fun to see him/her wiggling around in there. They also ran a bunch of labs checking for possible blood clotting disorders and all the results came back as normal. I am looking forward to our detailed scan at the perinatal center for our 20 week appointment that will be on Sept 2.  Until then my friend Kari gave me a doppler so if I am worried or having a bad day I can check for that heartbeat.  I feel like I have been feeling little flutters since 13 weeks, can't wait for the movements to get bigger. We are really excited but just with a whole different set of emotions than with previous pregnancies. We are grateful to have such a wonderful and supportive family. Thanks guys!