Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby!

First things first: The answer to the sweet babies of mine picture question in the Top 10 Questions post are: 1st: Josh; 2nd: Luke; 3rd: Zach; 4th: Ben. Yes, I have babies that are born big and chubby and uber-kissable! I love it!

After this last fun baby-themed post I will stop with all the baby stuff...mostly. But this is the last really random baby-info one, I promise. I saw this "tag" awhile back and thought it was really cute/fun, but never got around to doing it. So with the bun in the oven, I thought I would give it a shot. I tried to be as concise as possible, and considering I am Miss Wordy herself, and how much women in general love to talk about their pregnancies and deliveries, I think I did pretty darn good!

1.Were your pregnancies planned?
All but Josh's. We definitely wanted more than two, but we were planning on waiting until Adam had finished his MBA program to have a third. But we are so glad he came along when he did!

2. How long were you married at the time of birth?
Z: 2 years, 4 months
B: 16 days plus 4 years
J: 6 years, two months
L: Two months shy of 9 years

3. What were your reactions?
Always very excited! With Zach I was pretty nervous, too. Life was really about to change! With Josh there was a little surprise added in!

4. How did your spouse react? Adam is always really happy about being a daddy again, but I know he is always a little nervous for me to be pregnant; he doesn't want anything to happen to me.

5. How old were you?
Z: Three days past my 23rd birthday. I was so happy to be 23, because there was an ad on the wall of my doctors office advertising a special support group for "young moms" ages 16-22! Although I was still a young mom, apparently I was old enough not to need a special support group by three days!
B: 24 years, 8 months
J: 26 years, 10 months
L: 29 years, 6 months

6. How did you find out you were pregnant? Pregnancy tests at home. With Zach, Ben and Luke, I took them the day I missed my period. With Josh I was four days late before I realized I might be pregnant. I'm a very regular kind of gal.

7. Who did you tell first? Adam! And then my Mom.

8. Did you want to find out the gender? Yes! Are you kidding? I am way too much of a planner to not know ahead of time, and way too impatient too!

9. Due Date?
Z: 12.25.2000 but born 12.13.2000
B: 08.25.2002 but born 08.31.2002
J: 10.25.2004 but born 10.21.2004
L: 06.05.2007 but born 06.02.2007

10. Did you have morning sickness?
Z: Nausea during my first trimester with a couple of throw-ups but that's it. I was OK as long as I ate small constant snacks. Then I had a weird 2-week stretch during my second trimester where I was really sick after I changed prenatal vitamins, but once I changed back, I was fine.
B: The same as with Zach during my first trimester. Then during my late 2nd and through my 3rd trimesters I had killer heartburn, that sometimes was so bad I got sick.
J: Not bad at all. Just super tired.
L: Back to nausea during my first trimester, I think I threw-up once. And then just exhaustion!

11. What did you crave? I'm not a huge "craver," usually there are things I can't eat though! But here are a few I can remember....
Z: Costco Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffins; turkey sandwiches on sourdough
B: Hot and Sour Soup, but I OD'd and I still can't eat it; mushrooms (which I had hated up to this point)
J: Cheerios; pickles; fresh fruit of any kind; avocados (which I had also hated up to this point)
L: Milk; Tillamook Mudslide Ice Cream on a cone

12. What irritated you the most? Always smells, even too much of good ones could be off-putting. And dirty sinks. And my patience level is so low when I am pregnant, that my children not listening or fighting irritated me more than usual to the nth degree!

13. What was the child’s sex? Boy, boy, boy, boy!

14. Did you wish that you had the opposite sex of what you were getting? No. We were always happy with our boys. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't have been excited to hear the word, "girl!"

15. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy?
Z: 27
B: 31
J: 35 (and he was the one I exercised most with!)
L: 29

16. Did you have a baby shower?
Z: 2-one with friends at college, one with friends and family at home
B: 1-a joint one for myself and my friend Tamara, thrown by our playgroup friends
J: 2-one with friends from Adam's MBA program, a surprise one while we visited home during the summer with my playgroup friends (same ones as the shower for Ben!)
L: 1-surprise shower hosted by Jen and Beth, seriously so surprised!

17. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Not until delivery. Both Ben and Josh had meconium in the amniotic fluid, so a neonatologist had to be called in for both deliveries. And Josh also had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. But both boys were just fine!

18. Where did you give birth?
Z: Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland, WA.
B: Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland, WA.
J: American Fork Hospital, American Fork, UT.
L: Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland, WA.

19. How many hours were you in labor?
Z: My water broke early in the morning of the 12th, but it was so little, they wouldn't let me come in until I wet through a pad, I think they thought I was just peeing. I, however, knew that was not the case. But at 4 that afternoon, it finally REALLY broke and we headed to the hospital. I never actually went into labor, so after 5 hours at the hospital of walking around trying to trigger labor, they induced me. Zach was born at 11:08am on the 13th.
B: I was 5 days late when I finally went into labor. I had irregular contractions for 16 hours before they got regular. At about 11pm we went to the hospital and I was at 4cm's. They gave me an epidural and my labor stopped, so they had to induce me again. Ben arrived at 6:18am, six days after his due date.
J: Due to his size, I was induced at 1pm on the 21st. Josh arrived at 6:11pm. Fast and easy!
L: Luke was also induced because of my past big baby size, he took longer than Josh though. I was induced at 9am and he didn't arrive until 3:30pm.

20. Who drove you to the hospital?
Adam did for Ben, Josh and Luke, but he was still in Utah taking his last final of his under-grad career when my water broke with Zach. Zach was 12 days early after all! So my mom took me to the hospital after my water had broken. Fortunately I had that whole day where I knew my water had broken, but the nurses were making me wait until I wet through a pad!! Meanwhile, Adam reserved the next possible flight, camped outside of his professor's office hoping he'd show up before Adam had to leave for the airport, which he did. Adam took his last 3-hour final in 45-minutes, and flew home. He got there before my contractions even started, before they induced me. And he even got a B+ in the class!

21. Who watched you give birth?
I know not everyone is like this, but I like a team. Doctor, nurses plus:
Z: Adam, Mom, Sis, Dad (Yes, my Dad was there, up by my head taking pictures. No judgements please. My dad has a medical background, not weird for me at all).
B: Adam, Mom, Dad (Sis's cell phone was off!)
J: Adam, Mom, Dad (Thanks scheduled induction for family member's being there in UT from WA!)
L: Adam, Mom, Dad, the doc barely made it in he came so fast once I started to push!

22. Was your baby delivered the regular way or by c-section? No c-sections!

23. Did you take medicine to ease the pain?
Z: Yes, but it didn't take well. It took the anesthesiologist 45 minutes and 10 tries to get it in and it didn't even block the pain well; maybe 50%. Which is worse than delivering naturally I think, at least then you are prepared!
B: Yes, so strong that I couldn't feel anything...kinda nice, but really odd!
J: Yes, perfect, no pain, but definitely pressure.
L: No, by choice. I wanted to give it a try, so I did! The labor wasn't bad, it was really just the transition and pushing that hurt like the dickens! But the recovery was amazing, easy, relaxing, nice, no pain whatsoever. I have to say, it was extra nice to have my labor team there for this one!

24. How much did the baby weigh?
Z: 8 lbs. 12 oz.
B: 8 lbs. 5 oz.
J: 9 lbs. 4 oz.
L: 8 lbs. 9 oz.

25. What did you name your child?
Zachary Adam Conlin (after dad)
Benjamin Alexander Conlin (after great-grandpa)
Joshua Stanley Conlin (after my dad)
Lucas Daniel Conlin (after Adam's dad)

26. How old are your children today?
Z: 8 years, 4 months
B: 6 years, 8 months
J: 4 years, 6 months
L: 1 year, 10 months

A Friendly Visit

I've been spoiled.

In January, I was able to go visit my friend Jen Shevitz, shortly after her baby, Max, was born. Then we had our fun family vacation to NM and So Cal, followed by a relaxing visit to my sis-in-law and her new baby Camden! But the fun wasn't over! For awhile, Jen had been wanting to make a trek out here to see us and our new home, and it worked out that she could come back with me when I flew home after my visit with teeny sweet Cami. So last week I got to spend some time with one of my best and dearest friends, Jen, and her two fab kiddos, Hannah and Max.

Hannah and Ben have been great buddies since we moved in next to the Shevitz family after Adam finished his MBA in 2005. She's only 6 months younger than him, and they have spent endless hours of play together, as well as two years of preschool. So I don't have to describe how excited he was to see Hannah, too!

It was a really fun, chill visit. My energy level wasn't too high, school was in for the boys, and between Luke and Max it felt like one baby or the other was always napping, so we didn't do a lot besides hang out at the house, talk, joke around, watch the kids play, eat and shop. I had to check with Jen a couple of times to make sure she wasn't too bored with how little we actually did, but she loves a good relax as much as me, and just sitting and talking together is one of our favorite things to do, so we had a great time!

Josh and Zach loving little Max. Are they ready for another baby brother, or what?! Hannah had a lot of fun playing big sis to Luke. She was really helpful! And Luke loved the attention from her. A sunny day drawing pictures with sidewalk chalk is not complete without popsicles.

Josh loves all of our extended family, even our family-like friends (a.k.a. our whole fam-dam-ly) like the Shevitz fam!Hannah loved jumping on the trampoline. Whenever they had a few spare moments, she would say, "Ben, let's go back outside and jump on the trampoline again!" And more often than not they would go racing out the back door to jump.

Jen's one request was a visit to Garden of the Gods, and what visit to Colorado Springs is complete without it? So off we went! As you can see in the picture below, Josh hates being left out of a picture, even if it's a family pic! There's those Kissing Camels in the background...I feel like this is a regular occurring type of photo....
The kids were really excited to do some rock climbing. Hannah had been practicing her climbing skills just for her visit here to Ben. How cute is that?!

The kids were having so much fun just playing on the rocks. We couldn't pass a single rock formation without a stop to climb around.

Up they go again!

I love this picture of my little mountain goat with the big blue sky behind him. He really can climb anything! We have to give him height limits, just so we don't have to go up to rescue him if he gets stuck! Not that that has ever happened.

Instead of rock climbing, Jen and I did some rock sitting. I am so glad to have Jen in my life! There's nothing we can't talk about, and we just really love spending time together. Our favorite thing to do back when we lived closer was just to hang out at each other's houses and talk while the kids played. I am incredibly grateful for her friendship and for the fortuitous day four years ago when we moved in next door.

Friends forever: Ben and Hannah on the morning before her flight home.

Thanks for a great visit, Jen, Hannah and Max! We love you endlessly! And next time you come, I promise the house will be much cleaner; when I came out of my fog I was seriously embarrassed at how grimy it all seemed. Not that you would ever say anything like that!

I still have a couple more adventures coming up this spring, Women's Conference at BYU at the end of this month. Then my mom comes out for Memorial Day Weekend. Like I said...I've been spoiled!

I'm Dreaming of a White...Easter?

After all the travelling and Mommy ickiness around here (although it feels like I am nearly through it! Thank God for week 12!), we didn't get to decorating for or preparing for Easter until yesterday. While Adam shuttled one child after the other to one soccer game then the next, I spent the day scouring the nasty house, that had not had a good deep clean for about 7 weeks (sorry to everyone that saw me outside of my house yesterday after all the cleaning of home and not myself), and setting up our few Easter decorations (Adam said, "Why even do it? The holiday is over after tomorrow." Why? Because I must! My three St. Patty's day decorations were completely ignored, I can't do the same to Easter. So forgive me if I have bunnies and eggs in my house until late May).

I love Easter: the beautiful music, the deep meaning it has to those of the Christian faith, the chance it gives me to reflect on my own personal faith, and the incredible love and heartbreak I feel as I think about the sacrifice of our Savior. But it also has a lot of fun family traditions that go along with it that have nothing to do with the actual purpose of the holiday. And we love those too.

We started the Easter celebration with the beloved dying of eggs. This year we only ended up with one big red stain on the counter! That's a record! Usually we have a rainbow of stains stretching from floor to table to clothing to bodies...and that's even with a table cloth down.

It was Luke's first experience as an egg dyer. It didn't take much time for him to dive right in!

I guess we did have a little more than the one red stain. Look at those sweet, green, chubby toddler hands. I love it! And they matched the green stripe in his Easter shirt so nicely.

Sunday morning, thanks to wonderful pregnancy insomnia, this Easter bunny got up at 5:30am to hide some eggs...hey, I was up anyway. However, after looking out the window at the wet falling snow, the bunny decided upon an indoor hunt. This picture is from right after the boys woke up, but before we left for church at 12:40 we had about 4-inches and the roads, which at first looked like they might not get any cover, were quite covered.

But the bunny still filled baskets, with candy, flashy wind twirly things, and very exciting books. Here's Ben with his new favorite book, The Boys Book of Survival. All morning and afternoon he has been detailing everything from how he will protect us from an attack by the Abominable Snowman or how he will help us build a shelter next time we go camping, if we happen to forget our tent (which is likely with my prego brain, for example, Friday I left the Papa Murphy's pizzas on the roof of the car and didn't realize it until I got home and couldn't find them. After driving back, they kindly just gave me two more)!

These boys liked their books too and requested an immediate reading.There's the twirly wind thingies (thank you King Sooper's holiday aisle)...should be fun to put out in the yard...once it stops snowing!
Then it was time for the indoor egg hunt! Luke was pretty quick at finding his four eggs, but was more interested in the plastic ones that rattled--once he realized there were jelly beans inside.

Zach and Ben's were pretty hard to find, sneaky bunny, but fortunately they are good seekers. Thank goodness, since it was the pregnant and sleepy bunny who hid the eggs: meaning the location of some of the eggs was a mystery even to mom and dad by that hour. We won't have any games of "find the stinky smell" in two weeks!

All sixteen eggs accounted for...plus one plastic jelly bean-filled egg and one golf ball.
After a breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and copious amounts of candy (no one ate the golf ball), the boys got snazzed up for church. Here are my sweet Easter boys in their cheerful Easter outfits! Our church service was lovely, a perfect Easter message with wonderful music. It was funny to see how many of us mommies of all boys at church did our Easter clothing shopping at The Children's Place this year, but none of the boys actually matched each other to a T. They all just coordinated nicely!
And one for the record books. What handsome laddies I have! Wrong holiday? Oh well, I was down for the count on St. Patty's Day, I have to let a bit of that Irish spirit out!

The only thing missing from the day was our extended family. We miss our Washington family so much!! We were planning on dinner with our Colorado family, Adam's cousins who live near-by, but the snow unhappily cancelled those plans. So we are settling down to a brown sugar ham (fortunately, they had such a good sale at the grocery store yesterday I had to buy one that I was planning for later this week!) and mashed potato dinner here. Yum! I am so glad to be feeling better...to enjoy this holiday, our beautiful service at church, and food glorious food once again, it's priceless!

We hope it was a happy, not so white, Easter for the rest of you!

Ten!!

I thought of a tenth question!!!

10. How did you tell Adam?

And just because I am SO proud of myself for my restraint, I had to share. Seriously, I've never done anything cool at all to inform Adam of any of our previous four pregnancies. I have always been too darn excited to wait to share with him. Lame, I know. He usually gets the "Guess what? You'll never guess...Oooh this is too good! Can you guess? Hee hee hee...I'm pregnant, Honey!" phone call. As you may suspect, I am terrible about waiting for Christmas morning, or really any time I have a cool gift ready to be given. I have to focus on keeping my mouth shut in my glee. I just can't wait to see the happiness and excitement on someone's face!

This time I found out on Sunday the 15th of February, and Adam was already off to church for early meetings. I really didn't think I was, since my previous Dollar Store pregnancy test had been negative, and how can a pregnancy test that I paid exactly one-dollar-and-seven-cents for possibly be wrong? But it had been three days.... So I checked again, and there was the faintest of faint lines! But hey, faint or no, if it's there at all, it's a yes! I said, "Oh my goodness!" and a silly grin spread across my face. Then I dashed for the phone. But wait! Adam was in meetings. Hmmm...what's an expecting mommy who is terrible about waiting for surprises to do? I could go for the "it's an emergency" signal: calling his cell three times in a row. But it might be kind of weird to give him such exciting news and then send him back to a meeting where he can't tell anyone. So, with three hours on my hands before Adam returned home for lunch, I began to plot. And so I came up with this....

YAY! Isn't that great?! I was so excited to give it to him I could hardly stand it. OK, so it isn't all that inventive or creative, but I did it! I saved the secret and thought of a coolish way to tell Adam. Just once. Hooray for me!

It took him a second to figure out why his food was so oddly placed on his plate. But once he realized it was a word, and then read that word, he got that same silly grin I had had earlier that morning and said, "Really?" Then he put his plate down and gathered me in a great big bear hug. Cue Ode To Joy.

So there you have it. Ten questions, ten answers. And two happy parents.

Conlin Baby Five Top Ten FAQ's

Here's answers to ten of your most burning questions about this baby/pregnancy that you never realized you had!

1. (We'll start with the big one) Do you want a girl?

I don't mind this question when phrased that way. But one of my biggest pet peeves is the question that is usually behind this question, "Did you get pregnant so you could maybe have a girl?" Really? No. We did not decide to have another baby on the 5% chance that it could be a girl. In addition, it implies that we are unhappy with our four amazing, probably to-be-five amazing boys. Which is absolutely, unequivocally untrue. That said, we would love to have a girl. I think Adam and I both always thought our family would include at least one. But we are already planning on our little boy, since that's what we do, we have boys, and we do it pretty well, I think! We would love, and be excited about, another boy. And I will give you four reasons why (can you tell who is who? i dare you!):

2. Are you crazy?

The answer to this question is a definitive YES! I think any person who decides to have even one baby has to have a bit of the crazy in them. Think about it: you are choosing to bring a life into this world, committing to raising it to the best of your ability, knowing that you are going to screw up a lot and that there are very hard to control outside factors that will influence your child in ways you never dreamed, and in the end you have to pray and hope that all that you did will be enough for them to become happy and productive members of society. Yeah. Crazy. But we love crazy here! And, crazy or not, watching them grow and change and become the amazing big kids they are and the amazing adults that I know they will be, there's nothing to compare it to. Love it.

3. I thought you were done. Was this baby planned?

Well, that's kind of nosy of you, isn't it? (*chuckle*) Yes, we did plan this baby. The conversation started about two years ago with, "Alrightee! Anytime now, Honey, you can go get that business taken care of!" Then, when the time to make the appointment came along, it moved to, "Wait. Maybe wait just a bit." And then we had to ask ourselves "Why wait?" And the discussion turned to, "Do we adopt or do we have another?" Which was the HUGE question in our minds, that we debated for about 8 months. And then, after much prayer and late night talking, we both finally felt it, "I think we may have one more little Conlin needing to join our family." And here we are with a bun in the oven and back to the, "Alrightee, Honey!" point.

4. Are you going to need to get one of these?

Dear me, no! Although this 12-passenger beauty is not uncommon at all here in the Springs where large families seem to flourish. However, I am hoping to avoid this van, exhausting all other possibilities. For now, our current van will be squishy, but we all fit...although I'd love an excuse to get a new one as you all know!

5. Has this pregnancy been the same or different so far?

Actually, it has been pretty different. I've never been this sick. But I have known women who have had it way worse than me, and after this pregnancy I admire them all the more, especially if they have more than one! And not all of my pregnancies have been exactly the same anyhow. But this has been the sickest. On that note, I really did think I had the stomach flu from that slug post awhile back. But after no one else got it, I thought it was food poisoning. Then it happened again, a whole day, sun-up to long-after sun-down sick. So then I was suspicious. And my doc confirmed it. I guess in a sea of nausea sometimes you can have a day where your body just can't take it anymore. But! I have been feeling a bit better the past couple of days. Not back to normal yet, but any better is waaaaay better. Now if only there was a cure for sleepiness....

6. But you rode roller coasters!

Yes, I did. And they were very fun. And the baby is fine, just as I knew he'd be. I did avoid the jerky ones though. No Thunder Mountain, no Star Tours, no Matterhorn. Nothing where I was worried I would hurt the baby in any way. One thing I do well: get pregnant and stay pregnant until someone makes that baby come!

7. How are you feeling about having five?

I am actually pretty nervous. I mean four kids is a big family. But, in my head, five is a huge family. I think I have felt during this pregnancy really similar to my first: very excited and pretty scared all in one. But I have a wonderful husband who is an amazing teammate and loves being an active and involved dad, family and friends who are such an encouragement and support, and four boys who are going to be great big brothers, once again.

8. Speaking of the boys, what do they think?

Zach and Ben are both really excited about having another baby. Zach was told pretty early, since he was starting to get worried about how sick I was without knowing why. He's hoping the baby will ask him to baptize it when it is 8 and he is 16. Ben and Josh we told after we had the ultrasound last Monday and saw that sweet little heartbeat. That night Ben came downstairs and told me all the ways he could help with the new baby (this is our child that for at least 3 years has said he wants to have 10 kids when he grows up). My favorite suggestion was that he could push the baby in a stroller for the times when Luke still needed to be in a stroller and I needed to push him. What a sweetheart! Josh seems happy about it. He is always loving on other people's babies and talks excitedly about having a new baby. And he is thrilled that the baby's due date is just two days after his fifth birthday. Let's just hope they don't end up sharing, it might seem fun at first, but I don't think either of them will like it so much as the years wear on. Luke, well, he isn't going to know what hit him. And I am not sure he is going to be overjoyed. We will have to see!

9. Are you planning on delivering again without an epidural?

For now the plan is yes, but, as with Luke, I am giving myself a guilt-free pass if I decide to have one at the last minute. But I didn't with Luke even given the pass, and I don't plan on it this time around either. The biggest thing that may change that plan is if they decide to induce me, as they have in the past because of my humungo babies. If I am induced again...well, we'll see!

10. OK, so there's not really 10. But "Top Nine" didn't sound as cool.

Baby Camden

It's baby week on the Chaos! We will be having some baby-themed posts in light of our recent announcement, and a perfect addition to this week's posts is my weekend visit to Washington to visit my new darling baby niece, Camden Lily! She arrived on March 11th, perfect and sweet, and three weeks later, she is just as perfect and sweet as day one. I am so glad I got to spend a few of these early days with her. When we all see her next in late June, she is going to be so different! She is a perfect baby, doing all those perfect baby things, like sleeping all day, waking a lot at night, eating endlessly, loving her snuggles, dirtying diapers at breakneck pace...perfect. And she is so loved!!

By great luck, Adam was in Everett the day she arrived for a business trip, so he got to visit Camden and family in the hospital, and get some newborn snuggles on day one! Plus, he had to be there over the weekend, since he was needed at work there on Monday too, so he had a whole weekend to visit with his family and our adorable newest addition! Here's Cami just after she was born...so sweet! Even though they aren't technically from my trip, I had to put up some of her first pictures because there is nothing more miraculous than those first days of life, and these tiny babies change so fast!

Cami's not a huge fan of her carseat, unless we are moving at 60 mph or above, but she still looks so cute in it! It just makes her look so teeny tiny!

The first family photo, Alea, Zach and Camden! We are so glad you are here, baby girl!

This picture is from my visit. Camden at three weeks...I love her little faces! She is really alert and animated (when she is actually awake, which isn't often in the day, just at the unfortunate hour of 4am).

Here is another great one, looking so surprised at the camera flash. Like no one ever takes her picture...yeah right! I think nearly every waking moment, and many sleeping ones, of her short three weeks have been documented. As they should be!

I got in a lot of snuggles too, in between her frequent meals. She is growing so fast, putting on nearly a-pound-and-a-half in one week! She's just like her auntie Colleen...she loves a good meal!

It was a really relaxing weekend. Alea and I just hung out at the house with Cami, watching her, snuggling her, watching Jane Austen movies, and doing a lot of talking, and talking, and talking, oh and eating tasty food, too!

The beautiful mommy with her beautiful baby! Alea is such a natural at this mommy-business. She is so full of love for her little girl, and doing everything just right. I loved watching the two of them together!

Sweet Sleeping Cami. She loves sleeping with her head tipped back, so she can get some air onto that teeny little kissable neck!

One of the very great things about the timing of my visit this past weekend, was that I was there in Washington for my grandmother's 85th birthday. My cousin JJ flew in with her new baby boy, Lincoln, and my uncle Steve. And my cousins Doug and Heather drove down with their fantastic kiddos from Bellingham. Add a few of my grandmother's care-givers, and my parents and I, and it made for quite the bash. It was wonderful visiting with everyone! I just love my family; I have truly been blessed with the most amazing family!

Grandma Jackie, looking not-a-day-over-65 on her 85th birthday. I sure hope I got those genes!

Lincoln is such a cute, squeezable little boy! I had the chance to hold him for a bit, and even got baptized in the spit-up love! Most of the night he was out like a light, what an easy babe!

Grandma with JJ and I: a couple of her granddaughters. My cousin Doug, who was also there, is also a grandchild, but in the picture we got with all three of us Grandma has her eyes closed, so I put this one up instead.Here are the last stragglers at the party, held at one of my Grandma's favorite restaurants in Downtown Bellevue: 0/8. My cousin JJ, next to me in the pic, has always been my very cool older cousin; the one I wanted to be exactly like as I was growing up. And she remains so today. I loved seeing her and having the chance to talk, and hear her stories, she always cracks me up!

I had a wonderful weekend seeing so many of the people I love and snuggling with dear Camden. But I was happy to return to my best guys. I am so blessed to have such an incredible husband who takes on dad duty with joy and never begrudges me a weekend off! Love you, babe!

I Know I'm Pregnant When....

I know I'm pregnant when I start feeling nauseated around 9:30am and it just goes on and on from there all day long, sometimes with cherished twenty-minute respites granted after eating, which means I am eating constantly.

I know I'm pregnant when, with as much as I love my husband, I don't want him to touch me for three months, unless it is to hold me up because I am so exhausted.

I know I'm pregnant when, although after having done this before, I still have new things to learn, like there exists an anti-nausea suppository for when a woman can keep nothing down, and although it is disgusting to think upon, it is more than welcome after 16-hours straight of throwing up.

I know I am pregnant when I can hardly keep my eyes open, even though I only woke up for the day thirty minutes ago.

I know I am pregnant when I have eaten my way through three Costco-size boxes of Cheerios in 11-weeks, because nothing else sounds good at all.

I know I am pregnant when I start a crock-pot meal, thinking, "How clever of me! I will be so tired by the end of the day, and now dinner will already be ready!" But by the time dinner rolls around, I am so disgusted by the constant smell of whatever has been cooking that I can't eat it.

I know I am pregnant when, even though I am usually a night owl, my typical bedtime being around 11:30pm, I am suddenly ready for bed at 8:30pm and can barely take the time to wash my face and brush my teeth before collapsing onto my pillow.

I know I am pregnant when, two days before I miss my period I bloat to the size of a woman who is four months pregnant, and stay there until my uterus/baby growth actually catches up to the bloat around four months along, making all my clothing feel very uncomfortable for four months, but maternity clothes are out of the question before at least three-and-a-half months in my mind.

I know I am pregnant when, even though the Dollar Store pregnancy test said negative, I have missed my period and it is now three days late. On the second test, the second line "aka 'pregnant' line" is so faint I have to question if it is really there. I guess that's why it was only a dollar.

I know I am pregnant when the water and heating bill increases exponentially because the one thing I need to make it through the day is a nice, warm bubble bath.

I know I am pregnant when the frequency of deep breaths and counting backwards from 10 to keep myself calm in the face of frustration has multiplied greatly, because my patience level has instantly been cut by more than half.

I know I am pregnant when all that other stuff is absolutely worth it, because in just over six months (October 23rd is my due date, I'm 11.5 weeks) we will have another sweet baby (more than likely, a dear boy) to love and snuggle and expand the Chaos we cherish so much!

Conlin Chaos Goes to California Episode "Actual" Six...: Palm Springs Part B

Oops, lost count there! That's what happens when you are frantically writing vacation posts while trying to get ready for the next big journey to Washington to see your new baby niece!

And so the final day of note for our trip has arrived. We had the two day drive back on Friday and Saturday (27th and 28th), with a quick overnight once more at the Browns; but once again, those were just long boring days, full of movies, fast food and uncomfortable, restless dozing. We missed all the blizzarding going on back at home (of course, right? the one blizzard this season had, I missed; although I wouldn't have traded the blizzard for the trip!), and we had no trouble at all on the drive.

After dropping my mom off at the airport we headed back to Palm Springs for two nights and one more day of bliss. We woke up leisurely on Thursday (26th), and decided to take a hike up in Palm Canyon, a beautiful canyon full of natural springs that feed a lush valley of palm trees in all shapes and sizes...hence the name of the city "Palm Springs." It is property owned by a Native American tribe, the Agua Caliente Cahuilla, whose people have lived on the land for centuries, but they thankfully keep it open to hikers...for a small fee.

We first headed up a short path to a small, rock-encased waterfall. Here's Josh by the stream leading to the waterfall. Who knew there was so much water in the desert?!

Ben boulder hopping

Some of the palms of Palm Canyon

We saw a number of frogs on the hike, this one had some great camouflage going on. Can you see it?

The lovely waterfall! Josh is down in the lower right, so you can see how big it actually was.Climbing up the rocks behind the falls, the boys found a little hole that led to the top of the falls high above where Luke and I were waiting.
Our handsome boys on the bridge on the way back to our next trail.

This species of palm tree makes me think of Boo from Monsters Inc. when she is dressed up like a little monster.
Up the trail

Part of Palm Canyon
My men: rusty, trusty hikers
Southern California was bursting with wildflowers during our visit, like these yellow ones here, and you can't tell in the small picture, but there are some dainty little purple ones behind those too.

We took some time to sit and play in the stream.

Luke eventually got up and amused himself by throwing rocks in the water to see the splash.

More rock jumping. Maybe it's a boy thing.

We spent the afternoon back at the condo, swimming in the pool, absorbing every last ray of sun, every last scent of orange blossom, every last minute of warm, summer-style fun.

It was a wonderful trip, full of new family memories, good bonding time, and sweet relaxation. I truly do miss it as I sit here watching the snow fall outside my window.