Gettin' All Fallified... And a baby update

Fall is easily my favorite season.

It's just such a cozy, fun season and it always makes me want to decorate and get my house all inviting-like. :) My birthday is also in the Fall (speaking of which, I am in the FINAL days of my 20's, I'll be 30 on the 10th!), so I think that always made me look forward to it growing up.

 So a couple of weeks ago I pulled out my Fall decorating stuff, bought a couple of cheap things, and got my house ready for Fall! I had a boring day today so I decided to take a few pictures of my work. :)

My entry table.

 Close up of the wreath. I love this wreath and I love even more that I only spent $3 on it. I had the burlap leftover from Jarom's 4th birthday party so I just had to buy a $3 wreath form and pin it on! Super easy and cheap! Okay, I did buy the ribbon, too, but it was this humongous, never-ending roll for like $5 so I still have a lot leftover.

 Close up of entry table. I know it's not that spectacular, but when I see those pumpkins, I just feel happy.

Mantle. Just added some orange. Jarom added a chocolate chip cookie to the end table. Nice touch.

 And a little space for Halloween. There was no way I was going to feel like decorating for Halloween after the baby comes so I got it out. I totally love those little haunted house centerpieces and the giant cobweb I got from the dollar store!

And while I'm at it, here are a couple of shots of Makenzie's room. Still needs some finishing touches, but it's on its way!

And even cuter with Makenzie actually in it. :)

Alright, so there is my random post on my decorating of late!

Here is a quick update on baby. Monday is the due date. My doc is game with inducing me at any time. And when I say she's game, I really mean she's practically begging me. Haha. I think she likes herself a nice, scheduled birth. Can't say I blame her, but I want to let him stay in there until his due date. After that, bring on the induction. :) So we're playing it by ear. If I get really antsy by this Friday, I may call her and schedule the induction for Monday. If not, I'll have her strip my membranes on Monday (sorry that sounds really gross) and see if that does the trick. If that still doesn't work (although I think it will because I'm having a gajillion contractions), I'll have her induce me later next week. So LATEST case scenario would be next Friday and probably earliest this Monday. We will see! Either way, it's soon!

Silver Lake

We love to head into the mountains in the Fall. It is gorgeous and so close to home!

Today we headed up to Silver Lake by Brighton ski resort.

We haven't been there since Makenzie was an only child so it has been a little while.
We got a bucket of Justin's beloved Kentucky Fried Chicken and headed up for a picnic and a hike.

The kids loved it.

It's gorgeous and they have this awesome boardwalk that wraps around the lake. It's all flat so it's perfect for little kids. 

 Having fun!

 Being silly.

 Being sweet.

 Trying to keep his eyes open. Just a wee bit tired, poor kid.

Um... I'm due in 8 days ok? haha... it used to bother me seeing big fat pregnant pictures, but I've been pregnant enough times now to know that I will be skinny(er) again someday. This is here and now, and it's gonna be ok. :)

Cutie girl and the lake.

 Boardwalk.

 Fall!

 Little reader.

 Kenz decided she really likes getting her picture taken by herself. So we have a lot of her, cute girl.

And a moose. There were two moose pretty close to the boardwalk in the exact same spot we saw them probably 5 years ago. Guess they really like that area. This is was the female, I should have gotten a shot of the male with his antlers, but he was further down and the kids were tired by then.

I love going into the mountains. It is so green and wooded and almost makes me feel like I'm home in VA again. So beautiful!

Maternity Photos

 So I wasn't planning on doing maternity photos, but when my super duper nice next door neighbor/friend offered to take them, I figured I would be a fool to turn her down.

I'm so glad she offered and I'm SO glad I did it! This is a moment in my life that I will never be able to capture again. This is me at the end of my "pregnant years."

I am 38.5 weeks pregnant in these photos, so this is about as big as I get.

We're going to be meeting this little boy so soon!

Michelle did such an amazing job, I'm definitely hiring her to do our family photos after the baby is born. If you're interested, her blog is mhansonphotography.com.

 But I just took all of the photos from my shoot off her blog, here they are!

I love this first one. I'm such a sucker for dock photos.

And a skinny angle, thanks, Michelle! Love this one, too. ;)

I am about the least photogenic person on the planet so I'm loving all the downward looking shots and such. She did a great job!

Getting ready...

Our little man is due 2 weeks from today.

Yesterday at church was my first experience ever with false labor.

I started having contractions during Sunday School. I was having a lot so I started watching the clock. About every 5 minutes.

I told Justin and we joked about how embarrassing it would be if my water broke and I had to get up in my sopping wet WHITE sundress in front of everyone.

The contractions went on during Relief Society, and they were getting to be 3-4 minutes apart and stronger.

Now... if you know me, you know that going into labor 2 weeks before my due date would be totally unlikely. But they were really starting to hurt and coming so close together that I was starting to believe it was the real thing!

But I waited until church was over, we went home and I started getting ready for dinner.

We were hosting for Justin's whole family, so it wasn't the best moment to be going into labor.

But as I got things ready, they started slowing down until they eventually stopped about an hour later. Bummer.

It's probably a good thing, though, because we aren't completely ready for baby, but we're getting there!

His room is almost ready.
The dreamer in me wanted to create a whole new gray and yellow nursery.
I had so many cute ideas.
But the sensible, frugal me said it was a waste to not use the crib set I already had from Kyle.
So as usual, sensible/frugal me won and I decided to decorate with what I had.
I pulled some things from other rooms in the house and I really like how it turned out.
The only new thing is the rocker glider, which I decided I couldn't live without.
I guess the dresser is kind of new, too. I bought it... last summer (?) off the classifieds for $100! Such an amazing deal for a huge, solid wood dresser.
Alright, so here it is...

 It makes me happy every time I walk by the door and see that room just waiting for our little guy!

 So I had this huge blank wall over the crib that was begging for something big to fill it up, but what? Big pieces of art are so expensive. So I walked around Hobby Lobby and ended up with this. The 16x20 blank canvases are only $5 for a 2-pack after the 40% off coupon that I always use on my phone. Then I bought some fabric (also 40% off by being sneaky and going back through another line) for $6 and then just stapled it on, made some little signs on the computer and voila- big huge art for $11, plus leftover fabric for a future craft. Can't beat that. I thought I was just making it up, but I guess it was in my subconscious from Pinterest because the fabric lady told me people do that all the time. :) I might go back and do a dark brown border around the printout, but this is it for now.

I had printed these out months ago when I thought I was going to do the yellow and gray room, and decided to just put them up anyway. 

Here is the other angle. 

I won this cute wooden subway art sign at our ward service auction. Our Relief Society president made it and did such a good job.

So yeah, there it is, just waiting for a baby to go in it! I just need a couple more things like a diaper pail and a mobile and we'll be good! 

We're also working on names. We've got quite a list, but we have 3 or 4 front runners. We'll pick one after we see what he looks like.

My sweet next door neighbor is going to take some maternity photos of me on Wednesday. She is a photographer and I'm really excited about that. She's going to do his newborn pictures, too. So nice of her.

 Alright, that's about it. Just gearing up for baby #4 around here!

What to do...

Saturday we found ourselves in a predicament that hasn't happened in a long time:

We had nothing to do.

It was awesome.

We decided on a trip to the zoo, somewhere we haven't been in quite a while.

We had a membership when Makenzie was really little, and we figured it was time to give our boys the same experience and bought a membership again.

The kids were INTO it big time.

They were all about the maps and navigating our trip.

Here's Little Miss Diva, who was stoked that I gave her my giant (scratched up) sunglasses.

Jarom needed his own map, too.

Kyle was content just scratching his belly.

Hehe, just kidding... Kyle was asleep so he missed the first few animals.

We saw a great elephant show. Even this baby was trained! They loved getting sprayed with that water. It was really cool to watch.

And apparently we weren't the only ones who thought a late summer trip to the zoo was a good idea on Saturday. It was crowded! So it made for a lot of shoulder sitting on Dad. :)

Kyle woke up and was very excited to see the dinosaurs (rhinos).

He is, in fact, saying "dinosaurs" in this one.

They have an awesome new section of the zoo called Rocky Shores with seals, sea lions and a polar bear! The kids loved exploring that part of the zoo.

This hollowed out tree made Kyle pretty nervous but he finally got the courage to sit on the edge next to his big sis.

They had a little amphitheater that made a perfect shady spot to watch the seals swim around. Kyle was tickled pink.

Loving those seals.

And a polar bear! I thought that was so cool. So did everyone else, it was hard to get a peak.

This is the giraffe that Jarom can't stop talking about because he took like the world's longest pee.

Sleepy tigers. They were all sleeping.

Cute kids.

Nice shot of my 37 week belly. It totally looks like I'm shoving Jarom with my arm but he really just ran up and snuck into the picture at the last second.

As we were leaving, they had music playing and all these hula hoops. Our dead-tired kids suddenly got a burst of energy.

Jarom showing off his neck hula skills.

Makenzie gettin' it done.

And even Justin couldn't resist. He loves hula hoops. :)

Kyle finally got into it and decided rolling the hoops around was a good idea.

It was a fun 3-hour long excursion to the zoo. After we got done, we dropped in on Justin's brother Devin and Candace, who have a super cute apartment downtown, and then walked to City Creek Center for dinner. Turned out to be a really fun Saturday!