This evening we didn't have the girls, and we decided to get together with Jon's family for an evening of games at the park.  Someone had these corn hole game sets, so we had a great time.

We were up in the park above the cemetery in the avenues, and it's a beautiful place to spend a summer evening looking out over the valley.

Another afternoon at the pool!

The high dives have been remodeled this year, and they took out the tallest platform.  I think too many people had been injured on it.

Mac has been so excited because she's old enough to go on the platforms this year.

She has excellent form, going into the water straight as a board.  I tried the lowest platform last year, and it was something I will not repeat!

Our yellow crookneck squash have flowers!  At least there were some plants the rabbit didn't get to, if only because they were in a different spot in the yard!

Peter Rabbit

A couple weeks ago our backyard neighbor hollered over the fence and he told me he had caught a bunny in his considerable backyard garden.  He had somehow determined who the owners of the pet bunny were and left them messages to come get the animal.  They hadn't replied, and he was getting a bit peeved.  Then I forgot all about the conversation.  Fast forward to today.  I went outside to get something in the backyard, and he hollered over the fence again.  He had seen the bunny over by our watermelon plants and wanted to warn me to keep an eye out for him.  I thanked him and went to investigate, but thankfully didn't see much damage.  Then I had the thought to go look at the garden.  Well dang it if the bunny wasn't RIGHT THERE, STUFFING his face with our vegetables!  And it looked as though he had been there for a few days, because everything was decimated.  Absolutely destroyed down to almost the ground.  While he was super cute, I was so furious.

Furious enough that I determined that if he was someone's pet, he wouldn't be scared, so I was going to get him and call animal control to come take him away.

The girls of course, though bunny was super cute and thought he'd make an excellent pet.  Um, no.

He finally got close enough that I could pick him up and I put him in a tall box he couldn't hop out of.

I called animal control, and set Mimi to guard the box with a shovel on top to keep the lid closed.

About 15 minutes later, animal control showed up, and that was the last of Mr. Bunny.  And apparently the last of our garden.  I'm so sad.

Activities

Whew!  After all the excitement yesterday, today it was back to normal activities!  Mac and Mimi had a Stake Activity Day meeting, where they participated in crafts and learned about how to share the gospel.

I have been feeling baby move for several weeks now, and have been anxiously awaiting the time the girls could feel her.  With Jon feeling her last Sunday, if they are patient, it should happen anytime.  But today while we sat in the chapel for some instruction and talks, I felt her move from the outside multiple times, but of course the girls were sitting on the opposite end of the bench! 

Leiden leaves tomorrow for girl's camp, and she's really excited.  We took all her things to Sister Novak's house this evening.  She should have a great time.

Baby Reveal!

Today is the day!!!  We finally get to see if a baby boy or baby girl will join us this fall!!  Our self discipline has been remarkable!

This afternoon gave us a scare, though.  It started hailing...huge hailstones raining down everywhere.

They were pounding on our plants, and hitting the roof hard.

When it finally stopped I was very relieved.  You can't shoot tissue paper confetti in the air when there are enormous hail stones coming down!

Jon's Father's Day present to himself was a suction mop/wet vacuum for the kitchen floor...funny gift for Father's Day, but the gift was ACTUALLY that he never have to use it!  I did, today, because it came yesterday, and it is wonderful!  This was the waste water after doing the floor.  Ick.

Dessert was simple, little cupcakes with pink and blue frosting.

A gender reveal makes for a pretty easy decorating scheme!

When everyone came, we had them fill out some predictions and then we gathered the respective teams for some pictures.  Leiden did such a great job making our signs!  The girl group was a small one, but full of energy!  Leiden said she WANTED a girl, but thought it was going to be a boy.

The boy group was equally enthusiastic!  My parents have both felt it's boy, and I just wasn't sure they were right!

The moment neared, and we got the cannons to hand out.

The boy line,

and the girl line!

We explained how the cannons worked, and then we counted it off.  I COULD NOT contain myself when I saw a crazy mass of PINK confetti!!

This was a screenshot of what Grandma and Grandpa G saw on Skype.

Jon and I immediately jumped into each others arms, yelling and laughing.  Everyone was SO excited!  Except Madison.  He was peeved it wasn't a boy as predicted!

Seriously what a joyous occasion!!!  I've never done a gender reveal before, and it's definitely the way to go.  SUCH excitement!

Jon is beside himself, as you can see in this picture!

We are going to be welcoming a little girl to our family!  We couldn't be more pleased.

Is it Time Yet?

Jon and I have somehow miraculously made it to Sunday night without calling Alina and begging to know the gender!  We celebrated with a steak dinner!  Tomorrow we find out who is coming to our family!

Today Jon got his beautiful sound wave art, which he loved.  And then miracle of miracles, he had his hand on my tummy last night and FELT THE BABY!  It was a perfect Father's Day present for him.

Keeping Busy

Madison and Joni have been living in my parent's house, the house he and I grew up in.  They have decided to make a move, so my parents are finally going to be selling the property.  It needed a lot of attention in the yard, and they asked us to come and help.  We (Jon and everyone else!) ended up doing a lot more than we had expected.  The beautiful crab apple tree was taken out completely, Christmas lights taken down, and things generally just trimmed up.

Jon spent some time on the roof aiding with the high up stuff.

It's really strange to have that house be in the family no more.  I think in this day and age it's more and more rare for a person to spend their entire childhood in the same house, and then have family still live in it for years afterwards.  I had a good childhood there, and I hope the people who move in will experience wonderful things while there, too.

Ultrasound Day!

Oh my goodness, it's ultrasound day!!  Jon and I were super excited to head to the hospital and see this little bub for the first time!

Oh my goodness, baby is the sweetest!  We got this picture of baby's profile, and of course, baby was extremely wiggly during the ultrasound.  Because I'm over 35 I'm a higher risk pregnancy, so my OB sent me to get a specialized, higher resolution ultrasound.  It was incredible the things we could see!

Baby head on, looking very alien like, as they do.  Best of all, baby looks healthy, and is growing as he/she ought.  We are so in love, and we had better get the little envelope to Alina quick, or we are going to break down and look! 

We did just that, and delivered the envelope and the confetti stuff immediately!

These are the invitations we sent to our families to invite them to the big event.  We have Adrianne from the ward coming to take pictures, and Alina has agreed to come and man the Surface so we can Skype it live to Jon's parents.  Everyone is SO excited!  The girls go to their dad's for the weekend, and they can hardly stand the suspense!

We plan to head to the pool several times a week this summer, and the girls are happy about that!  They still didn't have the awnings up yet, so I actually stopped by the front desk to ask about them, and register my frustration that they aren't already up.  Because I'm literally getting sunburned sitting in the bit of shade next to the building, and I loathe wearing sunscreen unless I have to!

None of this bothers the girls, who are there to splash and play all day!

Bay Quail and Baby Gravenstreter

I was downstairs in Leiden's room and her blinds were up.  Her window looks out into a window well, and I noticed there was movement in it.  That kind of creeped me out, so I went outside to investigate and the quail mom and dad were hovering around the window well, pretty agitated.  As I got closer mom freaked out and started flying everywhere...down into the well, back out.  She was very worried.  As I kept getting closer, I saw that there were a bunch of baby quail that had fallen down into the well!  

Jon to the rescue!  He put on gloves because we weren't sure if the mom would balk at caring for them if he touched them, and he carefully climbed down into the well and ever so gently cornered the baby birds and set them free onto the grass.  They were SO cute.  So helpless and so terrified.  After he would release one, it would run super fast through the grass to the big bush in the front yard where I assume mom and dad had taken up watch.

They were panicking inside the well, so Jon had a hard time getting them out, but he persevered until there were no more baby birds inside.  I think he really enjoyed helping out some of his favorite animals!

The ultrasound is coming up quick, in just two days, and we are so excited for the Gender Reveal party we are going to throw next Monday!  I honestly don't know how we will be able to not look inside the envelope!

I've asked my friend Alina to put together the confetti cannons with the appropriate color of confetti.  She will be the first to know what we're having!  I took the time today to decorate the cannons with cute blue boy and pink girl wrapping paper.  

These are going to be the BEST!

Cutting up the confetti took a while, too, and made a big mess.  I can only hope Alina forgives me for the confetti that will surely end up all over her house!