Friday, July 29, 2011

Hot!

The temperature has regularly climbed to triple digits for the past two weeks or so here, so when Megan's big swimming pool sprung a leak at the start of the crazy hot weather, I figured a new pool would be a good investment. We bought this one on sale at Kmart along with a fishy inner tube, an addition Megan was very excited about. Josh and I took turns joining her in the pool the first day, and she was very excited about that, too. 



This was the reading on our indoor/outdoor weather station last week. The bottom number is the outdoor temperature, and that's even in the shade. Yes, it was 101 degrees! We had a heat-related power outage for four hours the day before this. It was only 100 degrees outside then!

This was the pavement temperature on our driveway, according to Josh's car.


We hosted Grandma Mary and Grandpa Mike for dinner this week because their kitchen is being completely remodeled. Megan helped me make a no-bake cheesecake and got to lick the bowl afterward.


She was pleased with herself when she figured out how to sit on her fish inner tube like people do in a lazy river!


Here's Megan's latest "preschool" work. In addition to leaving the usual crayons, blank sheets of paper, and coloring books out for Megan to use whenever she wants, I've started keeping a drawer in our china cabinet full of preschool activity pages. With Josh getting ready to go back to school (he had AP Government training all this week), we've had some time in the mornings to do a worksheet or two if Megan is up to it. This page is from a Sesame Street workbook, and I've posted pictures from some of her work in this book before. Today, she tried her hand at tracing letters. I did the letter "r" to show her how it was done, and she did the rest. I thought she did pretty good for having little prior practice. She gets really excited when she does something new well, too!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Visit to the Indianapolis area

Almost two weeks ago, we went to Indiana to see various relatives, including my grandparents (dad's parents) not far from Indianapolis. Our trip also included a visit to the Indy Children's Museum and a mini family reunion at a nearby state park where my parents were camping. Here are a few photos of our first night with grandpa and grandma. They took us to dinner at McDonald's, followed by ice cream at this neat place.


Grandma and Grandpa.


Megan and I shared mint chip ice cream.


Checking out the juke box.







After the ice cream, we headed back to grandpa and grandma's and walked to the pond behind their subdivision.



Megan had to look at a big catfish someone had just caught.



The following morning, Megan let grandpa try on her sun hat. More trip pictures to come ...

Sunday, July 17, 2011

25 weeks and other random photos


Whenever Megan sees Josh taking a pregnancy picture of me, she wants her picture taken, too. We had just come home from church when Josh took these, so we're still all dressed up.


I told Megan the instructions on this page of her coloring book said to draw a bird. She drew a head with a face, and I asked her if she could draw wings and feet. This is the result.


We bought a kid-sized lawn chair (now we have two, for both of our girls) at a garage sale yesterday. Megan likes that this chair has a cup holder like grown-up lawn chairs. She camped out here in the sun room to watch Josh cut the grass yesterday evening.


And last Friday we painted the baby's room. Josh's mom doesn't like for me to do the painting when I'm pregnant, so she came over and helped. (She helped paint Megan's room a few years ago, too.) We let Megan go in the room to watch but told her she had to sit on a little folded-up blanket so she would *mostly* be out of the way.


The finished room. Josh brought the crib up from the basement and assembled it and we put all the other major pieces of furniture in. It's a very small room, so we were curious to see if everything would fit. It's cozy, but it works.



Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Summer travel catch-up

We just returned from a trip to the Indianapolis area to visit family, but here are pictures from our trip a few weeks ago to central Missouri where we spent a few days with friends Josh attended college with. Wayne and Kelly have two daughters, Annabelle, 5, and Rebecca, 2, and Megan loved having little girls to play with. We took a few nice family photos at a local park, and most of the other pictures posted here are from Wayne's parents' rural home. They have built up a small farm with goats, rabbits, chickens, and a large garden, and we had a great time at their place one evening.




They had kittens on the farm, and Megan liked to hold them. This one started to scratch her and she dropped it just as I snapped the photo.


She did a great job holding the kittens!


She was so proud to wear these farm boots. They had a whole bunch of them by the back door for all the grandkids to wear when visiting.


I can't resist a kitten.


Megan and Rebecca fed a baby goat a bottle!


And Josh and I each took a turn milking a goat. We were both successful!



This bunny is cute here, but I told him his wild cousins need to stop eating my plants back home.


Megan and I dug up potato plants, and we got to take a bunch of potatoes home with us.



Megan also collected chicken eggs, and we took eggs home with us, too.


Josh with eggs!


And finally, I thought this was so cute! They said this cat isn't even that kitten's mama, but they all love each other anyway.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

23 weeks

We went to a wedding of one of Josh's former students this afternoon. Here's me all dressed up and ready to go, and a belly picture afterward as well.