Summer FOREVER

Summer is not my favorite season.  I’ve always been real about that.  I feel like it might never cool down.  But we’re making the most of it and having a great time!

I should start out with the most important news first, obviously.  I haven’t been great at announcing our second pregnancy and even more importantly that it’s a BOY!

I am due Dec 31st.  New Year’s Eve.  I’m kind of freaking out about it, but I know it will all work out in the end.  No matter what – we have a little girl and a little boy.  We are thrilled!  But I have been horrible at keeping track of anything, really.  I did take one photo at 18 weeks!  I know…pathetic.  But it’s what we have to work with…

I’ve made some goals for this pregnancy.  One of them is to run 300 miles throughout these 9+ months. It doesn’t sound like a lot for avid runners, but it’s a good goal for a chubby pregnant girl.  I ran six miles on the Saturday of my 20th week a while back.  I felt good.  Really good.  I’m not that fast, but distance is really my only goal here.

I feel like I’ve said this 100 times, but this summer has felt abnormally hot.  Maybe it’s that I’m knocked up.  Maybe it’s that I just forget every fall/winter/spring how hot it gets in Utah.  Either way, we’re staying cool the only way we know how:

the pool or splash pad.  Sloan is a really big fan of the SDRC’s pool – or what she calls, “Captain Hook’s Pirate Ship Pool”.  Our neighborhood does food trucks on Thursday nights now at the Splash Pad.  Sloan doesn’t really care for any of the food they have – but now has a fondness for nacho cheese Doritos.

With the new baby coming – there have been a lot of big changes for Sloan.  We have been transitioning her into her BIG GIRL ROOM and she’s obsessed with the whole idea of it.  She hasn’t actually slept in the bed yet (we are waiting on her window shade to come and at the time for the baby’s crib to arrive) but she’s excited nonetheless.

We’ve been slowly converting Sloan’s existing room into a more masculine nursery.  It’s coming super slowly, but we’ll get there eventually.

With all the excitement of the new baby during the holidays, I am trying to be prepared.  I’ve got a huge jumpstart on Halloween and even Christmas.  In fact, Sloan’s entire Christmas is nearly done.  Sound a little crazy?  Yes.  Crazy prepared.  But Halloween comes first, technically.  So I’ve started on Sloan’s request – her Tinker Bell costume.  We’re doing a more modern version, with green chucks instead of green sparkly slippers.

A while ago I got really sick.  So sick, in fact, that I skipped out on going to Lake Powell with Zach’s family.  It’s my favorite family trip we take with the Hendersons, so it was very hard to miss out on all the fun.  But I’m grateful we didn’t go after I progressively got worse and worse.  I felt so guilty being a homebody in the dead of summer – but Sloan was such a good sport.  I did surprise her with a treat from her favorite book – Green Eggs & Ham, though.  We made green eggs and then silly smoothies and she was acting like it was Christmas morning.

M&M’s in the AM wasn’t my best parenting move – but it was worth it for all her excitement.

Recently we went up to Mark and Jeanene’s for dinner on a Sunday evening and Sloan got her grandparents all to herself.  She zipped on the zipline so many times we were all exhausted by the end of the night. 

This girl has no fear.  I pray she’ll make it in one piece to adulthood. 

My mother-in-law got me hooked on salmon sandwiches and I can’t stop – won’t stop.  Zach’s not a huge fan, but I can’t get enough!

It’s definitely healthier than our other favorite grilled entree – Shake Shack burgers.  We replicate these bad boys too often, and we all can’t stop obsessing over them.  It’s the brisket in the burger, I am telling you!

Another summer favorite has become baked peaches.  Sloan mostly eats the ice cream on top, but I can’t complain because it’s much healthier than most desserts.  Zach and I picked up peaches one night for our date night and brought home a bag to keep the sweet treat coming.

A few weeks ago for FHE we took Sloan ice skating.  She did much better balancing on her skates this go around.  She was such a good sport and stayed out there on the ice sheet for much longer than we both guessed she would.  She asks to go back often. 

Along with every other American citizen – we eclipsed.  Sloan was more interested in the glasses than the actual eclipse, but it was such a fun experience.  A big thanks to my mom for the sweet specs!  She threw a Total Eclipse Party the Sunday before and gave us each a pair.  Our contribution was Galactic Brownies and ice cream for dessert.

A few of us ladies got together recently at my MIL’s house to make strawberry jam and Sloan got her fair share of cousin time in.  She also was put to work.  We are officially stocked for the year!

Sloan is SO ready for a sibling.  She’s even more social than I am, if you can believe it.  It doesn’t matter – a group of girls, or a group of boys – she wants to be RIGHT in the middle.  Literally.

I’m itching for fall.  Seriously.  This dry summer weather makes my skin pretty itchy.  But to hold us over, I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this week.  Sloan loves them and they couldn’t be easier.  I figure we’re SO close to September, anyway.

Our RS Activity for the month of August was a “Back to School S’mores Night” and it turned out super cute.  We had a great turn-out and all took turns roasting mallows on my dollar store roasting troughs.  Nobody seemed to mind the ghetto fabulousness of it all, though.  Bonus:  the chocolate was already good and melty by the time your mallow was roasted – it was 94 degrees outside until the sun went down!

I have a lot of catching up to do – and don’t want to forget the little things.  I guess we’ll let the summer weather stick around.  I don’t want to rush this time one-on-one time with Sloan before baby boy gets here.  I’m going to savor it as much as I can!