And The Fishing Begins.....

Here's the first keeper fish of the season - a Columbia River 47 inch sturgeon! Mark started the day fishing for springer salmon, but gave that up and ended up sturgeon fishing for the last half of the day. They had a blast, and between him and his friend Scott, they caught about 12 fish and one keeper. A busy day! They came back sore, tired and sun/wind burnt, but very proud.

They were taught how to skin, fillet and cook sturgeon the right way (the last time we tried to cook it, it was disgusting!). The fish was really great this time. We had a big fish feed, and we all liked it, even Ava!

Pregnancy Update and Other Random Pictures

Here is my newest picture from today. I'll be 14 weeks tomorrow, and can hardly believe it's gone that fast already. Last week I started feeling like my energy came back and the nausea has subsided. I'm so happy for that!

What a little mama. I love the expression on Journey's face as she rocks her bunny.

Aspen and Mark playing "horsey". Both Aspen and Journey love the game. If you can't see the pictures very well (for some reason they are really small) just click on them to enlarge.

Today Journey took her baby on a walk while Aspen searched for bugs in the barkdust. We are ready for Spring!

Every Thursday night we go to my parent's house for dinner and to hang out. Lately, we have been taking the kids in the hot tub after dinner. You can see how excited these crazy kids are!

Journey 2 years old

Aspen 4 1/2 years old

Peyton 18 months

Friends

Tea party time with Aspen, Sofia and Journey.

Aspen and Sofia having a picnic in the living room.....

...and pretending that they are "married", ha ha!

Happy Birthday Journey (Late!)

Here's the birthday girl in her birthday princess party hat.

Blowing out the candles. She has the facial expression down, now she just needs to add some air! Luckly, Aspen helped her out.

Journey with Grammi. See her black eye? She fell against the corner of the coffee table a couple days prior to the party.

Journey's birthday present from Nana and Papa Wilde, a double seater wagon. Journey wasn't ready to try it out, but Aspen, Peyton and Ava didn't waste any time :)

This is the next morning. The wagon has become sort of a play house.

Journey's party was a lot of fun. She loved seeing her cousins Ava and Peyton. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it! Journey got tons of cute, cute clothes. That girl has more clothes than I do! We also did Journey's dedication since we had most of the family together. It was special, and we are so thankful for our little girl.

Love

My sweet 2 year old. I can hardly believe she's already that old!

Just a few life updates. Journey's 2nd birthday was on Saturday. We were at the beach for the weekend, and of course I forgot my camera. Poor girly was sick so there wasn't much to take pictures of though. We are having a birthday party / dedication for her on Thursday night. So at least she won't be sick for her party!

I am so thankful I decided to keep Aspen home from Preschool this year. Aspen and Journey are really starting to play together and forming a bond that I don't think they would have if he wasn't around so much. It is so much fun to watch. Lately, they have been playing in Aspen's room a lot, listening to Bible stories on CD. Both Aspen and Journey love to listen to them. You will often find Aspen walking around quoting the funniest lines from the CD's. The characters speak in the New King James version of the Bible, so there is a lot of "slaying" the bad guys. In one of the CD's a guy says something about, "get out of my way old man..." My dad was quite confused and maybe a little offended until he found out that it was from the Bible tapes and not something Aspen just came up with!

Today, Aspen and I were having an argument (yes, already!) over me wanting to keep some underware he thought were too small and him wanting to throw them away. I told him that the new baby may be a boy, and we would be saving the underware for when the baby got bigger. Aspen was like, "Mom! We are NOT having a boy! I already know we are having a girl. It's a girl, not a boy!" Hmmm, we'll see in about a month and a half. I've been feeling boy...

Update

Being pregnant this time around has actually been a lot easier than it was last time. Aspen was 2 when I was pregnant with Journey, and in the stage where he was really testing boundaries. It was exhausting. I have been quite surprized this time around at how much better I have been feeling in the first trimester than the last two pregnancies. Without going into too much detail, with Aspen I just wanted to die, Journey, it wasn't quite that bad, but I was still pretty miserable, and with this baby, I've been more tired and feel nauseas mostly in the evenings when I am tired. I have been able to continue to work out and keep the house reasonably clean.

Aspen is very excited about the new baby, and tells people about it that we meet all the time. He will be coming to the ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby, and is really looking forward to it. He has also been stepping up to help me out with entertaining Journey, cleaning the house, and doing things to help me out because he knows I am tired and not always feeling great.

One other thing about Aspen because I want to remember later....
Aspen got a really cool remote control rock crawler for Christmas. He loved it for a couple weeks before the engine burned up. He was pretty bummed about that, but instead of asking for a replacement, he came to me and asked if I had any work for him to do so that he could earn money to buy another engine!

I was very excited about that just because it told me that he had connected the whole "gotta work to get what you want" idea of life. A couple days later Mark found some work for him to do (clean the garage, help with cutting down a large shrub in the yard, clean the house, etc.). He was surprized at Aspen's good attitude with what ever work he gave him to do. Seeing progress like this has really given us (well, me!) encouragement that all the hard work of parenting will actually pay off. His questioning, constant boundary pushing personality can really wear us out, and it is so nice to feel like we see some results :)

Our Families Getting A Little Bigger....

And now the reason for why I have been posting so infrequently........I'm pregnant! We found out right before Christmas. It was a great early Christmas present, and we are all very excited. I am due August 18th, Mark's birthday. Right now I am 8 1/2 weeks along, and am doing pretty good compared to my previous pregnancies. The picture above is me at 7 weeks.

Here are a couple things that Aspen has been saying...

"Mom, if Journey wakes up tonight, I'll go in and take care of her because you aren't feeling good with a baby in your tummy, and I can help you out".

"Mom, do you have any garbage? Give it to me because that will make you too tired. I can do that for you".

"Mom, I love you so much. I'm so happy that you have a baby in your tummy. That means that God answered my prayers, doesn't it?" (he prayed one morning for a new baby about a month before we found out).

And Journey...

When we asked her if she wants a baby brother or baby sister, she said emphatically,

"baby sista!" (I didn't even know she could say sister!)