Wild Family Weekend!

Phew! For once, I think I'm glad it's Monday. Not that the weekend wasn't fun, but I need some time to recover!

For starters, both Ben and I each had an out-of-town sibling arrive toward the end of last week. We spent Thursday evening at my parents' house visiting and playing with my brother's family. We got home a little late, but not too bad because I knew the next day was crazy.

Friday was a total blast! We went to This is The Place State Park with Ben's sister and her daughters. Her oldest daughter works there, so she showed us around in the morning. She also has a teenage daughter who was tons of help. The three younger girls and our three girls had lots of fun together. They are almost the same ages! Buster even managed to get a short nap in his stroller, but not enough for a boy who usually naps for 3-5 hours a day in 2 naps.

Saturday was a Kendrick Family Reunion. We went to a stake center with a great pavilion. They had rented blow-up bouncy things for the kids, including a traditional bouncy castle, a velcro jumping wall, and a bungee-running sort of thing. There was also a blow-up water slide, which our kids enjoyed immensely. It was fun to see family. Unfortunately, we were plagued with little injuries all day. It's a good thing we had refilled our diaper bag first aid kit!!! I think we used at least 5 adhesive bandages that day. Luckily nothing was serious, but it was kind of stressful.

Yesterday was Sunday. I got to teach the 12 and 13 year old class for the first time (my new calling). Their behavior was not worse than expected, but I got through my material way too fast and had to kill time for at least 30 minutes. Oops. Well, now I know. After church, we had a quiet afternoon, although Ben had a bad headache and spent most of it sleeping. We went to my parents' house for dinner. One of my nieces was there. After my parents went to a fireside, we took my niece to her other grandparents' house. We spent a while talking to my brother in the driveway until another niece invited the kids to come play. We all trooped inside and crashed their family gathering. They were very gracious, and we had a nice time visiting. I hadn't seen some of them in about 7 years.

Following 3 days of one nap each, Buster's sleep patterns were so disturbed that he thought he should get out of bed at 3am today. Rather than fight with him, I turned on a movie and dozed on the couch for an hour, then put him back to bed.

So it was a fun, wild, crazy, family-filled weekend. Today I am back to the domestic joys of dishes and laundry and trying to recover from all the fun. And it's not even a holiday weekend! I wonder how I'm going to hold up over the 4th of July???

Quotable Quotes XIII

Kandy just came up to me and said, "Mom, you know what it feels like?"

"What?"

"It feels like I'm being tortured by tomatoes...I mean mosquitoes!"

When to Be Surprised

We are approaching my mid-pregnancy ultrasound, and we are now faced with the big dilemma: Do we try and find out the gender or not? I know people who always do, people who never do, people who sometimes do, and people who don't get to whether they wanted to or not. My own philosophy was to find out until I had at least one boy and girl, at which point I wanted to be surprised. This is, therefore, the first time it has really been a big decision as to whether we find out. The problem is that I'm not sure I want to wait to find out even though we do have at least one of each gender.

So, pros and cons? Well, part of my problem is that aside from just waiting longer for the surprised, there isn't much benefit in waiting. Although I do have a friend who just had a baby that didn't cooperate on the ultrasound. She says that people seemed a lot more interested in her pregnancy because she didn't know the gender. She has two boys, and now she has a beautiful baby girl. Luckily, she has a sister with plenty of hand-me-downs, so getting her clothed hasn't been a problem.

The biggest advantage of finding out is planning. We will know which gender of baby clothes to keep slightly more accessible as we plan our storage. We will know how best to replace Sunny's toddler bed so Buster can use it. And although it wouldn't immediately impact bedroom arrangements, it would in the long run. It will also help with names. I think Ben kind of likes not discussing names all the time, though. Names are one of my passions, so he gets kind of sick of talking about them!

Of course, it could all be a moot point. As I said, my friend's baby didn't cooperate. Kandy was uncooperative, as well. The perinatologist took a look and said, "Well, I think that looks like a girl's bottom, but don't go painting the nursery pink." Our gut said she was a girl, so we told people 70% chance girl. We got lots of pink and some neutral, but no blue. Luckily, it worked out.

I'm not sure which I really want. I suppose that since I'm looking harder to justify finding out, maybe that is what I want most. I'm just not sure, though. Well, we still have about 3 weeks to decide.

How about you? Did you find out the gender of your babies ahead of time? Why or why not? Would you do it again?

Quotable Quotes XI

Sunny came in from outside and asked me for a snack.

"I want something drippy so I can eat it outside," she continued.

"A popsicle?"

"Yeah!!!"

Dentist, Anyone?

Well, once again I'm trying to find a good dentist for Ben and me. Our last venture didn't turn out so well. He and his staff were very nice, but the more time goes by, the less impressed I am with the work he did on my teeth. I LOVE the work from my dentist uncle, but 5 hours is a bit of a drive with small kids for a dental appointment--especially with gas prices going the way they are.

Anyone have any recommendations for a great dentist in the Bountiful or downtown Salt Lake areas?