Our lives the past couple months....

 A couple of months ago, we got a pretty big surprise when I hadn't been feeling real good for a few days and decided maybe I should take a pregnancy test just to rule out morning sickness as to why I wasn't feeling good.  Well to my disbelief, the test was positive! I took another one just to be sure a day later, but same result...#3 is on its way!  We really were not sure how far along I was, but we were guessing the due date would be in early December by comparing when I started feeling sick to my 2 previous pregnancies.  We had an ultrasound on May 20, and it confirmed we were right! Due date is December 2!

It's been a pretty rough couple of months for me not feeling well at all, so housework, cooking, and laundry have all been done only when absolutely necessary.  I have discovered we can maybe go about 2 weeks without doing laundry before we run out of underwear and Blake for the first time ran out of his nicer ACE shirts and had to wear just an ACE t-shirt to work.  (whoops! I did a whole load of almost just his ACE shirts that day!) We also went through about 15 days where we had everything from an ear infection, runny noses, sore throats, sinus infection, diarrhea, constipation, urinary tract infection, coughs, and the flu.  Seriously, it was probably the most difficult 2 weeks I have ever experienced as a parent, and I hope we don't ever have to go through all of that again, at least not all at once! In those 2 weeks, it was always 2 of the 4 of us would feel good and 2 would feel yucky.  I was always yucky thanks to morning sickness and a cold, and Blake thankfully stayed healthy the whole time.  Finally I have started catching up on things this week as the morning sickness is getting better for the most part.  I started feeling better around week 16-17 with the other two, and I'll be 16 weeks next week, so I'm hoping we are almost through this!

Anyway, since I haven't been feeling well, keeping up with the blog has been the last thing on my mind, so here is just another random post of pictures showing some of the things we've been up to the past couple months.
Lots of resting...

 Brooks got to drive our new van around Grandma and Grandpa's yard, he thought it was pretty fun!

 Playing outside...

 Playing with the new kitties at Grandma's...Brooks got to name the two black kittens with white paws.  He named one Oreo and the other Basketball :)  Lane got to name the others and he chose Monkey and Stinky.  Quite the names for this litter!

 Here are a couple of pictures from when Brooks had the flu...Keely was quite concerned

 She had to put her hand on him to let him know it was ok

 And here is Brooks with his throw up bowl.  He did a surprisingly good job for a 3 year old at getting the throw up all in the bowl every time except for the first time in the middle of the night.  Luckily it only lasted about 36 hours for him, but it was long enough! I felt so bad for the little guy!

 Keely LOVES to eat, and especially corn on the cob.  More than once she has fallen asleep eating her lunch.  It's quite funny.  She's at a hard age where she almost needs to take a morning nap still, but I can't quite get her to unless we are in the car or stroller.  So by lunch, she is pretty exhausted some days!

 When she falls asleep in the car on the way home from Ace or grocery shopping in the morning I try not to let her sleep too long so that I can still get an afternoon nap out of her.  I'll lay her on the ground and sometimes that doesn't even wake her up!

 We've gone on a couple of bike rides with the kids and they love it!

 Keely loves walking around Grandma and Grandpa's farm because it's flat and we can pretty much just let her go.  It's fun to watch her go.

 More sandbox playing...

 Brooks has gotten to play some t-ball at grandma's.  He loves to run the bases.

 We had Lane and Katy over to play and they had a ton of fun together.  Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but they were all too active.

 Cute little girl...

 Watching little league baseball

 We got to go to a Lincoln Saltdog baseball game with our church lifegroup and Brooks had lots of fun

 Keely was tired when we went, but that helped her sit pretty good for a very active 1 year old. 

Birthdays

I know it's been a month since the kids' birthday, but I still need to post pictures about the party we had for them.  We had their party on Saturday, the 4th.  Brooks was pretty excited about having a party, and Keely just went with the flow! Grandma and Papa Burgess came up on Friday and so did Luke, Kit and the kids.  To help entertain the kids and give me some time to get the house ready for the party, Saturday Grandma and Papa, Luke and Kit, and all the kids went to Lincoln to the Children's Museum.  I think they all had a lot of fun, but Keely was pretty wiped out and luckily took a short little nap right before the party started!

 Brooks and Rosa ate supper together (at least for a little while, neither one ate very long!)

 Here is part of the group...along with Blake's parents and brother's family, my parents, my sister and her family, my brother and his wife, and my Grandma and Grandpa Jost were there.  It was a houseful!!

 Brooks opening his blow-up bowling pin set he had seen in a Bed Bath and Beyond catalog.  When he opened it, he said, "Oh I wanted these so bad!" He still continues to play with them daily, I'll have to take some pictures of it...the pins are huge!

 Keely got some great girl toys...she loves the baby dolls

 Brooks always had to check out what Keely got!

 Pearl was right there checking it out too...

 Maybe Keely had enough....so funny!!

Brooks and his new outdoor basketball hoop.  I think he might have been in a little bit of shock as to what it was! He was super excited when we set it up in the house just for that night!

 Here is Keely's owl cake. 

 Brooks got a dice cake with a '3' on top.  He was so excited! 

 We really wanted him to try it since he has never really tried cake.  I unfortunately don't have pictures of the events that took place next, but hopefully my mom does and I'll get the pictures yet. After he blew out the candles, I started cutting Keely a piece of hers so she could try it...then without me noticing, Brooks had decided to just take a big bite out of his dice cake.  It was super funny, and I'm glad I hadn't caught him in the act, because I probably would have stopped him! He thought it was great and proceeded to take a couple more bites before we decided that was enough and we would actually cut him a piece! However, Brooks was really disappointed when other people 'ruined' his dice cake by eating pieces of it! I don't think he ate anymore that night. He was actually sad about it for several days after! I don't think he realized that the cake was made to eat that night, not to just look at and play with!

 Here is a picture of the Burgess cousins on Sunday before they left to go back to Wyoming.  While it was definitely a houseful, it was fun to have everyone here to celebrate 2 special birthdays!

Random Life

Not much has been happening around here these days, but we do have 2 little ones that will be having a birthday the end of this week! A lot has happened in a year, and both kids have grown up so much! I'll post pictures of how much they have grown/changed in a year for their birthday, but in the mean time, here are just some random pictures of what we've been up to around here.
One cold day I tried to make up a new game for Brooks since he is always wanting to throw things.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest and thought it sounded fun for him. He loved the concept of throwing paper balls at the 'spider web' made of painters tape, but unfortunately the balls would not stick very well.  In about 20 minutes of playing, we got maybe 3 to stick.  The tape just wasn't sticky enough, but Brooks had fun trying!

 My mom found my old hamper basketball hoop at her house, and needless to say, Brooks is in love! Blake hung the hoop downstairs on shelving brackets so it can be raised and lowered as he grows.  Brooks and Blake have spent hours playing basketball the past few weeks! (and yes, he uses whatever kind of ball fits!)

 After watching a Daniel Tiger one morning, Brooks wanted to recreate the scene where they make an inside beach out of blankets.  We luckily had just the right color blankets for sand and water and some fun 'beach' toys.  The kids played most of the morning with it off and on!

 Keely loves to climb.  One day when she would not stay out of Brooks' room to climb on his little bench, I decided to just put a tote in the middle of the floor for her.  She loved it! She did really good in the beginning getting down, but now after a few crashes she gets scared once she's up there and fusses until someone helps her down.  But it won't stop her from still climbing up!

 

Another Pinterest thing I found was to make popcorn balls out of Peeps.  I know Brooks loves popcorn balls, so I thought this would be an easy way to make a small batch! One 5 peep pack makes just about 3 cups of marshmallow popcorn.  So after Easter when the Peeps were all on sale, I bought a few packages.  Brooks was super excited!

 And he loved it!

 We have been spending time outdoors when we can, but Keely has a knack of getting quite dirty and getting into everything!

 We went over to our friends, Austin and Danielle's house a couple weeks ago, and Austin showed Brooks how to fly a toy helicopter from Austin's phone.  Brooks thought it was pretty cool! And I must say that for an almost three year old, he did pretty well!

 Brooks also had his first Wii experience that night.  Here he is bowling.  He thought it was pretty fun!

Easter Fun

I know this is a little late, but I still want to get pictures up of our Easter week! Brooks, Keely and I went over to my mom's to dye eggs with Lane and Katy on the Tuesday before Easter.  Brooks kind of remembered doing it last year, and was excited.

 Keely just got to sit and watch and play with plastic eggs, but she still seemed to enjoy herself

 I at least got a picture of the boys with their eggs...Katy and Keely were already down playing by this point!

Then on Easter Sunday we went back to my parents' house and had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and a great supper of ham, potatoes, deviled eggs, Jello Eggs that Brooks helped me make, and bunny shaped rolls.
Each grandkid got an Easter basket, and Brooks was most excited about more bubbles!

 All ready for the hunt!

 Keely got one egg in the grass, and that was enough for her

 Brooks telling Grandpa that he already went over there!

 Checking if Cheyenne had any eggs....

 Keely loved looking at the dogs...she couldn't get enough of them! It's a good thing Blake finally got our fence fixed at home so we could bring Cheyenne back with us that day.  (Cheyenne had chewed a couple holes in our wooden fence in the backyard, so Blake had to do some patch work while Cheyenne got to spend a few weeks on the farm...I think Cheyenne makes the holes just so she can go to the farm!) Now that she's home, Keely LOVES to look out the sliding glass door to the deck and talk to her.  She's definitely a dog lover!

 Oh, and here's a couple pictures of the kids Easter morning with their Easter baskets I gave them.  Again, Brooks likes his bubbles best! He also loves the Scout video I got Keely, but at least they both can enjoy that! 

Keely wasn't too interested in the bunny I got her.  But Brooks loves his Green Eggs and Ham book...we hoped it would make him want to try new things, but so far it hasn't worked.  Even though we have to read the book before nap and bedtime everyday! Maybe it'll sink in....