Our Pink Trees

We've got 2 crabapple trees in our backyard and every spring they bloom with beautiful pink flowers. Unfortunately they don't last very long but we sure do enjoy them while they last. This past weekend it was so nice outside (in the 80's) and the trees looked so pretty that I had to take a few pictures of Rylee by the trees. It's rained a lot this week and already a lot of the petals have come off so I am glad I took these pics when I did.

35 Weeks

34.5 Weeks

Just in case if you couldn't tell from the first picture how incredibly far this belly of mine sticks out, I thought I would post another one with me actually holding my belly.

Rylee has a nice shelf to sit on when I hold her.

Kisses for Mama! Sometimes Rylee will plant a big ol' smooch right on my lips. Gotta love it.

So today marks 35 weeks for me. I haven't posted any belly pictures since 30 weeks so I thought I would share with everyone how large I am getting. Luckily it is mostly all in my belly, but man is it out there. It sticks out so far now! The shirts that actually fit me and cover my belly are down to a few. The good thing is that even though I am so big, I still feel great. I am definitely slower now and can't get up and down so easy but other than that I am good. I feel like she dropped lower around 33 weeks. I had the same exact rib pain in my right side that I had with Rylee. This time I had it from 30-33 weeks and with Rylee it was 30-34 weeks. Once she dropped a little lower that rib pain went away. I was really glad when it went away because driving around for work was not so comfortable. Another thing that came back with this pregnancy is my fatty armpits. I got them for Rylee and didn't know what the heck was going on. When I asked the doctor last time she said it was normal and it was just another way my body was preparing for the breastmilk. Sure enough when my breastmilk came in it was like I had golfballs under my armpits (they really hurt too). So since my fatty (literally I have rolls there, gross I know, but the truth) armpits are back, I am sure the golfballs will come back too when my milk first comes in...yeah.
This little girl sure is an active one. I feel her moving all of the time and you can watch my belly and see her moving. Today I was talking to my boss and all of a sudden he looked at me and said "ooh, what's that little acorn thing sticking out of you". I think it was her heel but it kind of cracked me up cause he wasn't to sure what he thought about it. Luckily her moving around all the time is not keeping me up at night and I am still managing a good night sleep.

I have been getting a lot of comments lately about when people think I am going to have this baby. Even complete strangers will ask me when I am due, and then when I tell them I get some comment like "oh honey I don't think you'll make it that long". An ortho doctor that I work with yesterday told me he's not even sure if I'll make it through this week without having the baby. Real nice hey. Anyways, I am going to put a little poll on my blog and see when people think this baby girl is coming. I am thinking I will be a little early, maybe a week or so, but not too early. We still have a lot to do around here before she come's and she still has some more growing to do so it better at least be a few more weeks.

All Dressed Up

After the Easter basket hunt we got ready for church. I don't put Rylee in dresses very often so it was kind of fun to see her all dressed up. I thought she looked adorable. So of course I had to take a lot of pictures of my pretty little girl in her dress.

Putting her shoes on to go to church.

Dancing and showing off her pretty dress.

After church we came home and made a big brunch. It was pretty nice outside so we played outside for a little while first. Rylee loves to look at the ducks (or "duckies" as she calls them) so we watched them in our backyard. In the pictures below where she is pointing, it is at the duckies.

So it was a very nice Easter weekend overall. It was really great to have my family down here. My brother Brad left for Chicago Sunday night and the rest of the fam left Monday morning. It always seems so quiet here when everyone leaves, its kind of sad. Rylee came home from daycare and wanted to go in the house right away and look for Gramma. I explained that she had to go home but she looked all around the house anyways. Poor girl didn't understand. She sure did have fun with everyone though.

Easter Morning

Easter morning we woke up and looked for Easter baskets. It took a little help from Gramma and Auntie Bailey but Rylee finally found hers behind the curtains. Then she sat down with it, went through everything, and emptied it all out.

There it is!

Elmo (or "Melmo" is how she says it) is her favorite right now. So she got some new Elmo books, coloring book, and a movie. Gramma's Easter basket also brought her a different Elmo movie, Elmo coloring books, and more Elmo goodies (but she got that Friday night, my mom is not very good at waiting).

She also got bracelets which she loves, but wears more as anklets. She always wants to wear my bracelets or necklaces so we thought it would be a good idea for her to have her own. I am not sure where she came up with the idea to put them on her ankles though.

She emptied her basket,

and then carried it around with her.

Rylee isn't a big candy eater, but she sure does love the Reese's peanut butter cup eggs (like mother like daughter right). If she sees that yellow wrapper she goes crazy til she gets one. Here she is licking her fingers after finishing one. (notice all the bracelets on her ankles)

Coloring Easter Eggs

Thursday evening my mom, Grandma Sally, Ben, and Bailey got here. They came down for the long Easter weekend. We were so excited to have them here! We watched them pull into our driveway from our window and Rylee got so excited. She went right to my mom, which my mom loves. It was pretty cute. Friday my mom and I took Rylee to daycare to see the Easter bunny. She didn't cry but she wouldn't let my mom put her down around the bunny either. The rest of Friday we shopped a lot because it was raining outside. My brother Brad came down from Chicago Friday night after work. It was so nice to have a house full of family. Saturday the sun was out and we headed to the zoo. It was my Grandma's and Rylee's first time at the zoo. We all loved it! We saw the giraffes, elephants, monkeys, bears, penguins, etc. Rylee loved looking at all the animals and would point at each one. Any animal she saw with 4 legs she would point and say "puppy". I'd have to say the penguins were her favorite cause she could get right up to the glass and be really close to them. They were about her size and she liked watching them swim and walk around. I took tons of pictures but unfortunately I lost them all. I was so bummed (of course shed a few tears because of it). My camera said file error, no images found. When I put the disk in the computer it said no images found even though there were about 400 pictures on there. It really ticked me off cause that has never happened before. Now my camera won't even take any new pictures. I am going to bring it in to get it looked at and I hope it can get fixed. Luckily we still have our old camera around so I was able to take some Easter pictures.

Saturday night we colored Easter eggs. Rylee really got into it. The box came with the color dye, paint, and stickers. Rylee enjoyed the paint and stickers the most.

Look at that concentration while she paints the egg.

More eggs please.

It got pretty messy so needless to say it was bath time soon after.

Checking out her egg in the cup.

Bailey and my mom decorated some eggs too.

Gramma helping Rylee with the stickers.

So proud of all of her beautiful eggs!

Meeting Mylee

We headed to the Kreider's house this past weekend to meet Mylee and visit with the Kreider's(and for the Final 4 games of course too). Mylee is such a sweetie and it was so nice to cuddle with her and give her kisses. She is such a good baby. She slept a lot while we were there and we barely heard her cry. I did manage to get some pictures of her while she was actually awake.

Mylee Jo (2 weeks old)

Rylee really liked Mylee. At daycare they are told that they are not allowed to touch the babies. You can tell because at first Rylee was a little timid and wanted to get really close to her but she wouldn't touch her. When someone was holding Mylee, Rylee would get really close and kind of lean her chest in but not use her hands to touch her. It was pretty funny. But eventually she wanted to hold her so the daycare rules got ignored a little bit. Maddy is such a good big sister. She's protective at times but its cute. She taught Rylee a few tricks of the trades to being a big sister.

Saturday around noon, Brad and Jason headed to Detroit for all of the pre-game festivities. They were like little kids before they left, so excited they couldn't wait. They had a great time and got to see an awesome Michigan State game! They said the atmosphere, with SO many MSU fans there, was unbelievable. One of Jason's old teammates had a suite at the game and invited them in there so they really got hooked up. They stayed for the first half of the second game too and then went and enjoyed more of the post-game festivities. They got home pretty late and needless to say were pretty tired on Sunday but it was worth it, they had a great time! Too bad State couldn't have continued their hot streak for 1 more game. Next year the Final 4 is in Indy again, so the guys are going to try and go again. Jac and I asked if we'll ever get to go too but we never really got an answer from them, we'll see.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the happy family of 4 but when I tried to take some family pics, Jac and Jason insisted it wasn't a "picture taking day". I guess I'll have to wait til next time. As usual it was a lot of fun spending time together and the weekend flew by. Thanks for the fun weekend Kreider's and we can't wait to see you again.