37 weeks tomorrow!!!

I'm so excited that I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow. The end is in sight. This is especially good news as I sit here, having a contraction, and baby boy keeps pushing his foot out the side of my stomach as hard as he can. At night as I try to go to sleep, he likes to push against my ribs. Same spot. Every night. He's very active at night which makes me a little worried that he'll want to be awake during the night. Only time will tell I guess lol. We are so excited to meet this little man and I feel like we already have great expectations for him. Like, he better like to hunt and fish, shoot guns and bow & arrows, and play all the manly sports like football, basketball and soccer. We're hoping he has Morgan's fast-twitch muscles so he can sprint and be a little more coordinated than the girls in the family :) 

Now on to our Carly girl. Carly is learning and growing every day. It is so fun to see her make connections. She likes to repeat the letters of the alphabet and is pretty good at it, but sometimes she's a little excited about "I" and "O" and will try to say those sooner and will repeat them over and over. She was making me laugh today as I kept saying a different letter and she was determined to say "I" or "O" instead. She has learned to say her on name - which I absolutely love. Now when she sees a picture of herself or sees her reflection in the mirror, she doesn't say "baby", instead she will say "cari". Pretty close. Carly has a giant panda bear (early birthday present from Grandma Barb & Grandpa Dan). She LOVES it. It's huge & soft and she will lay on it, kiss it, and lift up her shirt so she can rub her tummy on the soft fur.

We went out to eat this weekend. Carly was very focused while she colored on her children's menu.

After dinner, we did some shopping. This is what Carly usually does when we're in a clothes store. She loves to touch all the clothes as she goes by them. 

Carly's panda bear. She seriously loves this thing.

Lately, Carly prefers to read Daddy's church books instead of her picture books. She will sit on the couch and flip through the books. No pictures. But she will sit there for minutes flipping through them.

She has been loving trying on her clothes. Above is her trying to get her swimsuit on over her clothes. Below is one of her Sunday dresses around her neck. How she's wearing it makes it look like a scarf...

Happy girl!

Forks, WA

We did a last minute trip to Forks, WA. Morgan & Dan wanted to go to the Olympic National Forest. Luckily, the Crossen's were on top of things and made the trip happen. We left Sunday afternoon and stayed the first night in Forks. We got to see all the sweet twilight sites Monday morning. We spent the majority of the day in the Olympic National Forest - hiking in the rain forest and spent some time on the water. On Monday night we stayed on the Indian Reservation in La Push and went to Second Beach - absolutely gorgeous. It was .8 miles to get from the parking lot to the beach, but so worth it. We had a bonfire on the beach that night and roasted some sweet smores. Who would have known that peanut butter would be a great addition to a smore? Well, the Crossen's are pretty smart. We had a great time and it was the perfect end to our summer.

Island Park, ID

Our first Scoville Family vacation was the last week of August. We stayed in a cabin in Island Park, ID. Each couple was in charge of 1 day of cooking/preparing meals which turned out to be a good system. Morgan spent each morning fishing for a few hours. The regulations for fishing in the area were really strict - making it really hard to catch fish. Morgan still caught some fish though and even helped our nephew Kimball catch his first fish. We went on some walks & hikes.

 Carly loves kitties. My sister Rachel has one, but it was pretty scared of Carly lol. Amy was holding the kitty and Carly came up to pet it and after feeling how soft it was, she lifted her shirt up so she could rub her tummy on the soft kitty.

 Next, she rubbed her face on the soft kitty. This is what she likes to do with her soft blanket - rub it on her tummy & face. It was so funny to see her do this with the kitty.

 There was a fun area along the river where we thought we would be feeding fish.

 We've all got our bread ready to feed some fish! That's what we expected it to be like - but we ended up just feeding a bunch of ducks. Truth be told - I ate half my bread on the walk from the car to the bridge. What can I say? I'm pregnant.

 Carly loved seeing all the ducks and loved throwing pieces of bread into the water. Grandma Deanna was great with her and took her shoes on & off each time she wanted to put her feet in the water.

 Elise is dipping Carly's feet in the water. Every time I did this - Carly would squirm and try to get away like "Come on Mom - let go of me so I can play in the water." The water was shallow, but not shallow enough (or warm enough) for her to go in.

 Carly found Grandpa's hat and started wearing it around the cabin.

 Volleyball game. I only lasted 3 hits - the ball needed to be pumped up just a little more and I'm weak-sauce I guess. My mom is hard-core though - she plays every week. Maybe some day I will have the stamina she has :)

 Carly loves her shovel & bucket. Busy scooping. No time to pose for the camera.

We had a great time! I wish we could have stayed longer with the family, but Morgan had to get back to work. I don't have pics of our last day - where we rented some paddle boats. It was a lot of fun and very hard to pedal against the current in the river. Carly & Daddy went in an inflatable kayak and had a great time. The cabin was really big and nice with plenty of activities like ping pong, foosball, hot tub, volleyball, tetherball, etc. Of course nap times and evenings were spent relaxing and watching movies together. And who could forget cards. Our family is obsessed with nerts - so we had a few nerts competitions :) 

Pregnancy update: I'm 35 1/2 weeks. Just like my last pregnancy I have days where my contractions are 3-6 min apart. A few days I've had a couple hours where they speed up to 2-3 min apart. Just my body getting ready for a quick labor I think. Baby boy is at least 5 lb at this point and as long as I can make it to next week (36 weeks) then I'm in the clear to have a home birth. I am measuring small, but I was that way with my last pregnancy with no complications. Today is the first time I've thrown up since my first trimester. Pretty weird, but I've been resting a lot. I'm getting excited to meet my little man!