Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: The big thing that happened this past week was that we were able to find out the gender of the little peanut that’s beginning to nudge me quite a bit. I should have trusted Joseph’s word because he was right…it’s going to be a GIRL! When I told Joseph, he was very excited and asked if they could see her ponytail in the pictures (ultrasound). 😀 I guess that’s how telling the difference in gender (for ultrasounds, at least) works in his mind. I love him! Paul told him (using simple terms) how they could really tell the difference. We’re planning on naming her Abigail (a family name on my side). On Wednesday, we went to Meet the Teacher at Joseph’s school so that we could check out the school and meet Joseph’s pre-k teacher. I think he’s going to be in good hands. 🙂 He starts tomorrow, and is really excited. On Thursday, I took Joseph over to a friend’s house for a water balloon fight. I didn’t think to tell him that the purpose of throwing water balloons was to break them to release the water. Apparently Joseph doesn’t like it when water balloons break (especially when one breaks unexpectedly in his hands and soaks his clothes). It makes him cry. Whoops. I felt really bad (especially since last summer, we played with water balloons and he was totally fine)! We talked about it and my friend came up with the idea of drawing chalk targets for the boys to throw the balloons at. The tide turned after that. Tears turned into almost primal screams of victory when a target was hit. Joseph said, “Hey, Mom! I conquered my fear of breaking water balloons!” I was very proud. 🙂 Yesterday, Paul and I opened up our anniversary presents (both had come in the mail early) even though our anniversary isn’t until Wednesday. Why did we do this? Because there was a little boy who was bursting with excitement for us and wanted to see what we got. 🙂 I got Paul a new leaf blower and he got me a Dutch oven. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: WET! I think we’ve only had two days where there weren’t any storms in the past week (and even then, I think it may have rained during the night on those days). This next week is supposed to be similar. I keep checking to see if I’ve got webbing developing between my toes, but not yet! 😉 We ended up with Joseph in our bed early this morning because of thunder.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Not too much out of the ordinary. He’s starting to formulate a plan to add a shed to our backyard that he can convert into a man cave/office so that we’ll have a room for Abigail and he’ll still have a separate place to work on homework and other stuff without the craziness of kids. 🙂

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Other than what has already been mentioned, not much else. I went to a book club meeting and a girls’ night (a few of my friends are moving soon, so it was kind of a final send-off bash). I also put up fall decorations. I know it’s early, but I was itching to do it. Plus, I am already fighting fall allergies, so I might as well make our house look like fall has already arrived. 😉

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s really had to make use of his imagination because of the weather. He’s really good at playing independently. He’s been dressing up, playing with LEGOS, action figures, and more. He’s also really willing to help around the house, doing little chores here and there…I hope that desire sticks into his teenage years! 🙂 He’s really looking forward to starting school tomorrow.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: This past week was rather laid back. Often times, when we get back from vacation, I feel like I need a vacation from the hustle and bustle that was the actual vacation. I usually accomplish this by not planning much for us to do during the week after we get back. It allows me to get back into the routine and just relax. Paul obviously still needed to go to work, but he’s still on break from school, so he’s getting a pseudo-vacation of sorts in that he doesn’t have to start working on homework almost immediately after he gets home from work. Joseph has been really enjoying the extra “Daddy-Joseph time” as he calls it.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been HOT (as in, over 100 degrees almost every day) but not QUITE as humid (still more than I’d like, though, haha). Yesterday brought a return of higher humidity along with some rain and slightly cooler temperatures (mid-80s to low-90s).

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s back to work after vacation. He volunteered to go in for some overtime yesterday (which will be a huge help financially with us having had to essentially get all new tires for the Mazda while on vacation). He’s also been spending a lot of time with Joseph, which Joseph absolutely loves. I love to see them together!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Getting back into the swing of things, mainly. I attended a baby shower for a friend (there are quite a few women in our ward that are pregnant) and got some much-needed girl-time. I’ve also had to start dealing with the occasional bout of Braxton-Hicks. Thankfully they haven’t brought pain; only pressure. I don’t remember getting them this early with Joseph, but then again, I may not have realized what they were at the time (I think I remember my doctor asking if I was having them and I wasn’t sure until he described them). I was also able to cook food (namely chicken) without feeling nauseous! Though it sounds rather trivial, it’s a huge thing in my book!

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s getting ready (and excited) for pre-k. He’s also been soaking up the last bits of summer fun: play-dates and even a trip to the pool with friends. Funny story: when we first got to the pool, none of his friends were there yet, so he struck up a conversation with an older woman there (I’m still amazed he has no trepidation talking to adults). Afterwards, she came up to me (I hadn’t made it into the pool yet) and related the following: he asked her if she was going to have a baby (babies are on his brain right now, I guess, since I’m pregnant and a lot of his friends’ moms are, too). When she (rather patiently) answered in the negative, he told her that he could buy one off of the TV. Oh, boy…I think he might have still had the anecdote my mom shared last week (about one of us thinking that baby sales at stores was where babies came from) still on his brain and merged that idea with the fact that he’s seen that you can buy stuff off of the TV (thank you, toy infomercials on kids’ channels). Thankfully, she was rather amused by it all! Joseph has also discovered that he likes Swiss cheese (after tasting some I was having as a snack). I think our kid has rather refined taste buds. 😉

This Week in Pictures:

I’m breaking from my regular format due to the fact that we just got back from a trip to California and there are quite a few pictures. There are a few from the week before our trip, but most are from California. We normally go in December, between Christmas and New Year’s, but that’s about when this baby is due, so we bumped up the trip to a safer time for me to be travelling. We had so much fun! We visited with family (including Tracy, who was able to fly in for a couple of days) and friends (sorry if we missed anyone…it was a really short trip), we went to the beach and Knott’s Berry Farm, and just relaxed. We thought we had quite the adventure on our drive out to CA when our low tire pressure warning went off in the-middle-of-nowhere-Texas and Paul had to change one of our tires that had cracked (we were able to find a gas station before the tire went completely flat and drove on our spare to the next town to replace it)…but that’s nothing compared to our drive back where Paul had to change another tire on the side of an on-ramp (no gas stations nearby) in middle-of-nowhere-California (and bought another replacement as soon as we got to the next town) and yet another while at a rest stop just outside of Phoenix. When we got to Phoenix, we found a Walmart, replaced the third flat tire and went ahead and replaced the only old tire we had left (for fear that if we didn’t, it would also go flat at some point on our trip). Ugh. At least we were always able to find a safe place to change the tires and were also able to replace them quickly (and had the means to do so). Our last leg of the trip home was (thankfully) uneventful. So, with that, enjoy the deluge of pictures (which, as is typical with vacation posts, are probably not in chronological order)!