You know getting married and having a family will change you forever...you just never realize how much.
Was there even life before kids? We can't remember...
So this year Emmy is SOOOOO excited about Halloween. She has been shopping with momma for costumes and decorations for the last two weeks and spent hours decorating the house with momma. We've tried to warn her that the baby is due around Halloween so we don't know what's going to happen yet. We may be trick-or-treating in the hospital, but gosh darn it we're dressing up and getting some candy!!!
The kids have both tried on their potential outfits. Gage isn't so sure about his. It lasted all of 10 or 15 seconds and he was over it! He might have to go dressed as a baby... or Charlie Brown (thanks for the idea mom!)
Emmy is not only patient with her outfit, but absolutely dedicated to being a terrifying witch!!! She's been studying the door hanging of a witch we put on her bathroom and said she MUST have a big warty green nose and pointy chin, and while she was sitting on the toilet the other night announced that she MUST have a green bottom too. We were impressed she projected the green skin from the face of the witch to the rest of the witch's unseen body, but its a theme that's getting a bit tired in our household. Emmy has a recent fixation on her bodily functions. Its just a stage, and a healthy one no doubt, but it will be nice when she wants to talk about something else:) Good thing Halloween is coming. Its been a great distraction. From first thing in the morning til right before bed she wants to wear her witch hat around the house and we had to hide the $1 broom, afraid it would break before the big night!
Auntie Cara and Uncle Tyler came to visit from Mesa last weekend with a big group of Tyler's friends from High School. Of course the weekend they decide to come is the first rainy cold weekend since April!!! It was a beautiful weekend at the beach though, and a nice change from the 140 degree Arizona weather! They didn't seem to mind the cool wind. Dana Point was beautiful, especially from a beach house, and the kids loved the piles of rocks there.
Yep, we are officially on standby. Baby 3 any day now. I'm scrambling frantically at work trying to stay caught up. It would be just my luck to have the baby come right before a deadline. With deadlines every day I can't do much to avoid it... but at least I can try! Blake has just finished organizing everything and giving the house a good cleaning. All she has left to do is pack the hospital bag and get as much sleep as possible!!!
Blake is still getting as cute as ever, but that belly is getting pretty ripe! She stuck on some tatoos (thanks Piper) so the kids could put their hands on her belly and Emmy loves it. This one's my favorite:
Slideshow of more belly and kid pics (Click on pictures for larger pics or to download from web albums)
I wish it was my first day of preschool. That sounds fun right now:) But no, Emmy just started for the Fall on Sept 18. This is her excitedly jumping out of the car to run in, and she was definitely excited!!! When she gets there she always runs straight to the table and starts drawing or painting. It seems to be her favorite. I'm always curious what else she does in preschool because she doesn't talk about it much. I think she likes having somewhere she can go that's all for her!!! I'm tempted to ask her teacher if I can set up a video camera for the day, just so I know how she is when she's away from us. I'm so used to her being home with us that I can't stand not knowing everything. Now Blake can't even fill me in on her antics... I guess I'll have to get used to it.
When Emmy started summer preschool she bumped her face on the first day and had a huge bruise across her nose and lips. On her first day of Fall school Gage had an alergic reaction to some antibiotics and had a horrible rash. As my mom always says... there's always something...
Better rash than a spill down the stairs or something. They keep us on our toes!
Yes....its true...the Martins own a minivan :( Do I need to say more?
Now Blake can't ever say I didn't buy her a really nice present. See, doesn't she look happy and grateful? The car seats are huge these days and our Camry wouldn't fit 3 across in the back seat....so it was unavoidable. It really is nice to have for a family. The kids love it, and its convenient for Blake too, even though there is a definite stigma with owning a minivan. There's no turning back now.
The heat has been unseasonably hot for nearly a week, the weather reports blaming the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico for freezing the high pressure over Southern California. Each day the temperature seemed to get a degree or two hotter. But the hurricanes did something else too. They brought some monster surf to a world famous spot on our local beach called "The Wedge" in Newport Beach. The surf there piles up against the jetty and brings waves many times bigger than other spots on the same beach, and when there is a storm out in the ocean the waves are enormous. But unlike huge waves like the pipeline, the waves at the Wedge are usually a mess as the waves bounce off the side of the Jetty and the backwash collides with new incoming waves. Its exciting and completely unpredictable. Take a look at typical storm condition surf, where the waves just destroy anyone in the way.
This one shows perfectly how messy the waves are, most peaking in odd places and closing out on all sides.
Of course I couldn't leave the beach without a little swim so I dove in, intending to stay on the right side of the wedge, just catching the side of the big guys, but the backwash is so enormously powerful that it sucks you directly back into the middle of the wedge. The most terrifiying part of the area is that the current pulls inward from both sides so if you get caught in an early part of the set, you are pulled straight back into the center of the next one. I only found out after breathlessly escaping from 3 pounding waves that you are required to have fins to swim there:) I won't forget for next time... After all your strength is pounded out of you from the first waves pummelling you don't feel you can hold your breath as the rest of the set pounds your chest. I really felt lucky to escape only short of breath. Fins would have been helpful...
Blake said she had contractions the whole time we were there. I found her the highest spot on the beach and dug two walls and trenches of sand to keep larger waves back, but the waves were so big and unpredictable you really didn't feel like you were far enough away. In my 10 years of coming here I've never seen summer waves that topped the berm above the waves. Its always been dry. You can see Emmy standing on what is always the dry shelf, many many feet above the water level: I have to say though, I was quite proud to have engineered walls that kept her seat (look at the spot below the umbrella) dry when a huge wave snuck up on everyone. The wave came so close to washing our stuff away that Blake just didn't feel comfortable sitting back down hoping that was the biggest one of the day so we moved our stuff back, but you can see the nice dry spot where she had been sitting. Is that a proud husband protecting his 8 month pregnant wife or what!!! :) Blake is rolling her eyes as she reads this right now.... LOL Beside us a family with a newborn baby ran away, leaving their bags and towels to get soaked. Some boys behind us lucked out becuase our walls diverted the wave and kept an area dry where their stuff was left while they swam.
You can get an idea of the size of the waves from a couple shots Blake took while I swam showing a swell piling up against the jetty and then the size of the mess after it broke, with me underneath somewhere... You can see in both pictures tiny little heads of stupid people floating in the water...what a rush!
The weekend got calmer from there, and thank goodness because Blake was going to go into labor nearly 2 months early:)
The only thing bad about the rest of the weekend was the heat. We shouldn't complain about the heat because it isn't nearly as bad as the East Coast with heat and humidity, but it was getting hard to bear day after day, especially with no A/C in the apartment. We usually don't need it, but the 95-100 degree days made the only pleasant place the local mall. Apparently everyone had that idea because our favorite indoor play area was packed with kids and tired parents. That didn't stop the kids from having fun though:) They seem to love the chaos of kids bouncing off each other as they jump from place to place.
We didn't last long because even the malls had turned down their A/C to save electricity and it was so crowded. We luckily had a party to go to for Labor Day, and thank goodness they had A/C.
We stayed until dark:) Emmy had a great time playing with her friend Meyleh.
Gage found plenty to do as usual.
Gage wasn't sure what to do about the new baby, except stay as FAR away as possible!
But Emmy, in typical big sister fashion knew just what to do and started reading and talking to him, and made sure he didn't roll off.
