Happy October!!!

It's October! Reasons we're excited for October around our house:

• baby Bloop will be born this month! - if i go tonight or if I go 2 weeks over, he'll still be an October baby! and yes, he'll have a name other than Bloop, though I'm pretty sure Emery will always call him Bloop.
• our 4th Anniversary! - on the 14th! we're getting old!
• General Conference - always a reason to be excited. i love hearing from our Prophet and the other Church leaders. Emery knows the Prophet by his picture now so she'll be excited too (and she gave Elder Cook a high five at a recent regional meeting we had here so maybe she'll recognize him too - probably not. :) )
• Halloween - never my favorite holiday, but holidays are so much more fun with kids! we're hoping to carve/draw on a pumpkin and eat some festive orange treats. and emery learned what a pumpkin is and thinks they are pretty cool. now she seems to find them everywhere! (not an "orange" like she first told me as we walked into smiths a few days ago) here's emery in one of her very cute and festive shirts from auntie mel. thanks again auntie mel, power shopper!
• we'll get to see lots of family this month since baby is coming. i love any excuse to see family.
• cooler weather - currently at 11:11am, we are at a lovely 45 degrees this morning! yikes!
  
• changing colors! beautiful.
  
• fall clothes! i love wearing long sleeves, leggings, jackets, hats, etc.
• hot chocolate - i drank my first cup of the season last night. loved it.

In other Wilkinson family news:

• Emery found a katydid on our basil. we named it "Katy" and she was our pet for a few days until she started pooping in her jar. we let her go in the canyon. emery loved having her around and now when she and i go on our morning walks she always talks about katy when we pull up to the canyon. here's a picture of em and her 1st pet and her saying goodbye!
• we got to go to the Burr's cabin last week for a night to spend some time with my friend Cynthia and her husband and their cute kids. it was so much fun to see her, to catch up and to get away for a day (probably our last little getaway before baby's here and we're hanging at home for a while). thanks, Burrs, for inviting us!!!
• Emery loves bike rides with dad. It's her favorite thing in the whole world. So, we got her a helmet so she'd be extra safe. She loves her hungry caterpillar helmet.

about 1 year ago aaron and i decided to get rid of our tv. weird, we know. but we started reading out loud to each other in place of randomly flipping through the channels (usually stopping at discovery channel's survivorman, which they have since discontinued so good riddens to the tv!) we have had the opportunity to read some great books, and just finished another fun one - Endurance by Alfred Lansing, the true story of a crazy, shipwrecked Antarctic expedition from 1914-1916. do yourself a favor and put this on your to-read list. we loved it. and what should we read next? any suggestions?

okay, so i got really excited last night. i'm due 3 weeks from tomorrow! yahoo!! this cute little boy is really coming!! and clearly my tummy growth has slowed, because i'm not any bigger this time than last time at this point. weird!

this time 36 weeks + 5 days

last time 36 weeks

and emery is in such a cute phase right now. she is such a good girl and i'm so lucky to be her mom. here are a few videos of her doing two of her favorite things - counting and singing, just because she's funny.


em counting (1, 3, 4, 6, 1, 8, 1, ....)



singing "I am a child of God" - her favorite song. When we ask her what song she wants to sing before prayers in the morning she always says "God". Pretty cute.



cute girl and her daddy buddy

slot canyon and a cat encounter

About 15 minutes from our house is the tiny town of Kanarraville, UT. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. Up one of the local canyons is a beautiful slot canyon we've been meaning to hike. We hiked for about 3 1/2 hours and Emery loved going in and out of the water, ducking behind the trees and even liked climbing up and down the waterfalls... after she was done being scared. Needless to say, my hips were not happy with that much hiking and I was sorry we didn't do it sooner, but glad we didn't wait another week (since I was fine the next morning anyway!). I think Bloop may have put up more of a fuss had we waited any longer.

i know you like that my belly is in this picture. ha.

and the cat encounter.... emery got bit by a cat. twice (or maybe 3 times). what seemed like a docile neighborhood stray suddenly bit her after she and her cute little friend had been playing with it for 1/2 an hour. random. she's on antibiotics and animal control is going to pick up the cat today to quarrantine it for 10 days and make sure emery won't need rabies shots. ahh!! i really don't think she will. i think the cat had just had enough of 2 almost 2 year olds. moral of the story: i would say don't let your kid play with stray cats, but em's pediatrician said that his housecat will bite his kids if he's had enough of their playing with him. we'll go with: don't have a cat at all. i don't like cats anyway, but now i feel justified! these pics don't really show it well, but you can kind of see the little holes in her arm from the teeth. poor girl. i think she's kind of proud of her bites though. she keeps talking about it. :)

Bloop

So far, we refer to our baby boy only as "Bloop" (or "Booply" if you're Emery) (fyi - "bloop" is the sound a baby makes in utero when they try and speak while swimming in amniotic fluid - at least according to Aaron). Clearly this is not an acceptable name. Please help us by voting on the right. If you have other good suggestions, post them in the comments.

In other pregnancy news, we're almost there! 37 days! Happy day!

In other Wilkinson family news - Emery has mad style. And she went on the potty once this week. Cross your fingers for me.

and one more oh, so important thing...

we had dinner with the richardses! we love them. thanks for letting me win at settlers! :)

nice try Brandon - i definitely win. :)

speedy recap

we're finally back in cedar city for good - Aaron started school monday and is excited about his classes. we've been traveling so much it feels good to finally be home again. here's a quick recap of the last month for us!

we had a super fun visit from our friends the Seegmillers - the girlies and the parents had a blast. we love their family.



Aaron rode his 1st century ride - the ULCER - 111 miles around Utah lake. Again, with my dad and his old guy friends. He also rode part of the way with Bishop Dicou. He did great but was definitely sore. :) We were so proud of him!


Aaron and I went on a fun date without Emery. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! It may be our last for a while since we're a little short on sitters in Cedar... as in we don't have any...


Em and cousin Miles reunited for a day... this is right after they both woke up... pretty cute grumpy faces, huh?


Emery wore a million different pairs of shoes... and rarely any clothes...

she made her daddy proud and learned that she loves sushi!


she went on a bike ride with dad


We spent lots of time in LV so Aaron would work for my grandparents landscaping the yard of their new house. He's pretty good, eh?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

emery got some serious dancing in. she loves taylor swift "you belong with me", so this is her dancing to that song!

late belly shot - with comparison

32 weeks (pregnant with Emery):

32 weeks pregnant with this little guy:
definitely bigger this time around and my hair looks lots better. bonus! :)

and yes, i wear that purple shirt like 2x times a week. and i wear the teal one that is the same like 2x a week. what's it to ya?