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 This post has no title.  It is just an update on the state of the Swigerts in Iowa.  Last time I posted I think I mentioned that we had been in Boone, Iowa riding a train in the river valley.  Here are a few of the pictures we took.

 

The train was old, but the seats were really comfy. I love this picture of Christopher Robin that the Dr captured. One can just wonder what was on his mind.  

 

This is the bridge that we went over on our ride.  I can't remember how high it was now.  What I do remember is that the open windows were really low and I was hanging onto Gracie so she didn't go falling out of there.  

 Jace looking down to the bottom.  Ryan had some pretzels and he tossed one out so Jace could watch it fall all the way to the river below.

 

 

 

 

Gracie LOVED the ride!!  She loves life!  It was a 7.1 mile journey, which took about 50 minutes then we turned--well reversed- and went back to the depot.   

Yep, still loving it! 

 

Here is another picture of the river valley.  It was quite a scenic ride. They saw two turtles swimming down the river.  I didn't see them.

 

My men!  Ryan was just so happy not being at the hospital--he is so tired these days.

 

 It was cool, and the sound of the wheels on the tracks put Christopher Robin right to sleep. The Dr wanted to sleep too, but every time he would doze off Gracie would shake him and say--Oh you who! 

When we got back to the depot, the kids got a special treat.  They were invited to go into the caboose. 

 

 They were the only ones that I saw that got to go inside. 

 

 

But they loved it, and I was glad we got to go.

 

 

Here is my work crew.

 

Discovering the attic!!

 

 

The Dr had to replace the fan in our bathroom. The motor burned out more then a year ago. It included several trips up to the attic.

 

The kids insisted they get to go up too.  I love this look on Jace's face as he was seeing this magical place for the first time!

 

Gracie thought it was fantastic too!  The good news is we now have a fan in our bathroom  that works!!  Y'all should come use it!

 

 

Here is Christopher Robin sporting a new look.  His third tooth is out.  FINALLY. It was loose for weeks.  I was proud of the Dr for being patient and not forcing Jace to let him pull it. He did offer him $2.00 --but Jace was determined to just let it fall out.   And I survived the escapade.

As I have mentioned before--I have a phobia about lose teeth.  It is right up there with needles.  I try to hide it from Jace --how freaked I am by it.  But I have made it very clear to the Dr that if he ever talks Jace into letting him pull a tooth--I am to be nowhere in the vicinity. I am getting into our car and driving far away. I already know when Gracie's teeth are loose, she will just yank those puppies out herself and I am going to be standing there dying. 

 

And here I am.  Pregnant!  Very, very pregnant!  I have 6 weeks left. Which doesn't sound like a lot- but it feels like eternity.  I think if I could have been pregnant at age25 it would have been a cake walk for me. 

 

 

 

At 40 I am hanging in there. It's hard. My system feels very taxed. I  am planning that this is my last pregnancy, so I have wanted to really enjoy it, but now I am just surviving it!!

 

I feel really blessed that I have the opportunity to bring another person into this world.  I am getting excited to know if Jace is getting his long prayed for brother, or if Gracie is getting a sister.  I really can't tell from the pregnancy. It could go either way.  With Jace and Truman--my two male pregnancies--my morning sickness was excruciating. Gracie was the easiest and this one has been right in the middle. Some days I think it is a girl, and other days I think it is a boy.  Jace is still holding out for twins.  He thinks there are two in there and one is just hiding behind the other. If there were two in there, I would be dead by now! That's how we would all know.

 

So we are just carrying on here. Counting down the days, hours, and minutes!

Lots to blog about

I am laying in bed thinking about everything I could blog about. Life keeps on happening around here and I can't keep up.  It is 8:00PM on Labor Day.  We just got home from Boone, Iowa. It was a long trip and I am dying.  My back is killing. We had never been to Boone before, and I can honestly say it will be awhile before I ever return--if I ever return.

Now you are wondering what took us to Boone.  It was to use a Groupon I purchased back in January when I wasn't pregnant. The Groupon expires October 30th and since I am getting more pregnant everyday we have been needing to use it for a long time.  The Groupon was to visit the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad and Museum. We drove 2.5 hours to Boone, then we rode the train for 1 hour and 45 minutes, then we visited the museum, then we drove home for another 2.5 hours. The kids loved it.  I knew they would.  And I can say it was very pleasant to just be together as a family today.  It was just hard on me physically.

But because our camera is at the other end of the house with the Boone pictures on it, what I am going to post pictures of now is our home-school pool party we had at our house Friday. Jace and I started homeschool this past week.  We are off to a good start this year and I am very happy about it.  We have three families -including ours-that homeschool in our ward.

Because we FINALLY had some hot weather in Iowa, we could use our pool again.  Have I mentioned that our summer here has been cold this year?  Jace and I have been seriously sad about it.  We share the same passion for swimming.  We love it. When I say cold, I mean we have had only two weeks this summer-in July-when temperatures reached the nineties.  We just can't swim in our pool when the temperatures reach the 80's. The water cools down too much over night when the temperature drops to 60 degrees.

I know that everyone in the West has had above normal temperatures, but not us this year, just because we wanted to swim.  The last week of July passed and all of August  with our pool untouched and covered in the backyard.  The Dr said he was going to take it down last week and drain it, but I looked at the weather forecast on my phone and couldn't believe our luck.  We were going to have a hot week here in Iowa!!

So I planned two swim parties-play dates really.  One was with the sisters from church that I visit teach, and the other with the homeschool families in our ward.  I have learned that that is something I really enjoy doing--hosting a swim party.  Mostly because the kids have such a great time, and my children love having friends over.

Anyways, Friday at 1:00 we had everyone over -the Perry's  and Checkett's. There were 11 kids in total counting my 2.

Here are the boys playing water games in the pool.  The girls all swam too, but they also loved playing house and dress-up.

The boys were having a great time playing some water gun games.

 

The afternoon was great.  The kids had had a blast playing and eating junk food, and I had enjoyed visiting with Jessica and Shannon about home-school.  It was 5:00 and it was time to go when tragedy struck--well not really, but we had a miss-hap.  Tyson fell backwards out of the pool. In the picture above you see him standing on the top step, but he ended up falling backwards out of the pool just seconds after I snapped the picture. He landed on the bricks we had stacked for the kids to use to climb into the pool.

 

Luckily, Jessica (pink shirt) is a nurse, and Ryan was on his way home.  So between the two of them he was all bandaged up in just a short time.  I had never seen the Dr in action, I was impressed.  I have to say that this is the one thing that I really appreciate about Ryan's residency.  He has gone from being a dentist to a surgeon/Dr.  I feel like I have the best of both worlds now.  He can be a dentist when needed, but can also be a Dr when needed. And it is really handy with kids. I asked him later if he would have felt comfortable bandaging up Tyson if he was just a general dentist and he said no.  So residency has been worth it after all!!!  It saved the Checketts a trip to the ER. 

 

But Ryan and I also learned a lesson.  We felt terrible that something bad happened in our yard.  We realized the big responsibility we take on when we invite friends over to swim.  It is a hazard!!  I think it's good that it is time to drain the pool.

 

 

But before I end this post, here are pictures of this past week of swimming.  Jace has a huge boy need to wrestle with his Dad everyday.  And I can honestly say it mostly drives me batty!  It is because of the tears that almost always result.

But aren't they cute??

Playing a game where you try to dump each other off the noodles.

 

 

And wrestling for the noodles.

 

This is earlier in the week, just the two of them in the pool together. Gracie on her ball and Jace with his Lego Harbor boat.

 

This is Jace SWIMMING across the pool.  He has become a good little swimmer this year.

Floating!  He taught himself this skill!

 

My little darling learned how to kick and paddle herself across the pool!

 

And this is the end of a short summer and a long post!