Jax's first M's game

As part of my wonderful Father's Day weekend, I got to take Jax to his first Mariners game yesterday. I won the tickets on the radio, so that was a bonus to not have to pay. We made our pre-trip stop at the supermarket to buy peanuts and crackerjacks, the necessities. We hit some pretty bad traffic that slowed us down just enough to miss out on the bobblehead giveaways. We got in, got some hot dogs and found our seats. The radio station has season tickets in a pretty good spot. Right behind home plate in the 3rd level, great place to explain the game to a new fan.

After we ate our hot dogs I realized that we had forgotten the sign that Crystal made for us and the peanuts in the car. Luckily the game was 20 minutes from first pitch, and we were just parked in the Safeco garage, so we hi-tailed it back to the car. When we came back in one of the ticket takers told us to go up to guest services and show them our sign. I thought maybe they'd take note of where we were sitting so we'd get on the Jumbotron. Nope, even better. Jax got a certificate for coming to his first game and baseball cards. He lit up! He even got a baseball card of the Mariner Moose. There were so many people talking to him about his first game, and he was talking ALL of them up right back. I guess I should point out that his sign said "My First Game" on it, and that was drawing the attention. He was so happy to be at the stadium, but I still didn't know how the 9 innings would go.

We had some great people sitting around us and plenty of space for him to be a 5 year old kid. Peanuts made for a pretty good re-focus tool when he started to get too hyper. He did SO GREAT with all the cheers the crowd was doing, and I didn't even have to get him to do it. His favorite was of course I-CHI-RO, I-CHI-RO, I-CHI-RO. Between every inning he would jump on his chair and stand up and wave his sign trying to get on TV so "grandpa could see me and laugh at my funny faces." We never did get on TV, but he tried for the whole game.

About the second inning he saw the cotton candy guy about 4 sections away, and decided that he had to have some cotton candy when that guy got over to us. He never showed up, so we had to go for the alternative. Shishkaberrries. It blew his mind to see strawberries covered in chocolate..........ON A STICK! That was about the 6th inning, and we still hadn't had a single fit, or tantrum or anything. Pleasantly surprised was I. The 7th inning rolled around and I was swelling with pride as we belted out "Take me out to the ballgame" Jax had been saying the whole time that when the game was over we had to go down to the field to give the Mariners high fives. So the game ended and we headed down to the good seats to try to get some attention, to no avail. Then he decided all the Mariners were at a party celebrating their win, and we HAD to find the party.

All in all it was as perfect of a ballgame experience as I could have imagined, and a great start to a promising weekend.

BABY UPDATE

i started to feel this little one fluttering around on wednesday night. i was a bit nervous that i wouldn't be able to see it and feel it at the same time next week at our ultrasound. it seems like i felt it earlier with the boys. i'm getting really anxious now about finding out the sex on friday. i'm trying to prep myself for disappointment. it sounds cruel to say you could be disappointed, right. it's not that i'll be disappointed if this baby is a boy. i'll be thrilled, actually. i just know that if this baby is a boy, then i'll be sad and disappointed about having to let go of my dream of having a girl. this is probably our last child, and the thought of never having a daughter brings tears to my eyes.
i'm totally stoked about having a baby around. we were just talking about how it's going to be so neat to have a whole new personality in our family. it hasn't really been all that long since boomer was a a baby, but it feels like a lifetime ago! it's really neat having the boys be old enough to really get what's going on and being excited with us. jax was under 2 years old when we had boomer, so he was totally oblivious.

i'm FINALLY feeling pregnant and not just fat. which i'm totally happy about! anyone who knows me knows i love me a prego belly!! so... my first prego photo with baby #3 at 18w/4d.

RANDOMNESS

LEGOS
the boys have really been into building "inventions" with legos lately. finally they are old enought to play with the fun ones. you know, the tiny ones that have really cool pieces and fun sets. they pretty much don't go anywhere without taking an "invention" with them. it's really neat to see their little imaginations come to fruition, especially jax. he has an engineer's brain FOR SURE! he loves to take things apart to see how they work and then put them back together. which is why i appreciate the legos so much, before legos it was breaking apart toys or the back off the remote!

MOTHER'S DAY
for mother's day this year jason and the boys made me a picnic table. they stained it white and engraved each of our names in it (with room enough for newbaby, too) it was really sweet. i'm not sure i like that the boys are being taught really young to keep secrets from mama, who knows how great they'll be at it by the time they're teenagers!! but i do appreciate surprises and they've never spoiled one for me so far!!



GARDEN/YARD
our garden is surprisingly THRIVING!! i never would've guessed that we could even keep it all alive. the peas are almost to the top of the fence and the lettuce is gigantic! we need to plant new radishes now since we planted 4 rows at once and they're all gone already! boomer chokes down lettuce now because he's proud he grew it! which is the biggest reason for me to have a garden! the yard needs a whole lot of work, the grass is very weedy and dead-ish in places, but we have some plans to help it out, so we'll see how that goes.

a few weeks ago my mom found a huge frog near her house. we took it home to set it free in the pond out back. the boys named him hoppy.

TeeBall 2010

wow... teeball season is over already and i haven't blogged at all about it! the boys really liked it, i think boomer more than jax. maybe because we went sometimes a week or more without a practice or game because of the weather, jax had a hard time jumping back into the swing of things. but he had a TERRIFIC coach that was really patient with him and never got tired of motivating him (which he seemed to need lots of).

GO PURPLE DRAGONS!!
boomer had a great time. his little ladies' man side came through very often since he had 2 pretty girls for coaches. he was always tackling or snuggling one of them on the field during games. they both learned a lot this year and it was a great experience for all of us.

GO BUMBLEBEES!!
off to the birthcenter to get some blood drawn with BOTH BOYS in tow!! wish me luck. i'll blog later today about what else we've been up to!!

our weekend

this past weekend we were lucky enough to have jason's mom and stepdad AKA "the outlaws" come to visit. it was wayne's first time seeing our house and coming up this way since i think jax was born. he's got a bad back and long car rides are hard for him. we were so excited and thankful he endured the journey just for us!! another reason for their visit was to help us out with our very first garden. we got straight to work right after they got here. we planted all the seeds and starts we had already, then made our rounds at the farm and garden stores here in town, and then planted everything else when we got back! it was really exciting to see our garden and yard come together. it feels much more complete now!
grammee and papa surprised each boy with their very own blueberry bush. they were stoked for that and check for berries everyday. sometimes more than once! hopefully gardening will help them learn patience!!
so here's the rundown on our gardens... they filled up super fast! cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, june bearing and everbearing strawberries, green, red and walla walla onions, garlic, green pepper, romaine lettuce, peas,carrots and radishes. celery, cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelons are being started. pumpkins, and mammoth sunflowers are planted by the shed. and potatoes and chives are in pots. in a week or so we will be able to plant my dahlias (probably what I'M most excited for!) jason also bought me a climbing hydrangea which i'm in love with and cannot wait for it to flower!!
we were really surprised when the outlaws showed interest in ROCKING OUT! it was so much fun we had TONS of laughs and fun for hours. literally~hours!

boomer got his training wheels taken off this weekend!!! he was off on his own later that day! really only like 30 minutes total of us running along with him until he got how to balance. sharp turns trip him up still and he has a hard time with balancing enough to start or stop himself yet. but before we know it, he'll be a pro and we'll have to live up to our end of the bargain and repaint jax's bike to green and add some "bells and whistles" so he can take over that bike and we can get our little giant, jax a bigger bike since he thinks he has to go and grow like a freakin' weed all the time!! isn't 3 1/2 really young to learn that trick?! he's a prodigy!!!

yesterday was the boys' last gymnastics class. they have really loved going. it has really been a great way for the boys to burn energy and to learn the dynamics of student/teacher and paying attention and following direction. all the things we've been worried about jax getting the hang of before going into kindergarten in september.
here is an after picture of all my boys' haircuts. they look so cute now. for some reason, though, boomer looks like a big boy to me and jax looks younger?? boomer says his isn't short enough... he wants to look like grandpa, who currently has a buzz cut!
the boys decided this morning to be pirates with their stretchy toys. the green around jax's belly is a snake. sillies.

tonight will be our first tee-ball practice. we are all so excited for that to start. i'm sure we will be blogging about that a lot!

it's decided...

~we are 7weeks 5days along which means the newest little dahlstrom is due november 14th. i hope boomer is gracious if he ends up sharing a birthday (his is the very next day). poor kid. as if being thrust into middle-child-dom isn't bad enough!!

~we ARE for sure going to be going with a midwife, and having baby in our home is not out of the running. we had a consultation appt today at the birth center . honestly i was almost scared off by the pics from the website, but after talking to a midwife we had all of our reservations about it worked through, and now we're stoked for it! the best part (so far) is that they are totally into letting our boys be part of it, something that is UNHEARD of at the hospital.

~just about everyone who's known us through our last 2 pregnancies will tell you we are very much anti-name telling. we have a girl's name 99% chosen. i will tell you that if it's a little girl, her middle name will be anne. it is my middle name and my mom's and my grandma's-each of us the first daughter. if it's a boy, we have a short list, but it's definitely harder to keep thinking up good boy names!! cross your fingers that we won't have to ;)

~this baby is surely a blessing to us. we tried for a long time to get pregnant this time around. for a year and a half we've kept it a secret from our family and friends. which was hard because it felt like we were lying to them all whenever the subject came up. (they of course all forgave us). it only took us exactly 4 months each with jax and boomer, so it was hard to think that even though we felt our family wasn't complete yet, we could possibly done. i had taken my temp every morning for only 5 days, so i'd have information to give a specialist in a few months, when we popped up pregnant! i think it's true when they say that you can try "too hard"!

it's an emotional subject around here....