Memorial Day Weekend!

This past weekend was a lot of fun for the Hall family. It started on Friday when we took Steve to work so I could have the car. Jilly was pretty upset with us for waking her up at 5am (I don't blame her) but calmed down once we told her we were going outside. The girl LOVES to go outside. I have to be careful not to tell her we're going out until we're ready to go, otherwise she runs to the door and tries to get out before I am ready. ;-) Anyway, we took her in and paraded her around Steve's work for a little bit, then back home and back to bed. After a couple more hours of sleep, us chickies got up, got dressed and headed out the door. We went down to Seattle to visit my friend Jenne and her son Willem, who is two months younger than Jilly exactly. Jenne is also pregnant with their second baby, and we hadn't seen each other in almost a year! It was way overdue.

The weather was gorgeous, so we ended up spending most of the day outside, on the playground at their complex. I even got to see Bri, Ginny and Violet, because Ginny was there playing with some other kids from their ward. :-) Bonus! Jilly took to the playground immediately and played on that for a couple hours. It was nice to see how much Willem and Jillian had grown up since we'd last seen them. They played together just fine and were on more the same level with physical ability. Last year, Jilly had barely been walking for a couple weeks and was still unsure of herself, whereas Willem had been walking for months, and at 16-18 months neither of them quite knew how to play with each other, so there had been moments of hitting or hurting the other. This time, no such worries! Not to mention how nice it was for Jenne and I just to be able to sit (big ol' preggies that we are) in the sun and watch the kids, without having to chase them constantly and help them play. Ahhh, independence is a valuable thing! Anyway, we let them play while we just chatted for quite awhile. We got hungry and decided to walk over to Johnny Rocket's at U Village (they live right next to it) for lunch. Yummy chicken fingers and fries were enjoyed by all (including Belle and Jason) and then it was time to go pick up Daddy.

It took forever for us to get to Steve's work, due to the Memorial Day weekend traffic, so we ended up picking him up at Blue Moon Burgers instead. Once we had him, we took off for the midwife appt. This time we met with the other midwife, Mel, just so we get to know her in case Cindie can't make it to our birth and Mel comes instead. It was a quick appt, everything was totally normal (my blood pressure was more normal for me 102/62), I've gained about 20lbs thus far (score!) and she gave me some handouts about exercises to help my back pain. Wildcat hasn't changed position at all, still head down, back out and legs tucked on my right, by my ribs. I'm getting much better about differentiating which limbs he is using for any given movement. I'm even starting to tell when it's an elbow or knee, versus a hand or foot. That's way more detail than I ever figured out with Jilly, so it's really neat. Then, we all came home and crashed. Jilly hadn't gotten a nap that day and we'd all gotten less sleep than planned. So we all snoozed for a couple hours. My sister came over later and hung out for a bit. Then it was time for bed. A very full Friday for us!

Saturday, I went to work and it was a very busy day!! We had a lot of people calling to go on daytrips or weekend trips for that day or the next, because the weather was gorgeous and it was a holiday weekend. I got massive cabin fever later in the afternoon and was really anxious to get out of work. At one point, Wildcat started arching his back and sticking out his butt a ton. For awhile, I couldn't tell if it was a contraction or just his little butt that was causing my abdomen to get so hard. I think it was about 50/50. Twerp. ;-) Steve and Jilly didn't do much at home, just hung out and cleaned a bit and took naps. That evening we just stayed at home and relaxed.

Sunday was busier for me, at least in the morning. I had to go to a church meeting at 7am, then came home and got Jilly ready for church. Of course, Jilly being the contrary 2 year old that she can be, decided that 5:30am was the most appropriate time to wake up and would not be dissuaded. I was getting up at that time anyway to get ready for my meeting, so poor Steve had to get up with Beans. But one benefit to her getting up so early was that she was wide awake, ate breakfast and was happy to go to church. Most Sundays we have to wake her up and she gets pretty sour about it. We made it to church just on time and got to sit in the chapel for the second week in a row. NICE! That may have been the first time all year we made it on time, and in the chapel in consecutive weeks. Because she'd been awake and fed already, she was actually fairly well behaved in Sacrament Meeting. I took her with me for a couple minutes to set up the Primary Room, but honestly, she would have been fine staying in the chapel the entire time. Woo-hoo!! She is growing up! ;-) During Nursery, she apparently fell down and now has a big old yellow bruise on her nose, right between her eyes. She doesn't seem bothered by it at all, it's just less than pretty. Oh well. After church, we just went home, took naps (Jilly slept for 5 hours!!) and hung out for the day. We had a yummy lunch of quesadillas and a Mexican Pot Roast for dinner.

Monday was AWESOME! We woke up around 8:30am and got going. We cleaned up the house and got ourselves ready. Then we hit Safeway to get some food for a picnic! Yummy!! We took our picnic over to Seaview Park, a couple blocks from my parents' house. We played on the toys, then as we were about to sit down for lunch, my step-dad Paul rode his bike over to meet us. We had a really yummy lunch of sandwiches, chips, string cheese, and apples. Then more playing on the playground when Mom met us there too. She brought some new clothes for both Jilly and Jason, spoiled grandkids that they are (actually they were kind of needed clothes, especially on Jason's part, so we are way appreciative as always). We hung out in the sunshine for quite awhile, it was so nice!!! Then they had to go back home to get things done, so we went there for a little bit. I wanted to see the new bedding my mom had gotten for the guest room. It is SO cute! White with pink, orange, yellow, green and blue fishies all over! Love it! This is the room where I will probably give birth and the bed that Jilly will sleep in from now on when she spends the night at Granny & Grandpa's. It's adorable. We had some chocolate cake and then it was time to go home because Jilly was really tired and I needed to go to work. Jilly took a nice long nap while I was gone.

Work was CRAZY when I walked in. I guess there was crazy boat traffic on Lake Union, so the planes that were supposed to land there around 3:30-4pm couldn't and had to divert to Kenmore. All of a sudden, there were 30-40 passengers at Kenmore that no one was expecting and we had to figure out how to get them back to Lake Union. It was a slightly insane afternoon, but things eventually calmed down and got all sorted out. After work, it was just time to hang out with the family and eat dinner.

It was such a nice weekend, full of fun outdoor activities and lots of down time too. The best part was having so much time all together! Between our two work schedules, we don't get as much time as we would like with both parents and Jilly together to do fun things. It definitely gave us a taste of what the summer can be like, while I'm on maternity leave and Jason has joined the party. It should be really fantastic!! :-D

P.S. There are pictures from both Friday and Monday, but since they aren't on my camera (Jenne's and my mom's cameras) I have to wait until I get them emailed to me. Then I will put them up, for sure!!