Fall in Florida was not like any other Fall I've ever had. I kept expecting a cool down in weather since September. Well, It's the end of December and that major cool down has still not happened. It does get cooler at night, which makes the mornings bearable to get out of the house, but it's still mid 80's here. Not as bad as the summer, but we still sweat when we go out.
We play outside in the sprinkler. The kids love playing in the water. Here Malachi's helping wash the truck floor mats. Malachi usually helps with the washing and Levi uses the shop vac to vacuum the inside the truck. They both do a pretty good job.
My little Malachi is getting so big. He talks a lot and is such a joy to be around. He'll look at me and just give me a big cheesey smile. I love it. Today, he gave me a purple flower he picked in the yard. As he handed it to me he said " for you mom, it's pretty." I set the flower down as I opened the truck door and helped to boys get in. As a sat in my seat Malachi asked where the flower was that he gave me. He saw I did not have it and wondered where it went. It melted my heart and I got back out of the truck and picked it back up.
We went on a bike ride as a family. We rode by a pond and stopped for a second to play.
Our big family news is that a new member will be joining us in March. We announced to our family by sending them each the picture below.
A few weeks later we announced gender by sending them another picture (the one below). We are excited to have a girl join our crew.
As far as the pregnancy has gone it's been quite different than with the boys. I did get morning sickness which I never had with the boys. Adrian was able to get me some OTC medication for the morning sickness so I really did not suffer from it too bad. I did have food aversions more than I did with the boys. Overall it's not been too tough. I can tell I'm starting to feel puffy now. I had edema with Levi, but not so much with Malachi. It's probably because I'm not very active. Darn Florida heat has really cramped my style. We had a hard time choosing a doc and the one we did choose we really dislike the office. Oh, well. We were very limited in choices due to insurance.
Here's a picture of me this past Sunday 12-27-2015 at 29 weeks or so.
We had Levi in basketball lessons for a couple weeks at the YMCA. The location ended up being too far away for us and we stopped lessons. Here he is with the dark blue shirt and black shoes.
Since it cools down a bit more at night (around 70) it is cooler in the mornings to go for a walk or head to the park. We try to get out every morning to burn off some pent up energy. Levi still prefers to ride his bike without pedals. We're in no rush to get him to pedal.
Malachi does really well on his balance bike. He is able to balance and glide along easily.
Levi has a toy frog he takes everywhere with him. Aunt Cari gave it to him a couple years ago. He takes it along to the beach, on hikes and sleeps with it with his blankies.
We were able to go to the beach in September and October. Not so much in November. We were busy and the weather was a bit stormy. The boys love playing in the sand and water.
Beautiful warm day for the beach.
Adrian's been off interviewing again for residency positions. He's done Dermatology, Anesthesiology, and Internal Medicine interviews. It's tough repeating what he did last year, but it's the path that's been laid before us. Here he is at Niagara Falls while doing an interview in Buffalo, NY.
There's no real pumpkin patches in Port St. Lucie we could find. But, we did some "fake" pumpkin patches at a few local churches. We did get the kids a pumpkin and paid a pretty penny doing it.
These boys are always pretending they are monsters and growling.
We've got about 6 parks within a few miles of home that we usually hit up. If there are other kids there Levi always like to initiate play with them by spreading his arms out wide and growling like a monster and chasing them. The other boy kids think it's fun. The girls, not so much. Malachi always tags along until he gets bored and then plays by himself.
They had a Halloween boat parade on the river by our house. I had never heard of or seen a boat parade so I was pretty excited to go see it. The parade was the first ever Halloween parade and it was pretty much a flop. There was only a total of 6 boats that went by in a matter of 2 minutes. Here's Levi waiting for the boats.
Levi was a black bear for Halloween. I made him a simple costume of a mask, claw gloves, claw feet, a tail and a belly. He thought it was awesome. Malachi wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween. That was simple for me because Levi was that a couple years ago and I still had a dino tail and jacket. I did make Malachi some claw feet like Levi's and tried to make him claws too, but he did not want claws and would not wear the feet. In fact, he would not wear his costume at all. He wore it to one house the entire Halloween season. He would not even wear it to the library or church Halloween parties. He was a bit sick though. He had a cough on Halloween day and did not feel well.
We carved the kid's pumpkins. Adrian missed the last two years we carved pumpkins so I made him help the kids. Malachi's sad here because Adrian is sitting by Levi helping him and Malachi did not want my help. The boys always prefer Adrian when he's around.
Levi was able to almost completely carve his pumpkin by himself. Adrian drew the face on the pumpkin and Levi was able to saw out the pieces.
Halloween evening there was a carnival at the Civic Center. Levi had a blast riding the rides. He loved the farris wheel and dragon roller coaster the best. Malachi did not want to ride many rides, again, he felt kind of sick. He did ride some smaller rides and seemed to enjoy those. Here's Adrian and Malachi waiting while Levi rides a ride.
We did take the boys trick-or-treating. Malachi rode in the stroller the whole time and held up his bucket at every door. Levi was great at walking along to houses around the neighborhood. Levi caught a frog while we were walking along and toted it along to every house showing all the people in the houses his frog. They both got quite the haul of candy.
Here we were at the park by river. It was a sunny day and a bunch of tortoises were out basking in the sun. The boys chased them all back into their burrows.
Here we're hiking at a preserve near our house. We do try to get out, it's just so hot here the boys and I get miserable quick if it's uncomfortable.
Malachi had found a walking stick and Levi was determined to find one bigger than Malachi's. At last, Levi finally succeeded and found a stick at least 6 feet tall he drug around everywhere. Levi's at an age he now notices and compares everything and wants the biggest of everything.
Levi often will ask me to take a picture of him and send it to Papa to look at. So I do.
Levi wanted to show Adrian how strong he was by lifting up the tool bench.
I've been trying to teach Levi letters and numbers and penmanship. Here Levi freehandedly wrote his name for the first time.
Here's more pictures at the park.
Levi is able to catch lizards and likes to hold them while he plays. Often times the lizards get handled so much that they die.
Going for a bike ride on the boardwalk.
I was in charge of Activity days while we were in the Fort Pierce ward. I always made a treat for the girls and the boys liked to help me in the kitchen.
They split our ward about a month ago and we got put into the brand new Port St. Lucie ward. We're used to change, but we felt like we were just getting to know people again and now we've got to start over. This makes the 8th ward we've been in in the 7 years we've been married. It gets tiring to always be the new people and start over, but we do what we've got to do. So far no callings for either of us in the new ward. The bishop told us since we were leaving in 6 months it might be hard to give a calling.
Funny story with this picture. Levi likes to play Super Mario World on the Wii. He's not able to do much, but his favorite thing is get all the mushroom houses. He had been begging all day for me to let him play Mario and finally when Malachi went down for a nap I let him play. After 15 minutes or so I noticed he had fallen sleep :) Silly kid.
We really tried to get creative for activities to do in the house when it was too hot to go out. Most activities end up in a big mess. But, oh well, that's life.
More park time. Here Levi's got a small frog. The frogs seem to survive the boys playing with them more than the lizards do.
Riding our bikes to the park around the corner.
We never really played much in the yard this summer because there are ants everywhere and unless you are running quickly through the grass you are likely to get bit by one. The ants are also all over the walkway and driveway. At the the last few houses we lived in we always sat on the driveway and played. Well, come October I finally braved the ants and we pulled the sprinkler out for the boys on the driveway. We don't have a kiddy pool this year so we've just used the toy totes and they boys have fun in them. We did finally stake a tarp down on the lawn by the walkway and put the sprinkler on it. The boys still love to do this, even in the end of December because it's still hot.
Malachi hardly gets one on one time with Adrian. I took Levi with me to Activity Days and Malachi and Adrian had a Father-son date and got some ice cream cones.
I feel like Malachi does not get as much one on one attention as Levi. Levi gets it when Malachi naps, but Malachi hardly ever gets someone's full attention.
Here we are at the Lagoon in Stuart at the Indian River Park. The water was a bit chilly to the initial touch, but the boys did not seem to mind.
For Thanksgiving we celebrated a day early. Adrian had to work Thanksgiving evening so I cooked up a fancy meal and we ate just the 4 of us. It was a whole day of work for me in the kitchen and the meal lasted about 10 minutes. Malachi would not touch any of the food because he's such a picky eater. Levi ate some turkey and stuffing was all.
The day after Thanksgiving we took the boys up to Melbourne, about an hour away, to the zoo. As we were all getting into Adrian's Mini Cooper Adrian got bit by a couple red ants. The boys and I have gotten bit by ants quite a bit so I did not think much of it. As Adrian was driving he kept saying that it hurt really bad. I still did not think much of it because Adrian's a bit more dramatic than I am with things like this. After 10 minutes or so ,Adrian starts to itch all over. I still thought he was being a bit dramatic. Then he started to break out in a rash and that's when I started to think he might actually be suffering. He pulled off the highway and went into a Walgreens to get some benedryl. After about 10 minutes he calls me and tells me to come in because he's laying down on the floor and can't get up. So, I went in, got him some benedryl and helped him take it. 10 minutes later the itching got better and we headed on our way to the zoo. Now we know Adrian is allergic to ants and I'm a bit paranoid about him getting bit again and having a worse reaction.
It was a nice day at the zoo. Come midday we were seeking shade, but overall it was not sweltering hot. There was an art exhibit where they made animals from garbage that had washed up on the beach.They were interesting to see.
They had a sandpit where the boys were literally rolling around in.
They each made "sand angels". The closest thing they'll get to a snow angel this winter.
Our favorite animals to see were the otters and alligators. The otters were really playful. The alligators were huge and up close. They did not move, but were fun to look at. Surprisingly, we have not seen any alligators in Florida. People tell us they are there in the rivers and canals, but we must scare them away when we get close.
They had a petting zoo. Malachi and I petted the snake. Levi was intrigued by it, but did not want to touch it.
Levi did pet the giant tortoise.
And Malachi petted every other possible animal there because he seems to love all animals.
They had a kiddy pool to play in. We still laugh about the fact that it was the end of November and the boys were cooling off in a pool.
On the way home Adrian was driving and noticed a driver right behind us swerving. Adrian sped up a bit because he thought the truck was going to hit us. Well, the truck, as it was right behind us, swerved and hit the median barrier. It was kind of crazy to see. If Adrian had not sped up we probable would have been hit by the truck as it was swerving back and forth. We realize we are really blessed to have been spared from being hit. That truck was a lot bigger than Adrian's Mini Cooper and we probably would have crashed hard.
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