Bugventures

Scott's mom, who is here helping us with the baby, took Anna and Matthew on a bug finding expedition this afternoon! She even made them little binoculars to hunt for bugs (Scott dubbed them "bug-noculars"). They were so cute and the kids were very excited. They came back with many exciting tales of the bugs they had seen, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more as it gets warmer.

Almost ready to head out on their adventure. Thanks Mom/Ma2 for taking the time to make a fun outing for the kids (extra points if you can spot her in the background). They loved it!

A Taste of India

Scott's dad and sister came to visit us this week. We were in the hospital for a couple days of their visit, having the baby, so it was probably a little boring for them. :( Scott's sister, Alycia, recently got back from India and brought some authentic Indian outfits for the kids. The kids were so excited to try them on! Here are the kids together looking very fancy!

Here's Matthew trying on his outfit. I call him the golden boy now when he wears it. His outfit goes perfectly with his hair!

And here he is dancing. He LOVED this scarf...maybe a little too much. I think he liked how swishy it was. :)

Here both of them start dancing. They looked so good! Thanks Alycia and Cody for the beautiful clothes and thinking of us during your Indian adventures!

And then there's Grant. He has an outfit too, but I didn't try it on him yet. I haven't taken a lot of pictures of him since we got home, mostly because he is either asleep, eating or crying most of the time. Here he is asleep in his chair. I had to take a picture before we straightened him out - I thought he looked so cute. He's doing good at home - he is sleeping a lot at night, which is good. He's also eating a lot, so that's good too. I'll try to get some awake pictures.

Our New Arrival

On Thursday April 7th, two days after my due date, at 10 minutes after midnight, Grant Thomas Guptill was born! He shares a name and a birthday with my Grandpa, Grant Reeve ("Grantpa"). So it was a special and very exciting day!
We got to the hospital at 10pm and they almost didn't admit us, 'cause they didn't think I was far enough along. Luckily they did. Things proceeded quickly and two hours later we had a new baby boy! He weighed 7 lbs, 8 ozs (our smallest yet) and was 20 1/2 inches long. We are all home now and everyone is doing fine! The kids are excited to have a new baby brother and are very good helpers. We're so happy he's finally here!
Read Grant's Birth Story HERE.

Baby Grant and his amazing hat.

Just after delivery. He wasn't happy being cleaned up!

Matthew checks out the sleeping Grant in the hospital.

Some family pics.

Here we are getting ready to go home. We were so happy to leave the hospital and bring Grant home!! He looks excited too, doesn't he?

Anna Rose

Anna's favorite thing to say lately...

"I'm not Anna Guptill...
I'm Anna Rose!"

It's only a matter of time til she realizes she is one of us.
Poor Anna.

Warm Weekend

This weekend we had some nice weather. On Saturday it got up to 80 degrees. Everyone was out wearing their shorts and enjoying the sunshine. We watched General Conference (a semiannual broadcast from the leadership of our church) and also spent some time enjoying the sun. Scott also got to drive for the first time in a few months. He's probably very happy to get some independence back. Here are the kids watching conference.

And here we are in the backyard enjoying the warm weather. Anna was a little wary of getting sprayed with water. The water out of the hose was really cold, even though the air was warm. Yes, I want to push that hair out of her eyes. Why does she fight me?

She eventually got into it. We got a few "running through the sprinklers" things. We also had to buy a new hose (see how stiff it still is) 'cause we didn't have one at our house yet. Here's Anna running away from the spraying beach ball.

Matthew liked to run up and touch the ball then run away. He paused for a few seconds so we could take a picture. So daring!

Anna running away again!
It was good we took advantage of the warm day...

...because it snowed on Sunday. So Colorado! :)

It was also an exciting weekend for me 'cause I moved around things in the garage enough to get one car in! I found a lot of things in the garage to get rid of and donate, but it's going to take me a while to go through it all. But I'm so happy there is room for a car. It's a start. We also got the car seats moved around the way we need them for the time being, and got the hospital bag and new baby carseat in the car. We're ready for the baby! But he's not ready to come yet. We'll see when he shows up. He's due on Tuesday - TWO MORE DAYS!!

April Fool's Day

We made a couple of things for April Fool's Day today, including some faux sushi. Here's my little sous chef, Anna, showing us some of the sushi rolls we made.

Here's our platter of sushi - made with Rice Krispy treats, gummy candies and fruit rolls.

Seeing all that fake sushi made us want to go out for real sushi. We tried a new place near our house and it was really good! I realize my love of Japanese food has grown a lot since first moving to Japan. Anna ate a lot - miso soup, tempura shrimp, edamame and rice. She really dug into that rice bowl.

She had her whole face in it! Yum!

Matthew loved the shrimp, but not so much the other stuff.
He did dress up for our dinner though - hat, sunglasses and (waterproof) gloves.

We also made jello juice cups...it was supposed to look like a glass of juice, but we put marshmallows in there this time. I didn't want the kids to be fooled by it really. So we had a good April Fool's Day - we still have no new baby, but we're expecting our new little guy any day now! See our adventures from last year's April Fool's Day HERE and HERE.

Getting the boot

Scott had a follow up appointment about his leg and ankle this week. It has been six weeks since his surgery and Wednesday we went in to get the cast off, get X-rays, and have the doc determine if he had healed enough to start wearing a walking boot. When they took the cast off this time and made him crutch over to X-ray, he didn't have nearly as much pain as he did the first time they made him do that. A good sign.
After reviewing the X-rays, the doctor told Scott things were healing very well and Scott was ready for a walking boot and can start putting weight on his leg while wearing the boot! He can also start trying to drive. The doctor told him to keep using the crutches for a week so he can get used to walking with the boot and putting weight on it. But we're moving forward. I don't know if Scott will be driving by the time we have to go into the hospital for the baby (I am due in 4 days!) but we do have a back up plan, so we'll get there one way or another!

Anna's Birthday Prep

Anna thinks it should be her birthday soon.
Unfortunately for her, her birthday is in August.
Matthew's birthday is the end of February, Scott's is in March, mine is the beginning of April and it looks like the new baby's will be too. So we have a big birthday cluster and poor Anna is the outlier. That hasn't stopped her from enthusiastically planning her own birthday party though (currently she wants a Dora birthday). She started getting excited about her birthday while we were planning for Matthew's back in February and hasn't let up yet. We try to tell her her birthday isn't for a long time, or that it's in the summer, when it's hot outside, but she still tells nearly anyone who will listen that she is having a birthday in "a few weeks." I feel bad for her and hope she's not too disappointed when her birthday doesn't come right away. She was giving me a big list of things she wants for her birthday, and I tried to get her to tell me again for the camera. She has definite ideas! See pictures from her birthday party last year HERE.

Getting ready for baby

In case you haven't picked up on all the pregnancy complaints I've been putting on this blog lately, I am super pregnant! Yesterday I was 38 weeks along - two more weeks to go. I feel like I have been pregnant forever, maybe because of moving in the middle of it all. Neither of our other kids came early, so I'm not really expecting to go early this time either, but you never know. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

I think the kids are excited about the baby. Matthew keeps telling me that we are going to have three kids and that's A LOT! He's also hard at work trying to think of a name, although he says he'll wait to meet the baby first. I think he is leaning towards "Matthew" as the perfect name. :) Anna tells everyone that she is going to hold the baby when he cries and teach him how to walk. I think she is going to be a good helper.

And here's a pretty good profile shot of my big belly. I am sitting, but you still get the idea. We're getting close and should have some baby news in the next two weeks or so!

Disney on Ice

We went to see Disney on Ice this past weekend in Colorado Springs. It was nice the show was right in town and we didn't have to drive to Denver or anything. The kids were really excited about the show. Matthew kept asking me if Mickey Mouse was going to be there. The theme was Disney princesses, so I wasn't sure if Mickey would be there or not, or if Matthew would enjoy all the girliness, but it all worked out. Mickey and Minnie and Goofy were there, along with characters from a bunch of Disney princess movies, so Matthew was satisfied with that.

The first half of the show they did little excerpts from Aladdin, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. Then they had a little intermission and the second half of the show was a longer version of Cinderella. It was cute. I think Anna's favorite part was when they sang Under the Sea from Little Mermaid and Sebastian the crab danced and sang. I think that was my favorite part too. Matthew liked it any time Mickey Mouse came out, which he did three times or so. Neither of the kids liked it when the villains showed up or when the pyrotechnics were used. We still had fun though.
Scott had to maneuver the crowds and stands with his crutches and the seating was a little cramped, but we were glad he could come with us.

Here we are waiting for the show to start.

Matthew wanted to see the ice at intermission.

Anna with her souvenir Tinkerbell spinner. Does she look happy to have it? Matthew got a sword, which he kept sheathing and unsheathing all through the show. We had fun!

From Everyday

We haven't been doing too much exciting lately and there is really nothing big to report. Here are a few things from our everyday life recently.

Scott is still on crutches and we've been driving him to and from work a lot. It's been a busy few weeks for Scott at work and he has been working a lot of hours plus weekends. Things are supposed to slow down a little for him now, work-wise, so that should be good. In about a week and a half he has another appointment about his leg and we're hoping he will get the green light to start wearing a walking boot and be able to drive again. Fingers crossed.

The kids have been pretty good about taking Daddy to and from work, even though it's a lot of sitting in the car for them. Here they are after taking a morning bath and dressing themselves. I like Matthew's post bath time hair and Anna's outfit.

I haven't been the funnest mom lately. I only have 2 1/2 weeks to go and I am exhausted a lot. Between taking Scott to and from work and just doing everyday house things and getting ready for baby, I'm totally beat. This pregnancy has not been too bad for me. I haven't been too uncomfortable, I was only a little nauseated at the beginning and felt pretty good in the middle. In the first and now last trimester I have felt very tired though...and as the end gets near, I get more and more tired. I had to go down to the base where we will deliver (a different base than Scott works at) and get car decals for the car and register at the hospital a few days ago and it took forever. So much paperwork! But at least it's done now and it should make getting in there during labor a bit easier.
The kids have been playing dress up a lot lately...it's something they can do while I lay on the couch. Here is Anna dressed up as Jessie from Toy Story and reading one of our shutterfly books. Oh, and I also finished all our blog books for 2010. I accomplished something!

Matthew as Harry Potter.

One of my kids favorite activities these days is what I like to call a "caucus race." It pretty much just involves listening to music and running around in a circle. They'll even do it without the music. They like to wear capes while they do it too. And who could blame them. Here they are having a little race. The like to listen to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang while they run.

More caucusing. This is one of Matthew's favorite dress up outfits - his blue and red cape and a crown. He had a different crown that he liked better, but it got broken. Sorry its blurry.

I've been trying to get things done - mostly get things put away around the house, build some furniture and keep the house from falling into total disarray - with only moderate success.
I'm also trying to be careful to rest and not do too much 'cause I don't want to go into labor early.
This week I built (or really assembled) two of these dressers for the kids. It took me about five hours to do both of them. I'm glad they are done. The delivery man was supposed to take the boxes upstairs for us (according to Ikea) but he wouldn't do it when he actually came. So, I had to carry it upstairs. It was super heavy so I opened the box where it was delivered and carried the individual pieces up a few at a time. That was tiring. Then we assembled them. And when I say, "we" I mean, I did it and the kids ran around playing. I also put a table together, but that was easy - it only involved about 20 wood screws and then attaching 4 legs. I'm glad that stuff is done though. I still have a few more things to assemble, but Ikea has not delivered all our stuff yet. I spent a bit of time on the phone yesterday trying to get it straightened out...not figured out yet.

I'm trying to get everything on my "to do" list done. My list is very modest I think, but I resisted making the list for a while 'cause I was afraid it would depress me. It wasn't so bad and I think I've worked through a lot of the things so far. Here is Anna helping me with one of the items - getting the baby's new clothes washed. She just had to try them on first. She was sure they would fit her, but in the end I think she had to concede defeat.

Happy Birthday Scott!!

Matthew and Scott have birthdays that are very close to each other - only 10 days apart on a non-leap year. Thursday we celebrated Scott's birthday. He had to work a longish day at work, so we picked him up after (he still can't drive) and went out to dinner. Later we had cake, ice cream and presents. The kids were very excited for his birthday.
Scott has been back at work for about a week and going around on crutches since he still can't put any weight on his leg. He still has about 2 1/2 weeks (at least, maybe more) on crutches. We're hoping things heal up enough that he can get a walking boot thing after that.
Here's Scott on the phone with some of his well wishers. Happy Birthday Scott!!

Here's Anna enjoying her chocolate cake...and I think she might have eaten the rest of Matthew's too.

Matthew at 4

I interviewed Matthew today for his 4 year old interview. I started doing this about six months ago for Anna's birthday (see first interviews HERE). Anna wanted to sit by him. She wouldn't let me do her hair today, as like most days, so whenever I watch this I just want to brush the hair out of her eyes. Matthew is growing up so much and his personality is really showing. He's tender hearted, happy and always thinking about how to solve problems. He's a great big brother and puts up with a lot of Anna's mischief. Here is his (longish) interview!!