More visitors!

We had more visitors this weekend! The Miyamoto family stopped off in Seattle after their Alaska cruise! Unfortunately, we only were able to spend the day shopping with them before they flew back to Maui, but we still had a lot of fun catching up! Hard to believe it was a year ago they visited us for several weeks! Time flies!

This picture of the Yamada cousins took at least 8 tries (Marina kept saying something was wrong with Chester! Poor thing! He was either slouching, blocking me with his big head, or had a funny piece of hair sticking out). I hope this is the one she liked! We had a ridiculous heat wave come through the area; temps in the 80's and 90's since Friday! AGH! This is what happens to your feet when you're pregnant during the hot weather! I didn't even do a lot of walking. Don't worry, doctor looked at them and said they were fine! Don't they look gross! When we went shopping with the Miyamoto family, I tried on shoes and was discouraged...my feet looked terrible in all the shoes I tried on! All the fat would bulge out. Garrett is happy that I haven't been able to add to my shoe collection since I've been pregnant. :(
Lastly, my favorite pillow to sleep with is a Boppy baby pillow that Joy gave me. However, Sport takes every opportunity to steal it from me when I get out of bed to use the bathroom. He fits perfectly in the middle!

Because of the hot weather we've been having, I'm experiencing more contractions. I'm officially full term (37 weeks) and baby is developed enough to arrive any day now! I'm 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced (thinned out). But, doctor doesn't think he'll be early...we'll see.

The Waiting Game...

Baby Yamada will officially be full term (37 weeks) tomorrow, so now it's just a matter of when he decides it's time.

Garrett's Uncle Glenn came to visit for the week. We took him shopping and to the casino. The superstition about pregnant women having good luck only worked for Garrett and Kyle. Sorry Uncle Glenn- gotta rub the tummy more next time!

We are finally done with the baby nursery. Just had to clean and put up some shelves. Garrett is practicing rocking Sporty.

No more Transformers can fit on the shelf! Oh darn...I guess Garrett can't buy more!
I was lucky to have 3 birthday lunches/dinners. A dinner on my actual birthday with the boys, a lunch with Garrett the day after, and a BBQ with friends on the weekend. Garrett says I'm spoiled, I say I'm just loved. :)

No excuses...

YAH! I'm officially done with my 3rd year of teaching! WOW! Can't believe it! I have a week off, then a conference to attend in Bellevue for a week, and THEN the rest of the summer to get ready for baby and update this blog more regularly. So, there's no excuse for me to neglect this blog!

Here's a few updates and pictures.

I was blessed with another baby shower last weekend. This one was from my co-workers. They were so generous with gifts and we had a great "girls" day!

Pikachu loves to hide out in the pots and bags of soil; she's usually trying to avoid Sport. First thing I thought of when I saw her do this was the book The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. My mom and Aunty Jocelyn should be very proud that I remember this book, and even better, actually bought it for baby! (They had classic baby books at Target for $1!) We've been getting a little bit warmer weather this past week, so we went for a walk/run on a new trail they made near our house. I of course walked VERY slow, while Garrett ran; he's trying to get rid of the sympathy weight he's gained/gaining during this pregnancy.

It's a very nicely paved, shaded trail that runs about 3 miles one way, through the neighboring town. A few weekends ago when we were walking the trail, we encountered a black garden snake. I was hoping to get a picture of one, but didn't spot any this time.
One thing we enjoy about living on the mainland, especially in a city that has professional sports, is to attend games. We went to a Mariner's game last night. I was a little worried about the walking we'd have to do (when you're 25 lbs heavier, any unnecessary movement is difficult and tiring!) . I made it, with the help of the hubby pulling me along. It's just fun to be a part of the game and eat unhealthy, over priced food. Can't resist the garlic fries! Plus, the sun stays out so late, when we left during the 8th inning, around 9pm, it was still out! Ahhh... summer!

Pregnancy update: I'm big and uncomfortable. Hungry and snacking a lot! Trying to go walking to keep busy and moving. Baby is a little over 35 weeks and will be here soon! Are we ready?!

Almost pau with school...

Unlike Hawaii schools, Washington schools are still on the traditional calendar. This year we're fortunate to be ending school a week earlier than usual. Boy, the last few weeks of school are the hardest. Motivation from students (and teachers alike) are low, temperature is usually warm (in our case, it's rainy and snowing in the mountains!) and we just are all daydreaming about basking in the sun.

As our high school celebrates their graduation tonight, Garrett and I were reminded of all our graduation memories and wanted to congratulate the two graduates we have in our families.

First, congrats to my little sister, Lisa, who received her BS in Apparel Product Design and Marketing from UH Manoa. Big words for a "professional shopper"! She's spending the summer near Jacksonville, FL, where she's interning with the PGA! Baby's timing was slightly off, so we weren't able to travel home for her graduation, but lots of family was still there to support her!

Second, congrats to Garrett's cousin, Courtney Miyamoto, for graduating from Baldwin High School. Court will be headed to UH Manoa in the fall to pursue her career in dentistry!

Finally, an update on our lives. We celebrated Rylee's 5th birthday at a Jumpy Place. Rylee is the daughter of Mark and Ranelle, a transplanted HI couple, who we met through Joy. It's weird how HI people find each other and hit it off immediately!

The big slide at the jumpy place had a bigger drop than you expected!

Rylee's older brother, Matt.
Rylee's younger brother, Lucas.

We don't know who had more fun at the bouncy place- the younger kids or the older kids!

No recent pregnancy pics. Getting bigger and tired faster; we have to decide whether we're going out on how far I'll have to walk and my current energy level. No cravings, just eating more often. Almost there!

31+ weeks!

We had ridiculously hot weather this past weekend; upper 80's for 2 days. It was miserable! I stayed in the house mostly, with fans on me and a cold beverage by my side. Garrett wanted to get as much sun as he could, so decided to work on his yard (what a surprise, huh!).

He built 2 semicircular walls in the corners of our yard, to prevent Pika from sneaking through.

We also attended the "blue" party for our friend Leanne's 29th birthday.

Here's a pic of Sporty's new favorite place to take a nap. He keeps wanting to jump up on my lap and rest his head on my belly. Doesn't feel very comfy, but he enjoys it.
We also put together the Pack & Play/playpen to make sure we had enough room for it.

Then Garrett used Sport to test it out!

Finally, baby update. 31+ weeks and getting nervous! (Sigh) Baby is getting bigger and sticks out A LOT! I must say, pregnancy has continued to go very well. Sleeping has continued to become more difficult. My current craving is vanilla soy milk!

Tacoma Half Marathon and Couples Baby Shower!

Garrett, Kyle, and Kelsey decided to run the Tacoma Half Marathon this year. We could't find Kelsey at the starting line. But they found each other after a few miles.
Where's Kyle?
Here I AM!

Looks like he still has a lot of energy!

Let's see what he looks like at the end of 13.1 miles!

YAH! All smiles at the end after they finished!
Trisha and I got our exercise in too! We had to walk 3 blocks uphill to the starting line, then walk 3 blocks back downhill to the car. It was tiring driving 9 blocks to the finish line, waiting in a warm cafe for an hour, then walking a block to the finish line. Even though the weather wasn't as nice and sunny as it could've been, we all enjoyed ourselves!

We were blessed by our WA/Hawaii family with a couple's shower. Here's just some of our cute decorations! Zoe made the very creative diaper cake! Cute huh!

Our favorite kind of cake! Chocolate with cream cheese frosting! YUMMY! One of the games we played was boys vs girls drinking sparkling apple cider from a bottle. It was hilarious!

I beat Garrett and we didn't cheat by cutting our bottle nipples, so it took us awhile.

But everyone after us was smarter, so they sucked the juice out in a very short time! It practically just drained out into their mouths! Here's Joy and Kyle racing each other. By the way, the girls beat the boys. :) Garrett is demonstrating the portagee way of swaddling a baby. Nah, he's getting ready for another game.

The girls were blind folded and had to feed the boys pudding. We had a good method of shoveling, but I guess I missed Garrett's mouth a little. :)

The boys were all good sport; they didn't even ask questions or grumble...just played along with the girls and all our silly and fun games!

Words can't express how truly blessed we are to have friends up here that have become our family. Our nursery is now overstocked with gifts and love from them all. Thank you Marina and Chester for hosting our shower! Thank you also to Ranelle, Mark, Joy, Trisha, Kyle, Zoe, Deb, and Kelsey who helped plan a fantastic, memorable day. Baby Yamada is already so spoiled!

Baby room curtains and pregnant Garr

Wow, I've remembered to do another post in May, within a week of the last one! Let's hope I can keep this up!

Since we've been doing small projects to the baby's room, I decided to get new curtains. I wanted darker curtains to help keep the light out, with intentions that it will help baby sleep better. Well, they were so plain...until today! Found these polka dot panels at Target, so I cut them in half and sewed them over the dark curtains. Apparently, Lisa was trying to tell me to do it this way, but I didn't understand. Then, as I was playing around trying to decide how to sew them together, this bright idea came to me! Low and behold, it was the same idea Lisa had been trying to explain. I guess great minds think alike, but not at the same rate. :)

They match the blue and brown theme we're trying to create. Plus, I love polka dots!
Here's also a pic of Garrett pretending to be pregos with Sporty. At first Sport was scared and didn't move. Then Kyle was teasing him from the outside with treats and Sport went crazy! It was so funny!