It's A

 new baby Dinosaur. According to Tindra. 

Can't really blame her. It does kind of look like a dinosaur back. And those claws/paws/fingers? Yeah I can see how she got that. 

 One of us wore blue to our ultrasound tonight thinking baby was a boy..

And one of us wore pink thinking girl....  One of us was wrong.  (also, Drew voted girl, Jasper, boy but I don't have pictures of them since they were off doing important stuff like school, football and work while Tindra and I painted our nails, so technically, half the family was wrong. ) 

Stockholm: Part 2

Our second full day in Stockholm we woke up to over cast and a bit chilly (high 50's, low 60's) but I love this kind of weather so it didn't bother me at all! After another delicious breakfast (okay brunch since we didn't wake up till 10:30) we took the boat into town again, this time to meet some friends. I met Nadja about 4 years ago (I think?) when she was an au pair in Denver and we would do play dates with the kiddos. Now she's back living in Stockholm with her (American) fiancé and beautiful baby girl. We made plans to meet up with them to walk around, but the weather had other plans!

As soon as we got off the boat it started pouring, and then within a minute, hailing. We took cover underneath the awning of a fancy hotel that had heated lamps and waited out the storm. 20 minutes later or so it was just sprinkling so we went and met our friends at The most amazing library I have ever been in. It's on the top floor of a big building right in the middle of the city, and a complete dream for kids. I didn't get a really good picture of the library, here's one below I found. The whole library was filled with little places for kids to climb, and get cozy with books. If I lived here I think I would want to come every rainy/snowy/crappy weather day. Not only could you sit and read/look at books everywhere, they also had an amazing craft room. I think we paid $3 for Jasper to get a tray of different items to make a craft with. He ended up making a really cool necklace. The most amazing thing was they had a bunch of used books for sale. I ended up buying like 8 different Swedish books for like $4. Amazing!

source

 3D map of Stockholm

 After an hour or two at the library the rain cleared up and and the sun came out, so we spent the rest of the day walking around some different, less touristy neighborhoods of Stockholm and finding a couple of different parks for the kiddos to run around.

It was the most laid back day in Stockholm and one of the best! Drew and I are so blessed to have all these amazing friends throughout the world, but man sometimes I just really really wish they all lived here! 

Traveling with Children Tip #2

Bring a Good Stroller!
I know a lot of people like to travel light (something we are Still working on!) and I have noticed a lot of people don't want to bring their regular or a 'big' stroller while traveling and opt for a little umbrella stroller. Big mistake! At least it would be for us when traveling. 

Traveling usually means lots of walking, and if you are in Europe like we were this summer, cobblestone roads plus a skimpy little umbrella stroller would have been a Very bad idea.  All that extra walking around you do during vacation means extra stroller time. It also sometimes (most of the time for us this summer) means napping on the go. I don't know about your kids, but there's no way my kiddos would nap sitting completely upright in an umbrella stroller. And non napping toddler while on vacation equals my own personal version of hell. 

Have I convinced you that you need to bring your good stroller while traveling yet?  We were sent the new quinny zapp xtra to bring along, and it worked like a dream for us. Not only did it almost fully recline, it also has an amazing shade. Which, for our first few days in Stockholm did good keeping the rain out, and our last two weeks kept the sun out.
Some of my favorite features of the quinny zapp xtra: *Super compact- one morning we were loading all of our bags into the back of a taxi to take us from our hotel to the train station and he realized we still had our stroller to fit in he got really worried. I assured him it would fit, and he still didn't look convinced. Once he saw how small it actually broke down to, he sighed in relief and looked quite impressed.  *Easy to nagivate/worked just fine on cobble stone for how small it was. *Light weight- we had to carry this guy up and down flights of stairs, with Tindra in it, no problem at all.  *Different reclines, Tindra could sit all the way up, or lay down for naps. And it was really easy and quick to switch positions, so she would fall asleep sitting up often and we would just quietly lay her down without her waking up. And she's a light sleeper like her mama so that's sort of a miracle on it's own.  And just a few of the pictures we took of the stroller this trip..

 ^Another handy thing about the stroller, our travel car seat fit perfectly in it, we just used some bungee cords to make sure it stayed in and this is how we traveled through the airports, we would wheel stroller right up to the air plane and gate check it, and bring the car seat (and toddler) onto the plane^

 ^At the airport in Iceland after a full day of traveling AND a full day at the blue lagoon. We were exhausted and had nasty spa hair (more on that later^

 ^I don't recommend loading the stroller this full with toddler in it..it might have started to tip^

 ^Waiting for taxi to take us to train station^

 ^Subway in Oslo^

^Two year olds aren't the only ones who get tired of walking on vacations..Jasper took a few turns in the stroller as well. And he fit! Barely but it was a nice break for him from time to time^

Return to regularly blogging?

It's no secret it's been quiet over here on the blog for the last couple of months. First there was being gone in Sweden for three weeks. Then it was recovering from being abroad for three weeks. And all the fun jet lag that comes with it. Then there was our week and a half trip to Iowa. And then there was Yellowstone. And while in Yellowstone is when I started experiencing this lovely little thing called morning sickness. Except for me it should be called "feel 'okay' in the morning, feel crappy by lunch time and feel like death by dinner before I throw up and pass out at 8 PM"
On top of all that fun Tindra had her double eye surgery and literally couldn't be left alone for 6 seconds for two weeks. Which means I had to lay down with her for her naps and she bed time where she slept with me. (To make sure she didn't touch/rub her eyes.) So things have been a tad crazy over here. And I have spent most of Tindra's nap times either throwing up or laying in front of the window unit in my bedroom set to 60 degrees. 
I'm now 14 weeks and fingers crossed will start feeling better soon. My OB gave me some medicine to try yesterday since I'm still throwing up at 14 weeks and still down weight (about 5 lbs so not a ton but it's time to start gaining now) so I'm really hoping that works or this most of the day nausea ends really soon. I made a 'real' dinner for the kids and Drew (absolutely refuse meat right now) today so maybe that's a sign the worst is over? 
All this rambling to say is I intend to be back to blogging regularly by next week. I miss this amazing blogging community and can't wait to jump back in! I have a lot of catching up to do- mainly re our trip to Sweden!

Lets try this again!

I posted last night from my phone in bed, and didn't realize how messed up the pictures were! So here are the Actual pictures. And a couple of other ones. The kids didn't really cooperate, imagine that! Even with all my sucker bribing I still could barely get them both to look at the same time. And also, trying to get a two year old to hold a chalk sign still without getting chalk all over her..basically impossible. 

And to answer a few questions! I'm due the second half of March, and just under 13 weeks. I have been feeling like absolute death, especially the second half of the day and all night. I'm hoping it ends very soon! 

March

This march our lives are going to get just a little bit crazier! 

Omaha Zoo

On our way back from Iowa at the end of July (has it already been that long?!) we decided to break up the 11 hr drive (Des Moines-Denver) with a stop in Omaha. Its about 2.5-3 hrs from Des Moines, so my mom and nephew came with us!  We made a day out of it and went to the amazing Omaha Zoo and then stayed at a hotel really close by. We got there shortly after the zoo opened and spent 6 hours there and still didn't see it all. It's Massive. 

We happened to pick The very hottest day of the year to go (I think it was like 104 degrees) but between all the water and drink breaks and the air conditioned buildings, we were fine! Though yes, a tad bit sticky. I think the aquarium and the penguins were a personal favorite here! Not just for the cute penguins, but for the icy cold AC!
The Omaza Zoo is such an interactive zoo. There's a play ground, a petting zoo, camel and train rides, bird feeding, and much more! If the kids weren't so hot and tired by 4 we could have stayed even longer and probably still not seen and done everything zoo has to offer!
We ended our day with some pool time at the hotel and the Best Pizza, Valentinos (a Nebraska must) delivered to our hotel. I wasn't sure how two two year olds and a 6 year old would do sleeping in a hotel room together, but everyone was so tired (including my mom and myself) we all fell asleep early!


*We were provided with zoo passes, but all opinions are 100% my own!