I. Am. Pooped. Sheesh! We’ve been running around like mad packing for our week long camping trip to Ocean Shores with the bff’s. It’ll be a GREAT time – the forecast could be a TOUCH warmer, but it doesn’t look like it will be too wet (thankfully). And the good news is – as opposed to our last camping trip – we’ve got the boys’ duffle bag of (warm) clothes packed and we’re ACTUALLY gonna put it in the car and bring it with us this time. Genius, eh? Who knew?! The packed clothes work MUCH BETTER if you BRING THEM WITH YOU!

(Whooo! I’m a little punchy in my fatigue. Pardonnez-moi).

We’ve had a big couple of days too. In addition to packing for 7 nights ‘o camping fun, I also went to an ultrasound yesterday AND we went to the park this morning so Mia and the boys could meet for the first time. The ultrasound was amazing yesterday. It’s definitely different being a spectator and not the one experiencing the warmish goo-gel slide across your belly. There’s still something very surreal about the whole experience and I know that really, until that baby is in our arms and coming home with us, it won’t sink in that this is all happening. Baby right now weighs 2.5lbs. (at 26 weeks) which is awesome considering when I went into preterm labor with Zachary at 28 weeks he JUST weighed 2.5lbs. Mia will likely have no problem growing this baby – apparently Mia and her half-siblings were all BIG babies. Mia’s 7 year-old half-sister weighed TWELVE (yes, 12) pounds. The doctor actually induced Mia’s mom lest she end up having a 15 pound baby. AND this amazing/crazy/poor woman had all of her children naturally! (I didn’t do that and my bebes were only five pounds! Really, I shoulda/coulda just sneezed ‘em out).

We got some amazing photos from the ultrasound (and if I was savvy and had the energy or just had the time and asked Mike to do it, I’d scan and post them for you….but it’ll have to wait). And we saw the baby yawn! She looks freakishly gorgeous even in the womb! (Just sayin’).

So, this morning, as I said, we went to Green Lake for the boys and Mia to meet. Really, the boys could not have behaved better/more cute (cutely? That’s really a word!?) had we bribed them (which for the record, we hadn’t). Well, no I take that back, we did say that after we went to the park we needed to go to the grocery store where they could have a cookie (but that wasn’t contingent on good behavior. It was contingent on whether or not the bakery was handing out free cookies). ANYway, they WERE insanely cute. Like bizarrely/abnormally sweet with one another. At one point, Zachary was on the merry-go-round, and Matthew hopped on next to him. When Z noticed M, he lit up, grinning from ear-to-ear and threw his arms around Matthew in a tight hug. They proceeded to ride the merry-go-round together all brotherly-embraced. It was adorable (and again, slightly abnormal. I’m a little concerned). They really have been playing well together the last couple of days though. They even asked me tonight (as I double-checked their packed clothes): “Mom, can you please leave? We need to focus on playing.” (I reminded them that my getting their duffle bag ready for camping WAS actually fairly important and they could try to focus while pretending I wasn’t there).

Mia said the boys were just like the pictures she saw of them “cute and genuinely happy.” I like that description of us. I’ll keep it. I hope that by the end of week-long camping we’ll still be cute (though dirty) and genuinely happy!