No School!

We have taken the past few weeks off from school.  While I miss the structure and the time we spend gathered at our table, I thought it would be rough to try to learn academics with all that the boys have been doing.  We've done some fun things, though!  Like....


Busch Gardens!

 

Then, we stayed at a hotel and went to a place filled with trampolines and apple picking.

 

Obviously, a good time was had by all.  We can't wait to go again.  I love spending time with my little family.

 

After our family getaway, the boys tried their own little trip without mommy and daddy.  My parents took them to visit my sister in North Carolina.  T had a great time, L was ready to come home.   In fact, he threw such tantrums that they came home two days early.  J and I planned to go through our entire house, top to bottom, and clean, purge, and organize.  We got through a lot of stuff, but we have a lot left.  Sigh.  Oh well.  Someday, we will have a nice, clean, organized home.  When that day comes, I think I'll miss the excitement and joy young kids bring.  It would be nice if I could have both, though.  A clean house and young, joy-filled kids ;-)

 

Now that we've had a couple weeks off, I'm debating whether to hit the books again, or to work more on chores.  A certain child has a really hard time cleaning up after himself and doing things on his own.  Even things like getting dressed.  Part of me is thinking that I need to take this time to teach them more how to take care of their things (this goes back to my frustration over my house). 

 

Letter B! And a 7 Month Old.

We worked on the letter B last week.  I decided it would be easier to blog our whole week in one post.  Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of everything we did, but I'll share some of our fun things.  So here we go!

This week, I introduced journaling.  We "wrote" a lot about the BEACH (my favorite place to be!).  The way we did this was by having the boys color a picture and then telling me exactly what words to write down.  I encouraged them to use full sentences, which was hard at times, but I think they will catch on quickly.  T LOVES journaling.

 

 L worked on squares.

 

T fed the Bunny some carrots.  I would write a number on the bunny's belly and he gave the bunny that many carrots.

 

L sorted Bugs by color.  This was his favorite activity and he has taken them out several times since. (He really does where clothes sometimes.  I promise.  Lol)

 

 We did a few other things, too (but don't have pics of on my computer...).  The best game of the week was Balloon Blast!  I wrote numbers and shapes on the sidewalk and let the boys throw water balloons at whatever number/shape I called out.  We also made butterflies out of capital B's and tissue paper. (This is not my picture, but this is the project. Here's the website it came from)
Princess had her first play date, complete with dress up!  Oh my, how adorable are these two together???  And what makes these BFF's even better is that they have very similar names.  As in, almost identical.  I see lots of fun (and confusion) between these two as the years go by.

 And one more picture, because my sweet little princess is growing up!  7 months old!  Already?!?  Her big accomplishments are 3 teeth, all along the bottom (with more coming), she's crawling, pulling up on things, and responding to her name.  She is probably the most popular kid on the planet because she smiles at anyone who looks at her.  It's fun walking through a store or church because everyone ooo's and aaah's over her and she EATS IT UP.  She has started on solid food and LOVES it.  I mean absolutely loves it!!!  We are slow to introduce things because I want her breast fed as much as possible, but so far she's tried peas, banana, apple, and mushy carrots.  When she eats, she always says, "ummm mmm mmm ummmmmm."  Oh, another big accomplishment this past month is that she now sleeps in her own room instead of Mommy and Daddy's room.  She does great in there.  She's so much like her biggest brother.

Let's get back to meal plans!

Princess C will be a month old tomorrow.  Tomorrow!!!  A month!  Wow, how did that happen???  Anyway, now that she's been here for a month, it's time for us to start cooking for ourselves again.  We are eating our last freezer meal tonight and meals from friends have stopped (but I have been beyond blessed with almost two full weeks of meals from people!).  I really don't want my family eating out a ton, and even if I did, we are very limited with our food allergies...especially now that the Princess is having reflux and we have decided to see if cutting dairy from my diet (which will take it out of my breast milk).  So, it's time to start planning meals.

1. Meatloaf tonight.  Our last freezer meal :)
2. Ground Beef Shepherd's Pie  I have not tried this recipe, but we already have all of the ingredients so I'm going to make it.  Hope it's good!
3. Pot Roast in the crock pot, because I love my crock pot.
4. Hamburgers on the grill.
5. Either chicken tacos or chicken taquitos.  I'll probably decide which one at the last minute.
6. DH's bean, ground beef, and (dairy free) cheese meal.  It's not my favorite, but he loves it.  Plus he will be the one to make it!  Whoop whoop!

I'll end this post with a picture of my beautiful daughter.  I have a DAUGHTER!!!!   Yay!

Our Princess!!!

Our princess was born last week, almost two weeks ago now.  I wrote out her birth story for my facebook friends but decided I wanted it written on my blog, too.  But I think I'll just copy and paste it since my time on the computer is really limited these days.  These three miracles are keeping me BUSY and it's wonderful!  (Baby girl is C)

Princess’s birth story: I decided to go ahead and write this out.  Warning, it is about birth, so don’t read if it grosses you out J  I’ll try to make it short.  Contractions started at 1:30am.  They were not bad but I couldn’t sleep through them so I got up and cleaned the bathroom (looking back, it’s kind of funny since that’s where she was born!).  Around 2:30am, I woke J up and told him I thought I was in labor.  He got up with me and we tried timing them, but still, not consistent at all.  Doctors generally have you come in when contractions are 5 minutes apart, last a minute, and go on like that for an hour.   Some of mine were 2 minutes apart, some were 10.  Some lasted 30 seconds, some got close to a minute.  They stayed that way all morning long.  Around 6:30am, I was beyond frustrated that labor wasn’t progressing at all.  I was tired and wanted it to all be over, but it seemed like I had a looong way to go since the contractions still were not consistent.  I talked to my mom, complained a lot about how frustrated I was, and told her we would drop the boys off at her house once L woke up but that I didn’t think it was any rush.  We got off the phone, I laid down in bed and had the worst contraction of my life (I’ve had both boys without pain meds, but this was by far the worst).  It was awful.  My water broke and the contraction went on forever.  Once it finally stopped, J called my mom and told her she needed to get to our house quickly.  Before he was off the phone, I was screaming to call 911 (by this point, I had moved to the bathroom).  He asked me if I was sure, thought I might be overreacting, but did it anyway.  As he came up the stairs, I heard him telling the operator that I was in labor and felt like the baby was coming, but he wanted to make sure.  As he came into the bathroom, he could already see her head.  The 911 operator told him he needed to get me off the toilet and lying down.  I told him I couldn’t move.   She told him again he had to get me off and lying down.  I refused.  After some back and forth, he put her on speaker phone and the phone on the counter, then picked me up and stood me on the ground  (feel free to laugh.  Looking back, I see how ridiculous this was, but at the time, I couldn’t do it!).  I still couldn’t move and yelled at the poor lady on the phone when she tried insisting I lay down.  There wasn’t time for that and I honestly could.not.move. from all the pain.  C’s head was already out.  She told J to make sure her cord wasn’t wrapped around her neck and to expect the rest of her body to come out in the next couple of contractions, but before she finished her sentence, C was out.  I was finally able to lay down and follow her directions J J wrapped C in a towel, I laid down on the floor, and waited for the firemen, who took care of everything else.  They took me to the hospital, where both C and I looked perfectly healthy.  She weighed in at 7lbs even (half a pound smaller than her preemie brother!), 19 inches, and they are guessing she was born at 6:57, although I’m not sure how they figured that out?  She’s a peanut and absolutely perfect!  A lot of people have asked where the boys were during all of this.  Well, thankfully L was still asleep (he woke up as the firemen rushed into my room).  T was playing ipad on my bed when water broke and told J, “Yep, I think you’re right Dad.  The baby is coming today.”  He is too funny!  J tried to keep him out of the room as best he could during the rest of it, but he kept coming back to see what was going on.  My mom got some pretty interesting questions when she was watching him, but he thought the whole thing was pretty funny.  He’s always been curious about how bodies work (not just how babies come out, but about the whole body).  Maybe he will be a doctor some day J

Weekly Goals

The Money Saving Mom suggests setting 10 weekly goals, and I've decided that's a really good idea for me to try.  Just 10 things to focus on throughout the week.  Doesn't seem too overwhelming, and since she rarely finishes all of her goals, I won't feel so bad if I don't finish all of mine (although that would be nice!  Here are my goals for this week:

1. Catch up on my Bible reading (I'm waaaaay behind...)
2. Take the boys outside at least once!  (Confession: some of these are already done!  But I'm adding them since they are on my list)
3. Finish packing my hospital bags, since this little girl will be here sometime in the next 5 weeks :-D
4. Finish prepping the prefolds I bought new.  They have to be washed in hot water a few times before they work well.
5. Start freezer cooking!  We don't have a ton of room in our freeze, but I think this is important since we won't be able to accept food from our church food ministry.  Yay food allergies :-/
6. Install car seat!  We still don't have one.  Yikes!  But I'm picking it up from my friend tomorrow, if all works out.
7. Birthday dinner out with my hubby's family.  Did I mention my hubby turned 30???  What an old man, lol.  This is another one I'm done with already.  We went to a place I hate, but J loves.  I ate something that was ok, and then a few hours later, got hit badly with stupid food poisoning!  It. Was. AWFUL.
8. Pay our first of three HOA fees.
9. Finish Thank You cards for my baby shower.
10. This week, I have set a goal to turn off ALL electronics for the morning.  We can have them until breakfast, and then they go off until nap time.  This is mostly to help me focus on the important things (my kids...) instead of constantly checking my texts and facebook.  It's also to help the boys learn to do things other than play on the iPad or watch TV.  They've become just as addicted as I am....  NOT good.

So there you have it.  My goals.  Overall, I'm doing...ok on them.  Like I said, I got sick, really sick, yesterday so some of them went out the window.  Like the electronics goal.  All of us watched tv a lot yesterday.  But Daddy was in charge of the boys and I don't like to tell him how he needs to parent.  I was just happy he was here so I didn't have to do anything other than lay in bed and be sick.  I'll try to remember to update on how my week went and write down next week's goals in a few days.

Side note before I sign off.  Tomorrow I reach 35 weeks!  That means I have 35 days until my due date (tomorrow).  One week until the time Luke was born, 2 weeks until I am full term, who knows how long until this princess makes her debut :-D  Exciting stuff.  Ok, now I'm off to try to reach my goal of getting caught up on my Bible reading, at least a little bit!

New Year, New Goals!

Quick update: Baby looks good and I am no longer considered high risk!  Praise the Lord!  Thanks for all of the prayers through that rough journey.  I'm so happy to be on this side of it and not at risk for anything terrible happening.

We've set a few goals for this year, and I thought it would be a good idea to write them down somewhere.  I picked here.  If they are online, maybe I'll feel the need to stick to them.  Last year's goals kind of went out the window when we found out baby #3 was coming.  I had things on there like run the army 10 miler, pay off our car, things like that.  I have never run 10 miles before and didn't feel like it would be a good idea to train while pregnant, and instead of paying off our car, we traded it in for a minivan.  I'm ok with it :)  I'd rather have this little girl than meet all of our goals last year.  This year, though, it would be nice if I can get some of our goals met.  So, with all that said, here they are:

1. Have a healthy, full term baby!  This one is obviously up to God and out of my control, but I'm putting it on here anyway :)
2. Run a race.  At this point, I just want to run one.  I don't need to do the 10 miler this year, although I'd really like to try to get to that point.  If I can do a 5k, I will be happy.
3. MAJOR declutter.  We have way too much stuff.  I want to get rid of a lot of it and learn to live more simply.  There is just no reason why I need to keep every little thing.  I'm happy to add to this one that J and I have made some great progress already this year!  We spent New Year's Day going through stuff and getting a lot of things together to give away.  I have two friends coming over today to look through it and see if there is anything they want for their babies/families.  Whatever is left is going to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.  I would prefer to try to sell it in a yard sale, but at this point, I'm just anxious to get it out of my house.
4. Contribute a certain amount to my kids' college funds.  My dad has been faithful about giving us money for them, but we haven't been able to add as much as he has.  This year, our goal is to match what he gives.
5. We also want to tithe more.  This is something we used to be really good at, but the past year or two, haven't given as much as we would like.
6. Our last goal for this year is to take a family vacation just the 5 of us (5...EEK!  We're going to be a family of 5)!  Right now, we are thinking either Great Wolfe Lodge, Busch Gardens, or possible make a trip up to PA for Hershey, Sesame Place, or the train station where Thomas and Friends come for a visit (Strasbourg?).

So there you have it.  Our goals for this wonderful year.  I don't think I set them too high, so I'm optimistic about it all.  I'll try to update throughout the year with how we're doing on them.  For smaller, more personal goals, I have the same as always.  The big one right now is simply to eat at home more.  I'd like to eat out with my parents once a week (Sunday), out for lunch once a week, and then out as a family for dinner once a week (usually Friday or Saturday, since those are the days J is home).  I know that's still eating out more than we should, but it's a lot less than we were eating out before.  Working on a weekly meal plan has helped me out with this a lot and I plan to continue doing it.  Once I get into the hang of eating at home more, I'll move on to another small goal (cutting back on our grocery budget by learning to use coupons, shop sales, and maybe even try making more from scratch).

My Rollercoaster

It's been a LONG time since I've written on this blog, but with all the ups and downs going on right now, I kind of feel like this might be a good place to get it all out.  A lot has happened since I last posted.  Early July, I found out that... I'M PREGNANT!  YAY!!!!  Had a great ultrasound in August with a healthy baby.  September brought Fifth Disease to our family.  The boys both had it but it wasn't too bad for them.  A blood test revealed that I had it, too.  I blamed all of the symptoms on pregnancy.  "Why is my morning sickness getting worse when it should be getting better???"  "My shoulders are so sore from having to sleep on my side.  So are my hips.  Everything is sore!"  At least I know I'm not crazy ;-)  However, there can be some complications to the baby.  Because of this, I am now seeing a high risk doctor weekly for ultrasounds and to make sure baby is ok.  One benefit to all of this?  It's fun seeing our baby!  We also found out early that she's a GIRL!!!!  YAY!!!!!  My normal anatomy scan isn't for another couple of weeks, so it's fun having extra time to prepare for HER.

The bad part about all of this?  Well, there's a lot of bad parts.  I'll start with the obvious.  There is a chance, although small, that my baby girl could have complications.  If this sickness gets to her, she could stop producing red blood cells (anemia).  If she stops producing them, her heart will have to work harder to make up for the lack of them, which would cause her to go into distress.  Her organs would also fill with fluid.  She would need a blood transfusion before she is even born.  Like I said, the chance of this is small (5-10%).  I'm not TOO concerned, but enough that I feel like I need to write it all down.

Another bad thing about it is that I have to drive 45 minutes away, weekly, for these appointments.  When we found out we would soon have three kids, we upgraded to a minivan.  I LOVE my minivan, but it's not pretty filling up the gas tank.  It would be nice to just go down the street for these appointments.  On days when I can't get the early appointment, I hit rush hour on the way home.  My 45 minute drive can double.  Yuck!!!

The third bad part, and this is more something I just need to get over, is that I hate having to rely on other people all the time to take care of my boys.  I feel like a huge burden to others.  Now, everyone who I've asked to watch them seems more than happy to help, and they all assure me we are NOT an inconvenience.  Generally speaking, my boys are very well behaved (for others, at least).  Plus, I think I have enough people to watch them that I only have to ask them once a month.  I am sure it's not as bad as I make it out to be in my head, but I really stress over this.  Probably more than anything else.  I also worry about how they will do without me if I end up needing to be in the hospital for a couple days, or if I go on bed rest, I will have to rely on people even more...making me an even bigger burden on people.  (the bed rest fear is due to the fact that I had a preemie and they will be checking my dilation early, like as in, starting next week).

So basically, this is where I am right now.  So far, baby looks perfect!  She is showing absolutely no problems.  I'm trying not to worry about next week, and trusting God that He really does have this whole situation covered.  I know He does, I just need to keep trusting Him.