Happy New Year

As we close the last few hours of 2008, I reflect on the past 365 days and am so amazed at how blessed I am. During our Bible story with the kids tonight, I looked over my beautiful family and thought, "Wow! I have three adorable kids and one amazingly handsome husband." God just continues to shower our family in spite of the dorky things I do at times!

As I type this, I can hear the pops of nearby fireworks. Like the excitement a child exudes while watching bursting fireworks, so am I as I look at the coming year. Some new and exciting adventure has awaited our family with each passing year. Five years of marriage have been jam packed with so many happy memories that I can't even count them. So I sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation. Where will my family join God this year? What lessons will I learn? What new friends will I meet? What new memories will I make? Will Hannah finally be potty trained? :) I guess time will tell!

Happy New Year and may God shower you with blessings in 2009!

2 month appointment

I took Rebecca in for her 2 month appointment this morning. Our little Bec Speck has turned into a chunk of lead. Chad has repeatedly referenced my "super milk" for all three of our kids as they sprouted through their first years.

The youngest is no exception. Her weight today was a whopping 13 pounds 8 ounces (94%) with a length of 23-3/4 inches (88%). Even her tiny little head has grown to 15-1/2 inches (62%). She is already in size 2 diapers and some 6 month outfits.

Here are some pictures we took over the weekend. I was fixing the bow on her dress and she just snoozed away on the couch.




After church, she gave us some dazzling smiles. Please ignore the spit up that occurred just before Daddy took the picture. :) And don't you just love the hair that stands up on top of her head? It has done it since the day she was born. I learned from a friend that I can take that section of hair and just clip a bow to it. Amazing how such a hideous style on an adult can look absolutely darling on a newborn!!

Emerging Personalities

In spite of the difficulties that come with having two toddlers in the house, they can also be such a joy to observe. It is during these early years that their personalities start emerging and some cute little quirks appear.

Hannah has begun to develop strong relationships with all her "friends," which include Piglet, Penny, Mickey, and about a dozen other stuffed animals. Don't even try to tell her that they aren't real because she simply won't believe you. This morning, Chad and I heard her through her monitor calling out to Piglet when she woke up. Upon obviously finding him, she then sang to him. It was so incredibly sweet.

Here are Penny and Piglet. They may appear to be the same doll, but only to the untrained eye.

Next, we have Zachary. My energetic sweetie who loves cars and trains and won't listen to you even if the house is burning down. Did I mention that we are having his hearing tested in January? Seriously. He is getting better, but the boy will drive you nuts with his amazingly selective hearing and his unusual language that resembles Ewoks.

Here is his newest trick. He laughs over and over upon doing this. If Hannah wouldn't interfere, it would be hours of fun.

I try to treasure these moments because they can be so fleeting. It is hard to believe that my oldest will be four before long and that my youngest is already two months old. What a joy and a privilege it is to be a mother!

Live for Christ

I am constantly amazed, outraged, and sickened by the news reports regarding children. I believe such horrible reports are not exactly new, but are easier to spread with the expansion of the Internet. And perhaps these reports did not bother me so much before I became a mother and before I sought to deepen my walk with the Lord. I am so saddened that our world has methodically removed God leaving behind a chaotic mess with no morals in sight.

Just yesterday, we were studying Proverbs 6 which talks about some things that God hates. Yes, you heard correctly. God does hate some things. This passage is contrasted with Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells us things that God loves. Time and again, our Lord commands us to preserve life, among other things.

If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, be bold for Him! Be in the world, but not of it. Allow God to shine through you. As Paul says in the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, be imitators of the Lord and let your faith in God be known everywhere!

Rejoice in the Lord and do not be afraid to live for Him!

Hannah's New Room

Hannah spent the night with Mamaw and Paw Paw Friday night so Daddy got busy and painted her room. I gave Hannah a few color choices, but I rejected her first choice of green and accepted the second choice of purple (to match the Dora lamp!). Since this room will eventually be for both of the girls, I chose a light purple to match the curtains and the few decorations that are already in place.

Here is Daddy after painting the last stroke.


The room turned out pretty good!



We moved her furniture to make more play room until the crib joins the room some time next year.

I find that I keep going into the room and staring at the walls with envy. Hannah's room was the first we decided to tackle in our bland white-walled home. Our hope is to paint a room every two or three months. With three small kids, I think that's a pretty lofty goal!!

Sick Kids and Trips

I have learned so much in the last week. First and foremost, I have learned that if a child throws up in the least amount and you were planning on a trip out of town, just go ahead and cancel the trip. If I had heeded my own advice, we could have avoided the troubling Thanksgiving that dropped in our laps.

It started the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I heard of some illnesses going around in the schools, but since our kids are not in the school system yet and don't have much contact with other children, I really didn't think about it. Plus I am just trying to keep up with my busy household so I don't have a lot of room right now to think about, well, anything! When Hannah threw up a little at lunch that day, I thought she probably ate something that disagreed with her. Both Hannah & Zach are prone to doing that, so no big deal in my book.

So then we move on to Tuesday. Packing arrangements have been going very smoothly for me and I ask Chad if he would like to leave for Mississippi on Wednesday instead of Thursday so we can be with his family there before the holiday. He was getting off early and has some extra time off so it's a go. Great! So I get busy packing for three kids.

Wednesday morning dawns and I go up to get Zach from his bed only to find him covered in vomit. It was all over him, his pillow, fitted sheet, cover, blanket, and one doll. Nice. Does that deter me? No. When I get set on a mission, I don't always recognize all the symptoms of that message that says, "Hello, dummy, will you just notice me?" I kept packing and watched Zachary through the morning. He would throw up and then just run around playing and laughing. He never had a fever and he simply didn't look sick to me!

After lengthy discussions, Chad and I decided to go ahead and leave at naptime after Zach had gone a couple of hours and kept some food down. We drove for just over an hour and Zach threw up everywhere. He and his car seat were completely covered. I had some spare clothes and changed him and we drove back home in holiday traffic, taking a lot longer to get home that it had taken to get to that spot! So now we have needlessly used up the few hours left of Chad's PTO plus I had to get out the car seat instructions so I could figure out how to remove the seat cover and clean it. We called it a day and decided to try it again the on Thursday.

Thursday dawned beautifully with no fevers (still) and no vomitting. Yippee! Off we went, meeting some family in Tyler for lunch and getting to Papaw's a little before bed time. All was great until Chad told me around 1:00 that Zach had thrown up again. Ugh.

And so the weekend went. Hannah got the virus next. Then me. Then Chad. Mercifully, Rebecca and Papaw never got it. But poor Pop Pop and Nana did.

So we traveled and descended upon the relatives with sick kids, crashed the party, and then spread our germs all around. We have become the relatives that everyone dreads. My absolute worst nightmare!!! So this will be the Thanksgiving I am choosing to forget. The only thing I am going to vouch to remember is my hard lesson on sick kids and trips.

Smiles Fix Everything

For the last week, my hubby has been talking about the beautiful quick smiles he had been receiving from Rebecca. Her official "first smile" was recorded on Sunday when she definitely returned his smile not once but twice in a row. I missed it being across the room.

The last few weeks have been a challenge for me as I deal with sleep deprivation and volunteer responsibilities. Don't get me wrong. I love both (okay, not the actual sleep deprivation, but the reason for it), but they can wear you down. Add to that a recent situation I have to address and you have a stressed out tired mommy.

God knew exactly what I needed. This afternoon I put H & Z down for naps and settled down to feed Rebecca. She gazed intently at me as I smiled and spoke to her. Then I got a big beautiful smile just for me. Not once, not twice, but three times in a row! I just boo hooed over her sweet little head.

At times, I have experienced how life can feel so pressing and fires can seem so overwhelming. It is incredibly important to recognize the many blessings that come your way. Something as simple as the first smile from your baby can just brighten the whole day. Just think if I had missed that little blessing. Sometimes a smile can fix everything. :)

Naps

Naps are just the bomb. Why do we ever decide to get rid of them? Daddy snapped this on Tuesday while I crashed with baby girl in the afternoon. My nap only lasted about 15 minutes, but oh what bliss!

Can I skip this age?

What is it about age three that makes them impulsively disobey? Here are some examples:

Scenario 1: Child is licking a foam block
Command: Take the block out of your mouth
Response: Immediately bite the block, leaving chew marks

Scenario 2: Child has xylophone mallet in mouth
Command: Take that out of your mouth
Response: Immediately run out of room - with choking hazard still in mouth

Scenario 3: Child is getting a tissue, wiping nose a few times, and throwing it away
Command: Please don't waste the tissues
Response: Immediately pull two tissues from box, almost touch face with them, and shove them in the trash can

Scenario 4: Child has a poopy diaper
Command: Let's go get a diaper change
Response: "No, Zachary made poop." Child runs out of room.

Anybody want a 3-year-old for a few months?

Time Flies

They say time flies when you're having fun, but I think it really flies when you have three young children. When I realized last night that we were going to church the next morning, I paused and thought, gee, didn't I just go a few days ago? Nope. The calendar confirmed that seven days had actually passed.

I can't believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas are but weeks away. Hannah keeps asking when we are going to put up our Christmas tree and I was able to tell her it would just be a few weeks! We put our tree up around Thanksgiving since we have a beautiful gi-normous pre-lit tree. We still won't be able to use all my lovely breakable ornaments, but there's no expiration date on them. They will be just as lovely after all my babies are past the break-it-somewhat-on-purpose stage.

Some updates on the last week. We went to Scare on the Square with my mom last Friday night. Zach really could've cared less, but Hannah figured out the whole system and it didn't take long for her to start muscling her way in to get candy from all the shops. While walking with the stroller, I turned funny and pulled something in my hips so we delayed our trip to the zoo on Saturday. Instead, we will try for this coming weekend. Saturday night brought the time change and with it came two toddlers who still wake up with the sun. Did you notice the sun is up at 6:30 now? They did. But they also don't mind going to bed around 8:30 so mommy is good with that! Now if I could only get the newest addition to agree to that time then I wouldn't look like a raccoon every day. Daddy keeps busy with lots of meetings for church. He also returned to work on Wednesday much to the chagrin of Mommy. But two weeks and one day were a huge blessing.

Which reminds me, the big appointment for the kids was on Tuesday. Miraculously, Daddy's office gave him one extra day of paternity leave and he was able to go with us. What a wonderful gift that was! Hannah was great for her shot - didn't even cry! Zach was not so great. I had to pin him down and he screamed his head off. And can you believe that they weighed the two older ones and they are only a pound and a half different? They really look like twins right now. Rebecca chimed in with her own screams plus bled all over the place after her PKU (heel prick). The sweet nurse just had to keep sopping up the blood which got all over me, Rebecca, and anything within heel-flinging radius. The good news was that Rebecca is gaining nicely at 9 pounds, 0.5 ounces and has gotten a smidge longer. Still has a tiny head and beautiful baby blue eyes. She has been sleeping between Mommy and Daddy but is about to graduate to the pack-n-play by the bed.

So we are busy but happy. Our church family has kept us well fed. I guess I'll have to remember how to cook this week!

Get out and vote!!

We cast our votes today! Have you? Your voice has never meant as much at the polls as it will in this election. Get out and vote!!!

Trunk or Treat

The kids got to experience their first Trunk or Treat up at the church tonight. It was so much fun to dress Hannah up as a princess. She very excitedly put on all the play necklaces we could find and was so proud to wear her tiara and carry her wand. Zach looked so darling in his Tigger costume, but he wasn't very enthusiastic about it! They got some yummy candy (which Hannah immediately wanted to eat) and Mommy and Daddy got a stash of not-suitable-for-tots candy too!

Welcome Baby Rebecca!

The birth of a baby is truly amazing, no matter how it arrives. My sweet Rebecca chose to make her appearance early morning on the 21st and I am still basking in her speedy arrival. Here is my birth story . . .

As I have mentioned before, I had some false labor Sunday morning. I knew labor was some time in the next few days, but the false starts are still annoying. With each of my babies, I think "get it over, already!" But they have their purposes in making the actual event much easier on your body, so I grudgingly accept them.

Monday 8:00 pm. Some strong short contractions started up again. Since they were only 15-30 seconds long, I dismissed them as Braxton-Hicks and excused myself from putting the kids to bed. I'll just lay down and these will go away, I thought to myself. Chad came to our room some time after 9:00 and I puttered around a little, feeling a little frantic to get everything in its place then decided to rest again. Hmm.

10:28 pm. Chad decided to start timing the contractions, which were waking me up violently, lasting for less than 30 seconds, and coming every 3-5 minutes. I would lapse back into sleep between them, so I wasn't really aware of time passing. Finally, I decided we should call Jeanean and see what we could do to make these things stop. Duhhhhh. Less than a minute of talking with Jeanean and she announced I was in labor, should try to take a shower to encourage the contractions to last longer, then head to the hospital. Chad called Mom to tell her to come on. Then I stood up. Whoa, Nelly! "I'm further along than I thought," I said to Chad. "Call Donna!" Donna is our dear friend in town who arrived in about five minutes so we didn't have to wait for Mom to drive 40 minutes to us. A few minutes after Donna arrived, off we went. Once we got to the Interstate, Chad turned on the flashers and hit about 90 the whole way. Our 35 minute trip to the hospital took 20 minutes!

11:40 pm. After checking in at the ER and talking with Dumb and Dumber (okay, not kind, but that's my pregnant memory's recollection), I was wheeled to my room, poked, prodded, and checked. "You're at 7 centimeters." What??? They assured me Jeanean was on her way and I told them she better hurry. True to her word, Jeanean arrived within 30 minutes and took charge, allowing me to get off the monitors and walk around the room. I sat on my birthing ball all of two or three contractions and decided that was a bad place to be. So I got back on the bed on my left side.

12:40 pm. I had about five contractions on the bed before my water broke. I almost popped open one eye to look at the clock, but forgot all about it when the next contraction slammed into me. Next thing I know, I am hollering that I am pushing and I have this sinking sensation that everyone has left me. Sure enough, Chad has disappeared from his post, Jeanean calls from across the room that it's okay, and nurses are scurrying around the room. Hello, does anyone remember that I'm over here with a head popping out?? Turns out they did. My sweet husband had decided to take the plunge and "catch the baby" so he was putting on his gown. Everyone else was, of course, doing their jobs!

12:53 pm. After pushing for just a few minutes, out came this beautiful little girl and her daddy softly laid her on my chest. There are just no words to describe that moment that don't bring tears to my cheeks. After that quiet moment, she let out a holler and announced her presence.

Of the three, this was the best delivery. She caused me the least pain both before and during delivery. After the delivery is a whole other topic. Those who have had multiple births know what I'm talking about! It was such a joy to have the same incredible woman deliver all of my big beautiful babies. If you don't know about Certified Nurse Midwives, let me just tell you that the experience is totally awesome - all of the wonderful aspects of a midwife but in the safety of a hospital.

So now I close a chapter of my life and open a new one. Goodbye to birthing babies (yes, that was our last) and hello to the wild and exciting life as the mother of three under the age of four!

One week appointment

Due to some extra blood tests she had, Rebecca had a one week appointment today. She passed with flying colors. Jaundice is gone, blood tests are all terrific and weight is up to 8 lbs 5 oz. Next appointment is 11/4 and I'll be taking all three kids . . . by myself. Chad will be back to work and the two older ones need their flu shots. One mom, three kids, multiple needles. Pray for me . . .

She's Here!

So this has taken me several days to write, but this child sure has taken me down for the count! Rebecca arrived Tuesday morning in the wee hours after less than 5 hours in labor. I am working on my birth story to post later plus will send out Snapfish pictures soon. She is absolutely beautiful with a head full of hair. She was 8.28 pounds and 21-1/4 inches. But with all that weight and length, she still looks smaller to me than the other two at birth and I can hardly find any newborn clothes that don't swallow her up!

~

I had my first outing this morning and went to the worship service. Well, the first 30 minutes or so. Then little miss got hungry, took her sweet time, fussed a bit, and I ended up chatting with some ladies in the nursery. Still, the female companionship was terrific and it was wonderful to get out of the house even if it did wear me out.

~

I'm off to change a diaper and hopefully get a nap!

False Alarm

False alarms. I really hate them. My third pregnancy and you'd think I would recognize true and false labor. Sunday morning at 5:45, I started having hard contractions that came every 12 minutes. Just when we were going to make the call and get all the balls rolling, the contractions stopped as quickly as they had begun. I had mild ones for hours, but the drama had ended. I was left feeling slightly dejected for the rest of the day. It's like being pumped up for the big game and then being told the game has been cancelled.

So here I am on the morning of the 4th day of my 39th week. She is not very active today. Perhaps she is gathering her strength, like the calm before a storm.

Hannah's Stuff

Hannah has a pile of dolls and debris that she commonly refers to as her "stuff." The contents of the pile change, though some constants remain (there will always be Piglet and Mickey) and now the way she presents her stuff also changes. Here is an example: lately she is piling the shopping cart full, then Daddy brings it downstairs and she distributes it. This week, the bottom steps became the hot spot. She has so many quirks. Poor kid - she's taking after her Mommy!

Visit to the Fire Station

I decided to venture out with the kids on Thursday morning and attend our MOPS meeting. I am so glad that I did because we had some great mom conversation while the kids played at our friend Donna's house. Then we all went to the Gunter Fire Station and the kids got to climb on fire trucks and see Donna put on all

her gear. It was kind of scary for some of them (especially when she sounded like Darth Vader), but they all got past their fears and really paid attention. Even the 2-year-olds did a pretty good job of listening! The kids had an absolute blast and Hannah asked me today when we were going back!

39 Week Appointment

I had my 39 week appointment on Thursday. Sadly, no changes. I am still 1 cm and still getting bigger by the hour (or so it seems). My next appointment is on Wednesday and it's a doosey. I have to take a stress test and have a sonogram to make sure all is still going a-okay in there. Let's pray that I don't have to attend that 2-hour appointment!!!

Full Moon - Yeah, Whatever!

I have come to the conclusion that my babies just like to cook and cook and cook. I will be 39 weeks on Thursday and so far nothing I have done to speed up the process has worked. It may work for some mommies, but then again, perhaps they were getting ready to pop anyway! So I just keep on going, though I am much slower than I used to be. If you call me and I sound like I am half-asleep . . . I probably am!!

Enter the Blogging Newbie

After much pondering (as I am proned to do), I finally decided to have my own blogging spot. I must admit that I am a novice on all this and will certainly learn much as I go. All I know right now is I am 38-1/2 weeks pregnant and ready to be a mommy of three!

Chad and the kids went to Canton this weekend while my mom and sister treated me to an incredibly awesome house cleaning and lunch. The kids had a blast at a local pumpkin patch and mommy got a much needed break. So my house is clean, my bag is packed, and I am ready for Rebecca to make her appearance. There is a full moon on Tuesday . . . bring it on!