Our newest addition...

Well, I am here to introduce the newest Loy! He came home yesterday afternoon and so far is a really good baby. He only cried 2 times last night, thankfully!!! The kids love him to bits and can't wait for him to get older so they can play with him.



I bet you all want to see a picture of our newest little guy!!!!
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.Here he is! His name is Scout and he's 9 weeks old (fooled you didn't I?) I am STILL pregnant. hehehe

Ramblings

DH has been gone on a business trip all week and is scheduled to come home tonight. At least I hope he makes it with all the craziness at the airports! I can't believe just how strict we have to be to protect ourselves. I don't see what those terrorists think they are achieving...they die and go to hell (not heaven and no virgins!) and we just become stronger as a nation. Granted more people ARE fearful to fly again, but really how long will that last? Sometimes I don't wonder if the end times are fast approaching. I worry about the life my kids will have when they grow up. Its not safe anymore! I used to ride my bike everywhere ALONE as young as 8 yrs old and now I don't trust my kids to play in the yard without me watching. (granted at 5, 3, and 1 years old I shouldn't leave them alone anyway, but you get my drift!)

Another topic, someone decided that we didn't quite have a big enough debt on our credit card and thought it was good to add some more onto it. Yup our number was compromised and someone used it to buy about $150-$200 worth of stuff. USAA has been really helpful in everything though so I am not worried. Just makes me so mad that someone is STEALING from us!!

And another....2 out of the 3 kids are sick. This morning they woke up with coughing and drippy noses. So I gave them a round of Childrens' Cold meds and DS is sleeping it off while DD#2 is upstairs resting watching "Noggin". I think my kids LIKE getting sick only because they are allowed to lay around and watch movies all day. LOL! Its the only way to keep them quiet and resting.

Well, th-th-th-that's all folks

More canning...

Here's my latest creations: 10 jars of hot salsa! DH tried it before I canned it so I know its not horrid or anything. I have never made salsa let alone canned it so here's hoping it doesn't kill people. LOL j/k I followed the recipe exactly so it should be fine, I will put a warning label on there just in case ;-)









Also a pic of my gigantic watermelon belly. I am 33 weeks and 3 days today. I washed all of Gwen's clothes yesterday and packed her diaper bag. Now I just need to finish her room and get my bag packed!! I feel a lot of BH contractions ("braxton Hicks" aka practice contractions) so I know my bod is getting ready to pop this pup. I go back in 2 weeks and we'll see if there's any progress "down there" (if you kwim!)

Finally something to post about

I have been a busy bee lately!! Okay, for starters DD#1 started school yesterday so there was a lot of preparation to get her ready to go. Supplies to buy, clothes to find, I had to make a cover for her sleeping mat. Actually "making" should be a better word as its still 1/2 way finished in my sewing machine.

Then there's our vegetable garden. Well, we started out at the beginning of the year thinking we'd have a veggie garden. But as it turns out all we had time for were a few potted tomatoes. But they are turning out great and the tomatoes are delicious! They actually have a flavor versus the pale sickly one's at the commissary that don't taste like anything! You can see I have about 18 of 'em just sitting here waiting for...for something! :-) Actually I have discovered my canning itch and think I will make either some salsa or spaghetti sauce.

And speaking of canning, I bought 4 packs of strawberries that were on sale the other day and made these:

Some nice strawberry jam to eat, yumm!! And one final project, here I am actually KNITTING a hat for our baby-on-the-way. Which, she does have a name now! Gwendolynn Autumn, what do you think?? Anyway, here's a parting shot of Gwendolynn's hat-in-the-making...

PRESENT!

My good friend Danielle sent this package to me the other day!! Can you see the hand-made quilt? Yes, I said HAND-made! It's awesome with cute turtle flannel on the back. And a beautiful dress with matching bloomers (cute!!), a pack of onsies, a pack of sleepers, some soap, lotion, desitin, diapers, wipes, and a receiving blanket.

I can't believe how quickly this pregnancy has gone. Only 9 more weeks to go...and I still need to finish her room aaa!!!

Anyway, just though I'd share! I love you Dani!!!

31 weeks and counting

Here is the latest shot of my belly. I am 31 weeks pregnant as of today and feeling good. I am up to a whopping 170 lbs from 140 lbs starting out. My Mom is coming down for the birth, but since she's in a wheelchair she can only be away from home for a short time. So we arranged for her to fly down the day before my due date and stay until the day after. I was a bit worried, knowing that you can't really "schedule" when a baby wants to come, but I talked with my OB doc yesterday and pleaded my case and she said she would schedule me to be induced on the 21st of Sept (my due date) if I didn't have her before. So now I am praying she stays put so Mom can be there. At least I won't go 10 days late like last time!!

Anyway, my kids are playing in the backyard so I have got to go supervise...

Dang its been awhile!!

I didn't think it had been this long since my last post! Sorry! Been busy busy though! I have started to feel the pressure to get things done for Sparky (aka newest baby girl). We don't have hardly anything ready and I am scrambling. its not as easy as DD#1 was, I had an empty room and we had plenty of space for her crib and changing table and things. NOW though we have to rearrange 2 of the pre-existing 3 kiddos! I live in a 4 bedroom home and had the 2 daughters sharing a room and Bubbah all by himself. The downstairs room was a catch-all for our junk. Well, I have since moved Bubbah downstairs after getting rid of the junk in the spare room. Re painted to suit a boy's taste and everything!

Here's a "before" shot if the primer...

And here's Bubbah on his new bed in his new room. BUT those aren't his permanent sheets! I didn't pick purle floral sheets for my boy, that's just the only set of full size sheets we have!!

And since he and his belongings are out of his old room upstairs, I can get it painted and set up for Sparky and DD#2 to share. I figure DD#1 will need her own room eventually being that she's pushing 6 yrs old already!! So she will have her room to herself.

After room #2 is done I will post more pix. I have a bad habit of not poting for a month at a time but I will try to do better!

Portrait of a Mutt

Let's just say, I call this picture, "No you are NOT coming in!!" :-)

This once fluffy WHITE american eskimo decided to try and dye his hair. He was tired on all the other dogs laughing at him for being so cutsie and feminine looking. So a new look was made. Unfortunetly his choice of "dye" leaves much to be desired. Frosty calls it the "Mud look". What do you say, does he look more manly??? (imho he looks even more pathetic but don't tell him I said that! It'll give him even a BIGGER complex!)

Think Pink!

My Dh, my kids, and I were able to go get another ultra-sound *just* to see the sex of the baby and it is a girl! That makes 3 girls and one boy.....poor DH and DS are outnumbered!! (oh and the hat is one the nurse-prac makes for all the moms-to-be. She knit it not me!) She was kicking up a storm and we got to see her little legs kicking me and her mouth and eyes and of course the girl parts. :-) Everything looks good...except my weight gain seems to have sky-rocketed!!! i know I am supposed to gain weight when preggers but after 4 pregnancies it still sucks to see that scale go up and up. Makes me think of all the work I have to do to get my body somewhat back, and after 4 kids I am sure my bod won't ever be the same!

Anyway enough with my pity party here are some ultra-sound shots of the little girlie:

Of course we have the typical profile and floating fist....

And here's another profile but in this one you can see the lips and the one eye closed....cute!

Now that we know she is a she I can start really making preparations. Since we thought we were done with DS I had gotten rid of almost all my baby stuff so unfortunetly have to start from scratch. I started a Target registry for anyone that's interested email me.

Well today should be a nice day so we will have to go out and enjoy our new swing set. Yep Great-grandma gave us some money to buy the kids a swing set!! Its a really nice one so I will get some pix of the kiddos playing on it today. TTFN

The long sought-after belly shot

So I am only 3 weeks late in getting you this but here we are in all our glory! I am 24 weeks and 2 days along in this pose...what do you think??

Monday is the ultra-sound that will HOPEFULLY tell us if this is a little girl or a little boy poking me in the ribs. No solid decisions on names yet, but as I was taking a shower (where we all do our great thinking, right?!) I came up with "Constance Lois" What do you think? Constance just came to me and Lois is after Dh's grandma. Anyway, that's just a thought.

My friend Allena asked me to test a pattern for a granny square purse. Its VERY easy and very cute so if you would like to purchase the pattern or a bag, please contact her!! Its supposed to be in 2 diff colors but I needed to get rid of this skein and My daughter loves yellow so I stuck with that. The fabric on the right is what I plan to sew on the inside as a liner, as soon as I figure out how to sew on something crocheted that is!!

Anyway my kids are making this awful banging noise upstairs so I'd better go see what they are breaking now....

Ultra-sound pic (finally)

Here's a pic of the baby they gave me during my ultra-sound on the 9th! It was supposed to be a pic of the face, but all they could get was the skull!! Oh well, close enough anyway....I think there's a foot on the right of the pic too.

So anyway, here it is for those that want to see. They said the baby is about a pound now so its getting BIG!

Alone Again...

DH had to go out of town for work and won't be back until Monday. So here I am alone with the kiddos this weekend. Hmmm now what do to get us out of the house so we don't drive each other nuts?? :-) I actually drove by a small street carnival just setting up yesterday so I might take the kids to that this weekend. You know one of those cheapie scary set-up-in-2-days carnival?? If we go I will try to get a pic or 2.

I had an ultra-sound on the 9th to check the growth of the baby. They said everything looked good except they couldn't get a good view of the heart valves so they have to do another u/s (ultra-sound) in 6 weeks. The tech tried to see the sex of the baby and couldn't get a real good look at that either but she *thought* it might be a girl. So for now I am thinking pink, but we shall see. Another girl.....wow. I had hoped it would be a brother for DS but both my girls have wanted another baby sister. I wil be happy either way, I just pray God gives me lot's of grace if it is a girl!! When they all hit their teens it'll be trouble!

DD#1's last day of K-4 is tomorrow. She's excited to be getting bigger and is already looking forward to K-5 and telling me all the supplies we need to get for her! LOL Can you tell the girl loves school?? :-) I will be homeschooling DD#2 through preschool this coming year and we'll enroll her in the Christian school when she's 4. Saves a little money and I like to keep them close as long as possible!

Umm....not much else going on around here. Just yard work, I am thinking of planting a strawberry patch for the girls while DH is out of town. Something to keep us busy anyway.

I will leave you with some parting shots of my DDs with their butterfly garden. They got a kit and were sent some live catterpillers in the mail. They grew the catterpillers and saw them turn into cocoons and eventually into "Painted Lady" butterflies. Here they are releasing them (the directions said Painted Lady Butterflies are indiginous to almost all of the US so we could let them go in our yard).

Another pile of laundry

Today there is nothing going on, I mean nothing. Chores chores and then pick up DD#1 from school, and then make dinner, clean up and bed. That's the jist of my day today. I don't have too much to report but I figured I need to leave something for my audience to read.

Baby is doing fine, I have a prenatal appt on Thursday (routine) and then an ultra-sound on the following Monday. Not to find out the sex of the baby (Army policy says the ultra-sound tech can't tell me) but to measure the baby's growth and whatnot. If I want to find out the sex, I have to wait and schedule another ultra-sound with a civilian tech who works for the Army there at the hospital. apparently, she doesn't fall under the same rules as the enlisted technicans do. I am hoping its a boy so send me plenty of boy dust! *~*~*~

DH is doing alright, chugging along trying to finish his bachelors degree. He's usually bogged down with 3-7 hours of homework on any given day (and that's AFTER a 12 hour workday!) So we hardly see him anymore.

DD#1 had a sleepover at her gymnastics studio this past Saturday. They stayed up until midnight playing games and having fun. But poor thing looked like a zombie when I picked her up!! I remember staying up like that....now I swear I am too old to stay up past 11!!!

DD#2 loves gymnastics as well. That's all she talks about and I am thinking of letting them go twice a week as school is getting out soon for summer break and I don't have to pay for DD#1's lunches for school. Of course then there's swim lessons to consider too!

DS is fine. Apparently a dare-devil too! We have a corner shelf by one end of the kitchen counters. DS figured out how to use them as a ladder and DH caught him wandering around on the counter yesterday!!! Talk about scary! Now I have to find a new spot for that shelf before Bubbah get's up there and falls and busts his head open!

Another note, I am still planting in the front yard, when its done I will post a few pix, but right now it doesn't look like much.

TTYL

Ahhh nature...

There's a really cool nature preserve by our house and this past weekend DH was actually available to go do something with the fam. So we loaded everyone in the truck and went for a walk around the park's lake and saw some waterfalls

The lake isn't very big but it looks promising for the fam to go fishing some day. There's a trail that goes around the whole thing and so we decided, what the heck. Unfortunately, there are a ton of steps and we had the double seated jogger stroller with us for the 2 younger ones. Soooo DH and I each had to take an end and carry this thing up and down these steps. Can we say WORKOUT?! :-) Anyway, while we were huffin and puffin these steps, DD#1 spies 3 turtles basking in the sun (one got bashful and dove out of sight)

And don't mind the yucky water...it's mud from run-off after like 2 days straight of torrential rain.

So DH and I biceps bulging, made it through the steps around the lake and head towards the cascades. A beautiful day, birds singing, wild flowers everywhere and the nice white noise of the rushing water. i could have stayed there all day if I had the chance.

When we get to the cascades I of course whip out the camera for some family pix... Here's my sexy man with the 3 munchkins:

And here's me with the kiddos (a not-so-happy Bubbah):

It's just amazing that God could make all of this earth just as beautiful if not MORE *just* for our enjoyment and His. I mean, how can you NOT appreciate the Maker when you see His handy-work everywhere?

TTFN

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone out there in blogland is having a great Easter! This is the day we celebrate the resuurection of our Lord Jesus Christ! The tomb was empty hallelujah!

Last night the girls and I decorated eggs. it was fun and they really enjoyed it. I tried to get Bubbah in on it but he jst wanted to eat them. lol that kid loves hard boiled eggs!

Of course DD#2 was sick this morning so we weren't able to go to church. The kiddos woke up and had a few things in their Easter baskets and got to go threw the house looking for plastic eggs Mommy and Daddy hid for them. Both girls have been BEGGING to go fishing so we got them some Barbie fishing poles, a Disney princess coloring book and a chocolate bunny. DS got a little play tool kit and a small nerf football. Oh all the kids got a small soccer goal complete with cones, gloves for the goalie, and a ball. We tried getting DD#1 in soccer this year but were too late for the sign-ups.

Later on we have some "resurrection eggs" to find. In each egg there's a small something that helps tell the story of the resurrection (a small purple cloth, dice, a nail, etc.) DH and I are going to tell the story after naps. DD#1 and I are the only ones awake!! Oh and DH wanted something besides the typical ham Easter dinner....so we are having home-made chicken enchiladas with rice for dinner. Yumm, I have been on a Mexican Food kick lately so this will be goooooood!! And low fat too, this recipe I have is really yumm and not quite as bad for you as the restaurant enchiladas.

I am 17 weeks and 3 days pregnant today and already feeling like a whale. I know people don't think i LOOK fat but it sure feels that way. I am just so afraid of gaining too much weight and not being able to take it off after the birth. I mean, I am getting close to 30 here and my body doesn't like to work out or shed pounds like it used to. Maybe after I am done nursing I could try the South Beach Diet or something. My friend is have some luck losing pounds and it doesn't seem too difficult of a diet.

I have pictures for you that I will be posting soon, I promise! Until then, have a sweet day!

Big gut Part3

So here I er "we" are at 15 weeks and 5 days. I am actually starting to show a bit and once in awhile can feel the little bean's tiny taps. almost feels like a muscle spasm or something but I know it's bean. You'd think that by #4 I'd be an expert at these things! LOL

I have an appointment on thursday so I will let you know what happens.

If you want to see my progress you can look

Belly part1

belly part2

Field Trip

I got to be a driver for my DD's field trip to the Fire Dept. I had to take DD#2 and DS with me. The kids got to watch a fire safety movie and tour the fire house to see where the fire fighters eat and sleep. And then they got to see the fire trucks and go inside for a minute.

DD#1 had a good time but poor Rhi was scared. One of the firemen put on all his gear O2 mask and all and that was a tad too much. But it was good that they did that and told the kids that this guy was there to help him and not to run away from him or be scared. I never thought of that, that during an emergency the kids are stressed enough and to see a big dude in a mask would just seem like a big monster.

So, do you guys have a plan in casr of fire? This has really made me think. We don't have a fire plan/drill but I am planning on making one and practicing soon. And posting all the emergency numbers by the phones.

The kids' bedrooms are on the 2nd story and there's only 1 door to the livingroom. If there's a fire in the kitchen the kids might have to jump out of their windows!! So I have heard of ladders or blow-up slides that you can attach to the windowsill so they don't jump and kill themselves, KWIM? So I will go look that up and let you know what I find.

Anyway, here's a few parting shots of my kids and DD#1's friends. TTFN

My Ma

I finally talked my Ma (aka Mom) into a blog. It's in the bare-bones stage (and like mine isn't??) but please go check it out and leave a comment! Ma's Blog!

I took the 2 little one's to the dentist yesterday. Rhi rhi did beautifully and didn't even cry once! I was shocked as Malayah was bawling like a baby. But then again she's had so much work done in her mouth alread I don't blame her for being scared. Jamison had to be held down so he cried a little. But they both were thrilled to get new toothbrushes so it turned out well.

I am trying to decide on spring planting. I always envy all the people with beautiful gardens and want to try to do something similar. I have been searching the 'net for spring planting ideas. So far not so good. I don't know a thing about plants. If we had money to blow I'd hire a landscaper to help me. But I am on my own.

The girls have some strawberry plants growing in the kitchen window. I would plant them outside if it would actually WARM UP! It's been in the 30's at night so I don't want the little plants to get frost-bitten. lol

I will get Rhi rhi to take a pic of my belly later to show it off.... until then ttfn

PB&J strikes again!

All my kids have fallen victim to "the sandwich". You never know when it will strike!!!

Sitting there all comfy eating lunch taking a few bites here and there (a bit of apple sauce in the hair never hurts). When SUDDENLY "the sandwich" takes hold! There is no fighting it....slowly but surely your eyes droop. The room spins ever so slightly, and before you know it, there you are asleep, covered in PB&J snoring your life away! LOL

Crop er Carpet circles

So we have a little alien trying to contact their mother ship in my house!!! AAA!! Well, a pink alien anyway! LOL


I am letting it soak in carpet cleaner and hopefully the washable markers will live up to their names and WASH away.


Sorry I have been MIA again. Nothing going on I guess. Everyone is all better from the flu and respiratory viruses. I caught a cold but no biggie.
BTW happy spring! Yesterday was the first day of spring! But it sure doesn't look like it, it's like overcast, misting and about 42 outside. I can't wait for the warm! We have a brand new sandbox just waiting for a little sand.

DD#1 went back to school after her spring break today. We had Open House last night and all 3 kids were wanting to stay! I think she is glad to be back as it's too boring at home. LOL I had planned to go and do a few fun things with the fam, but with everyone sick we all just stayed here.

No new crafts to report or anything here. I finished that panta headband and that's all so far. I keep wanting to start something else but I am afraid I won't get anything done. And DH informed me the other day that it really bothers him when I don't finish what I start and leave it there for weeks. (roll eyes). It bothers me too but darn I didn't want to hear that!

I sold our salt water tank on Ebay today. We took a huge dive as far as what it's worth vs what we sold it for. But with #4 on the way I just don't think I will have time or patience to care for it. I am a little sad to see it go because Jamie and I worked so hard on it for so long. But really it's a money vacuum and we really need to SAVE and not SPEND.

TTYL