Mothers Day, 2012

I had the best mothers day weekend ever!! Look at those sweet little faces and top it off with an awesome hubby. I certainly felt the love and was blessed. :) 

Saturday morning I woke up at 8am...and everyone else was just waking up! Chris announced we were going to breakfast at our favorite local place, which was such a fun treat. I got some sewing done that afternoon while Chris did laundry and cleaned the kitchen and then I took Anna-Kate to a yogurt place for a date. I started a dinner club this year, and last night was our second dinner--so we had friends (thank goodness for friends to swap babysitting nights with! Thanks, Katie!) watch the kids while we went to our dinner and ate the yummiest dinner and had the most fun conversation. {Side note, I totally feel like an adult now that I have a "dinner club" which involves no kids, courses of food, and drinks...it's a fun cushioning blow to getting old.}

This morning we slept until 8 again, (!!!) Chris made a big breakfast, had roses on the table and we went to late church. He fed the kids a little lunch while I rested, then I took Ryan on a date this afternoon before hitting my 90 minute prenatal massage that Chris booked for me (using my gift certificate from Valentines Day!). What a rock-star husband! I picked up 5 guys burgers for us on the way home and rolled in to find kids that were bathed and ready for bed. Feeling loved, appreciated, blessed. and happy. And thankful, oh so thankful, for my sweet husband!

Date Knight

Last weekend I had the honor of introducing Ryan to the world of gentlemanly manners on a date. :)

Chick-fil-a has hosted a father/daughter date night for a few years and I have always loved the special time that Chris has had with Anna-Kate. However, I've always been sad that there is nothing for moms and sons (as, you know, I will have three of them and all. And, boys seem to need a little more instruction on the ways to treat a lady...). So, I was thrilled to hear about "date knight". We got dressed up, heading to our local Chik and were seated at a table with a table cloth, "rock" (plastic) walls, shield shaped placemat, (with crayons to draw/color the animals we wanted our family to symbolize--Ryan chose a mouse for trust and a lion for bravery) balloons and flowers. 

Handsome little man! So excited to wear his tie. :)

They gave all of the boys roses to give to their moms. He was so excited to give it to me. Precious. It was very special one-on-one time with my Ryan. We sat and talked, (there were even some suggested questions/topics on the table--like, "if you had to choose between never eating icecream or never eating candy again, what would you choose?" (Ryan and I both agreed we could give up candy before icecream!) and ordered off the menu to a server dressed in knightly attire. He got to choose anything he wanted, which included his own lemonade, kids meal with fruit--I shared my fries, and an icecream sundae (notice the chocolate on his shirt and the missing tie in the last picture? Lol.). I got to help instruct him on how to act on a date, like taking a shower and putting on nice clothes before heading out, not jumping on the seats, looking his date in the eyes, answering her questions and asking some of his own.

So, in conclusion, your welcome, future daughter-in-law. :)

Updates

Well, there is still no news on the insurance front. My adjuster is in the process of going through arbitration, so there hasn't been a final answer. So there's that.

 I had a lovely shower thrown by my sweet friend, Leigh-Ann, last week. But that is a post in itself. :) Chris was heavily pursued by an awesome company and finally decided to make a change in a couple of weeks. I am so proud of him and beyond thankful that his commute will be less than half what it is currently. Amazing. Praise the Lord for providing what we didn't even know we needed!

 Me. My back is still hurting. I'm not completely useless, which is an improvement, but am definitely starting to count days, which I don't particularly recall doing in previous pregnancies. 38 days, if you were wondering (And, holy cow! Typing that is UNREAL!!!). I was texted a "baby update" last week that advised me to have all of my baby clothes, toys, paraphernalia washed and put away to be ready. Ya, a bit overwhelming as we still don't have a nursery set up, (and I'm in the midst of dealing with my second fabric choice being sold out everywhere...I evidently have amazing taste...) a name for our child, (and thank you to Anna-Kate for pointing out last night that "Anna, Kate, Ryan and Jack all have "a's" in them, so we'd better have a 4 letter name with an 'A' in it too Mommy." Wow. I hadn't even thought of that yet. Great...) and are still in the midst of settling the big boys (weird) together in one room. Ya, hopefully they will get washed before he arrives. And hopefully the race to the finish nesting will kick in. By evening I'm doing good to walk upright to the bed. Sigh. I'm stretched a bit thin right now and am feeling my emotions heavily as I am dealing with a few disappointments. I find that I expect people to react, respond and do things they way that I would do them--which isn't fair, as God created us all differently, and is 100% not reality (unfortunate as that is...lol). Though I'm stressed out and worried about this summer, I am very much looking forward to a slower pace and more time to sit back and enjoy my kids (though, I'm praying they don't get bored out of their minds with endless summer days and a mommy recovering from surgery).

 Anna-Kate is devouring books. I'm so proud of her and thrilled that she loves to read! She literally is beside herself if she forgets to bring a book in the car with her. She's gearing up for her party and is thrilled that it is soon, along with summer. :)

I am loving Ryan at age 4. The freak outs, tantrums and hardness that was three has produced a precious boy who loves to learn and is a sweet brother and son--Praise the Lord! He loves his school, which is a huge blessing and has started giving me good information when he gets home (something I feared wouldn't happen as I've heard boys don't share as much).

Jack is still my happy boy--though age two has brought a new naughtiness to him. He will look me in the eye as he does something wrong and then just give the biggest, happiest smile in the world. Little stinker. He's precariously close to opening doors. Praying we can hold that off a bit longer.

Baby Caboose is continuing to grow. I mean, if we are taking bets, I'm betting he is close to 9 lbs and I'm not exaggerating! I can barely breath sometimes! He remains a bit violent in the womb. I keep telling him to get it all out now so he can relax and sleep in his lovely new nursery when he arrives. (fingers crossed). So, that's what we've been up to. (well, that and the 50 other things that have pictures associated with them that I am too tired to upload and blog about today...). :)

Toothpicks

I told someone the other day that I was holding my life together by toothpicks right now. Clearly, I'm spiraling and quite thankful for a God who holds me in His hands and is in control {despite my best efforts}.

{Be forewarned, this is not funny or witty...it's a bummer of a post, so read on at your own discretion.}

So, my poor van. If you'll recall, I was rear-ended a few weeks ago. I called to check the status and was told it was deemed 50/50 liability which means we are out our deductible, rental car costs and, in my state, my premiums will all go up. Say what? For being rear-ended? I insisted the case be re-opened per the suggestion of my mechanic and comments the adjuster said when he was looking at my car (ie, "it looks like you were stopped when hit." and "I'm surprised since you know who the person was that she wouldn't just offer to pay your deductible to avoid the hassle" etc). We are still waiting to hear back. I'm doing the call every day in my sweetest southern accent and try to annoy the poo outta them so they just sort it out to be done with me thing...we'll see how that strategy works. We took a calculated risk and reported that our car had been key'd (ps, who key's a van? seriously?) as it doesn't raise premiums and pays for a rental car. Well, for better or worse, it was able to be buffed out. Saved some money, but we were still out for it and no rental car as it was lower than our deductible. Anyway, went to pick up my car on Friday afternoon (after realizing my garage door opener had been left in the rental van...and they say they never saw it and it isn't there...) and found my right front tire completely flat. Like, the hubcap was resting on the ground flat. They patched it (a rusted nail that had evidently been there a while and the nail head finally rusted off= completely flat) but resulted in new tires. Expensive week for my "as good as new" van.

It's just so frustrating!

Add to that, that I've reached the once or twice a night wake up to pee stage which has left me utterly exhausted and moving the boys in to the same room, which has resulted in a rough week of sleep...I'm just beat {In my opinion, all children have a direct link between behavior and sleep. That is certainly the case for my boys, one in particular.). I have no patience. I find myself with little grace. I wake up and my back hurts before I ever get out of the bed. I told Chris I just long for the day I can breathe and move without pain. There are various things in my life right now leading to some stress and worry on my part (which isn't my normal personality, or of the Lord, so I am definitely praying about that) and I'm just tired. And this baby is violent. I've spent the day nauseous praying I won't get sick, and just have been completely unproductive. My mom asked me the other day if I was "cured" of being pregnant. As I have loved {almost} every second of my previous pregnancies I think she was surprised to hear me say "yes" before she'd finished talking.

I'm sure I'll laugh about it some day. That's usually how that works, right? :)

Easter 2012

We spent Friday and Saturday before Easter at my parents' house. The extended family came over for a late lunch and egg hunts. So fun! We ate a bit later than planned so we ended up staying through early evening instead of heading back (well that and the traffic took us over twice as long to get home! The kids were bummed to miss our neighborhood egg hunt, but we enjoyed relaxing with mom and dad and not just rushing from one thing to the next. Chris is helping me learn to slooooow down and choose from activities, not choose all activities. :) ).

Family picture:



Hunting eggs! Mom color coded the eggs so they all got stuff and we could hide them age appropriately. There was some candy stickers and dollar bills. I do not recall ever receiving money in eggs as a child! The kids touched my heart when they each decided on their own to give $1 of their $5 dollars "to Jesus" in the offering plate.



Ryan thrilled with his eggs...



Simply could not be bothered to slow down for a picture. :)



Post-hunt picture. Some were more obliging than others...



On Easter morning I woke up and left for church while everyone else slept peacefully. :) The music was gorgeous and I truly enjoyed the morning. Props to Chris for getting them all dressed and arrived on time. :) Unfortunate scenario of the morning, the ac went out at church. I do not recall a time of being that hot for that long. The girl sitting next to me on the stage said, "you look green. You should do something about that.". Indeed, I almost got sick I was so hot...so I slipped out during the second sermon! Chris brought the kids home and got Jack to bed before I ever made it home. I took an awesome nap then got up to prepare out Easter dinner--grilled lamb, rice and asparagus. Anna-Kate's sweet friend, Marin, and her family came over for an egg hunt and dessert (pound cake, vanilla icecream and fresh strawberries...yum.) afterwards. Such fun. Overall a lovely day with my family to contemplate the love of our Savior.

Good thing we got a picture yesterday...didn't manage to get a picture of all 5 of us on Easter. Hmm.



This year I thought to myself, "self, how hard could it be to make basket liners for Easter baskets? Surely it wouldn't take long and it would be so much cheaper than $40 a piece from pottery barn kids..." {insert "famous last words"}. I found a tutorial on pinterest and set off. Pinterest FAIL. I spend hours trying to make Anna-Kate's following the online tutorial. I finally threw it away and started over, developing my own pattern in the process. Let's just say, it was much easier that way and I was able to get all of them finished in a couple of hours. They were exactly how I wanted them. Yay!



I made a scavenger hunt for the kids to follow to find their baskets. I think they all got a huge kick out of it. Anna-Kate loved reading the clues and the big kids were totally into solving the "riddles". Jack just loved running around following them. :)



Ryan was so excited to find his basket! He was jumping up and down.



Jack was just thrilled to find a Peep and get to eat it--before dinner. You can tell he doesn't get candy too often. Ha!



New ball caps for the big kids...





He really got into egg hunting this year. We let him out the door first with a minute head start and he ran from egg to egg scooping them up.



Anna-Kate and Marin.



I love that Anna-Kate and Ryan are such buddies...I pray they will always remain close.



All of the kids, post egg hunt. :)

Creative differences

So I decided that since Anna-Kate was turning 6 this year, I would involve her more in the planning of her party (that would, evidently, be mistake #1).

She's settled on a luau theme and, I thought, wanted to do it at the pool. Super, zero mess, pretty cheap = all good things as it is just days before baby comes. Imagine my shock when we sat down to talk about it the other day, so I could work on invitations, and this conversation transpires...

Me: "So, we'll have the party at the pool. Would you like crafts too?"
AK: "Umm, I don't think I want it at the pool, just our backyard. And I want to have a craft of making hula (grass) skirts and no one will wear swimsuits just their hula skirts."
Me: "well, first, I don't think boys are going to be interested in making a skirt. Second, you can't have people wear hula skirts without a swimsuit, it isn't modest."
{Bursts into hysteric and over the top dramatic tears}
AK: "But I don't want there to be water! I don't want my friends to see my hair wet!"
Me: (incredulous that I just heard that come out of my 5 year old daughters' mouth) "You love swimming! Why in the world would you care if people see your hair wet?"
AK: (still sobbing) "Because it's not beautiful when it turns brown."
Me: "Oh. Wow."

Happy Easter!

With child like faith, Anna-Kate chose the words to write for her Easter story at school. I couldn't be more proud of her work and her sensitive heart to the Lord.

Happy Easter! May you know the love of our Lord!