Happy New Year!

First off, huge thanks to LeeAnn and Taylor for having all of us (minus Clayton, who was working of course) over for a few hours of fun tonight! It was much better than the original plans I had made of sitting home with the kids alone all night. lol No New Year's Eve kiss for me this year I guess... ah well.. a belated one will have to do.

So is anyone else always a bit sad when a new year starts? I hate to admit it, but in general I have a really hard time letting go of things. All kinds of things. Papers that Madison or Carter have drawn, old clothes (just the kids'.. not mine), even things that you wouldn't think you'd be attatched to, like my now old cell phone. I miss it... I have a hard time moving forward. Before the ball dropped Dick Clark said something along the lines of "these are the last few seconds of 2006..." and I got a bit sad. 2006 wasn't the best year of my life, but it was a good year. Madison even said to me, "When it's 2007 I'll turn 6 years old!" Ugh... thanks for that reminder! I just got over the shock of her turning 5. lol Instead of focusing on what all I feel like I'm leaving behind in '06.. I'm trying to focus on my goals and what I'm looking forward about '07. Obviously, our long awaited baby will arrive in June.. and to be totally honest I CAN'T WAIT! :) Clayton and I are on our way to working our way, slowly but surely, out of debt. Madison will play in her second year of Tball, in which Clayton plans to coach, this summer... and we're all really excited about that. Carter will turn 3 and I plan to start a more structured preschool routine with him sometime following that. So, there are those things plus so many more that will come that are so very worth being excited about! Even in the short term.. like this Wednesday I go for my 4 month prenatal checkup.. and I'm super excited! Then, in February, we should get to find out if our baby is a boy or a girl. (can't wait to buy the first blue or pink item!) And, I'm feeling the baby move some now.. and I know it'll just get better and better as the days go by. And, hopefully in 2007 Clayton and I will be able to agree on a name for this new one.. so far no luck! Just for those that are curious.. the names I like are as follows:
Girl: Sophia, Olivia, Ava, Mia, Victoria
Boy: Samuel (favorite), William, and I'm liking the names Dean (my dad's middle name) and Charles as middle names for SOME first name..

clayton has said he likes Samuel... but hasn't said he's sold on it. The only girl names he's thrown out are Megan (no) and Morgan (cute.. maybe). So... we're basically at square 1. Oh the name game... it's all part of it! I wonder if my parents gave much thought to my name. I know my first name is from the song "Mandy" and my middle name is after my Mom's used to be best friend. (Beth) Cool tidbit: If I'd have been a boy.. my name would've been Clayton. :)

Yes, I realize I've rambled on about nearly nothing.. forgive me. I'm home alone and my kids are asleep! I haven't had this much internet time in.... weeks! I'm off to lay on the couch and poke at my belly in hopes that the little bean will poke back so I can go wash my face and brush my teeth in pure joy. As long as the monsterous spider I saw run behind the desk earlier doesn't show back up.. my night will be good! (Suzanne... I feel a battle cry coming on...)

Visit with the Parkers!

I meant to post this last week, after their visit last Thursday, but my poor little man got sick that night with a horrible fever, and STILL HAS IT a week later. Found out he has a bad cold which has caused his very first ear infection. We've NOT had a good week. Fever in the 103-104.5 degree range all week, and no sleep for any of us b/c of his pain and night sweating. He's been on antibiotics for 3 days now, and today he's showing some signs of improvement. It's kind of hit and miss. Anyway...


Isn't this a GREAT picture of Suzanne? She is so darn cute. I couldn't get over her belly and I even got to feel the baby rolling and kicking! It was so amazing. I can't wait to feel that in my belly! (I am feeling small flutters here and there now, so that's been really exciting!)


Here are all of the kids riding the two seater jeep. lol They rode that thing all over the place! Gracie laughed SO HARD when she first got on it, I don't know if I've ever seen her that excited before! It was so good to see them all together at our house again. That's the first time they've all been here together since the Parker's moved!


I just loved this one of Carter and Grace. I wish I had a comparison picture of them at this time last year... it would've looked nothing like this! (Carter would've been Grace's age, and she would've been an infant) They had so much fun together!

It was so good to see all of them. It made my day! It's been too long since we sat at the kitchen table chatting and eating chocolate chip cookies, Suzanne!! I knew I missed it, but didn't realize how much I really missed it until you were here. Hey, at least we have cingular now so we can talk without running up your minutes! Yay!

Kids 'make you' say the darndest things...

I so vividly remember the days, before I was a mother, even after I was a mother, but before I was the mother of a toddler, when I thought to myself oh so often, "I'll never say, or do, THAT." Don't we all have those memories? I never thought I'd repeat the phrases I hated so much from my own parents. I catch myself saying those same phrases now. Just Sunday at church, I said to Madison, "Stop rocking that chair back or it's going to fall over." How many times did I roll my eyes as my own mother said that to me? Or how about, "Carter, stop running with that stick!" Or, my new favorite, "Go out or come in but close that door!" Even the one I hated probably the most of them all... "because I said so.." UGH... how aggrivating is that one? I also find myself becoming "that" mother more and more though. The picture I put on here, I picked because it makes me laugh and think "My gosh I love them!" I never could understand how someone could be excited over a baby rolling over, eating solids, or standing alone much less why it was thrilling for a child to say "mamma" (they all learn to talk eventually...) or to say "I love you." These are, in general, everyday events. Even childbirth in itself is no big deal if you think about the headcount.. it happens every single day, just like anything else. Or so you might think before it happens to you. People always talk about the gift of children.. but you really can't understand that until you're granted that gift. Why DOES it make us so excited when our newborn first smiles at us? Did we think he or she wouldn't? Did we think our kid would end up the smileless wonder? I'll never forget my squeel of delight and giggle and "get the camera!" responce to both Madison's and Carter's first smiles. It just melts you doesn't it? Everything they do can melt you if you really ponder it. It gets harder as they get older sometimes to really stop and think about how wonderful they are... but they ARE wonderful. Sweet, silly, innocent... and the fact that they think we, their parents, are the most fantastic thing on the planet makes it even more powerful. Madison's new phrase is, "Mommy, guess how much I love you." "How much, Madison?" "One hundred and ten!" (she's 5.. that's almost an unimaginable number to her! lol) My favorite part of that phrase is..."Daddy, guess how much I love you?" "How much?" "One hundred and nine!" That's mommy's girl!

Forgot to tell ya

I had my second dr's appt on the 6th and all is well! We had to get another ultrasound because the nurse couldn't find the baby's heartbeat on the doppler. (which had me in tears!) It was AMAZING how much bigger the baby was on the screen. She didn't give us much of a look though. :( She just zoomed in on the heart and it was pounding away at 156bpm! I did see the baby wiggling all around, and you could see long arms and legs, knees and elbows, all moving and waving. I wish we could've gotten a longer look. So I'm 11 weeks, 4 days today. Closing in on the second trimester. (already?) Now it seems like this pregnancy is flying by! I know I'm hormonal and emotional but lately I've had a really hard time looking at Madison and Carter and seeing how big they're getting. Just tonight I looked at the living room, once they were asleep, and right in the middle of the floor there was a toy vacuum, a wooden board with games on it, and a plastic dinosaur all sitting next to each other as if they were purposely arranged there. I started thinking about how, sooner than I'd like, those things will be a thing in our past. Toys will be replaced by all kinds of big kid things. :( I just love my kids being the ages they are... it's so hard to let go of what we have right in this moment, even though I've learned from experience that they just get more fun as they grow. I guess knowing that I'm pregnant for the last time, and I'm getting ready to go through the baby phase for the last time, is getting to me. I'm pretty sure our family is totally complete with 3 kids... it's just hard to think that we'll never go through this again. Do you ever get over wanting a young baby or child around? Do you just have to continuously push those feelings down no matter how old your children get? Maybe once this one gets here my feelings will change and the "completeness" will set in and I'll be just totally content with life and how it's going to change in the future. Right now, as I said, I think I'm just a bit emotional!

Approaching holidays

How the holiday season changes for us as we grow older! When I was a child, Thanksgiving and Christmas were the less stressful times of the year. They were full of family, friends, and fun. My job was to arrive with my parents, not get into trouble, play all day and all night long, and eat and open gifts. Nothing could have been better! Now, the holidays bring forth some of those same feelings, mixed with a feeling of stress! Christmas especially. Clayton and I both come from divorced homes, so that makes 4 sets of just our parents houses to make sure we visit, or visit those parents at SOMEONE'S home. Add grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and friends... and wow! You could really make yourself crazy if you chose to visit everyone. My main form of stress right now is the gift buying. I'm not sure when it became tradition to buy everyone a present... but I sure feel the pressure to. I really wish we could just buy for our children and be done with it to be honest! Well, of course my nephews and neice too... I could never not buy them something. :) I find myself asking our huge families to please not buy us gifts, b/c we then feel the pressure to buy for everyone, and we just can't! Not to mention, with just the kids new toys we always have to overhaul the house to make everything fit! lol So, this year, I really want to stive to have a fairly stress free Christmas. To see it like I did as a child. Just show up, eat, "watch" as the kids open gifts, and enjoy the time with friends and family, rather than worrying about who bought what and who offered to help clean up first and did the most afterwards. (yes, things can get competative with those types of jobs) Hopefully the weather will be good to us so we can all travel to visit, since I know a lot of you will be doing even more driving than we will be. Here's to enjoying Christmas like it's meant to be enjoyed this year!