My dancer

Madison can be so shy, quiet, and reserved... so imagine how surprising it is to me to see her shine on stage! She had such a great time at her dance recital. She has asked me twice since Saturday if she gets to do another recital this weekend... and is so disappointed when I tell her it's only a once a year ordeal. I wasn't sure we'd do dance again next season, but I'm sure now that we will. It's all she talks about! I'm so glad that she's found something that, for now, she really loves. I have to admit... dressing her up was so much fun for me. We ordered her flowers that we gave to her after the show and she just beamed. Seeing her dance with her hair all up in a cute little bun was just too sweet... her ballet dance brought tears to my eyes. The only bad thing about the recital is that her brand new ballet shoes did not make it back into her dance bag... so I'm really hoping someone picked them up and saw her initials on the bottom of them and is holding on to them for us! I'd hate to buy another new pair when we JUST bought those! Oh well.. they probably wouldn't have fit her for very long anyway.

In other news: I'm 8 months pg today! A whopping 32 weeks. It's flying by! I'm getting fairly massive and though I still feel pretty darn good most of the time.. I'm definitely finding myself tired more often. Samuel has discovered the joy of shoving his bottom and his heels (at the same time it seems) directly under my rib cage... I've heard women talk about being "kicked in the ribs" but honestly I never have felt this with the other two kids... man it's rough! Poor little guy is probably so squished that he's just trying to stretch out.. can't blame him!

I think the reality of this little guy coming is slowly sinking in for Clayton. Twice in the past week he's made remarks like, "Wow, can you believe he's going to be here so soon?" Ummmm... yeah. I can. I guess when you're the one that spends the 9 months puking, worrying, puking, sleeping, not sleeping, hurting, etc... you can REALLY believe that a baby is coming! lol Pregnancy can't be all fun and games or else no one would ever be ready for what it takes to deliver the baby! (especially with another csection in the cards! so scary!) I keep thinking about how incredibly blessed I am to be so many weeks pregnant. Everytime I haer about someone having a premature baby that must stay in the hospital being sick for weeks on end.. I thank God for the hip pain and the leg cramps because it's those things that come at the end. Making it to the end is such a miracle. So, we're on a 7 week countdown until approx. csection date. I guess I should schedule that pretty soon... probably talk to the Doc about it next visit!

Carter's smile...

Here it is.. how it looked up until about two weeks ago. We've had one heck of a week! Carter fell in the bathtub about two weeks ago. (yes, even though I was sitting RIGHT there) He fell and basically caught himself with his mouth on the side of the tub. I was unaware that that much blood could come from a 3 year old's mouth... surprise! I noticed, once the bleeding finally stopped, that one of his front teeth looked like maybe it had shifted a bit but it was really hard to get a good look with him screaming and not opening up and everything still being blood stained. The next day, sure enough.. I could tell it had shifted so into the dentist we went. They did what they could (basically looked at his tooth and his gums) and said "keep an eye on it and if it starts to change color or if his gums start to swell and hurt again, call us." A week went by.. nothing funky happened so I thought that we had escaped serious tooth injury. Nope. Over a week after he fell we noticed that his tooth was turning gray!! I freak out, start bawling, and call Yvonne (whom I go to church with and works at my dentist's office) at her house and explain what was going on. She reassured me that no matter how ugly it looked, it wasn't an emergency, and just to call the pediatric dentist in the morning. (this was sunday) So I did.. we got him an appt, and they took Xrays and such and said not to worry about it. (seriously? His tooth is a different color and this isn't concerning?) They said it was "bruised" and that's why it's discolored and that it could possibly lighten up on its own with time. Worst case scenerio is we take him in in the future for an internal tooth bleaching. The Xrays showed nothing to be broken or dislodged so we just keep an eye out for pain and swelling. Talk about a sigh of relief! So.. my baby boy's mouth now looks different.. and I hate it. It's always hard on me when ANYTHING about their looks change..especially when it changes in a way like this! So.. everyone pray for God to please keep that tooth healthy and as an added bonus to let it whiten back up on its own so I don't have to take my little man for more torture treatments at the dentist! (good news was the rest of his teeth were great.. no cavities or other problems so hoorah!)

Side note: Madison's dance recital is tomorrow and we're all so excited! I've got way cute pics to share but no time tonight! Keep an eye out for another post soon. :)

Rummage sale!

I will be doing my first ever rummage sale tomorrow morning with Leslie H. I'm really excited about it! I hope to get rid of a lot of stuff and make some cash in the process. It was extremely hard on me though to go through all of madison's baby clothes (up to 2t) and put prices on them. I guess once you get rid of those things, you're REALLY admitting that they'll never fit into them again. I kept a few special items, but the majority of it is going. I've already sold several things... and I realized that the hard part is the initial parting with them, and once they're gone that's it! It's fine!

Clayton's birthday is this Sunday. (April 22) He's turning 26... I can't believe that! I've been with him since he was 16... well, he turned 17 a few weeks after we got together, but still. That's a long time! How things have changed in these past years. We've literally grown up together... I think that's rather sweet. :)

Sorry this post is all over the place.. my son is tantruming over the nap he doesn't want to take so I'm off to save the day... again!

Samuel!

Here are two of the 4D pictures we got taken today during our amazing ultrasound! They are a bit distorted (mainly his nose) but still really beautiful if you ask me! (even though scanning them into the puter did make a glare.. sorry) I cannot begin to describe our experience today... it was just incredible. You could make out all of his facial features, his expressions, down to the lines in his fingers and toes and the creases in his cheeks! He sucked his hands THE ENTIRE TIME! (another constant nurser in the making?) At one point he was even trying to get his toes into his mouth! lol He weighs around 3.8pounds now.. I couldn't get over how fat he was already! He has the same lips and nose as Madison and Carter.. it was almost like looking at old baby pics. I can't wait to show some of you the pics that we have b/c they're so much clearer in person.. and the DVD is just unbelievable! I really cannot wait for the next 9 weeks to go by now... I cannot wait to officially meet my little man!

By the way, can you see in the first picture that he's almost crying? Right after she snapped this shot he got his fingers into his mouth, and then grinned... we missed that pic though. :P

ZZzzZZzzZZzz...

Oh man... I feel like I'm being flung back into the first trimester. It's hit me all of a sudden that I am just plain exhausted! No matter how much sleep I get at night, I'm painfully tired the next morning and struggle to peel myself out of bed when the alarm goes off. I even broke down and took a nap today after I got Carter to bed. I am NOT someone that likes to nap... I feel it's such a waste of time and I usually feel stressed if I even try to rest for very long because my "to do" list is running like crazy in my mind.. all of the things I'm NOT doing because I'm being a slug. But, today, I told my head to shove it.. I had to sleep! I felt no better after waking up 40 MINUTES LATER! (that's quite a nap to me!) Thankfully my mood is still really upbeat and happy even though I'm walking around holding my eyelids open. I had a few weeks of plain moodiness a while back.. I was no fun to be around and I didn't even like myself most of the time! lol

To add to my "things I normally don't do but am doing now" list... I think, for the first time ever, I'm going to quit something. We signed Madison up for Tball this year for the sole reason that Clayton was going to sign up to be her assistant coach and we could work it around our schedules so it wouldn't all fall upon my shoulders. Well, they had too many ppl sign up and Clayton and the guy he wanted to coach with weren't needed... we had a meeting yesterday with our team to get a list of rules and a list of things we still had to buy (quite a list!!) and i left nearly in tears. I called Clayton and told him that I am NOT doing Tball this year. I don't care if we already paid for it, I don't care how it looks for me to quit, I cannot handle it. The schedule set up for practises was going to kill me and it completely overlaps with our current dance schedule. (which I could make an entire new post about.. but won't.. let's just say we will not be doing dance next yr!) So I'm going to try to convince Clayton to make the call to the coach to say "we quit" because I can barely stand to admit it.. I am not a quitter. I feel like I should be able to handle this.. but it is supposed to be fun and I can tell already it will be much more stressful than fun! (As Suzanne said to me today when I called to talk to her about all of this 'stuff', "Who is this for? If Madison doesn't even care and you don't want to do it... then why do it?") Such wisdom from a friend! She's so right! So... April 28th is our dance recital and after that my plan is to enjoy family time now before Samuel makes his big debut. I don't need anything additional right now! So there, I admit it... I became a quitter!

Back again

So I've grown a little bored with blogging lately. Clayton is back on the night shift again now though so my interest will probably greatly pick up now that I will have so much time at night to be on the puter!

So, what is this first picture of? Madison and Carter.. what could they possibly be studying so closely? An ant hill. This ant hill literally popped up overnight and those two were completely fascinated with it! So much so that Madison begged me to take several pictures of the ants with our camera... and then with her very own disposable camera that we gave her, she took her own pictures. (I could make an entire new post about what madison took pictures of... 27 pictures, and none of people! Flowers, grass, cats, dogs, etc.. she's 5.. you get the point!) I could have never imagined how interesting watching ants could be... and how they could love watching them so much yet freak out so quickly if they saw a few of them coming towards them.

So, the next pic... yes, two in one night, you are so lucky that I had time! :) This is me.. entering my 29th week of pregnancy. It is shocking to me to see my belly now. When I'm sitting around or even walking around I still feel so comfortable. I don't feel like I have a belly at all unless I have to get on the ground for some reason. So, to see a picture of what I actually look like is a bit crazy! We have several mirrors in our house... none of which are full length, and none of which I can see my belly in b/c they're up too high, which just adds to my occasional surprise when I do catch a glimpse of myself elsewhere. It's like it hits me, "Oh! I really am pregnant!" For the record, I had a dr's appt on Wednesday and all is great! I've finally manged to gain 10 pounds total and I measured 28cm which is perfect for 28 weeks. Samuel's h/b was 135bpm.. it's always so slow... maybe it means he's calm? lol We went to the Parker's after our appt and it was soooo great to visit with them! The kids ran and played and Suzanne let me hold Josiah a ton! He just slept, nursed, pooped, and slept and nursed some more. Such a sweet baby and he is even cuter now than he was at birth. I was a big dummy and didn't get a single pic of him even though I had the camera IN THE HOUSE! ARRGHH! Pg brain.. sorry!

Okay, last thing. My dear husband finally got sick of me nagging him and he got Madison's and the bathroom doors re-framed, and PAINTED. :) Baseboards are now installed in the hallway and the only big thing left to do is hang Carter's door. I actually painted all of the doors today while he painted the trim in our entire house. It looks sooooo good! I keep staring down the hallway in awe... I can't wait to see it completely finished. We have to buy some more door framing things (yeah.. I don't know what they're called) and then he can check this job off of his honey do list. The only other big item is pain the outside of the house. Any color but this horrid blue that's out here now! Okay.. not 'any' color.. something in the light beige would suit me! Oh.. he also bought two new ceiling fans for the living room. We love the fans in here now, but one will only spin on low speed (so now we can REALLY freeze you all out when you visit with the new ones that work correctly! lol) and the other you can no longer pull the chain that turns the light on and off.. so it's stuck on "on" all of the time unless you flip the switch off on the wall. So, new fans will be in soon. we'll have to host a Settlers party once it's all completed so you can all see how hard my man's been working!