Happy Valentine's Day!

Was it a good one? Do you shudder in disdain over the commercialism or embrace the day with all things pink and red and heart-shaped? I admit that I don't so much enjoy holidays that are based on spending money on sweets and useless trinkets. I want the kids to receive something more than sugar and plastic. Thursday night I was headed out to knit (Rob took the kids to swim class, what a guy!) and received a sudden inspiration of giving the kids Valentine's Day cards but signing them from God. So Saturday night Rob and I sat down and considered what He might have to say to our children. We told them how lovely they are, creative, loving... and then signed each card "Love, God". We left each card at their spot at the kitchen table so this morning when we sat down to breakfast they found them. They loved them, it was awesome and felt so much better than leaving them a card from us or little candy hearts or whatnot. I'm not against treats and such but this just felt so good. I hope to make it a tradition from now on.

After breakfast we went to church and it was a lovely service. Zion was super thrilled to go to Sunday School again and Gideon seems to be doing just fine as the only one of our kids in nursery at the moment. The message was especially appropriate considering that our pastor was simply maintaining a schedule of teaching about the book of John and didn't alter the dates. Today we were in chapter 13 which, among other things, has Jesus telling his disciples (us included) that others will know we are Christians by our love. Love, love, love. The theme we tried to talk to our children about all day. What can we do to show love? To show others we care for them.

After church we went out for a special lunch at Applebees. Gabe blessed the meal and asked God that we would be able to show people love today. What a sweetie. We got to show our waitress love today by repeatedly forgiving her continuous errors regarding our order. ;0)

Later in the day we celebrated with another special meal, a tradition started by my mother. Pink food for Valentine's Day. Last night Rob made such a great dinner (chicken, roast vegetables, asparagus and crusty rolls) that I suggested we keep it simple and have pancakes. It's one of the kids' favorites anyway so why not have a meal everyone will love on a special day? Add a few chocolate chips and a few drops of food coloring to tint them pink and voila - the perfect pink dinner.

We had a lovely day and I hope you did too. Remember on this day most of all, Who loves you the most.

Overheard

From the bathroom when Gabe and Zion were supposed to be washing for dinner. Apparently Zion who is potty training decided to do her business before washing. All I heard was Gabe say "You can't do it like I do because you don't have a p*nis" (and I asterisk that because I don't want anybody randomly Googling that word to find my blog that way).

As I'm chuckling to myself I hear Rob, who is also in the kitchen with me, say "I fixed a p*nis today." More laughter on my part as he explains that at his job they have a machine (apparently girl ones and boy ones) that tests diapers. Said unit had a leaky ...uh ... unit. *smirk*

Pictures

For no reason at all. My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of Gabe with his newly absent teeth. He has lost two recently and has two more that are loose. I don't do well with loose teeth. It's just the wiggliness of them, I keep telling him that he's not allowed to wiggle them in front of me - to no avail. But here's Gideon and Zion.

You can always tell when Zion has had a good nap by the state of her hair when she gets up. This one was probably a 6-7 out of 10. And her poor face was still red from her cold and her constantly rubbing her face. All better now though.

Gideon is learning all about computers. Gotta start 'em young. That way they can become programmers and start supporting you at a much younger age. Moments earlier he had his hand on the mouse and was clicking the button but when I picked up the camera he stopped. I think he thought he was in trouble. Ridiculous.

Today we did "watch" (and knit and eat and...during) the Super Bowl. Rob put an Elmo video on his laptop so Gideon would stop begging for Elmo. "Elmo?" "Elmo?" "Elmo?" "Eh eh eh eh eh elmo?" All the while looking at you with this face, this face that that you can't resist. At all. Not even a little. While we ate dinner the video was paused. After dinner Gideon found the laptop with the frozen in time Elmo and promptly clicked a button and unpaused it. Ummmm. Yeah. Maybe he's learning a little too fast (especially since he'd never seen it done the way he did it and he just walked right up and did it, no playing around first).

The Cutest Thing Ever.

Rob does bath times with the kids. I love that. It gives me a few minutes of peace downstairs but I can still hear the fun and giggles coming from upstairs. Always, Gideon is out of the tub and jammied first then "released" from the bathroom. He immediately goes to the baby gate at the top of the stairs and starts calling "Mommy!" pause "Mommy!" pause ... until I come up the stairs to participate in the rest of our bedtime routine.

Tonight after a few "Mommy calls" I heard a sad wail. As I approached the top of the stairs I could see his sad face, bottom lip pushed out, a single tear starting to drop from one eye. I asked him "What's the matter?" to which he replied "Daddy no-no me." It was a good few minutes before I could stop laughing - while I kissed him and dried his tear of course. Even now it puts the biggest smile on my face. I still don't know what Rob told him no-no to.

He also has the very cute though somewhat unsanitary habit of using the rabbit's water bottle as a cleaning station. He reaches through the bars of her cage, taps the ball of the spout a few times and then walks away rubbing his hands together as if he's just gotten a squeeze of anti-bacterial goo.

Pregnancy Update

Today I am exactly 19 weeks along. Nearly to the halfway point. Yesterday I got to go to that half-way ultrasound where they check the measurements and organs, chambers of the heart, peek at the brain and all that. The kids got to see their new baby sister/brother. They were more interested in the variety of equipment in the room than the blob on the screen though. That's OK, I didn't expect them to be as fascinated as Rob and I were.

The baby looks great. S/he is right up in the 95% for this age. Rob and I both turned out heads when the u/s (ultrasound) tech checked out his/her nether regions. We still want to be surprised.

We did come away with some news that has us lifting up some extra prayers. The doctor who evaluated the u/s has named two conditions that he discovered.

1) placenta previa - this is where the placenta is so low in the uterus that it covers the cervix. As I said during the visit "the Fire Department would not approve, the exit's blocked". Yeah. Hard to deliver a baby when there's no way out.

2) velamentous cord - Someone should just disable Google for pregnant women. Follow my advice, don't research this. There is nothing comforting to be discovered online. I believe reality is less scary. I also believe that God is still in control and knows all about this and how it's going to pan out. So basically, what this means is that the cord, instead of being attached in the center of the placenta (which is kind of shaped like a pizza) it's attached precariously at one edge.

Typically this means that the baby only gets to take advantage of 1/2 to 2/3 of the placenta which results in low birth weights and premature delivery. Well, as I mentioned above my babe is in the 95%. Go baby! The baby is so big that the doctor suggested bumping my due date up by a week. I mentioned that an u/s done at about 8-9 weeks had the baby spot on for size at that date so he left my due date alone.

In regards to problem #1, this is something that often rights itself by delivery. When the uterus grows and stretches the placenta gets shunted to one side and the exit has been cleared. One possible problem with the placenta moving is that this could cause the cord to be compromised. As much as I'd love to have a natural delivery at my local birth center I'd prefer to give birth to a live baby in a non-emergency situation. So BIG prayer there. If that placenta decides to move, it REALLY needs to take that cord with it.

For the time being, the next 6 weeks to be precise, I'm on "pelvic rest" (nookie is a no-no) and forbidden to lift. Anything. Yeah. I laughed too. I am eliminating what lifting I can but it would be impossible, without having a personal lifting assistant with me all day, to eliminate it entirely. Shhh, don't tell my doctor. I really am being careful and also reminding myself that God can guard my little one as He has so far.

If nothing changes than most likely I will be delivering by c-section, possibly as early as 35 weeks to prevent spontaneous labor which could be extremely detrimental to me and my baby. In 6 weeks we'll have another u/s, that's lots of time to pray. :)

Little Grandpa Man

Little boys in two-piece button up jammies are so cute I almost can't stand it. Gideon could get away with just about anything in these and I would be helpless to stop him.
He also makes me think of a little old man. Just a little bit.

He's Good Medicine

So today I woke up so super tired. Maybe from the marathon doctor's meeting yesterday or maybe I'm picking up the kids' cold. Who knows. So later in the day I laid down and closed my eyes for a short while. I could hear Gabe and Zion playing Legos at the kitchen table when I felt a little bump at my knee. I looked up expecting my third Little to need me for something. No. He was sweetly covering me with his blanky. His own blanky. Not one of the hundreds, at least dozens, we have laying around the house but his very own special blanky. Then he padded away and showed back up a few seconds later presenting me with his precious dog. Aw. But the sweetness didn't end there. Off he goes, I lay my head back down and suddenly he returns with his Elmo. Now I have all his favorite lovies. But a few seconds later he returns again and gives me his milk cup. I must be all taken care of by now. Nope. One more thing. He appears one last time and hands me a Baby Einstein board book he must have personally picked off the bookshelf just for me. My heart is practically bursting by now. What thoughtful gestures from a little guy who isn't even two yet.

Gideon Update

It's been a while since I've written about Gideon's allergies. I finally gave the doctor a push at his 18-month check to give us a referral to a pediatric allergist. And we finally had that appointment this morning. A marathon three-hour event not including travel time since the office is a few cities away. I really liked the doctor though and he really seems to be committed to bringing Gideon's symptoms to a halt no matter what. Right now Gideon's main symptoms are eczema, mostly up his back, which comes but doesn't really go and is sometimes worse but I can't remember the last time his back was eczema free, and diarrhea. It's not total liquid but it's way soft, smells horrible and requires a diaper change anywhere from 3-6 times a day. I know, more than you wanted to know but it was that symptom in particular that made me push for a specialist to see him. Gideon's original diagnosis of a "whey protein" allergy came at 11-months, 9 months ago and though the vomiting has stopped the eczema and GI problems are still here. I learned a lot about allergies today. About how they start, how they work, how they progress depending on the age of the patient (different symptoms at different ages even though the allergen may be the same)... So much that I couldn't have retained it all. The doctor gave me some websites and I already had some of my own so I've spent most of today reading and relearning. As the doctor has laid it out, here's our plan:

Step 1) Cut out ALL dairy, including hidden dairy which means reading labels and looking for "code words" for dairy (casein, whey, malt, some lactose stuff but not all...) It's in nearly everything, even lunch meat and hot dogs (unless you buy Kosher which I've been trying to do anyway). Previously his doctors insisted that we only need to cut out dairy like milk, cheese and yogurt and that processed dairy was fine.

Step 2) Give a multi-vitamin and probiotic daily. Even these items are difficult to find in a non-dairy form. Flintstone vitamins are OK but probiotics without dairy are few and far between (and expensive) so I'm still researching those.

Step 3) Keep the pets out of Gideon's room. Gideon also tested mildly allergic to dog and cat. :( Big bummer. So far the doc is only instructing us to keep the pets out of Gideon's room which won't be too difficult. I'll be praying that nothing more drastic will be required.

Step 4) A no-wheat trial if the GI issue doesn't clear up after eliminating dairy. Ugh. We tried this once before. It's a pain and expensive. Really, really expensive.

Step 5) Recheck in one month regardless of how the trial does (or trials do). At that point he may have blood work done (in the hospital some of his results were off, the assumption was that it was because he was sick at the time but maybe it was something else) and maybe another referral to a GI specialist.

So here we go and as much as this process can be frustrating and time consuming and energy consuming I'm relieved to have a plan and a direction. The last thing I wanted to do was ignore his remaining symptoms (as his regular pediatrician would have me do insisting that he'd grow out of them) and have them continue to develop into worse allergies or allergies to more things.

Tap The Obsession

Zion lately has become obsessed with washing the downstairs bathroom sink. I would often find the hand towel left in the sink, sometimes soaking wet and rendered completely worthless for any sort of drying. Once I even found her elephant, yes The Elephant, in the sink. She told me she was washing the sink with it. Nice.

Also lately I've been wondering what will make a good chore for Zion's first. Gabe started when he was 4 and has been feeding the dog twice a day since. I bought a flip top plastic bin and a measuring cup, yep, measuring was the task for him. Zion only just turned 3 but it felt like the timing was good to introduce a chore for her. Then it hit me. The sink! Why not just have her do what she's been doing all along only make it official?

So I knit Zion her very own Tribble which now resides on the back of the sink in that worthless perfect little shallow they make for soap. She "washes" the sink at least three times a day and proudly announces when she's doing so. So she has a new sense of purpose, my towels get stay high and dry and I get a somewhat cleaner sink (and a reason to knit). Win/win.

Woo Woo, All Aboard!

For the last few months I have been absolutely looking forward to one special event and it has nothing to do with the baby (OK, I'm looking forward to that too but still have about 5 months left). Quite a few months ago I learned that a local knitter's guild puts on an annual event called "Yarn Train". Do you see where I'm going here? Good.

So the organizers get a group ticket on Amtrak and then plan a walking tour of yarn stores in Portland including arranging for discounts with the store owners (sweet!). So my friend Jennifer and I stayed Friday night in Seattle so we didn't have the long drive to the city in the morning. We took the city bus to the train station, what an adventure for us "country bumpkins", arriving at 6:30 in the morning. The train ride to Portland took about 3 hours which of course we spent chatting and knitting. Once in Portland we found a place to have lunch and OH MY, it was good! Based on a recommendation of a fellow Yarn Trainer (the organizer no less) we hit The Tea Zone. I got the falafel and a Hot Cinnamon Latte, I could seriously be happy with a cup of THAT in my hand 24/7.

Our first stop was Knit Knot Studio where I found the absolute softest yarn for a blanket for this new little one I'm growing. I'm so bummed that I've got some projects I have to finish first, I canNOT wait to cast this blanky on and get it finished. The picture does not do the colors, or softness, justice. It's so beautiful!

Next we wander off to Knit Purl where I end up getting the majority of my new stash. Oh. My. Word. That place was so awesome. Wall to wall colors and textures. I don't understand why everyone doesn't knit (or crochet) just to have a reason to go into a place like this. Who could be depressed swimming in color like that. I picked up 4 skeins of Noro Silk Garden to knit a striped scarf (it's about 25% done right now), another skein of Noro for a Clapotis (a type of scarf), a skein of black lace yarn for Jamae's Christmas present - a jewelry frame, and another skein that was just so beautiful (and on clearance) but I haven't figured out what to make with yet - it will come. It's been a couple of months since I have really been actively knitting. I had developed pregnancy induced carpal tunnel that I thought would plague me the whole pregnancy but God blessed me with pain free hands for the last week or so. I'm hoping that for whatever reason I had it for a while it is gone for good as it was interfering with so much.

After leaving Knit Purl we decided to hit up Powell's Books. Big book stores aren't that unusual anymore thanks to the ginormous chains but Powell's is special. It's, oh, about a city block long, and multiple stories and just CRAMMED from top to bottom with new and used books of every sort. It's really awesome. I got a shawls, ponchos, and scarves book that is used and I can't wait to make something from. Oo, that gives me an idea for that multi-colored yarn. *smile*

By this point my stamina was rock bottom so we decided that we would pass on the last yarn store we could have visited but luckily it was also time for dinner. I suggested that The Tea Zone was so good we should go back for dinner so we did. hee hee. I got another Hot Cinnamon Latte - again (I wonder if they'd ship me a gallon or two). After that back to the train for another 3-hour knit session, another bus ride and another night in Seattle. *sigh* Pure bliss.

Were we done? Not quite. In no rush to get back home we decided to extend our little trip a bit and stopped at Seattle Yarn on the way back. Had I known how amazingly awesome their store was I might have held back a little of my trip budget. Wow. Wow. Wow! If I thought Knit Purl was color heaven, this place really knocked my socks off! Skeins and skeins just stacked and shoved in every nook and cranny and every one of them just gorgeous (should have taken pictures). I somehow managed to walk away with only one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn in Aquos. I don't knit socks (yet) but found a pattern for a spiral scarf that it will work for, it's going to be smashing!

After a quick bite for lunch at a yummy pub down the block (they always have the best fish and chips) we head for home. Two tired mommies excited to wrap their arms around their babies again - and cast on their next project! I'm already dreaming about doing the trip again next year.

Spa Day

Has anyone ever had their child's hair develop a slime coat? Well, a coating that is slimy when wet but then dries all crusty and chunky and weird. This happened to Zion's hair recently. The bottom four inches anyway. I wondered if it was from swimming all the time but I still couldn't figure out why. I mean, dry hair due to the pool chemicals yes, but weird slime? Weird. Well, one step short of cutting off her pretty hair I went out and found some special swim shampoo that is formulate to remove chlorine. On the day I resolved to scrub her hair clean I didn't really feel like giving her a full bath. I'm lazy like that. So with the prospect of laying her out on the kitchen counter to wash just her hair in the sink ahead of me I told her she was going to get a spa day.

I laid the fluffiest towel I could find out on the counter and had another hand towel to make a neck roll. Zion cooperated quite well. It may have been because I told her I would paint her fingernails afterward. And her toenails.

Which is exactly what we did. With her hair up in a towel and her hands on a pillow I painted all her nails a soft pink that my mother would have loved (and would have made me gag when I was younger). She loved her spa day.

Her hair is a lot better but I'm not entirely convinced it doesn't still feel a little slimy when it's wet but at least it's not drying crunchy. We have been on break from swim class over the holidays so we'll see after the next session is in full swing. What's the worst that will happen, Princess Zion will get another spa day. :)

Saturday Funnies

First of all, I hope that you had a fantastic Christmas holiday! We had a fun day, especially the part where we went to my sister's. The kids are in heaven there with their Tantie. I will blog more about Christmas later and may even wrangle some pictures from my brother to post (since I didn't break my camera out). For now a few funnies to share.

Let me preface with the fact that my sister has a really big dog. Said dog only has three legs. He's always only had three legs since my sister got him and that was long before Zion came along. Apparently this went unnoticed to Zion. We had been at my sister's for a while and Captain, the huge Akita/German Shepherd mix (I don't know how you can miss that a dog that big hops everywhere) was standing in the middle of the room. All of the sudden Zion gasps and shouts "Oh no! He's missing a yeg!"

Later while we were opening presents I tried to quietly and discretely stop Gabe from well, doing something not so proper. He doesn't really get the discrete part though and turns and loudly says to me "I still pick my nose but I don't eat it anymore." Nice. Lovely. Now go get a Kleenex.

Lastly, this morning we are all enjoying sleeping in. As usual, Gideon is the first to wake. He is soon to be 20 months old and has been making leaps and bounds in the language area. Apparently the humor area as well as we are fairly certain that he was making an attempt at telling knock knock jokes in his crib. We heard him say "kno' kno'!" ... "there?" then gobbledygook, blah blah blah and some such nonsense. Over and over again. What a comedian.

Not Me...

I've never participated in MckMama's "Not Me Monday" (Yeah, I think I'm the only blogger left in the world that had not) but last night, well, based on something I most definitely did NOT do (are you catching the sarcasm there, friends) I couldn't resist.

OK, here it goes:

Last night, I most definitely did NOT wake up my oldest son from an extremely sound sleep in order to ask him where he'd left his Nintendo DS so that I could play Zelda and the Phantom Hourglass. Would most definitely SO not do that. Because that would be inconsiderate to him and might indicate I have some sort of addiction. *snort* Imagine!

5 Outta 6 Ain't Bad

Tuesday I took the kids to the mall for a photo op with Santa. The first thing that struck me was the stark contrast to last year. I'm reading my post from last year and realizing that I didn't really write much about how horrible the weather had been. There was a ton of snow on the ground that day. The mall parking lot had been plowed very, very badly. Which really meant that there was less parking because spots had been taken up by piles of snow and the rest of the lot was frozen ridges with deep slush in between. It was awful just trying to get into the building. This year it has been cold but no snow, just clear blue skies. That was nice.

Last year there was a tremendous wait to see Santa, then a wait to view pictures, then a wait to receive what you ordered. This year I got there at opening and and we only had to wait for a few families that were ahead of us.

Last year all three kids smiled beautifully. This year, not so much. The second Gideon's bottom hit Santa's leg he started screaming and reaching out to me. Not matter what we tried. Oh well. I knew the smiling streak had to end some time. After all, this is our sixth year doing Santa pictures starting when Gabe was 9 months old and this is the first time any of them have cried. So, 5 outta 6 ain't bad.

(So we had to get a new router when our other one died and this one's performance has been less than stellar. Most of the time it does not recognize that we have a printer so I can't scan or print. Bummer. When I can though I'll get the Santa picture online.)

The Fair, The Great and the Terrible

The Fair - Gideon woke me up at 4:30 this morning having such a hard time breathing I was mentally preparing to take him to the ER. He was staying pink and seemed in good spirits otherwise so I waited the few hours to take him to our pediatricians urgent care clinic instead. They confirmed my suspicion that he has croup and sent us home with a prescription of prednisone to take down the inflammation. So we spent half our Christmas decorating day in the doctor's office but it could have been worse. Gideon should be right as rain in a few days and in true Gideon style he hasn't let him bring him down at all - and, we still got our tree today (the house smells fantastic!) and got a start on decorating.

The Great - Rob and I got to get away tonight to our church's Christmas dinner which included a performance of It's A Wonderful Improvised Life by the Taproot Theater Touring Company.

It.

Was.

AWESOME!

I've always wanted to be on Who's Line Is It Anyway? and this was my chance! The players were just great and I really did shout suggestions to their requests and they acted them out and it was hilarious. The real It's A Wonderful Life will never be the same again. I will never forget that in our version George saved Harry from dying by tap dancing on a light bulb, that Mr. Potter wanted to turn the Savings & Loan into a skinny jean factory and that every time a doorbell rings an angel gets it's wings.

The Terrible - The only thing that brought our special night down was that my thoughts kept turning to a friend of my sister's who I have also gotten to know. She is the gal who generously offers her property to host Jameson's birthday party every year. Sadly, tonight when she and two of her daughters returned home they discovered their house was on fire and their dogs perished within. I am waiting to hear from my sister the extent of the damage, how long they will be out of their house and what their needs are. Please pray for Carol and her family and the heartbreaking loss of their home and pets.

Mrs. Gabe?

Today Gabe and I got in to a conversation on marriage. I can't remember who it started. I think it was when he had said that he didn't want to get married because he didn't want to leave our family. I told him that his daddy and I met, were friends first, then we dated and eventually got married. Then, I explained, I became part of Rob's family and he became part of mine and no matter what he would always be part of our family. He suddenly brightened and got excited and said he was going to marry Emily from school but that he was going to just skip the rest. Whoa, dude! No jumping forward like that!

Who Knew?

That my kids would find it so darn exciting to go car shopping. Seriously enjoyed. Like they were at Disneyland.

We didn't want a new car. I loved my Freestyle . Really, really loved it. It was stylish and fast, lots of storage room, seated 7. It was paid off which made it even more attractive. Sadly, we had to come to grips with the fact that it was no longer going to suit our needs. Granted, we have a few more months before it was truly no longer going to work but once we realized it was going to be necessary to trade it in we just did it. *sniff* I now drive a *gulp* minivan. Still seats 7 but has the three-seat row in the back and captains chairs in the middle giving the kids and us easy access to those in the back who may need help with carseats (or who fall asleep and need to be carried in). The Freestyle had the three-seat row in the middle and you have to fold down part of the seat to gain access to the back. We had Gideon on one side of the middle row and Zion and Gabe in the back row. We could still fold down the seat and let the kids back.

So, why, you ask, if it was working did we have to get rid of it? Well. Why do you think? Come June (or maybe July) we'll need to add a fourth carseat. *grin*

As I said, the kids really enjoyed car shopping. Gabe fell head over heals for the first one we test drove, a Chrysler Town and Country. He cried when we told him we were going to keep looking but he got better each time. The kids jumped on every seat of each car we looked at, squealing in laughter. The Town and Country was beautiful and had tons of cool features. It is pretty much the same thing as a Dodge Caravan however and I really hate those. Won't go into why. We also checked out a GMC Acadia. Hello, Gorgeous! I was in love. Sadly, while the seat arrange for 7 was better that the Freestyle there is absolutely NO room for say, a stroller. Almost no room even for a diaper bag. Whilst at the GMC lot we also looked at the Yukon Denali. Bigger but the same problem. (How can these beasts be so BIG and have NO storage I wonder.) So I could have looked at bigger, those Suburbans are pretty handsome these days (and I just noticed coming home today a BRAND new shiny black one in my neighbor's driveway across the street). But Rob doesn't like to drive bigger and bigger just means more expensive, both initially and in gas. So no, not really interested.

After that we went home to nap the kids and I poked around on line (some more) and read about the Honda Odyssey. Aside from still having a hard time spelling it (um, double D single S or vice versa and, really, TWO Ys?) I learned it is the highest rated minivan out there.

Long story only slightly shortened at this point, we bought one and said Adios to the Freestyle (still holding back the tears). A 2006 which happened to come with a DVD player and navigation screen. Naturally the kids are thrilled with the DVD player. Funnily enough Gabe said he liked this one better because of the small storage compartment next to where his booster seat sits. Crazy what kids end up loving. So the T&C had a few nicer options but all around the Honda seemed a better quality vehicle and had some nice features itself.

Last night is when we brought it home. I told the car it was going to take me a while but right now I didn't love it. It's going to take me a while. I may never love it, in fact. But sometimes you gotta do for family and I did what I had to do.

So, now the cat's outta the bag. I knew I couldn't keep it a secret once friends started seeing me in my new ride. Anyone who knows me well knows how I feel about my cars and how I feel about minivans. The jig is up. And me? I'm exhausted, hungry most of the time and have been dealing with stomach aches but no real morning sickness. Only a little nausea and smell aversion. Counting down the weeks until June. :) Oh, and I apologize if you're family and finding out this way. We're trying to let the people closest to us know personally but, like I said, rumors were about to start flying and I couldn't deny any questions.

That's Using Your Head

A moment with Zion. Tonight at bedtime we told the kids that Rob had to be away for a few days on business. I told them that we would have swim class two of the nights though and that would help the time to pass quickly. Zion was suddenly sad. At first I thought it was because Rob had to go for a few days. She was mumbling though so I couldn't tell what she said except the words "nursery" and "wet hair". It was clearly distressing her but it was not about Rob. As it turns out she wanted to go play with the toys in nursery after her lesson but didn't want to go with wet hair. Suddenly a gasp and a smile. Arms fly up in realization, "I know" she squeals. "We can go BEFORE swim class!" What a problem solver. How to avoid playing with wet hair. What a girl!

Now she's ecstatic and for Zion you know that means she jumping and probably singing about something. She is back to being excited about her swim class. She yells "I'm going to do a really good bob!" Jumps up, sucks in her breath and then collapses to the floor in an imitation of going under water in class. She's so darn cute.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just wanted to pop on real quick and tell everybody Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you will think upon all of the wonderful things that you have to be thankful for right now. God bless you!

Simple Pleasures

Right now it is rainy and cold and very windy outside. I spent the day inside thoroughly enjoying the blustery day (my favorite kind of day). Last week Zion and Gideon ran fevers, this weekend it was Gabe's turn. I also ended up not feeling well and that was a big bummer because I opted to stay home from my nieces birthday party. The two hour round trip seemed a bit much for me today. So I stayed home and colored. I love to color, especially when I don't feel well. It's like comfort food. I'm kind of excited too because of what I am coloring.

Should I tell you or make you wait?

Oh, OK, I'll tell. Don't get all pushy on me. ;)

Last year I bought a Christmas coloring book. The pages are like velum. Thick and see through and have a variety of Christmas scenes in a stained glass style. Last year I wanted to color them and hang them in the windows but didn't get to it (big surprise there, huh?). So a little late but having fun and they are turning out really well. I will post pictures. I think they are going to look so cool with the light shining through them, just like real stained glass. Mostly.