We have a gender!

We went last week to our gender ultrasound. We opted to do it at 16 weeks at a 3d place to find out early. The ultrasound was less than 5 minutes, and when they got to check the gender, I covered my eyes. You see, we had the ultrasound tech call my sister, who is also a photographer, and tell her the gender. My sister then filled a massive piñata that I had made with pink or blue confetti and candy. We took it to a local park to open up and reveal the gender. It was really fun!

The moment we opened it and it dawned on us what the color coming out meant

Ladies and gentlemen, we have another boy coming! Little Mister will be here late July.

Head over to my sisters blog, Shot From The Heart Photography to see the rest of the pictures!

I'm BACK!

Why hello blog world. I have missed you. And do I have the news for you!! Little Man is 5. Holy cow!! When did that happen?? We are trying to figure out what to do for schooling for next year. He will start kindergarten! He LOVES preschool and has learned so much there! We didn't do any sports with him this year, since he liked soccer practice, but not the games. He is talking about wanting to do soccer again, and we may try again soon. He is also about to start speech. He has been having some troubles pronouncing words, so we got him evaluated, and sure enough, he needs some help. The earlier the better, so we are doing that now.

The boys went ziplining in early November

Little Miracle is 3! He also LOVES preschool. He already knew most of what they are working on in his class, but he loves his little friends. He has no interest in sports. We just last week turned him forward facing in his car seat! I cant believe he is FINALLY big enough! He sleeps in a big boy bed, in his brothers room (now known as the boys room)and is completely potty trained.

Brothers

Little Miss. Oh my. She is almost 18 months. She is walking, talking and has become a toddler overnight. She sleeps most nights and is still the easiest going child we have ever had.

She has gotten SO big!

And all that news I keep talking about? Well, we were surprised by another baby!! I found out in November that baby #4 is on the way! I am due in July and PLANNING a home birth this time! We are all excited to be adding to our family again (and also for the last time). The boys both want another brother, but I think Little Miss needs a sister. We will find out the gender this time, since we got rid of our baby stuff after Little Miss was born.

12 weeks!

Stephen is still working HARD and I am still staying home and chasing kiddos all day. I am going to be blogging a little more now that we have another Little Bean on the way. I will blog about our birthing plans, and of course, once the baby comes, another birth story! Those seem to be the favorite posts!!

Hello!!

Hello poor, neglected blog. I'm working on updating you with BIG news and plans!! Keep an eye out!!

Update

Oh lord. I had every intention of getting back on the blogging bandwagon. I was going to post at least once a week. Then.... life got in the way. Ill give you a quick update of life in our house. I left you last with the post of our new dog. He is a giant LOVE. He has fit into our home like he was always here and the kids just LOVE him to death. Maybe a little more than they love me.

Little Man just finished up his first year of preschool. He had so much fun and really enjoyed going, which is good since he goes back in August! He also started soccer and loves the practices. Games, not so much. There are only two more games then the season is over, so he is sticking it out!

Little Miracle started potty training for serious this week! This is the third time he has shown "ready" signs, so we once again jumped on the bandwagon. He is doing really well and I think the third time will be the charm!

Little Miss. Oh my. She is growing up! She started crawling a week ago and is crawling like she has been doing it for YEARS. She can now go after that toy that she wants. This makes Little Man and Little Miracle kinda worried, since she usually wants the toys in their hands!

Stephen and I are doing good. We are about to celebrate 8 years of marriage (May 23rd). He is busy busy with work, and I am busy busy with the kids. We are looking forward to two vacations coming up next month and the month after!

A New Baby

We have a new "baby" in our house.

He's 3 years old, 75 pounds and jet black.

His name was Aristides and he was living at the Jefferson County Kennel Club track in Monticello, Florida before he came to us thru Southeastern Greyhound Adoption.

That's right.

Our new "baby" is a retired racing greyhound.



He had an impressive racing career with 106 races. Winning 14 of those and placing second in 15 of those. His entire pedigree is interesting to look at.

He even has a video of him racing. He is in 1st, then 2nd in this video, until he gets bumped in a corner and ends up losing the race.

Why a greyhound you ask?

Greyhounds are sprinters, so they do not NEED a lot of exercise. About 10 minutes a day is all they require. They are used to laying around all day in the kennel and are content to do so in the house also. They are loving, loyal and great companions. They come to your home crate trained so they are easy to house train.

We never would have considered this breed until we met them at our local farmers market in the summer of 2010. We started seriously considering getting a dog in September of 2010, but then found out we were expecting Little Miss in December of 2010, so it got put on hold.

We contacted the adoption group a few weeks ago and they set out to find a greyhound to fit our family. One that does well with small children and a cat. They called us and let us know they had two that they think would work great for us, so I went with the kids (and a good friend of mine) to look at them.

We picked Aristides because he was playful, loving and didn't even flinch when Little Miracle started to throw a massive meltdown fit when we were with him.

Ari (as we are calling him. We decided to keep a little bit of his past with his name) came home on Sunday night. He fit right into our house and routine. He loves laying around and does not mind the kids playing near him while he sleeps. He still spends a good amount of time in his crate during the day (when they were racing, they would spend 22 hours a day in a crate, its their security blanket) but he will eventually have free range of the house.

We are all excited to add this new "baby" to our ever growing house.

Love Story

Stephen and I had our first "official" date on March 25, 2000.

We got engaged on March 13, 2003.

We got married on May 23, 2004.

Little Man joined us on October 10, 2007. Little Miracle on December 8, 2009 and Little Miss on August 14, 2011.

Whats your love story?

p.s. Happy 6 months to my Little Miss. Now please stop growing so fast.

How Many Men Does It Take...

The power guys showed up today to fix our power. We had been living off the portable breaker box all weekend.

Little Man was quite excited when a truck showed up and two men hopped out.

Then another truck with 3 men showed up. They got off their trucks and started poking around in our front yard. They found the place the line was broken at and grabbed the shovels.



Little Man wanted to help.



In no time, they had the bad line exposed. Then another truck (with 2 more men) showed up. This one had a tractor on the back.

Little Man was over the moon excited. He wanted to see that tractor digging up our front yard.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him they were already done, and the tractor would not be needed. We headed inside because Little Miracle was awake and I had to get him up, and Little Miss was demanding a nap.

They quickly filled in the hole and turned our power back on. Less than an hour from start to finish.

So, the question is: How many men does it take to fix a less than 6 inch piece of power line buried 2 feet under ground?

Answer: 7

Powerless Sleepovers

Little Man has been asking for a sleep over party since he got his bunk bed . He wanted his best “boy” friend over but he is busy busy on weekends, so he then asked to have his cousin over. She is 8 months older than him and they are the best of friends.

Last night we picked her up and brought her to our house for a fun night. We were going to play, possibly bake some cookies, and play glow stick hide and seek. You would think I would know better than to make plans and expect them to go accordingly.

We pulled into our driveway and hit the button that is built into our van to open the garage door. The door did nothing. I pushed it again, and again the door did nothing. I pushed the button and held it down hoping the garage door would open, and it did not.

We got out of the car and looked around the house. All the windows were dark. I am good at leaving at least one light on when we leave the house, because I do not like coming home to a dark house, so this was odd.

We peeked in the garage and saw our chest freezer light glowing. We could not remember if it had a battery back up or not.

{You may be wondering why we didn’t just go thru the front door this whole time and check breakers and such. Well, we have a toddler lock on the front door that makes it impossible for the kids to open the door when they are on the inside, and I am diligent about making sure that lock is closed when we leave the house too, thus making it harder for someone to break in. Or making it impossible for us to get in if the garage door is not working. I must rethink this plan}

We went to the front door and opened it as far as it would open with the toddler lock on it. I pushed the doorbell and it was not working. I reached in the house to try to turn on the porch lights, but could not reach. I grabbed a stick from outside and finally hit the switch for the lights, but the lights did not turn on. Our power was off, or so I thought.

I looked back in the garage and saw the plug that has its own breaker glowing. The power was on. Or was it. I was over confused at this time.

We called the power company to see if they could tell us if the power was off. They could not.

Stephen remembered he had the original garage door opener in his work, so off to his work we went. We were thinking maybe the opener in the van was not working. Returning home we discovered that the original door opener did not work either.

I called the power company again and reported an outage. I told them we could not get into the house to know for sure if the power was out, but it seems it is. Our neighbors on both sides of us had their outdoor lights on and the street lights were on too but our house was dark and the garage door was not working.

The power company told me they had a crew working 5 miles from our house and they would be out shortly to look at it. If the power worked, we would just have to break a window to get in. Not what we wanted to do but it would get us in the house.

We went next door and our neighbors were nice enough to let us hang out at their house to wait for the power company to come. While we were waiting I got a phone call. The power company had run a test on our meter (smart meter, so it was done electronically) and he was only seeing 50% power coming into our house. It seemed the problem was on their side.

About an hour went by and I finally heard a big truck outside. I went out and it was the power company. They ran tests on the meter and discovered it was a line coming into our house that was bad. They could not fix it that night since it was underground. They set up a temporary fix to give us full power until they could come out on Monday and dig up the line to fix it. This explained why the outlet and chest freezer were glowing, but the door bell was not working.

What is powering our house until Monday.



We were finally in our house! It was now an hour past bedtime though, so all my fun “sleepover” plans went out the window and the kids went straight to bed. They did play in Little Mans room for over an hour before they finally decided to sleep.

They both wanted the top bunk.



This morning I picked up donuts so we could have a fun breakfast. The kids have been playing for hours and although they are tired, I will say Little Mans first sleep over went well!

Happy Valentine's Day

I know its a little early, but I just finished up the treat bags and Valentine's Day cards for Little Man's preschool class.



I am so happy with the way these turned out!! I can't wait to hand them out!

More Glow Stick Fun

We love our glow sticks here.

We play hide and seek with them almost every night.

Hints why I was at Target buying more today.

So I am standing in the check out line with Little Miracle and Little Miss {while Little Man was in preschool}, waiting on my turn to pay for the random things that I have in my buggy. The woman in front of me {with 2 small children herself} sees me putting glow sticks up on the check out counter. She starts talking about her friend.

Her friend who puts her kids in the bubble bath with the glow sticks and turns off the lights



I’m standing there in awe. Why didn’t I think of that already???

So, tonight we gave it a try! I filled the tub with water and bubbles. I did not tell the boys what my plan was.

Boys, not knowing what’s coming!


With the tub full of water and bubbles and two boys happily playing in the tub, I cracked the glow sticks and then turned the lights off.

The boys were not sure what just happened. They were wondering why they were taking a bath in the dark.

I let them wonder for a few seconds, and then right when they were about to ask for the lights back on, I tossed the glow sticks in the tub, lighting the tub up.



And they LOVED it. They did not want to get out!! They played happily for almost an hour. I felt the water temperature at the end of the bath time and it was ICE cold. But neither of the boys was complaining. They did not want to get out!

What a grand idea!!

Any other ideas for glow sticks??

Little Man's First "Camping" Trip

Stephen was at drill last weekend when I pulled the tent out and put it up in the play room to amuse the kids for a while.

We "pretended" to camp that weekend and the following few days when Stephen was out of town. We roasted pretend marshmallows, we told ghost stories, made pretend dinners and hid from pretend bears. The whole time Little Man kept asking me to let him sleep in the tent.

I told him when he Daddy gets home he could "camp" with Daddy. Little Man was SO excited when Daddy got home.

The night Daddy came home we tucked Little Miracle into his bed while Little Man and Daddy headed downstairs to "camp". Little Man had SO much fun sleeping with Daddy in the tent.



I think when it gets warmer, I may send the boys on a REAL camping trip with Daddy.

Kids Are Weird

Little Miracle sat like this while watching Toy Story.



Not for 5 minutes of the movie, not for 10 minutes, no.

The entire movie.

I'll give you a minute to Google that.

Or, here, Let Me Google That For You.

81 minutes.

Kids are weird

Teething.

I am beginning to think Little Miss is teething. What do you think?

Bunk Beds and Toddler Beds

A few months ago we went looking for bunk beds. We knew we would need one when we moved the boys into the same room. We found one we liked, but I really did not want to spend $1000 on it. So off to Craigslist I went. Almost every day for the past 2 months I looked for one on Craigslist.

Monday was my lucky day. I finally found one I loved that was in my price range and local. We went to look at it and it was perfect so home it came.



On the way home we stopped to let Little Man pick out sheets. He picked out a Toy Story set. We picked up a plain one for the other bed since it will eventually be Little Miracles but I want him to pick out what he wants when that time comes.

When we got home, we set up the bed. Little Man was SO excited to finally have his bunk beds!! He {of course} chose the top bunk.



We moved his train bed to Little Miracles room fully expecting to start Little Miracle in the toddler bed that night. When Little Man was moved to a toddler bed, he went in no problems at all. I kinda hoped that Little Miracle would do the same.

I should have known better.

When the train bed was in Little Mans room, Little Miracle wanted it. He would climb up into it every night and tuck himself in under the covers, waiting on his bedtime story from Daddy. But once it was moved to his room, he wants NOTHING to do with it.

I tucked him in it last night, kissed him good night and left. 10 seconds later he is SCREAMING. I went back in and ended up sitting on the floor next to his bed rubbing his back and talking to him. Finally, almost 40 minutes later, he said “I crib please?”.

Sure thing Little Miracle. Back in his crib he went.

I guess he’s not quite ready. We will try again in a few days and see what he does. Once he is sleeping in a toddler bed, we will move him into Little Mans room then I get to redecorate the nursery for Little Miss!

{We are also using the toddler bed to take away the bottle. He only gets a bottle at nap and bed time, so when he gets the toddler bed he has to have a sippy cup. He drank all of his milk from the sippy cup last night while I was in his room, so we may be getting somewhere on that!}

Roller Coaster

The past 5 months have been such an emotional roller coaster in this house.

It has nothing to do with the birth of Little Miss or the fact that we went from 2 to 3 kids.

You see, Stephens dad had surgery on August 3rd. What should have been routine kidney surgery {removal of a kidney that was cancerous} turned into a 5 month hospital stay.

Stephens’s dad was over weight and in pretty poor health when it was discovered that he had cancer in one of his kidneys. The doctors recommended removing it. The surgery was supposed to be mid August, but since I was due with Little Miss around that time, my mother in law decided to see if they could do it earlier.

August 3rd he went into surgery. The surgery went well and he was sent to recovery at the hospital. On August 7th, we got a phone call from my mother in law. Stephens’s dad had taken a turn for the worst. His other kidney had failed {which was almost expected}, but his heart and lungs seemed to be failing also. The doctors had placed him in the ICU. We were told he had muti-organ system failure and that he had about 24-48 hours to live.

Stephens’s older brother from Chicago and his younger brother from Washington DC flew into town. Stephens’s aunt drove down from Tennessee. Lots of tears were shed.

We all camped out at the hospital waiting on news. My massively pregnant butt was chasing Little Man and Little Miracle all over the ICU waiting rooms. Every time we walked into the main entrance of the hospital, a doctor would remind me they “do not have labor and delivery at this hospital, and if that is why we were here, you need to go to a different hospital”.

Over the next few days he slowly improved. His other kidney never started working again {so they started dialysis}, but his heart and lungs did. We had a glimmer of hope.

Over the course of the next few weeks, he came out of ICU and was placed on the regular floor of the hospital again. Little Miss was born and he heard that he had his first grand daughter {he has 5 grandsons}.

{My memory is blurry of the dates and times in-between things from this point, since I was now taking care of a newborn also}

A few weeks later he was placed back in ICU because they thought he had pneumonia and his organ systems looked to be failing again. We were all on edge again, thinking he would die.

He once again pulled out of ICU and was placed back in the regular part of the hospital.

In mid October we brought Little Miss to see him. I felt she was old enough, and he was not with “sick” people in the hospital, but on a floor specifically for kidney patients.

Meeting Little Miss for the first time {and almost 50 pounds lighter!!)



Oh my how happy Little Man was to see him!!



Loving on the boys!



In early November, he was sent to a rehab hospital. All he needed to do was gain his strength back and he would be sent home. We were all hopeful that he would be home for Thanksgiving.

He developed an infection at some point at the rehab hospital. The area where his kidney used to be had an abscess. He would need surgery again. He was sent back to the regular hospital where they did surgery to clean out that area. A minor setback.

Thanksgiving came and went, and then Christmas and New Years did the same. In early January we found out he needed another surgery because an aneurism developed in his arm {I believe due to the dialysis port}

At this point, we were all just thankful to have him alive, and had no idea when he would come home. We were shocked after this surgery that the doctor declared him well enough to go home!

After 5 months and 1 day in the hospital, 3 surgeries, 2 ICU stays and 100 pounds lost, he is HOME!!!

He still has quite a road to recovery since he has to get up and moving again after spending so much time in the hospital. He will also have to do dialysis for the rest of his life, but he is home!

It as a roller coaster we are glad to be off of!

Busted

Little Man loves playing with my camera. He knows he is not allowed to, but I often find him with my camera strap around his neck, pretending to take pictures. Telling his brother and his toys to all say cheese, standing back and saying “click” to take a picture.

To keep him from playing with my camera, we bought him a “kid” camera. One that takes crappy pictures, but will not break when dropped. Bad thing is it eats batteries so fast he hardly gets to take a few pictures before its dead. Then he is left looking for my camera again.

He finds it and continues to "take" his pictures until I spot him playing with it, take it back and remind him that we don’t play with Mommies camera because it would take all of the money in his piggy bank {and then some} to fix it if it breaks.

He says "yes ma'am" and goes off to play. I then put my camera up in a high place where he can not reach it and go about my day.

He has not played with the camera to my knowledge in several months.

Imagine my surprise when I went to get pictures off of it yesterday and saw this.



Funny. I didn’t remember taking a picture of my living room. With the snow flakes hanging from the ceiling, so within the last month.

The next picture was this



My Little Miracle, taken from a height not much taller than him. With a long sleeve shirt on. Hum. The past few days have been really warm. We did have a cold snap a few weeks ago, but I still don’t remember taking this picture.

I continued flipping thru the pictures. Some more of the living room, some of the ceiling fan and a few that were too blurry to decipher. I was beginning to suspect Little Man.

But this picture gave him up



Ah, yes, those would be Little Mans new light up Cars shoes.

Busted.

How To Amuse Kids

I learned a 10 step process to thoroughly amusing my kids today.

Step 1: Spend half your morning building a really cool blanket tent

Step 2: Tie a safety pin to the end of a piece of thread

Step 3: Attach safety pin to top of tent

Step 4: Tie the other end of the thread around the ceiling fan pulling as tight as you can {thus raising the tent}. Tie the thread around the fan.

Step 5: Wait a day. This whole day, the boys will ignore the tent, refusing to play in it. But they will beg you to leave it up for tomorrow, because they swear they will play in it then. The next morning wake up feeling like crap and lay down on the couch while the boys go play in the tent

Step 6: Realize after about 30 minutes of it being *too quiet* you are now hearing something that sounds like the boys hitting each other, but with laughter involved

Step 7: Drag your sick self off the couch to see what they are doing

Step 8: Find this



The tent you took half the morning building on the floor. Two boys on the top of the tent, clapping and trying to catch *something* that is swinging in the air

Step 9: Freak out when you realize that something is now an open safety pin, swinging right at your child’s eye.

Step 10: Close the safety pin, and let them continue their game.

Seriously, the boys have been trying to catch that safety pin ALL day today. This is a “why play with the toy when the box is more fun” type thing I suppose.

I have since packed away all the blankets that made the tent, but Little Man requested “you please leave this up?” {talking about the thread and safety pin}. Sure Man, you got it.