Sunday evening

Just hanging out this weekend with the family. Sam is sleeping and Jake and Alex are busy playing trains on my new treadmill. David got me this awesome treadmill for my birthday. I know many are thinking, what a lame gift, what exactly is he trying to say. So you won't feel sorry for me, I asked for this gift, have been asking for it for a year and a half, every major gifting holiday. Finally got it and I am so excited and very motivated. My post 3rd baby body is not what I envisioned 10 years ago. Must lose the butt and hips. I have to say I have enjoyed getting back into running. I feel much better and whether or not I look it, I feel skinnier when I'm done running. So that is where you will find me during naptime, running my rolling hills program and watching Sex and the City DVDs that my SIL let me borrow (I've never seen any of them).
On a side note, I am moving all of my scrapbooking stuff to the sunroom upstairs. It used to be our office but we're moving the computer out into the hallway so w can see the kids when they're using it. So excited. Until now I've had an unfinished closet to store my stuff and a fold out table to scrap on. Anyway, I'm almost done and stuff is everywhere. Sam comes into the sunroom, looks at all my stuff, and says "is this where people go to shop?" Out of the mouths of babes, huh? Guess it's time to use more and buy less.

One long but fun weekend

Friday morning Heather and I went to Charlotte for the CKC event. We signed up for 4 classes and loved them all. The first was a simple scrapbooks class taught by Marnie Flores and she is hilarious. Made 4 layouts. Then off to the 2008 latest and greatest with basic grey class which rocked. We made 4 layouts whch were awesome and then purchased the second page of the layouts to finish at home for a total of 8 pages! Then a quick lunch and lots of shopping followed by a technique tuesday class which was fun and messy. Gotta love that. Then off to our last class with SEI-an entire album! Talk about one productive day and all without the kids. Much needed break.
Saturday was man day so David took Sam and Jake to make rounds, eat breakfast and go to the gunshow. They had a great time, but Alex was forced to take one for the team with Mommy and was clearly ticked about it. He cried when they left and just wants to be big too. When they got home we packed up to go camping with the Godleys. they have boys the same ages as ours so great fun to hang out with. The campsites were pretty full so it took about an hour to find one. Jake sat in the back yelling "I want to go camping" getting louder each time with increased inflection on camping. It rained on us for most the afternon so we hung out under a tarp until t quick a little before dinner time. We played until dark and then put kids to bed (much harder task for the Godleys than for us) before we hung out around the fire until about 11. Had breakfast and packed up much to the dismay of my children who cried about having to leave saying "we love camping." Everybody seemed to have fun running around playing war with their toy guns the whole time. Headed home and tried to recover.
Today, ran a quick errand and have spent the morning hanging out here. Alex is clearly very smart and it appears will have no problem joining the crowd and holding his own. He took Sam's blanket from him this morning and when Sam said hey quickly took off crawling away giggling. I think he has discovered how to play with his brothers. Can't wait to see how their relationships continue to grow with Alex. So glad they can play together now.
Will add pics later when the boy wake up.

Alex is here

So, we are finally home from the hospital. Alex was born Monday morning at 8:26 am by C-section. He weighed 7 # 7 oz and was 19.5 in long., just as healthy as can be. We are now home and he is doing great. Growing and eating well, and believe it or not sleeping decently. He is up every 3 hours at night to eat and then goes back to sleep. I am doing better today but have a rough few days. I had a lot of scar tissue when they did my C-section from last time which led to me being operated on for an hour. they had to resect a lot of scra tissue where it had attached to my bladder and muscle wall and then put everyhting back together again, so I am in a lot more pain than I was the last time, but slowly improving. I can't lay flat yet because of the muscle pain, but am getting there. The boys seem to have adjusted well so far and are very helpful with Alex. They are always wanting to hold him and love on him. Anyway, I'll add more later. In the meantime here are his first pics.

A new niece

My sister-in-law had her baby girl, Ava, on Friday morning. She is just as cute as can be. So far she is adjusting well. Sleeping fairly well, but always wanting to eat. The pictures are of my boys holding her for the first time, one of her, and the last one of my brother-in-law, his son, Ava, and David and the boys. There were many shots of that last one, but only one with everybody looking. Hate that the flash left that light in it. Oh well. We spent the weekend watching my nephew Cole, and interviewing a new doctor for David's practice. Seems like a great guy, and his wife is lovely, so maybe it will work out. Today I spent the morning doing online CE classes for me recertification and now I am pooped. Hope to relax and scrap my afternoon away. That's all for now.

A very long time ago...

I started a blog with every intention of updating it frequently. HA, HA. It's been several months now. Well, not a whole lot has happened in that time frame. We spent most of the summer tending to our garden which was suffering greatly due to a huge drought. It ended up being a decent year for the garden even though many things didn't produce well. The boys went back to preschool in September so now I at least have some time to myself to relax. However, I am now 33 weeks pregnant and spending a lot of time at the doctor's office(at least it feels that way). I am rapidly expanding and running out of room for this little one to grow. My clothes just keep getting tighter. Other than that feeling fine though. Pregnancy is going well. This past weekend we had our neighborhood pumpkin picking and that was a lot of fun. There were about 30 of us there. Ended up with a ton of pumpkins this year. Just thought I'd add a few pics from the weekend. The boys have gotten a new bunk bed and seem to be excited about their little brother's arrival. That's about all for now, but I promise to do better.

It's been a long few weeks

So we have literally spent the last few weeks working at the farm. I have have split and canned 60 quarts of green beans (yeah done for the year now), shelled and put up about 10 quarts of peas, shelled and put up 6 quarts of october beans, canned our cucumbers to make pickles and I am exhausted. 'Tis harvest season though I guess. I can't complain too much because by the time the season is over we'll be set for the year on vegetables. It's a lot of work, but so worth it to have fresh home grown veggies all year long. Plus it makes making side items for dinner a cinch. The baby has been kicking up a storm, very strong little boy we have coming. Sam ans Jake have been doing well. We've gone to several baseball games which they love. They are also taking swim classes. Sam is awesome. he can already swim with a flotation device and even swim under water for a short distance. Jake is doing great too. He was not a lover of swim classes from the beginning though. He refuses to close his mouth no matter what we try so he is not a fan of going under water. He has however improved in his swimming ability and kicks and digs like a champ now. He also enjoys the classes now which is awesome. Well, that's about it. Gotta go pack for our beach trip. Leaving on Saturday and can't wait.

It's another boy

Well, it was a very long and stressful weekend at our house. On Friday afternoon we had our 20 week ultasound, but the baby had an irregular heartbeat and they were having difficulty seeing all 4 chambers of the heart, so the doctor wanted to refer us to a perinatologist for a more in depth ultrasound. She was afraid there might be something wrong with the baby's heart. Unfortunately, it was after 5 by the time we finished and the perinatologist's office was closed, so we would have to wait till Monday. We spent the entire weekend worrying abou the ehalth of our baby and this morning the anxiety just got worse. We went to the perinatologist at 11:30 and he said everything looked great with the heart. We were going to have a perfectly healthy baby boy. We were so thankful and relieved. And another boy. I am severely outnumbered, but still so excited.

I also included some pics from our neighbor's 4th of July party. She has the fire engine come and lead a parade around the neighborhood. The boys were very excited to drive their John Deere power wheels this year.

That's it for now.