Gender Reveal

Today is my 28th birthday, so to celebrate, we're announcing the gender of our greatly-anticipated Baby #4!  (If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you've already been let in on the secret!)

The anticipation was killing me!  Unlike the 20-week ultrasounds with our other three kids, this time we had to wait for the anatomy scan before finding out the gender.  Eek!

Finally, the technician announced that our sweet #4 would be a little girl.  I almost started crying with happiness.  I've been praying for a sister for my little spice-pot for years!

And recently, she's been joining in those prayers with me.

"Mama, I just want lots of baby sisters!"

Needless to say, she is over-the-moon excited.  The boys are less than thrilled, but I think they'll come around when they finally meet their new sister. ;)

We decided to do a fun little gender reveal for the kids, since we hadn't done one for any of our others.  SO much fun!!  Hallie "predicted" pink while the boys both "predicted" blue.  (Asher was sick, so didn't make the video.)

We have chosen the name Elisha Laine for our little princess, though we mostly plan to call her Laine and Lainey.

Elisha means "my God is salvation," and while the biblical Elisha was a man, the name is actually gender neutral.  Laine, depending on where you look, can mean "path," "wave," or "light."  All of these are beautiful, but we really love the way "path" goes with the meaning of Elisha.  Our prayer for our little girl is that she would be a guide for many on the path to salvation.

 

"The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation." Exodus 15:2

"You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16:11

Not Done Yet!

Well, that was a good long absence from my dear little site.

I do have good reasons why I fell off the face of the earth, though.  First off-- homeschooling.  Even doing it only part-time has proved to be pretty time consuming.  Probably because of the two little preschoolers that are constantly interrupting.  I actually have this pretty funny little video of Gabriel reading with Hallie and Asher literally running in circles around the table yelling about something.  Good times, people.

But probably more why I haven't blogged these last couple months...

I started feeling pretty sick around the first week of November.

Yep.  Preggers.

Louis Baby #4 is on his/her way!

We are so, so, SO excited.  The kids have been asking for another baby since around January 2014!  We've been "trying" for #4 since Asher was around a year old, though I put trying in quotation marks because we weren't really actively mapping my cycle or anything.  

We suffered a miscarriage in mid-February 2014, which was heartbreaking for both me and Drew.  It was my third miscarriage and by far the latest one I had.  The first two, I barely knew I was pregnant.  This time, I was 8 weeks along and it was just horrible.

HOWEVER--

"Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning!" Psalm 30:5

I will be 16 weeks tomorrow (yay!), and hopefully past the worst of the morning all-day sickness and extreme fatigue.  You guys.  I was going to sleep at 9pm for a week or two.  ME.  9PM!  What?!  

In some ways, the time has flown by.  In other ways, I'm just like "ARGH, why do I have to wait until the end of February to find out this kid's gender?!"  Hahaha.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some sonogram pictures.  Here's our beloved #4 at 10 weeks.

Already with the cutest little profile!

Waving to Mama and Dada!

(Also coming soon -- fingers crossed -- is Hallie's birthday letter and the next part of Our Love Story!)

The Waiting Game

Last Tuesday, we thought I was in labor.

I started having contractions around 1am.  We went into the hospital for my scheduled prenatal appointment at 11am and were told that there was no progress.  The midwife gave us two options:  go home and rest or go on a walk.  

We opted for a walk.  After all, walking was how I got labor really going with Gabriel.

But after lunch and two hours of walking on and off, things were looking the same.  A disappointed and exhausted Daddy and Mommy headed home to get some much needed rest.

The contractions went away gradually.  For a few hours, I was convinced we'd have to go back to the hospital that night, but alas... things finally got quiet.

And they've remained so for a week.  

Every time I have even the slightest Braxton Hicks, I hold my breath to see if it goes anywhere.

Every night, I go through a mental list of stuff, "just in case."  

Bags -- packed.

Clothes -- clean.

Car seat -- ready.

Still nothing.

I've gotten stuff done.  There are seven meals in my freezer that weren't there last Tuesday.  I've done laundry and gone grocery shopping a few times, making sure my kids will have something to eat and wear while I'm in the hospital.

This girl is so ready to be a big sister!

But what I'm really doing is waiting.

Any suggestions for distracting my mind?!  I know it's unlikely for labor to come when I'm just sitting around, but it's hard for me to want to do anything else!

So Little Time, So Much to Do!

If there's one thing I've learned about myself in my now three pregnancies, it's that I am not a nester.

I'm actually a little envious of the mamas who get those little spurts of energy at the very end.  For me, the closer it gets to D-Day, the lazier I get.

Hey, the way I look at it, my body is hard at work nourishing two lives, so the best thing I can do for my body is rest.  And eat.  But that's another story. ;)

The 12ish projects that I planned to accomplish before Asher arrives... the ones I was going to tackle one-per-week and be done by April 1st?  Yeah, they pretty much flew out the window after the second week (which was at the end of January). Since then, I've done a grand total of three-and-a-half.

At least the cradle is set up and ready to go!

Third trimester kicks serious booty, y'all.

And now that Asher is full term (YAY!), I doubt I'll get any of the rest of them done.  There are more important things to think about... like packing for the hospital (my first time delivering at one! eep!), writing out my birth "plan," making freezer meals, and praying that I don't have any more near-panic attacks about giving birth.  I also have to stay caught up on laundry, grocery shop, and feed my family.

I have so much respect for women who get anything done in their third trimester.  Seriously, all I want to do is lay in bed (the only place my rib cage gets any relief).

Well.  It's laundry time.  Two loads to fold and one to wash/dry.

At least one of the loads is baby clothes!

Eighteen days and counting...

A Little Post of Randoms

Hello, friends.

My mind is everywhere lately and I can't seem to form coherent thoughts, much less compose a whole blog post.

Welcome to the sleepless nights of the third trimester, Mama.

So, I thought I would just post a few random things that have been on my mind.  Who knows... it might be entertaining to see where this leads...

Hopefully next week, I'll be able to get my thoughts in order long enough to write something worth reading! :)

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I got a domain!  It's been something I've been meaning to do for years, but I finally took the plunge and did it!  Woo!

I've been designing my sister's wedding website and was working in their domain trying to get it linked to the host (looooong story -- like 2-3 days long) and when I finally figured it out, I decided I might as well take what I'd learned and do my own.

Mine took literally 10 seconds.  Go figure.

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I missed my organizational goal last week.  I just hit a wall.  We hosted a Super Bowl party for our Sunday school class.  It took me two days to recover and when I did, the last thing I wanted to do was organize a closet.  So now I'm a week behind, which means I'll either remain a week behind and just tack the last project on at the end or I'll have to overlap projects a bit.  Not sure which one I'll do.

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During my previous two pregnancies, I've severely limited my sweets intake during the third trimester.  And by severely limited, I mean I would only ingest them on the weekends.

But I can't seem to bring myself to do it this time around.  I just want to reward myself for keeping the kids alive... or making dinner... or finishing the laundry... or whatever.  Because all of those things are the last things I want to be doing.  (Well, obviously I want to keep my kids alive.  But sometimes I wish they could keep themselves alive for at least five minutes!)

And because I keep eating all this sugar, I'm starting to worry that Asher is going to be quite a bit bigger than my other two 8lb, 6oz babies (yes, they were the same size).

Lord, help me!

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I am SO behind on laundry.  Ugh.  Last week, I had to pull stuff out of the dirty clothes just to have something to wear.  I've been pretty good about staying on top of my kids' laundry, especially with Hallie outgrowing all of her clothes (only a few outfits still fit) and Gabriel going to MDO (skinny kid only has four pairs of pants that fit around the waist).

But my laundry is rarely all clean at the same time.  Which means I'll have pants, but no shirts, or vice versa... or I'll have clothes, but no panties.  Poor Drew has been forced to do his own on the weekends.  Sometimes I'm able to fold it for him, but more often, he's living out of laundry baskets.

Currently I have 3 clean loads sitting in my hall, one in Hallie's room, and one in the dryer.  Guess I know what I'll be doing during nap time today.

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My car is in desperate need of a vacuum.  I haven't had the inside done since the summer... before our family vacation to the beach.  Yeah.  Gross.  It's just so hard to sit and wait with two toddlers, even on the weekends when I have Daddy's help.  Add another thing to the list of things to do when Gabriel's at MDO!

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Tomorrow, I have to take my glucose test.  I'm freaking out a little.  You'd think, being that this is my third, stuff like needles and getting blood drawn would be no big deal.  But it is a big deal.  I don't know if I'll have both kids (how long is pneumonia contagious?) or if Drew will be able to take off work in the morning to offer moral support.  And considering I have to drink the glucose mixture first, then sit and wait for however long with one antsy toddler (possibly two)... I'm just not looking forward to it at all.  Who could blame me?


Well, that's all for today, folks.  Time to go fold some laundry, call the pediatrician, and start dinner prep.

Whew.  Wish me luck!

And we're having a...

*drumroll*

Hehe! 

The technician was able to tell us within two seconds of starting the sonogram. :)

Gabriel is very excited to be expecting a little brother.  Since we first told him that we were going to be having another baby, he has been mostly been saying it's another sister.  But starting a week before the sonogram, he changed his tune, confidently saying the baby was going to be a boy.

Hallie, of course, has no idea what's going on.  But seeing as how she carries her "deedees" everywhere already, I'm not worried about what she'll think of a new addition!

Sweet profile.

We have chosen the name Asher for our little guy.  This name is actually what Drew wanted to call Gabriel, but I'd had my heart set on Gabriel since I was like thirteen so Drew conceded like any good husband should! ;)

Asher means "blessed, happy, fortunate."  It really couldn't be more perfect for how I feel, knowing that God has given us another son to steward and raise up to serve Him.

"Then Leah said, 'How [blessed] I am! The women will call me [blessed].' So she named him Asher." Genesis 30:13

And I really couldn't be more blessed.

I Like Babies.

I like babies.  So does my husband.  And since we've been thus far successful in making the two cutest babies on the planet, we decided to try our luck and go for number three! :)

How I told Daddy.

Today we had our first sonogram of our newest addition.  I'm pretty sure s/he* is going to be just as cute as Gabriel and Hallie. 

Here are some of the precious pictures we were able to capture:

Baby face!

Little hands and foot.

Hair!  And a Morrow nose!

I'm one happy and blessed mama. 

* Note:  We did find out the gender, but I wanted the grandparents, aunts, and uncles to find out from me personally, rather than through my blog (which many of them read).  Gender reveal on here in a few days!