Just Another Reason....

....that I am not interested in having a pet live indoors in addition to children:

Eventually, those will be finished projects that I can share here =)  In the meantime, that little Luke sure does keep us on our toes!  He's quite a change from Rachel, who is the next oldest.  She was always (and still is) so quiet and cautious.  She didn't start walking until 18 months old!  This little guy is 6 1/2 months old, and is cruising everywhere.  And, boy, does he get into stuff (obviously ;)

While he can sit all by himself, he much prefers to crawl....

Yesterday, I caught him doing this (the photo is a bit wobbly, but so was he, so it was either get a decent picture, or get him from falling!):

What you can't see in the picture is that he was cracking up laughing at his big brother =)  Those two are SO cute together!  It's obvious Luke adores Andrew.  But, then he also adores the screensaver on our computer....you know, that thing that bounces around the screen, while changing shapes and colors...

What's even funnier is watching Rachel, the 2 year old, sit and watch this, saying, "circle....square....balloon...star...."  hahahaha.  I love my kids!

Needless to say, we'll take this crawling, drooling, little boy over a dog any day =)

This, That, the Other, and a few Little Thoughts

I haven't really been hanging around the blogosphere lately.  I think I have writer's block, which is ironic, because I'm not a writer...hah!  This blog is just for fun =).  Anyway, I just don't have much to post about these days.  We've been enjoying the extremely lazy days of summer, because it's just too darn hot to do anything else!  Even the cows just lay around in the shade and do nothing (although, they pretty much do that year round, so that's not saying much).  We spent the better part of today lounging around the house reading books.  I heard a fellow southerner say once that summer in the deep south is like winter in the far north, because you are almost quarantined inside because of the heat.  The temperature right now is 96 degrees, with a heat index of 107 degrees!  Way too hot to take kids outside to play.  I was out there for about 45 minutes cleaning out my van (oh yes, Phil, I actually got around to doing that ;), and I felt like I dropped 10 pounds just from the sweat...and, I was in the shade!  We did get to go swimming yesterday evening for a couple of hours at our neighbor's house, which was so very nice, but after a while, it actually felt like bath water...the temp in the water was 91 degrees O_o.

Next week, I go in for my second ultra-sound, and it's the one where we get the option to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl.  For the first 3, we didn't find out the gender, but Philip wants to for this one.  As for me, I don't know if I want to or not.  I usually am really tempted to find out, but since Phil has always wanted to be surprised, I never did, because I can't keep a secret.  Part of me feels like it's cheating, but in the end, it doesn't really matter...I mean, the baby is what it is, and I'll love him or her no matter what.  Likely, I'll break down and find out, because I'm just weak like that =)  At lunch today, the kids and I had this discussion:

Natalie:   So, Mom, I've been thinking...

Me:  oh yeah?  About what?

Natalie:  About the new baby.

Me:  What about the new baby?

Natalie:  Oh, just about having it and stuff.

Me:  It's going to be really exciting!  You'll get to hold it, and help me take care of it...(I left out the part about how I have anxiety attacks and fret think about having it and stuff, too).

Natalie:  I bet the baby gets hungry alot.

Me:  No, not really...babies get everything they need when they are in their mommy's tummy; they don't have to wait around for someone to feed them.

**I then tiptoe on egg shells trying to answer all her questions about how a pregnant woman's body works to take care of a growing baby...she's only 5, not a doctor!!  how many details does the child really need???  I settled on "that's just how God made it work", and changed the subject.  I told her that we get to go and see pictures of the baby at the doctor's office next week.

Me:  Do you want to find out if it's a boy or a girl now, or do you want to wait until it's born?

Natalie:  I want to know now!  (no shocker...she is my daughter)

Me:  Ok, maybe they'll be able to tell us.

Natalie:  Do you want to know?
Me:  I don't know yet...probably...Daddy wants to know.

**Andrew decides to join the conversation now, which is weird, because he seems to have been ignoring our entire conversation, because he's been very intent on eating his lunch for the duration of our little chat...every now and then he would pipe in with "hey, I got two noodles on my fork this time!!  cool!!"  Such a boy!

Andrew:  I want to wait.

Me:  You want to wait for the baby to be born before you know if it's a boy or a girl??

Andrew:  Yes, I want to wait.  The boys have to wait, but the girls can find out.

**Sorry Phil...I guess you have to wait with Andrew this time =P 

Now that everyone is just dying to know whether we find out or not, and, if we do find out, what the gender actually is...I shall not be posting it on the blog.  I remember my mother-in-law telling me once that if we ever find out, she doesn't want to know.  Since she actually reads my blog, I don't want to ruin the surprise for her.  So, everyone else will just have to wait for the ending =)  The hard part will be keeping Natalie away from her Grandma for the rest of the pregnancy, because there's no way she'll keep that a secret!  No, seriously, I'll make sure to drill Natalie about NOT telling Grandma, so no worries!  

Other than that, we haven't really been doing much of anything over here.  My garden is between the summer harvest and the fall planting, so I haven't been doing much with it.  I still have a couple of cherry tomato plants that are going strong, a handful of new cucumber plants that are a few weeks along, and my okra is like the gift that keeps on giving.  Phil did help me clean it out and do some weeding around the beds, so it looks much neater and is ready for the next round of planting.  Hopefully I can get to that in the next week or two.  

We'll be starting school right about the second week of August.  I've actually decided to switch to a new curriculum this year.  Natalie will be in first grade, and she's my only one in school just yet, so I figure now is the time to tweak out these things before we get so far along that it's harder to switch curricula around.  Since we attend the Traditional Latin Mass, Phil and I really wanted a curriculum that supports that.  So, I did a bit of research earlier in the summer and found Our Lady of the Rosary School.  I hope we like it.  From what I've looked at on the website, I like the books, the curriculum looks solid, I like the classes they offer for older kids, and I called and spoke with someone from their office, and she was very helpful and nice.  So, I'll be ordering the first grade supplies sometime next week, and getting some of Natalie's other school supplies tomorrow, when I get to go shopping all by myself!!!!  Well, Rachel will be with me, but she can't ask me to buy everything in the store yet, so I don't mind taking her =)  

Well, the kids just woke up and wandered in from their nap, so that means it's time for me to feed them again. 

A Little Something New

Ok, I just can't keep it a secret any longer!  We are having another baby!!!  This will be number four for us, and I had my first check up today.  And, first check up means that I got to hear the baby's heart beat!  I don't know what it is about hearing your child's heart beat for the first time, but it's an experience and a sound that stays in a mother's heart forever!  It's almost surreal...any fears or concerns or anxieties about being pregnant (because those come with all the happy emotions, too) just kind of disappear when you realize you have a little, tiny life inside you!  It's one of my favorite sounds in the world =)  Our official due date is Christmas Day, which just adds another level of excitement on top of everything.  I'm also VERY nervous about having 4 children.  Their ages will be 6, 4, 2, and newest, so it's a bit intimidating.  But, many families have done this tons of time, so I'm sure all will be well once the fear of the unknown subsides.  The doctor said I'm about 12 weeks and 5 days, which means I'm actually 2 1/2 months along.  I'm not sure why, but doctors like to make you go until you are 40 weeks, which is actually 10 months, instead of 9.  They actually count weeks that you aren't even pregnant!  What the heck is that about?  I've never understood that conundrum!  Nine months is long enough, why do doctors insist on torturing women by adding extra weeks?!?!  Whatever the case may be, I've got a long way to go!  

The fun part, though, was telling the kids that we would be having a new baby.  All Andrew said was "I want a boy baby."  And, he hasn't mentioned anything about the baby since...this was almost a month ago.  I don't think he even remembers.  Natalie didn't believe me at first.  She thought I was joking.  When I finally convinced her that I was, in fact, pregnant, she demanded to know how I knew.  "How can you tell?"  "When I'm married, how will I know when I'm pregnant?"  After a mild heart-attack at the idea of my little girl being married and having babies of her own, I told her not to worry about that until she was old enough to be married!  Then she did a lot of giggling.  Then she got worried that the baby would get cold in my belly.  And worried about how it would get food, and what if it drowned, or got blood all over it, because "don't we have blood in our bodies..what if it gets on the baby?"  The conversation quickly got out of hand, so I switched to names, and if we wanted a boy or a girl!  Oh my gosh!  How did my five-year-old get so curious about these things?!  It was cute, and funny, but I had no idea what to tell her.  I think I mumbled something about telling her when she was older, and right now all we had to think about was how much fun it would be to hold the baby and take care of it.  

I wish I had a cute little ultrasound picture to share, but I'm not scheduled to have my first one until next week, so it will have to wait.  In fact, Natalie was devastated because I had told her that we were going to get to see a picture of the baby today, and when the nurse told us the doctor wasn't doing an ultrasound, I think it just about broke her heart!  I should have known better than telling her something like that without being 100% positive!  Oh well...good things come to those who wait.  Next week I should have new baby pics!!!  

Yay for new life!