Starting our homeschool adventure!

I was really torn on what to do with schooling this year.  Technically, Kameron wouldn't start Kindergarten until Fall of 2014, but I really believed he was ready.  I went back and forth trying to decide if I should do preschool with both boys, or go ahead with Kindergarten for Kameron and do more preschool aged things for Brenner.  So I decided to go ahead and try him starting Kindergarten, and then if I felt like it was too advanced for him, we'd cut back and go at a slower pace. 

 

I am SO glad I went ahead with it!  I found an awesome curriculum to use and purchased their Kindergarten pack.  Kameron is excelling with it and we do a lot of it with Brenner too. 

 

For the first "day of school", I surprised with the boys with chocolate covered donut holes for breakfast.  They were beyond excited and it set a good tone for our first day.  Travis also left us a note, which was a great surprise.  I'm so thankful for a husband that is so supportive and excited about this journey.  

 

So with this currciculum, we do history, bible reading, a rhyme with hand motions, science, dramatic play activities, bible memorization, devotions, music, art, math, reading comprehension, phonics, handwriting and a thinking skills book.  We don't do all of these every single day, some rotate around and some we do every day.  I have been surprised at how much Brenner has loved doing with us and it SO fun to watch them learn together! 

Within a week, Kameron was reading!  I had tried teaching him to read a while back, and now realize he just wasn't ready.  His reading lesson book is one of our favorite things to do together.

We make sure to leave lots of time for playing!  Our "schoolwork" doesn't take more than 60-90 minutes, which I scatter all throughout the day. 

I try to leave one or two things from our lesson plan for the day for when Travis is home.  It's nice for the boys to get to learn from dad, do fun activities with him, and then Travis gets to see a little bit of what they are learning. 

Kameron still has to do his eye patch for 4 hours a day, which he usually does while working on the tablet.  The boys LOVE to snuggle and do the tablet together.  I feel like in the last month since we've started school, they have become so close, are getting along so well and just really enjoying being together.  It's been really good bonding time for our family.

This was the boys making boats out of foil and then finding how much they could hold in the water without sinking. 

We have finished up 2 full weeks of school now and I am thrilled with how it's going.  We are loving the curriculum and it has been so much fun to do it all together.  I was really nervous about if I would actually be able to pull this off with my 3 little men, but it has been so much easier than I thought it would be!  I do some with all 3 boys, some with Kameron while the younger 2 are sleeping, and some we do when Trav is home as a family.  It has given great structure to our day and I am blown away every single day with how much they understand and the conversations we have!

Oops

Oh goodness, apparently I didn't keep up with my plan very well!  :)

My new plan :)

I have been feeling horrible about how behind I am in blogging.  Almost every single day, something happens and I think, I should get this on the blog before I forgot!  Well...  in months, there is hardly anything on here and I have probably forgotten everything I had wanted to post.  I always wait until I get my pics on the computer, so I have them to go with the posts, but then get behind on that... it's a vicious cycle.  :)

So my new plan is to keep a sheet of paper in the kitchen with bullet points to write down blog worthy things during the week, and then do a post once a week.  I can't believe I have missed the whole summer!!

I am hoping to do a "summer recap", at least with a couple pictures.  But if not, here is what is going on RIGHT now, and hopefully I can keep up better from here. 

We are starting our first official homeschool year.  Kameron is going to be doing Kindergarten!  Brenner is actually going to do a lot of it right along with us, and then I'll modify the math and handwriting for him.  We are really excited to start and I have all my curriculum ready to go.  The curriculum I've chosen is set up to be really flexible, so I'm hoping it will doable with these 3 little guys! 

Micah is just amazing.  We love him.  :)  He is so happy, all the time.  He just started sitting up today, which I have been SO excited for.  He loves to be watching the boys and I, so it will be so nice when he can sit on the floor with them while we're playing.  He doesn't sleep great at night, but we're getting there.  He wakes up 2-4 times a night, but last night was just once, so we have hope.  :) 

Travis is actively looking for firefighter jobs, trying to get in shape for the tests and praying he finds one soon!  We can't wait for him to have a firefighter schedule, so that we will be able to homeschool together a lot of the days.  We have been working like crazy on paying off debt, working towards our goal of becoming debt free.  I've been selling things over the summer and we've been really motivated to get our medical bills and my student loans paid off!

At the end of last Spring, I did an AdvoCare 24 day challenge and LOVED it.  I got down to my pre-baby weight by the time Micah was 3 1/2 months old, which was huge for me.  I think Kameron was 6 months before I could even wear normal jeans!  :)  So over the summer, I've been being good with eating and have maintained that weight, but am anxious to get back on the program and keep working towards my goal.  So I'm going to start going to the gym in the evenings and get back to menu planning and eating on plan. 

SO...  now hopefully I will stick to getting a new blog post up here each week.  Maybe even a picture every now and then.  :)

Lake Whatcom Railway

I get so worried about having my posts in order, that then I get so behind because I feel like I can't post new things until I get all the old ones done!  So I am going to accept that at this phase of our life, I don't care if they out of order, as long as they are on here!  :)

 

Kameron has to wear an eye patch for 4 hours a day over his right eye, in order to make his left eye work harder and eventually get stronger.  So we have created a chart for him where he puts a sticker on a chart for every hour he does the patch.  For every 15 hours, he earns some type of reward.  He's earned a trip out for ice cream, a trip to the arcade to use some quarters out of his piggy bank and his latest reward was a train ride.  We normally wouldn't do something this big for a reward, but Travis had found a deal on a travel site that we were planning on taking them on anyways, so we made it his eye patch reward.  :) 

 

We had such a great day.  The boys were beyond excited to ride the train and it was so fun watching them explore everything.  They had a banjo player that walked around the car playing and singing classic songs.  We had such gorgeous weather and the temperature was perfect. 



 

We rode for about 20 minutes, and then they dropped everyone off for a while to go check out a waterfall and people could drive this train cart on the tracks.  The boys thought this was really fun!

We had a great family day and it's so fun being able to do more of these types of the things now that the boys are getting a little bit older and appreciate it so much!

Love

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this baby.  I cannot get enough of this adorable face!  I just want to kiss his little face all the time!

So much for that...

So we did the same newborn picture of both Kameron and Brenner in the striped onesie that we sent out for their birth announcements.  I was all excited to get the picture of Micah in the onesie laying in Travis' hands and he was NOT having that!!  So after several failed attempts and lots of crying and a squirmy baby, we gave up!  So here are the pics of the boys:

Kameron:

Brenner:

Micah:

 

Every time we tried to put his arm up, he would just throw it right back down and get mad.  At least in this one, he wasn't screaming, but he does looks a little scared about what we were trying to do!

Looking at these makes me realize that the boys definitely do have their own unique "look" to them.

Micah Update

Brenner calls Micah "Mikey" or "Micah Monkey"

When Micah is falling asleep, he always holds onto the collar of our shirts.  He has done this from the time he was born, and I didn't know newborns would start doing this so early.  It is SO cute.  Most of the time we swaddle him up to sleep, but if we don't, he always does this.

He is a HAPPY baby!  Seriously the happiest baby I have ever met.  If anyone will look in his eyes and talk to him, he just lights up.  I can't even describe the amount of joy it brings me on a hard day.  Here he is smiling at daddy!

He definitely got my big eyes.  In a lot of the pictures I have of him, he looks frightened, just because you see so much white around his eyes when he is looking intently at something.

He weighs about 14 pounds right now and is almost 3 months old.  He sleeps from about 9 or 10, until about 5am, eats, then goes back to sleep until about 8.  It's amazing. 

He does NOT enjoy the car!!  It's the only thing he really doesn't like, but he makes it very clear that he is not a fan.  Hopefully this phase ends soon.  :) 

He has quit nursing.  :(  He has been my hardest baby to feed.  When he was a few weeks old, he started becoming REALLY gassy and uncomfortable all the time, and he wouldn't get restful sleep, and neither would I since he was grunting all night long.  He was always turning red from grunting and stretching so much.  He would also spit up a lot, and wanted to eat every hour and a half...  24 hours a day.  So I was a zombie from being up feeding him so much at night.  So after talking to my midwife about this, she thought maybe I had a milk imbalance and he wasn't getting enough of the fatty milk.  So I started pumping and doing bottles, so I could make sure he got the fatty milk, and he became a different baby.  He started sleeping much longer stretches and was so much more comfortable, and hardly ever spits up anymore.  So that was GREAT news!  So I was probably nursing half the time and doing bottles half the time.  But nursing AND pumping was consuming a LOT of my day.  So we were so excited that he was feeling so much better, but then the little man decided that he liked bottles much better.  So every time I would try and nurse him, he would just scream and scream.  But then you'd put a bottle in his mouth and he would attack it and down the whole thing!  It made me really sad that he wouldn't nurse, but I just couldn't get him to do it.  So I am currently pumping and we're doing solely bottles right now, but we have a very, very happy baby on our hands, so there could be worse issues to have...

I just love this little baby SO much.  I am loving having a baby in the house again, I love just sitting and talking to him or snuggling him.  He's just such a little bundle of joy and is so smiley and chatty.  I feel really bonded with him and feel like every day I tell him he just needs to stay my sweet baby!!!

Kameron's 4th Birthday

Hard to believe that our sweet boy is already 4 years old.  We are really loving this age.  Kameron is so sweet, helpful, funny, kind, creative and caring.  He loves to help take care of his brothers, he is great at building things like lincoln logs and Legos and is a great eater.  His favorite foods are spicy foods!  He loves Tapatio, Tobasco, Phad Thai, spicy sauce at Subway, salsa, etc.  He says the funniest things and his memory is amazing.  He will randomly bring up things that we did 2 years ago. 

 

This year, instead of doing a traditional birthday party, we did a few different things.  On his actual birthday, him and Travis made chocolate cupcakes and we spent the day playing games and hanging out at home.  That evening, we got pizza and the Howlands came over to play.  Travis and I had set up a little scavenger hunt with clues around the house, leading them to a drawer full of goodies for all the kids.  After he opened his gifts, we let the kids decorate and eat the cupcakes.  It was a really simple, but fun day. 

 

The day after his birthday, Travis' family came up from Yakima, and then we all drove down to meet my parents in Everett.  Wes and Leanna and the girls also came down with us, and we all went out to pizza and had a great time.  We had a huge table next to a fireplace, and my parents had brought birthday presents for Kameron.  After having pizza, we all headed over to a Silvertips hockey game!  Kameron LOVES watching sports, so he was beyond excited to go watch a hockey game.  It was also Kid's Night, so all the kids got free jerseys! 

Since we had bought a group of tickets, we got to put a message up on the reader board for free!  It was really neat seeing Kameron's name up there!  :)

Kameron had a great birthday weekend getting to spend 2 days with so many friends and family, eating cake and pizza, opening presents and watching hockey!  It was really special having both mine and Travis' parents there.  Every time I see pictures of the boys with both sets of grandparents, it just makes me so happy that he gets to grow up having that experience.  My grandparents all lived so far apart and far away, we rarely saw them growing up.  So I was just really happy for him that he gets to have these memories. 

Wow - it is so hard to get anything done besides just caring for our family right now!  I have all these blog posts floating around in my head and have not managed to get a single one posted.  I've probably forgotten half of them by now.  My dad was joking about not putting up any pictures of the 3rd child.  Well it is not because the pictures don't exist, we have a ton.  It's because the time to get them off of the camera, onto the computer, onto a blog post does not exist!  It has amazed me how long it takes to get anything done or get out of the house with the 3 of them, and Micah is a really easy baby!  I can't imagine how it would be if he was fussy!

The boys are all doing great, it just takes a lot to keep everyone fed, clothed, fed again, potty runs, change diapers, fed again, pick up the glass of spilled milk, remind them not to run their bikes INTO the side of the van, remind another not to use 15 pumps of soap to wash his hands, feed the baby again, turn down the boiling over pot that has lunch cooking in it, etc.  And that was just all today and it's not even 4:00 yet!  :) 

One reason it takes me a long time to get anything done, IF I get anything done is because Micah has been eating every 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  And when it takes a good half hour to feed him, that takes up a huge chunk of my day.  He is also doing this at night, which means not much sleep for me.  Thankfully, my strength is renewed each day and we are still functioning.  When Micah is 4 weeks, we are going to try pumping and giving him a bottle so I can sleep through a feeding a get a better chunk of sleep.

It has been really funny to watch the boys learn about nursing.  The first time I nursed Micah at home, Kameron asked what I was doing and what those parts were.  So I was explaining that it's mama's chest and it's just a miracle how a mama has a baby and then her body starts making milk to feed her baby.  Their comments were:  Brenner - "Yeah, babies need lots of milk and chest" Kameron - "I can't wait until I get a miracle and can feed Micah too!"  So sweet.  One morning I woke up to find Kameron sticking breast pads onto this pajamas. 

Travis and I cannot agree on who Micah looks like.  I say Kameron and he says Brenner.  I am going to find a 3 week pic of each of the boys to compare and maybe somehow find a time to even make it a blog post. :)

Snapshot of our life

This picture sums up our life perfectly right now.  Micah sleeps all the time, the boys are over the moon in love with their baby brother and never short on energy, and Travis and I are exhausted.  :)

Micah actually does amazing at night, so we feel very blessed that we are getting as much sleep as we are with a newborn, but are still exhausted from waking up during the night and keeping up with the boys.  Travis just went back to work yesterday, so we were very blessed to have him home for almost 2 weeks!  I have so many blog posts I want to do like Micah's birth story and photos, what we were up to in the weeks leading to him coming, Kameron's 4th birthday, Kameron's playing T-Ball, etc.  But for now and my limited energy, this sums it up.  :)

Micah Jesse St.George

We are so excited that Micah has arrived!  He was born on April 3rd, 2013 at 2:53pm at the Bellingham Birth Center.  He weighed 8lbs 5oz and was 21" long.  We came home around 7pm that evening and everyone is doing great.  It still seems strange that we are now a family of five with three sons, but we couldn't be more thankful for these beautiful boys.

Kameron and Brenner were so excited when we brought him home.  It has been amazing to watch them interact with them and want to help take care of him. 

Getting ready for baby!

It seems like for a long time, it felt like we didn't really have a lot to do to prepare for this little guy to come.  I felt like I had a lot of stuff and wouldn't need to get much, and then as it got closer, my memory started coming back about some of the essentials I feel like I need with a newborn.  So I started ordering things on Amazon, our friends threw a really sweet couples shower for us and family and friends have sent gifts and I am feeling much more prepared! 

 

We never did a "nursery" for Brenner.  He was in our room for a long time, and then had a crib in our guest room.  The 3rd room in our house was never re-done like the rest of our house.  We had switched out all the trim in our house to white and painted every room, except in this one.  So we decided to use this as an excuse to actually finish this room.  Travis did an amazing job putting up a chair rail and white trim and I painted and we love how it came together!  Brenner still sleeps in a crib in this room, so even though it says Micah on the wall, it's kind of Brenner's room for the time being.  Micah will be in our room for a while, and when we're ready to move him to this room, we'll move Brenner in with Kameron.

 

This is me at 37 weeks.

We decided that we wanted to cloth diaper again.  I loved doing it with Kameron, and did for a while after Brenner was born.  But when I had 2 little guys in diapers for over a year, it was just really hard to keep up with all the laundry they created and I was happy if I could just stay on top of diaper changes!  So I went back to disposables and just had never gotten back into cloth diapering.  I get strangely excited about cute diapers, so this is the stash that I have for Micah!  I can't wait for him to be born so I can start using them.  :)

Our small group threw a couples shower for us and we had so much fun.  A couple people had put together little "survival" kits for Travis as well with things like beer, earplugs, coffee gift cards, etc.  It was so much fun just to celebrate Micah's arrival.  Being the 3rd child, it's just so different than the 1st time.  Thankfully we have a lot of friends and family that are VERY excited about him arriving, but it was fun to actually have a little party to celebrate our new son.  We feel so blessed to be given another child and loved having people pray over us and him and anticipate his arrival.

I don't really have a huge sweet tooth, but this pregnancy it is in full force!  I just want chocolate ALL the time!  One night I decided I really want chocolate covered strawberries and now it's hard for me not to have some every single night.  :)  After a few nights, I realized that I could save time and not melt the chocolate and just eat some strawberries and chocolate chips.  It's become my nightly obsession.  :)

Ready for labor

When we were pregnant with Kameron, Travis and I took a 12 week birth class and it was one of the best things we've ever done.  We learned so much about pregnancy and labor, and it was such a neat thing to get to do as a couple.  We used so much of that information when we were in labor with both Kameron and Brenner.

The woman who taught the class does refresher courses for people that are 3 hours and she'll come to your home.  So tonight, we had her over and we went over everything from the stages of labor, to comfort techniques, planning for if things don't go the way we've planned, etc.  It was SO good.  I was sad when it was over!!  I am one of those weird people who actually like labor and look forward to that process.  To me, it is just so amazing to bring a person into this world and is such a bonding thing for Travis and I to go through together.  I have no judgement for people that have babies at the hospital or decide to get drugs, it's just not the route that we've chosen to go.  I feel so blessed to have a husband that is 100% supportive of this, understands why it's important to me, it's important to him as well and now we get to do it again.  The plan is to have 2 of my best friends there as well and I am really praying that works out. 

Going through this refresher just made it so real for both of us that Micah really is going to be here very soon!  We can't wait!

Our first view of Micah!

For the past few months, Micah has been breech and we've been waiting for him to flip over.  At my last 2 appointments, the doctors were "pretty" sure he had flipped, but couldn't be confident, so they scheduled an ultrasound for this morning to make certain of his position.  The ultrasound confirmed that he was head down and we were SO happy!  We are planning on having him at the Birth Center in Bellingham, but had to be sure that he was head down to be able to do that. 

After she had checked his position, the tech asked if we would like a 4D shot of his face just for fun.  I was so excited!  We would never pay for a 4D ultrasound, but I think it's so amazing what they can see now with technology and of course wanted to see my baby!  We both think he looks a lot like Brenner, so we're anxious to see when he's born if he really does, or if it's just this shot.  He just looks so peaceful, content and perfect.  We can't wait to have him here with us. 

We are only 3 weeks away from our due date now!  In the beginning it always seems like you'll be pregnant forever, but now I can't believe that he's going to be here so soon.  This pregnancy has definitely been harder for different reasons, but I'm healthy and he's healthy and that's what matters.

When Kameron saw this picture come up on the big screen, he said, "That baby is all smashed in there!" 

Keeping us laughing

These boys keep us laughing all the time at the funny things they say.

Travis: "Kameron, mommy and daddy need to go get massages, we're sore"
Kameron: "And Brenner and I could stay here with a baby-sitter?"
Me: "Couldn't you just baby-sit Brenner?"
Kameron: "No way!"
Me:  "Why not?"
Kameron:  "Because if you guys left, I wouldn't have a car to leave!"
Not quite the answer I was expecting!

Me: "When the baby is born, he'll sleep in mommy and daddy's room"
Kameron:  "No, he'll sleep in my bed"
Brenner:  "No, he'll sleep in my crib"
Kameron:  "No, he'll sleep in my bed so when he needs a bath, I can take him to the bath tub"
Brenner:  "No!  He's too little and will flush down the drain!"  (In a VERY worried tone!)

Random bits and pieces

*The baby flipped over!  Well as of 2 weeks ago, he had flipped over and was head down, but this baby is more active than I knew a baby could be, so I don't REALLY know where he is currently at.  :)  At my 33 week appointment, he was head down, but sitting really high.  So his head was only around my belly button!  He moves so much, it is so hard for us to figure out what is what and what his position is.  My next appointment is in 2 days, so we're anxious to find out if he stayed head down.  It is just amazing to sit and watch my stomach, you can just watch him move all over the place.  We're really wondering if he's going to be born and be really mellow like the other 2 boys or be the total opposite!

*I am 35 weeks, so only 5 more weeks until we get to meet this sweet boy!  It's still not real that we're going to have a newborn in the house again.  The boys are so excited to meet him and hold him, I can't wait to watch them with the baby.  Kameron was so young when Brenner was born, it's going to be fun to have older boys with a baby in the house.  I know they're going to be great helpers!

*Brenner is no longer wearing diapers at home, except at night.  One morning a few weeks ago, he got up and told me he needed to go pee.  So we brought out the little pottie, and he's been using it ever since!  He still wears a diaper when we go out of the house, because so far, he hasn't quite grasped that part of remembering he needs to go when we're out doing things.  It's really nice not going through as many diapers though. 

*Kameron is HILARIOUS.  He makes us laugh so much and says the funniest things.  He has been doing so good and is such a joy.  Lately, he has just been so obedient, kind, helpful and sweet.  I am loving this stage with him.  We've had some really hard stages with him, but right now, he's in a really good one.  :)  Him and Brenner play so well together, and he is so considerate of making sure Brenner is included and helping him do things he can't.  I just love sitting and watching them play together.  The other day, they were out on the deck playing some game they had made up and laughing hysterically and I thought, I can't imagine them not having each other.  They are just so close, and usually within a couple feet of each other no matter where they are in the house.  They hang out right together no matter what they are doing.  I'm so glad that we were blessed to have them close together and that they are growing up this way, and now we get to add another little boy to that mix.  Someone commented a while back about how we are going to need a bigger house with 3 boys, but I really don't think we do, they are never more than 5 feet apart!  Our whole family kind of runs that way anyways, we're always all in the same room. 

*Kameron finally asked me the infamous question of "how is the baby going to get out of your tummy?"

*Brenner has become SUCH a snuggler!  Kameron has always been the more affectionate, snuggly one.  Lately though, Brenner always wants to be in my lap, giving hugs and kisses and will randomly just say, "I love you mommy" and give me a kiss. 

*Kameron is always talking about the things he is going to do when he gets bigger.  He just wants to do everything Travis does.  When he gets bigger, he is going to play hockey.  When he gets bigger, he will go to work like daddy.  When he gets bigger, he will drive a motorcycle.  In 17 more birthdays, he will have a beer like daddy.  For Brenner, his only dream is, "When I get bigger, I get gum."  :)

Valentine's Day story

Typically, Ambritt does all of the blog updating for our family, but today I decided that I would put my first blog together. While taking a college English class, my final assignment was to write about a meaningful event in my life. I decided that I would write the story of our engagement, which took place on Valentine's Day in 2006. I wanted to record it in our blog so that later in life our kids can read the story of that day: 

            “Dave, could this clock be going any slower this morning?” Sarcastically, Dave replied, “Why bud, you got somewhere better to be?” Dave knew how big of a day this was for me. The glimmer in his eye and the sly smile on his face told me that he would be giving me a hard time all morning. I had talked to Dave about this day ever since I had figured out what I was going to do. Dave and I have talked about a lot of stuff in fact. He is my co-worker and his desk sits next to mine in the office where we work. We have been friends for a few years and have become better friends this past year when we were assigned to work on a project together. “Hey Trav, you gettin’ nervous yet? I know I’d be a wreck and would probably forget to bring something important?” Dave said to me as he got up to get another cup of coffee. Little did Dave know that I had played this day over and over in my mind and had a checklist back at my apartment. No way was I going to forget anything that I needed to propose to Ambritt.

            I left work early to head back to my apartment and get prepared for one of the biggest days of my life. Not only was it Valentine’s Day, but it was the day I was going to propose to my girlfriend. I unlocked my door and walked in. There, on the kitchen counter to my left, was the checklist that I had carefully prepared last night. I continued walking down the hall to the bathroom. As I showered, I wondered what Ambritt’s reaction was going to be. Would she cry, would she smile, what would she say when I gave her the ring? I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and put on my clothes. Jeans with a blue and white striped polo seemed kind of plain, but I had hung my freshly pressed dress clothes by the front door to take with me. I walked into the kitchen and picked up my checklist. Ring, check. Dress clothes, check. CD with our song on it, check. I glanced up at the clock on the microwave. Perfect, I was right where I needed to be.

            Driving through Ferndale towards the freeway, I marveled at what a beautiful day it was. The sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly. It felt like someone was holding a heat lamp just on the other side of my windshield. I’m not sure if the day really was that beautiful or if it was just the euphoria I was feeling.

As I started down the windy stretch of freeway to start my journey, I was on cloud nine and nothing could dampen my mood. Twenty miles down the road my cell phone rang. It was a familiar ring that normally brought a smile to my face and floated butterflies in my stomach. However, this time was different. Ambritt’s ringtone brought a feeling of dread. I couldn’t answer the phone, she would wonder why I was driving somewhere when I should be at work. I quickly remembered that I hadn’t called her at lunch like I do every day. I had to do something. I knew a rest area was coming up shortly. I’ll pull in there and call her back to see how her day was going. I took the exit and whipped into a parking spot. I picked up the phone and hit redial. She answered on the first ring. We briefly talked about how our days were going. Then she asked, “What are you doing tonight?” “Well,” I started to lie, “the other guys on the bowling team called to cancel and we had to forfeit because we didn’t have enough people. So I’m not doing anything now, probably just hanging out at home.” There was a long, painful pause. “Are you mad at me?” I asked. “Yeah,” she said curtly, “If we had known this yesterday we could’ve met halfway for a nice dinner or something. Now I have to spend Valentine’s Day alone. Awesome.” I had to quickly do some damage control. “I’m sorry baby, I promise I’ll make it up to you this weekend.” I could hear the anger and disappointment in her voice as she replied, “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.” “Bye babe.” I said. Her short response said it all, “Bye.” I slowly pulled of the parking spot and eased back on the freeway. This is not how I planned for today to be going. I felt horrible that I hadn’t planned for this and that I didn’t think of a better excuse. I know she’ll forgive me later, but that didn’t help the bad taste left in my mouth from our conversation.

            I arrived in Kirkland one half hour before she left work. I had just enough time to stop by the flower shop and pick up the dozen roses I had ordered two weeks ago. As I pulled up to the house where she worked as a nanny, I looked at the clock on my dash. She still had 10 minutes left in her day. As I walked up to the front door, my heart was pounding with anticipation. I rang the doorbell. I could faintly make out the sounds of her footsteps approaching the door. She opened the door and her jaw instantly dropped. “What are you doing here?” She asked, as a huge smile overtook her face. “Surprise sweetheart. Happy Valentine’s Day!” I replied with an equally huge smile. “I came down to take you out to dinner for Valentine’s Day. Sorry about the excuse earlier, I had to throw you off somehow.” She threw her arms around me. “I don’t care. Thank you so much for the surprise!” She invited me in for a few minutes so that she could show her flowers off to her boss. We left from there and drove our cars to her apartment.

            Walking through the front door I told her that I had showered earlier and that all I needed to do was change into my dress clothes. She wanted to shower before dinner which gave me just enough time to get everything set up. The moment the bathroom door closed, I sprung into action. I quickly undressed and jumped into my black slacks. I grabbed the ring box and shoved it into my left pocket. I threw on my navy blue dress shirt and quickly buttoned it. I flipped up my collar and tied my tie in a blur of twists and tucks. I snatched the cd from my bag, walked into the living room and put it into her roommates’ dvd player. I turned on the tv and pressed play. Nothing. What?? No! This can’t be happening right now! I needed this song as part of my proposal! Just then Ambritt walked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. What am I going to do?! At that moment I spotted her laptop on the coffee table. I flipped the lid open and pressed the power button. I prayed that she had the song on her hard drive. I clicked through her files and found the MP3 folder. Bingo, there it was! I cued it up and turned up the volume. I stood up and was fixing my tie right as she walked out of her room. “What are you up to now baby?” She asked. “I just wanted to have a dance with my sweetheart before we head off to dinner.” I replied as I reached down and clicked play on her computer. Keith Urban played “Memories of Us” as I wrapped my arms around her waist and her arms locked around my shoulders. I started to get nervous. My heart was starting to beat faster and my mouth was starting to dry out. I hoped that she couldn’t feel how hard and fast my heart was beating! Just as the song ended, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the box. Flipping it open with my thumb just like I’d practiced many times before, I dropped down to one knee, “I love you more than anything in the world Ambritt. Will you marry me?” She flashed a huge smile and tears formed in her eyes, but did not fall. She didn’t say a word. “Soooo, does that mean yes?” “I’m sorry, I thought I said yes but it must have been in my head! Yes, yes, yes, yes!!” I pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. The sparkle of the diamond perfectly matched the loving sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes. I stood up and kissed her like I’d never kissed her before. This was the woman I was going to marry and I felt like I was on cloud ten.

            We went to dinner at a little Italian place on the waterfront in Kirkland. The place was crowded, the food was okay, and the service left a lot to be desired. It didn’t matter to us though, this was the first day of our new life together. While there were certain parts of the day that didn’t go exactly as I had planned, I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Can't Keep Up!

Wow, that seems to be a running theme in my life right now!  I can't seem to keep up with anything!

I was just thinking it had been a while since I did a blog post and was surprised when I logged in to see how really far behind I was.  Instead of trying to catch everything up, I think I'll just go with what's going on right now.

We had a great Christmas with my family, and then spent the following weekend with Travis' family in Yakima.  We got to see the house that Trav's parents are building which was really fun!  Those trips were kind of our last big traveling trips until after the baby is born. 

This week was hard.  I don't know why, I've just had a hard time dealing with anything lately.  I don't know if it's crazy hormones from being pregnant, or just feeling overwhelmed with things in life right now, but it was not a good week.  I was having a lot of mommy guilt from not doing enough with the boys and thinking, how am I going to add another little guy to the mix?  So right now I am just praying through getting those thoughts OUT of my head and focusing on taking it one day at a time. 

I am currently 30 weeks and only have 10 more to go!  Funny in the beginning it seems like you will be pregnant for SO long, but when it gets to this point, it seems like the baby will be here so soon!  Little man is still breech and very active!  I keep telling him to flip over and trying little tricks, but so far he is content right where he is.  My midwife said he has until 36 weeks to flip over before we need to worry about, so he has about another month and a half to get where he needs to be for delivery.  I had no clue that carrying a breech baby was so uncomfortable!  It feels like he is trying to push his head out the top of my stomach and it is so painful!  I can't really bend over and sometimes it's hard to breathe.  Other than that though, this pregnancy has been great and I'm feeling really good.  I am definitely more exhausted at this point than I was with my other pregnancies.  I get worn out really easily and after a day of doing a lot, I feel like I need a day to recover!  I am just so grateful for another healthy pregnancy and baby.  I know it sounds cliche, but I think the older I get, the more I hear of friends having issues that I didn't even know could happen with little ones and it just makes me SO grateful we have 2 healthy children and another healthy one on the way.

Up until this weekend, we hadn't really done anything to get ready for this little guy coming.  It's funny how different the 3rd is from the 1st, but there honestly just isn't as much to do.  It is kind of weird not having a shower or anything, not because of the gifts, but it feels like the babies themselves don't get celebrated as much.  Again, probably pregnancy hormones, but it's been making me sad.  So this weekend we decided to start doing some work on the 3rd bedroom.  This is the room that Brenner's crib is in, but we have always planned on the boys eventually sharing a room, so we've never really done anything to that room.  But now that we know it will be used for a baby room for a longer time, we decided to actually finish it.  So we went and bought paint, priced out trim for the chair rail, painted the closet and made a plan for where to put things.  Travis even bought me this thing that hangs from the ceiling that I have honestly wanted since I was pregnant with Kameron, but it didn't go with the room we were doing for him.  So we went in to our favorite baby store and it was being discontinued, but they had one left, so he splurged and got it for the baby room!  I can't wait to see the room all come together.  I was kind of tired of blue and green after years and years of it, so this room will be dark brown on the bottom, tan on the top with a white chair rail and then red accents.  We made a mental list of the things we still need before the baby comes and I was surprised, it was a little longer than I had realized!

We celebrated Kameron's 4th birthday last weekend and he loved every minute of it.  On Friday, his actual birthday, we made him his favorite breakfast of waffles with strawberries and whip cream and bacon.  Then Travis played some games with the boys, and we went to Subway for lunch.  The boys had never been into Subway to sit down and eat, so they thought this was very exciting.  Which was funny to us that just going INTO Subway made it a really exciting lunch.  :)  We played around here for the afternoon and Travis and Kameron baked chocolate cupcakes for later that night.  The Howlands came over that evening and we had pizza, all the kids did a scavenger hunt together, they decorated the cupcakes and opened gifts.  Then on Saturday, Trav's parents and brother and his family came up for the weekend.  We spent the afternoon playing, and then all loaded up to go to a hockey game in Everett!  We met up with Wes and Leanna and the girls and my parents and had a little party at a pizza place and then went over to watch the hockey game.  It was free jersey night for the kids, so they were all really excited to get those.  The game ended up not being that exciting, but everyone had a great time and Kameron had a blast, which is what matters!  Since we bought such a big group of tickets, they put "Happy 4th Birthday Kameron" up on the reader board in the middle of the arena for free!  I just loved seeing Kameron sitting there with so many grandparents around him.  I would have given anything to have a grandparent around for my birthday, so it's so special to me that this is just normal for him to have 2 sets of grandparents come for his birthday and all go to a hockey game together.  I hope that he will understand when he gets older how amazing this is.  Then on Sunday, my mom came up to visit for the afternoon!  She brought a whole bunch of gifts and the boys had a blast playing with her.  So overall, he had an amazing birthday weekend!!

Next month, Travis will have a night class in Bellevue on Tuesday and Thursday nights, so the boys and I won't see him those days and I know that is going to be REALLY  hard.  I'm already nervous for him to be gone so much.  But the good news is that this is his last quarter and at the end of March, he will have earned his degree in Fire Science!  I am SO proud of him for going to school full time for 2 years now, working full time and still being a great husband and dad.  I honestly don't know how he does it.