One Heartbeat

So I was sitting here the other day working on something or another... I think I was making my new desktop wallpaper? Anyway - I had Pandora Radio on in the background. Firstly, let me just share how magical that website is for me!! I have a few stations set up to reflect my daily moods. They are almost all based off of a singular artist that has a style I enjoy with my moods - There's some John Mayer for my secular "just wanna hear some good music" mood; there's John Williams for my cinematically instrumental moods and Hans Zimmer for my more mellow instrumental mood; Frank Sinatra for my classic crooner sound; Broadway for my "belt it out and sing along" days; and finally, Steven Curtis Chapman for the best that's out there. I can't begin to say how much I LOVE SCC's music. I told John the other day that I don't know if I've ever heard a song of his that I don't like. Some are a little more "eh" than others, but there has never been one that I've just shunned.

All that said... Pandora was running in the background and the second song that shuffles up is one I've never heard before. But the lyrics caught me right away - "You're up all night with a screaming baby..." Um... yeah, I was! Two of them, actually!! And so I sat back to listen. And wound up in pouring tears. Tyler wandered in at one point and got worried about me, but of course, his little face being concerned for Mommy made the moment even more intense.

I just wanted to take a minute to put these lyrics out there for my mommy friends. I hope they touch you as much as they did me. (And of course, you can get the song right now, as I did, on iTunes for $.99...haha!)

You're up all night with a screaming baby
You run all day at the speed of life
And every day you feel a little bit less
Like the beautiful woman you are

So you fall into bed when you run out of hours
And you wonder if anything worth doing got done
Oh, maybe you just don't know
Or maybe you've forgotten

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

With every "I know you can do it"
Every tear that you kiss away
So many little things that seem to go unnoticed
They're just like the drops of rain over time
They become a river

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
How you're changing the world
You're changing the world

Positive Thinking

So last night I was trying to go to sleep, and I realized that lately, I've been nothing but complaints about being pregnant. So I decided I'd try to be a little more positive and try to enjoy these last few days of pregnancy. Mainly because I am not 100% sure that they won't be my last for good. So here are some key points I came up with...

-- Being pregnant means you can eat what's in front of you and people don't judge.
-- The clothes are actually pretty cute for the most part - and I can wear sweat pants or athletic shorts and have great reason to!
-- The feeling of a moving baby in your belly is a very unique thing that is actually quite reassuring.
-- I can actually say, "Hey I NEED a nap" and usually get one at some point.

So that may be a measley list to some, but for a "realist" like me, it's actually pretty good. haha I've given up with the thoughts of going early... I am just gonna resign myself to having 11 days to go and try to get as much done as I can in those days.

I made a new desktop today to try and remind myself to not be so negative and to let God into my attitude a little more. I realized that my life has been a pretty good void of Spirit Fruit lately... It's got pictures of my two bigger boys in their first month of life to also remind me that I have two other "babies" that I still need to be focusing daily on. I actually really like it....

Friends

So back in May (and trust me, it already seems like they've been here a lot longer), we got a new youth minister at our church. He came toting two little girls - Abby (who was born the same year as Brayden, but is actually a lot closer in age to Tyler) and Paige (who's the cutest little baby girl in the world - and I can say that cause WE haven't produced any girls yet). So Andy and Amy have just about TOO much in common with us... And every time we hang out together we find out one more thing that is similar! The weirdest being that Amy was actually at our wedding and didn't even know us!!! She came as Nathaniel's date - which is also funny because it means that Amy & I have both dated the same guy, too.

ANYWAY...

Yesterday we were just sitting here minding our own business when it was announced that they were gonna come bring Papa John's to us for lunch and play for the afternoon. Well, first of all, NO ONE is gonna turn down free Papa John's, so they had a ringer - but I was THRILLED to have the company! It's been a while since we've had friends over... it's been a while since we've had friends... haha. But we had a FANTASTIC time with them. John and Andy got some camp stuff done, and Amy and I stayed in the house and let the kids trash the place. We got them to settle down for about 20 minutes while they watched part of 101 Dalmations, but that ended quickly and they all went back to the "let's see how many toys we can get out at once" game. But it was so much fun. My boys love those girls. And it's so great to have some people to hang out with!!! I didn't realize how friend-deprived we'd been as a couple until they moved here. And the funniest part is... they felt the same way!

One Down....

At the risk of speaking too soon, I want to document this occasion. Brayden has now been accident free for almost a week and a half!! And on top of all that, he's begun going poo in the toilet also!!! He went straight from diapers to underwear - totally skipped pull-ups. How in the world did we accomplish this unseemingly possible task?? Well - I'll just say it was peer pressure. We were in VBS two weeks ago, and Brayden & Tyler were in the preschool class with abotu 4 or 5 other boys and Abby. Pretty much everyone in the class besides my two boys (and Abby) are potty trained. SOOOOO - when the class would take the field trip to the bathroom, Brayden wanted to go to... To get to go, he had to go pee. So pee he did. And that's about the end of that!! He has even mastered getting up in the middle of the night to go if he needs to! I just can't believe it! Three weeks ago, he was telling me that he NEEDED his diaper. Guess he's a "big boy" now.

Tyler on the other hand doesn't really want to have anything to do with going potty on the toilet. Even though we pretty much had him in underwear about a month ago.... *sigh* I guess I can handle it, though... Two in diapers is SOOOOO much better than the prospect of three. And a LOT cheaper too, might I add. Brayden's diapers were getting ready to break the bank.

So all that said... BRING ON BABY NUMBER THREE!!!!!!!!!

How many?????

Okay - 9 months is just too darn many. Six or seven would've done it... But I remind myself that God has this whole wisdom thing going on, and for some odd reason NINE is the magic number that works for us. I'm of the mindset that He made it last this long because by the end of nine months, we're so ready to have this THING out of us that we actually WELCOME the pains of labor. The Braxton-Hicks, the "lightening" (which may I add, my pelvis does not agree with that term), the sore hips and, to top it all off, THE waddle that those really pregnant women get... they're all things that I would bargin away in a HEARTBEAT right now. But this is probably because it's been 2.5 years since my last delivery, and I'm a little shady on how much pain I was actually in before Tyler entered our lives. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I forgot about most of that pain the minute I saw his beautiful little face - and then Brayden's beautiful little face kissing his new little brother. It's all worth it in the end....

But seriously, can I have a baby tonight?

I Want to be John

So.... The boys are at Grandma Laura's... They've been there since Saturday!! It's been quite a pleasant and quiet week (although I am missing them a lot). I've been cleaning (aka "nesting") the bedrooms and rearranging things - trying to get ready for Logan's arrival. It's been quite a task, I assure you. First I had to decide where Logan was going to be sleeping. This was an especially hard task because Tyler is/was still sleeping in the CRIB!!! He's never even attempted a jail break, so we've just left him in there. But he is 2 1/2... probably time to start sleeping in a "real" bed. Only problem there is that the bunks aren't quite ready to be assembled yet. I had told John that he had a lot more time to get them done because I wasn't really planning on myself getting so crazy with the nesting. So we have one bunk almost done and one that hasn't even been started on yet (because it's Brayden's bed currently). SOOOOO... long story short - to make things easier on everyone involoved, we're going to put Logan in the boys' room and move Brayden to his own room. When the bunks get done, we'll assemble them and go from there. Another thing I've had a little time to do is scrapbook!! I spent a few HOURS this morning trying to perfect a layout that focuses on something I've been wanting to blog about...
Here's the video:



So this was actually the SECOND time that Brayden said this... The first time he didn't even say he wanted to be Daddy, he just said he wantd to "be John." It was just too cute to not scrap &/or video and blog!!! So on top of the video, here's my layout that I composed to go with the story:

I figured that you couldn't see the pictures of John & Brayden closely enough, so here are the pics themselves... You can click on the picture to see the larger version. It's just too uncanny - I keep giggling every time I look at them.

And in other news.... we're less than 4 weeks from Logan's arrival!! I can't belive these 9 months have gone by so quickly!!!!!!

3 Little Boys...

GRACIOUS!!! Brayden is a rollercoaster of emotions these days. He is a perfectly happy, content preschooler one minute and then crying like a baby the next. Have NO idea why. I had a theory that it had to do with lack of naps, but he's having a major meltdown right now, and he had a good nap this afternoon. So... who knows. He is, however, growing like a mad weed. He's 41.5" tall right now (1/2 inch from riding Thunderation at SDC) - which according to all the growth predictor charts means we're looking at a 6'6" 18 year old!! Wow. I can honestly imagine him being huge like that, but it's still crazy. He shot from 3t to 5t this summer. It's hard to remember that he's only three most days because he IS so big. He went with me to one of my prenatal appointments and he weighed in at 38 lbs. I can't believe how fast he's growing up. His language and imagination have just EXPLODED this summer as well. But our favorite new word that he has is "trampaboing" (trampoline). We love that he uses descriptive words to make words make sense to himself. But gone are the days of "Mall-Nart" which still saddens us.

Tyler is proving to us every day how much his personality differs from Brayden. He has his nap times, his quiet times, his play times... And he doesn't much like to differ the schedule. He LOVES watching tv (moo-ees), but also has a great time with his cars and trucks. He has just started "group play" with Brayden and wants to follow him everywhere and do everything he's doing... It makes for some hairy fights. We actually caught Brayden hitting, with FISTS last night. Of course, I would say that 80% of the time, Tyler is actually the initiator of the fights. He's one of those kids that's gonna come running to me saying, "Brayden hit me!" and of course I'll have to respond with, "Well, did you hit him first?" Howedver - he is one VERY polite little boy. Yesterday we were out at the mountains and were headed into the Holy City. A guy was on his way out and held open the gate for us... As Tyler walked through, he looked up at the man and said in his cute little Ty voice, "Gank you!" It was a very proud moment for both John & me.

As far as #3 goes... Well, I'm ready to meet him for sure!! I've gotten about as big as I want to be, but can't seem to stop eating. But at my last appointment, my doc set up an induction date for us. So we're looking at 9/9 being the latest date that we'll meet this little guy. John and I are both very curious to see what kind of kid he ends up being.

Here's my new computer monitor wallpaper for this month.... In honor of us having three VERY soon: