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:

and again

So... I'm sitting at the lab (again) doing a gestational diabetes test. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun this is. I got up at 6 am so that I could get here early. Obviously everyone else had the same thought. When I got here there were only a handful of empty seats. It took 35 minutes for them to even call me back for the first (of four) blood draw. Then I had to drink the dreaded orange junk. Blech. I haven't eaten since 7 pm last night so all this sugar is making me kinda icky. But...I am trying to remember that all this is for a precious baby boy that we all want to be as healthy as possible. So here I sit and wait. Good thing I have a book and my iPod to keep me company. Maybe three hours will go by quickly.

a three year old's "sock on the door"

So as crass as it is, everyone's heard of the "sock on the door" and what it means to college kids who are roommates. Well, my wonderfully ingenious son is obviously way ahead of his time... Today, he snuck off into his bedroom to do his (poop) business. I tried to go in to see what he was up to (obviously this was before I had smelled what he was up to), and I got told, "Mommy, you don't come in my bedroom." A few minutes later, I turn around and this is what I find:



It's his butterfly catching net. Guess we have a new "signal" in our house for Brayden having some private diaper time.

DOUBLE DIGITS

Okay, so last week was one of my favorite pregnancy milestones (aside from going into labor)... Hiting DOUBLE DIGITS!! I made John take a "belly pic" so that I would have it to scrapbook. I have to admit, the picture is a little altered - my belly was actually a nasty pasty white color that would probably glow in the dark. But since I can't even tell you the last time my belly button got some sun time, it's not very surprising.

Logan is moving around a TON these days. He's especially active around 9 or 10 pm. He gets these little gymnastics routines going on in my belly that can last for 10-15 minutes. It's really crazy. My belly button is threatening to come out - I joke that that means the turkey is done, but in all honesty, we still have 3 months to go from TODAY!!!! Next week is officially the 3rd trimester... I'm sure that things are just going to get more amusing from here on out - the hip pain, the waddling, the having to have help to get out of bed in the morning, the heartburn, shortness of breath, and lack of leg shaving... but in 90ish days, I'll have my third little guy to cuddle with and none of this will matter. I just hope the days go by quickly. I'm not that big of a fan of being pregnant. Although I DO have some cute clothes this go around. hehe

Camp?? Already?!?!?!

I cannot for the life of me believe that it is camp season. This year has FLOWN by. We start our first official week of camp TODAY. I think we are pretty much ready, but we have an entirely new staff, so it will be a fun learning experience for all of them. I'm very grateful that John's mom is here for a few weeks to help out with the boys. I am sure I couldn't do it on my own this year and stay sane (and/or healthy). I start the third trimester very soon - and Wednesday marks our "double digits" countdown to our due date.

All in all, I am thinking it's going to be a great summer.... I'm kind of glad to have these two months filled up so that I'm distracted from the woes of later pregnancy.

Blessed

It's been a rough, rough, ROUGH couple of days for me. Soon-to-be-third-trimester horomones are kicking into full swing making me tired, cranky and very emotional. I feel like I'm ready to burst into tears at any given moment. Which is all compounded by having a terror of a three year old and a needy two year old. I've been trying to get Brayden to take a nap with me every day this week which, thus far, has ended up in him being mad at me and me giving up in tears and hysteria. If he won't sleep, I can't sleep because he is seriously unpredictable. He would totally do one or all of the following: escape the house (even if all the doors are blocked and or locked), flood the bathroom, try on ALL the pullups and proceed to pee in them all, get into the pantry and try to make himself a snack consisting of peanut butter and cheetos, start a load of laundry after mixing a special concoction of detergent and fabric softner, rearrange the living room furniture, take all the batteries out of anything and everything and hide them, wake Tyler up prematurely, try to take a bath or shower... These are only the things he HAS done - I have no idea what all he could actually come up with if left to his own means.

All that said... I have been blessed for the past few days now by a "secret pal" on my digital scrapbooking website. Today I got a hallmark card in the mail from her just giving me hugs. After the day I'd had thus far, it was like the clouds parted and I could feel sunshine. It's so nice to have someone out there who's making it their job to spoil me - if only for a couple of weeks. She also sent me a scrapbooking gift the other day - a few kits that I'd had on my wishlist! I was able to use them right away to scrap my kiddos. I really enjoyed having some new "toys" to play with. Here's what I came up with...

Deeper.

So yesterday and today have both been teaching/learning experiences for my poor little three year old. Yesterday evening John wanted all of us to come down to the (empty) pool to help sweep out the debris and bag up the leaves that were in the bottom so that he could start power washing soon. Sounds like a ton of fun for little boys, right?? Well, it probably WOULD'VE been if someone knew how to obey. Brayden thought the empty pool was like a great big playground - free to run!! Of course it's sloping ground and CONCRETE!!!! We asked him, told him, yelled at him NOT TO RUN. But boys are boys and run he did. Fall he did. Cry he did. *sigh* So we had to get out of the pool and come home. He proceeded to get bandaids on his knees (I all better now Mommy) and have a stern lecture on WHY Mommy and Daddy should be listened to. Obviously it all sunk in really deeply because today we had all the same issues again. Brayden wants to go to the park? Okay - let's do that! It sounds like fun. But before we could get there, guess who disobeys more than Jonah!!!!! Yeah, that'd be my lovely son. So we skip the park and just do errands instead. On the way home, Brayden asked why he didn't get to go to the park. The ensuing conversation included big words like "privilege" and "consequences." We tried very hard to preschool-down the conversation so that he could understand. I told John after it was all over that it wouldn't be so frustrating if I didn't have to reiterate this one million times a day (or perhaps an hour). But tonight as I sat refelcting on my frustration toward this energetic little creature that has problems listening, I realize that I am no better at all. And I should know better because I've heard the lesson for 30 years as opposed to his three. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrated God must be with me everyday... and then the next thought is obviously... how many privileges have I missed out on??? So conclusion: Not to just work on Brayden's obedience, but instead to work on obedience WITH Brayden.

Gracious.

So it's 9:55 pm. And we're trying to get the boys to go to sleep. It's not working so well. They are just in there giggling at each other... Brayden keeps crawling into Tyler's crib where they just sit and laugh. Then I put Brayden back in bed and Tyler starts whining because he wants to be in bed with Brayden. *sigh* They are quite the handful.

I had an experience in being positive tonight. I was scrapbooking a page for each boy with descriptive words for them. I asked John if he had some words for Brayden and his quote from Toy Story was, "I can't say - there are preschool toys around." But I was finally able to take even their negative traits and spin them in a positive light. Here's what I ended up with: