School Days

Well, we now have a little over a week of school under our belts and so far it's been going pretty good. The kids seem to have really nice teachers this year so that always helps :-). I have to admit that I didn't really know how to feel on the first day of school. Everyone was asking me if I was "OK" with Chandler starting Kindergarten & honestly I just tried not to think about it too much! He was really excited to go to school & it was kinda fun seeing him grin from ear to ear on that first day.


They are too cute!













McKenna didn't know how to feel being at a table with all boys!!












Chandler's cute little grin :-)













Now that some of the "newness" of school is wearing off I do miss the kids a little during the day, but Maya and I have found plenty to do to keep us busy all day. I don't know that this will be an "easy" school year, but I do think the kids are going to grow a LOT this year. They both really enjoy school (didn't get that from me or Jonathan!), which is such a blessing. Field trip month is also just around the corner, so get ready for cute farm pictures soon!

My "baby" turned 3!!

Last Monday little Miss Maya turned 3 years old! She still feels like my "baby" in so many ways. It's kinda hard to think of her as a big kid now, but I'm sure that will quickly change once this new little baby gets here.

She had a pretty laid back birthday this year & we didn't really have a big "to-do" or anything, so she just got to enjoy getting presents from all the family members all weeks long (everyone dropped by to give her a gift on a different day).

Nana and Papa came by on her birthday & gave her a pink Webkinz kitty....












...love at first sight!













The princess nightgown was a HUGE hit as well!


















I did feel a wee bit guilty for not throwing a "big" party, so last Friday night we got together with some friends & had a "sorta kinda" party-LOL! Translation: "I made a birthday cake for a 'end-of-summer' BBQ we had with some friends & we all sang Happy Birthday to Maya" ...and we threw in a few more presents for good measure!

This is a birthday tradition for Maya...she has a "crying" picture from every birthday party so far. Some day she will come to appreciate all the attention that is poured on you when everyone sings to you at the same time...but for now she's not so fond of the Birthday serenade.








She is however fond of the other birthday tradition where people give you gifts!












Ahh, the "Fur Real" pig she had been wanting for so long!


















The cake wasn't too bad either :-)

THREE YEARS WITH MAYA!

Newborn

First Birthday.


















Second Birthday.














Third Birthday!

Ta Da!

We got the boys room mostly finished this weekend and I love how it turned out! We still have some more work to do, but at least we have a crib now-woohoo! I have to say I'm pretty proud of how my bargain hunting turned out. We got the crib for $60 & it's in great shape! I originally bought the bedding for $40, and I thought that was a great deal & then 5 days later I was at Target with Tricia & we saw the exact same bedding marked down again to $19.99. So, like any good bargain hunter would do we bought the $19.99 set and a few days later I returned the $40 set ;-). Grandma Earle came along and bought all the cute little accessories to match the bedding, because that's what grandma's do....buy all the cute little "extras" that parents never shell out the $$$ for!





































It's a bit of a "tight squeeze" now that we have all the furniture in Chandler's little room, but I think we found a way to make it work for now. I'm still not sure where all the clothes are going to go...but we will deal with that in a few more weeks. One thing at a time...one thing at a time........

We are on the downhill!

Things are really starting to pick up here at the White manor. I enrolled the kids in school this week & their first day will be on August 18th! I'm having a hard time letting myself believe my little Channy guy is going to be in big kindergarten this year! We went back-to-school shopping last weekend and got them all their school supplies, so now it seems waaaaaaaaaay too real!

While we still have a little bit of summer left we are trying to enjoy it when we can. We took the kids to the pool last Sunday & boy was it HOT! We had a great time swimming, but even the pool water was a bit warm. Looks like things are cooling down now, but I'm in no hurry for fall to be here just yet. I still have way too much to do!

I found some cute baby bedding at Target & it was even on sale (really on sale!)!





This is what the bedding looks like :-) Not too bad for $19.99, eh?












To be honest, I just picked out the bedding, but my mom and sister bought it all for me :-). Seeing that this is my fourth baby, I probably won't have a shower this time, so my sweet, sweet family is still seeing to it that I get a few new things for this little one. We now have the crib and bedding, so at least we are now acknowledging that we have another child on the way-LOL! If all goes as planned we may even have the boys room painted this weekend and then we can set up the crib and start pretending like we are ready for this baby to come.

In case you are wondering why I don't already have all the baby stuff I need, well.......truth be told this little guy was a bit of a surprise, and I actually sold almost ALL of my baby stuff last year at a garage sale! So, now I am having to replace all the stuff I got rid of (including a crib, bedding, clothes, baby gear, blah, blah, blah). So far I'm very fortunate to have my sister who was smart enough to hang on to all of her baby gear, so I'm borrowing several things from her to use for this little guy :-). Thank goodness it's garage sale season too! We got our crib for $60, and my mom has been finding cute little outfits, onsies, and pj's at garage sales too. All I really need to buy now is my double stroller, a diaper bag, a bottle or two, a few binky's, a couple of boyish blankets, and lots of diapers. I think I'll be pretty much set after I get those things. Well.......those things and a whole new closet organizer that can accommodate clothing for 4 kids! But that project has been a long time coming......

Sorry for such an ADD kind of post....I really do have more thought-provoking things on my mind these days, but I'll wait until the kids are in bed to delve into those things-LOL! For now I leave you with my (almost) 31 week belly shot :-).

*These pictures are headless because I have to set the camera on top of the dryer and put it on the self-timer to take the shot. I guess if I was only 5 ft tall then my head would make it in the shot, but alas, I'm a wee bit taller than that!

Sonogram Pictures.

I had my follow up appointment today with the high-risk OB and "little Mr." looks just great! The small VSD (heart defect) looks like it is well on it's way to clearing up, so I don't have to be seen by a high-risk OB anymore-woohoo! The baby is growing fine & just in case you were wondering...there is still only ONE baby in there. Yes, my MIL told me AGAIN today just how BIG she think I am (rolling eyes). She let me know she still questions the validity of 4 different ultrasounds that say otherwise. This is going to be a looooooooooooooong 10 weeks if I have to continue hearing these kinds of comments.

On a much lighter note, here are some pictures from my last two ultrasounds. I don't have a scanner, so they are just pictures of pictures (so, not the best quality), but you get the idea :-).


29 Weeks

Face/arm in front of face











29 Weeks

side profile/hand in front of face/cord














29 Weeks

Face/hand on cheek/leg by the head













23 Weeks

Profile/hand by ear + umbilical cord

7 months!

I think it's about time for another pregnant belly post :-). I could probably have 10 babies and still be amazed at my bodies ability to become so....."round". I seriously love my basketball tummy, I just wish it wasn't so heavy sometimes!



*Oh, and we may be getting closer to a name-WooHoo! We still need a middle name, but at least I think we have the first name nailed down. However, I have not decided if we should reveal the name or not. Maybe you all should wait until he arrives....we'll see :-).

Wanna see something crazy?

Here is me at 18 weeks:


Now 28 Weeks:

29.

Yep, it's true...I turned the big 2-9 yesterday. I can't say that I love the idea of being 29 just yet, but I guess I better enjoy these next 12 months since they are the last remnant of my 20's. The 20's were pretty good, but let's hope the 30's get easier-ha! Hey, at least I'll be able to say I had all my kids in my 20's. I always said I wanted to be done with the child-bearing years before I turned 30 & I should be about 99.9% sure that I'll get that wish granted ;-).

I had a wonderful weekend that included a hot date on Saturday night! I almost forgot that I'm 28 weeks pregnant, as big as a whale, and dangerously close to "middle-age"-eek! It's been SO LONG since Jonathan and I got to spend any time alone that I forgot how wonderful it is to reconnect with my sweet hubby. We had a great time, and once again I picked a fabulously cliche' choice of mexican food for my birthday dinner. That was totally the pregnancy cravings talking, as most years I choose something a little more....."unique" for my birthday dinner. After dinner we saw "Dark Knight" (yes...that was MY choice) & it was awesome! One of the best, most action-packed movies I've seen in a long time. Although, a word of warning for those who are not paying attention (like me), it's 3 HOURS long! Yeah, I didn't realize that going into it & my poor pregnant bladder was not happy once it was over!

Sunday was my actual birthday, and darn if I couldn't find anything to do! Too much fun the night before I guess :-). It was really hot so we ended up inflating the kids blow up pool & we all decided to soak up a little sun in the backyard. By mid-afternoon my parents and sister threw together a little birthday gathering for me & I indulged in some birthday chocolate!! Oh, and my parents bought me a new i-pod shuffle with the cute little clippy thing so that I don't have to tuck my old one into my sports bra anymore-ha! I LOVE it! Now I'll be ready to hit the trails with my favorite music again soon.

Mine looks like this:















Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of my birthday weekend, but that's what happens when you are the family photographer & it's YOUR birthday! I'll take another pregnancy belly shot soon and post that :-).

You know it's going to be a rough week when...

Your husband gets creamed by a moron running a stop sign ONE BLOCK from your home! Oh, and then said "moron" drives off!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that's how our evening went. Jonathan was almost home from work when *BAM* some idiot ran a stop sign, hit him, then just took off! Another driver that saw the whole thing happen tried to chase the guy down while calling 911 on his cell phone, but the police never caught up with the guy that hit Jonathan. We got a license plate number, but that doesn't mean we know who the driver of the vehicle was.

Here is the damage...





























And the rest of the damage will be to our pocketbook if this guy is never found (or, if he is found and has no insurance...which is highly likely)! I'm so frustrated right now I could just scream (or cry...that's always an option too!). The car is probably totaled :*(. It was in great condition, drove fine, it was our bullet-proof "old reliable" & now it's toast! We only had liability on it because it's 11 years old and it's been paid off for quite some time. So, for now we are a one car family...and I have NO IDEA how that's gonna work over the long haul! We can't really just go out and buy another car right now either....(sigh).

Oh, and poor Jonathan...he got banged up pretty good too! If you will recall, he was in a pretty bad car accident last August & he had 6 months of physical therapy for that. This just made all his neck/back pain twice as much fun to deal with!














(This is Jon all happy-go-lucky on vicodin)

Our family is becoming "regulars" at the local ER! In fact, I just got Chandler's ER bill in the mail today. How lucky can one family get??

Somebody needs to buy me this T-shirt!

Because E-V-E-R-Y time I see my darling Mother-in-Law she likes to remind me how HUGE I am, and how she can't believe I still have several more months to go! Yeah, she is not at the top of my "favorite" list right now!


Check out the shirt HERE!

Oh, and this one would be just as cute!

We need a new vehicle, or........

One of these



Yes, yes...I know, we drive a beast of a vehicle, so why do I need this kind of seat? Well, it would appear that back in 2000 when they were making my particular brand of Ford Expedition, they didn't really expect anyone to actually use that tiny, removable, third row seat. Nor did they take into account things like "cargo space" if one did actually make use of that third row seat. So, the dilemma I'm left with is this....if I make use of said "teeny-tiny, useless-excuse-of-a-third- row-seat" then I severely short change myself in the cargo room department & I can only effectively transport 4 children, and 4 whole bags of groceries!

Now, this is not exactly do-able when you have a double stroller involved. Just where exactly am I supposed to put my $600/month rations from Sam's Club? At the minimum I walk away from that place with 5 gallons of milk, 8 boxes of cereal, 32 juice boxes, 75 granola bars, 4 lbs of butter, 2 lbs of coffee, 15 pounds of fresh produce, 20 pounds of meat, and a 140 oz jug of laundry detergent? Come on! I need my cargo space for all that crap! I know we really should just try to make the move to a mini-van to solve this problem, but do you wanna guess how many people are lining up to buy 9 year old gas-guzzlers like mine? Not many! With gas at $4.00/gallon I can't even afford my beast!

So, I've contacted the European makers of the Multimac seat and begged them to please, please, please start selling these puppies over here in the US. We will see if they listen.........

4th Of July Weekend!

Sorry, but I don't have a ton of exciting pictures from the 4th...but we did end up finding some fun things to do :-). Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

FRIDAY

I REALLY, really, really wanted to go swimming on the 4th of July this year, so that's exactly what we did! My sister gave me a great suggestion for a fun pool to visit, and when we got there we found out it was FREE that day-woo hoo! Apparently this city was having a big festival that day & they had tons of stuff going on at the park next to the pool, and part of the 4th of July festival was free swimming passes for everyone.

This was a huge army helicopter on the lawn of the park next to the pool. People were able to walk through it and talk to the pilot. Pretty cool!











Then....we got to watch it take off!













Maya watching the helicopter take off. :-)


















Our whole family had a great time at the pool, and I'm so glad we decided to go. It's been forever since we have been swimming together & it was worth the effort to go to such a fun place. I was afraid we might get tired of the pool quickly...but we stayed for three hours and could have stayed even longer if we didn't have other stuff to do that day.

After the pool we ran home to pick up all the food I had prepared for our 4th of July feast (brisket, baked beans, homemade blueberry pie, watermelon, strawberries and cream, etc), and then we headed out to the grandparents house. On the way to my parents house I noticed Channy was not acting like he felt very good :-(. Sure enough, when we got to grandma's house he had a fever...poor little guy! He still managed to have fun all afternoon and evening, I just felt bad for him knowing he didn't feel good.

Chandler liked watching everyone set off fireworks while he just "chilled".

















He wasn't too sick to try some blueberry pie though!












Maya liked watching all the fireworks too.


















Um....but Zion didn't care for them so much-LOL!














McKenna was such a big girl this year. She got her own punk, and her own bucket of fireworks to set off. She wanted a little help at first, but then she enjoyed setting them off all by herself (supervised of course!).









Picking something from her "bucket of goodies" :-).


















After eating a ton of really yummy food and setting off buckets of fireworks, we packed up our lawn chairs and drove over to the dam by my parents house to watch the BIG fireworks show. It was a really cool night (how odd??), but it was a beautiful display! After all that fun packed into one day we came back to Nana and PaPa's house and crashed.......all night! Hehe! We didn't intend on spending the night, but when everyone fell asleep on the floor in the living room and playroom, I just covered them all up with blankets and went to the guest room to sleep :-). What a fun, and exhausting day!

Saturday

Saturday was just a lazy day for the White's, but we did manage to squeak in a fun pizza and movie party at the end of the night!

Getting ready for the movie to start. they can be too stinking cute sometimes!

SUNDAY

Well, you can't have a patriotic weekend without a "Red, White, and Blueberry Breakfast" now can you?
These were a special request from McKenna :-)













Everyone loved em'!













After our big breakfast we got some chores done around the house, and patched the small hole in our kiddie pool. We were intending on letting the kids have another "pool day" at home, but the dumb patch kit said it had to cure for 12 hours!! Seeing as we didn't have 12 hours to wait, we decided to go back to the pool we had gone to on Friday! This time we went for a "twilight swim" because Jonathan was a little too burned from Friday's fun in the sun. Once again we had a great time at the pool, and we even stayed until bedtime this time! We decided it was time to go when Maya had swallowed one too many gulps of pool water and puked up some Cheez-It crackers...in the pool-yuck!!

Oh, and just for you all I had Jonathan snap a "belly picture" so I can keep you updated on just how HUGE I am. *For the record: I don't think I'm all that "huge"...but everyone else seems to think I am & they have no problem letting me know exactly how they feel about my size!




















26+ Weeks

I Miss Running!

Today I passed an old running landmark & a flood of memories hit me all at once. I knew I missed running, but it wasn't until I passed I-Lan park today that I felt like crying (Shut-up all of you who are laughing at my hormone-induced ability to cry at the drop of a hat). I-Lan park was the 6 mile marker for me on some of my longer runs & it represents some of my bigger accomplishments including my first 22 mile run, the first time I ran in the snow and survived to tell about it, and the first time I ran 12 miles and realized that was an "easy" run. Anyway, those were good memories & I miss those days SO much right now.

I miss getting up at 4:30 am on Saturday mornings, and sneaking out of my house under the cover of darkness to go on a long run with my friends. Sure, there were plenty of mornings that I didn't feel like getting up so early, but I can't say I ever regretted having 10 miles under my belt before most of the city had even made their morning coffee ;-). That's satisfaction right there!! I also miss having a big race to look forward to. It's amazing how something so simple like running can do so much for ones mental state. Believe me, I'm a much kinder/happy person when I'm hitting the trails regularly...just ask my husband!

One of my biggest fears right now is that it's going to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get back to that place where I can run like I was before I got pregnant! I know it sounds incredibly selfish, but I need that back in my life. It feels good to just admit that, even though I know it's going to be quite awhile before that happens. Oh sure, I could try to go out for a run right now (just for old times sake), but seeing as I'm as big as a house & weigh a metric ton, I kinda doubt it would be the same. I had only discovered the "joys" of running about 18 months before I got pregnant this time around, so I wasn't exactly a "seasoned" runner. Plus, we won't even talk about what my other three children have done to my abdominal muscles that makes this whole idea of "running while pregnant" completely ignorant. I'll gladly preserve what little abdominal/bladder strength I have left for what lies ahead for me after this baby is born. Thank-you-very-much!

*This post was really just for me, so I apologize to those of you who were expecting a witty story, or some cute pictures of the kids. I'll be more entertaining later this week, I promise ;-). I just had to get that off my chest.