Blessed

Not only have we been blessed with our new little man, but also with the love and support from family and friends. I was greatly surprised at how many gifts we have received. Normally you see gifts for the first baby and possibly when you have one of the opposite sex, but not for your third son. I had a cousin and sister-in-law who have really helped with clothes, a brother who is letting us use his baby furniture, and lots of family and friends getting other gifts for us.

I had put together gift registries mainly for my personal use and for discounts on some of the larger items we might have to purchase. One thing I was looking at possibly having to purchase was a new stroller and also a harness booster seat for Otter. Our travel system stroller that we purchased with Otter is worn and the car seat expires in Dec. I was looking at a double stroller, but figured a single stroller would be best. I had put both on my registry because the stores will give you a coupon for a 10-20% off a registry item that was not purchased. Imagine my surprise when a group of people at Joe's work pooled together and purchased us a double stroller! Then I got another surprise today. A FedEx man delivered a new travel system to my house. I have no idea who has given us this gift and I have not seen a letter, message, or e-mail to indicate who gave this to us, but I was really surprised! We have been greatly blessed!

New Addition

We got a BIG surprise last week. Our newest little man decided to come early. He was healthy and showed no issues that can appear with early babies which was an answer to prayers. He did have jaundice and we had to do home phototheraphy, but he is better and doing well. His brothers and sister have been so excited. They fight over who will hold him! Here are some pics of each holding baby brother.

Pics Finally!!

I finally got to see little man's face today! He had his forearms up by his face, but he did move them so we could get a pic. Here is the newest little one!

Britax B-Ready Stroller Giveaway

I have been looking at the Britax B-Ready strollers and they are awesome strollers! They can work as a travel system with the Chaperone infant seat (they also have an adapter for several other brands of infant carseats), but they also have a bassinet and a second seat for toddlers. With the three different accessories it has 14 different configurations of how you can use this as a single or double stroller. I love the fact that it can have the child as front or rear facing with the regular seat as well as the infant seat. It has a large under seat storage, adjustable handle height, all wheel suspension and more! Right now The Bragging Mommy website is having a giveaway for one of these strollers. If you want to learn more about the B-Ready stroller or other products from Britax visit the company's website.

Getting Prepared

I was very excited to get an e-mail with a 20% off code from a website where I have a baby registry. I looked on their site and saw that it would apply to the crib bedding I was hoping to get for our little man. I was able to get a great deal on the set! I am looking forward to being able to get his crib ready for him as soon as I get the bedding!

Two Docs In One Day

Yesterday I saw my OB for another check on our sleeping warrior. Everything was great! From the measurements he seems to be growing well. When the Dr went to check for the baby's heartbeat he was startled by one of his big kicks! It was so funny because I am telling you I am positive it made my Dr jump back a little! This was even funnier because at my last appointment I mentioned that he was not a big kicker like the others, but instead preferred hitting. After then he has decided to show me just how well he can kick! Yes, all is well with this baby boy!

For a while now I have been dealing with some headaches with no clear reason why. After talking with my OB a few weeks ago he told me to get an eye exam. I admit that the last time I had an eye exam was back in 2001 when Butch poked me in the eye which resulted in blunt trauma to my cornea. That eye has never quite been the same, but I never noticed a vision issue. So yesterday I went and had my exam. Everything looked good. The retina scan (I was told) looked amazing and more like a teenagers then an old woman like me. :) I was told that I had 20/20 vision, but she had a prescription for me. Seems that I have an astigmatism in my left eye. Though she said it was slight it might be the cause of the headaches I have been having. So I ordered a pair of glasses and have to wear them all the time for two weeks, go back for a follow-up to see if it has helped then if it has I wear "when needed." So in the next week it looks like I will be sporting a new look.

Otter & The Cow

Otter was so happy to be able to hug a Chick-fil-a cow!

Tennessee Theatre

When JoJo and I went to see White Christmas in December we learned that another classic movie favorite will be showing at the Tennessee Theatre this month. The classic 1954 movie Sabrina starring Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn will be showingon Feb 14th at 8pm.

Baby #4 Update

Well, it seems that baby #4 (nickname still undetermined) has been growing well over the past month. I had a checkup today and everything looked good with a nice strong heartbeat. Of course he is still moving like crazy most of the time! I go again in three weeks for the glucose test. Yuck!!! I always dread those, but so far have never had a problem. Hopefully this time will be no different.

After my appointment Otter and I headed to do a baby registry. She was excited about looking for stuff for her baby brother. Actually she was a little disappointed that we were not buying stuff for him today! She especially wanted to get him some toys. She would pick out clothes for me to scan for him, too. I must say that although the selection for boy items has improved since I had Bubba, it is still not comparable with all the cute girl things out there!

Honesty and Trust

Some times we lose sight that being dishonest will gain us nothing but a loss of trust. Some times we say it is to protect others that we are not honest, but more often then not it is to protect ourselves. To lie is being dishonest, but it can also be dishonest to ignore or not tell the truth. The not telling of the truth can also lead to misunderstandings or as a sign of wrongs having been done with no desire to be admitted. Trust must be earned and if you are unwilling to be honest and truthful then do not expect to be trusted. The ones who are dearest to our hearts are the ones who are said to be the ones with the ability to hurt us the most. That is true. Trust is not something that is instantaneous. It takes time to prove to someone else that they can trust us, trust our word. We have to prove ourselves worthy of their trust. When we break that trust it will not be returned in an instant. We have to rebuild that trust. Words are empty when we have no trust in the one who speaks them. Can we ever lose someone's trust forever? That depends on whether we care enough to fix the relationship that we have damaged.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Luke 16:10

We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger. ~Tad Williams

Tired

My sleep is definitely being compromised during this pregnancy. Seems that this little boy is going to be very active. Normally he would get active right before I went to sleep at night and if I woke during the night he would lightly move until I was going back to sleep. Not for the past few nights! Right now he has been quite the night owl! He has been not only active, but his movements are very strong! Poor mommy has not been able to sleep well at night with this sort of activity and even trying to take a little nap during the day has not helped. I try to sleep and he tries to keep me awake. Hopefully this is not a sign of what is to come!

Hanging Out With Bubba

I had the rare opportunity to spend a day alone with Bubba. The other two children were over at Mamaw's house spending the night. This morning I ask him what he wanted to do and the one thing on his list was to head to the comic book store to pick up a X-men comic that Wesley was missing from his collection (Bubba has borrowed them and has been reading them the past few days). So we get ready and headed out to go a few places. First we went to do a Baby registry where Bubba got to use the scanning gun to add items to the registry. He was going scan crazy! Then we had a wonderful lunch at Chick-fil-a followed by a trip to McKay's. After all that he finally got to the comic book store and found the one he was looking for with just enough time to read it before we got to the grocery store. Seemed like he enjoyed the time with his momma which makes me happy.

And Baby Is....

We finally had our ultrasound on Tuesday! Our new little one was eager to share some things, but hid other things from us. First thing that we saw as soon as she started the ultrasound was that baby #4 is definitely a BOY! That was no secret at all! We got to see that he is growing at a good rate, measuring right on time. The thing that he was hiding from us was his face. He had his arms and hands covering it the whole time. The ultrasound tech tried to shake on my belly to try to get him to move and had me turn on my side, but no luck. So no profile shot of his little face.

Boy or Girl

Today is the day!!! We are finally going to find out what baby #4 will be. I am very excited about seeing the baby. That is the best part of modern technology is being able to catch a glimpse of our newest addition months before we can hold them. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture later today. Off to get ready!

Movement

I have been feeling baby #4 moving for several weeks now and I have actually been able to feel it move from the outside for a couple of weeks. I have not had success with having Joe feel the baby though. The baby moves most during late night hours and early morning hours when I am normally not around the rest of the family. I was feeling a lot of bigger movements just a little bit ago so I called Butch over. He had been very eager to be the first to feel the baby move. He was the same way with Otter, too! He had felt her move several times before Joe felt her for the first time. He is almost desperate in his desire to be the first. He even asked Joe again last night if he had already felt the baby and was happy when his Dad said no. I think that it was a good thing today since we were quite disappointed to not be able to get my ultrasound today. Due to the ice storm that hit us during the night we could not get out today to go to the doctors office. I will have to try to reschedule my appointment and hopefully it will be soon!!!

Christmas Surprise

We are excited because this is the week I go in for my ultrasound with baby #4. We will be learning what the sex of the baby is on Thursday if the baby is willing to show us! We were talking to the boys the other night and they thought we should put it in an envelope and they could open it Christmas morning to learn whether it is a brother or sister. So it looks as though we will not be sharing the news with everyone else until after Christmas. This will be hard for me because I am so excited about shopping after my appointment and sharing with everyone. Now I will have to shop and hide it until after they know (and not refer to the baby as a he or she).

Another funny story was something that happened yesterday morning. We put up our Christmas tree Saturday evening, so on Sunday morning Otter came in the kitchen as Joe and I were preparing breakfast to ask if her presents had come while she slept. She had assumed that we put the tree up and that meant it was Christmas the next day!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! It was so nice to have almost all the family here this year. There were lots of reasons to be thankful this year. Not only the two new additions we are anticipating through births in the next few months, but we also will have another addition through marriage! We are blessed with the wonderful woman that will soon be my new sister-in-law!

The guys had a great time playing flag football again. There were lots of great plays and several funny moments. We even had a guest this year when one of the boys in the neighborhood (that goes to school with Bubba) came to play for a little while. Several of the older members of the family were sore after the game, but I think that the annual day after Thanksgiving hike helped most stretch out those achy muscles! Not my Joe, though! He had to sleep most of Saturday to recover! ;)

Amazing Music

I wanted to share a link to my cousin's website. I was blessed to be able to spend some time with Andy and his wife while they were in town today. Andy was asked to come and lead music at a local youth conference this weekend. I have heard him singing several times and I believe that he has been blessed by the Lord with his music. He shared some of the recording he is working on for his album with us and I was really blessed by hearing them. Hope that you all head over and listen to his music!

Tabernacle of David

Blessings

Looks like our family is going to be blessed with a new addition in 2011! A couple of weeks ago we got to see the baby as well as hear the heartbeat. I went in this week and got to hear the heartbeat again which was a huge blessing! All the kids have been wanting another sibling and they are all excited. This pregnancy has been the hardest so far because I have been feeling poorly all the time. This is part of the reason why I have not been on here posting much lately. Sometimes it is just hard to concentrate.

Popcorn Time Again

Well, it looks to be time for the annual Boy Scout Popcorn Sales. This is the main fundraiser for the Boy Scout Troops each year. The money raised from this funds the activities that the boys do during the year. So please support the Boy Scouts as they sell!