Charlee Elizabeth

Meet the newest member of our family Charlee (pronounced Charlie, there has been some confusion). She was born on July 15th at 8:20am weighing 7lbs. 10oz she was our smallest baby. We had to stay in the hospital a few extra days to make sure she did not have an infection and praise God we got to bring her home yesterday. So in love! Laura Pasma came to the hospital hours after she was born and blessed us with some amazing pictures of our little Charlee, isnt she beautiful? Anyway, we are extremely tired, a bit edgy and still trying to fall into routine as a family of 6. Will continue to update more after I have had some sleep.......possibly in a year or so.

Kennewick Singers Company

This is my friends new business. If you have a little girl (preschool- grade school age) who enjoys the spotlight she will love this. Singing, dancing, microphones, the whole 9 yards. Give Amy a call today at 406-212-3793 to find out more!

Countdown

I love this point in the pregnancy. I am a ticking time bomb and I love not knowing where I will be or when she will choose to make her appearance. Preparations continue as we ready ourselves to have a baby in the house again. Her room is definitely not ready, but the immediate necessities are. I figure all we need in the beginning is her car seat and a play pen for her to be sleeping in. Check and check. My hips are hurting more and more as sleep continues to evade me. I have always looked at this as God preparing me for a newborn, much appreciated. I have been getting many hours of sleep, just not solid sleep so I cant complain too much. I have an appointment today so we will see if she is just cozy in there or if there is progress to her wanting to come out.

My diaper bag is packed and she is all ready for the hospital. I on the other hand am not as prepared. I have a couple things together but I need C to get a suitcase down for me in order to complete this preparedness effort.

C is home sick. This is the second time in the last couple months he has felt this way. I feel horrible for him. He has flu like symptoms that come and go throughout the day. He feels best when in bed so we are just letting him be there. Poor guy. We joked that maybe the "stash" was carrying germs and causing him to get sick more often. Obviously not a real concern or he would have shaved it off. He did tell me that if our baby disapproves of the "stash" he will shave it off immediately. He wouldnt want to irritate her little face with the amount he plans on snuggling her.

Cravings:

Safeway Chineese food (it has literally been years)

Denali Moose Tracks Ice Cream

Raspberry Bars

Zucchini

Squash

The Play Room

Was finished yesterday. C and I spent the whole morning and afternoon assembling pieces, unpacking toys and getting ready for the big unveil. It was awesome! I will post pics when I think about it.

So, the closet is full of costumes and dress up clothes only. There will also be board games in the top when I get around to that. I put together the two shoe racks that now grace the bottom. There are 30 slots for shoes, 10 for each girl, although Dani may need a few more b/c her shoes only fit one to a cubby in some cases.

The room is equipped with a 9-holed cube thingy from Target. We got really cute colored bins to put in there to match the room. The colors are pink, lime green and purple. This is currently a home for the hundreds of Polly Pocket items that my auntie gave us. Lou is in heaven. The room was already lime green with purple polka dots on the walls so that worked out nicely. The most expensive piece of furniture was the table and chairs. They have white tops and light wood colored lets. Perfect for setting at to do crafts or play the DS.

The DS was an added feature. We bought one for Alli and Leilani to share. Dani bought hers with her own money and rarely lets them play. In all fairness to Dani, Alli bought herself one too and left it outside overnight to its ruin. This one is not allowed out of the playroom. Did I mention it is pink? So cute. We also brought the game Tangled and an Elmo game spesifically for Lou to work on the alphabet. They love. To go along with that we bought a low-to-the-floor gaming chair (lime green) and Alli has had her hiney glued to it ever since yesterday.

We also got a big pink bin to house all Allisons stuffed animals. She has quite a few. Another thing we put together was the multi-bin storage thingy. It has plastic bins in all the right colors and is currently housing the barbies and ponies. We still have several empty bins but Im sure the girls will have those filled in no time.

So, all this to say that the tv did not come on this morning. I woke up at 7:30am and did not hear the girls. I found them all on the floor of the playroom. Two were DSing and one was setting up a Polly Pocket adventure. This was my hope, that they would be more interested in having their toys back than watching tv. I felt horrible packing them all away while trying to sell our house, but that is over and we are back to playing Barbies!

Momma

Today is my mothers birthday. She had an incredibly difficult school year last year and as soon as it was over, I could see the weight off her shoulders and she was a different woman. All year she was stressed out over deadlines, test scores, double lesson plans and a difficult administration. Well, school is out baby and so is mom. She treats herself with a trip to Vegas each year and this year, she and her friend are staying an extra long time. They usually run themselves ragged while away and so they will actually have some time to rest now. I am so excited for her, she deserves it! happy birthday mom, you are amazing!

I also titled this post MOMMA because I am about to be a momma again. Wow, 4 lives that God has placed in my world to impact, mold, love, grow, all that. I feel really blessed. Never has C adored me so much during pregnancy. Usually by this point he is despising it and ready for it to be done. But call it maturity, call it 5 years since our last baby, call it growth, he is thrilled to meet our daughter soon. We did pick a name but she shall remain "heartbeat" until she is born. The girls have made sure that they will be the first to hear her name. They are so cute. Each day they oogle over the belly, point out how big it is, and are sure to give it a kiss. They are fascinated to know exactly what is kicking them, where her head is and if this is gonna hurt. 2/3 are ready to never have children but leave it to Allison to say, "I will try it once and if it doesnt hurt that bad, I will have 11 more." She probably will too. She is our little firecracker.

I have been running ragged these last two weeks with swimming lessons and VBS, but this next week I am doing nothing. We are gonna be home each day, laying around, watching tv and truly resting. I can tell the two littles could use a rest all week but we were too busy for that. Also, we combined the girls into one room. 2/3 were thrilled, one was not. Can you guess who? Also, C and I are making a fabulous play room and getting the baby room ready. Busy times. Ok, hows that for an update? Happy 4th of July weekend. My Alli was born on the 4th. Really special day for us!

Moving Forward

So we took our house off the market. Im at peace with it. These last couple weeks have been difficult on my body trying to get the house in showing order each time before we leave. Rushing back if I forgot something and someone calls. Tuesday was telling for me as they had me in the hospital for a few hours and put me on modified bed rest. Their concern was my blood pressure and pre-eclampsia (sp). Luckily all blood tests came back well and baby is fine. They released me from bedrest mid day Thursday with the warning that I had to take it easy. C and I knew that the house had to be done. I could not keep up an longer and he didnt want me trying.

Part of my hangup was that I did not want to let the people down that we were buying from. We were going to call them Tuesday night and talk about this, but something told me that we should wait and formulate the right words to say. Well, Tues night I coulndt sleep and I got up and checked e mail. They had sent us a message saying they wanted to list their home again. Wow, if that wasnt reassurance from God I dont know what is. We answered their message and told them our support was completely for them to do that and that we were praying about whether or not to keep our home on the market or to do weekend only showings.

As the week went on we knew we had to take it off. One morning C said, " when I get home this house better look worse than it does now." He didnt want me up doing a bunch of stuff. I cheated and mom came up to help me.

Let the Summer Begin!

We are off to a great start. The swimming lessons for #2 and #3 begin this week and continue thru the next. Then onto Allisons 8th birthday. SIL moving, switching around girls bedrooms, preparing baby room, ect. Busy times. And, now that I am at this point in the pregnancy I get to go to the doctor weekly, woo hoo.

Went to the Richland farmers market last week, loved! It reminded me of the farmers markets on the west side. They were always fabulous. One of the best parts is this little fountain the kids sat at and kicked their feet in. Gobs of kids were doing it so I figured it was fine for mine to participate. We got some cherrys and some meat rub that C wanted to try.

Fathers day was fun filled. C took the girls shooting......all of them. Worried me a bit but I know that he is ultra careful and that until they can recite the universal rule of firearms, they cant shoot. #3 was able to do this and shot one time. Cute Im sure. This is exactly what he wanted to be doing on his fathers day. I on the other hand went to the OG with my mom, brother (who is a married man) and dad. It was good but I was getting uncomfortable towards the end and had to get out of that bench seat. In the afternoon we went to my in laws house and I napped. It was glorious. C has really been spoiling me this pregnancy and I love. He said that carrying around his 4 daughters was the best gift I could have given him. I love being adored!

We broke the news to the girls about the room switching that will be happening. Dani and Leilani will be sharing Alli's old room and bunk beds. I wanted everything to be changed for everyone so that there was no "this is my ______," so everything is new for everyone. Alli will be in Dani's old room with Leilani's old bed. We have tried to mix people with Alli for extended periods and it just hasnt been good. Alli is our best sleeper also, so that is another bonus for her being by herself. Dani and Leilani are "scared" a lot of nights so if they have each other, this shouldnt be a problem. Option #2 is to put all three girls in one room (they currently want sleep overs every night anyway) and make the other room a play room/ study for Dani homeschooling. Not certain yet but option #1 is what we are leaning towards.

My SIL and bestie threw me a baby shower last weekend! Wowza we were blessed/ spoiled. Gobs and gobs of diapers, clothes, crib stuff, ect. Love. Our little one will be cruizing in style. One of my fav things was bedazzled by Mrs. Amanda Beers and it says, " Cops are HOT!" Baby will be debuting this early on, oh yes she will. Each little jewel had to be glued one at a time, talk about committment. Ok, that is all for now. I will say that we think we have a name......and no I am not sharing! WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!