A great start to summer

I spent the past week reminiscing, thinking back to when I was a first time mom and Ally was the age that Amelia is now and I must say, there aren't that many things I would do too differently.  I loved Ally to pieces the way I do Amelia (and Tre and Sophia), I just don't worry as much about the little things.  For instance, this morning a felt a small bump on the back of Amelia's head and felt confident that its a normal little bump that probably will not be there when I check again tomorrow.  Flash back to finding the same little knot on Ally's noggin and I would be calling Dr. Larkin just knowing that he would meet me at St Jude ASAP.  Don't get me wrong, I still worry, I just worry in a sane way.

This past week Tre and Sophia were going to VBS from 9 - 12:30; then Tre stayed at Hope until 5:30 for sports camp when I picked Sophia up at 12:30, all the while Ally was away at her first camp; gone for 6 days with no communication with momma and poppa bear;  hence, another reason for my reminiscing mood.  I'm always afraid that I am going to handle a situation wrong with one of my children and then something is going to happen to one of them and I will never get the chance to rectify what I did.  Any body else struggle with this?  Anyway, back to my story...


She was so excited!  When we were getting ready on Sunday to take her, I was busy making sure she had everything she needed packed while trying to make sure everyone was showered and looking their best for dropping big sister off and Sophia didn't want to get in the shower, "but I had one yesterday" she complained, to which Ally told her after I left the room "do what mom says, you can't ruin what might be the best day of my life".  I only know this because while I was showering, Sophia decided to join me and I asked her what changed her mind about getting clean and she told me the above story.  Made me smile, thinking about how much this meant to Ally to get to go away for camp and sealed in my mind that she was ready to venture out on her own for a few days and that everything was gonna be OK.  At that point I was taken back to camp when I was a kid, not really sure what to expect the first time around, but so excited.

When we entered the Pinecrest gate, I was flooded with memories of MSYC, I only went twice, but I gained so much from those two weeks.  I told Ally she would feel so close to God while she was there, or at I least I hope she did.  We always sounded like the most beautiful chorus when we would sit out and sing early in the morning or in the evening when the sun was going down: blue skies and rainbows and sunbeams from heaven....

Anyway, we picked up a very tired Ally yesterday and we are all so glad she is home!  I just wish that she would wake up!  Night Owl camp makes for a very pooped eleven year old.

Amelia update, this little girl is a firecracker!  Everywhere I go, everyone is smitten with her big smile and dimple.  She is one of those that makes everyone around her smile. I am always smiling because people are always smiling at us(her, but I like to say us).  She has a mouth full of teeth and working on four more!  That will make 10 total, that's a lot for a 9 month old.  She stands and cruises around the furniture, lets go and stands alone for 4 or 5 seconds at a time . For some reason she loves to pinch and bite at me,and only me, has the loudest, shrillest squeal I have EVER heard and loves to dance when she hears music and gets so excited when it is time for a bottle and her nap, "Ni, Ni" she says and smiles and soon as I lay her in her wonderful crib she rolls to her left side, pops the bottle in her mouth and she is down for the count.

I know that I am blessed with the family I have been given.  It can be hard at times, but it is so worth it.  I can't imagine my life without the craziness that comes with being the mother of four health and happy children.  They are who I am!

 I am thankful to be married to Art, he is a wonderful, husband, friend and father.  He is the epitome of what a dad should be and tomorrow on Father's Day and as always, we will thank him for being ours!

Today I had my first OB appointment and lucky for me, I got to take Sophia with me. It is already hard enough to lay on the table and relax without your four year old sneaking down to the end of the bed wondering why your legs are spread and up in the air. "What are they going to do to you?" was what she had written all over her face. I gave her the look that let her know she needed to scoot her little bottom back to the seat where I told her to stay or there would be no Taco Bell as promised if she didn't follow all orders!

Her eyes glistened as she saw our little peanut on the ultrasound screen, then she smiled so wide as she heard its heartbeat. I must say, I think she is the most excited of the three and I am glad that she got to share this experience with me.

My doctors appointment started off all about me and how I was feeling, then it turned to the new life growing inside of me as I learned it's due date of September 5th and then it was all about that smile on Sophia's face and how excited she is!

You're going to have a what?

So it has been about eight months since I started this blog and this is only my second post! I guess I'm just gonna have to do a better job.

I guess I'll start with a juicy morsel of information... we are having another baby! Yep, that's what I said! Baby number four, the one everyone but myself predicted! Our children have been very excited to say the least and the sweetest part about it is Ally and Sophia both agree that it should be a boy so their brother can have a brother, isn't that just adorable?


Everyone in the family is so excited for us, however, I did hear a little bit of concern in my mom's voice, she worries there won't be enough of me to go around or maybe she just fears for my sanity!

Ally has predicted that we are going to have twins, so I told her if that's the case we are going to have her drop out of school and become the Nanny, she looked at me and said "Mom, we can't let this interfere with my education!" She is a smart cookie! I'm so proud of her and we know that once again she is going to be a great big sister, she will be 10 years older than our new baby, the same age difference btw Art's oldest and youngest sisters and my mom and her youngest brother.

My parents came over the weekend to see their newly pregnant daughter (I guess they needed to see me to believe it!) and as we were riding down the road my mom says to me "have you thought about how old you will be when this baby graduates from high school?" I sat in shock, "no not really" "two years younger than I am right now" she had obviously given this more thought than I had "Thanks a lot" was all I could come up with. Now that I have had enough time to do the math, I will be, are you ready?, 55 years old, are you kidding me? Aren't you supposed to be a grandparent at that phase in your life? All I can say, God has truly blessed me with wonderful children and if he wants me to be sitting in the bleachers at my child's graduation from high school when I am 55 years old, I will gladly be there, crying just like all the 40 year old parents!

Dad's Birthday/Memorial Day Weekend

Kicking off our summer vacation every year always consists of going to my parents house in Trenton to celebrate my dad's birthday on May 24th. This year our gift was a new grill for my dad since my kids wiped out his last one with their 4-wheeler! We were having a cookout but he thought we were going to use my Uncle Steve's grill, little did he know about our "grill surprise"!

As usual I was in a rush trying to get everyone ready for the trip so I took my dad's gift unassembled, I just didn't have the time Wal-Mart requestd to have the grill put together (big mistake)! Long story short, the kids helped my dad put his new shiny grill together! When I went outside to take more meat to be placed on the grill, I noticed it was doing a funny litttle dance, most grills don't sway back and forth do they? Needless to say, in slow motion I watched my dad's grill fall to the ground, fall apart and see his face turn from happy to disgusted. The food managed to stay on the grill and we cooked Indian style, what grill needs legs anyway?

We all enjoyed our burgers, chicken and my mom's baked beans, potato salad and homemade strawberry cake. The next day the kids enjoyed swimming at my Uncle Sonny and Aunt Denise's house. The kids enjoyed seeing their cousin Jack will I chatted with my cousin Jill.

If you know my dad, you know he has wanted a new truck for quite some time. When I turned 16 he gave me his to drive, a 1976 Ford, remember this was in 1987 so imagine how happy I was (or not)! It was two-tone, green and dark green, not exactly ever girls dream car, but it did take me where I needed to go. How I wish I had a picture to post, it was really bad! On to my story, so a storm came out of nowhere on Monday morning around 9:30, just after Sophia had been bitten on the face by my parents dog Patch. Never try to kiss a sleeping dog! She is ok, just a fat lip and a few scratches on her cheek. As I am icing her face, the sky went black and I started seeing branches fly by the dining room window and limbs cracking and then I heard a tree hit by straight line winds, it then fell over and guess where it landed? Right on top of my dad's brand new truck! His truck actually kept our van from getting too much damage, it took the brunt of what that tree had to offer. Once again my dad was taking care of us and he wasn't even trying to! After the storm passed we all had to spend about an hour and 1/2 outside becaus the power lines were down thanks to the neighbors tree. We all sat out in lawn chairs like we were at a parade, my parents live in a small town so word got around pretty quickly that Tommy Litton's new truck had just gotten attacked by a tree so everyone had to come by and take a look! Ally, Tre and Sophia thought it was so cool how quickly the electric department arrived with their bulldozer and trucks to fix our problem. Who gets service like this in Cordova?

We are all back home now anticipating a great summer. We made it home with our new puppy Sadie and two new additions, two box turtles, they are about the size of a half dollar. There names are Rock Star and Speedy. I guess we are turning our house into a petting zoo.

I've decided that there is a lot for my kids to learn this summer. We have all worked in our workbooks this morning. I hope to keep this up as well as do a lot of reading to Sophia and listening to Tre, my new reader, and keeping tabs on what Ally selects at the library. We will have fun, but I'm al about following a schedule. We'll see!