Guess What?!

Guess what I get to eat tomorrow?!  

I'm super excited!!  Tomorrow, I'm flying home for a college Bible study reunion.  It will be a super short trip so I won't get to see everyone I want to see (read:  Beth and the in-laws).  Never fear, I think I may be "home" again in April for spring break.  We'll see, it all depends on Greg's travel plans.

Please pray for our little family.  Greg has been traveling almost constantly for the last six weeks.  He got home this afternoon just in time to deal with the plumber trying to sell us a new hot water heater.  He has been having migraines, is exhausted and is just generally run down.  I feel bad leaving him with the boys who are equally exhausted of not having their family together.  Pray for safe travels (Ethan is convinced I'm going to "get dead").  Pray we all have a wonderful refreshing change of pace.  

Talk to ya'll in a couple of days!  KY here I come!!

Bottoms Up

Gabe has been potty trained for almost a year, so imagine my frustration when he recently began having poopy accidents in his underwear.  I get so frustrated with him.  I know he knows better but he just waits way to long.

This afternoon he came up the stairs to deliver his dreadful news "Mommy, I pooped in my pants".  I was even more frustrated with him because he had attempted to clean up after himself and had gotten some poo under his fingernails.  VOMIT.

Upon noticing the nails he could tell I was getting frustrated.  

"Mommy" he said in an exasperated little voice.  "It's not my fault, it's Sam and Ethan's fault".  

"Gabe" I said, "how could this possibly be your brothers fault, only you can make yourself poop in your pants"  

To which he replied, rather seriously I might add, "When they make me laugh it makes my bottom open"

Now how can you argue with that?!

Number Five is Alive

Do ya'll remember that movie?? Growing up we LOVED Short Circuit. To this day my boys associate that movie with my parents house. "We want to watch the Robot Movie" is one of their first requests...followed by the quote (from the movie of course) "Your Mother was a Snow Blower"!! (lovely, huh?!)

If you haven't seen it, it's a pretty cute movie (all though I do remember being shocked by a few wirty dords that the boys didn't pick up on).

Well all this to say, the tag line from this movie kept floating through my mind yesterday as I saw this:



"NUMBER FIVE IS ALIVE!!" (I know how corny am I)

We found out on January 16th that we are going to be having another baby. We welcomed the news but wanted to wait a little before spilling the beans. On Thursday I had my first appointment. The nurse tried to find the heartbeat but all we could hear was my heartbeat which was deafening when you desperately want to hear a little one. Yesterday I met with my doctor and he got out the ultrasound machine. It took way longer then it seemed like it should have but sure enough after a minute or two, a HEARTBEAT!! We are thrilled.

We told the boys this morning and their general consensus is that we should have a girl. Of course we are hopeful to have some pink and some "dolls to shoot" (Sam's exact words) but I know we will love a little boy just as much.

Please pray for us as we begin yet another chapter in our parenting lives. I will be ten weeks on Wednesday. My babies have all been born at 37-38 weeks which means I have about 28 weeks to prepare for our new bundle of joy!!

Four Boys

Ya'll know I have four of em' right?  Four stinkin' rotten boys.  I love every inch of their bodies and would do almost anything for them.  I want to have this built for them....

Sorry if it's a little hard to see, a certain 18 month old decided to do a little redecorating of his own, hence all the tape.  I have been wanting to get them bunk beds for months but haven't found what I was looking for.  These are SO cool.  I love that they have shelves at the head of each bed for all of their "stuff" and I especially love the lights each has for reading.  

We are sending this picture to a carpenter.  How much you want to bet he quotes us a lot more then we want to spend!

Happy V-Day!!

My dear husband surprised me with this lovely watch:

I think I shall keep him!  Poor guy, he had to surprise me on Thursday night because he knew I would FREAK out when I saw the charge.  I do the budget and the guy pegged me exactly.  He knew when I did the budget the next morning (I do it almost every morning) that I would totally believe someone had stolen our debit card.  Does the man know me or does the man know me!

This morning we had yummy cinnamon rolls, cantaloupe and chocolate hearts.  The boys also enjoyed their Crayola Valentine surprises (the house is once again exploding with paints, markers, and colored pencils.  I cull our coloring supplies often).  We finished the morning going around telling it each other what we loved about each other.  Corny but we had a great time!

Hope everyone enjoyed their day!  I know I did.  

XOXO

"It's My Turn"

I have been procrastinating. It's really a daily occurrence, don't be too shocked. Several weeks ago I read a fabulous book. I mentioned I was having a hard time getting ready to blog about it because I wanted to be sure and do it justice. Since then I have totally misplaced the book. I wanted to include clever quotes in my review, but I guess that just isn't going to happen. (If I quite procrastinating on cleaning my house I would probably find the book!)

I recently read Ruth Bell Graham's book "It's My Turn".


I don't know that I would necessarily call this book an autobiography, more short glimpses into her life. I loved these glimpses. Ruth Bell Graham was a FEISTY woman. I need to read about feisty women. I don't relate well to quite, hands folded, under opinionated women. God didn't make me that way, and I have to believe that he made me the way I am for a purpose. I think Ruth gave Billy Graham a run for his money, and he loved her for it. Her favorite quote was "If two people agree on everything one of them is not neccesary". LOVE IT! I'm going to stop butchering this review and encourage you to go buy and read this book. I read it in less then 24 hours and will probably read it again (if I can find it!).

On a similar note, one of the things that inspired me about this book was her love for scripture. This book encouraged me to just read scripture every day and study it. She recommends just reading and taking notes (seems too simple, huh?!). One of the things Ruth remembered about her childhood was her parents always reading the Word and encouraging her to do the same. Bible reading and memorization were things she remembered fondly. I wanted to make this a similar theme in our house.

Last week I told the boys that for every four versus they memorized I would take them to the Dollar Store to pick out ANYTHING they wanted. Suddenly those boys became very interested! Last week we memorized:

Honor your Father and your Mother. ~ Deuteronomy 5:16
Truth will last forever; lies are soon found out. ~ Proverbs 12:19
With God everything is possible. ~ Mark 10:27
Children are a gift from the Lord. ~ Psalms 127:3

Even Gabe did a great job. Here's their loot from our trip to the Dollar Tree:

This last picture is from our weekly Friday night pizza/movie night. They LIVE for Fridays. Often Blockbuster has their previously viewed movies 3 for $20 and sometimes 4 for $20. I stock up on newly released movies and they LOVE that we get to keep them. Even Joel likes to get in on the action. Look at him here chillin' with the big boys:


Have a WONDERFUL weekend, Valentine's Day and President's Day!!

Wordless Wednesday

100 Days of School, Again, Already?!

Ethan and I stayed up late last night working on his 100 days of school project. Thankfully his project this year was no where near as "difficult" as the project we did for Sam last year. For Ethan's project we had to have 100 of anything sorted and displayed. Ethan eagerly agreed that M&M's would be a great medium for his project and was ecstatic to help eat any extras.

We spent about an hour sorting, counting, hot gluing and labeling his project. We were both pretty happy with the results. He was desperate for his brothers to ask questions about his project this morning, unfortunately his audience was no where near as excited as he was.

Of course as soon as Ethan got out of the van this morning to get on the bus he promptly dropped the project on the wet ground, let's hope those candy coatings held together! Happy almost 100 days of school (it's actually the 5th)!!