Winter Update

Sorry for this LONG overdue update.  My work schedule has been brutal this month with a deadline looming, and it's all I can do to keep my kids dressed and fed, let alone take time to write a blog entry.  It's not been enjoyable, but the end is in sight, and we are all looking forward to taking a break for Christmas and the New Year!

So where to start?  So much to update on between Pierce, Hayden and baby Ruthie (in my tummy still).  I guess I'll start by mentioning some fun events we've been to in the past few weeks, and then I'll go on to some brief updates about each of the kids and their recent milestones and stories.

DINOSAUR WORLD

A few weeks ago we ventured down to Glen Rose, Texas, to meet some friends and explore Dinosaur World, where they have this pretty little trail that you can follow that has lifesize dinosaurs roaming around along it.  Glen Rose is known for it's dinosaur artifacts, including some neat footprints preserved in the rocks in the river valley nearby (that we went to see last winter), so it's an appropriate setting.  The kids were THRILLED, and got to do a dig for dinosaur bones and teeth, and play on the dinosaur themed playground.  All around a fantastic day for everyone.

   

   

THANKSGIVING

We had so much to be thankful this year, with our two healthy boys, and a healthy baby girl on the way, so our Thanksgiving celebration was full of joy and happiness this year.  We invited over some close friends and family, and set a pretty fall table, and enjoyed a FEAST of delicious food.  We attempted to take some family photos for our Christmas cards this year, and you can enjoy the outtakes.  The results are pretty consistent with what our normal life is like in this busy household - nothing really goes as planned!  This one was ALMOST perfect, except Hayden was looking down!  It's the best of the bunch.

FORT WORTH PARADE OF LIGHTS

Nate has fond memories of going to a night-time parade in Denver as a child, where all the floats were decorated with Christmas lights.  Ironically, on the Saturday before I was leaving for London, he asked me to look around for a fun family event, and by chance the Fort Worth Parade of Lights event was happening.  So we invited Grammy and Poppy along and headed down to Sundance Square for dinner and the parade.  It was one of those nights that is just perfect - the kids were so well-behaved, with nothing but smiles all night.  The parade was gorgeous with all of the twinkling lights, and kids were thrilled to see Santa riding on the last special float.  There were horses and cows (I mean it was Fort Worth afterall!), vintage cars, marching bands, and clowns.  A nice lady gave the boys some extra antlers she had, which they wore with enthusiasm, and the parade was a HUGE success.

   

   

LONDON

Despite a lack of enthusiasm on my part, I ended up traveling to London for work, on what ended up being the COLDEST and SNOWIEST week ever in England.  One highlight of the trip was being able to travel on a 747 for the first time, and the boys and Nate and I watched it land at DFW prior to dropping me off.  It is pretty spectacular watching a heavy plane like that land at such close proximity.  It really is beautiful.

While I wasn't that thrilled about leaving my family for the holidays, and flying 10 hours while very pregnant, I still was excited to see my brother and his girlfriend, who live in London, and to spend some quality time with them when I wasn't working.  Jeffrey and I checked out Hampton Court Palace, which was super interesting for me since I have always enjoyed history about the English monarchs, and Henry the 8th in particular.  This was his main palace, and it was fascinating to be able to walk the same hallways as Anne Boleyn and the entire Tudor court.  The gardens were beautiful even in the winter, and despite it being VERY cold, it was a great day. 

Unfortunately additional sight-seeing was not really on the agenda for this trip because of my long work days while away, but Jeff's friends were extremely generous in entertaining me in their homes for dinner, and Jeff and I also attended my first Arsenal "football" match.  What a wild experience!  I'm a pretty avid sports fan, and have been to many professional American football, baseball and basketball games, but a European soccer match is a whole different ballgame (literally and figuratively!).  Instead of your basic chants and cheers, the fans of the Arsenal (mostly males I might add) are really vocal, and have songs (many of them filled with dirty words!) for each player that they sing with gusto each time said player makes a good play.  They also have a whole bunch of team songs, for when the team as a whole does well.  And of course no one is afraid to call a player (or the entire team) a bunch of wankers if someone does something wrong!  The Arsenal ending up winning, which put them "top of the league" for the first time in a long time, over their rivals Chelsea and Manchester United (Jeff will kill me if I am wrong about these stats haha), and the entire tube ride home, you could encounter happy soccer fans, waving their red and white scarves and chanting "we are top of the league, we are top of the league" at each station.  It was definitely a cultural experience, to say the least. Super fun.

While I was away, the boys were in very good hands, which made me feel so good.  Nathan of course was a steady, loving presence for them, and my mom helped out in her usual stellar way.  Then the icing on the cake was that Mammaw flew in from Colorado for 4 days to help out, which made the kids so happy.  When I would skype with the boys there wasn't even a hint of sadness in them, as they were thrilled to be spending time with their grandparents and daddy.  I'm blessed to have so many people in our lives who are willing to help out so I can make trips like this and not go crazy with worry.

HAYDEN

Right now, Hayden is all about relationships.  I think as he gets older, he realizes how important various people in his life are, and he loves to talk about all of his friends and family.  And I love the stories he comes up!  He loves to tell me everyday that Mammaw gives him butterfly kisses (with her eyelashes), and his new thing is to give them to me ever since Mammaw was here a few weeks ago.  He is also deeply looking forward to his sister getting here.  He regularly hugs my tummy and tells me that he feels her move (even when she isn't!), and he will talk to her as well.  It's really adorable and heart-warming.  Yesterday he told me, "Mommy!  We need to tape Tangled for Ruthie to watch when she is here!"  For those not in the know, Tangled is a new Disney movie based on the Rapunzel story, and Hayden has told me a few times that it's a "girl movie" (don't ask me how he came to this conclusion?).  But I couldn't believe how sweet it was that he wanted to make sure she got to see this movie.  I can't wait to see if the warmth remains when she is actually here!

Hayden's preschool semester just ended, and was capped off with his first ever Christmas Program!  It was so adorable and of course I cried, which may have had to do with pregnancy hormones, but more likely had to do with how grown up and proud my little boy was.  His teacher had told me that he was the loudest singer of the bunch, and I had wondered if he'd get stage fright, or if he'd pull through with the singing.  I needn't have worried.  He was THRILLED to be on stage, and waved at me and just beamed before they started signing.  He did ALL the hand motions perfectly, and I could see him singing the words clearly and loudly.  I was so so proud of him, and for the amazing achievement that pre-school has been in general this year.  He went from being so scared and reluctant, to honestly loving his classmates and teachers, and embracing the whole program.

Speaking of loving his classmates, Hayden definitely has his first crush!  For the past few months he has been talking about Tatum, a cute little brunette girl in his class.  It's been obvious that they are best friends, and as I walked into class to pick him up last week, the teachers were all giggling and pointed out that Hayden had pulled his nap mat up to Tatum's, and they were completely snuggling as they rested.  She apparently had been playing with his hair earlier in the nap!  Dying of the cuteness.  I chose that same day to let Hayden and Pierce play on the pres-school playground for awhile after school ended, and Tatum's mom brought her two out to play as well.  I clicked with her mom, and found out that they live in our neighborhood, so we agreed that we'd have to do a Christmas break playdate.  The kids overheard us saying this, and were thrilled with the idea of getting together.  Well....Hayden misunderstood that we wouldn't be getting together immediately that afternoon, and he cried the whole way home about missing Tatum, and could he please just call her and talk her, and could we please invite her over to play?!  This whole scene oddly enough reminded me of how it felt to part ways with my best friend after our first semester of freshman year of college lol.  Not a day has passed since school ended where he hasn't asked if Tatum can come over and play!

He was also invited to the 4th birthday party of one of his classmates, Brock.  We arrived and a bunch of little boys were already jumping on the trampoline, and Hayden joined right in.  I was chatting with Brock's mom, who teaches the other 3 year old class, and she said she had asked Hayden's teacher who she should invite from Brock's class, and she had said, "oh you MUST invite Hayden, he is just the sweetest little boy".  I loved hearing that from his teacher, who gets to see him without mom's watchful eye reinforcing good behavior.  I always wonder if his teachers get to see the sweet and intelligent little boy that I have the priviledge of knowing, and this confirmed that indeed they do!

Not surprisingly, Hayden is super excited for Christmas (mostly still because he thinks Ruthie is coming the day AFTER Christmas and has yet to grasp that that isn't exactly true), and has asked Santa for a "black zhu zhu pet" and a "matchbox car".  What's odd about these requests is that he NEVER plays with zhu zhu pets, and he has about 100 matchbox cars that he also rarely plays with.  But a boy wants what a boy wants, and these are easy enough requests to fill!  Nathan and I also have a few surprises up our sleeves that are sure to thrill him, which I'll share after the holidays.

   

PIERCE

Where do I even start with this little monkey?  He is just the BEST, most fun, happy, silly little 20 month old ever.  His speech has just blossomed over the past month or two, and he is easily making sentences with 4 to 5 words, and has such a sense of humor!  He is smart smart smart, and can already sing his ABCs and count to five or so on a good day (actually counting objects).  I'm sure a lot of this can be attributed to learning from his brother, but I'm still impressed!

He has a couple of tried and true behaviors and sayings that just have me laughing regularly.  Currently, my favorite thing that he says is "OH (gasping loudly), a SOUND!" whenever he hears anything unfamiliar or loud.  For example, when we are playing outside and a plane flies overhead, he will look up and gasp, "OH SOUND!"  I just love it.  Then I'll answer him and say, "Yes Pierce, it sounds like an airplane" and he'll say, "Yeah mommy, airplane SOUND!".  He says this at least 20 times a day, so curious about the world and sounds around him.

He's also started calling Hayden by the name brother, which comes out sounding like "Bradoo".  The first thing he'll say when he wakes up (after repeatedly saying "EAT, EAT, EAT) is "where Bradoo go mommy?" and then when he gets out to the living room and sees him he claps and says "Hello BRADOO!" with a big smile.  For awhile he would just refer to him as Bradoo to Nathan or I, as if he is talking ABOUT him, but for the past week he has actually been directly addressing Hayden and saying things like "run Bradoo", or "outside Bradoo", or "Braddo help", etc.  And Hayden only calls him by his nickname of Wubby.  So we've got a Bradoo and Wubby around here   I'm anxious to see how their relationships evolves when their sister is born.  I'm hoping it brings them even closer together!

Pierce is getting much more loving and affectionate lately, but still has a very playful streak in him.  We have this fun game that we play where I'll say, "Piercey, can I have one kiss please" and he'll tease me and shake his head and say (very matter of factly), "no mommy", with a naughty little smile.  So I'll pretend to be upset, and then he'll plant a big one on me, and it's so cute.  He has adopted Hayden's habit of wanting kisses when he gets hurt, so whenever something happens, he'll just rub a spot on his head or knee, or wherever, and say, "hurt mommy", and he'll come over and I'll ask him if he wants a kiss and he'll nod and say, "yeah" and hold out his hurt part for me to kiss.  Then he'll crawl into my arms for a hug, and lay his fuzzy head on my shoulder, which is a rare treat.  This affectionate side is just very new, and I'm loving it!

But with the good, comes the bad and ugly!  We still have problems with tantrums with Pierce, and it's only getting worse!  He's a man who knows what he wants.  Where Hayden threw silent tantrums (laying facedown in protest), Pierce just SCREAMS at the top of his lungs when something doesn't go his way.  It would be comical if it didn't happen so often, and so regularly in public places!  So Piercey anti-tantrum boot camp has started in our house, and the rules are being established.  It's not particularly fun for anyone, but we are hoping it pays off and our little boy learns some boundaries.  He's cute as can be, but naughty as a monster sometimes!!

   

RUTHIE

Well I am officially 30 weeks pregnant (I'll probably be 35 by the time I actually find time to finish this post!), and things are going well.  Not surprisingly, things aren't as easy or comfortable this time, and I'm finding myself more achy and tired than I remember being with Hayden or Pierce.  I'm also extremely busy and stressed with work, which isn't helping, but I'm hanging in there.  Sleep is becoming elusive, as it always does near the end when you can't find a good position in bed because your tummy is HUGE, and because your little daughter has decided that night-time is her favorite time to be awake and party in there.  I was also diagnosed with anemia about a month ago, so have started taking iron supplements to try to help me recover some of my energy.

But despite the drawbacks, I'm still really enjoying this pregnancy, and find myself bonding in a different way than I did with the boys.  We're "the girls" now, and I feel a special little kinship.  She is definitely very active, and moves constantly and drastically.  If I lay with my stomach against Nate's back in bed, he is kept awake with her kicking!  She is up in my ribs, and down in my hips at the same time, making me think this is one long lady.  We'll see when she is born!

I continue with twice monthly appointments for now with my midwives, and I get to like them both more each time I go to visit.  They are both so patient and willing to take time to answer all of my questions, and they genuinely seem to care about me and my little girl.  It's almost like chatting with a girlfriend when I go to my appointments, but they are also really professional and complete in their exams.  I get to hear her strong heartbeat every appointment, and so far I'm measuring just a few weeks ahead, which is typical for me and my large babies.  My blood pressure remains good, my weight gain is similar to the boys, and she is already head down and ready to go!

So physically things are progressing normally and healthily, but around our house we are making very little progress on getting things ready for our little lady.  Things have just been so hectic, and we haven't been able to start on her nursery at all, although we DO have a closet full of pink and purple clothes, since no one in my family can seem to resist them after all the boy clothes we've been buying for the past 4 years!  I decided on sort of a do-it-yourself purple woodsy theme for her room, and I've picked up a few key items, like sheets, a bedskirt, a rug, and a changing pad cover.  We are still tossing around ideas, but I think we will be keeping our white birch trees that are painted on the wall, and adding little big-eyed owls and lavender birds, and perhaps a few purple butterflies.  I also want to paint the letters that spell her name to hang on the wall, and paint a pretty little birdhouse to hang.  We'll see how many of this projects I actually get to!!  The life of leisure I led while pregnant with Hayden is a thing of the past!

Well thanks everyone for hanging in there and reading through this post.  Hopefully I'll be able to post more regularly once things calm down for me at work, and when I go on maternity leave.  But who am I kidding?  I'll have THREE kids then!  Yikes 

Happy Holidays!