Oh, What A Surprise!!

Starting in my 37th week of this 4th pregnancy my blood pressure started going up. It wasn't awful but still steadily going up. I had one more check on Friday November 14th and it was still up, so my doctor decided to go ahead and induce me that next Monday! I was stunned because I felt like we still had so much to do. Would the baby be ok at 37 1/2 weeks, was this wise to do it early? We frantically called family to go ahead and come into town so they could watch the boys for us.

We spent our last weekend as a family of 5 finishing up the last minute things that we had to do and praying this baby would be well and healthy for an induction. It was a very bittersweet weekend as we prepared for our lives to change. Would we be a family of all boys or would a little princess come along and rock our world?! My blood pressure remained high through the weekend so I felt better about inducing early!

On Sunday afternoon Jordan and I had a sweet last date for a while and walked in the snow and did a bit of shopping for baby before we checked into the hospital.

I was blessed with massive amounts of nausea/heartburn this time around and I only gained around 13 pounds and put on a few more the last 3 days as my blood pressure went up. 

I felt sad leaving the boys for a few nights but I knew they were in good hands with their grandparents! I didn't sleep much Sunday night and was up with the frozen sunset knowing this was the day The Lord had ordained for us to meet this precious new baby!

The day progressed along and I didn't progress very quickly at all. We prayed that my labor wouldn't stall out and end up with a c-section! We had SO many friends and family praying for us throughout the day and we were so thankful!

The boys planned to visit around dinner time and it just so happened I started to really come along quickly and knew the baby would be coming soon! As the boys went downstairs to eat dinner it was time to push! I literally thought my heart would explode with excitement to see what we were having!

You see that.....it's a Pink bow!!! I just about lost it as she came out, my doctor held her up and Jordan looked and announced that it was a GIRL!!! We cried and cried and I thanked God for this precious gift that I didn't even know that I wanted or needed. 

What a blessing!! The boys came up from waiting downstairs and we let it be a surprise for them too as they walked in! They were all really, really excited to see a pink bow! They are completely obsessed with her and love her so much already!

Emma Katherine (she'll go by Emma Kate!) was 8 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. She is amazing, beautiful, perfect and such a wonderful surprise to us! 

 Another surprise is that she has lots of very light hair and maybe blue eyes....it's hard to tell quite yet! We are nearly 3 weeks in and I still am in shock that we have pink and bows in our house! It feels strange for this boy mom!

We just love her so much and we are so thankful that we have a healthy, beautiful baby to snuggle on!

More pictures to come! Welcome to our family Emma Kate!

36 Weeks and Counting....

So just a quick check in, since I never, ever make time to blog! We are currently at almost 37 weeks along with this 4th pregnancy!

The baby dropped a few weeks ago and all of my 7 and a half months of nausea/heartburn went away. I am so thankful everyday that I feel better and am not dealing with that nausea anymore!

We had a 3D ultrasound several weeks ago and I am just obsessed with these cheeks! Obsessed! We still don't know if we are having a boy or a girl. We are so excited to meet this baby and see what God has planned for our family: will I be an ALL boy mom or will we have a little girl to bring some pink into this house?!

We are getting everything ready....

Packing up the hospital bag with boy stuff and girl stuff! Because this pregnancy was so hard and different from the others, I have to admit that I have a decent amount of pink stuff this time around, just in case!

Because our babies always hang in our room for the first few months and this baby doesn't have a "real" room right now anyway, we fixed a corner of our room into the tiniest, quaintest little nursery nook ever. The boys have their step stool ready so they can peek into the crib, it's very sweet! A long time ago it would have bothered me that I didn't have a "real" nursery ready yet, but as you live and learn you learn a tiny baby just doesn't have to have everything perfect!

So for now, we just have a sweet little second hand Pottery Barn cream/yellow/green set with sweet little sheep on it. We are so excited to finish out this pregnancy and meet this precious new one!

So, Just A Bit of News......

Seeing as how I haven't posted in months, I have a pretty good reason!

We are joyfully expecting baby number 4!!! I am almost to 22 weeks. It's been a very different kind of pregnancy ( is it a girl?!!!) with massive amounts of heart burn and nausea but I'm still thrilled to be given the chance to do this again!

Here's a sweet picture at our ultrasound last week. I can't tell if it's a girl profile or if it looks like a boy!? We decided not to find out just like with the last two! It will definitely be a wonderful surprise for our family!

The boys are really excited and curious about everything this time around. Two out of 3 are rooting for a girl! I can't wait to get through the rest of this pregnancy safely and see this precious new baby!

October Randomness

So, later in October we decided to transfer Noah out of his crib and into the boys' bedroom.  I was pretty nervous about having all 3 of them in 1 room!    We got ready for our first night and Noah was very excited to be with his brothers!  (And is that a throw up bucket by the bed?  It probably is?  Just keeping it real!)

 

I won't say this as been a bed of roses...there are days/nights that it's very hard to have 3 in 1 room, but they just love it.  They will talk (usually a ton) as they go to sleep and it's just really sweet.  I wouldn't trade it for anything!

 

We still were working hard for our homeschool days and Matthew usually jumps in to do some work too.

 

Matthew had a fall fest at his preschool that was fun.....

And we got ready for Halloween by carving a pumpkin!

 

All 3 boys wanted to be Big Al, so I was happy to let them!  They looked so cute!

Boo!

 

 

We took a few trail walks and enjoyed the few warm days left and I'm glad we did because our winter was a complete nightmare!

A Road Trip to Tuscaloosa!

We had a fall break in October, so I decided that I would take the boys to Tuscaloosa for the week!  We left VERY early when it was still dark and we got to watch the sun rise as we were on the road.

I know my grandparents really enjoyed seeing the boys for a few days because they can't really get out here to see us.

I always travel with my bouncy house because it's instant fun when there's not a lot of toys around!

I was very excited that I got to go to my favorite restaurant, Taco Casa!  I dream of taco burgers and the only place I can get them is here, about 2 times a year!

My next favorite restaurant of all time is City Cafe!  It's tiny and you have to wait in the longest line imaginable, but it is so worth it.  It was one of our favorite college places to eat lunch!

We spent some fun time just hanging out with my grandparents.

Then I decided we should go to an Alabama game.  That was a little bit hard with all 3 boys, but they were thrilled!

Luckily, Dad helped me wrangle the boys and we went to the A Club room to eat lunch before the game.

Judd and Jennie came to meet us at the A Club room as well and we all enjoyed a great meal!

We literally watched the team run in and play 1 play and then ALL the boys were just done.  It was naptime and it was a long day for them, so we decided to go ahead and leave.  I was sad, but it is what it is with tired kiddos.  

At least we had fun for the time that we were there!

On the way out of the stadium we decided to stop off at the newly built Alpha Gamma Delta house.  I had not been to Tuscaloosa in a long time, so I was shocked to see the beautiful new house.  It really was amazing!  I tried so hard to wrangle the boys so they wouldn't break anything or make college girls decide they didn't want to have kids one day!  The new house mom invited the boys into her apartment and gave them food, candy, and let them play with her little dog!  She was so kind to them.  It really was so sweet of her to acknowledge that they were kids and they were going to bang on the nice piano!

I mean, what can you say?  The University of Alabama does sorority houses right!  It was beautiful!  I'm so glad I got to run in and look around while everyone else was at the game!

Later that evening Noah just wasn't acting right and he just laid in the floor screaming and wouldn't get up and he just cried and cried.  I got a little worried and decided I may need to take him to get seen somewhere and then it dawned on us that the ballgame was getting out and 80,000 fans would soon be flooding the roads of Tuscaloosa.  As a last resort, we took the back roads to DCH Northport so that we could avoid most of the traffic heading to the highway.  He threw up while we were at the ER and we got an X-ray of his belly just to make sure.  He ended up being ok and we were back for bedtime.  Poor guy!

It was a long week but a good week.  As you can see, the boys passed out on my grandmother's couch one night!

Pretty soon, it was time to hit the road again.  Since I was alone I had to make sure I did this trip as quickly as possible.  I learned that if I packed our breakfast and lunch and then just handed it back to them, then it could save us up to 2 hours on the road and money as well.  So that's what I did and it as worked out so great doing it this way.  I pack everything the night before and just toss it back with some fruit and a juice box!  Genius!

Arkansas bound!  It was a fun fall break trip!

October Fun!

Back in October we had some really fun things to do!  We were excited that fall was coming!  We took a picnic to a park....

and visited a nearby pumpkin patch for a picnic another day.

We did not do a good job at the grass maze, thus we will not be doing a real corn maze!

Life with boys...finding a toy snake in the wash!

Sometimes it's nice to just stop and read a book when they want you to.  They're only little once!

I took these 2 yahoos with me on a Walmart trip and they insisted on carrying the Bible in with them.  How could I say no?!

I braved the area craft fairs and took them all by myself one afternoon.  It went better than I expected!  They did pretty well.

They even got to ride the cow train all by themselves!  They are growing up so fast and getting so big!