I babysat Mae today

She's almost 3 months old. And since I havn't taken pictures of her since she was 3 days old, you better believe I took some today. I didn't even tell Rach yet. So, here ya go, Rachel. I didn't take a lot (this is all of them), but she sure is a cute model!

Teeth and Snow

Nathan lost another tooth. How cute is that hole in his mouth? I'm a little startled still every time he smiles.



And it snowed some more. I'm over the snow, but the flakes were big and pretty and Gabe loves it, so I took pics of him enjoying (and eating) it.

The Business of Being Born

Just a little info for you local blog readers. The documentary, The Business of Being Born is showing at The Bing Crosby Theater on Saturday night at 7. Afterwards there is supposed to be a panel of OB's and Midwives for a discussion session. There's no charge to attend, but they are accepting donations. If you're an anti-link-clicker, it's a documentary comparing hospital births to births attended by midwives. It looks very interesting!

And since blog posts deserve pictures...here's my second scrapbook page. And really, these pictures of Gabe should be enjoyed on a regular basis. Whether for you to get a good laugh or thank your lucky stars that he isn't your kid. lol

Click it to see it bigger!

Insomniatic (is that a word?) Ramblings

I have a king size bed. Big, right? Biggest there is, in fact. But, in case you were wondering, I king size bed is NOT big enough for 2 grown-ups, a 5 year old and a 2 year old.

Nearly every night, between the hours of 3 and 5, I awake to being kicked in the head by said 2 year old, only to roll over and find my way blocked by the 5 year old.

I am now faced with a choice. Try to ignore them, in an attempt to avoid coming fully awake, and attempt to sleep with feet in my face and nowhere to go. (As it really doesn't matter how often I straighten him out, he'll immediately turn sideways again and for some reason his feet are always on my side.) Being pregnant, I prefer to sleep on my side and rather sprawled out. This is not possible when sandwhiched between children, so I end up on my back with my arms above my head. NOT a good sleeping position.

Choice #2. Walk the 5 year old back to her bed and carry the 2 year old back to his. The problem with this is the getting up part. I end up awake and unable to fall back to sleep for quite some time. Being someone who treasures any sleep she can get, this option is very irritating. Unfortunately, kicking Dave til he wakes up and moves them isn't an option as he sleeps like a log. (I've tried. Many times.)

So what usually ends up happening is I lay there with my arms above my head and try to sleep until my bladder (a hazard of the unborn child within) insists that I get up and empty it. This is when I move the monsters, go back to bed and wait for the ever elusive sleep to descend again.

And now, it's 5:12 AM. I've been lying in bed, wide awake since 4:30 AM. I got bored. So, here I am.

I'll probably be able to fall back to sleep in the next hour or so, and then the alarm will rudely awake me at 7:30. And in case you're wondering, I still don't like that I have to wake up early every day to get a kid off to school. Whoever decided school should start so early in the mornings was not thinking about pregnant people with toddlers that kick.

Okay, they just weren't thinking about me, period. I am not a morning person.

Whenever my kids start high school, we will be finding somewhere to live that has release time seminary. In case you were wondering.

Learning something new to waste my time on

I've never understood why people scrapbook. I tried it briefly, and was just overwhelmed and annoyed by the cost, the mess and how much time it took. Plus, I wasn't very good at it. I discovered digital scrapbooking and thought it was a much smarter way to scrapbook, but I still wasn't very good at it and there weren't a lot of printing options at the time.

But, now, with some patient tutorials from Kristie and lots of free scrapbooking downloads from various blogs and scrapbooking sites, I'm starting to get it! Want to see my first attempt? (click to see it bigger)

Stuff I kept meaning to blog

December was so busy, that I never really got around to blogging. So here's a bunch of pictures to catch you up.

Aria turned 5. Check out the cake, I'm getting better!


It started snowing (it still hasn't stopped, it's ridiculous).




My friend and I took our daughters (who are bff's, if you recall) to see Princesses on ice.


Not bad for a point and shoot, eh?




We visited family and friends (this is Nathan with his 2 good friends) in Seattle.


Santa came to Grandma's house to visit all the kids. This is Nathan and one of his cousins.


While we were there, Aria wanted to take pictures with her favorite cousin. So we did an impromptu photo shoot.








Everybody got in on the action. Grandma with her grandsons.


And back home for Christmas morning. I actually didn't take that many pictures Christmas morning, I just enjoyed it. But here's one of the kids in their matching jammies that Aunt Christie made them.

5 babies in my family

Between the months of October and May, in my extended family, we have 5 babies due. 2 have been born, one is due this month, one in Feb and me in May. These pregnancy pictures are for baby #4. My cousin's second child. (Maryanne, I'll put your whole gallery up as soon as Dave fixes something that I need to get it up)

I got some interesting news today!

If you remember, I had an ultrasound when I was 12 weeks pregnant. The ultrasound tech said that she couldn't say it with 100% accuracy since we were only 12 weeks along but that she was fairly certain we were having a boy. She showed us what looked like boy parts and we agreed that it sure looked like a boy! I've had 2 boys and it didn't look much different from their u/s pics, albeit smaller.

So today, I went in for my mid-pregnancy ultrasound. The tech asked if I wanted to know the gender and I said yes. Imagine my surprise to find out that the baby we believed to be a boy for he last 2 months, is in fact a girl!

Aria is beyond thrilled.

I'm happy too, for several reasons.

1. Everything is still even. Having a boy would have thrown off my desire to have things be even. 2 boys, 2 girls.
2. I adore my boys, and would have loved another one, but I really wanted Aria to have a sister. There's nothing like the relationship between sisters.
3. I knew I'd keep trying for a girl. I really, really don't enjoy being pregnant and now I don't feel even a teensy bit guilty for wanting to stop. Or at the very least take a nice long break.

Want to see the pictures?

Katie and Justin

My cousins. Aren't they cute? Here's the whole gallery.

Welcome to the world, Jovie Jean!

I have another new neice! This is April's new little dd, Jovie. And little she is! Only 6lbs 8ozs and 19.5 inches long. I'm not used to babies so little, but she's so sweet! And Nathan is in love with her. He held her for a good 20 minutes when we visited at the hospital.

Here's lots and lots of pictures!

Jessie and Jovie


Aria and Jovie


Nathan and Jovie






and pictures from our shoot the day she came home from the hospital.


April knitted this blanket for her. It's so soft and I have one for my baby too! yay!










I made this next one vintage because I really liked the picture but in the original they're glowing red from one of those point and shoot red focus lights that was being used right as I pressed the shutter release. Turns out, I really liked it in vintage and did a few others that way too.