A Growing Belly

I got dressed for church today. I know, I know, I shouldn’t get a medal for that. But I’ve been sick and I have literally spent all week in my pajamas (with the exception of yesterday when I had to leave the house and my pride forced me into clothes). So it really was a major accomplishment for me to actually shower and put on clean Sunday clothes this morning. Since I was actually dressed, I decided to take some belly pictures after church today.

My belly sure has grown a lot lately!! I even have one pair of maternity pants that I can wear now. Strangers don’t seem to know that I am pregnant yet. I still haven’t had a single person come ask me if I am expecting or when I am due. I’ve had several conversations with pregnant strangers and even as we discussed their own pregnancies, neither of them asked if I was pregnant too. But the people who know me say that I am finally looking a little more pregnant. And, being the one who IS actually pregnant with this baby, I can sure feel the growing that both my belly and my baby have done over the last few weeks.

I am almost in my 34th week now, and I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy (especially my last trimester) is flying by. My babies tend to arrive a little early so this baby boy could be here in about a month or so. I am planning on him sometime around Halloween… either a few days before or a few days after, but hopefully not the day of. Of course, because I am planning on him coming early, he’ll probably surprise me and come a week late like my first baby, Brenna, did!

Anyway, here are the belly pictures I took today after church.

 

Someone told me that I would look more pregnant if I wore tighter shirts so I changed into something more form-fitting and took a few extra pictures.

  

Then I got right back into my comfy pajamas.

I feel blessed to have this baby boy joining our family. I think of him constantly. I wonder what his name will be, how much he’ll weigh, who he’ll look like, and how his delivery will go. I am so excited for his arrival. It will be wonderful to hold another tiny newborn in my arms, wonderful to smell his sweet little head, wonderful to have another precious son!

Primary Program

Our Primary Program was today. I must admit that I was nervous. I wasn’t worried about the Primary children because I was confident that they knew their songs and their parts. I was more nervous about standing up in front of the entire ward to lead the kids during each song. Once we started, however, I realized that it wasn’t much different from leading the kids every week in primary and my butterflies went away.

All the primary kids did a beautiful job. The songs were beautiful and they all knew their parts. I was so proud of my own sweet children as they sang and did their parts. They each knew their parts by heart and they sang each song so sweetly. Little Braden got to sing with the Pre-Sunbeam kids and he was so pleased with himself and with the little silver star that he got to keep after he sang. I can’t believe that Braden will be a Sunbeam in just a few months! He did get lost on his way down from the stand and that shook him up, but I was able to get to him, hug him tightly, and return him to Daddy before he got really upset.

The program went really well overall. The last song of the program was also the closing hymn so the congregation sang the second verse with the children. It brought tears to my eyes as I listened to all the adults sing a song that they’d learned during their Primary days. It was a testament to me of the importance of Primary and the songs we teach these precious children each week. The spirit was strong as the children all joined in on the final chorus. My own children (those that can read anyway) sing every hymn during Sacrament Meeting each week. It’s important to me that they learn to read the music and are comfortable singing the hymns with the congregation. Most of the kids in the ward don’t sing the hymns though so it was really neat to hear them all singing the closing song today. I felt the spirit strongly.

After the program, I decided to go home. I am still battling this nasty cold and a UTI on top of that now. The new Primary Presidency was planning to play a “get to know you” game in Primary so I wasn’t really needed anyway. Rick hasn’t slept much since Friday morning so he decided to come home with me. We were planning to take all the kids home with us, but Brenna started to cry when she realized that we were missing the rest of church. I quickly found a nice family in our ward who was willing to drop her off at our house after church was over. Brenna was so glad to stay at Primary.

Rick is starting to get my cold now. I told him to watch out because it’s a real doozy and he reminded me that he is actually able to to take heavy duty cold medicine because he’s not pregnant like I am. He probably also has a stronger immune system. Everything seems to hit pregnant ladies extra hard.

Anyway, it was a great Sunday, one that we worked all year to prepare for. It was amazing to see those sweet, incredible Primary children during the program. I am so grateful for my calling and for the chance that I have to teach these precious children of our Heavenly Father each week. And, of course, I am incredibly grateful for my own five (soon to be six) babies. I am constantly thankful that Heavenly Father has entrusted these noble and valiant spirits into my care.

Picture Sorting

I really need to sort my pictures. I LOVE having a digital camera because it gives me the freedom to take as many pictures as I want to. But I also worry about losing those pictures. All it takes is a hard-drive crash or a scratched CD and those pictures are gone forever. I try to keep my pictures organized and safe, but I really, really need to do a better job.

Right now, all of our pictures get uploaded (or is it downloaded?) to my laptop. I label the pictures with the month and year, but my laptop automatically groups the pictures into just the pictures that came off the camera right then.  Because of this, I end up with like 10 folders that all have the same name (Sept09, for example). It makes it difficult to find the pictures that I am looking for because they could be in any one of 10 different folders from September.

I always PLAN to take all those pictures and copy them to our shared hard drive, grouping the 10 separate folders into just one Sept09 folder so that they are neat and organized and so that I have a second copy of them. Then I PLAN to make several back-up CD’s, label them each, and store them away just in case. Then I PLAN put together beautiful scrapbook pages with the pictures that I took and make copies for each of my children so that they can easily look back over all of our great memories together.

Um, except that my PLANS rarely turn into reality. I’m lucky if I just get the pictures copied onto the shared hard drive at all. Once every few months, I copy everything over to the shared drive, but that doesn’t seem often enough with as many pictures as I tend to take. I worry constantly that my laptop will blow up and all my cute pictures will be lost. I really need to carve out some time to get my pictures copied and organized, and then I need to make sure that I copy and organize my pictures each time I take new ones off of my camera. It would keep my pictures safe and it would make it a lot easier to find the specific pictures that I am looking for.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and it is something I really need to get better about! Does anyone have any good suggestions for keeping pictures safe and organized?

Brenna’s First Official Gymnastics Meet

Brenna is competing in gymnastics for the first time this year. She had an inter-squad meet two weeks ago (more of a “practice” meet really) and today was her first official gymnastics meet. She was so excited and has been looking forward to this day for the past several weeks. Her beautiful, new, sparkly, purple (her favorite color) team leotard finally arrived this week and Brenna was thrilled.

Joshua had a football game right in the middle of Brenna’s meet so it was necessary for us to split up in order to be able to support both kids at their events. I have grown lots of invisible arms during my seven years as a mother and I sure know how to multi-task, but I still haven’t figured out a way to be in two places at once!

I was still feeling very sick so Rick took Joshua, Maddie, and Asher to the football game while I took just Brenna and Braden to the gymnastics meet. It was easy peasy (as my kids would say) having just Braden there. He’s such a quiet, well-behaved little guy. Braden sat beside me on the bleachers and cheered for his big sister. He chatted with me, nibbled a few snacks, and played with a few toys that he brought along. I was glad that I had just Braden to keep track of because my head and sinuses were pounding and my chest was so tight.

Brenna did great at her meet! She was so confident and so brave. Brenna struggles with fear in all areas of her life (everything from riding a two-wheeler to learning to tie her shoes scared her until she mastered it). Gymnastics really gives her a chance to confront her fears head on and overcome them in a very tangible way. I was so proud of her for being brave today on the things that sometimes make her nervous. She even got her front hip circle on the bars without a spot!! That’s a move that scares her enough that she usually holds back on it. She has never done it without a spot, but today she dug deep, found her courage, and did her front hip circle all by herself for the first time! I was so proud and I could tell that she was too! And she did a perfect round-off back-handspring too.

Brenna had a great time during the meet. She loves the competition (which doesn’t make her nervous for some reason) and she loves being a part of the team and being with her friends. She was grinning during the entire meet.

Brenna ended up getting a red ribbon (second place) for vault and white ribbons (third place) for floor, beam, and bars. She got a shiny bronze medal for the all-around and a second medal just for participating. And, as is tradition at our gym, she got a big bag of goodies. Brenna was so thrilled! With four ribbons, two medals, and tons of treats, she couldn’t have been happier.

Brenna said that her favorite event today was floor and her most exciting moment was when she got her front hip circle on the bars. I asked her which was better, doing each event or getting awards at the end. She told me that doing the events was the most fun, and then added that she was still really excited about getting awards to. We try to emphasize that the point of being involved in sports is to have fun, make friends, and keep our bodies healthy so I was happy to hear that she had more fun doing her routines than winning awards. Of course, I felt it was totally appropriate for her to be excited about her awards as well. She had worked hard and earned them.

When we got home, Brenna and I set to work pinning all of her medals and ribbons to a wall in her room. Joshua has a wall full of wresting medals and Brenna has always wished for a similar wall of her own. She was so excited to add these new awards and her score card to her wall, next to her soccer medal and the medal that Joshua gave her last spring for supporting him so much at wrestling.

The meet ended earlier than I thought it would. The Level 4 girls competed first and all by themselves. That really cut down on time without the Level 5 and up girls competing too. The football game went into overtime so Brenna, Braden, and I were home just a little before everyone else. Still, we were all home before 4pm, much earlier than I expected. The kids had fun swapping stories about the gymnastics meet and the football game, filling each other in on the things that they’d missed. Joshua’s team lost in overtime by one touch down, but the refs kept illegal face-masking in check again today and the boys all had fun. Brenna proudly showed off the new awards on her wall and Joshua congratulated her, beaming as proudly as if he’d won them himself.

Rick and the kids spent some time cleaning while I put my feet up. I’d done well all day long. I didn’t feel good, but I managed just fine during my early morning preparations and the Primary Program practice and the gymnastics meet. But by mid afternoon I was dying again. My head felt so full, my chest hurt, my throat was sore, everything ached. It seemed that my body was really screaming at me for forcing it to do so much during the day. I couldn’t even sit upright. Bleck. I hate being sick. So I rested in bed and waited for my Sudafed to kick in while Rick and the kids tidied the house. I was so thankful for their help. And I was thankful that the horrible I-am-going-to-pass-out feeling hadn’t hit until we were home again.

We had intended to go out to eat as a family to celebrate Brenna’s first gymnastics meet, but as the evening wore on, I decided that I wasn’t up for going anywhere. We told Brenna that she could choose. We’d either postone her special dinner and eat out on a different night or we’d order pizza tonight and celebrate at home. Brenna chose pizza so we ordered from a local restaurant that actually serves delicious gluten-free pizza. (Yay for gluten-free pizza!!)

I have not been eating this week because I’ve felt so sick. I’ve been trying, but it’s been hard and I’ve lost some weight as a result. I knew that it was important for me to try to eat. Rick even ordered my favorite pizza from this restuarant- one of their speciality pizzas, a chicken alfredo with fresh tomatoes. When he picked up my prescription (for the UTI that began this evening), he also got me hersey’s kisses. There’s nothing like a slice of pizza and some hersey’s kisses to fatten a pregnant lady up again, right?

I ended up missing women’s conference tonight. I was so disappointed. I look forward to this all year long and I have never missed a session before. But I was feeling sick and tired and it was about that time that I started to have UTI symptoms. So I felt it was best that I stay home, even though I was sad to miss the meeting.

I’m starting to get off on a tangent now, when this entry really is supposed to be about Brenna and her gymnastics meet. So anyway…

I am so proud of my baby girl! She has worked so hard to get to this point. I love seeing how much she loves gymnastics and how much it is building her confidence. She is such a beautiful, talented little girl!

Doted On

I love seeing Asher in his role as the fifth child in our family. He is so doted on by his four older brothers and sisters. They absolutely adore him. I love watching the way they interact with him. Braden is young enough that he and Asher are playmates and peers. It warms my heart to watch them play together and to see how much they enjoy being brothers. They truly light up when they are together.

The three older kids have started to take on more of a nurturing role with Asher. It’s interesting to see that dynamic emerging. They play with him and sing to him and carry him around the house. They are such loving big brothers and sisters. Their love for Asher is obvious and he adores them just as much.

What a lucky boy Asher is to have so many people who care for him so deeply. He has two parents and four older siblings completely devoted to him. And soon he’ll get to be a big brother as well and that makes him lucky too.

What’s that Stink?

Braden has developed the keen nose of a preschooler (all my two to four year olds have gone through this phase at some point). Braden constantly wrinkles his nose and asks, “Hey, what’s that stink?”

Crazy Saturday

I can still barely get out of bed. I’ve never had a “cold” this awful before. I just feel like this infection has settled into every part of my body and I feel terrible. Tomorrow is going to be a crazy busy day so this is an especially bad time for me to be sick. But oh well. Time to rise to the occasion… and then come crashing back down afterwards.

The day begins early. I need to be up so that I have time to pack all the stuff that we’ll need to cart around all day long- cameras, diaper bags, toys, lots of snacks and drinks, football gear, gymnastics gear, chairs, and so on. Then we have an early morning practice for the Primary Program that the three older kids and I need to attend. We’ll leave a little bit early because Brenna needs to be at the gym for her gymnastics meet by 11:30. Joshua needs to be at the football fields at 12:45 for his 1:30 football game. I am in charge of “end game treats” for the team, which we will need to just buy tomorrow because there is no way I am baking anything with the way I feel. Rick and I will have to split up so that one of us can be with Brenna at her meet and the other can be with Joshua at his game. I really wish we could be at both events tomorrow, but because they overlap completely, splitting up is really the only way to supoort both of our kids. Rick took the day off of work so that we could be there for both Brenna and Joshua. After the game, Rick and whoever is with him will join the rest of us at the gym for the rest of Brenna’s gymnastics meet. The meet should be over in the early evening, around dinnertime. We are planning on going out to eat as a family to celebrate Brenna’s first real gymnastics meet. Tomorrow evening I’ll be attending the women’s session of Conference, and I am really looking forward to that uplifting experience. I have a baby shower tomorrow, but it’s from 11-1 and there really is no way for me to go with everything else that is going on. Sunday we have church at 8:30am as usual, but tomorrow is the annual Primary Program. As Primary Chorister, I need to be there to lead the kids. Then I am teaching Singing Time afterwards.

I WISH that I could take this weekend to rest, but there is no way that is possible. The really frustrating part is that the week will start over again on Monday and I never will have a chance to rest. Monday will be “back to work” with gymnastics (several times), cheer, the library, grocery shopping, etc. Rick will be home this weekend, but he will be so sleep deprived after Saturday (because he will work all night Friday and then be up all day Saturday) that I know he will need to rest. I just wish that I had a day or two to stay in bed. I’ve been trying to take it easy this week, but I’ve still been homeschooling, doing dishes and laundry, and keeping the house tidy every day. I just need to get over this bug.

One Month

My babies tend to come a little early. Because of that, this little boy could be here- safe, healthy, and full-term- in as little as FOUR WEEKS from now! One month does not seem like a long time at all! I am having lots of contractions and this little guy is pushing heavily downwards, so I do think that my body is getting ready. I am still sick with what I am sure is a sinus infection, but I am planning to take another pregnancy picture soon… as soon as I start getting dressed again.

Playing With Baby Brother

Braden was sitting next to me in bed this morning when he began rubbing his face against my pregnant belly. He giggled and told me, “Mama, I’m playing with my baby brother!” Braden rubbed his face against me a few more times, still giggling to himself. Then he announced proudly, “I think my baby brother loves me!” This went on for several minutes as Braden continued to “play” with his baby brother. He kept telling me that he was playing with his baby brother and that his baby brother loved him. Too, too cute!!

Sick Days

I am still feeling awful so we are taking it easy today. We’re keeping the house clean and the dishes done. The kids are homeschooling today, but not their afternoon classes. I am going to try to get at least two loads of laundry done. We’re staying home from football practice and I am calling to cancel the kids’ flu shots that were scheduled for today. It should be a restful day and hopefully it will help me kick this bug.

*   *   *

7:15pm… I am pleasantly surprised by how well things are going even during this nasty sinus infection. My older three kids have been really pitching in so that helps a lot. We got our homeschool done, kept up on the dishes, kept the house completely tidy, and washed, folded, and put away two loads of laundry. Even with all that, I’ve been able to rest a lot, which is good for me right now. I’m still feeling awful, but I’m glad that at least I won’t have tons of work to catch up on after I feel better.