Little Man Plays Dress-Up

The other day Little Man decided to play dress up... or something like that.  He found my headband, and the frame for one of the nets for the EleFun game, and he did this. :o)

My favorite evening with Babydoll!

Two weekends ago my cousin Liz got married.  Her wedding fell on a friday evening that Spence was away at Rockfest, but I was planning to take all three kids to the wedding.  As it got closer to wedding day, I decided I should try to find a babysitter for Little Man so I could actually stay for the reception without worrying about a very sleepy little boy.  Around this same time Sweet Pea was invited to sleep over at a friend's house and wanted to go to that instead of the wedding, after checking with the family I gave her permission to go to the sleep-over.  Our good friends Jeni and Chris agreed to watch Little Man for us, and I was left with just Babydoll!

Jeni offered to watch Babydoll as well, but after a couple minutes of consideration (she was having fun playing with Jeni's daughter) I decided that I needed to bring her with me.

I've been going to Sound of Music rehearsals every night for the past 7 weeks, and most of those nights I left home with a crying Babydoll.  She begs me to stay, clings to my leg, climbs into my lap, and sadly watches me drive away. 

Sad huh?

So I knew we really needed some time together, just the two of us, to play and dance and have some quality bonding time!  She even got to wear makeup for our special evening!

Let me tell you, when you are used to taking 3 kids to events and holidays and things, taking just 1 kid feels like a piece of cake!  A piece of wedding cake! haha, I'm so funny.... um... yeah.

I'm beginning to realize why the middle child gets such a bad rap for lack of attention, when I realized I would be taking just Babydoll to the wedding I sadly realized I could not remember the last time I did anything outside of the yard with just her!  I take Sweet Pea on big kid things, and Little Man goes with just me when his big sisters are doing something together with someone else, but my little middle child just never gets pulled out of the group and taken places with just me!  Sad!

We had the best time that night!  We played in the lawn of the gardens before the ceremony started, we ate together and drank out of fancy glasses together.  We took pictures together at the little photo booth they had set up.  And we danced together.

Now she wasn't stuck with just me the whole time, there were three other little girls her same age at the reception and they had a great time dancing and running around in circles for a couple hours.

When it was time to go home we got in the car to pick up Little Man first, and I told her that if she was sleeping when we got to Chris and Jeni's then I'd let her sleep while I went in to grab Little Man, so if she woke up and I wasn't there, then I was just picking up Little Man and would be back in the car soon.  She assured me that she would stay awake the whole time.

5 minutes later she was out like a light!

We had the best time together!

Wishful Wednesday

I wish for simlicity.

I wish for an extremely successful opening night this friday!

I wish for an extremely successful 8 shows for that matter!

Your turn!  What are you wishing for?

Sometimes you feel like a nut

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

Sometimes you don't :o)

A couple weeks ago I had to get a head shot for the Sound of Music program.  I just had Spencer take a picture of me one morning. 

Which one should I have used?  I wonder what kind of parts I would get with that first one!

Another Sneak Peak - Sound of Music

Hey, it's all I have time for right now ;o)

I am having a great time getting ready for opening night of The Sound of Music!  The hours are grueling, and I am definately having dreams of rehearsals and painting and all that, and poor Babydoll cries every night when I leave, but I have missed being able to stretch my artistic wings for so long!! I needed this!

Here are some pictures taken earlier this week.

Here's the whole cast with the mountain/hills backdrop

Sweet Pea is in the chidlren's chorus/traveling cast/ "Vienna Children's Choir". She's one of the girls in the white and pink dresses, front row, scratching her nose.

Here are all of the nuns

And here is a picture of the Mother Abbess, Sister Sophia, Sister Berthe, and Sister Margaretta (me!)

I know some of you are coming to see the show, and I can't wait to see you there!

Wishful Wednesday

I wish I could do it all, I'm trying!

I wish there were more hours left for sleeping.

I hope we sell lots of tickets for The Sound of Music!

I hope I don't forget my scenes!

Your turn! What are you wishing and hoping for?

Sneak Peak

A sneak peak at what I will eventually get around to blogging about!

We went to a really fun petting zoo!

Last week (I think it was, maybe two weeks ago!) my mother-in-law took the daycare to Tommy's Zoo and Stables!  This place was awesome!  For just $5 per child we spent a good two hours touring the grounds, feeding the animals, petting the animals, and the kids got to ride the milk-jug train thing pulled by a golf cart!

I didn't get many pictures, because I had a couple kids who apparently weren't very fond of their fingers and kept sticking the fences before checking with the owner, and we were coming up on animals that would bite!  The kangaroo was ver friendly though, and he had a soft little nose :o)  He also had a stuffed animal that the owner's mom gave him when they had to take his ostrich friend out after it got too big and started escaping!

"What does a kangaroo say Mom?"   "I don't know honey"

These little fawns were so pretty!  The kids liked them because the deer were more than happy to let them pet their noses.  I think the deer just wanted to be fed, but don't tell the kids that!

The camel was vey friendly and likes baby carrots.  All the animals in this particular pen, however, came running when the owner brought out a bag of fruit loops!

They also had bunnies that the kids held, newborn bunnies that we got to peek at, a hedgehog, 2 parrots, sheep, goats, miniature horses, full size horses, ostrich, an emu, ducks, geese, turkeys, a cow, a peacock, and an alligator!  Oh and a skunk - luckily the spray gland or whatever it is had been removed!

The kids were in the same pen with the ducks, geese, turkeys and the alligator!  Luckily for my heart rate the alligator was pretty small and stayed in the little pond the whole time we were in there!

If you are looking for a fun place to take some kids, give them a call and see if you can come visit!

Wishful Wednesday

I got 5 hours of sleep last night... which felt like 30 seconds... so I'm too tired to post the Wishful Wednesday photo. 

I hope you'll be ok with it :o)


~ I wish I had more sleep last night, but Spence left for Rockfest today and I've barely seen him lately, so we spent a couple hours playing video games after rehearsal last night.  Now I'm sleepy!

~ I hope Spencer and his friends have a safe trip out to WI, and a safe and fun time while they party like rockstars.

~ I hope the kids are good for me for the next several days until he gets back!

~ I wish I could wave a magic wand and have all the set painting done!

Your turn! What are you wishing for?  Hoping for?

When did this happen?

When the heck did my daughter grow up?  She's almost 8 years old now!

What we started building this weekend

We started building a new sandbox this weekend, my mom and husband went to Lowes and picked up some 4x4's and we got digging!

Enjoy!

Haven't finished it yet, but we're close!  I'll try to remember to post pictures when it's done!

Conclusion of Our Story of Grief and Joy

If you haven't been following along, you'd probably want to go back and start from the beginning.  Click here to start with Part 1.

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When my last post ended I was over 39 weeks pregnant, and very excited to meet my little baby!  And to find out if I'd been growing a boy or a girl for the past 39 weeks!

On October 24, 2006 I went to my OB appointment while a friend watched my daycare kids and Sweet Pea.  My appointment was at 10:00, after doing all the typical checks, my nurse practitioner told me she'd try to strip my membranes so I could maybe go into labor... this time she was able to do it!

I had already been having strong contractions (like serious contractions... real labor contractions that just weren't becoming speeding up or growing progressively stronger, but strong enough to wake me up) about 20 minutes apart for a solid 33 hours, so I knew it would be soon.  I had told my NP that I hadn't been sleeping at night, so she gave me a couple pills and told me to go home, send my daycare kids home, find someone to watch Sweet Pea and take a long nap so I could be rested up for labor. 

No nap would be had though, because on my way home (about a 20 minute drive) my contractions started picking up, and when I got home I started timing them.  By the time I got home at 11:00 my contractions were 7 minutes apart and I called all the daycare parents to pick up the kiddos!  At 12:30 they were in the 5-7 minutes apart range and I called the hospital, and was told to come in!  Our hospital was a good 30 minutes away with no traffic, so we weren't going to wait around for the 5 minutes apart mark.  I called Spence and told him, "It's time!" and he hurried home.  All the kids were picked up very quickly since I had called them at 11:00, and everyone was out of the house by the time Spencer got home and grabbed some last minute things.

On the way to the hospital my contractions had gotten really strong and I was getting very impatient while we made our way to the hospital... all I could think of was one word... "Epidural" and the sooner we got there, the sooner I'd have an anesthesiologist in the room!  We were all set up in PETU to be evaluated at 2:15 in the afternoon.  My water broke in PETU, but it wasn't a gush and they weren't sure it had broke until much later.  But I had felt something pop down there, and when I told the nurse that, she said it was probably water breaking, and that we would get me to a room.

At 3:30 I was moved to a Labor/Delivery room.  After waiting entirely too long, I finally got my epidural at 4:15, felt one more contraction, and was then pain-free!  The next few hours of labor found me the most relaxed and comfortable I'd been in months thank to that wonderful medicine! 

About 3 hours later, and after a short nap (epidurals mean you have a good chance of actually taking a nap during labor... Thank you Mr. Anesthesiologist!!) I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push!

I started pushing at 7:33, and I told them to have the doctor ready because my first child had been born after only 11 minutes of pushing, so I was ready for this to go pretty quickly.  While I wasn't feeling any pain at all, I could feel the pressure, and when I heard the nurses and doctor telling me things like, "That's it!" I would just keep pushing like I was. 

I could barely even feel the baby crowning, and after having a worn off epidural with Sweet Pea believe me.. that's not a fun thing to feel!  I could feel that she was there, but no pain.  After pushing for 21 minutes, our baby came out and was handed right up to me on my chest, that's when I saw she was a GIRL!

I don't think there is anything as amazing and precious as holding your baby in your arms for the first time!  They wiped her off as best they could while she stayed on my chest, and without even thinking about all the stuff that covers a newborn baby, I was kissing her little forehead... I had waited long enough for that!

It was a very emotional moment, and while I was completely exhausted I was blown away by how long we had waited for this very moment.  By how much we had gone through to get to this very moment, holding our child in our arms after waiting 2 1/2 years, after losing three babies, after all those tests and ultrasounds, and constant worry, and sleepless nights, we were finally holding her, memorizing every thing about her, and thanking God for this miracle!

My birth experience with Babydoll was absolutely wonderful.  My nurse was always there when I needed her, the lights were dim, the room was quiet and calm, my epidural worked like a charm.  It was so serene and beautiful. 

I was really nervous about nursing Babydoll, because that had been difficult with Sweet Pea, but she was nursing like a champ immediately!

I was completely in love.  I didn't mind waking up with her in the middle of the night to feed her, it was nice to hold her and cuddle her in the quiet hour of 3AM.  One night when she was about 1 month old, it was just me and her cuddling on the couch, I was smiling at her, she was smiling at me, and I was thinking about how much I love her and how glad I was to have her.  Then I started to cry.

I hadn't really cried yet since she was born, and at that moment it all came flooding out.  I was expecting tears of joy, but what I wasn't expecting was this.  Tears of guilt

This emotion was unexpected and I just lost it.  I started crying because I felt guilty for loving her so much, it was only because my last 3 babies had miscarried that she was even here.  I felt like I was letting them down, like I was a traitor to their memory for being so completely overjoyed to have her in my life.  And then of course I felt guilty for feeling guilty for loving her!  I just held her and cried.  It was a relatively short period of guilt, and I'm not sure how I got over it except that I knew God wanted her in my life.  I knew after 2.5 years of heartache and struggle, she was meant to be.  She was our little miracle.  I've wondered ever since then if other women have had similar emotions after they've gone through something similar to what we've gone through.  If you have, please speak up so I know I'm not alone!

All of my children are miracles to me, I am amazed when I really look at them how God has blessed me more than I could ever deserve.  How could I possibly be so lucky as to have these three children to call my own?  Except that they are not my own, they are children of God and have been entrusted to us to take care of them.  To raise them to be compassionate, gracious, polite, hardworking, serving of the Lord, adults who will go out and make positive changes in the world.  They are all blessings, but my second baby is the one who most reminds me that we were all created for a purpose.  A purpose we may never understand in our lifetime, but a clear purpose in Gods eyes.  She was meant to be here, in our family, in our little speck of the world, and I pray that one day she will understand just what a miracle she is.

Wishful Wednesday

Now, not that you can tell by the lack of picture, but...

It's Wishful Wednesday!

I wish I wasn't having internet problems... they're not much fun when you blog.

I wish I could keep my schedule straight! I missed a get-together with a dear friend who now lives on the east coast!  I totally forgot!

I wish 3-year-olds weren't so tough to live with at times! My new quote: "Three-year-olds - you can't live with 'em, you can't give 'em away!"


Your turn!  What are you wishing for?  Hoping for?

Sound of Music Tickets

I hope you all had a fabulous Independence Day! We had a nice time hanging out at the cabin, visiting with neighbors, and eating yummy food!  Oh and there were some fireworks too :o)

As you remember, or don't, the reason I haven't been posting every day is because I've been rehearsing for The Sound of Music with the Elk River Community Theater most evenings!  

The show is coming along great!  My fellow cast members are very talented, and we're working hard to put on a phenomenal show for you later this month and into early August!

Are you planning on coming to see the show?  If not you should!  I've got presale tickets for you to order for only $10, that's $5 off the regular price!  This price is only available until July 15, and I have to have money ready to turn in by then, so shoot me an email with what show you want to go to and we'll go from there!

The performance schedule is: July 30 @ 7pm/ Saturday, July 31 @ 2pm/ Saturday, July 31 @ 7pm/ Sunday August 1 @ 6pm/ Thursday, August 5 @ 7pm / Friday, August 6 @ 7pm / Saturday, August 7 @ 7pm / Sunday, August 8 @ 6pm