high-FIVE!

i'm having some technical difficulties. my camera will not load pics into my laptop. we have important events going on all over the place- this is not the time for technology to fail me!

e's birthday party is being held tomorrow. i can't believe that my baby is turning 5! how in the world have an entire 5 years passed? wasn't it just yesterday that she was doing this?


i can't promise pics from the party, but i do promise that if i can't figure it out i will do two things...
1.) upload some oldies but pre-blogging goodies
2.) buy a new camera as soon as humanly possible

look at those little curls! and even then she didn't like to get her hands messy.

to know or not to know

scott and i debated for a long time about being told the gender of this new little baby. it was a difficult decision. we found out with both e and d and didn't think twice about it. i am a "finder outer"... i need to know. surprises aren't really my thing. but for some reason, this time, i really didn't want to know. we've done it twice the other way and it worked for us, but this time felt like the right time to embrace the unknown. (it was sort of the theme of the past year for us anyways.)

when we went to the ultrasound we had the technician write the sex down on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope... you know, in case curiosity began to kill the cat. over the final 20 weeks of the pregnancy i lost the envelope a couple of times. on father's day, i offered it to scott to open if he so desired. he declined. and so onward to the delivery we went.

envelope sealed.



with each day that this baby decided to linger in the womb (11 for those of you that were counting... me = totally counting!) i became even more confident in our choice to embrace the surprise. it became exciting. a few times the feeling of being unprepared (in the event of a boy) would make me a little bit crazy, but overall it was fun to be waiting for the great reveal.

and then labor began.

you need a little background info for this one, but d almost was birthed in the car. literally. naturally, everyone thought that baby 3 would come even faster. my midwife actually gave me a little instruction session on what to do in the event that we couldn't make it to the hospital.

sweet p decided that she was going to throw everyone for a little loop and decided to make her momma work to get her out. towards the end, i wanted to throw in the towel. do you know what got me through? it was the great reveal. i channeled my desire to meet my baby and see if it was a he or a she. and so for this pregnancy, not knowing saved me. it was the perfect decision.

of course a few days after she was born, we decided to open the envelope. you know, in case they were wrong.

the conclusion: whatever you decide is the "right" decision. i loved knowing with e and d and i loved not knowing with p.

p.s. to those of you that i have begged to find out so that i wouldn't have to wait in suspense... please accept my apologies.

the sticker club

this was my mom on the day that she was discharged from the hospital at the end of january. and although she had come a long way, she still had a long way to go. my sister stacy has worked hard at getting my mom from "on the road to recovery" to "recovered". and today, i think i can officially say that my mom is recovered. hallelujah! how do i know? well, let me tell you...

the story begins when i left home for college. as a freshman getting mail was a pretty big deal (man that makes me old)... now they get texts, emails, tweets or connect on skype... but i'm getting off track before i even get started. anyways, at the beginning of every month, my mom would send me a letter. the front of the letter was typed, copied and then sent to a bunch of people that my mom corresponded with each month. on the back was a handwritten note to me from my mom. usually, the envelope also contained other stuff as well. she would send me things that she thought would interest me from our local newspaper, funny comic jokes from the saturday evening post, maybe a story from guidepost magazine or a variety of other things she thought might be of interest. she also decorated each letter with silly stickers and called the list of recipients "the sticker club". i looked forward to getting my monthly instalment of the sticker club each month as it made me feel really connected to home.

the week that my mom was in the accident, my mom's december letter arrived. the theme of her letter was "walking". ironic, right? there she was laying in a hospital bed far from home unable to walk, sending out a greeting that detailed all of her journeys from 2008. and interwoven through the details of her "walking" was how gracious God had been through the year and how He had walked with her on her journeys, making them a possibility. needless to say, getting and reading this letter was a difficult experience. the road ahead was marked with uncertainty and while reading of the joys from 2008 was encouraging, i also had a lot of unanswered questions concerning her future. i wondered several times in those first few weeks if it was the last letter i would receive from my mom. i tucked it away in my keepsake box and then found myself going back to the box to read it and extract encouragement from her words through the months that followed.

i have missed these letters.

yesterday, i went to mailbox to retrieve the mail. to my excitement and joy, the first installment (post-accident) of the sticker club had arrived. tears ran down my cheeks as i tore open the envelope. eureka! what a joy to know that my mom is back into a routine. what a blessing to receive evidence that she is seeing God's hand in her new life with my sister. how wonderful to read the details (even though i already knew most of them) of her new day to day adventures.

the girlies zoo

i'd like to introduce you to three of my friends. on the left is froggy, in the middle is bunny and on the right is the newest addition of giraffe. i spend a considerable portion of my day retrieving the first two little guys for my girls. i tote them back and forth between upstairs and downstairs, hunt for them when we are in a stressful teary eyed situation, wrestle them from my girls lovingly to see that they are bathed with some regularity... i've been known to defend their sacred honor, do considerable amounts of backtracking to locate them when dropped in public places... the list of duties required for these little friends is long.

why do i do all of this for these little guys, you ask? well, it is because they are my girlies special friends. they have the ability to soothe my oldest babes to sleep, stop a tearful fit on a dime, and make physical and emotional wounds magically disappear. the value that my girls place on them, well, it's priceless.

the value that i place on them is priceless as well, but just for different reasons. for me, each of these lovies was given to my babes by women whom have a sacred place in my heart.

froggy was gifted to me at my baby shower for sweet e. the giver was one of my first friends in chicago, meg. before babies, meg and i and another gal pal would go out for monthly dinners. we met because our hubbies were good friends in college, so we spent a considerable amount of time together as couples as well. meg is so important to me because she is the one that made chicago feel like home to me. she was the first girl here that i could pick up the phone and chat with, meet up with on a friday night, or just hang. so every time i see e cozied up to her frog, it feels like she is wrapped in the comfort of a good friend... meg.

bunny was gifted to d by my sister heather. as most people who know me can attest to, heather has always been someone that i look up to. for about ten years heather lived in canada. we weren't very close during those years. i was in college and she was busy raising her babies. but right before d was born, heather moved back to the states. and it was then that we connected as adults, as women, as mothers, as jesus followers. and so when i tuck d into her crib each night and she squeals for bunny, it is as if she is giving out a squeal for her auntie who loves her.

this week, my very sweet and special friend steph brought us dinner and a gift. when i opened the gift, i was moved to tears as i discovered giraffe. how fitting that the momma that helped me navigate the transition from the city to the burbs (steph lived a few blocks away from me in the city and now lives a few blocks away from me in the burbs) would gift my sweet p with her lovie.

and as many things have over the past few weeks, it made me miss chicago already.

family fun fest

our town hosted a "family fun fest" on friday evening. since sitting around watching a baby is not high on the toddler/preschooler "fun times" list, we thought we'd get out of the house and check out the event.

let's just say it was a huge hit! first, ellie did this:

and then she dunked this guy, seriously. (my gals got a good arm.)


then buggy played a little tic-tac-toe... and won... without any help!

for a prize she chose these:

and sweet p, well, she spent her time doing this.

and the highlight of the evening was ellie winning a coupon for a free goldfish. she has been really interested in getting a pet recently. so when she approached the game table where you could win a fish, she developed a deep level of determination. she tossed that ping-pong ball with great focus, missed and then headed to the back of the line to try again. she did this for a while. eventually, she got her coupon and skipped off on her merry way. we had sort of been holding out on the pet thing until we arrived in calli, because... well moving a family of 5 across the country proves to have a few challenges on its own and adding a fish into the midst didn't feel like the best idea... but with that amount of determination, who could deny her the prize? not this momma. so off to the pet store we went.

we are now the proud parents of this:

and for the record, he's not looking so hot in his little bowl. i give him about 48 hours and then we could be in trouble. here's hoping he makes a speedy recovery.

life is good. i'm going to miss this little town.

home sweet home

the hospital where i gave birth to d has this amazing abc (alternative birthing center) in it. the rooms are one of a kind for the chicagoland area. they come equipped with a queen sized bed, a birthing tub, and all sorts of other stuff that help make a natural delivery easier. the down side is that there are only two of these coveted birthing rooms. as long as one room is empty, they let a new mom stay in the room she gave birth in, but the minute the next laboring momma hits room two they send momma number one packing to a more traditional postpartum room. i should also mention that this hospital is in major need of some updating. the regular rooms are less than spacious and lack... while they lack just about everything.

after p was born, i was very lucky. abc room 2 stayed vacant all day. scott and i got to get some much needed rest, side by side, in a nice cozy bed with the baby nestled between us. in the afternoon, when the girls came to meet their new sister, we had lots of room to hang. it was glorious. that night, when i went to bed with our babe, i felt so blessed to still be hanging in my birthing suite. but like all good things, they eventually come to an end. at about 4:00 in the morning (almost exactly 24 hours after p was born) i heard some rustlings in room 2. sure enough, my nurse came in to help me collect my gear and relocate me to the less than pretty rooms down the hall. sigh- my time was up.

after a very uncomfortable rest of the night, i decided to go home a day early. not being a huge fan of the hospital to begin with, home was a much better option. to be honest, i missed my family. i like going to bed with everyone accounted for and under one roof.

and so on wednesday, i surprised the girls with an early arrival. they were both very surprised and very excited to have the newest addition join us at home.

this is momma greeting my biggest girl- who somehow looked like she was 14 when i arrived home.

she really loves her new baby. she gives her kisses all the time and checks up on her when p has been out of sight for more than a few minutes.

it's hard to believe that i am now a momma of three girls.

oh my, i just want to eat those little cheeks. it is amazing how quickly you forget how little they come out (ya know, if 9lbs. 3 oz. can qualify for little).

last but not least, is little miss buggy helping out at a diaper party. she loves to stand there while momma takes care of the situation.

it sure is good to be home.