Party of Five

What a great journey this is turning out to be! I love being a mother of 3 kids. It's has its ups and downs but it sure is great. I wouldn't trade it for anything at all.
Some days are really hard with Nate still working 24 hour shifts but I'm learning how to handle the different things that come. It's pretty much just a process of learning everything about this new little boy and learning how to meet the needs of everyone else at the same time. It's kind of like juggling I guess. It's difficult, takes a lot of practice, but if you're serious about learning, you'll get it. Then, once you've learned, you can add more things and do better! So, I'm learning to juggle this party of five.
Did I mention how precious Hayden is? I love him so much. He's such a great baby. His hair is red like Makenna's was when she was a baby. I'm hoping it either stays red or turns darker so I'm not totally surrounded by blondies (:
It's not fun trying to keep up with this lack of sleep but we're making it. He lets me get a good 3 hours of straight sleep some nights with a couple other stretches that run 1 1/2 - 2 hours. This, too, shall pass. Hopefully before school starts back in August.
...I'm in love and another piece of my heart has been stolen. I love him <3

I'm really blessed to be a part of this party of five!

I feel like I'm about to pop but I've only gained 20 pounds. I thought I had gained more but I can't remember how much I weighed 9 months ago. It's ok. This extra weight will be gone soon. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last full day of pregnancy I will ever experience. That's a rather bitter sweet thought actually. I love being able to give life to someone but this is probably the last time because my body has had a really hard time with it this time. The end is near! But then it all begins :)

I'm ready...as ready as I can be. Please, baby boy, come out and let us meet you. We are all four more anxious than we can stand. I've read all there is to read about breast feeding and how to make it work the best for us, I've sewn and made every possible thing I can think to make, all the bills are paid until June gets here, the refrigerator is spotless, there's always laundry to do..., sleep isn't working out all that well anyway, I have everything beside my bed that I might need when I'm awaken through the night, the rocking chair looks and feels amazing since I've redone the cushions. Anything else? Oh yes, I guess we might want the kitchen table to be finished. That project got a little bit bigger than I intended. It should be finished tomorrow hopefully.
Come on little guy. We just want to love on you!

Isaiah's kindergarten program was so precious. It only lasted about 20 minutes but it was packed full of different cute songs that all the kindergarten classes did together. He doesn't normally participate when a group of kids are on stage singing together but he did SO GOOD. I'm a proud mommy!
Do parents normally tear up during these kinds of things? I tried to hide it when I got a little teary thinking that maybe it's the fact that I have 2 weeks of pregnancy left and I'm a basket case anyway, but then Nate told me in the car that he got teary during the performance and that made me feel a whole lot better about it and made me feel normal.

To top it all off...Makenna has her first loose tooth!!! I wiggled it today to confirm that it's loose and we both bounced and squealed like girls do :) Yay!!

Yes

I am totally blown away by saying "yes" to God. Why do we doubt him to begin with?
There are so many things about my past that I would like to erase and forget about forever and not be able to look back on it for any reason at all. However, I know that God see's that a little bit differently.
I have decided to say yes to him working in my life and through my life and he's taking all the chances he seems to get to prove that it's the best decision I could have made.
I've been given two opportunities just this week to hand out a piece of my heart to two different women to reassure them that God loves them where they are. The first one was so great to be a part of and watch God open her eyes right in front of me. The second is still in the making. I'm not sure what's going to happen but she is living the exact life that I have lived. There's pretty much nothing different about hers and mine. I suppose the only difference is that right now, she is where I was two years ago. God has done so much to prove himself to me in these past two years and I'm so ready to pour my heart out to her so she can know it and have this same redemption that I have.
If anyone reads this, just say yes.

Last night I began getting nervous about having this baby. It hit me that I will be a mother of THREE. Yes, I've known it the whole time, but it's really beginning to sink in now. I guess because it's getting so close.
The more contractions I have, the more I remember the pain of going into labor and I have this underlying fear that I won't make it to the hospital in enough time to get an epidural and I just can't imagine that much pain. Surely I'll make it in time. Surely I'll know it's coming. Surely this little guy will hold off long enough for me to get some pain meds. I can hope for that, right?
I want to be a great mother and I want this time to be so very special and much different than the last 2 deliveries and hospital stays. I'm going to try not to be nervous.
4 weeks...

I know the baby dropped last night. I felt every bit of it from 11:30 to 12:30. It's kind of been nice because I've had room to put food into my stomach today and not feel nauseated and I was actually able to eat full meals.
I've taken on a new project now that the rocking chair has all new cushions.
We've been looking for a new kitchen table that isn't round because the round table takes up too much space in our small kitchen. We could have a bigger table if it were in the shape of a rectangle. So, last night I was looking at our old coffee table and said, "Perfect!!!". This is my new project. I have cut the legs of the old matching end tables a little shorter than they were and have stained them and will add cushions and a cover on both. They will be stool/seats for the kids. I bought some table legs to add to the coffee table to make it taller. I just need to sand off the top and stain it and match the legs up to it and we'll have a super nice kitchen table set that cost us around $100. Can't beat that! I enjoy being a little crafty. However, I'm not a big fan of power tools. They make me nervous because I'm really clumsy to begin with. I managed to get all the legs of the stools to the same length, from what I can tell, so that in itself is the miracle of this project.
Let's see what I can come up with to do next!