So much to do!

So now that we know we are having a girl I feel like my list of things just keeps growing longer and longer. Now that I know that the three boys will be sharing a room for a long while, I need to purge things out of their room and organize it way better. I have going to have to put a few dollars into buying some shelves and other organizing tools to make things put away and have a place so they have room to be in their room. I want them to be comfortable in their room, not crammed in there.
Baby Girl will have the room that we are currently in so eventually we need to fix the wall in the downstairs bedroom, clear out the two closets in that bedroom and find a place for that crap, paint that room and then move our bedroom down there before we can start prepping a room for her.
I need to finish setting up the preschool/play room downstairs and do all of my curriculum planning and supply buying before Monday because I start my lessons with them on Monday. Raymond starts school on Monday too.
On top of all of this I simply need to get on top of my house cleaning because I am sickeningly behind! I haven't deep cleaned in months and my clean laundry is in folded piles down my upstairs hallway that just haven't found their way to the drawers where they belong.
Plus it is already basically Sept. and I have not updated any of my daycare financial paperwork since Feb! I am poorly behind on this as well and paying our bills, etc. I need a few Saturdays in a row where I can pawn the boys off on Holly :) maybe or someone else for all day sort of thing, then a few Sundays in a row that Tony has off where maybe he can take the boys to the Zoo on our pass or something fun like that just to get them out of my hair. There are lots of other things I am behind on, but these are the majors right now. If I can get caught up on these I can slowly start working on the other minor things that I need to update, etc.
Oh yeah, Raymond's 4 year old birthday is at the end of Sept. and then we are smack into the middle of Holiday season and then baby girl will be born. So I am aiming to get most of this all done before Sept. 27, which is the day of Raymond's birthday party!! Yikes!
So if anyone wants to come visit, please do, but be prepared to help pitch in and either watch the boys or help me organize and purge! :)
I also want to say that my FAVORITE season is upon us...Fall. It doesn't get any better than fall and all that it brings. I can smell the dried leaves, the wood burning stoves, the crisp cool air, the apples and scarecrows and pumpkins and baking and stews and chilis already! I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall. So I want to be able to enjoy it this year without all of the stress of the things I have to do, so my goal must be met no matter how tired or unmotivated I feel. So I better get off of my blog and get busy because this is just prolonging my end result! -ha.
Happy Fall! Enjoy the end of summer/beginning of Fall!

It's a........

GIRL!!! Just thought I'd share the good and surprising news that we are expecting a baby girl in Jan. Can you believe it? At least Tony's job will be a lot easier when she's a teenager, having three big, hopefully protective brothers!!!
I am super excited for the cute girl clothes, and the hair pretty's a bows etc. I've never gotten to do that and that will be fun to me, not that I don't adore my boys, but it will be a fun and different change!
Plan on a baby shower this time around though, more like a clothes shower, in November around Thanksgiving sometime! I'll keep you posted. My friend Sheila is already planning.
So there it is! Now we have to start the name discussion.

Kindergarten here I come!

I know I promised a post on Owen starting Kindergarten the night he started, but as you can guess that things have been very busy and I was throwing up yesterday so Tony helped me with the daycare. So today is the first time I have had a chance to tell Owen's story.

He started out the day extremely excited and happy and had me make his lunch for him and load down his backpack with lots of things for school. My mom took care of the daycare kids and my other boys so that Tony and I could both take Owen to school that morning.

When we got to the school, all of the teachers were lined up with signs with their names on it and the kids were supposed to line up behind their teacher. So we lined Owen up in line and stood beside him. Luckily two of the kids he went to preschool with are in his class. It was so cute, this little girl Salem that he went to preschool with was so excited to see Owen and asked him if he'd eat lunch with her that day. That almost made me cry because the two things I was most worried about was if he'd know what to do during lunch time and having someone to play with at recess. Isn't that ridiculous? :) Oh well. I know he has classroom experience so I wasn't worried at all as to how he'd do in the classroom. It was those other things that he wasn't used to doing by himself that worried me. I didn't want him to worry about what he was supposed to be doing or feel lonely because he had nobody to sit or play with.

So we lined him up and then when it was time to walk into school all the parents followed his class into the classroom. All of the kids sat at their desks and all of the parents stood off to the side to make sure their kid got seated okay. His teacher, Mrs. Lien (pronounced Lynn) gave a few announcements and after about 5 minutes or so asked the parents if they had any last questions, making it obvious that it was time for our departure. So I said Bye Owen and he smiled and waved at me and we walked out. I did rather well I think because I only started to cry just the tiniest bit after walking out of the room and then was fine by the end of the hallway, then I started crying in the car when we were a block from our house but was fine by the time we go to our house. So that was a lot better than I thought. I thought I'd be sobbing all day long. Owen didn't cry at all, so I think we both did very well.

At pick up time he looked very tired, but was holding his friend Salem's hand while they waited to be released. He was very excited and talked all about his day. He even wanted to buy a milk with his lunch on Tuesday.

Yesterday went well too and he said that he was the only one that followed directions (which is not hard to believe because away from Mommy and Daddy he does not misbehave and does WHATEVER the person of authority tells him to do).

Today, however, had NOT been a good day. At about 9:45 or 10 this morning I got a phone call from his teacher saying that he'd been crying all morning and wanted his daddy to come get him. She said he had stopped crying when she had told him she'd call home to tell me he was sad but that he was going to have a better rest of the day. We agreed it was best to not put him on the phone because that might start the tears all over again, and she wanted to call me so that he could see that he could trust her when she said that she would call me. Then at noon she called back to give me an update and say that he hadn't cried from the time she had called me and he had done much better but right when they were getting their lunches out to line up for lunchtime, he looked a little teary eyed again and said he wasn't hungry. He was due back from lunch a few minutes after I talked to her, so she was going to find out if he ate anything or not from the teacher's aide. I'm sad for him, but it makes me feel better that 3 or 4 other kids having had crying days today too and then my friend Sheila's son who started Kindergarten Monday at a different school has already started complaining of tummy aches. So it must just be that the excitement has worn off a bit and the realization has set in that this is the routine and that hit home today for a few of the kids. So keep him in your prayers for the rest of the week that we don't have to battle over school. :(

Below are some pictures of his first day. Tomorrow night is Raymond's preschool open house and Monday we get to find out what the sex of the baby is!!!! I want you all to give me your guess before then! :) Sorry that their is nothing to report about Judd, other than that he is a complete 1 1/2 year old and copies EVERYTHING that his big brothers do and gets into everything. Have a great weekend, I'll post on Monday night what we are expecting.

Off to School...

So tonight I am feeling a little emotional. It's probably a combination of pregnancy hormones and me constantly thinking about Owen starting Kindergarten on Monday!
Don't get me wrong, I am SO excited and happy for him, but it's more the thought that he is growing up so fast and that I will miss him during the day so much and how much things will change in one week that makes me start to get all teary eyes.
Tonight has been especially teary for me because we went shopping today and got his backpack and lunch box. Even now as I type I have started to drop a few tears. Earlier I was watching him play and started to cry and had to go give him a big hug.
Being pregnant definitely does NOT help. I know that I'd be emotional anyways, but adding those pregnancy hormones just makes it so that it is impossible to stop once I start.
I'm very nervous for this Thursday night because it is his ice cream social and meet the teacher night. We will get to see his classroom all decorated and meet his teacher and see his name on his cubby and desk, etc. Tony will be leaving for Florida on Thursday morning, so it will be only me and Owen and I am afraid I will be uncontrollably emotional. I'm actually trying to cry as much as I can until then so I can hopefully get it out of my system. I don't want to look like a fool and I don't want Owen to be embarrassed by my emotional streaming tears. I'm actually more concerned for Thursday then his first day on Mon. If I get emotional on Mon. when I walk him into his class, I can hurry and give him a kiss and leave before I burst into tears, whereas Thursday night I can't leave him there, I have to stay with him!
He says he is excited and not nervous and he said that he will ask other kids to play with him at recess, and that made me sad/happy too, cause then I started picturing my little boy on the playground asking other kids to play with him, and I pray like crazy that someone will and that he won't be left standing alone on the side of the playground with no one to play with. That is a HUGE fear of mine for him. It makes me so sad to think of him potentially being left out and him feeling sad. I can't stand the thought of that.
Okay. Enough for now, because I am making myself too sad and can't see the computer because of my tears. No word of encouragement please, I know all of them, and I am not crazy, I am completely excited and happy for him, but just wait to all of you out there for your first born to start Kindergarten. It is WAY harder than you would ever imagine! Wish me luck for not making too big of a blubbering fool of myself, for Owen's sake! :)

Trip to Missouri

We finally made the trip to my mom and dad's house last weekend, since we hadn't been there in a year and a half. They just always come this way, and it's hard for us to get time off to go anywhere. I know I'm making excuses!

Anyways, we ended up leaving Thursday afternoon about 5:30 and drove the 7 hours to their house. I of course ended up driving the last leg and was the only one awake for the last hour and a half and had to stop and smack myself around a bit to stay awake! :)

Friday we got up as early as we could get going and headed over to St. Louis which is about an hour and a half from them. We had planned on going to the Zoo, which is awesome and free in the morning and then being tourists at the Arch downtown, since my boys and Tony had never been up close to the St. Louis Arch. So we first ventured through town to the Zoo where we sat in line for what seemed like almost an hour to find a place to park before we decided to just go meet my dad for lunch and go to the Zoo later.

We left the zoo, had to stop at Target to buy Raymond some underwear because he had an accident while waiting in the car to park, and then went to a really yummy Italian place in Little Italy called The Hill for lunch. After lunch we worked our way downtown towards the Arch where we walked around for a little while and went in the tunnels underneath the Arch to walk around the Lewis and Clark museum and look around. They were setting up for concerts all around the Arch mall for the next night.

After the Arch we loaded up in the car again and headed to the zoo, which like I said is AWESOME. All of the animals are so up close, their habitats are actually nice habitat areas and not just cages, and the landscaping all around the Zoo is incredible.

We ended up walking around the zoo for a couple hours and got ice cream and hung out then when leaving we decided to drive by my dad's office since I'd never seen it and then went to a really yummy pizza place nearby. We ended up getting back to my parents place around 11pm. Once again, I was driving and my whole family was passed out in the car. :)

Saturday we slept in awhile and hung out around my parents house. We walked down to the river and ate at an ice cream parlor in town and played in their yard. My mom is funny because she felt like she didn't have any toys for the boys so I think she bought out the dollar store of crayons, coloring books, plastic baseball bats and balls, another catching game, a blow up swimming pool, transformers, potato head, etc. Every few minutes they boys had something new to play with, so needless to say they were not bored. Tony and I made brats and burgers for lunch and then we made chicken fajitas for dinner that night.

Sunday we got up and loaded up the car with all of our stuff and a huge picnic lunch and headed an hour north to the lake my dad's pontoon boat is at. Then we spent the whole day on their boat and ate a picnic on the boat, fished, and swam (well my dad and Owen and Raymond did) off the boat. The only other thing I did off the boat was use my talent to pee in the lake, squatting off the side of the boat when we anchored on a little shore to stop and eat our lunch at! It was too funny. I didnt' want them to have to drive the boat all the way back to the Marina just for me to pee, so I just took the initiative for myself and made it happen. :) My aunt Nadine would be so proud, since she's the one who taught us little girls to pee in nature!

At about 6:45pm we got off the boat and loaded up and we headed back towards Omaha and my parents headed back to their house. We got home about 1am....can you guess who was driving at the end of the trip home and who was passed out in the car?? If you can't then you didn't read my blog at all! :)

When we got home our back door was standing wide open, there was poopy doggy footprints and black dog hair all over the house (which wasn't there when we left), so I am not very happy with our next door neighbors kid who we had watch the dogs.

On another happy note, I sold our guest bed the other night after it being posted on craigslist for about five minutes, so we can start the rearranging process of the house. We have to move the daycare room to the basement, our bedroom to the main floor bedroom which has been the daycare room, and make our bedroom the baby's room. If we are having another boy, then it will be Judd and Baby 4's bedroom, but if it's a girl then she gets her own room. So we'll get to see on Aug. 24 when I have my ultrasound!

Anways...enough chatter...on with the pictures! P.S. Mine and Tony's 6 year wedding anniversary is tomorrow....I can't believe 6 years have already gone by! 6 years, and 3 1/2 kids later.... P.S. there are lots of pictures and they are out of sequence because Blogger is upsetting me when it comes to moving pictures around easily! Owen and Grandpa swimming in the lake

Raymond and Grandpa swimming

Napping on the boat after a long day in the sun.

Me and the boys on the boat

A very happy Judd parked at the Marina to get treats.


The boys eating push pops and Tony relaxing on the boat.

My dad in his favorite place on earth!

Judd with Grandma Sears

Judd with Aunt Kelly. The life jacket didn't bother him nearly as much as I thought it would.

Not sure what to think of the boat and life jacket.

The boys with Aunt Kelly on the boat.

Me and the boys down by the river in Hermann, MO, where my parents live.

My dad and Tony by the river.

The boys by the river.

The boys after a long afternoon exploring the Zoo

Me and Judd at the Hippos at the Zoo.

The hippos, an example as to how close you can get to the animals here (there is no glass between us!

No glass between me and the hippos here, but if I was really stupid I could touch them and probably get my arm pulled off of me!

For all my Gillette friends! Go Camels! :)

Tony and the boys enjoying the Camels

Judd enjoying a popsicle

The St. Louis Arch from out the windshield of the car. Pretty good if I say so myself!

An artistic portrayal of a women longing...just kidding my sister Kelly at the Arch. I like this picture though, these are the types of photos I try to take when I'm actually not just taking snapshots.

My mom and dad by the Arch.

Me 16 weeks pregnant by th Arch.

My family by the Arch.

The boys by the Arch.

The Arch looking up.

Tony and the boys by the Arch.

The Arch looking up again.

Everyone but my mom at the Arch.