"Don't call the fire dept., your dinner has been extinguished! And by the way, ..."

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! There's been a lot going on around here the past couple of weeks. Hmmmm....where shall I begin???

A little over two weeks ago, I started noticing some weirdness going on with me. Clumsiness, forgetfulness (way more than usual) and I burned dinner slap up two nights in a row, setting off the fire alarms and everything, smoke everywhere, the whole bit. Now I can occasionally get distracted and cook something longer than it should've been or forget that bread is in the oven and let it get too browned but I hardly EVER burn things to charred bits as I did these two nights. Never, that is, except when I'm pregnant.

It's been that way with every previous pregnancy too. I have a hard time in the kitchen; a place that I'm normally comfortable and competent in. So after that second night of burning dinner, dropping everything I put my hands on and feeling just off, I decided that the next day I would go to the store and get a pregnancy test. You know, just to put my mind at ease. I was only like a day or two late starting my cycle, nothing to get too excited about. Were it not for those other "symptoms" I was experiencing, I'd have thought nothing of it.

I get home that Tuesday afternoon, go into the bathroom to "get this over with" and 15 minutes later, I'm still in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet lid, head in my hands, staring at a test stick that's screaming POSITIVE!, thinking, "Oh Lord, are you serious??! What are you thinking, Lord? I can barely keep it together with two kids, what am I going to do with three?" I was flooded with images of myself in dirty three day old t-shirts and pajama bottoms staggering around my unbelievably trashed house with dark bags under my eyes and a far off look on my face, the two older kids running circles around me throwing the "trash" into the air while a baby sits on my hip crying and flailing its arms at me. I opened my mouth to let out a scream but remembered that Emma was in the next room watching TV and I didn't want to scare her. So instead I opened my mouth and let out a silent yelp.

I finally pulled myself together enough to exit the bathroom and make it to the couch. I kept trying to repress those overstressed worn down mommy images but they just kept coming. I was horrified. Until I realized I had a bigger problem. I was going to have to break the news to Nathan and that was NOT going to be a pleasant experience.

It was only a few days prior to this day that he and I had a talk and decided that we were ready to schedule him for surgery. Since the day Emma was born he has said "We're done! No more kids, two is plenty for us." He's been ready to have the procedure done for quite some time now but I never was quite ready to take such a drastic step, until now. Also, I had an appointment coming that Friday for my annual exam and I had already planned on having the doctor prescribe some birth control pills for me. Keep in mind, our current method of prevention has worked for the past several years! We'd just decided that we needed to take extra precautions now since we were settled with our two girls and weren't going to have any more children. ~HAAAA

How ironic it is that the very week I decided that I am happy with just two kids and that things are perfect just the way they are, I find out that we're going to add another member to our family. I'm usually not one to question God, but that day, I had A LOT of questions! I didn't call Nathan immediately, I waited for him to call me later that afternoon (he was out of town for a few days, working). His response was the complete opposite of what I had expected it would be. He was excited and happy about it. No worries, just excitement. (Okay, who is this man and what did he do with my husband??!) I was stunned that he took it so well and was laughing and saying things like "maybe this one will be a boy but I'd be happy with another girl too" while I'm sitting there on the verge of a nervous break down and a crying fit.

I believe that God prepared his heart for the news and replaced the feelings that he would've normally had with the feelings that we both needed to have. That whole day, I had worried and fretted over it all but after talking to him, he calmed me down and I began to feel better about it and realized that it is a blessing. I began to feel guilty about the things I'd worried and fretted over.

I am doing much better now with it all. I'm beginning to get more excited and less worried about everything. I know that God wouldn't give me more than I can handle and I'm holding him to that promise! I just have to have faith that everything is going to be fine and that soon we'll not be able to imagine our life without this new little one in it.

I was also worried about telling Taylor. She says to me every once in a while "Don't you wish sometimes that you just had me and not Emma too?" (Ha!) I have to reassure her that having Emma here with us is so much better than if we didn't have her at all. Usually by the end of our talk she feels better and is glad that she has a little sister again. She took the news pretty well too. She is excited although it's hard for it to seem real right now. She keeps asking me "Are you SURE you're having another baby?" ha!

My due date is November 9th. (Well, November 8th, but Abby and I decided that November 9th was a better date! ;-) ) I go for an ultrasound on Friday so that will probably give me a more accurate date. Luckily, I haven't been sick much. Just a little nausea here and there and certain foods turn my stomach but that's about it. I have been extremely tired the past couple weeks. Thank the Lord that Emma still naps in the afternoons. Bless her sleepy little heart! That has been my saving grace. We've been taking 3 hour naps every day! And I still am ready to go to bed by 8:00! -never get there at that time though. I'm hoping this fatigue will ease up soon, as we're about to be taken over by the laundry piles and dust bunnies.

Nathan's mom, brother, sister-in-law and niece got here on Saturday of that same week. We were excited to have them here. We had a really good time with them while they were here. The girls were thrilled to have their Meme here for a week. ~and so was I! I got a little break! :) We hated to see them leave. The girls cried and cried but it was school day for both of them so that helped. By the time I dropped them off at school they'd both calmed down and stopped crying.

They are both looking forward to Easter this weekend. Emma has an egg hunt at her school tomorrow and Taylor has one on Thursday. I'm sure they'll be all candied up afterward! I'm looking forward to the long weekend but not the dreaded Easter outfit search. Nathan and the girls are taken care of and have nice new outfits for Easter but not me. I guess I'm going to put it off until Friday or Saturday and then run around like a mad woman trying to find something that comes close to matching them. Ugh! We don't have any big plans for Easter day. Going to church then out to eat and come home and take a nap (YES!) I'm going to miss spending Easter in Arkansas with my family. :( Ahem, gotta stop that kind of talk right now or I'll start bawling! The emotions are in no condition to handle it right now, thanks to the raging hormones!

Well, I've nodded off and bumped my head on my keyboard twice since I started this post so I guess I'd better get to bed! Hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend!!

Something about Saturday...

Don't you just LOVE Saturdays? I think they're great. You can either spend the entire day in your p.j.'s reading, watching movies or playing with your kids. Or, if it's a nice day, you can get outside and enjoy it. Today I did a little of both. I stayed in my p.j.'s till almost noon, reading, sippin' my coffee and just piddlin' around the house, and then I decided not to waste any more of this beautiful day inside. The weather here was gorgeous today! I dressed the girls up and we went outside for a photo shoot. I wasn't satisfied with the backgrounds in my own yard so we ventured to the park down the street and got some good pictures there. You can view the slide show of the pictures I took by clicking here.

I was surprised but the girls did really well and let me take lots of pictures of them. Generally when I decide to photograph them with posed shots it's a huge fiasco that ends with me losing every ounce of patience I had to begin with (and also my temper!) and the girls whining and crying and falling out in the floor or on the ground. It's SO MUCH FUN! ;-)

I don't have too much to write about tonight, but before I go, I have to tell you about this strange lady I ran into at Walgreen's this afternoon. I was standing at the counter waiting to ask the pharmacist a question when this older Hispanic lady walks up talking to I guess whoever was around to listen to her. Since I was the only one standing there, I became the ears that she needed. She asked if the "two little bambinos" sitting in the chairs were mine. "Yes, they are. " "OH, dey are byoooteeful! Dey look like you." "Oh, thanks. " "Look at dat! Dee wan has dee brown eyes and dee udder has dee blue. Isn't dat something." "Yes, yes. " I can tell by how fast she keeps talking to me that we may be there for a while. She just kept on...one thing after another. But, since I was still waiting to speak to the pharmacist I was glad to have someone humor me for a minute. Next she tells me "My bambinos have dee green eyes like my fadder. Excep for my daughter, and she come out ugly. But what can you do?" I wanted to crack up now after hearing her say that her daughter "came out ugly"!! But I couldn't because she was serious as a heart attack! She said "My sons, dey dee ones dat got the green eyes." All I could think was "her poor daughter". I just wonder if she's had to put up with being the ugly one her whole life because as you know, if you've ever been around Hispanics, they tell it like it is. There is no lying or beating around the bush to spare feelings or anything else. They are brutally honest and right to your face! And there's something to be said for that, though...they don't lie about what they think. They tell you straight up. Much different from a lot of us who tell "little white lies" to keep things running smoothly and people happy. Which I found out this past Tuesday in Bible study, is WRONG! According to scripture we're to be completely honest at all times, while doing it in a godly, loving way. I'll be honest, that was a most uncomfortable and difficult lesson for me. One that I've not mastered. I mean, I know that it's wrong to out and out lie, but I've really never thought much about the little white lies that I tell. I don't even think of them as lies, rather, just being nice! It is so much easier for me to just be cordial and not say what I really think. But starting last Tuesday after class, I am trying harder to be completely truthful and avoid even the little white lies. Whoa! I didn't mean to get off on that tangent...just sort of came out.

As we were leaving the store we passed by an older black lady and she had stopped to ask a store employee where to find something. She said "S'cuse me, where you pottin' sole at?" (I didn't know that Walgreen's even carried potting soil! Seems a little odd, don't you think??) Too bad for her because the employee was Hispanic and apparently didn't speak much English. He just smiled really big and pointed to the bottom shelf of household cleaners. The lady looked at him confused and louder this time (because we all know that if someone doesn't understand English, it helps if you yell in English at them) "NO! WHERE YO' DIRT AT?"

I had gotten two laughs (at other's expenses) in a matter of 10 minutes. I seriously considered moseying around the store for little while longer to see what else might happen. But my girls, who were in tow, reminded me that I no longer get to mosey around stores, leisurely looking at things and taking my time. So we hurried to make our purchases and got out of there.

Well, I have to get off here now. I sat down to simply upload my pictures and I decided to blog a little, while I waited for them to finish. An hour later and I'm still up here, secluded from the husband and kids. Apparently the husband has decided to be finished with his turn entertaining the girls because he has sent them up here to me now. "WHO'S READY FOR BED?!!"
Hope you have a great rest of the weekend!
Talk to you again soon!