blogger nonsense

Hey friends!
Blogger has been going a little bonkers so i haven't even tried to blog. Sorry about that :O)

We are in the midst of a busy weekend but are doing well.

Yesterday i was surprised by my sweet friends LeeAnn & Annie with a little shower/get together! Christin & I are both pregnant (me with my 3rd and she with her 2nd) and LeeAnn (Christin's sister and my friend who is also pregnant with her second) was so thoughtful to think that we could use a shower for these boys coming. From what i understand she enlisted the help of our lovely friend Annie who THEN included LeeAnn in the shower too. So we had 3 surprised pregnant ladies feeling very blessed by friends and excited to visit over a yummy lunch. Thank you so much for the presents and the thoughtfulness ladies!

We also got to have a game night with our Christin & John last night- i don't think we've laughed that hard in a good while :O) The boys are such... well, dorks. Half the time we don't want to laugh at them and just can't help it! The girls dominated in Scategories and the boys pretty well destroyed us in Mad Gab. We decided its because they are so used to speaking gibberish and nonsense to each other all the time. Which they agreed with :O) It was reeeeeeeeeeeallly nice to be kids free and just enjoy their company.

We also got the rest of the pictures back from Jessica and there are so many sweet ones. I'm really glad that shutterfly books are pretty inexpensive and easy to put together so that we can have lots of them printed. Now i'm even more excited for Oliver to arrive so that we can have him in the pictures too :O)



Also, if you have Facebook Emory is entered in a Cutest Kid contest that ends tomorrow (monday). The prize is a tutu and hair bow, so it's not a huge deal by any means, but if you care to vote you can go here Bff Kids , LIKE the business page and then find Emory's picture and LIKE it. Bff Kids is a little consignment shop in Collinsville run by a sweet gal. If you are in the area check it out!

Tomorrow i have my 37 ish week appointment so we'll see if i'm dilated at all... been having some weird pains this weekend so i'm interested to see if that means anything is happening!

pictures & a beautiful mother's day weekend

It's Tuesday and i'm already longing for the weekend! maybe its because i have fun plans, or because we just had such a lovely weekend. Regardless, i hope this week goes quickly! (may have something to do with the last 4 weeks of pregnancy too :O)

Our sweet friend Jessica was able to squeeze us in for maternity/family pictures last week and just put up some preview pictures on her blog! you can go HERE to see all of them but i'm sharing a few today- can you tell how beautiful the day was? How sweet the kids were actually behaving? it was so relaxed and enjoyable. Jessica is great with the kids (and us) and it definitely shows :O)










i'm so excited to see the rest! Thank you Jessica!

Saturday morning I was able to meet the Atrium girls (those on the launch team for the church plant) for some fellowship and chatting then came home to eat lunch with the family and head to the park. we had such a relaxing laid back day and i kind of took it for my own Mother's day, knowing that Sunday wouldn't be quite as relaxing. Emory and i napped on a quilt most of the time while Leland & daddy played.




Joel and the babies surprised me with an amazing gift certificate for a massage, mani & pedi! i really just wanted a pedicure but i'm sooooooooo excited for the massage. I'm making myself wait until next week to use it, since i'm not *miserable* just yet and i'd like to have things a little bit more prepared around the house before i go do something that could possibly send me into labor :O)


Sunday morning i got to sleep in (kind of, since i woke up every 20 minutes for 3 hours) with out kids poking me the whole time, we went to church were Leland made me a really cute flower pot and then headed to Granny & Gramps for a lunch put on mostly by their neighbor/our friend Miss Kim. I brought a few sides and we all ate waaaaaaaaay more than we should have! the weather was gorgeous and after Emory & Joel napped we came back home to get supper ready for my mom and family. I'm not sure how we were able to eat more, but we did and it was pretty yummy and surprisingly low stress. We were able to enjoy visiting and playing scrabble with Nana, Papa & Aunt Kiki, though we missed having Jillie, Owen & Cash here with us.
My sweet sweet father helped me to get (closer to!) caught up with dishes and Nicole was a great help getting the food ready and cleaning it up. Mom got to relax but i didn't have to stress either. Such a blessing!

I am so grateful for our wonderful mothers who sacrifice so much for us, past & present. They are both women of amazing qualities and example, so different from each other and priceless to our family. It's a great opportunity to learn strength of character from them daily. Thank you Janet & Mom!
They are also wonderful grandma's that our kids adore and will cherish their relationships their whole lives.

I can't express how blessed i feel to have my babies and to be their mother. It's such an amazing experience that i feel i was waiting for my whole life. Some days will be tiresome, some days i feel like a failure, but i know that God has entrusted these treasures to me and it is by His strength, not mine, that we will raise them up for His Glory.

This Mother's Day i am reminded of our friends who have lost their precious children, have had difficulty with fertility or are single and aching for families of their own. There is healing and joy in the presence of the Lord and so many women that have been a mother/example to me have been of no blood relation. The encouragement, nurturing and sacrifice of motherhood is not exclusive to those with their 'own' children. Praying for strength and peace if you are in such a season of life.

Hopefully i will have more pictures to share with you soon!
Thank you for the excitement about Oliver Edmund- just 4 weeks left!
This weekend we will probably be moving Jillian, Owen & Cash out (so bittersweet) and getting the house ready/organized for Oliver. I'm also meeting with sweet long time friends that i don't see near enough for lunch on saturday!! SO excited for that time with them.

Did you have a relaxing weekend? Did you get surprised or surprise your mom? I hope it was great!

baby O

One day (about 2 months ago) i was thinking about names and a certain name came to mind again. It had been on a list when Leland was cookin', it was on a list this time, but its gaining in popularity and that's something we avoid. You know the name that EVERYONE had when you were in school? (for me it's Ashley- if your name is Ashley- i'm sorry! it's cute, but there are billions of them my age!) We just don't want that for our kiddos. But i really liked this name.

Later in the day i asked Joel what he had been thinking about names lately, if there were any that he really liked. He actually answered seriously and said the name that i had been considering just that morning. WOW! it's was a miracle. We both thought of the same name, on our own, and agreed on it!
So we continued to think about it, liked the way it sounds with the middle name we already picked and decided.... this is it!

so......

Oliver Edmund.

Leland, Emory & Oliver.

We like it! The kids have been calling him Oliver for over a month now so i think we are locked in :O)

A little bit of explanation on the meaning:
Oliver Edmund.

Oliver comes from the Latin for Olive, or Olive Tree.
In the Bible olive oil is used to symbolize the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and olive trees in Revelation are used when speaking of two men who are filled with the spirit and prophecy for the Lord.

(fits well for where we are right now in life, relying more on the Holy Spirit and wanting baby brother to be set apart for the Lord and learn to listen the Holy Spirit's leading in his life.)

Edmund means Protector.
He's the character in the Chronicles of Narnia book The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe that is the "traitor" and you spend most of the book hating until you realize that if you were in the story that would be YOU. He is redeemed by Aslan and goes on in the rest of the stories to be brave and courageous, Edmund the Just.

so! that's the short explanation!
There are other names that i adore but just like with the other kids, this is the one that fits.
We are getting very very very excited (and READY) to meet Oliver! it looks like we will be meeting him by June 6th, if not before.
Now if only i could get the house as ready as i feel!

I can't wait to share family/maternity pictures!!!

Book Review Thursday makes a comeback!

A while back Leland and i started doing occasional book reviews and somehow it faded off into nothing.... we're bringing it back today!

I mentioned previously that I am reading Honey for Your Child's Heart and we've started ordering books from her preschool list from the library. It's a great way to figure out which ones are your kids favorite and worthy of purchasing for your at home family library. We have really like all of them so far but Leland will tell you with out a doubt which are his "best books ever".

Enter Virginia Lee Burton.


Author of Katy and the Big Snow


Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel,




(Leland's favorite page where everyone in Popperville comes to watch them dig, so they dig faster and better :O)

and other lovely books like The Little House.

(which i love!)

I asked Leland why he likes these books so much and he replied "Because they are so cool. They do a lot of work and they are machines that are strong. I like all of the pictures- ALL of 'em!"

He loves when the mechanics of Mary Anne & Katy are explained, and following the path that Katy digs in The Big Snow.
If i read them to him 3 times a day he would still want more, so they are going on our list for purchase. You should check these out, especially if you have a boy, but even Emory was interested in the stories so they please the whole crowd.

We also read the book Eating the Alphabet my Louis Ehlert.

The illustrations are great and there are definitions and information on all of the fruits and vegetables shown, in the back of the book. The title page of the book shows a funny face made with fruit and Leland was begging to make such a face every time we read it so eventually we did a quick yummy version.




Next week we'll try to see how Emory weighs in on the books but for now, check out her first french braid pig tails :O)




Tune in soon for the big baby boy name reveal!
We had maternity/family pictures taken yesterday and i'm pretty sure they are going to be precious! i'll give you a little sneak peak of one of our photo props and share his name- hopefully tomorrow!

Any guesses? If you already know, keep your lips sealed :O) it's one that we agreed on with no convincing on either part, and though it's a little bit more common these days that we typically use, we love it.


What are some books that your kids are crazy about these days?