Out of the mouths of babes--October

So there aren't a whole lot of entries this month. I don't know if it's because I spent way too many hours lying on the couch half asleep or because I just forgot a lot of the funny things. (Pregnancy brain!) Anyway, enjoy these tidbits.

10/7--Andrew is leaving on a work trip EARLY in the morning tomorrow and he was telling Brandon that he has to wake up at like 4 a.m. Brandon's sage advice: "Well, then you better get to bed, Dad. You only have like six hours. And six hours goes by fast....at night."

10/7--Whitney's got it all figured out. She just told me, "If we have a baby girl, we're going to name her Puffy. That's my favorite name for a baby girl." I didn't know she had a thing for Sean Combs.

10/8--Andrew is back from his trip and Whitney just informed us, "I went on a business trip to the backyard. My friends were there. It was hard. My back hurts." You're too young for this, girl!

Thumbs up for business trips!

10/10--When Whitney woke up this morning, the first thing she said was, "Mom. Mom. I just heard my stomach growl!" I don't know if she has ever heard that before. Maybe because she's always eating. It cracked me up.

10/21--For dinner tonight I tried a new recipe (courtesy of Kelly) for some herb biscuits. They were a big hit. After Whitney took her first bite, she told me, "Mom, you're almost like Nicolle now." It cracked me up and I took it as a HUGE compliment that she thinks my cooking skills are nearing Nicolle's, the gourmet chef.

Whit enjoying some gourmet cake

10/21--After enjoying our "gourmet" dinner, Andrew was wrestling around with the kids on the floor. Whitney discovered something new: "Daddy, YOU have a baby in your belly!"

10/22--Whitney walked up to Brandon and sadly said, "I lost my bubbles again." Taking the father figure role, B said, "Again? You need to be more responsible and keep track of them."

Yay for responsibility!

10/25--It has been raining ALL DAY here today. It is a huge blessing for our drought-stricken state. Whitney and Brandon were sitting at the table doing a puzzle and Whit started singing, "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day."
B: Stop singing that song.
W: Why?
B: Don't you want to live?
W: What?
B: We need the rain for the crops to grow, so if you tell it to go away, we can't live.
W: What are crops?
B: That's a fancy word for....corn and stuff.
W: Corn is delicious!

10/29--At dinner tonight Brandon was telling me all about Boy's Club at school.
Me: What's Boy's Club?
B: Just some of my friends.
Me: What do you do?
B: We pick our favorite Pokemon guy and our favorite Star Wars guy. I think we need to start handing out flyers. Maybe we could put them on light poles. They could say, "Boys club. No girls allowed! Call Brandon's phone number to join."

Boys rule!

10/31--We just got back from trick-or-treating and Andrew asked Whit, "How was it?"
She answered, "It was REALLY scary and a little bit fun." Probably how a lot of 3 year old girls feel about it.

Pumpkin artists

We had our annual family pumpkin carve last night. Always a lot of messy fun.

Whitney picked the pattern she wanted and

enjoyed watching her Daddy carve it for her.

The little kit we bought this year came with a tracing
wheel. So I helped Brandon trace his design onto
the pumpkin.

And then he carved it himself. I was so
impressed with him!

Here's how they turned out:

Whitney's cute little face

Brandon's bat

My silhouetted window scene

I think Andrew's was my favorite:

A menacing, but somehow endearing
monster trick-or-treating

I loved setting all four of them out on the front step

and lighting them up. Woo hoo!

Whit apparently felt left out since she
didn't get to do any of the cutting.
She went upstairs and used some scissors to
give herself a haircut for the very first time.
AAAAGGGHHHH!
I think she wanted a mullet!
I'm still not quite sure what to do about this.
I'm trying to ignore the problem and hope
it grows quickly.

Halloween Preview

Last night was our Fall Festival and Chili Cook-off at church. Andrew got to make his semi-annual trip to the kitchen to make Forrest and Angie's Award-Winning X96 Chili. It didn't win any awards for us this year, but we sure enjoyed eating it. Mmmmm... I wish I was eating some right now.

You know, the older I get, the more polarized my feelings about Halloween become. I LOVE dressing up. And I love dressing my kids up. I think that part is as fun for me now as it was when I was a kid. On what other occasion do I get to go to Goodwill and buy the most 1980's-looking dress I can find? Um, never.

BUT, the older I get the more I can't stand the candy part of Halloween. The hygienist in me just has a hard time seeing my children in possession of pounds of cavity-causing goodies. It almost grosses me out. I'm not even one of those health-nut moms who never has candy in the house. It's the quantities that get me at this time of year. Anyway.... on to the costumes.

Whitney chose to be a PUMPKIN this year.

Can you spot her among the others?
I was particularly happy with the way her stem turned out.

Brandon went with Jeff Gordon,
his favorite NASCAR driver.

I was (of course) unwilling to pay $75
for an authentic Jeff Gordon jacket, so we
made our own. I was pretty happy with how
it turned out and B-train liked it, too.


When Andrew was preparing to make his movie this summer
(on a side note, I don't think it is ever going into production),
we bought a couple of wigs. One of them happened to be a Pedro wig
with a mustache and bolo tie. I told him that instead of just letting
it continue to collect dust in our bedroom, we should try to sell it on eBay.
Andrew had a better idea. He thought we should dress up as
Pedro and Deb.

It was SO fun. Andrew's costume absolutely
cracked me up. Several people didn't recognize
him at the party. In fact, when he first tried it
on earlier in the day, he went to the front door and
rang the doorbell. Brandon answered it and didn't
recognize him. Then I got Whitney to come to the
door and she didn't recognize him either. I haven't
had that good of a belly laugh in a while.

Here's the whole fam posing with the spooky old lady
from the back row at church.
(She fake! I'm not THAT rude.)
Gotta love that 'stache!

Before the party, Whit tried on the Pedro costume.

Not bad.

The closest we'll ever get to a pet?

Brandon brought home a project from school a couple of weeks ago. It kind of looked like a rotten potato with googly eyes glued to it. He informed us that it had a name--Harry. B was going to water it and it would grow, kind of like a homemade Chia Pet. I had my doubts. After all, we had tried to plant grass in the trench where the water main was replaced. I watered that stuff faithfully for two weeks and what happened? Absolutely nothing. Not wanting to crush the boy's confidence, we found a home for Harry on a countertop with suitable sunlight and waited and watched.

What do you know? That thing grew and grew and grew.... and now he's like the fifth (sixth?) member of our family.

Harry and Brandon
I love Harry's green surfer-dude hair.
When he first started watering Harry, his eyes were even.
I guess his left side is growing more rapidly than his right.

Are you impressed? Andrew and I are. We're not big pet people, so this might be the closest thing B ever gets to having a real pet. And I don't think I'll feel as guilty if he forgets to water it and it dies. :)

2 for 1: Movie and book review

So I don't know what has given me this inner desire to all of a sudden become a critic, but I think I will indulge myself. Humor me, ok? Before I get started, let me give you my disclaimers:

1. I am easily amused. I think this was ingrained in me as a child growing up in a small town. It doesn't take a whole lot to please me. :)

2. I am overly sensitive to violence. I think this might be the protective mama bear coming out in me because of this pregnancy.

Ok, here goes.

RATATOUILLE

You know us. We're cheapskates. I have a really hard time paying full price for a movie. So, Disney's Ratatouille just got to the dollar movies and we took the chance to take the whole family down. (For EIGHT BUCKS--woo hoo!)

As with many Pixar joints, the film starts off with a humorous short. This one was called LIFTED. It was pretty funny for the older three of us, but could be frightening for younger children. (read: Whitney was totally scared of it and sat there with her eyes covered throughout the whole thing. ) If you have a three-year-old girl who is easily frightened, you might want to skip this part.

Then Ratatouille started. For anyone with a phobia of rodents or germs, I WOULD NOT recommend this film. (Mom, that means you!) I'm not terribly bothered by rodents, but I still got the willies several times when the whole pack of rats would roam around the screen. Ewwww. At one point in the film, the main character rat (Remy) was under the main character human's (Linguini's) clothes and was biting him repeatedly. I kept thinking, "He's going to get the bubonic plague! STOP!" Thankfully, that wasn't the ending Disney was going for.

Overall the movie is really cute. There are lots of funny parts that made me giggle. Not a whle lot of belly laughs, but I'll take it. There are a few scary parts that made me and Whitney jump. (More from being surprised than actually being scared of something.) There are lessons about tolerance (I think they include this lesson in EVERY children's movie these days), family unity, honesty, and friendship. The hard part for me: I couldn't get past the fact that these characters were RATS--dirty, filty, disease-carrying rodents. And they spent a lot of time in the kitchen. If you can look past that, this is a cute family film.

MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick

Do you like non-fiction historical books? This is one worth reading. I usually prefer historical novels, but I enjoyed this book as well. It gives you some background on who some of the Mayflower passengers were, why they were leaving, why they were different than the other Europeans who had already crossed the Atlantic, and what happened when they got here.

It is divided into four sections: Discovery, Accommodation, Community, and War. I loved the first two sections. I really enjoyed learning about these Puritans and some of their beliefs. Seeing what things I had in common with them--and what things were VERY different. Philbrick is very good at pointing out some of the long-held myths about the Pilgrims and showing which ones were true and which are false. Eye-opening. The third section was enjoyable, a well. Learning about how the Puritan's reacted when settlers of other religions began to colonize New England as well. But the fourth section, War, was too graphic for me. I know, I know, war IS graphic, but I can only read about so many people being scalped or drawn and quartered. It's just disgusting. That section of the book seemed to drag for me.

I still think it's a title worth reading. It gave me a greater appreciation for what the Pilgrims and Native Americans went through. It was such a miracle that they even survived to help found this nation. So, if you're looking for an opportunity to learn more about our country's history and you've got some time on your hands (it's a long one!) give this book a try.

Watch us grow together

Since I don't have any current pictures to show (I don't know how many pics of us lying on the couch you could handle!), I hope you enjoy this slideshow. I think it's a cute one. It's all the pics I've had taken of the kids in the studio together. In the meantime, we're back to being a sick house. B's home from school sick today. I don't know how truly sick he is, but he felt warm this morning and said his stomach hurt and almost started crying when I told him that I'd give him some Pepto and he could go to school anyway. What can I say? I'm a sucker when my big, tough six-year-old pulls the voice-breaking close-to-tears act on me.

Anyway, enjoy the show.

Health Updates

Today I am extremely grateful for antibiotics. Those things whipped Whitney right into shape. I couldn't believe how quickly she was back to her normal, happy self. Yippee! I kept Brandon home from school Monday and the three of us didn't leave the house. It was one of those LONG days when I looked at the clock around 11:30 and wondered if I was going to make it until Andrew got home at 5:45. It was close, but I survived.

On Tuesday, B went back to school, but W decided she wasn't ready yet. Despite the Dr.'s green light, she stayed home with me. She sounds great today. (Darth Vader has left the building, much to Brandon's dismay.)

Then last night Andrew came home from work and said, "I'm getting sick." He's the one that sounds bad this morning. Not quite Darth Vader-ish....yet. He's home from work and taking conference calls and answering e-mails here.

My nausea and fatigue are still bad, so we are quite the parenting duo right now. You want another cupcake? Sure. Want to watch another movie? No problem. A month of bad parenting won't have any LONG term effects, will it?

What we've been up to

Wow, that political debate was fun. We might have to try that again sometime.

With my "morning" sickness (which is one of the worst misnomers ever!), we haven't been as adventurous as usual. We've spent a lot of time at home with the kids playing in the backyard. They've been very understanding of mommy's newfound laziness.

On the days when I've felt up to getting off the couch or bed, here are the highlights of what has kept us busy.

We got to do some exploring in the woods
behind our house. It is so cool back there!
Even "city kids" need to play in the mud once in a while.

NC is beautiful even in the middle of a severe drought.

Andrew has been traveling A LOT for work.
He took six flights in the last two weeks.
One of the perks: When he got home mid-morning
on Friday, he just stayed with us all day instead of
going into the office. We took advantage of that and
went to one of our favorite parks.

Brandon showed off his sweet rock climbing skills.

Whit continued to secure her title as Daddy's Little Girl

Soccer has been an adventure all its own this season. Whit hates it. She likes practice and enjoys kicking goals, but doesn't understand why her own teammates take the ball away from her during games. It is completely frustrating for her and she just gives up. Two weeks ago she threw the biggest fit I've ever seen her throw because she DID NOT want to play in her game. This week we used a secret motivation tool (pre-game wrestling with Daddy) and she was actually excited to go.

See this action shot? You can actually tell that she's running
and her hair is flowing in the wind. These moments were fleeting.

Look at her go!

Yea, the action lasted about 1 minute and 37 seconds.
Then one of her teammates stole the ball from her...

And she was done. SO done.

Last night, the Charlotte Bobcats had a preseason game against the Miami Heat and they played in Greensboro. Sweet! We got tickets and dressed up in our hunting gear...I mean our Bobcats shirts and headed down to the game.

NBA games are so fun.

Even when I got the time wrong and we get
there 45 minutes before game time. :)

The coolest part for me?

Being THIS CLOSE to Shaq!

He even played for most of the first half of the game.
It is unbelievable to see how HUGE he is compared to all
the other players who are larger-than-life themselves.

Whit's favorite part?

Getting picked out of the crowd to get a free Bobcats basketball!
See, wearing the cheezy shirts paid off. Yes!

And, sorry to end the post on a sad note, but Whit woke up SO sick in the middle of the night last night. She could hardly breathe and had a terrible, raspy cough. I "slept" on the floor of her bedroom from 4:30-8:30 am hoping I would hear if things got worse. I ended up staying home from church with her and B. When Andrew got home, she still sounded SO terrible, so we took her in to the doctor and found out she has BRONCHITIS. Poor little thing. I feel so bad for her.

She is just a little lump of sickness right now.

She has spent most of the day looking like this.
And Brandon wants me to say that when she breathes, she sounds like Darth Vader.
Hope those antibiotics kick in soon.

To vote for Mitt or not

I've already confessed to being politically ignorant, right? Well, this presidential election is coming up next year and it seems like I should be informed about it. But, I've yet to tune into a debate, so that doesn't help. And I'm too lazy to invest a whole lot of time searching around the internet for info. Plus, how do I know what's reliable or not? Isn't there a resource for someone like me?

I've been leaning toward voting for Mitt Romney in the primary elections. I'll admit it's just because he's Mormon. I think that would be so cool to have a Mormon in the White House. I realize this is an ignorant point of view and is just as bad as those voters who say they refuse to vote for Romney solely based on his religion. So I wanted to find out if his political views even came close to matching mine. I found a fun resource.

USA Today came out with a candidate match game. It is a quiz of 11 questions and when you're done answering them, it tells you which candidates most closely match your viewpoint. Andrew has me so convinced about the liberal media conspiracy theory that I was skeptical. Would it just tell me to vote for Hillary regardless of the answers I plugged in? Nope. It actually matched me up with Fred Thompson--who knew? And Mitt was a close second. Cool. Now I won't feel so bad if I vote for him in the primaries. Not only do we have religion in common, but an on-line quiz validated our compatibility. And online quizzes would never lie, right?

Pregnancy: Pros and Cons

Things I'm excited about:
*To feel the baby move inside me. That is so fun...until month 8 and then it's just uncomfortable. And at month 9 I begin to wonder if I'll be giving birth to a professional martial artist--Ouch!

*Having a good excuse--even Doctor's orders--to gain weight. Yes! I take full advantage of this--especially after the morning sickness is gone. Pass the cheesecake, please.

*Finding out if it's a boy or a girl. I thought since we had one of each, it might be fun to wait until delivery, but I'm too anxious. I want to find out ASAP.

*Meeting our new little one and seeing if he or she looks like Brandon or Whitney or if we'll have a completely unique little person.

*Seeing Whitney as a big sister. I think she'll be so cute. I can't wait.

Things that really stink:
*Being sick. Throwing up. Dry heaves.

*Feeling so lazy that I want to sleep for the next five weeks. And feeling like a bad mom because I neglect Brandon and Whitney. "Can you come outside and play with us, Mom?" "Nope, sorry. Too tired. Resting."

*Anticipating more stretch marks. Yikes.

*Wondering if this will be the pregnancy where I never get back to pre-pregnancy weight.

*Having to pee ten or more times a day.

Things I'll miss:
*Being able to see my own toes. This is happening so quickly this third time around--they're vanishing beneath my belly!

*Laying on my stomach. This is my favorite position for late-night scripture reading with Andrew. Better come up with something else here pretty quick.

*Sleeping through the night. I've been so spoiled for the last 2 1/2 years. My kids are great sleepers. The waking-up-in-the-night has already started for potty breaks. Dang.

Things that terrify me:
*Labor! Even though Whitney's labor was actually really smooth, I still worry that I'll have another nightmarish one like I had with big boy B-train.

*Something going wrong, like the baby being born with Duane's syndrome or something much worse.

*Having to sit through sacrament meeting with a newborn. B and W do so well right now. And I don't have Greg and Nicolle to help me anymore. What am I going to do????

The best part:
*Feeling that this is the closest I've ever come to true Christlike service--giving up my body and my comfort for the benefit of someone else.

Church marquee signs in the south

So, there are a lot of things that you have to get used to when you grew up out West and then you move to the South:

1. Severe weather alerts on an almost-daily basis

2. Streets that change directions and names multiple times

3. Every important sentence being prefaced with the phrase, "I'll tell you what."

Another thing that I never saw out West, but see a lot here in the South are churches with very clever, catchy sayings in their marquee signs outside. I've collected some of them over the past while and thought I'd share some of the wisdom and humor I've gleaned from them.

*Need a mansion? Inquire within.

This one was actually a billboard:
*Let's meet at my house before the big game. --God

*The key to heaven was hung on a nail.

*Exercise daily. Walk with God.

*This ain't your momma's church! (I promise I didn't make this one up.)

*Christ and Cappuccino--Sunday 10 am

*Be an organ donor--give your heart to Jesus

*The best vitamin for a Christian: B1 (Call me slow, but this one took a minute for me to get.)

*The church where everybody's somebody & Jesus is the Main Attraction. (This was painted on the back of a church van that I passed on the street.)

*The church for those who don't do church. (This was another billboard with a very chic but somber looking preacher's picture right in the middle.)

*We have prayer conditioning.

*450 snow cones $100
321 T-shirts $3210
33 Lives for Christ--priceless

*Come for coffee. Stay for worship. (Do the priorities seem a little backward here?)

We have pass-along cards and CTR rings...They have clever one-liners. Whatever works.

Feeling so yucky

I just re-read my 9/27 post on being happy to feel yucky. I could slap myself right now. I'm SO over feeling happy about morning sickness. Especially now that I know I'm probably in for another SIX WEEKS of this. I threw up for the first time tonight. Nasty. It was the most violent vomiting experience I've ever had. I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head.

When I was in hygiene school, my classmates and I firmly believed that you get more sick when you're pregnant with girls than with boys. For me, it was true. I felt a lot worse throughout Whit's pregnancy than with B. Well, I had already convinced myself that this third little one was going to be a boy because I felt SOOO good. Now I'm having second thoughts. Must be a girl.

Don't tell me THAT!

So, we've all had those moments where we received news we didn't want to hear, right? We hope we misunderstood or that the bearer of bad news was mistaken, but darn it, they weren't. Here are a few of mine:

Fall 1998--We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted into UVSC's dental hygiene program.

1999--Yes, ma'am, it looks like your transmission is shot.

June 2003--You didn't know there were train tracks right across the street from the house you just bought?

Sept 2004--Whitney has a congenital eye disorder called Duane's Syndrome and there is no cure for it.

Oct 2006--Brandon was sent to the principal's office today for fighting on the bus.

June 2007--Looks like we're going to have to replace the whole water main.

TODAY--According to your cycles, you should be 10 weeks pregnant, but the ultrasound shows that you're ONLY SIX WEEKS ALONG.

D'OH! That's the news I received from my midwife at my appt this morning. NOT the news I was hoping to hear. But it does explain why I took three negative pregnancy tests before the one at my dr's office finally came up positive. AND it explains why I barely started feeling yucky last week. Here I thought I was going to be lucky and not get sick this time around.
No such luck!

Instead I find out that I have a whole other month added on to this pregnancy! My current due date is May 27th. I still have six weeks to go until I'm out of the first trimester. This could be a LONG month and a half.

It has also left me wondering--how BIG am I going to get this time? That picture that I posted from the beach....I was only 4 weeks along and I'm already showing. This could get ugly.

To end on a positive note, it was neat to see that itsy bitsy little baby inside and to see that the heart was beating and that everything looks healthy. And that it's not twins. :)