Can You Say Arimiah?

Already creating her own style. I let her wear some mild style choices out (like that headband was around her waist at church Sunday). Someday she'll probably look back on pictures and ask me "why on earth did you let me go out in that?!".

Rhianwen says she's a "little adult" now. I'm not seeing much of a difference in behavior other than that she likes to "teach" Alden. I overheard her saying to him in a lecturing type of voice, "Thomas had a school called Arimiah. Alden, can you say Arimiah?" and Alden's voice piped up, "Awimiah." Quite a lesson in fictional history. Nanny Kim will be very joyful to know that Rhi's begun fully dressing her baby dolls. She's also doing a great job reading although sentences are still challenging. Putting the words all together in a flowing way is hard. It's very exciting to see her working on it though.

We were blessed to have a nice visit from Grandmama for a couple of days. What a sweet time! She brings much joy, calm, and capability to our house. She ironed my enormous mountain of ironing, mended everything, organized my tupperware, brought lots of wonderful food, cooked dinner for us, and gave the kids lots of loving. I was able to sand and prime Rhianwen's loft while she was there. I'm almost done painting it, but it'll take longer b/c I can only do it at night now. It's a good thing she doesn't live next door b/c I would be tempted to use her as a doula. Actually, I find it sad that we, in the US, no longer live in community with family.

For the 4th, we enjoyed a little family day at our local shopping center. Alden got to see lots of classic cars.

Notice the huge sock monkey and fuzzy dice. Fuzzy dice brings back memories of careening haphazardly in Wally's old VW bug around Clemson. Glad we had those days, but glad they are over :)

Jumping. Alden needed help staying on his feet with all of the bouncing kids bouncing the whole thing. He generally is a very good jumper and can even spin in the air and land back on his feet.

Eating pineapple Italian ice. It was out of this world. We also had strawberry. It was made from real fruit. Amazingly good!

Rhianwen insisted she wanted to see real fireworks this year and that she wouldn't be scared. So we took her up on it and went to a small show at the shopping center.

Wearing "friendship bracelets". I don't know how she heard of them or what she thinks they are, but she said, "Alden is my friend, and he can have some of my bracelets." She did love the fireworks.

Alden on the other hand...

Still serious about those sparklers but not terrified.

More his cup of tea.

Blackberry cobbler. Of course, he mostly ate the icecream.

Another first for us was that Rhi and Alden went to a movie theater to see Charlotte's Web. They did great and really enjoyed it. (It was free, so there was no pressure to stay, but we saw the entire thing). Daddy felt left out and decided to do a family night at Chuck E. Cheese's. Talk about nasty pizza. But the kids had fun, although didn't quite know what to make of it. I don't like what those places do to me. I feel like a hoarder, trying to guard my precious tokens from any would-be kid thieves, and ripping any extra tickets I can find from anywhere. All for a cheap prize that I would never buy in the store. I'd hate to see what I'd be like in Vegas and for that reason (as well as a slew of others) never intend to go. At the end Rhianwen chose a wiggly spider prize over stickers or fancy jewelry. Her decision confused me until we were back in the car and she named her spider Charlotte.

Alden's probably wondering what on earth his parents are thinking.

Back home, we settled into domesticity. This video is of Alden singing. The first part is what he does when he doesn't know what to sing. It's the same tune every time. Notice how he pats/pokes the baby doll on the face. A sign of things to come no doubt.

Other Alden developments: he knows many colors and loves to eat cucumbers. His birthday is in 7 days. Time's a ticking. July is speeding by, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Anniversary (our 9th!!!), b-day, Dr. appointments, and a nursing home visit. Please pray for the nursing home especially b/c there is a new activities director who didn't seem thrilled with the prospect of having a bunch of preschoolers invade for an hour. I'm feeling very intimidated and have contemplated quitting. But then I think of that verse about perfect love casting out fear. It really is a good thing we are doing. So much joy happens for the residents and the kids and the moms and the workers. Everyone leaves smiling. Please pray it will be so this next time!

Babyness

Here's our kumquat. Well, that's supposedly how big baby is. The Dr. says 4 1/2 cm. Looks like it's lying on its side. Head is to the left, belly to the right. Wally constantly speculates before our first Dr. appointment that we'll have twins. Thank the Lord there's only one in there!

Rump, legs, feet, umbilical cord.

Arms and hands.

It's always amazing to me that even this early they have hair, fingernails, toes, fingers, no webbing anymore, no tail. Just a little person. Surreal. We showed the pics to Alden and Rhianwen. Alden just stared for a few seconds and slowly handed them back to me; Rhianwen said, "The baby doesn't have any clothes on?" and later in the afternoon, "I think the baby wants clothes on in mommy's belly." Due date is supposedly January 19th according to the Dr. (Grandmama's birthday!), but they never take into consideration my longer than "normal" cycles, so I'm still counting on later by at least 4 days :)

My baby isn't the only one around here. We've had 2 baby owls who we think have recently grown up and flown away. Here is a video of one baby taken in May. It must have been learning to fly and gotten stuck in our yard.

I have a feeling, our baby's nursery theme may have owls in it's future.

This is for mom. Not really a very organized space, just some toys and kids. We've changed the ladder to the other end, so that Alden's head is not near an open space. Instead, the guard rail goes all the way to the head of the bed. And we've taken everything out of that outlet b/c it's too much of a temptation otherwise.

Can you believe this is the first time I've gotten my kids finger paints? And of course, look who's too artistic to use her hands ;)

Alden however, went to town with it. I regret not getting a picture of him, but green was all over the wall, him, table, floor.

Funny Rhianwen quote on leaving her milk on the table while she took care of business: "I don't want my milk to get soggy!"

Oh, I just wanted to say, thank you everyone who prays after reading our blog! I literally can feel a difference the day or two after I blog because people are praying specifically for us! It's amazing to me that I can tell, but I really can! Isn't it neat how God works?

Here You Go

For Wally's birthday, we made a fast trip to Conway. This may seem strange, since it's my side of the family, but we thought it'd be nice to spend some one-on-one time strolling down the beach and eating at a fun Japanese steakhouse where we first ate after getting engaged. The trip down and that night had me second guessing how good of an idea it was. Traffic was horrid, I was starving to the point of tears (I made Wally stop at "anything, just, there...Walgreens, get some chips and a drink. I can't wait any longer or I'll vomit!" the people walking down the sidewalk must have thought I had just been to a funeral. I almost considered rolling down the window and saying, "Don't worry, nobody died, I'm just acting worse than my 2 year old and can't help it. Do you have something to eat?", but I didn't.), and then Wally said, "Hm, I forgot to pack the pack n play". So, Alden slept on a big boy bed for the first time at Nanny Kim's, not here. And the bed was on rollers, so it rolled right out from under him at one point in the night. Why don't they make those things with breaks? Oh well. Needless to say, I was a big grump in the morning, but after a bit of breakfast and some time talking the night over with Wally, everything started looking up.

We got to see Great Grandpa in the morning. He graced our children with some Clemson-colored leis and a small snickers bar. Then the nurse's aid brought around chips, and recruited Rhi to hand them all out to the residents. Of course, both kids were rewarded with a bag of chips. As Grandpa often says, "you only live once".

We had a fun time with some awesome water balloons that Nanny Kim bought by mistake. She thought they were normal balloons and intended to blow them up for Wally's b-day, but this was a nice mistake since we got to throw them at each other. Grandpa also got some water guns and we had a lot of silly fun together shooting each other and bubbles.

One of daddy's fun gifts, a World Cup soccer ball replica (the flatness is just how it shipped, the balls don't REALLY look concave...ha). He's been playing indoor and loving it. Forgive the evil eyes, I'm lazy and forgot to fix it too. Alden kept trying to give Wally birthday cake while he was opening presents and would say, "Here you go." and give him the plate. "Here you go" is a popular phrase for him. He often uses it when he's trying to hand you something he knows he shouldn't have like our cell phones or a vase.

That Sunday, Alden had a bad cold, so we decided to try him out in the big church (Episcopal high church mind you) at mom's and dad's. Eventually, he just cried from being contained, so Wally took him out. When it was time for communion, Alden said to Wally, "I no cry anymore. Deep breath." and inhaled/exhaled. So, in they came. I can't believe Alden could verbalize that much, and something that we've only told Rhianwen, not him! I love communion at the Episcopal church. EVERYONE who is baptized can partake, which means we have to clearly say no thanks when our kids are offered it! BUT what I absolutely find so meaningful is how the priest blesses our children during communion forming the cross on their foreheads. Now you all know, I'm not superstitious, but it's a beautiful symbol of covenantal faith given by someone called by God and not just a congregational blessing, but and individual blessing. Why don't we do this more often in the church?

Back at home, we bought a short loft for Alden off craigslist and set it up in his room for now.

He picked out car sheets, but we don't have a bedspread yet. This is the last day I let them jump on it. And we had to take the pictures off the walls around it! They've really enjoyed playing under it too. And he can get up and down the ladder all by himself.

Big boy bed but still not giving up that paci. One step at a time.

Expecting a new baby has made us consider alternative modes of transportation. Here's our latest model. I've been teaching Rhi's Sunday school class every 3rd Sunday, and it's been fun coming up with visual aids for the stories. This one was Elijah is taken to heaven. It was really easy to do. Just one of those little goldfish cartons you can get at Target, covered in sparkly foam paper, buttons for wheels, printed out horses on cardboard with pipe-cleaners, and a guy from our Playmobil nativity set. I wish I would get this creative for our own devotions. Maybe one day!

Father's day we were all feeling like crap with a horrid cold, but by the end of the day after an awesome meal of marinated steaks, corn, asparagus, ending with peach pie and ice cream, we were feeling much better.

Rhianwen said, "I think we should have Happy Big Girl Day." Incidentally, Alden thinks peach pie is "Yucky." Can this child really be born in the South?!

This week is VBS all week long and Wally's out of town. A difficult combination. Rhianwen especially does not do well when she is tired and has been quite a pill in as many ways as you can think of. I'm really feeling like all I do is call people down all day, and I want to see the light soon! To cheer me up my dad sent me some dark chocolate truffles, and as the magnet that Grandmama sent me says, "Man cannot live by chocolate alone, but woman can!". I also threw a wet washcloth in Rhianwen's face (she was insisting she would like it), which amazingly cheered both of us up. It's funny the things she likes.

Eating

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." ~Voltaire

Well, perhaps Voltaire didn't have ice cream in mind. It's not exactly a necessity, but it sometimes feels like it for pregnant me. I have so many food aversions right now, but never will a hot fudge sundae be difficult to down! I think Alden concurs.

So does Rhianwen.

Every last drop. Good thing we decided to eat outside. Those mini-blizzards are actually quite large, but my kids had not problem finishing given enough time.

Even better, are the first ripe wild blackberries of summer picked in a Sunday dress.

Divinely provided happiness.

My big boy still looks so little on daddy's lap. It makes me feel a little better about how fleeting life is.

At least something grows faster than my kids! Giant sunflowers!

Kids update: Rhianwen is READING! Small words, not always consistently, but she's read things like mom, cat, Sam. We are very excited :)

Alden knows some colors: orange (he gets that one right all of the time...good Clemson upbringing right there), red, blue, green. NOT pink or purple which were Rhianwen's first consistently recognized colors. No one can tell me there are not gender differences.

------------ Long Mommy Spilling Out Part Below...Read with Care------------

Yes, I did say I am pregnant (see http://renovationtracker.blogspot.com/2010/05/under-construction.html) if you haven't already. And the past 2 days I feel like I've hit a wall. I just haven't been able to rise above queasiness, tiredness, feelings of weakness to have a good attitude. I kind of feel like I've just gotten over an awful stomach bug that's left me sapped of all energy and able to only eat toast and Sprite. I do force myself to eat "real" food. Once I take the first bite, it's usually ok. It's just making myself do it that's hard. Anyway, I've been quite the grouch (or "Grinch" according to Rhi) the past 2 days, and I'm really tired of being that way too. I feel very sorry for my poor sweet rambunctious kids who don't know what they did wrong!

This baby is a complete surprise for us. We've gone through denial (Wally decided it was time for a pregnancy test) and shock to planning and freaking out stages. I can't imagine having 3. And making the transition in January of all months. It sends shivers up and down my spine and waves of nausea too. My definition of January: cold, dark, month of sickness and depression only leading to colder darker month of sickness and seclusion. I really hope God will give me some excitement about having a baby in the middle of winter, but it's not happening as of now! Anyone want to suggest some positives? One of my friends said at least we would be heading into spring instead of heading into winter. That's definitely a positive!

We ARE very excited to see who this little one is. Especially since we were actively preventing, and God decided to produce this little miracle, we firmly believe God wants this little one for our family and has specially designed them for a purpose. We believe this of all of our children, but it just feels doubly so for this one since we were in no way asking for a child at this time! So, it will be exciting to see how their little life unfolds, who they touch, and how God uses them and us through them.

My first Dr. appointment is June 28th. I'm only 7 weeks right now. And we need to get busy! I feel like I have so much organizing and planning I need to do to be able to manage 3 kids. It's hard enough being absent minded with 2, I think with 3 life would just not happen. So I feel like I need a plan especially for exiting the house to either play outside or to go somewhere. Plus, we've perhaps unwisely decided to put Alden and Rhi together in one room. I'm a little skeptical myself, but hope to give Rhi a loft with private space underneath if she so needs it she can close it off with a curtain which we'll have to enforce with Alden. Yeah, sure, you say. And a twin bed for Alden and at the foot of his bed, a space for him to have some privacy if he so desires (which is unlikely). I'm also hoping to incorporate a little bit of pink somewhere on Rhi's side in a way that isn't obvious unless you are over there. She is just DRAWN to pink rooms in the kid's room books we've been perusing. Pink walls, pink curtains, pink quilts, pink feathery boas. She'd have her entire room in pink if she could. I told her since Alden will be sharing the room, we can't have it be "too girly". She seems to be ok with that.

I also really really want to get the family room floor painted. Isn't it silly how expecting can light a fire under your butt?

Flowers DO bring me cheer. Especially ones grown out of my own flower beds! These were used for a baby shower for a friend. I just had to end on a happy note.