Family Update

I feel like there are a million things I could write about. I guess I better just start at the beginning of the week.
Eric had school last weekend, so we postponed our Chinese New Year feast until he was home Saturday night. It was yummy and I forgot to take pictures. Because I felt like I needed to cook for an army, we ate Chinese food for days. Someday I will learn....

Sunday was Groundhog Day. I whipped up our favorite Groundhog pancakes before we headed off to church. 

 Adam and Tessa both celebrated the 100th day of school with their classes this week. Adam got to dress up like an old man. He loved his dollar store glasses from Daddy. Adam thought he looked like Pa, which he loved! Tessa got to make a shirt with 100 things on it. She decided to do 100 googly eyes. She also made a necklace with 100 beads. She said she couldn't wait to tell her class, "I've got my eyes on you!!"

 Tess is also reading so well! I love finding her reading to herself. 

Don't let this picture fool you....it's very rare occurrence. Gwen hardly naps anymore and always ends up in our bed at night. I love her to death, but I feel like I never have a break from her. When she does happen to fall asleep in the afternoon, I do love to just snuggle her. 

 If you come to our house, you will either find Gwen running through the house stark naked or completely decked out in her dress up clothes. There is no happy medium. This week she started ripping off her diapers and hiding from me behind the curtains.

 She lives in her high heels.

 She is also our cookie thief. I often find her sneaking cookies. Her favorite snack is chips and salsa. Once her chips are gone, she literally drinks the salsa out of the bowl. 

Eric has been very busy and gone a lot if feels like. He is right in the middle of his capstone project, which he is the team leader on, so he is feeling  a lot of pressure right now. I feel like we both have senioritis. He is so close to finishing his program and we are both so ready for it to be over!

I am having a rough time-gonna keep it real here. I had another doctor appt this week and sort of heard the baby's heartbeat. It was hard to hear over my own heartbeat which seems to be out of control. My heart is constantly pounding and racing. Not sure what's going on, but I've been told to just drink more water. I feel like a walking lake. But, the baby is alive and hopefully well.

I have been so emotional and anxious with this pregnancy. That is not normal for me. I can't seem to snap out of it. We also found a house that we fell in love with this week and almost bought until we prayed hard about it and knew that although the house was perfect for us, the timing wasn't. I spent most of Wednesday crying over that one. After 9 1/2 years of living in limbo, not knowing where we will end up, I am beyond ready to plant some roots and just be. With our luck, that will never happen like I want it to. 

Overall, I can't complain-we have been very blessed and I know we will continue to be blessed. Waiting can be difficult though. 

I am starting to feel better in the mornings, but am still really sick in the afternoons and evenings. I am ashamed to admit how much TV my kids have watched in the last month, but I feel like I am still in survival mode. I am making it through this with lots of praying and Josh Groban. I swear that man was put on the earth for me. His voice and music calm me down like nothing else can. I am hoping in the next 3 weeks or so I will start to feel like myself again. 

We are excited to watch the Olympics the next couple of weeks! Those will for sure make me cry, but in a good way:)

Adam's Note

The other night, I was snuggling Gwen on the couch, when Eric came downstairs laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he asked me if I had seen this note from Adam to Tessa. Eric found it under Tessa's pillow. I read the note and was in hysterics!

"Dear Tessa,

Here's your walkie-talkie back. What's the point of having 2 walkie-talkies?

Adam"

Adam got a set of walkie-talkies for Christmas from Ma and Pa. He and Tessa have a blast playing with them, but the other day when I was helping Tessa clean her room, I told her to go put the walkie-talkie she had been playing with, back in Adam's room. Hence the note. It wasn't written to be rude or mean, but purely innocent and a sweet gesture from a big brother. That's why we laughed literally for hours every time we looked at it. "What's the point of having 2 walkie-talkies". Well, he does have a point!

Saturday Was Our Special Day

We packed a lot into our Saturday. Eric and I finally made it to the temple and were there for over 4 hours! We had planned to make the 11:00am session, but the temple was so busy, that we waited for over an hour and a half and finally got in the 12:20 session. It was nice to be at the temple though and to just be still for so long. Sometimes I need to be forced to do that. 

We got home, packed the kids up and headed out to Midway to see the Ice Castles. Tessa was so excited to see her 2 favorite Princesses were there!! Right now, Jasmine and Elsa are her favorite. Gwen wasn't quite as excited. She does not like to be cold.

 Sadly, the line to get into the ice castles were over an hour long and we knew Gwen would never last that long. We walked around the outside for a bit and promised the kids we would be going back on a week day when it's not as crowded. It was still fun to get out and do something fun as a family!

Blog Books and A Dream Come True

Our favorite day of the month came earlier this week when our 2013 blog books arrived in the mail. We always look forward to getting these and the kids love looking through them and remembering all the fun we had the previous year. 

 Tessa woke up this morning and told me she had a dream that she got some Lucky Charms. I figured that was a dream I could make come true. When she got home from school, she was thrilled to see a box of Lucky Charms waiting for her on the kitchen counter. 

Life With Gwen

Life with Gwen is not dull. She has been a handful lately! Bedtime is a joke, she refuses to let me do her hair and she hates wearing clothes. Getting her dressed every morning is a battle, and if I do get clothes on her, she usually rips them off before lunch. We won't even talk about how much fun diaper changes are.

Her new fascination are spoons. She eats everything with a spoon. The other night she ate a whole bowl of popcorn with a spoon. She keeps me very, very busy and exhausted, but she sure is cute!

Our Newest Addition

The beginning of December, we found out that we are expecting another baby. I cannot tell you the joy and relief I felt as I stood in my bathroom with a positive on my pregnancy test at 5:30 in the morning. I tried to muffle my sobs so I wouldn't wake anyone else up, but Jodi got a text that early to hear my news. It's nice to have a best friend who gets up at 4:30am!

The last 14 months have been emotional and frustrating. When Gwen was only 9 months old, I started receiving strong impressions that it was time to have another baby. At first I was like, "Are you kidding me?", but the more they came, the more I knew it was time. When I told Eric about how I was feeling, he would hand me Gwen and say, "Let me introduce you to your Baby!". He wasn't quite as convinced as I was that it was time already. But, after some praying, fasting, and discussion, we both knew it was the right thing to do. With it taking us so long to get pregnant with Gwen, we didn't know if that would be our same fate this time around or if it would be easy to get pregnant. I wasn't really mentally or emotionally prepared for another almost 2 years of trying, and I was sure the Lord knew that, so I figured this time around would be different.

Well, my time table and the Lord's time table seem to be very different. It ended up taking us 14 months to get pregnant this time. Not as long as with Gwen, but still a long time. Every month that I wasn't pregnant was a huge let down that took me a few days to recover from. I would have my day or two of being so disappointed, plead with Heavenly Father for some answers, get up and brush myself off, and somehow find the energy emotionally to try again. It sounds kind of childish when I put it into words, but it is hard to go through. Especially when you know it is what you are supposed to be doing and then the results seem to never come. 

In December I got what I felt was my Christmas miracle. Eric was shocked and ecstatic when I told him. We are so thankful that we are finally able to welcome this new little spirit into our family. The kids are extremely excited too! Gwen doesn't have a clue what's going on, so I'm sure a baby will be a shock to her. Tessa is excited and really wants another sister-but only so she can get a bunk bed. Adam is the cutest of them all. When we broke the news to them, he cried and cried! Every time we let him make the announcement, he would cry and cry. Every time he touches my belly, he gets all teary eyed. He is praying for a little brother, but he will be thrilled with whatever we get. 

 I am 9 1/2 weeks along and growing! I can't believe how fast my belly has popped out with this pregnancy already. I am feeling pretty awful and don't get much sleep thanks to Gwen, but I will survive. I saw my doctor last week. The baby looked good and the heartbeat looked good. I am measuring right where I should be. We feel so blessed and are so thankful to be parents to these 4 amazing kids!

Parent/Teacher Conference

On Wednesday and Thursday we had Parent/Teacher Conference for Adam and Tessa. If you don't want to hear me brag about my kids, I'd advise you to stop reading now.

Tessa and I met with Mrs. Hales on Wednesday afternoon. They had a walking report card and we went to different stations where Tessa got to show me how well she was doing in reading, phonics, writing, and math. She is doing so well with all of her work! We do need to work a bit on her writing her letters correctly when she is forming a word, but other than that, she is doing great in each area. Mrs. Hales said she was surprised at how well her reading is and will be moving her up another reading level next week. Mrs. Hales said Tessa is a wonderful student. She said Tessa does so well on all of her work, she listens well to directions (always glad to hear that cause she's mastered blocking me out) and that she is a great help and friend to the other students in the class. On our way out, Mrs. Hales said, "I have to tell you-my daughter comes to the preschool here at the school a couple of days a week and every time she sees Tessa, she goes on and on about how cute she thinks Tessa is." Tessa loves school and loves drawing pictures and writing notes to her friends. We are proud of her for doing so well. 

 Then we have Adam. He has left some big shoes for his siblings to fill! We sat down with his teacher on Thursday and her first question to me was, "What have you done at home to make him so smart?" Adam excels at everything! She said she is blown away by how smart he is and is still hoping she can find something to challenge him. She has him on the hardest spelling test she can give him and he is still getting 100% on his tests. She says his reading is out of control. She told him that she think he needs to be someone who records books on tape when he grows up. She says the expression and smoothness he has when he reads just sucks everyone in. She said when she has him reads for the class, half the time she gets so drawn into how he is reading, she forgets it's only Adam reading! He has read every book in their take home library up to a lower third grade level (except for the girl books), so she is moving up to a level Q, which is a high third/low fourth level. She said most teachers would be really cautious of doing that, but she is confident Adam will be able to handle it without a problem! 

 This was a report card Adam and Mrs. Woodhouse filled out. Mrs. Woodhouse marked him down for excellent on every category. Adam gave himself an A+ on every category except behavior. Mrs. Woodhouse said she didn't agree with that grade and asked Adam why he marked himself so low. He said sometimes he sighs really loud when something or someone is frustrating him. That made us laugh!

 These are Adam's actual grades. He is doing amazing!

 His goals for 2014 are to read 1,000 books and finish the Harry Potter Series. He finished the 2nd book last week and is already half way through the 3rd. I wouldn't be surprised if he passes his goal!