16 weeks

The kids and I went to see Lori (my midwife who also delivered Gracie and Fletcher at home) today for my 16 week checkup. So far things are looking pretty good with this baby. His or her heartbeat sounded like a running stallion as it measured at 157 beats per minute. That's a pretty amazing sound to hear that I never grow tired of.
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Sometimes it's hard to imagine that a human life is growing inside of me like another Colton, Gracie or Fletcher in the making. It's hard to picture the amazing love and bond that I will have for this child but I know it's real and I'm all too aware of the powerful feelings that it brings. And I'm ready! He or she is inside of my womb growing and moving and becoming another little one that we will love so dearly.

We scheduled my ultrasound for June 5th which also happens to be our 10 year wedding anniversary. What a doubly special day it will be! I think I have convinced myself to find out the gender this time. I had a peace with Fletcher that I just didn't want to know until the birth and in the end, there was truly nothing like that wonderful surprise we received. So many people had us convinced it was a girl that the look of shock on Josh's face will be forever embedded in my memory. Lord help us if wild Fletcher was a girl. We would have been in BIG trouble! But through my pregnancy I never stopped to really wonder and imagine what I was having. I really had a strange peace that allowed me to be patient and enjoy the surprise.

This time however I am so curious. Especially since about 90% of folks believe I'm having a boy. I truly don't even know what to guess but I have had two dreams so far if that ever means anything. The first one I had a girl and in the second dream I had a boy. So I guess that really doesn't help me too much.

In two weeks five days we'll know. Hopefully.

Back to everyday life, the kids are wrapping up another school year. Sigh.... we survived another one! They had their testing and evaluations on May 2nd so that gave us the extra reassurance that homeschooling really is working out well for these two little students of mine. And after attending Gracie's kindergarten graduation with Olivet Private School and the end of the year ceremony with Sonshine Christian Academy, which recognizes each children's accomplishments of finishing their school year, we officially have a 1st and 3rd grader!

{Gracie preparing for her graduation}

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{receiving her diploma and medal}

{C & G were very excited by their end of the school year gift from Grandma and Papa}

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Sonshine had a fun Mexican fiesta themed night.

{Colton receiving his end of the year certificate}

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{Gracie being asked "what she wants to be when she grows up". Her answer, a ballet teacher.}

I can handle the fact that Colton is now in third grade but something about knowing that baby girl of mine is now a first grader just doesn't settle right. I know she is and I saw the proof that in most areas she tested at a 2nd grade level but it just doesn't seem possible to me to think of her in that way. Will it ever though? Will I be saying the same thing at her high school graduation? Probably Most definitely.

In the meantime we will just enjoy the summer with our friends like we have already begun to do.

We had some tragic, tragic news with our chicks. The night that we dropped most of them off at the farm, something got to the remaining ones. We don't know what it was, whether it was Bob the bobcat or someone else but all we found the next morning was feathers. So this ended our chicken farming experience. Maybe some other year we'll try for round two, who knows.

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But I do know that we surely enjoyed our brief encounter of farm life. Especially with this cutie around!

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Mother's Day was a blast! After teaching Sunday school to the little ones at church, we went out on the boat with family. We stopped by Shrimpers first for a nice Mother's Day lunch where the dad's were on duty, followed by a nice relaxing day at the sandbar. I think I only got up from my chair twice maybe? All I know is I hardly did a thing that day except for take advantage of what day it was and it was nice. Really nice.

{Kaya and Gracie at Shrimper's}

{Kelly and I enjoying this moment of peace and quiet while the kids were being taken care of}

{Aunt Joyce and the kiddos}

{Gracie and Yaya}

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For Josh's mom Gracie and I worked on a little sewing project this year. For Mother's Day we made her a bread quilt (or cookie quilt in this case) to go along with the cookies we made her. My girl loves to sew! Oh, and bake too!

{Tessa smells some yummy lemon cookies all wrapped up for Grandma!}

Lastly and probably about the biggest news of all...

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News that we've waited a long 8 years and 2 1/2 months for...

{Colton with his pillow that my mom got for him when he was a wee little baby. I was wondering if we'd ever get to use it!}

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It may have taken the ole' dental floss tied to a door knob trick but my boy was ready and brave and it worked first try.

We're all Growing Around Our Neck of the Woods

I know, it's been two weeks since my last post. My life seems to be revolved around playing catch up these days. A lot has happened in these two weeks so this is going to be scattered so bear with me.

Lately I've had to truly focus on the necessaries in life and let go of the not so necessaries (at least for awhile). With the little bits of energy I'm given throughout the day, they must be focused on schooling and housework. The rest is all rest from there. If you could peak inside our house you'd see us spending a few hours each day in the school room doing our work and lots of time spent reading a good book like Farmer Boy or Strawberry Girl while lying under a shade tree or snuggling in bed. And the kids (well I should specify, Colton and Gracie) have been really helpful with the daily household chores to keep our house from looking like a bomb went off(although many, many times it certainly does resemble that). And yes Fletcher continues to undo any cleanliness that may occur around here. Gotta love the terrific two's!

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To be completely honest, some days in these past few months were very, very hard. I just didn't know how I was going to meet all the demands that life called me to when I was feeling the way I was. So worn out, tired, sluggish and not to mention very nauseous. But then I would always think of the many women who feel much worse than I do during their pregnancies. And to think of the ones who have to get up early for work each day followed by coming home to a house to clean, mouths to feed and a husband and children demanding her attention. I then would realize I have nothing to complain about. Nothing at all. After all, if I was having a really rough day and just didn't feel like getting out of my jammies all day, then guess what? I didn't. I know, how gross. Don't feel bad I thought the same thing. But hey, I was just in survival mode so in the end, I just really didn't care if I smelt bad or not.

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But thankfully now that I am past 14 weeks things are looking up. And out. This baby bump is out of control!

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Other than watching the belly grow in amazement of its rapid expansion, we've been busy watching our 17 adorable chicks grow. Make that 16 now. Most of you probably heard about the bobcat that snuck up to our back porch area one morning and took one of our babies. It was a creepy couple of days but we are hoping those days are over since it's been six days since he's shown his presence. The kids have gotten so comfortable with going out back and picking up a chicken to play with and have really bonded with these guys.

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We have been spending an extra amount of time playing with them today since tomorrow we are planning on bringing the majority of them to a farm. A nice lady in Palm City was willing to take them off of our hands for us and let them come join her farm. No surprise at all, but this saddens me. I truly wish we could keep all 16 of them.

So last week I made my first official baby purchase. A whole stock pile of cloth diapers for this little wee ones bum! I haven't quite figured out why yet, but I am so excited about this. It is something I wanted to do with baby number 3 but never got my act together in time. I think my life at the time was wrapped up with beginning my adventure with homeschooling so I made a compromise and thought "let's tackle one big journey at a time". So now that we are settled into homeschooling along with the fact that I figured I've made enough waste in the landfill for one family, I'm going to do my part by putting in the extra effort to cloth diaper this baby. Don't worry grandparents, aunts and babysitters, I'll have a stash of disposables just for you : )

Besides being lazy allowing myself to get the proper rest I need to grow this special gift of mine, we have been keeping busy with other stuff too.

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Like celebrating Earth Day...

While we were painting our earths, look who came up to our back porch to say hello...

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Visiting the Nina and The Pinta...

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Exploring the Savanna marsh with our friend Mr. Henry and a few other homeschool friends...

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And of course beach days...

We love to get our feathers wet and swim in God's perfect pool...

And of course spending lots of time lovin' on our chicks. We have fully enjoyed our time with our 17 16 chicks and this process has been so heartfelt yet educational. Definitely something we will always remember. We've enjoyed making the memories while we had them.



And have I ever mentioned that we spend a lot of time playing in the mud around here? Well if not, we do that quite a bit too.

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Stay tuned for more updated pictures of our chicks and also some cute pictures of the most adorable visitor we've ever had at our house. Well, depending upon who you're asking I guess. We were able to babysit a teeny baby pig for a few days and have fallen in love. Again. I'm starting to think that happens quite easily around our neck of the woods.

Oh yea, and we even get to bottle feed him! As soon as I can get my act together I'll get those pictures off my camera so stay tuned!

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In fact he's at my feet right now nudging me so it must be feeding time. Gotta go!

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Until we meet again... Fletcher says, muah to all of his fans!

Easter Fun

Okay, so I know I'm way behind but at least I have an excuse these days : ) We've had such a busy and exciting week and I've had so much to post about, but quite honestly I seem to have lost something. Has anyone seen my energy because I believe I misplaced it somewhere? I have gotten so behind on so many things this past month or two but I'm not giving up. I'm still searching high and low.

Seriously, I don't remember ever feeling so tired with my other pregnancies. I do seem to have that mama brain though and have the gift of letting go of the not so glorious pregnancy moments. Like ahem, natural childbirth. But we won't go there right now. No we won't. I have 28 more weeks before I have to worry about that. But I guess it is quite possible I always have gotten this tired and sluggish but I've let that part escape my memories of pregnancy.

As far as Easter goes, we had a nice one. Even if we didn't put out the decorations this year, we were able to stay focused on why we were celebrating which was what truly mattered. However last night while we were straightening up the garage I asked Josh if he could put the Easter storage bins back into the attic when he got a chance. Gracie looks at me and says "but... but we haven't even decorated yet!" This is just the way our life is right now. Things are getting better though. I can feel it. I actually scrubbed the back porch this morning. That was a sign that I needed to see because I have a lot of catching up to do.

At least I did make sure we dyed Easter eggs this year as we always do.

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This first photo shows the kids dying eggs with church friends at a birthday party.

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And then we also did them at home and they even asked to do it again. But mama said no.

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Fletcher made himself a monogrammed egg with a little help from Daddy.

and then couldn't help himself from eating one.

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Easter morning...

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This is such a cheesy picture to me but Colton's smile made me laugh! And Fletcher's too but his always does.




Later on that afternoon we went to Grandma and Papa's for a delicious dinner and Easter egg hunt.

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Sweet girls Gracie and Faith

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Fletch was an Egg hunting champion...

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but Colton found the golden egg in Papa's grill.

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Gracie didn't do too bad herself. She found as many as her basket could possibly hold.

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After the hunt we came inside to feast on this rabbit. Wow was it yummy! Nice work Grandma and thanks for the Easter outfits for the kids. They were perfect!

Hope your Easter was Egg-stra special!