36 Weeks

(Don't know why we get such sweet shadow effects in our pics, but bear with me as I look like my head is touching the ceiling)

4 weeks and counting. I've decided it was a blessing and a curse to have Emeri be such an easy pregnancy, because now that I actually have discomfort I think to myself..."Should be going any day now" Hahaha.... I wish. So I guess I'd just forgotten that pregnancy does have its price, and I'll be paying that price this last month, with an order of waddling, heart burn, back/hip pain, and baby's feet up in my ribs. Really nothing to complain about, but I still find a way to scowl.

But truth is we are super excited to have Baby 3 join us. Every day I just treasure the little sweet moments with my kids. And when I think of how much I LOVE and ADORE having them in my life, it only makes sense that another one will just bring that much more joy.

I'm way excited to see how my kids react to having a baby around. Emeri will struggle a bit I'm sure, she's got super attitude these days. She can even pull off a mini "temper tantrum" When she doesn't get what she wants she will just throw herself face down on the floor and whine. But on the upside she's stopped pulling a cranky face when we try to get her to walk. Instead she loves to show off and get lots of praise and cheers walking across the room between furniture. She still doesn't use walking as a real mode of transportation, but she can pull off 15+ steps in one go, and is pretty darn steady. So hopefully she makes it her transportation of choice by the time my arms are full with baby brother.

The actual logistics of managing three little ones with only two hands still alludes me. And I'm sure I'll have plenty of cross eyed stories in the days to come. But at this point I think to myself "If I had my body back, energy and all, I could totally do it." Ambitious...I know. Truth is, outings beyond the walls of our home will no doubt be fewer and farther in between. And when they do occur I'll no doubt get more twisted looks from passers by than I did in my jr. high days, and that's saying something! :)

So for whatever the future is about to hold, I say "Bring it!" (Can you tell I had a good night's sleep, and my pregnancy hormones aren't wackin out?) :) Good time to post on the blog huh?

I thought so...:)

My lil' kiddos

I've been chided by family for not posting more often. So although I don't have any monumental outings, growth, or events to report, I'll do my best to just throw up some of our daily happenings, and it will count as a good journal entry on the side.

So I'm officially 30 weeks prego, and feelin it. Just Thursday I was placing Emeri on the bed, and somehow pulled a rib-head out in my left shoulder. Most ridiculously simple movement, and yet it got me good. I had an awful tweak that grew up into my neck and made it super hard to function. Thank goodness for way too expensive Chiropractors who can save me from the woes of pregnancy in a pinch.Besides silly back issues I’m doing quite well, and surprisingly I am more excited than nervous to welcome #3 into our home. Like all significant changes and commitments in life, we rarely comprehend what the new phase will bring, cause if we did we’d be scared senseless. So the Lord lovingly persuades us in the right direction and when the moments come of “This is ludicrous! What was I thinking?” Or just an absence of thought cause we’re so overwhelmed to even think anymore, He is there once again to comfort us and lead us through to sanity, and even peace. Ultimately those choices to follow His persuasions don’t just bring peace but they blossom into fruits of incomprehensible joy.

Well I don’t know about “incomprehensible” at this point. But I undoubtedly have a life that is oozing with JOY! Each day I find so much more to love about each one of my children.—And my Husband, can’t forget Him. He’s the one that brings sanity—But really Ephraim and Emeri are such SUCH good children. It’s become growingly evident what a sweet sensitive spirit Ephraim has. Just this past week I put on Beauty and the Beast for him, only to afterwards realize what a scary movie that is for 2yr olds. Well I got what was coming, and for the next 2 days he struggled going to bed, and sleeping through the night. I heard him whimpering in his room and repeating to himself “No alligators...see? No alligators...” Now I know there aren’t alligators in that movie, but we play a game frequently around here where he jumps around on couch cushions while an “alligator” (me) prowls around him hopping, for a nibble at his toes. It’s all fun...in fact it’s one of his FAVORITE things to do. But he knows real alligators are scary. And so when he’s s scared they seem to come up. Along with the statement “Its kinna scerry Mommy”

He is so good to his little sister too! He’ll pick up food she accidently drops for her, he’ll share his fruit snacks that he gets for going mee mee in the potty. (100% trained by the way...as long as mommy or daddy is around. Still working on him telling babysitters when he’s gotta go) Emeri has developed quite the attachment to a quilt made by Grandma Wadsworth the past couple of weeks, and Ephraim does like to tease her by taking it from her every now and then. But if they’re sitting on the couch to watch Sesame Street or something, he’ll have his blanky and milk, and say “Emmie wants manky” and “Emmie wants milk” making sure she’s got all the goods he does.

Just two days ago he was sitting looking through a book and Emeri was in a rambunctious mood and was crawling all over him, and he wasn’t up for it, and complained that Emeri hit him. So I said Emeri “You say you’re sorry to Brother. Go give him kiss.” So she crawled up on his lap and laid one on him. Granted her kisses have no pucker, just an open loving mouth dripping with drool. But she knew what she needed to do, and then she proceeded to lay her head on his chest and give him a hug. It was outright adorable! One of those moments you wish was caught on tape, but never could be.

Emeri is also standing up on her own now. She has more and more balance each day, and has begun to do a lil’ twist jig as though she’s dancing once up. Her stance is still so wide though that she doesn’t even think to take a step. But we’re moving in the right direction. As long as she’s walkin when Baby 3 comes along I’m not worried.
Poor Emeri had her first real battle wounds this week. I got some pics of it. The pics are a day old though just so I could keep my blog G rated. Just kidding, they didn’t look that much worse, but they were more swollen and seeing her just broke my heart. It all happened while being babysat with some friends while I went to my doctor’s apt. And as the story goes my friend’s lil 19m old kid needed his nails cut, and when she had to step out of the room for a min, and Emeri began crying all the kids tried to comfort her, and the lil’ 19m old boy did a little more than comfort.

That’s her best guess of how it went, and I don’t hold anything against her, but her little boy is TOTALLY on my hit list! Intentional or not, Emeri is lucky she still has a left eye. As the scabs heal so does my malice towards him, but ooooh it just brings out a whole new motherly instinct seeing my lil’ baby girl all slashed up.

Emeri has this lil' curl goin on in the back that is just too cute.

Here's a shot of our little 3 tooth wonder, and this is her "I'm ready for bed" face.

She looks like such beast, throwing out that vicious under-bite! LOL

Well that will have to be a random wrap for the night. I’m beat and it’s past my prego bedtime. But I hope my family enjoys the fun details of our daily happenings. And that my children someday appreciate all the stories about themselves.

Big Trouble

Ephraim is pretty funny when he plays with his toys and they receive disciplinary action for their bad behavior.

My little Helper

Ephraim making sure Emeri gets some of his goods.

BIRTHDAY GIRL

She started out her day with a couple favorites. Pounding on the keyboard, and pillow time with Ephraim.
Ephraim was a key helper in opening her -left over Christmas/Birthday gifts.
The joy of getting messy with out her mother wiping everything up the moment after it happens.
The mid-day (I actually look cared for, and dressed shot)No doubt a child invented the grand idea of a never ending, sticky, delicious treat on a stick, that is so big it barely fits in the mouth.



My Little Lady turned 1 on February 13th. It was a wild weekend with Adam's birthday the day before, Valentines the day after, and lots of stake conference nestled in between. But she voiced no complaints and throughly enjoyed the carrot cake her dad made for her and a sucker that was sent in the mail from Grandma. Here's a hit list of where she's at for ol' history sake.

*She doesn't walk unless being held by the hand. Ephraim loves leading/dragging her around, and she likes it too....until she wipes out.

*As far as wipe outs go...this girl is toughing up, and I like it. We hold a fairly regular "gymnastics" class at home with the couch cushions and jumping around and she climbs all over them, flops off, bonks her head, rolls over, giggles, and climbs back on again.

*Her favorite place is Ephraim's bed, where she climbs on and he bounces her around with his jumping.

*She LOVES her big brother!!! She follows him everywhere, and if anyone can really get this girl to laugh its him.

*I can't remember what Ephraim was super into at this age, cept the broom, and mop. Emeri hasn't shown much interest in those, but she loves books. And with her perfected scoot, she'll grab a couple books and scoot down the hallway with them in hand for her mommy to read to her.

*She has her two bottom teeth, and is just around the corner from breaking through her upper front teeth.

*Orange is her favorite fruit
*She's newly discovered the joy of dripping milk from her bottle all over the ground, and rubbing it in.

*She discovered at a much younger age than Ephraim how to escape the pew trap at church. Yesterday all the sudden she was 3 rows back. Sneaky lil' thing!

*She has in the past few weeks developed a much more particular attitude about what she wants etc. Food and how its fed to her runs at the top of that list, but along with it are having the remote to play with, getting to pound on the computer keyboard, and turning on and off the T.V.

All in all she is an absolute JOY to have around and we ADORE our little Emeri. Happy Birthday darling. You grew up all too fast!

We're doing it!

So this is day 3 of potty training, and thus far I haven't attempted to pull out any hair or take out unruly amounts of frustration on Ephraim. We've had plenty of accidents, but its obvious the boy is learning what "hold it" means. And I have full hope that in the near future that concept will be rooted deeply enough to take effect BEFORE any "mee mee" escapes. We did have a joint cleaning party of his Percy underwear that got a little mal-treated, which Ephraim hated, and will hopefully keep that accident from happening again.

Best news of it all is I still ADORE this lil' guy. I said my feet were cold this morning and I wanted to wear my slippers. To which he said he wanted his slippers too. Funny I thought...You mean the slippers you kicked and screamed about when mommy tried to put them on you before? Hmmmm Ok. So Thank You Grandma Wadsworth for the slippers that are just now being appreciated.
Emeri's birthday is coming up in just over a week and she's the cutest ragga-muffin ever! Her hair is 98% of the time EVERYWHERE. I told Adam last night that her hair makes me think of this dude.To which Adam strongly disagreed. Granted this lil bat/rat is nasty lookin, but his frazzled fuzzy hair poking out at all angles is strangely the image Emeri is trying to mimic. I mean I understand lil' girls seeing Hollywood images and wanting to look alike, but really Emeri? Guess we'll have to put on more princess Disney movies, and less Star Wars. :)
What a Babe!

Newsies

Somehow out of the random assortment of videos Ephraim has seen Newsies has held a consistent favorite spot for quite some time. Maybe he's just a fan of Christian Bale cause he strangely asks to see Little Women a lot as well. The one where Christian Bale is Laurie.
Anyhow we purchased the music to it, cause he would always say "Newsies" when we ask at night what song he wanted us to sing. Cute kid. Anyhow here's a link to a video of him singing along. I'm still blogger handicap in embedding a youtube video and for some reason blogger won't upload my video. Anyhow enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rUpprOO5lE