Long Lost Videos

Levi is now walking! I took some video of his first steps, and when I was downloading them found 2 months worth of videos, so here goes. I'll start with the walking one since it's the most momentous. Levi had taken several steps on a handful of occasions for 6 weeks now. We kept thinking he was extremely close to walking, but he wasn't quite ready. One day, he just decided he was ready and off he went. Since he already knew how to walk, he kinda bypassed the whole take 2 or 3 steps and fall down stage. He just went full speed ahead for 8-15 steps each attempt. From April 24th...

Next up is Levi learning to stand. He is so proud of himself. Filmed February 25th.


Here's a funny clip of the boys playing together. They don't play "together" very often. Usually Colt just takes Levi's toy and tries to replace it with something else. We are trying to work on this. However, they are actually playing catch and it's pretty cute.

The newest member...

Isn't he/she cute? We had a sonogram 2 weeks ago and the baby looks healthy. Praise the Lord! I was kinda worried it wouldn't be since I had run a marathon while I was pregnant, and drank lots of caffeine, and did other things you aren't really supposed to do during pregnancy, since I didn't even suspect I was pregnant for a while. But, the Lord has answered our prayers and has shown me once again that worrying won't add any days to my life.

Also, they gave us a sneak peak at the gender, but since it was so early on I am not rushing out to buy any pink or blue yet. The mistake diagnosis this early on can be quite high, so I'm waiting a few more weeks to start choosing names, bedding, etc. I recently have started feeling this baby kick, which I LOVE. And my energy is coming back, but I'm in the nasty habit of napping everyday when my kids nap, so now am having trouble falling asleep at night. Guess I gotta give up my naps for a while. Well, that's about all for now. Until next time!

And one more makes FIVE!

Let me tell you a story. Yes, this is a true story. One night, not too long ago, a very tired momma (me) was picked up by private van to attend an FDA study and have a night out with a friend. The study was for the Milkscreen strips (strips which tell you if your breastmilk has low enough alcohol content to feed your child). The Details: Milkscreen employees give the participants one alcoholic beverage per hour, then test pumped breastmilk for alcohol levels and the effectiveness of the Milkscreen strips. I was looking forward to spending the evening with a friend who I don't see often enough, plus the pay was $100 and I was helping a product that advocates breastfeeding! 

When I arrived at the study, my friend had not yet arrived. I filled out my paperwork and received the instructions. Then they sent us to the restroom to take pregnancy tests, as a precaution since they were about to serve us alcohol. As we are walking into the restroom, I say to the 3 strangers who are with me, "Here's hoping for no surprises!" I pee on my stick and immediately 2 lines appear. I think it's strange there are 2 lines, check the wrapping paper to see if there are any pictures of what a positive test looked like (I thought maybe a positive test would be 3 lines, but definitely NOT 2). However the wrapper was very clinical and had no words or pictures written on it. I didn't think anything of it, and walked out to the section of the restroom where the other 3 women were washing their hands. One woman says, "Oh, thank God I only had ONE line." I freaked out and said, "WHAT!?!?! I had 2 lines on mine!" They were in shock and one of the girls said, "Well then you're pregnant!" I was in TOTAL shock. My period had yet to return, which I didn't think much about since I had been training for the marathon, and obviously we weren't using birth control, but I still didn't think this was a real possibility. After a few minutes in the bathroom with these 3 strangers asking me questions and making sure I was ok, I went to tell the Milkscreen coordinator. I seriously thought the pregnancy test was wrong, so I asked them to give me another one so I could retest. Surprisingly to me, the 2nd test also revealed 2 lines immediately. This made me suspect I was fairly far along, but really I had no clue. 

So here I am at this study with 50 women participants. At this point I had texted Ty and asked him to come pick me up because I "didn't qualify for the study. The word is getting out that someone discovered they are pregnant. " As I waited in the hallway for him to come get me, all these women are walking up and down the hall. I overhear many comments: didn't she know how to use birth control? didn't she know breastfeeding isn't a form of contraception? how awful to find out you are pregnant here amongst a bunch of stangers? I'm so glad there were no surprises on MY stick, and on and on.

Anyway, the Milkscreen coordinators were really cool about the whole thing. While we were waiting for Ty they were chatting with me about parenting, and one of them ran around getting me $50 to compensate me for my time. They asked how I planned to tell Ty the news, and I was still in major shock, so I really had no idea. One of them suggested just asking him, "So why do you think I didn't qualify for the study?" I thought that was a simple enough sentence that I could spit out in my state of shock, so when Ty pulled up in the Expedition with Colt and Levi in tow, I climbed in the car. Ty started driving off and I spit out, "So why do you think I didn't qualify for the study?" He joked back, "You're pregnant." And I said, "YES!" Ty slammed on the brakes and we just sat there in the parking lot for a bit. I start crying, which confused and worried Colt. It's not that I wasn't happy about the news (I am), it was just hard to be so strong around all those 50 women and I was very overwhelmed, and so it was nice to finally share the news with my confidant and best friend. 

When we were finally calm enough to drive, we hopped on the highway in rush hour and drove to church for Wednesday night huddles. This was a great in that it gave us lots of time to process. Ty went through the typical male financial thought process ("We'll need a bigger car/house." "How are we going to afford this?") and I went through the more emotional process ("Why God? I can't handle this!") It took me about 3 weeks to come to peace with the idea of having our third kid so close in age to the other two. About 2 months prior, I had really been thinking about if we should get pregnant again now. After several thought sessions on this topic, the conclusion was always a resounding NO. I just didn't think I could handle having 3 kids 3 and under, as this last year has been pretty stressful just having 2. I guess God is going to show me otherwise! 

I scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN and found out I was already 8 1/2 weeks along! Due date is October 22nd. I was pregnant when I ran the marathon and didn't even know it. Since I've had very few and minor pregnancy symptoms, I wonder how much longer I could have gone without knowing I was pregnant, if I hadn't gone to the Milkscreen study. As of today, I'm 13 weeks along and out of the 1st trimester. Next week we go for another ultrasound, so I'll update with a new baby picture then and with details as this miraculous story continues! 

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Colt 2.5

Colt has been a hoot lately. This post is mainly a list of things I want to remember about this current stage of his life. He's such a joy to be around, well, most of the time - he still has bouts of the Terrible Twos when this little monster appears out of nowhere :)

Colt asks about 100x a day, "What's that sound?" Considering there are about 20 noises going on at once, this question is sometimes very difficult to answer. And he keeps pressing for an answer until the right noise is identified.

He is really into trains right now. He loves reading books about them, watching shows about them, etc. But he's also into all the other vehicles too: police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, airplanes, boats.

He loves saying the same prayer every night. "Dear God, Thank you for Malachi, M's mom, M's dad, M's b-day party. Thank you for Berkley, Owen Massey, Cooper..." and names several friends, and usually their mom and dad too.

Colt has figured out how to get the toy he wants from Levi. He'll run to get a "replacement" toy and will say, "Levi want play with book now" as he snatches the ball out of Levi's hand. Usually Levi doesn't mind too much, though it seems he's catching on and protesting a bit more now. Guess I need to step in as the parent and sort it out :)

He's started using 4 and 5 word sentences that are pretty fun to listen to. They sound so grown up coming out of his mouth. After you answer one of his questions, he'll respond, "oh." Always.

Much to my dismay, Colt recently stopped calling us Mommy and Daddy. We are now just plain old Mom and Dad. I really am grieving over this development.

He loves to play chase, shoot baskets, explore the backyard, crawl after Levi, go to school, get the newspaper with Daddy, ask for yogurt first thing every morning, and bake cookies.

We love our Colt!

Snow!

We had snow on Feb 23rd!! Colt's first memorable snow experience!

He had SO much fun playing in our backyard, making snowballs, throwing them at the house, running around making crunching noises in the snow.

And of course EAT the snow

Levi, on the other hand, was unsure about the cold.

Eventually he meandered onto the porch.

Only to break down crying out of sheer misery

and quickly return to the warmth and dryness of the house.

Molly loved the snow probably more than anyone. She kept running around the yard at super speed, then jumping onto the porch trying to push the snow in piles. Pretty funny.

For a few days afterwards, Colt kept asking "Where'd the snow go?"

Hopefully it'll come back next year!

I'm an old woman.

My 30th birthday recently came and went. It was a great day with lots of well-wishes, thanks to Facebook, and calls from the family. Ty woke up early and made me a breakfast of scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes. The boys and I went to a lunch playdate later in the morning. My friend, Andrea, made me a delicious cookie cake that looks totally professional, but yes, she made it completely herself. Makes me sick that I'm not talented like that ;) Such sweet friends to celebrate my 30th! We ate Texas Land and Cattle for dinner, but really went out to celebrate the next weekend with 8 friends at NXNW. I love extending the birthday celebration :)

They actually put 30 candles on the cake. YIKES! The first blow I blew out 27, so had to go back for the last 3. Look at that vein popping out of my neck... I was trying SO hard :) I love the look on Colt's face. He's so serious and a bit mad that I was blowing out the candles. He wanted to help I think. Anyway, entering into the 30s hasn't been so hard. I feel good, have accomplished what I've wanted to accomplish at this point, love my family, feel confident since the Lord is walking by my side and look forward to the future!