#4

We will soon become a family of 6!!! We are expecting our 4th child in March. My actual due date is 3/22/10, but all the others have been a few days early, so I'm hoping this one will be too.

Yes, we were planning it and, no, we aren't trying for a girl. Obviously I will be happy with whatever God chooses to give us, but I am actually kind of hoping for another boy. I'm not sure I would know what to do with a little girl!!

We might not find out the sex this time and just be surprised when he/she is born. We are still in "discussion" about it, but Chris really wants to wait, we found out with all the other 3 and this is definitely our last, so we probably will wait. I'm very nervous about not finding out (I mean what if it's a girl and we don't have anything for her), but I will just have to learn to relax and enjoy one of life's little surprises!

I haven't been feeling great lately, just a lot of nausea that lasts the majority of my waking hours and I'm tired a lot, but I'm 11 weeks now, so I'm hoping it will pass soon.

We are all very excited, especially the boys. They have been praying for another baby for quite some time now, so this is an answer to prayer for them!

"exhausted"

Brayden's first week of 1st grade went really well. He was excited to go every day and had fun while he was there. He really enjoys eating lunch at school since he only went half-day in kindergarten. He even got to get a hot lunch one day, and he really liked that!

Lunches have been actually easier than I thought. I made him a ham sandwich one day and he came home and said it was the "best sandwich he'd ever had!". Go figure. I think the more he's forced to eat stuff that he would've normally passed off without giving it a try, he might realize he actually likes it.


On Monday when I picked Brayden up he told me he was "exhausted" and that he needed to rest. He proceeded to pretty much just lay around the rest of the evening till bedtime. The rest of the week, he didn't lay around as much after school, but he definitely was ready for an earlier bedtime.

6 years old

Six years ago today, I officially became a mommy! I have loved the journey, I just can't believe I have a 6 year old!

1 week old

1 year old

2 years old

3 years old

4 years old

5 years old

6 years old

This weekend we celebrated with Brayden having a couple of friends over for a dinosaur party. This was his first "friend" party, so he was pretty excited. They ate some hot dogs for lunch, then played a little. Then they enjoyed some cake (and got frosting everywhere!) and opened presents.

Happy 6th birthday Brayden!!!!

Back to school

Brayden starts 1st grade today. I can't even believe he is old enough to be going to school all day -- I will miss him. He is super excited -- he wanted to wear his backpack all morning and pack his lunch at 6:15 this morning.

Lunches -- that will be a challenge. Brayden isn't much of a sandwich eater, kind of a picky eater all around. I'm sure we'll figure it out, but if anyone has any really good lunch ideas, I'm all ears!

One cool dude

Camping out

I would never choose to sleep on the hard floor in my sleeping bag with my head uncomfortably propped up on an overstuffed Nemo, but to Brayden and Logan, it was a blast!

Lakeside fun

This year, for the summer reading program at our local library, they gave out free passes to Lakeside Amusement park, which has a little kids area with rides just right for the boys. They gave this out last year and we didn't go because I always had the impression that Lakeside was kind of ghetto and filled with gangs. (Now that I've been there, I realize how dumb this impression was, but now I know!) Actually last year this place near us called Heritage Square gave out free unlimited ride passes and so we went there. It was really fun, so I was hoping they'd do the same thing this year, but they only gave 5 free tickets (which is enough for like one ride). We weren't about to make the trip just to ride one ride, so they didn't earn our business this year, how lame!

Anyway, back to Lakeside. When we first got there, we had just barely gotten the boys' wristbands for the rides and gotten in line for a ride when it just started pouring rain. We waited under a shelter till it was done raining and then one of the guys that worked there came in and said they were going to wait till 5:45 to start the rides up again (it was 4:15 then). So we left and went and got some dinner and came back, just to find out that pretty much as soon as we left they ended up starting up all the rides right away. Oh well.

The boys had such a good time, they didn't even want to leave when it was getting late and we had been there for a while. The rides were perfect for them and even Preston could ride on all but one of them. We will definitely go back next year!

Bad habits

The other day, Chris was teasing me that I was teaching the boys some bad habits. Things like spitting their gum on the ground if there was no trash can close by or putting an item back on the nearest shelf in the store instead of back where it goes. Or this......
....letting Preston eat his snack while sitting on the counter!

Brayden's baptism

Brayden was baptized at church yesterday! It was very special to watch him follow the Lord with that important step and desire to be obedient to His Word. He accepted Jesus about two years ago, but had never been baptized. At church about a month ago, Brayden was able to see quite a few people being baptized and started asking us questions about it. Once we explained it to him, he was very eager to be baptized himself and show everyone that he was a Christian!

When asked why he was coming to be baptized, Brayden said, "Because I want to show everyone that I love Jesus and that He is the one and only God. And I have a verse: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life." I was so proud of him, he came up with that answer all on his own and he really believed what he was saying. Tears came to my eyes as I watched him be baptized, knowning that he is following God the best way a 5-year-old can and that he really loves Jesus!

My prayer for each of my children is that they grow to love Jesus and follow Him and I am so glad that Brayden has made this decision at such an young age!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our staycation

We have had some really good family time these past couple of weeks. This summer seemed kind of short because Chris had a class that took up 4 weeks. After that, though, we made up for time by doing some fun things around here. We went to Focus on the Family one day and up to swim at Glenwood Springs another. We've done some shopping for school stuff and gone to the park a few times too.

I didn't take hardly any pictures because I just wanted to enjoy the time as a family instead of worrying about a camera and trying to get good pictures.

I am very sad that Chris goes back to school next week. I have already started watching my niece again, so that kind of limits what we can do during the day, but we hope to do one or two more fun things a family!