Our 4th Child

So finally a post about me being pregnant with our 4th child. This pregnancy for the most part has been pretty good and uneventful. We at least the first 7 1/2 months were. I am very grateful that things are going pretty smoothly amid all the other chaos in our life the past several months. The pregnancy has flown by. My due date is October 19th and it is another girl. I have to admit I never imagined having 2 daughters much less imagining 3 daughters. It will be fun.
For history sake I am going to post about finding out the gender of this 4th child. It is kind of a long story but here it goes. We debated for weeks on if we would find out the gender or let it be a surprise on delivery day. I really wanted to wait but realistically wasn't sure I could do it. I am too much of a planner. The day of the ultrasound came and we had decided to have the technician determine the gender and right it on a piece of paper put it in an envelope and give it to Preston who would put it in our safe at home until the day we (I) decided to find out. During the actual ultrasound we closed our eyes during the time she was observing gender area. Ultrasound was finished and the tech hands ME two CD envelopes. I put them in the bag and go to the restroom. Preston goes out into the waiting room with the kids. While Preston is taking Natalie to the restroom I decide to look at the ultrasound pictures that I was handed. (Every other time I have had an ultrasound with this practice they give me a disk of all the pictures and some printouts) So I pull out the pictures from the unsealed envelope that the technician handed to ME and after the first picture is a post it note that has GIRL written on it. I am SHOCKED to say the least that I just saw what I did and that it did indeed say GIRL. I shove the picture and paper back in the envelope and try to convince myself that I did not just see the gender while sitting alone in the waiting room. So not how I planned to find out what our 4th child's gender was. But I couldn't undo what happened and so I confessed to Preston that I knew. I decided that to make it special for the rest of the family at least I would go buy girl things at the store and wrap them up for the kids and Preston to open and reveal what gender the baby was. So here they are waiting for their presents.

Revealing their presents. Preston was a little shocked. Judging by my behavior he really thought it was a boy. Nathan and Taylor (mostly Nathan) were disappointed to not be getting a little brother. It was a shock to us all but overall we are all just very happy that she is healthy and well and are excited to have her join our family. We joked before we found out that no matter what the gender we knew what the baby would look like since we seem to have only one mold for our kids. What do you expect when the gene pool is a gene pond. :-)

I have only taken 2 pregnancy pictures. Like I said before this pregnancy is flying by amid all the chaos. I am 24 weeks in this picture.

34 weeks. Most people are shocked when they here how far along I am. This is one of the advantages of being 6 feet tall that my mom always told me about when I was so annoyed with towering over all the boys through most of my school years.

June 2011

Well we had a fun and HOT June this past summer. Preston's family was evacuated from Eagar for a week due to the Wallow fire threatening the town. Very fortunately all ended up being fine with their homes but it was a huge fire and at times very intense. The fire hit literally too close to home for them. While they were here we took advantage of the cousin time. One of the days we went to Encanto Amusement Park.

They had a ride that was similar to the Tea Cups at disneyland that I did not go on.

Ryan and Taylor on the airplanes.

Natalie Nathan and Daniel on the jeeps.

Taylor and Ryan on the mini dragon roller coaster.

Nathan and Daniel on a ride that is similar to jumping jellyfish at California Adventure Park.

Andrea with the kids on the carousel. I was glad to have Andrea and Stephen there to take my kids on the rides that I couldn't go on pregnant.

Ryan Taylor and Natalie with a pilot salute.

A train ride that went around the park.

Taylor and Ryan playing in the castle equipped with soaker guns. This was great to get wet because it was HOT that day.

We welcomed a new cousin on June 14th. Bethany June. Seeing the kids around this little girl was a major realization as to what our little family will consist of in the coming weeks.

Preston turned the big 35 in June.

We also went to a Dbacks game while the cousins were in town. The kids all got a free ticket voucher through the summer reading program. We took advantage of the free tickets and very discounted tickets for the adults.

Aren't we a good looking couple? :-) The guy in the white shirt behind us makes me chuckle.

Natalie entertaining herself with my ipod touch.

She spent a lot of the last part of the game going up and down the stairs.

We also all went out to dinner at Famous Dave's to celebrate Father's Day while the family was in town. Taylor loves the pig.

Preston with his birthday ice-cream at Famous Dave's

Father's Day 2011. The last Father's Day with only 3 kids.

So as you can see we have done a lot of fun things even though I haven't blogged about them all. At least I took the pictures, that is a bit of a miracle all in itself.

4th of July weekend 2011

We normally go to Eagar for 4th of July but this summer was VERY different from any other. We had home repairs that needed to be done to get the house ready to rent and also many others things to get ready to move. Preston took advantage of the 3 day weekend since the 4th fell on a Monday and the lock shop was closed. His brother Kendall came and helped lay tile in our kitchen on Saturday the 2nd.

My brother and his family took care of our kids for most of that Saturday so I could paint while the boys laid tile and not worry about kids being bored or under foot or wanting to "help". We were in demolition mode for quite a few days. Our table and microwave were in our family room. Our stove was in the entryway, etc. etc.

On Monday the 4th Preston took a break from laying tile and went to see Transformers 3 with Nathan. While the boys were at the movie I took Taylor shopping for new school clothes and we went to Cold Stone for some ice-cream.

The evening of the 4th we went to my older brother's house for a BBQ/ swimming and fireworks. It is kind of cool that some fireworks are legal in our state now. My brother put on a pretty cool show.

Natalie is still not a fan of the loudness of fireworks.

We left my brothers and met up with Preston at a place by our house that was doing a big fireworks show. We ended up leaving early because the kids were bored. We figure we were there for them so if they didn't want to be there we would head out early and beat the traffic.

After we got home Preston went back to work on the tile and went to be about 3 in the morning. So like I said not our normal 4th of July weekend. Hopefully next year will be better.

2011 School year begins

Taylor at meet the teacher. Nathan at meet the teacher.

The kids started school on Monday July 25th. Nathan started 4th grade and Taylor started Kindergarten. Because it was Taylor's first official first day of school she got to pick the breakfast. Her choice was waffles with strawberries and cool whip.

It is a good thing we have 2 red plates at our house for occasions that require 2.

Nathan was so proud that everything matched including his shoes and backpack.

Taylor picked out this shirt at Kohl's and from that moment we knew what her first day of school outfit was going to be.

First we walked Taylor to where the Kindergartners play before school starts.

Then we walked Nathan to his side of campus. We stayed with him until the bell rang. This was a bit of a hard day, I cried most of the way back to the car. Because we were moving a couple weeks into the school year we started the kids at the new school from the very first day. It was harder for Nathan because most of the other 4th graders knew each other from the previous year and were excited to get to see each other again. Nathan on the other hand was the new kid and was a bit nervous about it all. I think I was more nervous about how the other kids would treat him than he was. He ended up making friends in class and at recess and is enjoying school. He is a great kid and outgoing which allows him to make friends.

We are well into another year of school. We have been impressed with the new school.