Completely Caught Up

And now I COMPLETELY CAUGHT UP with my blogging. It feels SO nice, especially since I have been behind since before we moved, 7 months ago!!!!!! I think part of this catching up has to do with the fact that if I can't get caught up now, there is no chance after the baby is born.

You all know by now what a sucker I am for cute pictures of my kids and no doubt, there will be MANY super cute pictures of this new little boy soon enough. So, hopefully I can stay caught up now!!!

And now that I AM finally caught up, THIS LITTLE GUY IS WELCOME TO COME JOIN US ANY TIME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And not just because I am caught up on my blogging, but also so that he can get a name and we can call him something other than baby brother.

Let's all hope that TONIGHT is the night!!!!

Ethan was a little sad to see me when he got home from school today, he was hoping I would have been in the hospital having the baby. All three kids asked me tonight if I was going to be here in the morning?!?!? Do they know something I don't?????? I would more than OK with that.

I go to the doctor tomorrow morning, if I don't go to the hospital before then. I've been thinking today is the day for 3 days now, so I will not be surprised at all if I DO make it to my appointment in the morning!!!!

He's Almost Here....but not just yet

I know I am skipping way ahead. I am hoping to get caught up before the little guy actually gets here (today maybe?) But I just wanted to write a few things down before I forget them. I know I am always curious as to how my pregnant friends are doing, so just in case you are wondering how these final days are going; here goes.

This is me at 37 weeks.

For those who don't know I am not the type of pregnant woman who likes to be induced. Ethan came on his own, I was induced with Luke (only so we could move less than a week later and that was only 3 days early) I was set to be induced with Linz and she came the day before.

My doctor has said that he would induce me early as long as my body was ready enough for it. So, he set the date to be induced for Wed, Jan. 28th, TODAY. I was hoping that since Linz came the day before I was to be induced, this little guy would too.

Well, I woke up Tuesday morning at 2:30 a.m. with some pretty good contractions. They were very close together and about 20 seconds or so long. I thought, this is good, today just may be the day (the day before I was scheduled to be induced.) This continued for about 50 minutes. I remember thinking 10 more minutes and I'd get up and start getting things ready to go.

The next thing I know I am waking up and it is 4:30 in the morning. The contractions had stopped and I had gone back to sleep. I was kind of bummed that it wasn't the real thing, however I wasn't quite ready yet to have the baby on Tuesday - too much still to do at home.

I spent all day Tuesday getting stuff ready so that if I went into real labor early Wed. morning, I would be ready for the babe to come. I had a doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon. I thought for sure I would be at least at 2 cm now (I was at 1 cm 4 days ago.) Doc said the contractions didn't really do a thing, I hadn't dialated any more since the Fri. before. I still had the induction scheduled for the next morning, (this morning at 5:30 a.m.) I told him that I still didn't want to be induced yet and we canceled that induction. (I could have had a new baby boy RIGHT NOW had I been induced, yikes!!!)

I didn't sleep really well last night, not because of the contractions (because there weren't any) but because I kept waking up wondering when the contractions were going to start. I can't say that I even had one contraction last night that was in any way painful. Nor have I had any so far today. I am anxiously waiting for labor to start at any time now. I even tried shoveling the 2 inches of snow we got last night in the driveway, but to no avail.

So, here I sit, still pregnant and waiting. I'm sure my doctor and probably a lot of you think I am crazy and insane for not taking the opportunity to be induced early. I probably am nuts, but something about walking into the hospital at 5 in the morning, getting hooked up and the doctors and medicine doing all the work to get labor going just doesn't appeal to me. I know there are LOTS of women who love to be induced and more power to you, it is just not for me. Now, if I make it to my due date, and especially PAST my due date, I may have a different opinion about being induced. But for now I am waiting and anticipating feeling my body go into labor!!!!

Hopefully tonight will be the night, although I still have 5 days until my official due date. And who knows, maybe my next post will be to announce his arrival (oh yeah, we still need a name for our little guy. Baby brother just doesn't seem to be appropriate - that is what the kids have been calling him.) We are open to suggestions if you have any for us on names........

Luke is Student of the Week

Here is Luke with Sparky, the dog.

At the boys' school, each class has a student of the week each week. Luke got chosen for student of the week this week (the kids are chosen randomly and Ethan was the very first one in his class.)

Luke was SO excited when he got off the bus on Friday. He ripped open Sparky's bag and showed him to me and told me all about what he gets to do for being Student of the Week.

The Student of the Week gets to bring Sparky home for the weekend and has to take care of him and write in his journal everything Sparky got to do with their family for the weekend. I was hoping that Sparky would get to witness a newborn baby during his weekend at our house, but that just didn't happen.

We had a fun weekend with Sparky, he played Legos with Luke Friday night. He got to go to Ethan's basketball game Saturday morning, help us paint baby brother's room and even went roller skating with Luke Saturday night. Sparky wanted to go to church with us on Sunday, but we had to leave him in the car. He got to watch it snow all during church. He is a good dog and we had fun with him over the weekend.

Luke was SO cute with him. He carried Sparky around all weekend long and took great care of him. He included Sparky in everything we did from eating to reading scriptures and praying. We will miss Sparky but are extremely excited to welcome our own new addition to the family ANY DAY NOW!!!!!!!!

This is what Luke's Teacher found out about Luke for his Student of the Week:

Luke Noakes

My birthday is: August 18th

My Family includes: my mom, dad, Ethan, Lindsey, another baby boy

My favorite color is: blue

My favorite animal is: a zebra

My favorite book is: my animal book (that he got for Christmas - thanks grandma Noakes)

My favorite movie is: Star Wars

My favorite food is: macaroni and cheese

but please don't ask me to eat: peas

I like to wear: my basketball shirt

At school I like to: do work (that is a great thing to hear)

I would like to visit: Disneyland (I think this is what all the other kids say, so he now thinks he wants to go there too)
When I grow up I want to be a: basketball player

My wish is: for a real basketball hoop

Did you notice the same theme here that I did?????

It was very cute and fun to even learn a few things about Luke. Luke, you are ALWAYS MY student of the week (along with Ethan.)

Roller Skating

The kids have been roller skating in P.E. class at school during the month of January. They have LOVED every minute of it and have been begging to go skating. We tried to take them on Ethan's birthday, but they weren't open that day.

Luke's friend Gavin invited Luke to go skating with him today and he was kind enough to invite Ethan to come along too. The boys had a BLAST for 3 hours. Gavin's mom has helped out a few times during skating at school and she said that Luke was one of the best skaters in his class and she couldn't believe that he had never skated before. I was kind of worried about the boys being out there with so many big kids (they skated from 7-10 p.m.) but they did GREAT.

Luke was the smallest and probably the youngest one out there, but he is a GREAT skater. It was so fun to see them out there doing BIG KID things and I'm glad we were able to go do something that they have been wanting to do for weeks now.

We had tons of fun and we will DEFINITELY have to take them back another time soon.

Sorry about the blurry picture. This was the best one of Luke and Gavin. They LOVE to be silly together and this one captured their silly faces the best.

And here is Ethan with them.
I always feel bad when Ethan's friends ask him to do something or Luke's friends ask him to do something and the other one doesn't get to go. Up until now, they have basically had the same friends and whatever one does, the other does too. I guess now that they are both in school and are starting to have different friends, I need to get used to this happening. They are just so used to doing everything together, it is hard for one to see the other get to do something fun. So, I'm Ethan got to tag along this time.

Linz' 2nd, 3rd and 4th haircut

Nate's mom gave Linz her 1st haircut probably a year ago, really just a trim.

Linz' hair has been getting so long and was very uneven, so when the boys got haircuts a few days ago, I trimmed up Linz' ends. Yesterday I woke up to Luke telling me that Linz had cut her hair. I jumped out of bed to check out the damage. She cut one tiny little piece on the side of her head, not a huge deal.

We had a talk about cutting hair and that ONLY mommy or daddy gets to cut hair. So today, I wake up and when I walk into the kitchen I see several chunks of hair on the floor. Apparently she didn't cut enough yesterday and neede to trim a little more today. Even though she got several more chunks today, it still isn't too bad. I had to pull the cut hairs up so you can even see them.

Hopefully these will be her last haircuts for a while now.

Sorry about the face, this picture showed the cut hair the best, she just had a weird face in this one. You can see the cut hairs right at her chin line. See not horrible, but still not a good habit to start.

Prepare to be GROSSED out.....

Sorry you have to endure these pictures, but just for my sake in documenting this. Here I am at 38 weeks pregnant. I made Nate take a picture of my legs and feet because they are HUGE and I don't even recognize them anymore. Some days are worse than others, but even on the good days, my feet are larger than the very worst day with all three of my other pregnancies.

I have many pairs of shoes that I cannot even fit my feet into with this pregnancy - I have NEVER had that problem before. Hopefully it is ALL swelling and not just that I have gained so much weight my feet and calves are that much larger.

Ethan's 7th Birthday Party

Since we had Ethan's birthday in Idaho with family last year, this was his year to have a friends' birthday party. I let him choose the theme and he wanted a Sports Birthday Party. So, this is what we came up with.

This was his invitation - the front

and the back.
We decorated with a sports theme, so naturally Brutus had to be there to welcome all the guests to the party.

Here are my three buddies "sporting" their attire.








The Chief decorator getting the ball balloons ready.

Here are the finished ball balloons. I thought they were a fun idea and Nate did a great job making them. He thought it was cheesy. Several people have told me that their boys have loved these balloons. We had footballs, baseballs and basketballs.
Lunch ready to be served. We had stadium food of hot dogs, pop, chips, football and basketball jigglers, apples and carrots.
Here is the gang eating and getting ready for some fun.

These are the party favor bags all lined up and ready to be taken home. Just some fun sports stuff inside, stickers, candy, a ball whistle and a REAL baseball signed by the MVP of the day, Ethan.

Nate started off the party with a game of sports charades. The kids had to act out a sport for everyone else to guess.

Nate does such a great job of entertaining the kids and most of these game ideas were his. Here are the kids defending the "castle" they built while the other team tries to shoot it down with their nerf guns.

Then we played dodgeball, all the boys against Nate.

We also had bean bag catch - to see who could rack up the most catches in a row. It's too bad Ethan's birthday is in January, with a sports theme, we could have really had fun outside. I don't think the kids minded at all though, I really think they had a lot of fun.

The kids had had 2 snow days from school the 2 days right before the party, so we had 10 VERY active boys at the party. I think they were all excited to get out of the house and do something fun. Here they are doing the long jump. We got a little crazy with the long jumping. No one got hurt, I promise!!!

Here is Ethan with his cake(s.) I made 2 just in case. I wasn't sure how many kids just one would feed. We ended up only eating part of one cake. It worked out just fine because then we got to use the other cake on his "real" birthday 2 days later.

Blowing out the candles...I wonder what he wished for? I think I have a guess, you'll see later.

If I had to guess what he wished for it would be this right here. He got three webkinz for his birthday and he was in HEAVEN with them!!!!

We played "musical chairs" to open his gifts. We passed a ball around the circle and when the music stopped, the person holding the ball got to give Ethan their present.

Here is Ethan with his gifts from the party. He got lots of FUN stuff, including some money that he is anxiously wanting to buy ANOTHER webkinz with.

Here is a picture of all the kids at Ethan's party.

Collin, Alack, Isaac, Dallas, Chris

Luke, Ethan, Michael, Owen, Jameson

They are a great group of kids and we had a lot of fun with them for the afternoon.

We had all the kids sign their names on a ball when they got to the party. Ethan got to keep that ball as a souvenir from his 7th birthday party.

It was a great fun day!!!! My wonderful mother came up to help us the day of the party. I don't know how we have ever done parties without her before. She was such a HUGE help!!!! It was so amazing to have that one extra set of hands around. She cleaned up from lunch while we played games and then cleaned up the cake and ice cream while we did presents. She really saved me a lot of work.

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Then, when we went to exchange a webkinz, she had the whole house looking better than it did before the party started. It is SO wonderful to live close to my mom and have her be willing and able to help us out and celebrate our special days with us!!!! Thanks mom.

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These are the Thank Yous that we gave to each of the kids. I took their picture when they first got to the party and then Ethan wrote them each a note saying thanks for the gifts. It is also a fun way to have a nice picture of each of the kids that were at the party.

As if Ethan didn't get enough presents from his birthday party, my mom spoiled him with more presents that night, before she left to go back home (one of the benefits of living so close to grandma - a day trip is do-able.)

He LOVES this guitar and now wants to take guitar lessons.
Here is Ethan's wish come true, a huge pile of webkinz. Ok, well 2 of them are Luke's - but their webkinz had a fun get together after the party was over.

My Little Penguins

The kids have this new game that they like to play which involves wearing my and Nate's coats. Usually they just do this inside - they put on our coats and then just play around. They'll "hit" each other with the long sleeves, fall down a lot and just be goofy in HUGE coats.

They decided to see how this game would be outside on the ice covered deck. They even got Linz to join in also (she could wear Ethan's coat as her HUGE coat.)
Then, they decided they wanted to be seals. Here they are begging for their fish. They had so much fun sliding around the ice on the sleeves of their large coats.
It is always fun to see what cute, new games the kids come up with when they let their imaginations run wild. I am so glad they are such good friends and play so well together. Linz gets bored all day hanging out with just me, it is like she is in heaven as soon as the boys get home. (I guess maybe that will change here shortly when she and I have a new baby to take care of during the day.)

Ethan is such a good big brother

I snapped this picture of Ethan today and just wanted to write a little bit about him and how great of a big brother he is.

The boys don't start back to school until Thursday so they have been home a few more days.

Linz has been doing this thing where she'll sleep in her bed for an hour or so and then wake up from her nap. She is cranky and just wants to cuddle and usually falls back asleep if I hold her for a few minutes. Well, since Ethan was home today and he was doing some reading, I had him hold Linz while he read his book. Is this not the sweetest picture?!?!?!?

Ethan really is growing to be a great big brother. He certainly does his fair share of teasing and bothering his siblings, don't get me wrong. But truly he loves them and is SO good about doing (almost) everything I ask him to do. I have tried to start asking Luke and now Linz to do more, but inevitably Ethan is the one I still rely on the most to do things for me. He never complains and is such a good helper for me. (One reason it is sad to have him gone ALL day at school this year.)

Ethan is always good about helping Linz go to the bathroom or get her shoes and coat on. He helps her clean her room and has been really good about playing with her and letting her play with him. I'm so glad he loves his little sister and I hope they are always great friends.

I think I've written about this before, but while I'm on the subject, I should mention it again. Not only is Ethan good to Linz, he has been SO GOOD to Luke this school year. Luke has been doing much better about getting on the bus in the mornings, but everyone once in a while I still have to set him on the bus. Ethan is always right there to sit by Luke (and hold him on the bus while I run off.) There have been numerous times that we have missed the bus and so I have to take the boys to school. Luke usually doesn't want to get out of the car, and Ethan helps Luke get out and literally "prods" Luke all the way up to the school.

I don't know what I would do about Luke without Ethan. He is such a good sport and has been a huge blessing in our family. I hope he doesn't ever resent everything I make him do, but that he will be grateful for the opportunities he's had (by being the oldest) to learn and experience things later in his life.

Fun with Family

It was fun to hang out with my sister and her family. Linz loved being "mom" to Celeste.
And trying to make Celeste pose for pictures with her.

My sister and her family.

My mom and part of the grandkids.

My beautiful family.

We spent one afternoon making a gingerbread house.

We didn't actually get it all put together like a house, we just decorated all the pieces. The kids had fun with that though.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

On New Year's Eve, we took the kids to the Children's Museum. They had fun and got some energy out.

Grandma was so good with the kids. She let them each pick out a game to play and she played each game with the grandkids. This was the game Luke picked out, Chicken Limbo.

Wade picked Mr. Potato Head and he and Linz had fun "creating."

New Year's Even afternoon, we headed down to my house again to celebrate the New Year with my dad and my sister.

Linz and Wade had fun smelling my dad's oils OVER and OVER and OVER again. They were very cute.

We stayed up late eating lots of junk and playing lots of games. I think we all managed to stay up until midnight even (except Nate, I think he took a 10 minute power nap.) We celebrated the new year and headed to bed.

It was a fun night and is always good to be with family.