Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for make believe and magic. Its kind of fun to see how excited our kids get when they can figure out some kind of pretend play regarding their favorite characters. Here Lyman displays his own invention of a Jedi costume.
Here is a cute picture of the kids and the Jack-O-Lantern that we made as a family for FHE. Both kids were weary of the slimy stuff inside the pumpkin which was funny. Lyman had the idea to do a bat. Take notice of "Fred" our pet ghost that stands watch over our house when we are not there. The kids like to say goodbye to him every time we go somewhere and Andy hates the thing. I think he is cute.

Lyman was a transformer for Halloween (our church party was last night) and Corilynn was excited to be a princess. She was assigning people she saw to be her dwarfs so she could be their "mommy".

Andy and I dressed up as Bella and Edward from the fourth book of the Twilight series. It was so funny and Andy's costume came out so well. You cant tell because these pictures were taken under fluorescent lighting but under regular light you you can see his skin sparkles. I put a very fine glitter on his skin over the white makeup and it was so fine that even a foot away under regular lighting it looked like his skin naturally sparkled and you couldn't see the glitter. It was soo cool looking. Andy told Lyman as he watched me put the make up on Dad that he was letting me do this because he loved me. Husbands do silly things for their wife because they love them.

I had a horrible brown wig (the only one that came in the right color that I could find was an awful mullet one) and of course my bio-hazard beverage. Here is a picture of me at 35 weeks though. I am beginning to explode. I wish my pregnancies were as short as Bella's. Id be done long ago if they were.

We have done a lot of fun things together as a family lately - Halloween parties, pumpkin carving and tomorrow we take off for Columbus to spend the night down there and have a weekend outing as a family designed around an outing to the temple there. I am thankful the funny moments we have had together as a family.

Thankful Thursday

Yesterday I got some good news which I thought would have to be today's Thankful Thursday. I am thankful that at my doctor's appointment yesterday the midwife confirmed that the baby is no longer breech but is head down. If you are not familiar with uterus lingo- breech equals bad. Essentially the baby is in any other position than the one that would make for an easy delivery - that being head down position. Most babies are head down by this time in the pregnancy because there is so little time left, the baby has much less room to move around and the head down position is usually the most comfortable position considering the shape of the uterus etc. At my 32 week appointment the baby had his/her head in my ribs which was not good. Even though there is still some time and room left for the baby to flip, I learned only 25% of babies at 32 weeks are still breech. I got a little worried because a breech birth (which equals OUCH) or a scheduled c-section (which equals OUCH plus bad recovery plus 15 times the residual pain) was not on my playbook. I did all that I could to encourage the baby to flip by sitting, angling myself in various positions that according to my thorough google search encouraged breech babies to get with the program.

Late that night 2 weeks ago I felt the baby doing some crazy acrobatic flips in side and it hurt a lot - but I imagined it might be trying to flip to heads down since I was feeling a lot of discomfort on the sides of my abdomen as if it was being stretched outward as a baby who didn't fit sideways tried to be sideways. So I used my hypnobirthing relaxation techniques to stay relaxed and let it happen. From then on I have felt the baby must be head down because I feel the little rhythmic hiccups it has are felt really low by my hip bones. Which by the way, I love to feel. Of all the things you experience in pregnancy - feeling a baby have the hiccups inside you makes you melt and hug your tummy because you cant wait to hold that little body in your arms next time it has the hiccups because everyone knows that babies with hiccups are the cutest thing in the world.

I feel so grateful that the baby did flip itself around - It makes me feel that much closer to the end. I prayed about it and decided to put my trust in the Lord about it. The baby is in the right position, I am getting practice contractions, I have 6 weeks left (which is totally nothing) and now the baby is big enough inside me that I can easily recognize body parts like bums, legs, feet and back from the outside. This is an exciting time in our house.

Before I finish I must make a side comment (totally unrelated to the rest of the post) about how exciting it is that the New Moon movie comes out soon. Yeah for handsome, romantic, mythical creatures!

Un- BEE- lievable!

I got stung by a bee today! I am so irritated by it I feel like stomping my feet and throwing a tantrum. I haven't been stung by a bee since I was like 8 yrs old. This sort of thing is only supposed to happen when you are a kid right? I mean adults know not to swat at bees, or do stupid stuff around bee-hives - we simply walk away and leave them alone. All I did was fold my arms around my son's jacket (which apparently was the bee's hiding place) and zap! Argg! Bees and I, we had an agreement - they don't sting me and I wont publicly defame them all over the Internet. Well deals off bee kingdom! Man it hurts like crazy and although I'm not allergic enough to have serious problems I do swell up quite a bit and .... errrggg - I'm just mad about it. My whole arm stings and feels like its got a fresh bruise. Well all I can say is this - I hope that little flying Span of the Unholy died for his breech of contract.

Fireman Lyman

On Lyman's birthday he got to go to the fire station in town with a class field trip. He was especially excited to get to wear his new fireman rain boots that he got for his birthday. This post is a bit late but I forgot my camera that day (grrrr - I hate when I do that) and I had to wait to get these from another Mom at the field trip.

Thankful Thursday!

Fall in Ohio is just breathtaking. I am so grateful for the beautiful variation in color we see with all the trees here. I love seeing it all when I go driving on some menial errand. It definitely brightens my day. I took some pictures a few days ago so that I could have some of my favorite views on the computer. Everyday the colors are getting brighter as more trees start to turn.

Happy Birthday Lyman!

Happy Birthday Lyman! Today is Lyman's birthday capping off a great weekend of festivities. Presenting Interview With a 5 Year Old
What day is it today? "I don't know. Oh my birthday!"
What happened to you on this day 5 yrs ago? "We went to Disney World, right?" "Oh I was in your tummy and then I came out and then I grew this big and now I am five."
What is the coolest thing about being 5 yrs old? "It takes the whole hand." (when you show how old you are)
What do you want to be able to do this year? "Well am I stronger now? Cause when you are five you are stronger from being four."
What are you going to miss about being 4 yrs old? "I don't know cause in the list in my brain there is zero" (ideas)
What is your favorite color? "Blue"
What is your favorite movie? "Indiana Jones"
What is your favorite thing to eat? "Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches"
Who is your best friend? "Bowen"
What do you like to do the most? "Do five year old stuff now. Like being a big boy."
What do you want to tell the world about being five? "The world cant hear me, it doesn't have any ears."

At Lyman's Costume Birthday Party we had a fun time doing our "Costume Parade" up the street a few houses and back. Lyman leads the pack in his Hulk costume.
Then each kid got to color and design their own superhero cape to take home with fabric markers. Yes I did sew 17 superhero capes and yes it did take a long time.
Lyman had a big group of friends at his birthday party. The guest list included: an athlete, a ninja, a fairy, an angel, Tinkerbell, Superman, a train operator, a construction manager, Madeline, a jockey, and a Power Ranger.
Lyman gets to blow out 5 candles on his cupcake cake. Who knows what he wished for.
Commentary from Mom: Lyman loves to play make believe dress up. His favorite characters are a doctor's outfit, Indiana Jones, Luke Sky walker, the Hulk, Transformers and Pirate. He loves going to preschool and will write me love notes for me to find in his backpack afterwards - "I love Mom, From Lyman". Lyman loves to do math problems. He is good at adding single digits up to 10, but especially likes doing subtraction cause "they are harder". Sometimes he can do multiplication on smaller numbers. He can write and recognize all his letters and can read some words. He will ask how to spell any word he doesn't know. He loves to play with his dad as soon as he is home from work and their favorite activities are soccer, light sabers (glow sticks with the lights off), and Indiana Jones with his father - Dr. Jones. Lyman 100% loves to play with his sister and mostly because she will play anything he wants to do. He likes to dress her up as a pirate or Indian. She usually plays the bad guy in their schemes. In the morning he has taken to greeting her like Mom does with a "Good morning, Baby Girl!." With his mom, Lyman is always the gentleman. He loves to open the doors, reach things that are low, hold her hand, snuggle her and give her spontaneous hugs. He also will do almost any little errand around the house for her if she asks including gathering and bringing down the laundry from upstairs. He always compliments her and tells her that she is pretty.

We couldn't imagine life without Lyman and cant believe it has already been 5 yrs since he joined our family. Happy Birthday Lyman, we love you!

Thankful Thursday!

This is one thing I have been wanting to post for Thankful Thursday for a while. A few weeks ago Andrew put up the baby crib in Corilynn's room. Just having it out after such a long time of not seeing a crib reminded me that I'm going to have something little to put in it there soon. I am so thankful that he put it up because it has caused such excitement and anticipation for me to see all the "little tiny" things waiting for their "little Tiny" to arrive. We also bought a new mobile (Lyman destroyed our old one and Corilynn went without).

See the tiny newborn diaper! Smaller than my hand and to think it will be HUGE on the new baby when he/she is born. Little bums are the cutest bums in the world.

We started a tradition with Lyman that we give each of our kids their own special soft toy in the form of some animal that originates from Africa. It started when Lyman's Aunt Cheryl got him a little stuffed Rhino when he was just a little baby. Since we then we bought a few cute little African animals we saw at the store 3-4 yrs back for the rest of our kids (not knowing how many we would have.) Corilynn got a stuffed Elephant because she was a whopping 9 lbs 1 oz. at birth and an avid eater from then on. This baby has been granted the monkey soft toy because he/she is a little trapeze artist inside me - bouncing around and moving all the time and I've felt the baby move 3 weeks earlier than with my other two. Notice the cute little belly button on the monkey- that is Corilynn's favorite feature of her Elephant.

Each of our kids also get to have their own brand new coming home from the hospital outfit. Since we don't know the gender of this one we went with a gender neutral yellow and green outfit. Its got duck feeties which are super cute and a fun little smock shirt with all kinds of animals on it. To show its size - I placed it next to monkey. Its hard to believe they come out so tiny. Even this outfit sized at "newborn" will be huge on the baby for probably 2 weeks.

And since the baby is going to be looking cute at the hospital I decided to make myself a little dress to wear during labor. Those hospital gowns are horrible and you have to wear two since they open in the back. I thought this little dress would work just fine for during labor and then Ill look and feel cuter than a heifer in a barn.
I am thankful for the little preparations I can justify in my mind to do now because the time is counting down. I have 8 weeks left and all my Drs appointments are scheduled, family members coming in to help during/after the birth have booked their flights, and both my plastic storage bins labeled "Girl 0-3 mo." and "Boy 0-3 mo." are out of storage and ready to be utilized depending on the gender. We also have finally picked the two names out! I am so excited about these names that I am afraid that if I have a boy then Ill be sad not to get to use the girl name and if I have a girl then Ill be sad not to get to use the boy name. And as much as I am DYING to announce our name choices -we have decided to wait until the birth to do that too. (I know we are such jerks aren't we!) This way the gender is announced by announcing the name. ie. "Welcome Janet Reno Mackrory!" :) JK

Corilynn translates for her toys

Corilynn has invented a gibberish language that her favorite soft toy, "Elephant" speaks. She now will jabber to us something (in his voice) and then translate what he said. Usually the translation is "Mommy, mommy, I love you" (she is his mommy) or something along the lines of a need like sleeping, eating or going potty. Its pretty funny to us to see her invent this language. Also if she finds any soft toy in the house she will adopt it as her own new baby ____ (insert kind of animal here). She is either going to be a very loving mother someday or a very affectionate veterinarian.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for the funny things my kids do and say. This week alone they have been so funny and entertaining with the little workings of their brains that I have really been very entertained. The best part is that they are often not trying to be funny by being silly but they are simply playing make believe or thinking over the things of life like Lyman did yesterday when he asked me plainly, "What part of the chicken does the nugget come from?" My kids are stinkin' awesome! I love to see their little brains work and figure things out. Corilynn loves to talk with her hands - and emphasize things when she says it is "welly impotant" (really important). I am really the luckiest Mom in the world because my kids are not only cute and brilliant but they are affectionate and lively.