We made it home on Tuesday around 5:00 pm and have been so glad to be in our own place. It has been either raining or snowing ever since we got back, but it has been working out pretty well. Archer is adjusting to his new surroundings and is adored by his brothers and grandparents.
As far as everybody else we are all recovering well from the time away from home and at the hospital. We were so glad to get out of there, we asked them to get us out early so we could beat the weather home as much as possible. Since baby and Mommy were doing so well, they had no objections. Yay!
And if you hadn't already heard about the delivery, it went really fast and easy. Hooray for natural birth that goes according to plan! I am barely feeling the effects of it. The lack of sleep at the hospital wore us out more than anything else.
how many people get to cut down a christmas tree from their front door anymore! the first tree we inspected was the perfect sized cedar growing in a cluster. making memories AND making room for forest growth at the same time. not to mention saving money. bonus.
lessons in how to drag a christmas tree
the first snowfall dec 13, a super fun morning- ok, now let's go build a fire
take a picture of us! ronan's cheesy smiles where he wrinkles his nose and squares his lips are hilarious. and he will hold it for as long as you need to take the picture. you can tell where the smile starts to become fake, but he still holds it.
our top favorite suggestions: kahn, ör, wells, cy, and didymus. i wouldn't be surprised if one of these became our name choice. thanks for the awesome ideas everyone.
now that we are down to the wire-week 36 this coming sunday-
i am starting to feel the pressure of getting things done.
so i assembled ronan's toddler bed (thanks again, kate) to figure out how the three beds will fit into the little room we have for the boys
this started a big round of musical furniture:
toddler beds kicks out big green recliner,
recliner moves to bedroom as it is this mother's other-well more like primary-sleeping arrangement
recliner kicks dresser to closet, which fits only if closet weren't overrun with cans of food storage
food storage goes under bed which is now fully reassembled (thanks again, mark)
storage cabin must now also be rearranged and cleaned up for sake of said dresser to fit in said closet because moving said food storage is still not enough space in the right place
so i am completely stumped. mark is too, and he has given it up to me to decide which middle name to give to our third boy. i have searched and searched and thought and thought. maybe there are some suggestions out there for me? opinions? help!
things i want in a name that are slowing me down:
our other boys' names are--Odin Taft and Ronan Ash, what in the world could match the style of our family names and still sound cool with the name Archer, which we have selected for this next one?
the other boys' middle names are one syllable. i like how it has worked so far, so do i want to keep up the pattern?
and if i REALLY want to stick to a pattern that has emerged, then i must limit the total number of letters in first and middle names to eight. that leaves me only two letters for a middle name. without making up a name (which i really don't want to do) or sounding totally lame, what two letter name options do i have that still sound good? probably none.
so at this point i am seriously considering using just an initial, which actually has fowler family history, but i wonder if the child will feel ripped off. where is the rest of the name? i could take an initial and spell it out as it sounds, but that seems then like a real name and not just an initial. it loses the family connection as its purpose for being used and then i might as well just pick a name at that point and not go with initials.
but then that takes me back to just picking out any old name, i would like it to have some connection. for example, Taft is where mark's family lived when he was born. Ash is a shortened version of Ashby, a family name-not to mention a totally cool name and a great character from a movie trilogy that some of you might know.
i think i have made my point as to how come we are stumped. so ANY suggestions? i need an awesome name to get me out of these hold-ups that are slugging my brain for ideas.
fat foot! we caught that long-toed weapon aiming straight up just before it got me in the gut.
so we are at 32.5 weeks. so far so good, even my nasty pregnancy varicose veins are chillin' right now, at least they aren't bothering me. i am crossing my fingers for no carpal tunnel this pregnancy. i think it was louisiana heat that did it last summer. what do you think. to make all good for this last trimester all we need is to get our bed frame put back together. a mattress on the floor is no fun to get up and out of. i think we have all the parts found again from the disassembling we did last winter to get it into the loft.
we aren't in a loft this winter, we moved it to a third cabin where we have TWO rooms and a closet for all of us. it is warm enough with a space heater at night. other than 'are we ready for this baby' the question i should be asking is..WHAT have i DONE? a baby in the middle of winter living in a bunch of cabins at the camp!? we enjoy adventure and spontaneity, but i think i have really set us up for a lot of it this year.
so i pulled out my camera to use it. my view screen was all funky and i couldn't see a stinkin' thing. rats. ok kids let's take a picture anyway...snap, snap, snap, but i felt all weirdly stunted because i couldn't see what i was photographing. oh wait, i have a view finder, but did that even cross my mind? nope. i felt like i was holding a camera for the first time and didn't know what to do with it.
have i become so technology dependant that without my magic screen i can't remember back to even just five years ago, how i used to snap pictures-with a little a window and a little more anticipation during development to find out what my pictures were? ah, the good ol' days of paying 60 cents for double prints of a cruddy picture.
none of the kids knew what was going on, they kept waiting for the "cheese!", but all i said was "ack!" with each snap. because for sure the thing was gonna pop and fizzle in my hands!
i love the looks i kept getting from the older kids, and the final goof from liffy in the middle.
lauren, i wish i could have gotten a more functional picture of you on your baptism weekend, but we are so happy and excited for you. i love the photos your mom and dad have, those are the ones that matter. best wishes to you and all the new things you will get to experience as a member of the lord's true church! congratulations again! we love you so much!
just a quick pic of the boys in their halloween costumes. ronan was a ghost. he loved his costume, made from a funky black shirt i found in mark's drawer and frayed cheese cloth plus a little white face paint. odin was pleased to finally get to be a pirate for halloween.
avast, what have we here? a treasure chest! filled with goodies, no less.
so odin is going to be a pirate for halloween. we've been having pirate golden deviled eggs, pirate chip pancakes, tri-corn hat sandwiches. you know, the usual.
so i made that costume, i am so proud of myself. i haven't sewn anything in ages. i reworked a pajama shirt of mine to be his pants and the vest is from scraps of upholstery from our new comfy bench. we made the eye patch and found that belt and bandana. so we spent a whopping $1.99 for a cool sword. i couldn't go for a foil wrapped sword, not when the rest of the costume looked so AWESOME!
do YOU think it was time? This is the first pass with the sander and boy, it made me feel good.
this is the new look to our floor, please compare. it is fantastic! i repainted the walls at the same time. that made a monster difference too. i finally feel CLEAN in the kitchen. we are now accepting visitors.
mark got tickets to cobb's ranch from his co-worker, lee, whose band was going to be playing the atmosphere music for the festivities. we had a blast! watching lee's band is great, they are the epitome of eighties wannabe rockers and it is such a kick to see them playing their hearts out and having a good time. never got a good picture of them, rats. brad, it is fun to see your drums again.
the corn maze is a 2 mile long trip, that can take up to 2 hours for the less direction abled, but there is a halfway point of exit for which i was very grateful to hear. so after a bathroom trip for me we were off. no way that pregnant me was going to enter a corn maze and need a toilet.
here is odin in the lead, he took us to the half-way point in only half an hour. what a kid.
the best part of the bounce house-no one else was using it so the boys got their money's worth of it. ronan is a great jumper, he practices all the time.
oh yah, ronan is loving it.
a little slide action along with sandbox fun, horse tire swings and buried tractor tires and we are ready to head home. super kid friendly place.
so today, the camp will be making its third run to the SPCA since monday. dad started it off with the tom. since sunday we discovered two more kittens and a momma cat. we caught and delivered the momma cat yesterday and last night we caught the adolescent male that has been lurking over by mom and dad's. only two more kittens to go. we think. they might put us on some kind of permanent watch file over there at the SPCA. we might be delivering the neighbor's cats!he is very pretty. we have no idea if he is nice, he is too scared. i am afraid to let him out of the trap to test it. he isn't staying either way, so we'll let someone else tame him.
it has been very busy in this little household. not only with new things happening but also with little boys sprouting all kinds of silliness and fun. so i have decided to just make a mega entry.
first of all, mark has been busy selling things on craig's list so that we could have a few things happen here. we had wanted to go on a holiday for our anniversary but it just wasn't panning out like we hoped. thanks to a lucky sell in just enough time, we managed a weekend getaway that involved a little bit more than staying at home and squeaking through the trees to keep the boys from seeing us at home from my folks' place up the way. so we made it all the way to fresno instead. we had the best time-we knew where everything was, we went to our favorite restaurant, tried a new one that we had been eyeballing, saw a few movies and stayed in a fantastic hotel-all just an hour away! i highly recommend a vacation in your home town!
so on to the silliness and fun of this month, in no particular order:
my favorite odin line of the week: ummm, mommy, can you clean up all the toys and i will sit down on the couch and watch you do it, um, all by yourself?
first we have odin doing his version of the incredible hulk as taught to him by mark, mixed in with a skeleton cross-eyed face.
the inevitable has happened: a kitten has been found at the camp and is now our new adopted pet. my mom and dad had just that same day set out a trap for an adolescent kitten that they want to tame. instead they caught a tomcat that has been harassing our cat thibodeaux. my dad took the tom to the SPCA, he is a stray that has been too much around anyway. mark found this little cat behind our freezer, it wasn't even on the list of to-be-caught's yet. a lucky discovery. ronan in mark's shirt, i didn't feel like walking to the bedroom cabin just yet so he got to wear this after his bath. we tied it up in the back and odin thought it was hilarious. i asked odin to walk ronan to grandma's house, they walked hand in hand the whole way! kitten getting the thorough veterinary inspection, courtesty of dr. ronan pike. his orifices are clean. this is the cheese i get every time i say 'smile'. ronan got a haircut, so i had to document that. he looks so sharp! by the way, he has officially made 20.5 pounds. a big deal for him. enjoying wallace and gromit one of the other new additions to camptime fun is this go kart that mark picked up through craig's list after selling a different vehicle the day before. he has been wanting one for a long time. we figured we should get it before it got too snowy up here. pre-christmas for mark.
odin 'helped' mark fix the brakes and the seatbelts on the go kart. he was sooo cold! the first night that kitten stayed we kept him wrapped up. kitten claws! he is very good about everything now. he sits on my shoulder and sleeps on odin's lap. very sweet. odin named him "kitten", he is still so original with his naming.... my dad's half-sister judy stayed for a visit. they enjoyed some mario kart at our place. bugles, we buy them for the finger stacking fun. well, the boys got a kitkat at the grocery checkout. that kid had a blast with his treat. it was so cold the day we brought the go kart home. icy cold. it had been nearly 100 degrees earlier that week. sent all of our skin into shock. odin made a puppet out of one lonely brown bag i found while cleaning out a drawer in my kitchen we made peach pie to celebrate a wonderful week of fantastic little boys.
ronan positively screeches when he hears the quad turn on. odin wanted to take his dump truck for a dip in the pond. the pond has sadly reached that point it gets to every year when there's not much left of it but a sloppy goo. there isn't an inch of water that isn't occupied by a thousand mosquito fish and a dozen frogs and loads of pond weeds. but that doesn't sway my adventurous men from wading across it to inspect that rock or turn over that boat. they are always finding things.
i usually join them on their journeys to the pond, but i don't usually go in deeper than my ankles, and that only to keep an eye on ronan's own investigations of water and wildlife. i don't feel so inclined to slurp through muck. i don't trust it not to end up with some kind of ooky water creature that might rather eat me than slink away. i am pretty sure that the camp is Nessie's summer home. but i do enjoy a boat ride when they happen, i like to get out to the middle where it is still mostly water, even if only two feet deep.
by this time of year we sure look forward to seeing the water come back in winter, all snowy and icy, clean and clear. this year i think we will have to dredge the pond before the weather hits and clear out all the funny things that have ended up there over the years. i mean what is it about water that attracts tires?
give us the biggest smile that you can this is what we got!
ronan likes to pretend to eat everything. 'pretend' doesn't mean that the slobber and drool stays out of it. smack, smack, smack he goes.
some post-scripture reading wiggles. well, odin is a little occupied with his scripture treat.
we are really enjoying the family these days. we have been doing our best to get things in order around here before the baby comes. not that four more months isn't a lot of time to get ready, but with the holidays coming and the fact that our living situation tends to slow us down, we felt we needed to get it together. the result, more free time and more fun time with each other! i even had time for a few projects this last week, which i normally don't have. i didn't take any pictures and now they are off to their new owners, but i sure enjoyed doing them. time to pull together some more!
