Coming Soon!

For quite a while, Roy and I felt like our family wasn't quite complete.  When I was pregnant with Lydia, we knew we wanted one more, but I had an inspiration that that baby (Andrew) wasn't going to be it for us.  I felt like there was still one more after that.  I absolutely love being a mom and besides the 8 or so weeks of being disgusting and sick and exhausted, don't mind being pregnant.  The few months after having a baby where it feels like I am the walking dead aren't my favorite, but we've managed and been incredibly blessed to do everything we need to do, including things outside of meeting the needs of our growing children.  We have always been involved in church service, have added PTA and school volunteering through the last few years, and tried to keep friend relationships alive even in those crazy baby transition months.  So the thought of having another baby after Lydia and then another baby after that wasn't all that scary to me.  I have to say, Roy is a one baby at a time kind of guy so he wasn't as thrilled as I was, but did promise to seek out his own answer.

So Lydia came and we adjusted to her and loved the fun addition she brought to our family.  Then we started talking about adding #4 and we were both so excited.  Andrew was the first one we really had to do any waiting for.  It was hard to find out several months in a row that we would have to keep waiting.  I started to question a lot of things.  I've had many friends who have waited much longer than we did and I tried to keep that in perspective, but it was still hard.  And then we discovered he was coming and healthy and that 6 months of disappointment and all those tears and worries were pushed aside and we embraced the idea of another little one.  I think Heavenly Father blesses us to learn from and look past the sorrowful times so that we can feel the joy more fully.  We certainly experienced that with Andrew's arrival.

When I felt like it was time to start talking about having baby #5, our lives had just stepped up to a whole new level of crazy.  We bought our first home in Woodbridge, VA and it needed a little bit of work.  Not too much, but some fresh paint and love.  And then our basement flooded and that was a huge job.  And then Roy was interviewing for a job at UNC, the job he ended up getting.  And we were helping the kids adjust to a new everything.  And fixing up our house so we could list it and hopefully not lose out on a ton of money.  And looking for a new place to live in an area that we had been a grand total of 4 times for Roy and 2 times for me.  It was a wild time so we decided that we would keep praying about it and plan for the fall.  I thought for sure that we would get pregnant right away, planned out how perfect it would be and how to still have a fabulous summer, and how we would arrange the new house to fit the baby.  It was a long 8 months of disappointment and questioning my previous inspiration and my motivation and even if I had just made it all up.  I wish I knew why it took so long, but I know I learned a lot along the way and my focus in my prayers and listening for answers developed during this time.  I'm thankful for that.  Then we had a positive pregnancy test just before our big 3 week vacation and I was thrilled.  Nervous and thrilled.

I haven't felt great the last little while, but I felt the baby move for the first time last week and I've heard the heartbeat at all our appointments and I am so happy and grateful that Heavenly Father is allowing us to have one more little one in our family.  It's such a privilege to be a parent and to take these perfect, beautiful children of God and watch them grow and learn and be excited and show love.  I am excited that these four sweet kids already feel so much love for this teeny human sibling growing inside of me.  What a heavenly blessing it is to love and to show love!

Andrew is 3!

Andrew turned 3 on July 29.  Honestly, he's been waiting for and planning this day since Abby's birthday in December.  The poor kid has to wait through everyone else's birthdays and then 4 months before getting to celebrate his.  He planned his whole day!  We started out at Marbles Museum, went to McDonalds for lunch, played water games outside with cousins, and had a cookie cake.  We were able to fulfill every wish for this guy.  I'm so glad he's in our family!

MaKayla and Arianna came to NC from VA to hang out with us and celebrate Andrew.  Grandma and Baba Z were nice enough to be the chauffeurs :)

Andrew was so excited to open presents!  Getting him to hold still for a picture while he excitedly bounced around had everyone laughing.  He was more hyper than I've seen him before and definitely acted like he was the center of everyone's universe :)

Uncle Steven Michael helped Andrew do the research for the perfect Batmobile that drives and has a shooter and Andrew was sold on having it after getting the stamp of approval from the Z Family Toy Master :)  Thank goodness for Amazon!

Andrew is such a wonderful kid.  I cannot imagine life without him.  He is my cuddle buddy, my "one more book" guy, the only person who is allowed to stroke my face when he apologizes, the most annoying eater, the only one who will say "I don't love you" as a joke (several times daily) and immediately correct with "I just kidding.  I DO love you!", the only kid who has ever peed on my face, my baking buddy, and is woven tightly into the fabric of our family.  He gets along well with everyone, has his special thing with each person, knows just the right weird thing to do or say to make the grumpy person break out of their grumpiness, and is so curious about how the world works and why, why, why we do things a certain way.  Happy birthday, Andrew!  I'm glad we finally reached the big 3 for you...and now we have a full year of hearing you plan for "the next birthday when I turn 4." :)

August 2017

We had a big vacation to kick off the summer, but we slowed down big time after getting home because it's summer and it should be low-key.  We also found out at the beginning of the summer that Baby #5 is coming around February 14.  We're super excited and have prayed for this little one for a while and we are also SO grateful that the first trimester yuckiness seems to be mostly gone.  Roy and the kids have had to be so patient with late dinners, a messy house, a napping mom, and me being less patient and organized.  But we have had a lot of fun and the kids have had a lot of time to explore their imaginations, as evidenced by the utter disaster that is the game room :)

We celebrated Sam's 7-1/2 birthday on August 4 with brownies.

Sam has this incredible mind.  It blows us away to see what he creates.  He has been awesome and a huge helper by making awesome train tracks for Andrew.  But one night, he came down while Roy was playing guitar and whipped this genius creation out.  Can you see the guitar-shaped tracks?  And above it, the blocks read THANK U and the trains on the inside spell out DAD.  Love this kid!

Grandma and Baba Z gave Andrew a really cool big rope swing for his birthday.  The kids spend hours playing on it every day.  It's awesome because it's big enough for all 4 to go on it if they want.  It is definitely the favorite thing in our backyard.

And then Sam lost his first top tooth.  He was so determined to get it out that he wiggled it from the somewhat-loose stage to the hanging-by-a-thread stage in about 36 hours.

We were at the park last weekend and ran into the cutest teeny puppies.  The kids fell in love with them and had to get a picture.

We did a love note drop-off at Roy's work the other day and Roy's co-worker took this picture of my kids attempting to be sneaky as they slid notes under the door while Roy was on a phone call.

Abby and I have fallen for turquoise lately so when we drove past these rocking chairs, we had to stop and try them out :)

More train track creations:

We had some friends come over and bring their dogs.  Lydia, who would like to be a veterinarian, loved Oreo instantly.

Last Sunday, I took a nap and woke up to find Andrew asleep on my legs.  Roy got jealous of the semi-cuddle and pulled Andrew over to him before falling asleep himself. :)

We've had some fun afternoons playing in the sprinkler, creating a water slide playground, and having squirt gun wars.  Even though I sometimes feel guilty about being too boring this summer or not planning a bazillion wonderful adventures, I think this has been a really fun, memorable summer for the kids.  They are happy.  They have invented games together.  They have grown closer together.  It makes me happy to know that they can start out a new school year happy and feeling loved.