Belly Bump Timeline Pictures

Well only two:

13 weeks 3 days.


24 weeks 3 days.

Novalee "Future Missionary"

Novalee bought a mini bible the other day.

She wanted this picture taken of her.



And Jared wanted to get in to take a picture too. :)


They are so cute!

Tired Sadie

Sadie was teething about two weeks ago. Molars. She really doesn't even show any symptoms of teething (lucky us) but she does seem more tired and generally wants to be held more.

After a long nap one evening I woke her up so she wouldn't be up all night but she wasn't too interested.

Here are the results of waking her up and putting her on the couch.




Poor thing.

As a only slightly related note...connected only by the thought of Sadie growing up.

We finally got ALL her hair pulled back into one hair tie the other day! :)

We couldn't get over how much she reminded us of Novalee at her age.


Here's Novalee the same age.

It's so fun to watch them change and grow!

Adventures With the Crockett's (The Other Crockett's)

Wesley's parents and sister came to town for the second weekend of January.

They live in Arizona where it is dry and hot and sunny ALL THE TIME! They enjoy really, really hot, HOT, HOT summers and very lovely winters.

We were so excited that they were coming! The kids asked for about a week and a half before they came if tomorrow they would be here and if the answer was no, if it would be the day after tomorrow or the day after that.

We naturally wanted to show them a great time and we had all these ideas and plans...

AND then our fabulous blue sky, dry winter that we had been enjoying most of November and ALL of December decided to change and remind us why most people dread the Northwest in the winter time. The forecast for the weekend:rain/showers/possibly snow. Temperature: super cold.

Oh well.

We still did have a fun time (hopefully they did too). I'm sure Emily "LOVED" being woken up bright and early EVERY morning by kids that go from 0 to 60 in hyper mode. (We "LOVE" it too). :)

Regardless of the bitter weather conditions these are some of the things we did do.

Friday night, we had my parents join all of us for dinner at the Macaroni Grill to tell them what gender our baby #4 was going to be. (We didn't take any pictures). But it was fun to have them unwrap several layers of alternating blue and pink paper to get to the final container which held a "little sister" onesie. :)

Due to a forecast of snow at the tail end of the weekend we decided to head to the beach on Saturday with a pit stop at Camp 18.

Most people from Northwest Oregon know what Camp 18 is but if you don't or haven't been, it really is a must see.





If not for anything else, the HOMEMADE CINNAMON ROLLS!

Yes that is one roll and it was so yummy good! :)


The beach at Seaside proved to be freezing. And yet there were still two people there in shorts...I don't get it. Weird, weird Oregonians. :)

Isn't she so cute? I kind of love her. :)


I love this picture of the girlys!





I was hoping to get a decent picture of Wes and myself that weekend since I don't think we have a recent one but this will have to do for now.


I love that Jared was running around drawing long lines in the sand. I spent countless time at the beach doing the same exact thing when I was a kid. It was so fun to see the designs you could make. It's like a giant drawing board!

The cool guys.


At the "End of the Trail" the Lewis and Clark Statue.

It was seriously so cold on the beach and the wind didn't help matters.

I think Emily was just happy to see the beach (poor deprived Arizona child) but I'm sure she would have enjoyed it more in the warm summer sun that eventually graces us around August. :)



After a few minutes we headed to the Candyman store (they have 170 different flavors of Salt water Taffy) to get yummy candy and then on to the carousel ride.





It was good that we went to the beach when we did.

We woke up Sunday morning and were greeted with a thin layer of snow on the ground! I love snow! I thought living in Bountiful, Utah would have changed my feelings about it since it is there pretty much all winter. But I still love it! Yay for snow! :)






Jared playing his harmonica in the snow. I'm sure our neighbors loved that. ;)


Then Monday (our last day with them) rolled around. It was still cold and still kind of snowing so we decided to go to the World Forestry Center. I've never been there but have wondered about it every time I've gone to the zoo or the Children's Museum since it is in the same parking lot. I'm glad we went. (And for those in the area, Wednesdays this year they have $3.00 admission days.)



This is the inside of a tree trunk. Jared wanted me to take this picture.

Then of course Novalee being the little sister that she is followed him inside. She then looked to her right and gave the biggest girl scream ever when she saw centipeds in the bark. Kind of serves her right for trying to bug her brother. :)

The family "rafting" down the rapids.


Sadie driving the logging tractor.


This was pretty cool. They had this place where kids could plant tree starts. My dad works for the Oregon State Forestry and I have seen him plant countless starter trees, so it was neat to see that at the Forestry Center they have a hands on learning center of something my dad does on a regular basis for his work.




For the grand finale the "kids" (Emily included) took a lift up into the canopy to hear and see the different wildlife that lives in the forest canopy.



And that was it. After lunch the visiting Crockett's headed to the airport and we local Crockett's headed home.

It was probably a good thing they didn't hang around another day since we woke up the next morning to this.



Thanks for coming to visit, it was so fun to have you here!

(Officially the end of the longest post ever.)

Counting Calories

Wes' parents do this thing where they pay attention to their caloric intake during the weekdays and on the weekend they treat themselves to a little indulgence.

So Wes and I the other day decided we would give it a try.

Well I'm pregnant so I get to add somewhere between 300-500 extra calories a day according to different information I've read.

Let's go high since I like to eat. :)

So I calculated (using online calculators) that if I am eating the right amount while pregnant than I should be taking in about 2300 calories a day...that might be high but it is with exercise which is on my to do list. ;)

Anyways, yesterday I did really well. I was way under and was kind of laughing about how easy this would be.

But I forgot about how I am a major midnight snack eater. :) Seriously, pregnant or not, I get up most nights and eat. (My poor teeth).

Last night I woke up "starving" which basically means I was half awake and hungry enough to get up out of bed.

During this half awake episode I ate 5-6 oatmeal cookies and pop tarts. Haha! (Slightly embarrassed laughter).

So that put me WELL over my limit on calories. (I don't think I will disclose how much.)

Hopefully I do better the rest of the week.

As a side note: I did go to the library today and someone asked me how far along I was and when I told her she asked how I manage to stay looking so good.

Which of course boosted my body image esteem and I promptly came home to eat another set of pop tarts.

They were delicious by the way. :)

I'm not sure this program is going to work for me....

Midwife's Advice

I get this same advice (in different forms) EVERY pregnancy. I'm not sure why it bugs me so much but it does. (It might be because the guilty taketh the truth to be hard).

This was how the advice was presented to me this time.

Midwife: "Are you exercising?"

Me: "Nope." (Uncomfortable laughter).

Midwife: (Annoying smile, like she knows better than me and she pities me). "Did you exercise during your last pregnancies?"

Me: "Yep." (More laughter).

Midwife: "Well you really should be exercising. 30 minutes a day, everyday. It will help you feel better and you will be stronger during delivery and make it easier to get back into shape afterwards."

Me: (I didn't mention NOT feeling well, in fact I feel great! Thank you very much! AND I always get fat during pregnancy but lose it fairly quickly and I am happy with my strategy. Did I ask for your advice?) (Nodding in pretend agreement).

Midwife: "How are your eating habits?"

Me: "Okay..."

Midwife: "Well you should really limit yourself to one little sweet snack maybe a day and one real dessert a week."

Me: "Okay." (Seriously! Did I ask? I'm definitely not going to volunteer that I had 5 or 6 ice cream sandwiches two days ago!)

Midwife: "It looks like since your last appointment you've gained nine pounds...which if you continue on in this way you will have gained about 33 to 38 pounds by the end of your pregnancy. Which does fall within normal range."

Me: "Okay thanks. I usually gain more but I lose it pretty quickly. I'm not too worried." (Seriously, seriously! Do you have to rub it in? Yes. I'm pregnant. I'm going to get fat and IF it falls within normal range why the freak show are you counseling me?)

____________________________________________

And that conversation happens EVERY pregnancy. Is it required for ob/gyns and midwives to give that "talk" to every "normal" pregnant lady?

If ever Wes and I decide to have another baby I am having serious thoughts about introducing myself to my doctor with this statement.

"Hi, I'm Brandy. If I'm within normal weight gaining ranges throughout this pregnancy, I don't want to be "counselled" on ways to maintain a "healthy" weight. It only makes me want to go home and blend up a big fat snickers bar into some thick and creamy ice cream followed by 6 or 7 cookies and maybe some candy from the snack drawer. Can you remember that? K,Thanks! It's nice to meet you!" :)

Gender Issues During Ultrasounds

Early on I decided that I didn't want to find out what the gender of this baby was. I mean does it really matter when you've had at least one of each. Plus I have talked to several (women) that have said they LOVED waiting until the end to be surprised.

Wesley reluctantly got on board a few months later. :)

He agreed that if that was something I really wanted to do he would support me but he wanted to be clear that I understood it wasn't his preference.

So everything was hunky dory until two days before the exam. And then one thing happened to ALMOST change my mind. All of a sudden I realized that if I wanted to make the baby's blessing outfit I would probably need to know the gender. GOSH! First of all something that little shouldn't be the deciding factor, I mean how annoying and secondly why didn't I think about that before?

Every other little or big thing didn't matter about not knowing to me but I did make Sadie's blessing outfit and I really liked the idea of it. But if I didn't know until the baby was born what the gender was I would have to make one of each AND if I waited until after it was born I would have to make one quickly while taking care of a newborn and three other kids.

So crap.

Why was that one thing such a big deal? I have no idea, let's just chalk it up to pregnancy hormones.

So the day of the ultrasound came. When the technician asked me if we wanted to find out I said I didn't know....yet. I'm sure she was wondering in her mind WHEN exactly I was going to know. I'm also sure hoping I'm no the only one that has done that. :)

Novalee kept asking during the ultrasound, so is it a girl or a boy. Over and over again so I finally was like, "I guess we need to find out but we don't want to tell the kids just yet so is there a way to do it without her (Novalee) knowing?"

After some thinking the technician said she could put XY or XX on the screen and I'm sure she also mentally put us down as the crazy family. :)

Well it came to that point, the technician scanned over to the lower part of the baby's body and I could have sworn I saw something like a boy part (like I'm a pro at reading ultrasounds) but then the technician put on the screen XX. She also said something funny however probably not appropriate that would clue us in that it was a GIRL.

I didn't catch it. I was still caught up in my mind that it was a boy. Did you know I made a boy baby blanket with HIS name on it? I did. So naturally I immediately started wondering if I knew my chromosomes.

(Novalee by the way has from the very beginning called it a girl. She would rub her hands on my belly and say, "Your such a good girl! Aren't you, aren't you!".)

Later that day at my appointment I was still "wondering" if I knew my chromosomes and when the midwife asked me if I found out, I said I think so...haha.

She confirmed it.

A girl.

I don't know why I wanted to wait and be surprised. I've never really had to deal with surprises much, I generally know what's coming. I should have known that being surprised wouldn't have worked out well for me. I'm terrible with surprises.

This time was no different. :)

AND I still wonder if the technician didn't look well enough. :)

However we are NOW pretty convinced it's a girl and we are really excited ! We are also glad she is healthy according to the ultrasound. :) We keep laughing at how crazy our house is going to be with three girls, especially during their teen years. :)

Yay for our little girl!

Now to decide on a name...

Game System Games Container

The kids got Leapsters for Christmas. They are pretty cool. I don't feel too guilty about letting them play them since they are learning games. Novalee last night told me what 9 minus 4 was!

Anyways, they got several games with their systems. Where do you think they ended up?

Where pretty much everything else small in our house ends up, my dresser drawer.


Not my preference.

There is this craft blog that I like. The lady that does the blog is amazing. Anyways, she had this great craft recently that I knew would be perfect for this little problem. Here's her link if you are interested.

I don't really like taking the time to follow instructions or for measurements so I just kind of looked at the pictures and winged it.

Here's mine! I love it! It's perfect for travel too!

Perhaps if I used the measurements mine wouldn't be so tall but maybe the kids will acquire more games and then it won't matter.

The coolest part is that the plastic that I used was free. Last year in Utah there was a (severe to me) wind storm and a big pile of that plastic stuff rolled behind our apartment so I clipped some for later. Yeah for being a hoarder! ;)

Shooting

We decided to ring in the New Year by going shooting New Year's Eve. My brother Jeremy came.

Wes showed us how to shoot his cool bow.

Can I just say that I got closer to the bulls eye on the target than Wes AND I was using Jared's practice bow that doesn't have sights? Not that it's a competition. ;)

I kind of really liked the bow. I can see why it can be something girls get into. I even thought about listing "gaining more skill with the bow" as a new years resolution but then I realized that I would never shoot any living thing with it and so it would be pretty pointless...except to out do Wes...hmmm...it might still make the list. :)

Jared attempting to fling the clay pigeon thing. It is super hard.


My sexy husband, who shot like 10 clay pigeons in a row.


Apparently having an arched back isn't correct form. My brother had a good laugh about it but whatever, I shot a couple. :)


Jer shooting.

Novalee was really good. She didn't shoot the bow and she only "helped" Wes shoot a couple of times but she was really patient and just hung out.
Don't you love her smile? ;)




Jared helping Wes shoot the gun.



Sadie slept through the whole thing in the car until almost the end. Good girl.


Just the girls.


My brother says that this next picture should be next years family Christmas photo. Haha!


It was pretty fun. I hope we go again soon!