See what I mean by a mini-Randy?!  That shirt looks almost exactly like one my husband wears.  Be still my heart.  A boy.  Our SON.  I still can hardly believe it!  Most women I know long for the day they will have a daughter to call their own, and I wouldn't trade my two little ladies for anything in the world, but I have always longed for a son.  For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt of what he would look like, what personality he might have, what he might grow up to become one day. And now that we are mere moments away from meeting his sweet face, I can hardly believe it's real.  Is this my life?  How did I ever get here?

I feel so unworthy.



   It was so special to have each family member and friend that was able to attend, and such a treat to have my mom there as well!  She had come out to Oregon to help my sister move into their house, and she painted and painted and painted like a trooper.  My girls are so privileged to be able to have grandparents that invest in their lives, and I can't wait for baby boy to get to meet all his family soon!

   Well that's all for now.  Hopefully my next post will be announcing the little man's arrival, but you never know!  In any case at least I will get caught up on this back-log of pictures and posts that are about as overdue as I am. Ha.

And the angels said, "Glory!"


 And now of course I wish I hadn't tried to rush it all so much.

   Instead of fantasizing about the days when they could just go get themselves a snack, or find something to play on their own, I should I have just held them a little closer, rocked them a little longer, and cherished that quality time together.  Because soon, very soon, it would change.  They would be content to find something to do on their own.  They really only desperately need you at every waking moment for a short, fleeting time of their lives.

A short time of your life.


   And so while I am quite thrilled that they are growing and changing and maturing, I'll admit I am a little wistful for that stage of absolute dependency again.  Which I suppose is a good thing because I will be going through it all over again in June.  So apparently God knows what He is doing.

    And now to coax these aching bones back into action to tackle all those to-dos.  It's Friday people!  Do you have a relaxing weekend ahead or one of a little bit of craziness, like me? I'd love to hear!

   This past weekend we decided to forgo tracking down babysitting and went out on a family date.  I always end up wondering why we don't do that more often!  Randy got a few groceries at Costco while all 3 ladies napped in the car (ha) and then we treated ourselves to burgers and fries and a little mall shopping.  Thanks to the man in my life, I even got to browse a little sans children.  Hence this selfie, because every child-free dressing room moment no matter how brief or fleeting,  is worthy of commemoration.
 
   We're just rollin' along here at 25 weeks, and trying to take it one day at a time.  Actually, I'm feeling pretty great, all things considered, but the anticipation with this pregnancy this third time around is KILLING ME.  June. Feels So. Far. Away!  But...we're only 3 weeks away from the third trimester so, hope remains.

   The littlest Smucker is getting seriously active at this point. Rolling and turning and round-house kicking and perfecting his/her Olympic gymnast tryout routine in there.  I have to admit it's definitely one of my favorite stages.  Towards the end they move less and less and you feel more and more like a beached whale, so it's just pretty great right now.  My lungs still have room to breathe, I'm still sleeping pretty soundly, and as long as the calendar months keep flipping by, we will all be just fine.

(Just don't ask my husband that if we happen to go overdue.)

Five things I'm looking forward to with Smucker baby #3: (other than the obvious snuggling, smelling their sweet little head, and covering them with kisses)

1. Reading books.  With Jocelyn I POURED through books because she was a super-slow nurser, and I didn't have an iPhone.  With Charlotte....I don't think I finished a single book because of aforementioned phone.  How sad is that?  I am really hoping to get back to reading with this little one.
2. Not sweating the small stuff.  I know that is probably what every pregnant woman says/thinks and then every postpartum woman forgets.  Because, let's be honest, it's super hard not to do.  You feel like your house is in the toilet, the laundry is a laughable notion, and supper just isn't even happening.  You feel like a failure in pretty much everything except for keeping babies alive.  And I know I did a lot of that with my first two.  But THIS time, I am determined to do some preparations before hand like frozen meals, and get myself into some sort of routine, and NOT freak out about how little it seems I am getting done.   Hold me to it.

3. Taking more pictures.  This one is kind of a no-brainer but for as many pictures as I think I take, I always look back later and feel like there is never enough of that itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny age.  So sad.

4. Getting lots of fresh air.  Still not sure how this is going to look.  Baby-wearing while pushing the double stroller?  Or maybe just getting Jocelyn a bike with training wheels so she could pedal along? However it happens, Oregon summers are wayyyyy too short to spend the days inside.

5. Watching my girls as big sisters.  I seriously CANNOT WAIT to witness them welcoming this little one into their lives.  I'm pretty sure they're planning on it being another girl, but I'm sure they will come to love a little brother just as much. ;) They ask me about the baby more often than anyone else, they plant kisses on my growing belly and they profess their love for this new sibling with reckless abandon.  I seriously get a little giddy thinking about sharing that milestone with them.....a new baby, a new name, a new family member, a new friend.

 We started a tradition this year that I really, really hope becomes an annual thing, because it was just So. Much. Fun.

  Usually for Valentines Day, Randy and I always love being able to get away on a date, just the two of us, and take some time to re-connect.  And I think even after kids come along (make that ESPECIALLY after kids come along) it is still very important to do so.  How sad would that be if we let life and all its priorities crowd in until there wasn't much room left for us?  Pretty sad.


    But we really enjoy spending time together as a family too, and why should it always have to be one or the other?  So this year, we decided to try both.  And it was just about perfect.  Friday night was spent together as a family, and Saturday was our turn to go out alone.  Win/win.

   It certainly took some time getting ready, baths and showers and hair and painting three sets of nails and toenails, but it was so worth it.  The girls wore their new dresses from Grandma and I even allowed them to wear a little bit of pink lipstick, it being such a special occasion and all.




Here's hoping all of your Valentines' Days were special and unique and memory-making.

   Earlier this year, I was freaking out just a little bit about the holidays, because I felt like we weren't going to have a lot going on.  We weren't planning to go home to Iowa because we are making a trip later in January for a wedding, and Randy's family only had a couple of things planned.  So Randy and I decided that life is too short to sit around and pout and we (mostly Randy) planned a trip to the coast over New Year's eve.   And I hope it can become an annual tradition!



   We all stayed at a house at the coast for a couple of days over New Year's Eve and God blessed us with B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L weather.  It was such a great time.



 We rang in the new year, much good food was eaten, strategy games were played, and a highlight was watching our beloved Ducks crush the Seminoles for a chance to play for it all in the championship game!  It was poetic.





 Poor Charlotte was SO sick in the days leading up to this trip, I was afraid we wouldn't even be able to go.  But we used a lot of oils and a lot of prayer and a little bit of Tylenol, and her fever broke the night before we left.  Thank-you Jesus!  Such a good time was had by all.

What are some of your families' holiday traditions?  I'd love to hear!

   It's always hard to know how to start up again after a long absence from the keys....lately I have felt so distant, so distracted, and so disconnected from my writing, blog, or even my own thoughts for that matter it has been nearly impossible to think about catching up in this little space. 

But now I feel it is time. 

   Because I have something I really, really, want to share, and it is breaking past all of the writer's blockage erected mainly by my own piles of insecurity, and I'm tired of not writing because of me, because I really, truly, have something worth saying.

   June 2015 is quickly shaping up to be one of the best months of my life................






 
   Indeed, my friend, you counted THREE balloons in those pictures.  Three!  Soon I will be a mama (well I guess I sort of already am) to three precious little souls!  What a privilege!  What a gift! What a treasure.

    If I was surprised by the quickness of the first two, I was surprised by my intense desire to see that positive test with this one.  It didn't happen right away like the others, and I found myself thinking, dreaming, seeing, hearing and feeling BABIES everywhere.  I just so badly wanted another.

   I'll be honest, I have been sort of sicker than normal with this one, which of course is sending all sorts of images of a little boy dancing through my head, when really it could just be that I'm getting...well...older. 

   The yuckiness and fatigue and food aversion, and general crappy-state-of-being has done it's best to diminish my excitement, but let me tell you....I. Can. Not. WAIT.  We are so thrilled to be adding to our family, and we are so grateful to God for blessing us yet another time with this precious, precious gift of life!  Who are we that we should be entrusted to raise yet another soul?  I feel so grateful, so thankful, and so humbled. 

   So.  That explains some of the break.  I have felt the "pregnancy brain" fog roll in like usual and completely crowd my brain until the simplest of decisions loom up tall and impossible and everything in my life seems bigger and harder and crazier and just.....MORE.  The hormones, the estrogen, the emotions, the sickness, all smushing in there alongside the waves of joy, the tears of expectation, and the DESPERATE gratitude.....it all just took me like a tidal wave this time. 



   And those moccasins?  I was shopping with my sis-in-law who spotted them and they were one of those "I'm not even pregnant but they are $8.95 and so I cannot pass these up and I'll just really hope I have a reason to use them someday!" buys, and now my heart does little flips whenever I see them.    
   Oh and then there was the secret-keeping.....quite possibly my LEAST favorite phase of the entire pregnancy.  I mean, first of all, it's just hard, am I right??!  You're bursting at the seams to tell everyone and anyone and you can tell NO one, at first.   And then you have to tell everyone in some kind of certain order, but your family and friends are far away, and you feel like sleeping 15 hours a day, and not making 1,500 phone calls.

   So then you hatch a plan to tell everyone in a special way, because somehow sidling up to them at the next family reunion and saying, "Hey, I'm preggers" just doesn't have a ring to it.

  So you plan outfits, and pray for nice weather, and plan a photo shoot, and decide to hand out pictures (that double as Thanksgiving/Christmas cards of course, we're not superhuman here) but then obviously, you have to tell your photographers.  So you do, which is no problem at all except that then your husband really wants to tell your 3 year-old daughter. 

So you give in.

   And you tell a toddler, who then proceeds to tell her Sunday school teacher, and cousins, and friends, and anyone she can really, before you've had a chance to tell ANYONE YET.  

   So all our well-laid plans worked about.....40% of the time, and I felt like I was just making everyone mad at me some way or another and it was so frustrating because I really was just trying my best to tell in a special way and I just felt like laying in bed ALL DAY EVERY DAY and figured my feeble efforts had to count for something, ya know? 

   ANYWAY.  I am thrilled and tickled and super, super jazzed that it is officially out of the bag, and the secrecy is over.  We are really, really excited about this little one, and I am so glad I can stop secret-guarding and just be happy again.  Just be excited, and thrilled, and giddy while dreaming of June, and holding a brand new little Smucker babe in my arms. 

   And now I have 1,735,462 more reasons to wish summer would hurry up and get here. 

   The girls were terrified of the goats, but warmed up to the idea (sort of) after a little while.  Do any of you have naturally anxious/shy/nervous kids?  Any tips?  I'm pretty much tip-less because I would've never dreamed in a million years that I would have a shy child.  Certainly don't favor their mother in that regard.




  We've had a lot of rain lately and I was afraid we'd totally missed our window for nice weather at the patch.  But Randy not having to work one afternoon (unheard of) and a simply beautiful day lined up for us gloriously in one, miraculous combo, and so we jumped on that bandwagon and RAN.




   Currently nearing picture overload status, but I mean.....how could you not??  After winding down our pumpkin festivities, we stuffed ourselves with burgers and fries and even squeezed in a quick trip to the Goodwill while Randy got a haircut, so we were pretty much all in Heaven a little bit that day.


  Jocelyn looks like she is literally trying to "wipe the smile off her face" and I look like I am...I have no idea, pushing her head closer to me?  Brushing a fly off of her?  We may never know.  But it was the most half-decent one we got, so there we have it.

   If you happened to post about the pumpkin patch too this year, leave a link in the comments!  I should do a link-up sometime, but we're just not feeling that fancy today.