New pics and some rambling....

Me attempting to get Alex to smile for the photographer

Our family

My favorite kids in the whole world. :)

My blue-eyed boy. You would never know how mischievious he can be with that cute little smile. He speaks pretty well now, since he will be four in a few months. However he still says some funny things: Yeyow is yellow. Gwobwet it Goblet. (as in Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire.) Guess you can tell he has older siblings since he's seen several of the Harry Potter movies. We've been trying to do the alphabet with him. He hasn't been very interested. Today at church he suddenly starting naming letters. He's been holding out on us! He knows more than he lets on.

My brown-eyed boy. He's almost done with 3rd grade now!

My Anna girly. So girly. Likes to wear dresses or skirts every day of the week. I thinks she's only worn pants a few times this year. And that's just because she wanted to play in the snow. She's not actually so girly in other ways. When she sat with our neighbor at church she drew a picture of a fire-breathing chicken and a turtle with its eyes popping out. I think she's been reading too many of Caleb's silly books with him. Like Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy kid. I guess that's what happens when you have an older brother and a younger brother, and your sister is quite a bit older.

I didn't repost any pictures of Rachel this time since my last blog was about her.

I am counting down for this pregnancy to be over. The last few weeks have been really tough. My energy level is about zero. After I do a little bit of cleaning, I am so exhausted that I can't do much else. I am so used to being able to do whatever I want, and it is frustrating for me to have to slow down so much with this pregnancy. I have discovered something good: Pepcid AC. It works so much better than Tums. I wish I had discovered it on my other pregnancies.

We are probably gonna name our baby Sam (officially Samuel). That's the name that we keep coming back to. Rachel thinks its fun to poke my stomach and play "name that body part" when somethings sticks out. Anna and Alex like to feel the baby kick too. Caleb is excited about the baby, but absolutely doesn't want to feel the baby kick.

Dan is getting excited for the baby as well. He said to me at church, "All these babies are getting me excited to have our baby!". At home he said, "I wanted to ask some of the moms to hold their babies, but I thought they'd just give me dirty looks and think I was wierd." I doubt any of them would have objected. I'm happy that he is excited for the baby.

Two more days of school for Rachel and Caleb. Hooray!! We are also gonna take the summer off of lessons, sports etc. Its nice to take a break from everything.

She's 11!

Rachel turned 11 on Friday. I can't believe what a beautiful young woman she is growing into.

For her birthday, we went to the Mayan restaurant. We got front row seating, and there were a lot of performaces because they were filming a commercial. I hope the kids end up in a commercial, not me.

This was the first birthday that she really didn't want toys--except for a new hula hoop. She got clothes, jewelry, a new bed set, and some colored lip gloss. She loves to wear colored lip gloss all the time.

The top picture was from our family photo shoot about a week ago. Dan's cousin Melina did our pictures this time. (When I get the CD in the mail, it won't have the copyright on it. The one she emailed me did.)

I am so glad to have Rachel for my daughter. She is a wonderful daughter and friend.

Monday Rambling

Saturday was the school's 5-k, fun run, and healthy living fair. I am on the committee, so I spent a lot of time getting breakfast items and raffle stuff.
When we woke up on Saturday, there was an inch or two of snow on the ground. It certainly wasn't warm outside.
Dan and Rachel ran the 5K, and Caleb and Anna ran the 1 mile. Rachel got ahead of Dan in the 5K because he ran the first half mile with Caleb and Anna. She got so far ahead of him, she never even saw him. I thought that she would need him to pace her, but she obviously didn't. She was the first 5th grade girl to finish, and ran almost the entire way. I was really proud. She was really thrilled too. She hasn't been running at all. But she's been swimming a lot.
I was proud of Caleb and Anna for the 1 mile. They stuck together and finished about the same time. Dan also did well finishing the 5k.
I didn't run because I was helping out and I'm about 5 months pregnant. Alex hung out with me and had a free Jamba juice and got to jump in the bounce house. The fair turned out really well this year. My kids did not want to go home because they were having a lot of fun.
I'm glad to have that over with. Now I feel like I can relax.

Caleb has been on a basketball team this spring. It is a challenge for him. He is not aggressive, and has a hard time paying attention to what is going on. He is making a lot of progress with his basketball skills though. It is hard for me to watch, because nobody passes the ball to him and the coach doesn't put him in much at all. Maybe I'm overly emotional, but it makes me sad. He has touched the ball only once the entire season during a game. Only 3 more games to go. I won't be signing him up again.
He is happily in the chess club at school. He really likes chess. I don't even know how to play chess. Maybe one day I'll have him teach me. I really don't care if he likes sports. I just want him to be happy.

I threw my back out on Saturday, from all the fun run stuff and cleaning the entire house. I've been in pain for a few days. I thought Tylenol wasn't really doing anything, but like clockwork I start to feel worse when it wears off.

This pregnancy has actually been kind of tough. Either that or I'm just wussy.
Anna is finally excited about the baby, even though it is a boy. She wants to feel the baby kick every day.
I ordered all the nursery bedding, curtains, rug etc. and it came within a few days. I am looking forward to painting the nursery. However, I'll have to wait til I feel well enough to. I am getting excited for the baby. We don't have a name decided on. I have a name I've decided on, but Dan doesn't agree---yet. Just wait. :) Now I just need a recliner rocker or a comfy chair to sit in for feeding the baby. And a bunch of clothes. Rachel loves shopping and is anxious to shop for baby clothes. Its actually rather fun having an older daughter. The other kids and Dan hate shopping. But she doesn't, so she's my pal.

I'm counting down until school gets out. I'm excited to spend more time with the kids, and to be able to relax our schedule a bit. And have fun with the kids. I'm planning on taking the kids swimming a lot, even though I will look like a whale. We always write up a schedule of fun things we are going to do during the summer. Park day, swimming day, fieldtrip day, library day etc. Some days all the plans go down the drain. But we do stick with it a lot.

So, that's all for today's rambling. :) No pics for this one.