whoa baby

Does this look like a girl who's only 4 months pregnant?!  Um, I don't think so.

Isaac's 5th Birthday

Isaac had quite the 5th birthday - we celebrated for an entire week and alas, here we are 2 weeks post birthday and he still hasn't let me take the Happy Birthday banner down in the dining room :)  I can't believe our baby boy is 5.  Unreal.  Just think, 5 years ago I didn't know anything about superheros, pirates, legos or cars.  I didn't know how much little boys love water guns, or bike riding or digging in the dirt.  Or that even with all that activity there would be endless energy.  I had no idea that beneath all the boy stuff would be such a gentle soul.  I see the whole world now through a little boy's eyes - and its awesome.  Much love to you Isaac Walter.  You're a keeper.

 On his actual birthday he requested pizza, the girls (his besties) and strawberry pie.  We complied.

Isaac's superhero birthday party - we all got a little carried away with the tshirts, and thrilled the little dude :)

We have been in our new house for just over a year now.  And I still have no living room furniture.  This came in quite handy as an event space :)  Perhaps I'll never get a couch or chairs and instead rent it out for Glendale events!

Calling all superheros!  And Batman.  We called him on the batphone to come for the party and lead the kids through superhero training.  Poor actor dude in his batman getup on a 90 degree day and 15 preschoolers.

While I Was Sleeping

Hi blog.  I've missed you.  Have you wondered where I've been for the last 14 or 15 weeks?  In a zombie-like state, that's where.  In such a state of first trimester exhaustion that getting through a normal day proved to be a very difficult endeavor.  Exhausted beyond exhausted.  As I'm starting to enjoy the relief of the second trimester, I'm kind of overwhelmed by the photo dump I just did from my camera on to the computer.  I'm torn as to whether I want to go back and post and add picutres from the last 3 months or if I just want to start anew.  As you know I am not a baby booking, scrapbooking, photo album keeping kind of mom.  I started a baby book for Isaac once - he's 3 months old in it.  I got inspired and started a 2012 photobook on Shutterfly after Christmas.  I got a few pages done.  It's just not something I enjoy.  And I have a pretty darn good memory so I keep all of those images and moments in my mind!  But I do realize that my kiddies are likely to want to see evidence of their childhood at some point in their lives......and that's where you come in my dear blog.  I have big plans to turn you into a journal/scrapbook of my kids' early childhood.  So they can look back and read and see pictures and hopefully see their joy (and ours).  So, a really good mommy would take the time to dump the last 3 months of events (2 vacations, Isaac's birthday, Jeff's birthday, Mother's Day, school year wrap up events) into the blog.  I haven't decided yet.  We'll see.  But as a start I'll share these couple of  pics from last weekend when my family was here and we went to our version of a family fued - Cardinals vs. Brewers game!

Baby Brown #3 DUE 11.12.13!!

I have had this post in edit mode for months now!  We're the kind of people who like to keep a secret this good to ourselves for a while before sharing with the world, so I've had 3 months to make observations that I needed to keep to myself but wanted to put down on paper.  So in no particular order, here's the things I've been thinking about while growing my third baby:

1.  I'm bad at being pregnant.  Like really, really bad at it.  I hate it.  In fact I hate it so much that I was pretty sure Isaac would be an only child.  And then I was 100% sure without a shadow of a doubt that Audrey would always be my baby.  It's fairly amazing how your own mind can trick you into thinking that perhaps it wasn't in fact as bad as you remembered it to be 2 years ago.  But guess what, it is.  Maybe worse.

2.  I am blessed to easily get pregnant, stay pregnant and grow babies to full term.  Beyond blessed.  So many people struggle with these things and I have not had to endure that kind of struggle.  Thank you, Jesus.  So while dwelling on feeling crappy is easy to do, I am in constant reminder and prayer of thanks for my ability to carry my own babies.

3.  Holy crap I'm going to have 3 kids.  But I only have 2 hands.  Yikes.  Jeff says we're going from man-to-man defense to zone.  This is going to be a challenge.

4.  Jeff always knew he wanted more kids, I wasn't so sure.  I had to do a lot of soul searching and praying about this.  There seemed so many reasons to stick with 2 kids.  1 boy, 1 girl, a dog....the perfect little American family. A family that fits in any car, at any table at a restaurant, 1 parent for each kid, 1 sibling relationship to nurture, 2 college savings plans that fit neatly in the budget, 1 bedroom left for guests.  It all seemed so mathematically correct.  And let's face it, I'm a math girl.  But somewhere in the back of my mind I kept thinking that if our family were complete I would feel it.  I would know.  And I just didn't.  I love being a mom.  I love raising kids.  I just hate being pregnant and recovering from csections.  I needed to separate the clouds from the sunshine.  And put it into God's hands.  And God only took 2 weeks to let us know what his plan is for us!

5.  What the hell kind of car do people with 3 kids drive?!  An infant seat, carseat, booster seat and double stroller to lug around.  I refuse to drive a mini van.  I just can't do it.

6.  I feel old.  I will be days shy of 34 when this baby is born.  That shouldn't feel this old.  Heck, that's still plenty young enough to have another.  Bwaahahahahahahaha.......I needed that laugh.

7.  In the waiting room at my 12 week doctor's appointment this week an adorable mid-late twenties mom-to-be in her super cute maternity maxi dress and stylish denim jacket asked me how far along I am.  I had to stop and seriously think hard.  Ummmm.....well.......let's see......around 3months?  Yes, 12-ish weeks.  She looked at me like I had 3 heads.  I asked her to be polite.  Exactly 1 second later...19weeks and 4 days.  Isn't that cute?  She still has enough time and energy to focus on her pregnancy.  I kind of wanted to tell her that in the third time around you're just proud of yourself for remembering to swallow a prenatal vitamin every day and happy to get through speech therapy, tball practice, gymnastics class, potty training, the parent teacher conference and the buying $200 worth of groceries on Saturday morning with 2 other kids in the car cart, without actually puking.  And without wine.  But who'd want to burst that adorable bubble of hers?  And with this realization I made a mental note to try my darndest to focus on this baby.  I would never want him/her to think they were just lost in the commotion of their older siblings lives.  I imagine this is going to be a difficult task, but perhaps realizing its a possiblity is the first step in making sure it doesn't happen.  This converstaion also led me to dig out my jean jacket from 2001 and wear it this week......heck, its vintage now.  Which brings me full circle back to #6.