Around Here: Week 35

Open House at School!

Peek-a-boo!

Cousins Carly & Annie

5 little boys... boundless energy!

Baby legs, unswaddled, and with a lovey

First Day of Third Grade

Snickerdoodles!

After School Snack

Mommy & Wyatt Time

Baby Wyatt

Walking to school

The office/laundry room

The menu

After school trampoline jumping

Relishing... time with my sister's family.  They came late last Friday and left Sunday afternoon, but boy we squeezed a lot of love and laughter into those two days.  She has two boys (4 & 6) and a baby girl (4 mo.), so our kids were made for each other!  The boys have boundless energy, and I think we could all sit and watch the baby girls interact with each other for days. They're so sweet & curious about each other!

Executing... this week's meal plan like a boss! I am so proud of myself (and so excited!) to be putting our sweet little kitchen to work everyday.  We are baking, cooking and eating meals together and it brings me so much happiness.

Feeling... all the feels about the twins heading to school (for the first time ever) and being separated (for the first time ever).  I am happy and sad and excited and terrified.  It's exhausting to be on such a wildly swinging pendulum.  In addition to the twins starting third grade, Wyatt starts kindergarten next week, and there's been a constant lump in my throat about that. Reading Ashley's take on sending her kids to public school after homeschooling made me feel less alone in my feelings and hopeful that with time I'll grow accustomed to spending my days apart from the boys.

Laughing... at the size of the apple one of Josh's students gave him.  It is bigger than his fist.

Grateful... that all three of Carly's big brothers adore her.  They look after her, tend to her, and hate to see her cry.  Their help is so... well, helpful!

Attending... Open House at the boys' elementary school.  We got the chance to check out their classrooms, meet their teachers, and see some of their classmates.

Crying... at Facebook's 'on this date' picture of baby faced Wyatt in the bathtub in Alaska.  How is he starting kindergarten already?!?

Lonely... for friends in my new town.  Luckily I found a MOPS group and they meet next Thursday. I can't wait!!!

Unswaddling... Carly and feeling so relieved that she's fine with it.  I've also introduced (or reintroduced, rather) her little bunny lovey, and she's so sweet with it. I am hoping that this will make napping on the go easier, and leaving her with Josh easier.

Walking... all day, errday it feels like!  We take the twins to school, we walk back home from school.  We walk to school to pick them up, and we walk back home again. We live almost a mile from the school (just inside the walking boundary) so I've been getting 10,000+ steps everyday since school started.  It makes me so happy. (Okay... and sore!)

Wishing... that the office/laundry room was unpacked like the rest of the house.  I am hoping this three day weekend means I will have some time to tackle it.

Enjoying... our new afternoon routine of snack at the table together, talking about our days, followed by jumping on the trampoline.

***

Thoughts on my Rainbow Baby

This picture was taken in our living room in Alaska exactly two years ago.  I was pregnant.  Secretly.  Excitedly.  Anxiously.

But the good kind of anxious. The kind that, every time you think of it, makes your stomach do flips inside you.  I couldn't believe I had been so lucky to get pregnant on the first try, and to have all my dreams coming true. 

Alas, they weren't.  

But for ten weeks I had day dreamed and envisioned this sweet fourth baby of ours.  I imagined him a boy, Reid Joseph, after Josh's best friend Joe, and was tickled thinking of a rounded belly, swollen with life in just a few short months.  Instead, as you all know, that pregnancy ended with a broken heart. Mine, obviously, and also our baby's. 

A few months later, we tried again.  And got pregnant again.  We day dreamed and imagined again.  This time imagining a girl, Bailey Kate.  By six weeks that dream had also turned to dust.  Not meant to be.

Five long months later, after declaring we were done, I had a sudden change of heart.  This wasn't how the story was going to end for our family.  Once again, we got pregnant.  But this time. It stuck.

Nine long months later Carly May, our rainbow baby, was born.  I had heard people say the cliche thing people say: "It was all worth it."  But I had no idea it could be so true.  

Carly was worth every tear, every bit of lost sleep & lost hope... She was worth all of it.

***

PS- Happy Seven Months to our sweet rainbow girl.  

You are the light of our lives.

xoxo