All Moved In

6 weeks to the day, I think I can finally say all our boxes are unpacked, all the pictures are hung and we officially live here.

Here's a quick tour of our new home...

Walk in the door and the living room in on the left. We got a couch from my mom since ours was too big to fit up the stairs and a couple of weeks after we moved in, my uncle who was moving out of state gave us a hutch and table that used to belong to my grandparents. So now our living room has kind of a "cottage" feel to it, but I like it.

Our HUGE table. It makes this space a little crowded, but it will be nice to have someday when we have a house.

To the right of the front door is the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. First is the kids' room. I made the curtains last week.

And our room. The blue box next to the desk is my box of supplies for our home birth that can happen any time now.

And the bathroom.

And there you have it.

Stick a Fork in Me

I'm done. I don't think I can do this anymore. I've been saying that for a week and a half now, but each day just gets longer and harder. This morning I heard Hannah stirring at about 5:00. I laid in bed, waiting for her to fall back to sleep and thought, "I'm going to be a good mom today. I'll make them hot breakfast, not just throw crackers on their high chair trays. And we'll go to the park. Maybe we'll even walk there." That was 2 and a half hours ago. Hannah has not been back to sleep and I'm melting down.

We made it through breakfast. Potatoes and eggs. Not the most nutritious breakfast, but at least they got a protein and a good carb. And after the bar being set at Cheeze-its and dry frosted flakes, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

I'm still at least 3 days from my due date. I promised myself I would never be a person to whine about not having a baby early. The other two were early and I was taken completely by surprise. I'd been telling myself they were going to be late and then when I didn't make it to my due date, I wasn't prepared. This time, having never made it to a due date, I made sure I was ready early. Bags are packed and we're just sitting around waiting to get this show on the road. And here's why I want to kill myself. Any time I do anything that's not lying in bed whining, I get contractions. Seriously, I stand up for 10 minutes to do the dishes and I'm in so much pain I have to go lay down. But then of course, when I lay down, the contractions stop and NO BABY COMES OUT!

I'm just so tired. I can't sleep at night, as everyone who's ever been 9 months pregnant understands and if I can get Ben down for a nap and Hannah to leave me alone long enough to fall asleep for 10 minutes during the day, then it's been a pretty good day. My midwife did a blood draw last week and it came back that I'm anemic, (iron deficient) vitamin B deficient, vitamin D deficient, and foliate deficient. She saw the numbers and said, "I'm not surprised that you're tired." I'm just so ready for my body to be mine again. If you count the miscarriage and two full-term pregnancies, I've spent 20 of the last 25 months pregnant. The time I spent nursing brings it down to maybe a month or two in the last 2 years that I haven't spent completely supporting another human life. I'm tired and sore. So very, very tired.

I shouldn't complain. I want this baby so badly. Of all my kids, this is the one I knew most strongly that I was supposed to have now. When I prayed about it I knew that it was the right time to try to get pregnant. I remember I was so happy getting that answer because it was what I wanted and because it meant that Heavenly Father knew that I could do it, even though it would be hard. It's been so much harder than I thought it would be. Maybe harder than anything I've done in my entire life. And I don't think I've done a great job. I think we're in survival mode and have been for nearly the entire year. I'm not a good mother. I'm in pain and these kids are in my face every minute of the day from the time I wake up alone to the time I put them to bed alone. And then I yell. A lot.

No wonder baby doesn't want to come out.

Last night I went to check on the kids in the middle of the night and discovered the Ben had a visitor in his bed. She'd climbed in, stolen his binkie, and fallen asleep. We decided to leave her in there, thinking it may get her to leave us alone the rest of the night. Nope, this morning, we woke up with her between us, neither of us remembering her crawling into bed with us. She's a sneaky, sneaky girl.

Dirty Kids

At the beginning of the week, Ben fell down at the park. He cried for a couple of minutes and since then it's just looked really awful.

This is him yesterday.  The marks on his forehead are from the fall and the rest of the mess on his face is just sandwich.

It reminded me of this picture I took of Hannah when she was about the same age. I posted it on facebook with the caption, "The dirtiest, most beat up baby you've ever seen."

I think we've taken things to a whole new level.

3rd Trip to the Zoo

I purchased a yearly zoo pass our first week here. It's already paid for itself in how many trips to the zoo we've taken. Last I had plans to go to the zoo with Renee and Mickey and then Devan ended up having the day off so he got to go too.

Berry Picking

Every summer since Devan and I have been married I've complained about the price of blackberries in Utah. It's something like $3 for a couple of cups and I always say, "Aren't blackberries supposed to be free?" So, a couple of Sundays ago we took a little walk by our apartments and found blackberries growing by the side of the road. We got 9 cups in a half hour and the next morning I took the kids out again and got another 8 cups. We have a bunch frozen and we ate a bunch. They were so good!

And here I am looking very pear shaped. I can't wait until I get this baby out and I can have my body to myself again.

Speaking of pear shaped, I bought one of these to wear after baby comes. It's supposed to help squeeze your hips back into the proper place after you give birth. All the Amazon reviews said it's super uncomfortable, but that it actually works. I'll keep you posted.

Hannah did the Puyallup!

Friday before last the kids and I were going to go with my aunts to the opening day of the fair. I was so excited, but then the night before I started having pretty regular contractions (3 minutes apart for 2 hours.) They didn't go anywhere, but it was a hard, hard night and Devan didn't get home until 9:30 that night. When he got home I was in tears and the kids were both still up. He got them to bed and then recommended that I try to find someone to watch the kids for me the next day.

So, Renee and Mickey were so nice to still take Hannah to the fair and Ben got to go play at Grandpa's house all day. And from the hours of 10 in the morning to 5 at night, I stayed in bed. I was so lazy. I watched TV and played games on my phone all day long. I felt so guilty because what mom ever gets to take the whole day off, but it was so good for me. Since that day, I've hardly had any painful contractions at all. I think my body was just really begging for a rest. However, after collapsing into bed every night for a month exhausted from the labor pains, I would mind a little more activity in that department now that I'm actually full-term. But nothing. I'm pretty sure he's staying in there as long as he can.

Hannah had such a fun time at the fair and I think Renee and Mickey did too. I wish I could have taken her, but they gave me some great pictures of her and that's almost as good.

Our First Playdate

When we'd been here for almost 3 weeks we had our first playdate with some new friends from church. Their family has a boy and a girl about the same age as our boy and girl, which is super fun (but will never be the same as it was with our other friends who had kids the same age as ours, I hope you know who you are!). We're able to talk in the hallway while we do laps around the church with our pre-nursery aged boys every Sunday.

I feel like this summer went by too fast, but we were able to catch one of the last days that the splash pads here were open. We met our new friends at Wright Park in Tacoma and had a great time!

Preschool Girl

Today was Hannah's first day of preschool. She will be going twice a week for 2 hours. She was so excited. This week I've been able to get her to do anything just by saying that's what preschool girls do. We'll see how long that lasts.

We have to wait outside until there is a green "GO" sign. 

Then she has to hang up her coat and find her name tag on the table. She picked hers out right away without any help.

Then she finds her name and it tells her what color she's sitting on in the circle. Today she was purple. We sit and read a book for a minute while all the kids get settled in the circle.

Then we get them interested in a toy or a project and say goodbye. She picked painting today.

I think Ben thought school looked like fun. I felt kind of bad for him that he couldn't stay too.

After we left Hannah we went to the post office and then rushed home. Ben threw a fit the whole time we were in the post office and then screamed the whole time in the car. Preschool starts right when his first nap usually is, so by the time we made it home, he was an hour late to go to sleep. Then he only got to sleep for a half hour before we had to go back to pick up Hannah. This may really throw off our morning routine. But I have to keep reminding myself that in a couple of weeks a new baby will be throwing off our schedule anyway so it won't matter.

Thursday is my day to work in the classroom, so I'll know more details about what she does at school then. 

Beach Day

The second weekend we were here we headed out to the coast. We went with my mom, Kory and Aunt Renee and fun was had by all.