Adventures in Babysitting!

Caroline has really liked having the boys over and is sad when they don't come! The other day we had cupcakes. Little Guy here especially appreciated the treat!

The big kids enjoyed the show - they just watched him and laughed!

Last Spring I bought a small Thomas the Train set for the boys to play with at our house. I kept it in my closet and forgot about it until last week. Turns out, Caroline was more interested in trains than I thought she would be. Even after the boys went home, she pulled it out and played with it twice by herself! When she heard that the boys had more trains and tracks at their house, she asked their dad if he would bring them next time.

They spent a good part of the morning building the track.

And watching the trains.

I never even thought to get trains for Caroline to play with, but she loves them!

So, it was only right that Caroline introduced Jaden to Polly Pockets.... ;)

Details

When you announce you are pregnant, there are usually a list of questions everyone wants to know, so I'll just take care of those now! (not that I mind talking about it in person!) Feel free to skip this one as there are no pictures and it's mostly just me allowing myself to be excited about being pregnant. A friend said the more you share your news, the more real it feels.

1. I am due March 16th. (which feels SO far away)
2. ...So that means I am about 13 weeks now.
3. We don't know what the gender is, but we will find out the middle of next month.
4. If we got to choose, the votes would go as follows: Susan is leaning toward wanting a boy, Caroline wants a girl, and Dave is going with the "I don't care, as long as it's healthy".
5. I will have to have another C-Section. They routinely do scheduled C-Sections at 39 weeks around here, so we're looking at about the first or second week in March. (Kind of nice we get to schedule it.)
6. I'm feeling pretty good. So far, I have not thrown-up (yay!) but I do get nauseated if I don't eat something fairly bland every 2 hours. But it's nothing that I can't handle! I have, however, started getting some awful headaches. Really, miserable, throbbing headaches. I don't say this to complain - because I'm soooo not complaining about this pregnancy, but to ask if anyone out there has advice. I'm usually not prone to headaches, so this is new to me and most likely pregnancy related. I get them mostly at night, but they last hours and sometimes over-night. I don't want to take any pain meds if I can get away with it. Any ideas?
7. We do not have any names picked out. We refuse to have that conversation until we know what the gender is. Basically that's because we don't agree on names and that at least narrows it down by 50%! We do plan on using at least one family name. Caroline likes the names Freddy, Velma, and Daphne. (she's in a Scooby Doo phase right now). For now we strictly use "The Baby" because I hate calling the baby "It".
8. Some have asked if we did InVitro Fertilization. No, we didn't. But both Dave and I were on medication and thankfully that worked!

Big News!

We're having a baby!!!!
By March, 2011 we'll be a family of four! We're so excited - especially Caroline. She has been acutely aware the last year or so that all her friends have brothers and sisters, and she doesn't. I even heard her describe herself as an "only child" a couple of months ago! She has been asking for a loonnngg time for a baby sister and when we told her I was pregnant, we found her a few minutes later praying for a girl! Of course we don't know whether this baby is a boy or girl yet, but we know which way Caroline is leaning!
This has actually been a great lesson in prayer for our family. We've been praying for a baby to join our family for a while now, and we were so happy to be able to tell Caroline that Heavenly Father heard our prayers.
There will be 5 years and 4 months between Caroline and her sibling. The thought that there would be a big gap between my first two kids always bothered me, but I've also known that it's part of a plan. Dave and I also agreed that when you wait and work and want something so bad for a long time, it helps you appreciate the blessing that it truly is.


Also, we've started babysitting again. We consider it practice now! Three kids under five years and pregnant is sometimes a challenge, but I love all four of these kids and that seems to make all the difference.

PS - Caroline's T-Shirt is courtesy of Aunt Heather in Tucson, AZ. Caroline LOVES to get mail and was super excited about this! Thanks Aunt Heather!

Sprinkler Park

Something that has been really fun for us this summer has been a sprinkler park that our friend discovered a few months ago. It's not as big or fancy as the other one we've been to, but it's about half the drive!


We've been several times this summer and Caroline loves it. We went yesterday and were the only ones there! Which I think is great, but Caroline is usually disappointed if there's no "big kids" to play with.



The other great thing about it is there's a huge playground next to it, that's shaded! Why aren't there more playgrounds with SHADE?!!

We usually bring a picnic lunch and spend a couple of hours going back and forth between sprinklers and park.

I used to lament the fact that Caroline had a late-fall birthday and would have to wait another year to go to kindergarten - especially since she's already so big for her age. But now that all her five-year-old friends are in school, I'm SO glad I have another year at home with her!!! I think things have worked out just fine, and even though she might look like a giant next year compared to her other fellow kindergarteners, I know she'll be ready AND I know I'll be ready too!

A Penny Saved

For several months now, Caroline has been saving money for a new Barbie. We explained to her that we couldn't just buy her toys for no reason all the time, and her birthday and Christmas were far away, so if she wanted something she was going to have to work, save, and be patient. She did really well with this, and had a bank that she collected coins in. If she found coins on the street, or if Dave gave her change from his pockets, or if she did extra "chores" to earn money she would put it in her bank and every now and again she'd pull it out and ask us to help her count. Some of the chores that Caroline can do for money are:
-Dusting the living room with a Swiffer duster
-Cleaning her room with no help (if she asks for help she doesn't get the $)
-Wiping the kitchen table and counters with a washcloth
-Setting the table for dinner


After several months of this, Caroline started to get restless with her money. She no longer wanted to save and wanted to spend it on things like Icee's at Target. So we told her that if she would keep earning and saving that in 2 weeks she could go get her Barbie and we would pay the difference if she was short.


She knew exactly which one she wanted ahead of time. She has had her eye on it for quite a while! When we went to Walmart and they didn't have it, I was a little worried, thinking that they stopped making it - it's been a long time since she started saving!


But we went to Target and there it was! She was so proud to hand her money to the cashier who was nice and patient (we didn't use all the pennies and nickels- she gave those to Dave who gave her paper and quarters).


She loves her Bicycle Barbie and hopefully since she had to work and wait for it, she'll take good care of it too!

At our house...

Not much excitement around here lately, but here's what we've been up to...

We visited a friend last week and she gave Caroline this birdhouse. Caroline was so excited and insisted we paint it as soon as we got home. We still haven't figured out how or where we're going to put it outside, but we will soon and Caroline will be so proud to see little birdies visiting!


We were supposed to start watching the boys again full-time this week, but due to a registrar's error, the dates were wrong and now we don't start for another month! I was a little disappointed, but we still had them over a couple times to play and Caroline was actually very excited and they got along surprisingly great! I think this is what changed her mind: About a week ago I told her the boys would be coming to our house almost every day again and she groaned. I then told her that Jaden had a birthday over the summer and was 3 now, so he would be more fun to play with than a 2-year old. She totally bought it and is looking forward to their visits now!



This isn't the greatest picture but you get the idea. Caroline has become re-fascinated with baby dolls and carries them around all the time. She asked me to teach her how to "wrap it up like a burrito" (which is how we described they way we used to swaddle her when she was a baby) and she can now do it by herself quite well!


And lastly, the video games. It wasn't more than a month or so ago that I was wondering how old she would be before she caught the video-game-fever and was asking for a Wii or a DS or something. Well it just so happened that I came across a killer deal on games for Playstation 2, which we have, but don't use very often. I bought a Princess game and let Caroline give it a try to see if she could even do it. Well, she can! And now she wants to play video games, not all the time, but at least once every day! Sometimes she convinces Dave and I to join in, although I'm not much of a gamer. Hey, she's devolping hand-eye coordination or some junk like that, right?