Mastered Pregnancy Yet? Nope..

I have so many thoughts running through my mind today. From my pregnancy to how much my kids crack me up to holy cow I forgot to switch the diapers into the dryer! Speaking of pregnancy, you would think with this being my 6th pregnancy I would have it down pat by now. I do, for the most part. But there are still times when things catch me off guard. This pregnancy hasn't been too bad sans the sickness and earlier progression of gestational diabetes. Willow is moving and kicking all the time now and you can feel it much more from the outside in recent weeks. She's growing perfectly and one of our kids FINALLY cooperated for the 4-D ultrasound! I'm amazed at how much she looks like Trinity. It makes my heart melt every time I look at that picture. I'm so excited to meet her! We go back tomorrow for another ultrasound (one of the few positives of having GD) and I'm hoping we'll get another 4-D picture!

As far as getting ready for her, I'm all over the place with decisions. Since we don't really have a separate sleep area yet for Willow, preparations haven't been quite as extensive for her arrival as with my other two. I'm still trying to figure out a suitable arrangement for her clothes and am debating if we can use the dressers we already have or if we'll need another dresser. That brings a whole other host of problems though like where on earth I'm putting another dresser! So for now, I'm mostly just working on getting her NB diaper stash together. I'm sewing at least half, if not more, of her diapers and ordered the rest. After a lot of thought and talks with Andy, we've decided to go the AIO route for her diapers since Trinity isn't showing ANY interest in potty training yet. :/ Side note: AIO = All-in-One which is basically as close to a disposable as you get. I've made 5 so far and am in love with them! (You can check them out and my other crafting endeavers at On My Needles.)

I started this post weeks ago and never got around to finishing it but am going to do so today because it's a very special day. My one and only son is a full year old today! I just can't believe it! It's amazing and astounding that an entire year has gone by since meeting my little man. I absolutely love that his personality has really started coming alive the past few weeks. He laughs all the time when he's amused (he didn't used to) and is trying so hard to talk. When you ask him something, he actually responds like he's answering your question. He has the most expressive face and eyes. He loves to snuggle (most times) and wants to do everything that everyone else does. <3 access="" all="" at="" but="" can="" drive="" external="" hard="" here="" his="" i="" is="" moment.="" most="" my="" nbsp="" of="" on="" one="" p="" photos="" put="" re="" recent="" s="" shots:="" t="" that="" the="" they="" this="" unfortunately="" usually="" where="" year="">

Moving on to my other kiddos... Little Love is just about finished school. Her official last day is Friday and she's totally excited (as am I). We have about a week break before she leaves for Girl Scout camp, comes home, has her birthday party, and then leaves to visit her dad for the remainder of the summer. While I'm totally going to miss her while she's gone, I know she needs some time with her dad and future step-mom and -sister. She's totally excited to explore more of Seattle and I'm really excited for her. She's participating in character day on Monday and chose to be Hermoine from the Half-Blood Prince. I'm amazed at how she's taken to reading the Harry Potter series. She started reading them in September and read this last book in only a few weeks! I'm incredibly proud of her!

I'm getting ready to start some lesson planning for Love Bug and am doing research on homeschooling in PA. Oh my is it overwhelming! I'd like to start some sort of "school" time with her this summer to get her (and Harrison) used to a scheduled, structured time for learning. She's already counting to 10 orally so I'm thinking we'll start there and work our way to recognition. She's also doing great with shapes (thank you Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!) so we'll continue building on those as well as introduce more reading time. This is definitely going to be a journey and one I'm nervous about since I have no formal instruction on teaching. PA has a TON of regulations when it comes to homeschooling and thankfully I don't have to start documentation until she turns 8. With that said though, I'm currently looking into creating a Homeschool Planner because I really think it will help keep me organized and things less chaotic. There's so many resources out there and trying to sift through them all has been challenging but I'm very excited God has blessed me with being able to dive into this adventure with my kids.

Well that's all I have for today so until next time, much love and many blessings!

♥Courtney♥

Ice Fest & Birthdays

We've had some amazing things going on since my last post. Earlier this month, we went to Ice Fest in downtown Chambersburg, a yearly tradition for our family since moving here 2 years ago. It's a great little festival that has food and drink and lots of ice sculptures. Many of the downtown businesses sponsor the sculptures and it's so much fun seeing all the creativity! I lost count of how many we saw but it spans the main square and a block on either side. There was even an ice slide that kids could sled down. Although it was ridiculously cold, we all had a really great time!

(I'll update later with some more pictures once I get them off my camera.)

The weekend after Ice Fest was Love Bug's baby dedication at church and her first birthday party. The dedication was amazing and made me realize just how much our little girl is loved. We had so many friends and family take part in her special day! When Little Love was a baby, my mom crocheted an amazing christening gown for her dedication. I'm so thankful it was able to fit Trinity as well! It was an incredible blessing to share that with both of my children and is a beautiful piece of our family that will be passed down for many generations. :-) 

Our loving family all praying over Trinity

After church, we all went back to our house for a light lunch, partying, presents, and cake. I was so anxious to see what she was going to do with the cake! I think she was a little overwhelmed at all the attention she was getting but she fared well and had a great time. 

The beginning of the party

Friends and Family ♥

The bag was as big as her!

Beautiful and YUMMY cake!

It took about 10 minutes to get her hands fully in it.

It took her about 15 minutes to finally get it all over her face!

With the blessing of her doctor, Love Bug has now started drinking whole milk and is weening off formula. She's eating a lot more solid food and is really enjoying feeding herself. She especially loves Cheerios and bananas. When she was an infant, she absolutely hated peas--with a passion--but since trying some not-pureed ones this past weekend, LOVES them! Score! This week we're going to start introducing our dinners blended so her palette will be more acclimated and diverse. I'm so incredibly thankful that my in-laws got us the Baby Bullet for our baby shower. It is one of the most used appliances in our kitchen and been such a blessing with preparing healthy, nutritious meals for Love Bug. 

She's really starting to talk, A LOT! She's learned some new words including woof, bye-bye, and please. It's amazing to me what she says and understands at her age! She just started picking up her toy phone and saying hi to it although hasn't quite mastered the art of getting it to her ear. She mostly just hits herself in the forehead with it. LoL! 

So in a few of my other posts I talk about having issues with my pocket diapers not fitting Love Bug really well. I found that it's mostly the Bum Genius brand and have decided to stop using them for now. I'm not really a fan of Aplix (a type of Velcro) anyway because it's too easy for her to get undone. Plus, since the laundry tabs are worn out, the Aplix gets a TON of lint build-up. Anyway... we've decided to go back to using pre-folds and covers. I was a little bummed at first but honestly can't for the life of me remember why we ever switched! I absolutely love that she NEVER leaks and hardly ever gets a rash! We got 5 Thirsties Duo Snap Wraps and I couldn't be happier. 

Speaking of cloth diapers... I finally got to order the PUL fabric, FOE, snap press, and snaps to make Harrison's diaper covers. I decided to make fitted covers meaning I'll be making around 4 sets of covers until he's potty trained. The first set will fit him from birth until about 10-12 pounds, depending on his shaping. I'm a little nervous since I'm such a novice sewer but there's nothing like a little practice to get better! I'll be posting more about it on my crafting blog, including pictures of the PUL fabric once I get it. 

One of the other exciting things that happened this month was being able to consistently feel Harrison kicking and hearing his heartbeat for the first time. ♥ I had a check-up this past week and Harrison is growing perfectly. :-) I just can't believe that in 16 weeks or less we will be holding another little bundle of joy! God is so amazing and has tremendously blessed our family!

Well that's about all I have for now so until next time, much love and many blessings!

♥Courtney♥

God's Blessings

It's amazing to me how incredibly easy it is for us to focus on negative things in our lives. Negatively itself is a disease. It sucks the energy out of a person as much as running a 5k. Okay, maybe not quite that much but you get the point. I find myself many times thinking negatively and having negative reactions towards situations. I really don't want to be that way so I'm making a conscience effort to think more positively about situations that happen in my life and start my day with a healthy dose of positive thinking. For example, about a week and a half ago, I left work early to go to the doctor's because I had some light bleeding (for those of you who don't already know, I'm 15 weeks preggo). I totally freaked out because that particular symptom was exactly what happened when I had my miscarriage back in November of last year. The whole way over to the doctors office I was badly shaking, crying, and praying. At first, my prayer was focused on negativity, specifically, please God don't take this baby from us. But then, as I got closer to the doctor's office, I realized that thinking negatively or about the worst that could happen wasn't going to help me or Peanut. In fact, it could potentially hurt both of us because of raised blood pressure, etc. So I turned my prayer around and just simply said that no matter happens, I know You will never give me anything I can't handle. Whatever happens, please let it be used for Your glory and will and nothing less. Once I said those words, I honestly felt calmer and more relaxed. I won't lie and say I was completely okay because I was definitely scared out of my mind, but I honestly felt better. Everything turned out fine; Peanut's heartbeat is strong so the doctor told us not to worry.

Later that evening, I got the phone call that I was being temporarily laid off. At first, this made me happy because I was very stressed with my position and didn't really like going to work anymore (more negativity). Then it hit me... I left early that day plus was losing another day that week so I wasn't even going to get a full week's pay and nothing in the upcoming week or weeks. We're supposed to be taking our annual family vacation at the end of September, Kristi's birthday party was that weekend, and how on earth are we going to be able to pay the bills? Realistically, we can afford our bills on just Andy's income but it would be extremely tight. Again, I started down that path of negative freak-out. Now that I look back on it, I truly feel it was a blessing from God. I got a week off work which mentally I needed and thankfully didn't have a lot of bills due. I start back to work Monday and am only working 9:30-3:00 so I can get Kristi off to school and from school each and every day. Again, another blessing. God works in so many mysterious ways! Moving on....

Kristi's birthday party was awesome. Everyone had a really great time and I was thankful we got to spend some time with our friends and family. Here's a couple of picture highlights (and by a couple I mean at least 5):

Family tradition

She was just a little excited.

The loot

My heart <3

We played iCarly bingo and pin the mustache on Spencer. We listened to a combination of iCarly/Miranda Cosgrove and Big Time Rush songs. I don't think I've ever heard excited screaming as much as I did that day!

Sunday we spent the afternoon at the church picnic and then with Andy's parents swimming. That was a lot of fun and Kristi was sooo excited to finally get a pair of Twinkle Toes from Sketchers! The look on her face was priceless:

Other than that, Kris and I have been hanging out, going to the park, playing games and Barbie's, but not too much else is happening here so until next time, much love and many blessings!


♥Courtney♥