dear lord, help us......

it's time for confessionals again.




this room represents how my head feels. this room represents how my heart feels. actually every picture makes it look cuter than it feels. this third child business is rocking my ever loving world. truthfully he is so very wonderful and is the "easy" in my house. the breath of fresh air.

WHAT is not to love? not one little thing.

i could eat...him...up
this child does not want for love

i just can NOT seem to get my act together. i am constantly in prayer these days. i seriously listen to a sermon every day just to stay encouraged. my workload has doubled lately though i'm trying desperately to keep my hours to what they were at before. but that place really needs me full time right now..... but so do my children.



we are having growing pains in a big way. i need help with some functional things here. back to the first picture. how do i keep all of the toys organized? is their some secret system that all you moms have figured out and are hiding from me. because i cannot figure out how to get everyone to just put LIKE THINGS TOGETHER. when all the little peoples, legos, baby doll stuff is together...they have so much more INDEPENDENT fun = mommy is less likely to lock herself in the bathroom. i have started spending all of our spare money on bins. and i try to sort everything quickly at the end of the day so that it is there ready for them to destroy again in the morning. seriously. how do you keep it all attractively organized? robbie and i do NOT thrive in a house like this. it stalls us. it paralyzes us. we find reasons to argue when the house looks like this. but my body actually aches during the kids naptime, begging me to just sit and do nothing that resembles cleaning. what are your secrets? spill it!

babes and birthdays

my oh my does a year fly by when you're busy fetching, cooking, wiping, changing, spanking, feeding, hugging, kissing, burping, clothing, (hiding), praying.....all for the love of some little ones.

my girly girls have (had) birthdays 3 weeks-ish
apart from each other in this season.

this ball of fun turns 4 on wednesday.












and babycakes just turned 2. oh no! my last baby girl. the clothes will be packed up and out of here soon. no more saving them for the next one.












so go ahead and let the hate mail begin. there will not be any real "party" for these two this year. we have and will do a little small something amongst ourselves. but no invitations will be sent, no real gathering will occur. i promise them here though on the internet that you both will get your party on next year. but mommy is overwhelmed right now! i'm barely preparing proper meals at night. i just need a year off from this. you won't remember, will you girls? i'd rather spend my extra time making you your 2 year and 4 year movies. which! i figured out how to get them off of movie maker and onto the internet here so now i can have them forever. olive's first video is on a format that i don't know how to make compatible.

olive's second year


lucy's first year

Click To Play

olive's third year

Click To Play

favorite quotes from olive this year
first thing said to me after coming downstairs from her nap "i squished my baby's bottom together and it was a lot of crazy"
after discussing all the details that God cares about "He even cares about our tushies!"
after asking her to help me with something "i really can't right now. i have to work on my coupon book"

deciding to leave a bikini top on "i'm just gonna keep this on so that my breasts will be comfortable."
"i'm gonna be the smartest girl in the whole wide world!"

very favorite thing you do at this age
sing patty griffin's "top of the world" at the top of your lungs, eyes closed, feeeeeeling it





favorite memories of lucy this year
after we had a scary few minutes with olive when she was choking on an orange slice, you brushed her tear wet hair out of her face with your little, chubby fingers and said "you k, ollo?"

finding you tenderly rubbing iona with lotion

the way you call your feet "totsies"

that you obey olive faster than you do me - yes i do now tell olive to tell you what to do, when i need you to do something quickly. i'm pretty awesome like that.
the monumental tantrum you threw on the beach of lake lure ending in you laying alarmingly still in the sand for about 5 minutes. all because we cut you off on popsicles after your 4th one. you may never live this down!
how you referred to finn as "beebee fun" for the first month of his life
how after you got stung by many bees one day on the swingset, even weeks later you would occasionally say "da bees" out of nowhere and start crying all over again about it. it was one of those sad, cute things.
the bothered way you say "uh uh" for "no"
the impatience you have for another song to come on in the 3 seconds it takes the ipod to move to the next one and how you always want it "yowder"
the way you squealed when we gave you your first baby doll

anna may be cooler than us all

really wish that i could introduce you to anna with a picture. but there are no pictures of anna. because anna is olive's imaginary friend and has been with us for about 8 months. we're all used to her, really. robbie and i no longer smirk at each other when she's mentioned. she's as normal as tantrums around here now.


anna is a renaissance woman of sorts. she makes a lot of olive's clothes, she is the artist of all of the art in olive's room, she made a couple of my flower vases, and she does all of this and still has time to talk to olive on the phone several times a day. we send anna mail now and flowers to thank her for all the thoughtfulness. anna is many different things, depending on the day. olive is married to anna. anna is just her friend that goes to parties with her. anna is her dog. anna is even the doctor who cuts her hair. the other day after hanging up with anna on the phone, olive asked me if i would pray for anna's sister who was very sick. i said that of course i would and asked what her name was. "anne". we're super creative.

anyway, we find it pretty cute and go right along with it. it touched me that she would go straight to Him in times of need for her friend's sister. i wish that was always where i headed immediately. i prayed that Jesus would heal anne and hopefully God hears prayers about imaginary friends's sick sisters. i'm pretty sure He does.

thanks and blessings

i'm in richmond, feeling very thankful. while i don't have my pictures here to give visuals of thoughts, i do have some time on my hands with the kids all occupied with family that love them and don't have the heart to tell them that they are tired of playing hide and seek for the 3rd hour in a row. God bless them for their energy. so i've had some time to relax, which leads to thinking, which leads to expression...so hence the reason i blog today.

i'm so thankful for all the blessings lately...we love the baby boy pants off our finn. he's beautiful and bright eyed and we can't help but call him pretty. another biggie is that my parents live minutes away from us now and we get to be a part of eachother's day to day and they go above and beyond with helping us with the girls and giving us reprieves. also topping the list is having a maternity leave from my two days at the facility. while i miss my friends there and the creative energy of the students, and the change of pace from motherhood, it has been immensely important this go round to my mental and emotional health of my family. aside from making sure all the littles have all their needs met, and trying to get our out the door time down to under 2.5 hours, i've been trying to figure out how to continue to do the things that i like, love, and/or need to do now that we've added one more little person to the mix that depends on me. and i may have figured it out. i can either cut some things out and accept that OR accept that if i try to do everything it will not be the most perfect expression of myself or thoughts or heart or passion towards whatever it is i'm doing. and i think that i've decided that i will be more content with the latter. i think everyone at least subconsciously makes this decision at different transition periods of their lives. i know moms do at least.

and all of this has shown me that i don't have anything together and that i'm just a big old loser. really. leading me to my biggest thanks this year. that Jesus came like He did, took the Bible and lived it out to show that all that stuff that God was saying was beautiful when put to action. it looked so easy, but when i try to live my life like that i realize how hard it is not to be self centered and i see how perfect He really is and how i am just...well not. but He loves me just as i am anyways. just how i love the my own children. and i GET IT thank you very much.

and i'm also thankful for music which is sometimes the only thing that can express what you feel inside.
so i leave us with sufjan who says it like i feel it.
"if i was crying
in the van
with my friend
it was for freedom
from my self and
from the land
i've made a lot of mistakes
i've made a lot of mistakes
i've made a lot of mistakes
i've made a lot of mistakes
i've made a lot of mistakes"

finn and the full moon

9 days before my due date, i was laying on the couch and felt my water start to break. this was not the way things went down with the girls. so it shocked me and i wasn't quite sure what was happening right away. even my doctor wasn't convinced when i called her. but after dropping the girls off at my parents house (WHO LIVE HERE NOW!!!-more on this when there is not big news to tell) we headed to the hospital after i picked up a cranberry slush at sonic. it was indeed my water breaking. come to find out the hospital was packed with huge pregnant women who's waters were breaking. something that tends to happen a lot when there is a full moon and its been raining and the barometric pressure is low. who knew? i was told several times that night that water breaks only 15% of the time before labor begins. so there we wait in this little cubicle to see if my contractions will start. a couple hours later, they had not. i guess finn just wasn't ready to come on his own. but once your water breaks...you must have your baby within 24 hours. so they began me on pitocin, another first for me. about 5 hours later i asked for an epidural. for some reason it didn't really take. so they dosed me again. immediately i started convulsing, i felt like my tongue was swelling, like my jaw was locked, like i was going to vomit, and i could not breathe all at the same time. i felt people start to panic around me. i started to panic. they gave me oxygen, benadryl, phenegran, ice chips. they checked my breathing, my tongue. i was actually ok. i just didn't feel ok and didn't seem to be. then they checked me to see how much progress i had made. in an hour i had gone from 5 to 10 centimeters. thanks, pitocin! 45 minutes later finn had arrived and the bad reaction seemed to disappear. they handed finn to me. i held him for about a minute. gave him to robbie and then slept for about 2 hours. i don't know how much benadryl and phenegran i was given, but i could not even pretend to keep my eyes open. i wish i had the guts to show you the pictures of me in this state. i don't even remember the pictures being taken. not cute.

but he's here!
7lbs, 3 oz
October 11, 2008
2o inches
6:00am.

isn't he sweet?

you arrive in the world and immediately people start messing with you. finn was not happy with this nurse.






first diaper change with his daddy.

our stay at the hospital was so relaxing. i think i caught up on all the lost sleep over the last 9 months. they told us that we could leave the day after he was born. um, no thanks. there are wild children at home. we opted to stay one more day in the little room where we only had one child's needs to tend to, TLC marathons were literally at my fingertips, and food and drinks were brought to me to partake in bed. if we ignored the fact that there was no pool, we felt like we were at an all inclusive resort.

the only thing we had to do was cuddle this little one

but we were excited to introduce finn to his sisters. neena and poppy traveled from richmond, va to care for the girls while we were at club med. they all came for a visit the day after he was born.




olive came in like a major big sister and said "i want to hold my baby". she has been very gentle and loving. she talks to him in a very sweet, soothing voice. a few days after we brought him home she said "he's just really so cute. oh, i just love him so much."

i have 3 children, people.

thats been a little strange to adjust to. almost immediately after we got home i felt my attention once again divided. there are many chaotic moments in the day when they all want something, where i wonder "ok, who needs me the most right now?" and emotions have been running high. lucy somehow turned into a full time thumb sucker while we were away. she seems to be taking this the hardest. i'm constantly checking everybody's emotions. thinking, "who's on the verge of a breakdown right now?" hoping to catch it before they begin to melt.

well, there are a hundred more things i could say right now. a hundred more pictures i could post. but its late, its been awhile since i've blogged, can't be certain when i'll have the time again to add more. i better just click the button. love to all and thanks to everyone who has sent food, well wishes, and prayers our way.

the dorable girl

olive has been pretty cute lately, i must admit. aside from all the disobedience that comes from this age and all the suffocating of personal space that comes from just being olive, there have been times recently that i've been struck with her specialness and i feel the need to dwell on it a bit.

she's really been taking the big sister role a little more seriously now lately. the other night she had her friend, gracie, from church over to play and when lucy started climbing up the ladder to the swing set fort right before i could get it out myself i heard her say, "gracie, will you make sure lucy doesn't fall?" it was small but a big moment for me. their slim age difference usually makes for more of a peer interaction than that of one where olive feels protective or responsible for lucy. and while i know i can't expect much more than that, it's so refreshing when it does happen.

before their morning school started, i began to pump them up for it. i explained that they would be in different classes since they were not the same age. olive said "no, lucy needs to be with me. i need to make sure she doesn't fall on top of anybody". now i'm not sure who she was more concerned about..lucy or the victim of these falls. but she was caring about somebody and i'm celebrating it!










here she is with jamie and tim's aubrey one night after we all had dinner together. i can hardly wait to see what she thinks of her new brother. she can't wait for him to see her hair in a ponytail. i'm not positive he's going to appreciate the effort...maybe ever.
she loves babies so much (finding them "so dorable" as she puts it) and is so helpful and good with them. well usually helpful. last week when we were changing lucy's diaper upstairs, i asked her if she could go run and get the baby wipes for me downstairs and she said "i really can't right now. i have a baby growing inside of me." and when i replied that i did too, she said "well i actually have two babies growing inside of me." we're not ready for the talk yet. i went and got them myself.

i knew it was on its way and boy has it arrived....potty humor. to be specific this is where it began.

lake lure. july. with cousin elijah. they are 2 months apart in age. pretty sure she started it. you have no idea (or maybe you do) how much fun it is apparently to yell "POO POO" when someone else finds it funny. eventually a booty shake was added to the chant and the giggles g0t uncontrollable.
when we got home, she seemed confused to learn that no one else was quite as amused with the performance. until lucy one day replied "PEE PEE" to olive's "POO POO" and its all been over since then. this...cracks...them...up. and while i don't exactly get it, i do love to see them crack each other up.

but that's all. just wanted to share a little about olive. there will be more to come. she's hilarious. like this morning at 7am i here boots stomping towards me. before i can even see her i hear her "i've dressed myself". there she stands in a silk snowman pajama top, panda bear pajama bottoms, lucy's winter hat barely on her large noggin, her scarf wrapped around her neck, her winter coat on, and yes...snow boots. my camera battery was dead. oh well.

8 month pregnant slacking

things i haven't done lately. let's just go ahead and make a numbered list.

1. documented our lives in any fashion (blogging, baby book updating, journaling)
2. brushed my hair (i actually can't remember the last time i did this)
3. returned most phone calls (sorry, but i do love you anyway and please keep loving me)
4. gone more than an hour without dropping something
5. consistently picked up things that i drop (i do however try to kick them all into a pile at the end of the day for robbie - love you too, babe)
6. slept through the entire night
7. made it through a whole day without crying
8. gone half a day without complaining
9. remained reasonable
10. maintained control over my children
11. rolled over in bed without grunting and panting or needing a push in the desired direction
12. shopped with the girls without bribing them with candy or gum (i rock)



13. worked a normal work week at open hearts.
(thank you ladies for picking up my slack. i promise you it won't always be this way!)





14. gone a few days without changing in utero here's name...today it is finn. and robbie and i did stack hands over it and say "100%"...our way of saying, "let's stop talking about this and make up our freaking minds" sorry mom and nat if you hate this one too, but it really does feel like that's his name. middle name is charles FOR CERTAIN after you grandpa, a most inspiring man that we hope *finn* will aspire to be like.
15. keep scissors out of my 3 year old's room during nap time. (i aim to inspire mothers everywhere) wish i had a picture of the bangs that she cut herself. they are actually really cute on her. i haven't even had to touch them up.

and i will leave you with pictures of some beautiful girls that i have once again been too slack to photograph. 'up, add it to the list up there. thank you, sonia, for loving my girls enough to capture their funny little spirits.