Thanks 2007, it’s been a good good year.

At my OB appointment on the 26th I heard the baby’s heart beat for the first time and all I could say to the doc was, "so there’s a baby in there huh?"  Like I was in some kind of denial or something. Which I’m sure I am. I am totally and completely failing at this whole excited expectant mother bit. The only good thing that came out of that appointment was the fact that I lost a pound this month, which in the midst of Christmas cookies, parties and lots of Imo’s is a true Christmas Festivus miracle.

I left that day with this huge feeling of dread looming over my head, so big and dark I was afraid other people could see it. My mind was stuck on the midnight feedings, wondering if Parker would be sleeping through the night at that point and knowing I would want to kill her if she’s not, money of course came into play at the thought of another butt to diaper, formula to buy (b/c I’m sure breast feeding will still suck) and if it’s a boy an entire new wardrobe to outfit. It was just all the practical things that had me down and has kept me down about this baby from day one of "oh my God, does that test say it’s POSITIVE?"

But then, at 3am last night when I was laying on the couch watching "A Walk to Remember" (there’s not much on at that time of night and Mandy Moore was just fine) and waiting for the next screaming fit by either P or B I felt a little bump. And then again, bump bump bump. So faint and so light and so IN there. And as I laid my hand on my growing tummy for the first time all the practical downers got kicked right out of my head. As I felt this tiny baby moving around my head started to fill with the dreams of a new life. Will this little person have Bailey’s sweet heart? Parker’s toughness? C’s smile? My forehead? Is there a little BOY in there? Or are we welcoming our third baby girl into our family? Suddenly, as this little life made itself known to me I wasn’t worried about where the money would come from, or how we would afford a new car (b/c three kids won’t fit in either of ours), or how we would survive the NO sleep and extra stress. All I could think about was what a blessing this sweet baby would be in our lives, and how God has always found a way for us to survive and just how perfect our family would be now.

And I knew all of that from a few little kicks in my belly. Amazing isn’t it?

I don’t know what has come over me this week. An abundance of new toys that needed to be integrated? A pile of laundry that would scare off the best house keepers? Just having it up to HERE with constant mess? Who knows. But I’m definitely acting like I’m in the final days of pregnancy as I’m "nesting" with the best of them!

I mentioned that we rearranged our downstairs but I’m not sure you understand what that means. I went through EVERY item in my office, purging, trashing, moving and reorganizing. That is about 10 years worth of craft supplies gotten down to ONE bookcase, ONE desk and a few odds and ends here and there (all neatly organized).

Then we took the empty bookcase from the office and moved it to the front living room, giving us much needed book and toy organization. In the midst of moving that we had to move other furniture to make room and in order to organize the new bookshelf I had to go through EVERY single toy downstairs. Two bins and two trash bags later we finished that room!

We then tackled our bedroom… cleaning out and reorganizing our closets, dusting, moving decorations, mopping, vacuuming, etc.  We also put away about 4 loads of laundry.

Did I mention we did all of that one MORNING?

Then today I took every single toy out of the family room, changed some things around, CLEANED (man was out house dusty!), created draw pulls for a dresser/tv stand that has been missing them forever, vacuumed, mopped, etc. Now it might sound strange that the living room HAS toys and the family room does NOT, but the living room has a ton more space to play down here and the cluttered family room was just simply driving me crazy. SO now it is clutter and toy free. Awesome. Did that this afternoon.

I also got every single bin/tub/box of baby clothes from the attic and started going through them. We bought nice new CLEAR plastic tubs during the after Christmas sales at Target so that I could reorganize the attic. So although this project isn’t finished, it will be tonight, and tomorrow we will put all the newly organized and LABELED boxes back in the attic. I’m going through their old clothes so that I can pull out things for Abbie’s baby that I know won’t work for ours, even if it’s a girl, b/c of season differences. I’m also taking out the stained things… does this happen to you? You pack away something nice and clean and 6 months later a yellow stain from spit-up appears? Drives me crazy!

And on tomorrow’s list we are tackling the entire playroom and girl’s bedroom. You should see our yard sale pile! And the trash! WOW! I think that if I could find a way to make money purging other people of their crap and clutter, I would be a very rich and happy woman. Because MAN! I am GOOD at purging! And don’t fret, I do save things occasionally too that might mean something someday to the girls or their girls (all neatly packed away and labeled of course), but for the most part, I’m a LESS IS MORE type of gal.

So wish me luck. Luck that my energy will last through the last of my projects and that I won’t run out of time before C goes back to school on Wed! Hope you’re getting things accomplished on your break too, b/c relaxing is great, but a clean and organized house is SO worth the effort!

Big news on the Jodified front!

I was asked to do wedding photographs for a wedding in July and after meeting with the bride, considering a million and one things (a new baby among others!), and finally sending in my proposal to her, I just heard back that she’s accepted the wedding package I offered! It looks like I’m headed to do my first WEDDING this summer!

An exciting adventure to say the least! Expect more about this as the day gets closer!

So last night I took the advice of my husband, sister and now mother and sat for at least 45 minutes writing a long and detailed journey of our holiday. Then, as I hit the POST button, the stupid idiot mean poop head of our wireless internet went out and it all got deleted.  So forget it.

All you’re gonna get is that it’s been a whirlwind of a few weeks. We have so much family that is constantly coming and going that everyday is a new day to see people and do fun things. The girls have been troopers with late naps and late nights, however Parker is still the devil child at night and my plan of having her sleep through the night by the time C’s break is over is looking bleak. I will NOT give up though b/c I’ve been up for at least 2 hours a night with her for almost two weeks. This is NO time to give up! And I also woke up on Christmas morning with one hell of a cold. It hasn’t slowed me down too much, i just feel like crap while doing everything I normally do.

Christmas WAS good though, the girls were bombarded with amazing gifts and C and I just enjoyed watching Bailey actually "get it" this year. I love watching her excited little face as she opens her gifts exclaiming, "this is SOOOO cute!"  Too funny.

We spent the days after Christmas rearranging our house, reorganizing all the toys, clothes and rooms to make space for new things and get rid of the old. I am a MASTER purger if you ever need help with that sort of thing. We have 4 bins for yard sale and got rid of 6 trash bags worth of crap. It felt great. We’re tackling the upstairs today/tomorrow. I LOVE getting things out of this house and organizing what’s left. All I keep thinking about with this third baby coming is that the stuff will just keep multiplying and clutter will take over our lives. Kids don’t need so much stuff and neither do we. So the toys are less, my craft supplies are all but gone (when am I going to have time anyway?) and things are simpler. What I’ve noticed in the last two days is that the girls are actually playing with what we left them rather than just throwing toys all over the house all day. It’s a good thing.

This weekend is no exception in the busy dept so I need to get moving. I will post the photos I spent SO MUCH TIME last night posting later. I’m glad that those of you that have blogs survived the holidays too and for those of you that don’t blog, I hope you had a magical Christmas as well!

Just thought I would share our favorite Christmas recipe with everyone today.

Now I’m off to enjoy my family.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, I pray that you all have a blessed holiday!

I haven’t written much about the fact that my little sister is having her first baby b/c I’ve been waiting for a great way to announce what she’s having. Today I did her maternity shoot (luckily the weather totally cooperated!) so here it goes…

I think Abbie was hoping for a boy, but I am SO glad she’s having a little girl that can be BFF with Bails and Parker! Can’t WAIT for this little one to get here and wishing they lived about 8 hours closer! I had a great time taking her maternity shots this morning… we were at Forest Park, City Museum (the whole family met us there and we had a great time), Christ Church Cathedral and the steps of the St. Louis Library. I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing shoots in the city! Or in any place OTHER than a park! Parks are fine, and great for classic shots, but I really like being challenged, being pushed to find new and creative ways to get great shots. This belly shot was taken at the top entrance to The Muny.

I will post more photos later b/c I am SO exhausted. Chris went out last night with friends from work to celebrate the last day of school and instead of coming home around midnight like he said, he got home at 3:30am! And of course it was a night the girls weren’t sleeping so I wasn’t sleeping and had no help. I also was worried sick about where he was. SO I think I’m working on about 2 hours of sleep and can’t work much longer.

And before I call it quits tonight I want to update you on Parker. She does have laryngomalacia, which is a condition where her larynx is soft instead of hard and collapses with every breath she takes making her sound like she’s growling a little. It’s not dangerous b/c it hasn’t hindered her growth or development at all, she’s in the 95% for height! The doctor DID say that it was one of the most severe cases he’s seen for her age, but he wants to wait 6 weeks to see if there is any change before recommending surgery. So we go back on Feb 6th for another check where they put a camera scope down her nose/throat and watch her breathe (it was horrible b/c she was in pain and screaming, but totally interesting to be able to see her breathe and understand exactly what’s happening in there!) So nothing new to report I guess. Thanks for the prayers and concerns, I really love having this new blog family!

And that is IT for tonight! Have a great Sat!

Before you have children you take simple things, like showers, completely and utterly for granted. And what I find interesting, is that my thoughts about showers are constantly changing as I have more kids and as those kids hit different stages of life.

When Bailey was an infant I really REALLY thought it was hard to get a shower in my day. HA! Looking back I was able to take luxurious showers! I would pop her in the bouncy seat, push the vibrate button and take a good 15 minute shower. As she hit crawling age she would either go in the exersaucer that had been dragged into the bathroom or I would just let her crawl around my feet in the shower… still getting at least a 10-15 minute shower. But the entire time I really thought it was such a hassle and there were many days that I wouldn’t take one b/c it was "too much work".

When Parker arrived I again had the bouncy seat in the bathroom, but then I also had a 16 month old on the loose all by herself…scary. Luckily, Bailey was such a good kid she would sit and watch a video or play quietly. The issue began to be that Parker ALWAYS cried when she was in the bouncy seat for more than 5 minutes so I always cut my showers short for her sake.

Once I got Parker on a nap routine I would take my showers during her morning nap, but now her nap time is the only time I can safely go to the basement to do laundry or get any kind of computer work done. SO once again showers seemed impossible.  And then she turned ONE!

Today when Parker was up from her nap I told the girls I was getting in the shower and asked Bailey to play with Parker. I laughed the entire time I was in there as I heard, "Parter, come HERE! Parter play wit me! Parter, here, here, here, happy birtday! Parter, no, come back here!" When I got out I saw what they had been playing… Bailey had found a box of flashcards in the office, was folding them up and handing them to Parker. I guess they were her birthday gifts.

Anyway, I guess a shower still feels like a hassle most days, and I long for the days of one infant in a bouncy seat quietly vibrating! But in the end, it’s really not that bad at any stage of kidhood to squeeze in a shower I guess. The issue, truly, is that you are SQUEEZING in a shower! To me, heaven will be a QUIET, candle lit bathroom that has unlimited amounts of hot water for an all day shower! And it would also have a beautifully soft bed for hours and hours of sleep!

Is it sad that my heaven holds a shower and a bed? 

You truly know you’re a stay-at-home-mom when your kids wake up, you grab whatever is clean and fits without caring how they look. And I think this settles in with the second kid, b/c with your first you are alone with one baby all day. You have time to do laundry so that everyone has matching outfits, you are still excited to put them in all the cute clothes you got as gifts or bought at the over-priced stores b/c you also still have a little extra money to spend clothes. Once that second one comes you are balancing a toddler and a baby, you are so sleep deprived you can barely function let along match clothes together and by the time you hit this stage in life you just really don’t give a damn anymore how anyone looks.

I say this as a result from yesterday. I dressed Parker and thought nothing of it, then when I got her from her nap it was like my eyes were open for the first time all day b/c MAN did she look rough! I had no idea!

Striped turtle neck and floral pants that are a size too small.

At least she’s still cute!

Saw THIS on a blog this morning and had to pass it along… if I could create this on a greeting card I SO would! I just LOVED it. Go HERE and sit and wait for the video to play…