And our next destination is....

Well? Does anybody want to know where our next adventure will take us too? Jacob got his assignment notification yesterday, which is a step before orders. Orders don't change, but there is always the possibility that assignment notifications can. So until we have orders, it's not set in stone, but at least we have some semblance of knowing where we are going, lol. Does anybody want to know? Anybody? Anybody? There were basically 4 options of places we could go from here: New Mexico, Nebraska, Florida, or back to Tuscon. Tuscon and Nebraska were our most likely options, so I was surprised to find out that we are going to...

Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico!

A few months ago, we really really wanted to go to New Mexico next, but this and that came up and we heard that it was pretty unlikely that we would go there and that Jacob would likely have to TDY to another base if we went there, so we changed our minds and really wanted to go to Nebraska. Jacob put it as number one on his "dream sheet" which because it was likely that we go there anyway we thought would mean we would go there for sure. I got myself all excited to go to Nebraska because there is a temple there, and church history sites to visit, and I would have a sister only 2 hours away! I was almost disappointed when we found out we would be going to New Mexico which is where I wanted to go in the first place! Silly, I know! Anyway, we are excited to finally know where we are going next and we are excited to be going to New Mexico! 

Witch

So we got out our Halloween decorations last week which consists of 3 pumpkins and two signs. Because I was feeling the lack of pumpkiny fallness in our home, Rachel and I decided to make some little decorations to put up inside. I was drawing some pumpkins and ghosts and letting Rachel cut them out and she decided she needed to draw a witch that she would let me cut out. Here it is:

Isn't this the cutest witch you've ever seen? She even drew it's wand. I love my cute girl and all of her super cute drawings!!

Weird pregnancy craving

So I've heard of pregnant ladies craving strange things, like for example pickles and ice cream...together, but I've never had really crazy cravings. With all three of my pregnancies when I'm in my 3rd trimester, I also crave some sort of soda. In general I hate soda. It makes me sick, but I crave the feel of the bubbles in my mouth from the carbonation. Yesterday I had a weird craving though. I made quesadillas for lunch (super unhealthy, I know, I felt guilty), and I really wanted to put pumpkin butter on it. So...I did...and...it was delicious! I had to text Jacob at work and tell him about just how yummy it was! I wonder what other things pumpkin butter would be good on that I haven't tried yet?

37 Weeks (tomorrow)

Aaaaah! I'm going to be 37 weeks tomorrow. That means technically this baby could come ANYTIME. I've never had a baby this early, but hey, it could happen. Part of me feels soooooo ready to have this baby come out. This pregnancy has seemed longer than the other ones. Probably because of Jacob's Morocco trip that seemed to last months and months. I can't wait to not be pregnant anymore and to meet our little Elijah boy. I can't wait to see him and hold him and cuddle him and nurse him and love on him. The other part of me feels totally not ready though. Is it silly that I want my house to be clean when he comes? I have been trying so hard to keep my house clean and to finish up projects and put things away and do extra deep cleaning, but it seems that the more I do, the more I find that needs doing and I can't keep up on the most basic room in the house (the kitchen) because I'm busy trying to do all of the extra things. I worked ALL DAY LONG on Saturday getting extra things done in the house and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and I didn't get to half the things on my list, and I felt so broken that night I could hardly move. My back hurt and my feet hurt and my pelvic bones hurt and I was soooooo tired. And I still have soooooo much to do. I didn't think all that work would put me into labor or anything, but I was hoping for a contraction or two out of it since I had worked so hard, but nothing. Although I do thing that Elijah dropped that day, so maybe all my cleaning wasn't just for nothing, lol. I had a dr appointment today. He did my strep test and decided to check to see if there was anything going on. I am about a fingertip dilated and my cervix is still pretty thick, but Elijah is WAY down there. I'm hoping that doing some walking (and more cleaning) this next week will maybe help thin out my cervix. I'm at the point where I will start having my appointments everyweek from now til he is born. Most of the prenatal dr appointments I find pointless, especially going through this the 3rd time, but these ones at the end are kind of nice because they at least tell me more of what is going on. I totally wish I knew when Elijah's birthday was going to be. The not knowing and not being able to plan for it exactly drives me crazy. With Rachel I was almost a week over due and Kent came about a day before hi lds due date, so I'm not expecting Elijah to come earlier than that, but there is a part of me that wonders if it will be different this time and he will come earlier. (Probably it's just wishful thinking, lol.) Also, I wonder how Kent will handle having this new little guy around. He's been asking me more and more lately to hold him. It's almost as if he knows he is about to be kicked out of his baby spot. Obviously he knows we are having a baby, but he doesn't quite get what that really means. He's been super cute lately carrying around a little baby doll and wrapping it in blankets and giving it kisses and singing it songs. I think he will love his brother, but I just worry he won't get the Mommy attention he needs after he comes. New babies are always an adjustment for everyone, but I think that it's probably hardest on the youngest child. I hope Kent does okay. Anyway, that is what is currently on my mind. I can't wait til this baby comes and I'm excited to meet him, but also a little nervous about the unknown. I'll try to put a belly picture up tomorrow of my 37 week tummy. 

Scribbles

So the other day Kent was coloring. He excitedly brought his paper to Jacob and said, "Look! I wrote dad!" 

Kent isn't writing at all. In fact he mostly just scribbles, but it was kind of fun that he recognized that his scribbles looked like the word dad. Can you see it?

Swim Cap

So Rachel has been in swim lessons for a while now (we are on the third session, I think) and her hair is hating the chlorine. I broke down and bought her a swim cap for this last session. Isn't she adorable?

Kent of course needed a turn wearing it too. Funny kid! 

Tent

I love these kids. So we've been wanting to go camping for a while. Our last two campouts we planned were canceled on account of someone being sick. Instead, we decided to just put up this little tent for the kids in the house for a few days. The kids have been so cute! The only area upstairs big enough for a tent is right outside my bedroom door. We put them in the tent and told them as long as they stayed in it they could sleep there (meaning no coming in and bugging mom and dad). And they did for the most part. The first night Kent came into our room a few times so he had to sleep in his room instead, but that was the only night he's been sent back to his room (the tent has been up since Sunday.) It's been so cute hearing them talk and play in the tent at night! It seriously makes me happy.  Then the other morning, we had to wake them up so I could take Jacob to work, and they were like this. They had both rolled towards each other, off of their mats and Rachel had her arm over Kent. 

I love these kids and how much they love each other.

Socks

Jacob told Kent to go find some socks this morning. I came upstairs later and found his room like this:

His top two drawers are now empty. 

Long Night

So Rachel came down with what I thought was croup last week. In fact she has been sick since the very day Jacob came home from Morocco. (Boo). We have been stuck at home waiting and waiting and waiting for her to get better. She is mostly better, but we are still waiting for her cough to go away. Her cough still sounds yucky but she mostly only has it during the night and when she has been playing to hard or is tired.  At the beginning of it she had some really goopy eyes. They didn't last very long, but it was enough to notice. She even commented on all of the "eye crumbs" she had. Well, Monday, Kent woke up with goopy pink eyes. They are way goopier and pink than Rachel's were and he has been pretty miserable with them. I have wondered if he just had pink eye, but he also has a cough and runny nose. Just as she is getting better, he is once again getting sick. If they are both going to get it I wish they would get it at the same time because we have already been stuck in the house missing swim lessons and gymnastic lessons for a week and a half, and Rachel and Jacob have missed church twice. We are all totally tired of being home bound. Yesterday, Kent's eyes were particularly bad, especially in the afternoon and evening,  needing the goop washed out every few minutes. (Who knew little eyes could make so much goop!) He kept waking up during the night and coughing and coughing and coughing. Then at about 11:30 last night I guess he just felt so awful and couldn't take it anymore. He asked me if he could sleep in my bed to which I replied, "No." Our kids don't sleep with us. (At least not with Jacob home.) His response was a pitiful, "Why mommy?" Just about broke my heart. I wanted to say, "Of course you can come snuggle with mommy! I can tell you aren't feeling good, let me just scoot over." I tried to help him back into his bed but as soon as he got in bed and I got back to bed he would climb back out and ask to get in my bed again. When I would say no and he would say why and I would answer, he always asked me to carry him back to bed and sing him a little song (Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater). He did this maybe three times before I told him I wouldn't help him anymore. Anyway to make an extremely long night into a slightly shorter story, after Jacob got up with him, I took another turn. He just couldn't get comfortable. I asked him where he hurt and he told me, "My mouth hurts." I asked him if it hurt in his throat and got a blank stare. Then I asked him if it hurt in the place he swallows and he said "Yes! I swallow crackers. Goldfish crackers. Mouf hurts!" He was telling me his mouth hurt where he swallows goldfish crackers. Poor kid. I couldn't help but laugh. He also kept telling me that his ears hurt and that his head hurt and that the light coming from the window was getting him and he kept crying and crying, even when I got him down and tried snuggling him. I gave him some Tylenol and put some oils on him and ended up sleeping on the couch with him for 4 hours or so, so that Jacob could get some sleep. Thankfully he settled down pretty quickly after that, until we went back upstairs at 4 because we were all awake and tried to get him to settle down in his bed again. It took almost an hour to get him convinced that he needed to sleep, and then both the kids were in waking me up at 6:45 just after Jacob went to work. I feel like I need a nap already this morning. And I didn't really mean to write about all of that. I really only meant to write about Kent saying that his mouth hurt where he swallows goldfish crackers because I thought that was funny, but apparently my tired brain needed to unload. Oops! Sorry about the longish post from a tired, pregnant mommy!

Reading Rachel

Rachel has been telling me for a few days that she wants me to read her a specific book on my shelf. A chapter book. I've read her chapter books before and am actually currently reading one to her. Today she brought me the book and I told her that she could probably read it. So she sat down right then and started reading it. It has a few words that are tricky for her, but not too tricky. She sat down and read the whole first chapter. After that chapter she said she liked reading it but was tired, so she out it down and went to read a different book for a while instead. I love this funny girl of mine, and I love how much she loves to read! 

Brown Cat

So, since we have a baby coming in October, I decided to get the kids Halloween costumes ready early. I've been asking them for weeks what they want to be (to make sure it wouldn't change). At first Rachel wanted to be a bat but then she decided to be queen Elsa instead. At first Kent only wanted to be a baby, but then (thankfully) changed his mind and now wants to be a "brown cat". He has a blanket that is brown on one side that he often puts over himself and crawls around and pretends to be a brown cat. I'm not sure why I didn't learn from my costume sewing troubles last year, but I decided to see their costumes again this year. Kent loves his hat at least. :) 

(I really should buy other colors of thread besides white)

I asked Rachel if it made him look like a brown cat and she said "He looks more like a deer." Sigh! Oh well! 

This next picture cracks me up. 

Kent fell asleep on his baby brother right after putting his brown cat hat on. 

Oh how I love this sweet "brown cat" of mine!

Dr. Appointment

Had a dr appointment today. Elijah is big! Measuring 36 weeks instead of the almost 34. (Not that surprising since we usually have good big babies). I remember Rachel measuring big too. He is also head down. Yay! I just had a friend have to have a c-section because her baby was breech, so I'm glad we don't have to deal with that! 

In the mean time, here is my view from the top:

I can't see my toes anymore (unless I bend over) which is probably okay because I can't quite reach for a long enough time to paint them. Maybe I'll have to teach Rachel to paint them for me. :)

Stencils, they aren't just for fabric

We had a fun morning coloring with...stencils! Rachel has used them before and loved it, but It was during Kent's nap. I wasn't sure how he would do with a stencil, but he loved it too. Its an awesome way to practice fine motor skills and he was super excite when we would move the stencil and he could see the picture underneath that he got to draw. Of course he had to add some embellishments after the stencils were moved, lol. 

Rachel told me, "I hope we get to do this everyday!"

Some of Kent's finished pictures:

And some of Rachel's:

I love being a play at home mom with these cuties all day long!

Just some thoughts

This post will have no pictures and may not be interesting to anyone but me, but I just had a few thoughts on my mind that I needed to get out somewhere, and since this blog is a record of our little family, here is where it will go.

I am so happy that Jacob is back with our family! It feels so good to be together again. Jacob came home on Saturday, and Saturday night, Rachel came down with a fever, which meant that Jacob had to stay home with her on Sunday while I took Kent to church. I felt bad to make him miss church when he had only been able to go once in the last 4 weeks, but I was so grateful that he was there to stay home with her. Finding a sub for Singing Time in Primary would not be easy last minute like that. And I almost cried when I came home from church to see that the breakfast dishes had been loaded into the dishwasher! No one but me has done that in over a month!!! It is the little things that I missed. Snuggling with him in bed. Help with one of the kids at bed time. Talking to him about my day instead of just bottling everything up inside. Having his support and encouragement after a hard day with the kids, and let me tell you, this last month was full of hard days. Poor Jacob. Instead of spending our time together after the kids were asleep partying, he had to hug me while I cried and tried to work through some of the stress and emotions I had been bottling up while he was gone. He is such a good and supportive husband. I couldn't find a better match for me if I scoured the entire earth. It was so nice to have him home for the entire day today. I am so thankful for Labor Day and that it gave our family a day of much needed together time before Jacob had to start back into the busyness and craziness that is his work and school here. It was so fun to have family night as a complete family again, and then during scriptures tonight poor Rachel got a bloody nose. And let me tell you,  it was the worst bloody nose she has ever had (not that she has had very many in her short little life.) Rachel has croup and has been quite sick. Poor thing. Her nose tonight was just flowing blood. I don't get very squeamish around blood, being a non practicing nurse, but I was actually starting to get worried about her. She was getting freaked out and I was singing primary songs to her while I helped her to help her calm down, but when it started coming out of both nostrils she got really scared. The song I had been singing her was "A Child's Prayer." So right there in the middle of helping her with a crazy bloody nose, I asked her to close her eyes and I said a prayer to Heavenly Father. I asked for her to have peace, and I asked for her bloody nose to stop. After the prayer, Rachel had no more tears, and within a minute she had stopped bleeding. I don't know how long we were in the bathroom trying to get it to stop, but it was at least 10 minutes, maybe longer. 10 minutes can seem very long when you are seeing blood come out of your little child, and you are unable to stop it. I was so grateful that Jacob was there to help with Kent. Kent came into the bathroom with us once and shut the door and turned out the light, which of course didn't make things easier. Instead of me having to try to deal with it, Jacob came in, turned the light back on, and took Kent out to go color. I was so grateful. While I am sad that Rachel is sick, and also sad that the timing coincided exactly with Jacob coming home, I am glad that he has been home to help instead of all of this happening while he was gone.  I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers, and that he loves me. While this last month has been the hardest possibly of my life, I have seen his tender mercies through out it all. One day while Jacob was gone I was having a really really hard day. I mean really hard. I had decided to cut some pictures out of some old Ensigns that we had lying around to put in a book for Kent to look at during church. I found this random Ensign that was from when Jacob and I were first married. So this Ensign was 6 years old. I was looking through it, looking to see if there were any pictures worth cutting out of it, not reading it or anything when I opened it to an article that was specifically for families of military members and dealing with separations. It was a tender mercy. It showed me that the Lord was mindful of me and that he knew what I was going through. Why would I have saved this random Ensign through countless moves across the country when every time we move, I get rid of more and more stuff? Why did this specific Ensign get saved? I don't remember reading anything in it. We weren't even in the military when we received it. I was working nights and going to school and probably didn't even read it when we first got it. Why on this hard hard day did I decided to do something I've never done before and why was I able to find this magazine so easily and inside my house, when things we don't use are in boxes in the garage? I just looked. I will tell you why. Heavenly Father knew that I would need comfort and he loves me enough to give it to me. He wants to help me. I am so grateful for that Ensign for reminding me of the tremendous love that He has for me and how blessed I really am. So I just looked at that Ensign again. This particular Ensign came out in June of 2008. Jacob and I were married in May of that same year, just one month earlier. This was probably the first Ensign we had in our home after we got married. The very first one. We had no plans to join the military at that time. None. I'm telling you, tender mercies from the Lord. Here is a link to the article in case anyone is interested. https://www.lds.org/ensign/2008/06/armor-of-battle-armor-of-god?lang=eng
I think that is all of my ramblings for the night. My eyes are getting tired and my thoughts jumbled, and I have a handsome boy in my bed upstairs that probably needs to be snuggled with. :) I'm so glad he's home.