What is wrong with this picture???

I have a lot to catch up on and figured this would be quick as I was looking at the pictures I have.

We had to get a picture of this. Our cat is the biggest brat. She drives me and poor Keira (our dog) insane. Keira can be in her bed passed out and the cat will come swat her in the face. Half the time I wake to find Keira on the floor and the cat in the middle of the huge dog bed. Every once in a while they will sleep together. We even got the cat her own bed and put it next to Keira's. She refuses to sleep in it.

Well the other morning I wake up and don't really see Keira (although it was dark in the room). I go about getting ready and when I finally shut on the light to force Ian to get up I finally see where the animals both are. Talk about a total crack up.



Sorry the picture is not the best quality but I ask What is wrong with this picture?? I bought a spray bottle yesterday and plan to use it quite a bit in the next few weeks. Poor Keira!

Baby Update

Well, I was hoping to do this update with a picture but we just have been so busy I have not had a chance to have Ian take one...at least when I am looking somewhat decent:) Most of this week I was in sweats and a tshirt cleaning. Nesting has definitely set in. Now if my body would just let me do what I want to do. It is quite hindering these days.

I am now 36 weeks 4 days. I went to the Dr yesterday and all is good. Nothing really happening yet to my dispair:) I am about 50% effaced but no real dialtion yet. The Dr keeps repeating to me though that this is my third baby and I can go from nothing to something very quickly and then tells me when to call so it seems that he thinks I am just going to go at some point. I can hope its not in another 4 weeks! I have already said though that THIS will be the child that wants to stay in until Thanksgiving. Help me now!

Owen is one crazy kid though and very active so I am trying to embrace it as this should be the last time I get to enjoy it. He kept both Ian and I up last night just going nuts. Some of his movements literally shook my whole body which shook Ian and as much as we were both exhausted it was quite funny. Poor Ian got home at 10 and had to be back up at 3 so he really needed his sleep. Oh the fun we have to come! Ian really has no clue since he missed it both times:) I have a feeling though before too long he won't even wake up. Gotta love the gift daddy's have to sleep through everything. Its going to be interesting having him in our room. But things are all set up, clothes are washed and put away, bassinet is all set up. We are ready! So now we just wait for him to decide he is ready. I can't wait to hold him and love him. I am so looking forward to that baby smell but most of all I am looking forward to not worrying about Ian leaving! I am looking forward to seeing all my boys snuggling on the couch:) I am looking forward to Jacob and Nathan meeting him and loving him. I am just looking forward to this whole new experience.

I keep praying he will be here BY his due date. I guess time will tell!!

Letters from War

The last thing I should be doing is sitting here blogging but I heard/saw this video today and it just really touched me not only from a military wife's standpoint but as a mother of sons. It was definitely not something I probably should have watched as hormonal as I am these days:) It is a beautiful song though and the video is amazing. I think even for those that have no idea what it is like to have a loved one off at war you can understand the feelings families of those that do go through. I am so very very thankful to have had two wonderful years with Ian home and God willing one more before we start the deployment cycle yet again. I have to be honest I am quite scared to death he will be deployed overseas prior to our transferring from here. The odds don't look great. But as much as it petrifies me, I am so proud that he is willing to go and loves his job and what it stands for. He is definitely my hero. I have a friend whose husband should be leaving this week, if he has not already, to head over to some not quite so lovely places. My thoughts and prayers are with his unit and especially their families as they go and along with the thousands of other soldiers and their families who are waiting for letters from war....

Mark Schultz- Letters From War

The Apple Farm!

On Monday we had our "2nd annual" Apple Picking trip to Royal Oak Farms in Harvard, Illinois which is about an hour and a half drive from our house. We took the boys last year and had such a good time we decided to make another trip this year. Besides being completely uncomfortable sitting in the car due to Mr. Owen beating the heck out of me I LOVED driving through the back country seeing all the fall colors. Everything is really turning yellow, orange and red....my FAVORITE time of year.

The best part of the trip has to be riding the tractor ride out to the orchard and then picking the apples. Ian showed the boys that if they softly shook the branches the ripe apples would fall so the boys were in heaven shaking trees and finding the apples to put in the bag. Ian is insane though with the amount he decided we needed to get. I wanted to get the bag that held maybe 14 pounds but not Ian he thought we needed half a bushel which ended up being TWENTY FIVE POUNDS of apples. The man is crazy. It is a good thing the boys LOVE apples (especially Jacob) but IAN has a lot of prep work to do to freeze a bunch:)









The boys also enjoyed the petting zoo, train, carousel and wooden playground they have. Hopefully we will make it out there next year for one last time before we transfer from here.

On the way home we got some of the boys' costumes. Nathan wants to be a fireman again and the costume still fits so we got him a "super cool" hat and he is set. Jacob wants to be Indiana Jones so we are slowly piecing together his costume and he was thrilled to get his hat and whip. Now if I can just find the right shirt/jacket.

We ended our trip with a great meal at a local chain restaurant called Hackney's and then finally made our way home and crashed. I am so glad we went this week and did not wait another because 34 weeks pregnant bouncing on a tractor ride was enough for me!:) Owen definitely let me know he was there and not quite appreciating the bouncing. It was quite amusing:) Here is a picture of "the two of us" at 34 weeks pregnant.

Clifford the BIG Red Dog!

Nathan got to be the FIRST kid in his preschool class to get to take THE Clifford bag home for the weekend. The Clifford bag is a bag with Clifford books and a small stuffed Clifford along with a Journal that mom/dad are to help the child write about what Clifford did with their family while he was visiting. Each child will get to take a turn. Nathan brought it home and then got sick so we ended up getting to have him for over a week instead of just four days and Nathan fell in love with him. (In fact I think I am going to be on the hunt to find him his very own little Clifford because he was less than thrilled to take him back today:)

Nathan of course got sick so Clifford spent a lot of time hanging out with him on the couch and then yesterday we took him to the Apple Farm with us. Nathan loved carrying him around in his sweatshirt as you can see in the picture I am attaching.

I am so thankful for preschool and the love Nathan is having for it. It is so cute to see his face each day when we get him because he is sooooo excited to tell us what he did and his teachers do nothing but rave about him. Too bad he can't be quite so good at home:)

Sick Day

So today was a sick day in our house. Jacob started not feeling too great yesterday and since he was off school due to holiday I had hoped he would be okay today for school but no such luck. He was up with a fever coughing early this morning and so when he got up for good I told him he would be staying on the couch today. He cried for over an hour begging me to let him go. Poor kid! I am glad he loves going though! So I told him he had to stay "resting" so that he could be better by tomorrow. So he and Nathan have been vegetables most of the day. I even rented him Speed Racer which he has been dying to see and is sitting here next to me watching now. He seems a bit more "chipper" and his cheeks have gone from tomato red to just a bit flushed so I have hopes it will be a quick cold. However, the cough is not sounding so great.

I think the boys are getting on each other's nerves and we had a discussion about being brothers forever and friends forever and how if we don't have friends to play with who is there? Jacob thought about that for a minute and then said "Nathan" I said yep so learn to get along because you are brothers FOREVER. It seems to help ---for about a half hour:) I thought they were cute though watching TV together and had to get a picture. Don't mind the red eye I am not really in the mood to sit and mess with fixing it at the moment.

Hope everyone else is healthy and enjoying their week! The weather has turned overnight from fairly warm still to crisp and a little cool and I am LOVING IT! (especially being pregnant) Fall is my FAVORITE time of year and I LOVE living in a place where you have REAL full seasons. Driving to my OB check up last night I was in heaven driving by the colorful Mums and the trees starting to go to yellow and red. I am going to make sure I enjoy this month before it all falls off and we have dead everything and snow:) I actually enjoy having the snow somewhat but thinking about having a tiny baby and dealing with it has me dreading it just a little bit.

Speaking of baby all is well. I am 32 weeks and measuring right on track finally. He is absolutely insane with his moving and leaves me quite uncomfortable almost all the time these days but I am trying to embrace it and enjoy it. I know Ian is! He thinks it is the best thing ever that I look like tweedle dee these days:) And of course I love him for it! I keep going to the Doctor every two weeks the next two visits then down to one a week until Owen decides to make his appearance which I HOPE its around mid November NOT all the way to my due date of the 24 and definitely NOT late!

Fun thanks to great friends!

A couple of weeks ago a friend from church gave me a bag of toys for the boys that had been given to her that were just not really appropriate for her little daughter. In that bag was heaven for Jacob and Nathan! Nathan is now obsessed with a remote control Spider Man car and Jacob is in heaven with this helocopter thing that you can launch up to three stories in the air. (Ian is a little bit in love with that as well) Also in that box was a game I had never seen before. It has these vests you put on that have velcro and then these soft balls with velcro so you run around throwing the balls at eachother trying to make them stick. Let me just say watching the boys do this was quite the crack up....that is until they decided they should throw them at ME! Of course guess WHO was the first to start that game? Yep you guessed it Daddy. I swear some days I married my father! (Love you Dad!)

So thanks to great friends at church the boys got to have Christmas in September! Thank you Danica!!!

Here are a few pictures of their "game"!