Our Inspired Journey

I realized today as I bumped my growing belly against the kitchen counter while I was cooking dinner, that I haven't given may updates regarding my 3rd and last pregnancy! It's surely not because in the fullness of life, I've forgotten about her! In the beginning of a 3rd pregnancy before the tummy gets too big, sure, there may have been a few days or weeks when her presence was not as prominent in our everyday life! But now that I'm growing and she is making herself known more often by the kicks, rolls and pushing she does from inside, I can't help but remember that she is alive and very well every moment of the day! In fact, she is definitely our most active (so far) judging from movement from within! My midwife said that it is very normal to feel the baby more with each pregnancy. This is very new for me since Ryder rarely moved...in fact I had a late ultrasound to make sure everything was okay in there since he was so still throughout my pregnancy! Cole moved a little bit more, or at least as far as I could tell from what I felt, and this little miss is like an acrobat! She moves so much that I'm constantly bringing John, Ryder or Cole's hand to my belly to feel her say "Hello! I'm coming soon!" We talk about her often. I tell Ryder when ever she kicks and he says, "Our sister is going to come soon and she'll be sooooo cute!"

I've reached 29 weeks now...I can't believe she'll be here in about 10 weeks! (I'm always a week early!) I'm very active with the boys during the day...daily walks (when the weather permits) and running around trying to keep Cole from diving off of every table or high place in the house! Ryder allows me to relax a bit as we sit, read and do "school time" while Cole is napping, (which I LOVE) but I've started feeling aches and pains here and there. John is wonderful in giving me back rubs when I need, but my favorite thing to "unwind" is the yoga video I got as a Christmas present from my friend Wendy when I was pregnant with Cole. Tonight I pulled it out and since Ryder wasn't quite ready of bed yet, he jumped right in and did "stretches" (as he called them) with me. :) I was surprised at how well he stayed with me as I followed the instructors on the video and always said, "Okay, what do we do next?" after a stretch was over. So cute! It was a little less relaxing to be instructing him along the way too, but so worth the experience of "stretching" with my oldest son. Here are some pictures of our yoga moment together! :)

I'm not sure whether it just comes with the territory when you have brothers, or if my boys have adopted a special love of their "nightly wrestling match" on Ryder's bed, but whatever it is, these boys have developed quite a tradition! It may look too rough from the pictures, but if you were here, you'd see how careful Ryder is not to hurt his brother! It usually begins as Cole comes at Ryder with mouth open, arms open and gives him a big bear hug around his tummy...then Ryder hugs him back and gently falls to the side being careful not to crush his brother! They repeat this over and over until it gets a bit too crazy and I break things up! Isn't that a mother's job? :) Trust me...I try to be a very "cool" mom of boys and let them have their fun, but mama knows when little one has had enough and his war cries are turning into real cries for help! Here are some pics of the wrestlers in action. :)

Ryder was thrilled the other day when it started to rain and we he got to pull out his and Cole's new raincoats and umbrella we bought after our first downpour here that left us all drenched! Rain is not like most rain in CA where you can run really fast from your car to the building and only get a little wet. The first rain we experienced was a residual storm from Hurricane Ike...we were leaving church, John pulled the car up to the door...literally, we were 10 feet from our car door and once we got in the car, we looked at each other and started laughing since it looked like we had just stepped out of the shower! Needless to say, the boys got raincoats out of the experience and Ryder was excited to put them on again as we were on our way 6 doors down to our neighbor's house to watch the new Veggie Tales movie with them and their boys. By the way...I can't believe I'm saying this already, but with a low temperature of 29 tonight, we're getting ready to transfer rain for snow! It's still October! Crazy... Here are the boys ready for the rain...