Some random photos

Aaron still looks uncannily like his cousin Gracie. He put on one of Genevieve's shirts the other day and I snapped a picture to send to my picture telling her we stole Gracie. :)

After watching a Mickey Mouse short that talked about Turkish Delight, Bill made some for the kids. It looks totally beautiful here, but unfortunately it wasn't solid enough to cut and frankly it tasted a little weird. Fun experiment though. 

Annual Easter/conference Girls Scout cookie making day. Samoas.

Thin Mints. Worth every minute it takes to make them, which are a lot of minutes, so that's a good thing.

I've been cultivating a sourdough starter in my fridge for a month or so now, making something every couple weeks. This week I made these. They are delightful. It's a recipe from King Arthur flour. I basically just went to their recipes section, looked at sourdough, and picked a recipe that looked good. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing the same thing every couple months for a good while. They have so many recipes. So, so, so yummy.

Third Trimester

This is what the beginning of the third trimester looks on me. So.much.baby. I passed the 27-week mark last weekend and boom, suddenly I am horribly uncomfortable and some of the pregnancy quirks I've been waiting to experience again hit with a vengeance. It's not really a fun way to spend the last few days, but oh well. I'm two-thirds done and so happy about that.

I switch my kids' rooms around all the time, trying to find the optimal setup. My mom is going to come out when the baby is born, and I want to have an actual bed for her, not just an air mattress or a couch. Plus, I made the kids bunk beds in the last couple years and Spencer's is horribly squeaky now and the legs on Genevieve's are just a bad design, so I'm making a couple new beds for them, getting rid of their bunk beds, and we pulled out the toddler bed for Aaron. He's in absolute heaven over that, Genevieve's bed is in the midst of being stained/finished in my carport and she can't wait for it to be done, and Spencer keeps asking when we're going to make his. All good things.

One more thing. I took down the crib today. That's right. I'm having a baby in 12 weeks and I took down the crib. A friend of mine had a fifth baby and really didn't have room for one in her house, so her youngest has slept in the pack 'n' play her whole life and will just transition to a bed straight from there. It struck me that I could totally do that with Chloe and it would work so much better in this little house of mine. She'll never know the difference. If we go on vacation she'll never have to adjust to a new bed because we'll bring it with us!!! We'll see how it all goes down, but I like the idea right this second, especially as I just took down the crib and have a whole extra wall in one of the bedrooms. Huzzah!

Things that happened this week

I'm working through a haze of exhaustion today. We've had way too many nights in the past three weeks with very little sleep. Aaron got diagnosed with RSV last Friday, after having a double ear infection the week before. Needless to say, sleep has not returned to normal for any of us. Last night Genevieve made her way into bed with us without me even noticing until she was already there. King size beds are wonderful, and definitely an improvement on smaller ones when kiddos join you, but this pregnant lady needs more space to move than having her there allowed. So today is a push through the exhaustion sort of day. But here are a few things that have happened of late.

Spencer sends me and Bill selfies everyday as well as typeing all the letters of the alphabet out in uppercase and then in lower case to the zoo friend letter of the week that he is at in preschool. He's to U this week, so I get a daily text sharing that. :) 

Like I mentioned, Aaron has been sick for at least three weeks. He hasn't been sick this much his entire life. Usually he is the picture of good health. He's slept or cuddled on me more for hours every day. Since that hasn't been the norm in at least a year, I'll take it. He has started just today being willing to run around and play again and it's nice to see his happy self coming back.

Chicken pot pie for Pi Day.

This is how Genevieve rode on our new lawn mower when we picked it up earlier this week. She's laying on the box that is sitting on top of the cart.

Aaron got to have his own mini cart yesterday for the first time at the grocery store. He was in heaven. Everyone in the store that saw them it put a smile on their faces. It made me happy.

This is the table I refinished last week. I like how it turned out. It was pretty trashed before. 

Acrobatics

Sometimes when Daddy gets home we do acrobatics. And we have to carefully screen out Daddy so as to keep it all modest, lolol. The kids love it.

There are blessings in even the hardest experiences

I've struggled a bit with the idea of writing anything about the last 10 days here on my blog. My world got flipped upside down as a result of a simple phone call two Mondays ago informing me my dad was back in the hospital after a visit the previous Sunday. That phone call triggered a series of events that included all of my siblings scrambling to get to Utah as fast as possible to get to my dad's bedside. We all made it. We were all there surrounding him as he passed from this world three days later, now a week ago.

I haven't experienced a week this difficult in my recent memory. It was so, so hard. At the same time there were blessings interspersed throughout. It was incredible to be with my siblings together a mere six months after our last time doing that, when before that it had been 13 years. The spirit we felt throughout the experience was tangible. I felt bigger emotions than I've felt in many years, both good and bad, but all were poignant.

And through it all I got to celebrate a wonderful man, one who cannot be replaced and will be missed greatly. I've attended a lot of funerals. My dad's was special, and not just because it was him. He was a special man, unique, and the stories that were shared, the songs that were sung, all showed that.

It still blows me away that he is gone so quickly. I will miss him more than words can express. It is going to be a long time before I see him again, but I know that I will indeed see him again. He will no longer be in pain. His body will be perfect. And it will be worth every moment we've been apart.

Pregnancy treating me nicely

I'm only 5'2" tall, so when I get pregnant I get huge pretty fast. It can become really uncomfortable. Case in point, two of my friends I work with at church are pregnant too, one six weeks ahead of me, one ten. I am bigger than the one six weeks ahead and about the same size as the ten. They're both significantly taller than me. It makes a huge difference. But it's all good. I'm not in it for the comparisons in terms of being bothered, more just because it's fascinating. My body has always really impressed me with how well it recovers after the fact, so even if I get really huge and uncomfortable, I know that I can get back to a place I want to be afterward without too much time elapsing. After about a year each time, sometimes much sooner, I have always been back to whatever my normal is.

Anyway, this pregnancy has been a bit different. My last one was super uncomfortable the whole time, so I've been much more proactive about eating well and exercising and addressing issues as they pop up, such as when I started carpal tunnel symptoms a month or so ago and immediately started a supplement that really helped. This has resulted in things going so much better this go around than last. A friend of mine mentioned that she gets woken up every night in the wee hours to use the bathroom or just for no reason whatsoever, and it made me step back and appreciate that I do not have that happening yet. Our due dates are only a few days apart, and I'm sure I dealt with that at this point with my others, but not so this time. Maybe that means tonight will be the night, but whatever, I'm 21, almost 22 weeks along and sleeping soundly all night long. I don't have that many aches and pains. I do pretty significant yoga and it has helped keep my strength up, which is making a huge difference on that front.

My goal is not to brag. I really just want to record somewhere that I'm super grateful that despite this being my fourth pregnancy, and always being under the impression that each successive one would be harder, this one is not right now. I feel good. I'm trekking along well. She is growing well. She's moving all the time, but not to the point of uncomfortable like it will get eventually. Things are nice. I appreciate every day that feels that way. And hopefully I'll remember in ten weeks or whatever that I did feel good for a long time. And if I'm lucky, I'll still feel good then and it will be amazing. The female body truly is an incredible creation and I'm sure grateful for what mine is doing right now.

Naming a baby

As luck would have it, Bill and I have actually had a fairly easy time picking baby names. We had two the first go around, Spencer and Luke. I believe both of them actually came from my list of names I had gathered over the years of names I liked for future children. We didn't decide on Spencer until he was born and in the hospital and we sort of tried it on him and it worked.

Genevieve's name actually came from Bill's internship at a gas company in Las Vegas the summer I was pregnant with Spencer. We didn't know his gender yet, and Bill came upon the name Genevieve while looking through property records of some sort. He liked it and mentioned it to me and I liked it as well. So that name just hung out for a couple years until she was actually born, but we never stopped liking it, so that was surprisingly easy.

Aaron took quite a bit longer to decide on. His name ended up also coming from my list if I remember right, but it didn't stand out immediately. I don't think we picked his name until about 25 weeks pregnant. We liked the names Aaron and Alexander and we actually asked Spencer which one he liked. He unfailingly picked Aaron, which is pretty impressive for a barely three-year old. The name stuck and we picked it.

This go around the instant I found out I was pregnant I was sure I was having a girl. I have no idea why it seemed so obvious to me, but it did. My boy and girl pregnancies have been quite different from each other, so that helped, but mostly I was just sure. We didn't have even an inkling of a name but one day the name Chloe popped into my head and it felt so incredibly right. I was pretty hesitant to share wtih Bill for fear he wouldn't like it when I was so certain it was her name. But then I told him and he loved it and we were both completely shocked. We've gone through loads of names that we couldn't agree on, so this was impressive. It's never happened that easily. We haven't a clue what her middle name will be, but hey, we're halfway there and feeling good. It'll come.

Moving forward

Spencer finally had his first consultation appointment with an occupational therapist at the group we found a month or so ago. It has felt like quite the wait, but it went really well. They have a wait list, but I was told he should get in pretty fast because we have lots of availability to schedule. So that's great. It probably means it will be weeks away still, but we're making progress and that's good.

I had an interesting thankful moment while I was there. Like I've said before here, we have been heads down working through his particular set of difficulties for years and it is easy to get discouraged. But this place did all sorts of different therapies, so I observed a wide variety of children, some of them with more obvious developmental delays than others. It made me thoughtful and I felt very grateful that my particular children, while they certainly have their quirks and things they need to learn, as do all children, I've never felt they wouldn't learn what they needed to or develop in such a way that they can successfully navigate school and work and society in general. They do fine in social situations. They are just average kids growing up. Well I don't think they're average, but for my point, they are. There are kids out there that face real struggles and potentially have barriers to success that mine have never faced. This made me grateful and very thoughtful. I applaud the families out there that work through much more intense difficulties than we are going through and they do it day in and day out. They are very impressive to me.

So that's that. I had a friend point me to a talk given by Sis. Wendy Nelson for a CES fireside last month. It was only about ten minutes long and worth a listen. She talked about the things we do when motivated by desperation. It was spot on for what has happened in the last six weeks with working with Spencer. Parenting sometimes feels like that. We muddle along doing the best we can, trying different methods, discarding some, trying others, and then there are moments when we get desperate. It suddenly becomes worth it to try methods that seemed too hard in the past. I've read so many books about eating. I've scoured the internet. We've tried seemingly everything. But until I feared that we'd end up with him in the hospital, I never buckled down and tried some methods that were harder, that took more perseverance, that required daily effort on my part. It was so much easier to go easier routes and hope time would help things. When it became apparent that wasn't happening and we might be facing real health concerns very soon, it is amazing how my motivations solidified. I recommend the talk. And hang in there all my friends out there dealing with their particular struggles. I hope you don't get to the desperation point, but then again, you probably will, and I can attest to good things coming out of that kind of motivation. It's not the easiest place, but good things happen there.

A few photos of recent good things

Opening birthday gifts. Spencer and I had a great birthday.

Spencer got a paint-by-number set that he immediately colored the morning of his birthday and he was so happy about it. The weather cancelled preschool that day, so we had a totally chill day at home.

My hair is so shaggy. I'm letting it grow out again and the growing phase is something else, lol. It's starting to discover it's natural wave again. I've got some pretty impressive wings. Hopefully those grow out very soon.

Yes, this cake tasted as good as it looks.

This kid. Those crinkly eyes. That huge smile. He is delightful. He's my first kid who is bound and determined to be big. The complete meltdown over a plastic fork when he wanted a metal one is a great example. This kid is smart as a whip and picks up on stuff so fast. I don't want to comment on the number of times he's managed to get a sharp knife in his hand and looked so pleased with himself. But seriously, he is so sweet. He's heading for his terrible twos with a swiftness, but I'm hoping he doesn't lose all that sweetness when the crazy hits.

The snow actually came! We got maybe two inches, but it was perfect snowball and snowman building snow and we had a fantastic time. Spencer has been talking about how it's going to snow for his birthday for months and it totally happened despite mine and Bill's skepticism. Yay for Spencer!

Awesome selfies

Bill fulfilled his lifelong dream to make homemade corndogs. He's already made them a second time. They are shockingly good. We get the higher end hot dogs from Costco and it makes all the difference on taste.

Rocking the overalls. She is going to grow her bangs out, so we'll see lots of pictures of hair in the eyes over the next few months, lol. Also, people debate about how much they teach their kids versus how much they are just the way they are. This girl is feisty. She came that way, she is still that way, and nothing we do changes that. She comes up with the best comments and has so much emotion bottled in that cute little red-headed body. We call her spicey and it's as true as it can get. :)

A bit more cautious hope

I talked a week or two ago about Spencer's eating issues. I got some pretty positive responses back from people that it helped, so I thought I'd talk a bit about some cautious success we've had the last couple weeks. We're still waiting for the healthcare wheels to turn on the new therapy option we found, but in the meantime Bill and I have changed up how we run meals around here and it seems to be having some positive results with not just Spencer, but my other two as well.

I've always said trying to apply things that work for most kids has never worked with Spencer. His development path just seems to be different than other kids. He learns some stuff crazy fast and is way behind in others. He always catches up in the end, but general trends in child development just don't seem to work with him. For instance, we tend to like the Satter method of eating, which basically says the parents choose what food and the kids choose if and how much they eat. Turns out that doesn't quite work because Spencer chooses to never eat food if he thinks he won't like it. Hunger has no bearing on it. So this last week we've actually gone back to the basic idea that he has to eat what we eat and basically can't leave until he does. It sounds super simple and kind of like, duh, that is normal, but that's not really how it works in action.

First off, I spent significant amounts of time petitioning the heavens for help on what we could possibly do to help him learn how to eat. It's hard to know if it was a clearcut answer or my utter inability to cope with the status quo and that I just had to do something different or I was going to have a nervous breakdown, but the change has been an improvement.

Second, we've spent a lot of nights this week sitting at the table for hours working through this change. There have been lots of tears, lots of bargaining, attempts at bartering, and total freak outs over the changes, not all from Spencer unfortunately. Thankfully he's old enough to talk him through why we're doing what we're doing and why and that makes a big difference.

I remember when he was four months old and we realized rocking him to sleep every night wasn't sustainable. We decided to try to wean him of it and ended up using the Ferber Method, which if you're unfamiliar is basically that we would lay him down in his crib, he would cry, we'd come in a few minutes later, comfort him, leave, come back in a few more minutes later, comfort him, etc, and he would learn to go to sleep. Tada! Ha! No chance. Every time we went in it reset his expectation and he ramped right back up screaming. It turned out the method that worked for him instead was to put him in bed and leave him until he crashed. It took an hour or more the first night, 30 minutes the second, maybe five minutes the third, and he went to bed on his own from then on out with virtually no problem. It sounds so easy when I write it with those bare details. It's so easy to gloss over the absolute anguish we felt as he screamed for that long each of those nights, how we felt like we were killing our baby and it would never get better and he would never learn.

Turns out that's a bit like it has felt the last three and a half years working through the eating issues. He was never going to learn. We were killing him. Actually that was a more pressing concern since not eating really could kill him, but still, it was the perception of it that was so hard. Everyone else seemed to be able to figure this out. Our kid was never going to be able to go to a fast food restaurant and happily eat a meal, let alone any other restaurant. We were going to feed him his special selection of food forever.

Yet suddenly something seems to be working a bit better. It's not perfect. Every meal includes lots of cajoling and hopefully cheering him on as he works through it, though that depends on how thin the patience has gotten that day. We still spend way more time than I'd like at each meal. The first day it took probably two extra hours for him to sample a bite of whatever was for dinner. The second day it was more like an hour and a half. I think we finished our entire family's dinner from start to finish in an hour last night. He's tasted more things this week than in the last year. We're aiming towards eating more of the dish and not just one bite, but progress is being made, progress I thought would never come. He was never going to learn. We would never get past this. Well, we're not past it, but it doesn't seem as hopeless.

I think the key is that feeling of hitting rock bottom. I felt like I just couldn't cope anymore with how things were going, so my commitment to fix it is much more solid than any other time. When you look at your child and wonder how long it will be before you have to take them to the hospital, it changes you. But you know, it's okay. This isn't the first time I've felt this way in my life. It won't be the last. The cautious progress helps. We'll get there. The hope continues.

Funny things from this week

Aaron decided his favorite word is no. That's all he says all day long. He says it with every inflection under the sun. He even has multiple ways to say no. No, nooooo, uh-uh, etc. It's amusing and aggravating and we'll all be glad when he moves past this stage, but he is really cute, so it's pretty adorable at the same time.

He sometimes gets a little over zealous eating his yogurt.

Genevieve was my first child to experiment with shoving an item up her nose. It was a lego, one of the round button ones that are only one dot size. We asked her what possessed her to try it and her response was classic Genevieve, "I thought it would be fun." She followed that up in the car on the way to the doctor with, "It isn't very fun." lololol. Hopefully she learned that lesson and won't do that again. The reason I even discovered it was because we were playing legos and she starting picking at her nose. I told her to go get a tissue if she needed to do that and she said, "Mom, it's not a booger. It's a lego!" It turned out to be a pretty easy fix. Our PA at the doctor was able to get it out, which was kind of miraculous because she says she never succeeds at that. So all in all an amusing, albeit a bit traumatic experience.

The kids got a bit antsy to be done on our last Costco trip. This is how they ended up as we were going through the checkout line. If you look close you'll see Spencer is actually in the cart. Let me tell you, this cart was heavy to push! 

Spencer turns five in a week. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that he's been on this earth for that many years. This isn't really a funny thing, but more just that he's developing some self awareness and I'm enjoying the process. He developed a cold after church on Sunday and it ramped up pretty quickly, so I planned to keep him home from preschool Monday but didn't mention it to him. When he woke up and was eating breakfast he told me, "Mom, I don't think I should go to preschool this morning. I don't feel very good. I'll go tomorrow." He has always had a quirk where if we ask him how he feels his response is always, "Good" or "Fine." So this is actually kind of a big deal. He did end up going to school Tuesday, but he has a cough that developed again last night, so he said the same thing this morning. I appreciate that he's finally starting to recognize how he's feeling. Communication is a really good thing.

One of the hundreds of selfies Spencer takes on my phone.

A bit of hope

I don't talk much about my oldest's struggles with eating on this sort of platform. It hasn't been helpful to me for years. The issue is too longstanding and even well meaning advice causes more pain than help because it's not a normal situation, so normal methods have proven unsuccessful every time. But it has been an issue we've dealt with for three and a half years and it pervades all aspects of my family's world.

Meals happen at least three times a day. Imagine having that activity be hard each and every time it comes around. Imagine a constant struggle between getting enough, or anything, to eat and eating more than two or three foods. Imagine the worry it causes me as he's obviously hungry but anxiety and fear is keeping him from eating because for some reason food is an enemy to him, and he'll choose hunger over eating something unfamiliar every single time. Think on what it must feel like to live hungry most of the time, how it might make you cranky and easily frustrated, how you can't understand how this activity is not a big deal for everyone else.

And from my point of view, who am supposed to be able to provide food for him to grow and develop and learn, imagine the worry, the guilt, and the fear as I watch him not grow, not eat, and just struggle so much on this seemingly simple task. Do I feed him the foods that I well know are not proving him all the nutrients he needs, but at least get something in him so he doesn't end up in the hospital, or wrack my brain and the internet for some new method that might help him to overcome, to improve? How do I handle the tears, the fear, the anxiety, heck, the other two kids and their needs? How do I deal with the repercussions of trying numerous normal methods of getting kids to eat that entirely backfired and that I still hear about sometimes in our food interactions. Now multiply that by 3.5 years.

That's our reality and it's hard. Mind numbingly hard. We look for progress in the most minor changes. We don't live in a location that has a lot of resources, so I've felt very alone as I've tried to work through this. There was a time when I just couldn't handle reading about eating issues because it caused despair, not hope. The therapy we did several years ago helped a bit for one or two issues, but not the eating ones. We stopped after six months when progress completely stalled. Funny thing is, we're actually in a better place in this whole process than before. We have way better communication between us. But it's not enough. He's not flourishing, he's not growing as much as he really ought to, and the actual eating food that allows him to be healthy is just not there. It came to a head this vacation when some of the few tried and true foods started getting rejected and that just got scary. I hit a breaking point. I sent a lot of prayers heavenward. I've been doing that for years, or truthfully it's more like years ago I prayed like crazy about it and when things never changed we just kept plugging away but the prayers faded away because it was too hard. Sound familiar to anyone?

So anyway, that breaking point. While Bill is endlessly supportive and helps as best as he can, he's not around the majority of the time we're eating, so this often ends up being a solo challenge. But he jumped in and started doing some research and those prayers had at least the beginning of a result. We found a therapy resource in Greenville that we didn't know about that has potential. We're in the process of getting in to start meeting with them and I have cautious hope that we'll get the help we need to start healing some of these issues. Time will tell, but cautious hope is more than I've felt for years, so I'm feeling good at the moment.

Christmas in pictures

We had a fantastic Christmas Eve and Christmas and today as well. It really was the best holiday season we've had since we had kids. I just loved it. Here's some shots of how the days went.

His stocking treats were no match for him. Gone so fast.

She got a giant Elsa doll that is nearly as tall as her and she carries it everywhere.

Favorite gift by far, the toolset his cousin gave him. He had some sort of tool in his hand the entire day, generally the hammer, and was very bugged whenever his siblings wanted to play with them, as they thought they were super cool too.

She loved the several stuffed animals she received.

After he cheeseball grinned for this he grabbed the camera to see how he looked. They learn so young!

Playing hungry, hungry hippos

We had a Christmas miracle! It stopped raining for the entire day until the evening, for the first time since Monday. Much joy occurred on the new trampoline because of this.

Trying out the trampoline as a napping location.

She was going for the serious look, but really she was in heaven.

She doesn't know it, but this is the last hurrah for this toy box. I built it when Spencer was under a year old and we just don't have room for it anymore. It was an excellent spot to watch Aladdin today.

A shot from Christmas Eve dinner. We always do a simple dinner patterned after the Last Supper. We sit on a blanket on the floor and have crackers and cheese and sausage and juice and read the Christmas story and sing a few songs. This year we started it off with a video from LDS.org portraying the Last Supper and the kids just loved it. It's a fun tradition.

We have this awesome full-size New Testament with pictures that I received as a gift I think at my bridal shower. It's pretty fun to read the Christmas story from it. 

More hammer love.

See? Never without it.

I have so many shots of them jumping, generally in different sets of clothes each time, which is amusing since it's all in the last two days.

Talk about blackmail shot. Spencer jumping in his underwear and butterfly wings. Also, Aaron is totally capable of climbing on and off of the trampoline, but it's terrifying to watch and I'm so not comfortable letting him do it by himself yet. He figured out the zipper on the net basically on the first try. Nothing stops this kid.

things are coming together

This week has been a lovely culmination of lots of prep work from many other weeks. I finally was able to meet with the midwife that I'm going to use for this pregnancy. She's fantastic. I spent almost two hours there, which was crazy, but we just chatted and got to know each other, and it was lovely. Her office is in her house, so it's very low key and I like that.

Spencer's Nativity

Grandma sent outfits. They're adorable as always

We finally closed out the saga of the fender bender we had back in October with a reimbursement check for the full amount of our rental car, which was nearly $1500, so that was a pretty huge deal. It's always nice to have the next semester's tuition money reappear in the account. As a side note, despite the fact that Fall semester at Clemson is already over and Spring semester starts in a few weeks, we actually can't pay for Spring tuition. It doesn't matter how many times we experience this phenomenon, the slowness with which the university gets their transactions put through for every aspect of student life still blows my mind. They are so slow pokey.

Spencer's Three King

Spencer had his Christmas program at preschool yesterday and it was just darling. My friend is the music teacher there and she did a phenomenal job, as did the teachers and the kids themselves. This pregnancy has made me super prone to getting teary-eyed, or maybe it's just motherhood in general, but it was super touching to watch him sing and know all the hand motions and just obviously be there enjoying himself. You spend so much time these first five years with your babies and see every aspect of their growth, and then suddenly you send them off to let others teach them and help them develop, and seeing the success and growth happen there is incredible. He loves his preschool, we love it, and I really feel blessed to have him there. I have tons of videos, but they're full of the other kids as well, so I think it's better not to post them here. Suffice it to say they were all adorable.

Three kids in the cupboard

Naptime in the cupboard

And now we are just in the countdown to Christmas. The kids are so excited. This year is just the best yet for the magical part of Christmas coming together, and I'm relishing it. So here's to an excellent week and a fantastic holiday.

Aaron may have died and gone to heaven when I let him stand in the big part of the cart.

It's good to be on the other side of this week

Wow, this has been a stressful week. I had insurance reimbursement complications I dealt with. Also, without going into tons of details on here, I had my intended prenatal care provider fall through for some very frustrating reasons. I had to start a search for a new one, which was very frustrating as my area of South Carolina is particularly underserved by midwives, which is my preferred method of prenatal care.

But after some very frustrating days where I heard lots of we still need this paperwork or we're not sure about this, please give us more information, I just heard yesterday that we will indeed be reimbursed for the biggest rental car bill ever, which is great news. Once the check arrives, this two-month long car repair saga will finally end and that will be a relief.

Also, after another couple days of multiple discoveries that we live too far away to get service from such and such care provider, or that I just don't trust them for my care, or that I can't afford them, I finally found a new midwife that I can work with, that I can afford, and surprise! I am going to do a home birth. Should be exciting. I'm both excited and nervous, but we'll have all contingencies in place and mostly I'm just so excited to not have to go anywhere when I'm actually in labor next June. That sounds like heaven. Oh the stories I have of driving an hour during transition and things like that. Not this time.

So here we are on another wild ride for this last pregnancy. Don't quote me on that in a few years if it changes, but for now we think this is our last baby. I'm relishing, or at least not hating, every moment trying to soak it in as this phase of life closes. It's both an exhilarating feeling and of course there is a twinge of sadness. When is that not the case? I seem to be coming out of the crazy I-feel-horrible-all-the-time phase, which is wonderful. I'll take it. It's been a rough six weeks. Here's hoping it really is the case.

It's very nice to have food taste normal again and not be nauseous all the time. I mowed the lawn yesterday, as our lawn mower broke two months ago and it was a total forest out there and I wanted it trimmed for the winter one more time. So I borrowed a mower from a friend, and I felt like a totally normal human being while doing it. No extra exhaustion. No weird twinges. Just normal work. That hasn't been the case in ages and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Pregnancy symptoms last long enough that you start to forget that you've ever felt okay and can function like a normal human being without requiring multiple naps a day. Aaron's pregnancy was pretty hard, so even when I got out of the first trimester, it didn't get easier. I'm endlessly grateful that it appears this pregnancy will be a bit easier than that. This first trimester has been hard, but I found some treatments that helped and I've made it through. I'm 12 weeks today, so not quite out of the first trimester, but close. Feeling good again is awesome. I'll take it for as long as it lasts.

What do you blog about when you're just hanging on for the ride?

I try to blog once a week, but I have put it off for days and days because I just haven't had the oomph to sit down and type. There's a few reasons for that. My eyes are very light sensitive this pregnancy, particularly to computer light, so I spend as little time as I can on the computer, which is unfortunately still a lot of time. It seems to trigger the migraines, so that's not nice at all. Also, my kids go a little crazy when I sit at my computer, so that's another reason to avoid it during the day, but then at night the headaches are more prevalent, so yeah, I'm just not prioritizing computer time.

Anyway, aside from that this really has been a lovely few weeks. Thanksgiving was delightful. We had some friends over we just love and it was low key and casual with lots of tasty food that we munched on the whole next week because Bill was working extra so it was mostly me enjoying the leftovers. No complaints on my part. Pregnancy makes me a bit sensitive to food, but the Thanksgiving food all tasted great to me, which was miraculous and super enjoyable.

So far December has been lovely. I thought last year Spencer got into the Christmas season, but this year is much better and Genevieve is old enough too, so we're really getting into that magical phase with kids where Christmas is an incredible experience. He is all excited about what Santa is going to bring him and he's a huge fan of our December the 1st countdown to Christmas. He tells me all the time about how Jesus was born in a stable and other details he's learning.

We started a new tradition this year after I found a really nice product on a blog I follow. It's called 25 days of Christ and it is a kit of Christmas ornaments, wooden, one for each day of the month of December up to Christmas. Each day includes a scripture, a short movie from the LDS website, and a quote from a church leader. You can paint the ornaments if you like or leave them naked wood, which is what I did this year, and it's the kind of program you can do year after year. I totally love it and the kids are really getting into it. We do it each night before bed and they can't wait every night. The kit was totally reasonable in price as well. They sold out for this year, but if you're interested, the website is 25daysofchrist.com.

I'm hoping to go see a live nativity this weekend. We'll be watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, but sans kids because it doesn't start until their bedtime. So I keep looking for opportunities for them to experience the spiritual part of Christmas and so far there have been some good times. This really is my favorite time of year.