Summer

I guess I've been busy enjoying the summer and have once again neglected this blog. I can't believe there are only 2 weeks left till school starts. Wow, it's gone by fast. Let me see if I can recap the highlights.

Baseball season ended for both the boys and lasted a little longer than usual for Riley. His team competed in the Grand Slam World Series of Baseball in Panama City, FL. Although his team didn't fair too well in the tournament, they played their best and held their own against some very competitive teams. We made the most of the week enjoying the beach and some downtime together away from home.

The beach time was great. Megan was not a huge fan of the sun and sand, but she took to the shady area near the pool pretty well. As the week progressed, we worked out our routine. I'd head to the beach with the boys while Lance stayed with a napping Megan. He'd call when she wake and we'd all meet at the pool. The boys loved the ocean, especially Riley. The water was clear, so he was always wearing his goggles and carrying his net trying to catch something. He loved jumping the waves too. Owen was quite proud of himself for venturing out to the nearby sandbar and going to the 'deep' part too (up to his chest). The week went by way too fast, but we had a lot of fun.

This week the boys are camping in Parrott with Nanny and PawPaw, Kaitlyn, Jacob and Ethan. No doubt they'll have tons of fun but I don't envy the heat or the nats they'll be living with this week. Lance and I are enjoying a quiet week at home with our sweet Meg. It's nice to have some one on one time with her, something that is not so easy to come by with baby number three.

She's now 4.5 months old and doing great. She's been a wonderful sleeping baby for a couple months now. Last night I layed her down about 9pm and she didn't wake this morning till about 9:45am! My boys were never such great sleepers, she's spoiling me! At her 4 month check up she was up to 12 pounds and 5 ounces and already 24" long. She's on the small side for her age (I have no idea where those genes came from!) and she is happy and healthy and full of smiles. She's the perfect kaboose to our family of five.

I can't believe my Owen will be heading to Kindergarten in a couple weeks and Riley to 3rd grade. Kaitlyn said to me last night, "Riley will be in middle school soon." Whoa! Slow down! Not so fast! Somehow I don't think of 3rd grade as 'almost middle school'. But I guess 3 years is really not that far away.

We'll savor these next 2 weeks, but I know they will slip away all too fast and we'll be back into the hectic schedules of school, homework and soon football season.

Graduate

Owen is going to be a big man on the elementary school campus next year as a Kindergartner. He graduated from preschool a couple weeks ago and was so proud. It was a cute ceremony complete with caps and gowns. He has had so much fun at preschool this year and done well at making friends. With him being my less-social kid, I wasn’t sure how he’d do but he’s jumped right in and had a lot of fun this year. He loves his teacher dearly and is sad to leave Mrs. Emily. We wish she could come to Kindergarten with him, but know that can’t happen. We’d be thrilled if he could get into the same class Riley was in for Kindergarten, but we’ll see. We have no say on that matter, so we’ll just pray for the right teacher for Owen.




Summer is here but it’s already slipping by way too fast. I can’t believe we’re already 1.5 weeks into it and they only get 8 weeks total. We are looking forward to our Panama City Beach trip the end of this month for a vacation and a baseball tournament with Riley’s team. We are looking forward to the sun, water and some family time together.

Eight

The 24th was Riley's 8th birthday. We celebrated lots over memorial day weekend. Somehow he managed to get a birthday weekend rather than just one day. It was a lot of fun though, for him and us. This birthday brought a first at our house. Riley talked me into hosting a spend-the-night party for him and 4 of his best friends. Except for his cousin, Tyler, all the boys that came were in Kindergarden together. It's cool how 3 of them are now in 2nd grade together and have remained good friends. They were boys and we had to tell them to settle down a time or two, but really they were pretty good. After the movie, they went to Riley's room to sleep on his floor and Lance and I went to bed too. Not sure how late they really stayed up, the next morning they claimed it was 'very' late. I woke up at 4am with Megan and they were all passed out in different spots around the room with the t.v. still on.

The boys all went home about 10am Saturday morning and our family came over at 1pm to celebrate and have lunch with us. More partying, more presents. Riley was eating it all up.

This was the first year when Riley asked for money rather than gifts. I was a little skeptical, thinking he'd miss having gifts to open. He did get a few from his friends but all the family gave him cards with cash. All that cash could only mean one thing for Sunday after church......a shopping trip.

We stopped at several spots before ending up at Target where he spent most of his money. The big purchase of the day was a video/game chair. It's sort of like the video-rockers but with speakers built in behind where your head rests. It'll take an audio feed from your t.v., iPod, DVD player or in Riley's case, his XBox. Besides the chair he bought lots of baseball cards, a nerf gun, a water gun and several Star Wars action figures.

My baby boy is 8 years old. I can't believe he'll be heading to 3rd grade next year. He's grown up so fast! His latest fascination is baseball. After attending a Braves game last week and having the opportunity to play with a great team this season, he is really loving the game. He loves to watch the pro games on t.v. and is really excited about his own games with his team. He loves to play catch in the yard and is always begging for trips to the batting cages. He is excited to be heading to play in a World Series tournament in Panama City this summer. The big time.

I love you, Riley! Happy Birthday big boy!

2 Months

I can't believe she's already 2 months old. She went Friday for her check-up. She now weighs 10 lbs 8 oz and is 22 inches long. She was 7 lbs 5 oz at birth and 20 inches long. She is growing, but definately much slower than her brothers did at this age.

I laid her in the laundry basket this morning to get a picture, I have a similar one of Owen and Riley at this age. When I came back with the camera, this is what I found. Sound asleep! I guess warm laundry is pretty soothing and a nice place for a nap.

Owen-isms

O - “Mom, babies talk a whole lot, don’t they?”
Mom - “Talk? You think they talk a lot?”
O - “Yeah. And they just keep talking and talking and talking and then they cry because nobody knows what they’re saying. Because we don’t talk baby talk. Right, Mom?”

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O – “Mom, which one is faster, God or cars?”

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O – “I sure am glad Riley’s a Christian now, aren’t you Mom? Aren’t you glad Riley has Jesus in his heart now?”

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This is from my Mother’s Day card Owen gave me at the Mother’s Day tea at his school yesterday. His teacher asked each of the kids why they loved their Mom and wrote their answers in our cards. Here are Owen’s answers:

I love my Mom because……she is my Mom.
I love my Mom because……she always looks nice and pretty.
My Mom’s favorite thing to do is……..be with my baby sister, Megan.

My Cup Runneth Over

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog. Sorry. Life is very good, just very busy and I’ve let this blog take the backseat lately. Baseball is in full swing for both boys, so that adds the chaotic schedule in our home. We enjoy it though and the boys are doing so well this year in ball. Riley’s league especially has become so much fun to watch as the boys are now turning double plays and hitting the ball over the fence on occasion. It’s cool to see how far they’ve come, from playing in the dirt (which they still do on occasion) and fighting over the ball in the outfield to where they are this year.

Baseball was on hold for Spring break and that week also coincided with my last week of maternity leave. I was glad to have the full week to spend with them and Baby Girl. We spent most of the week camping in Parrott with PawPaw and Nanny. The first part of the week was pretty cool and very windy, but by Thursday and Friday it was sunny and warm. We had a lot of fun riding through the woods on the 4-wheelers. We all enjoyed introducing Megan to camping and the woods. She did a lot of sleeping while we were there and it was sweet to watch her be mesmerized by the campfire at night.

Coloring Eggs While Camping

Looking for Lizards

We returned from camping on Friday and prepared for a full day on Easter with our families. The kids woke up to their treats from the Easter Bunny. The boys each got a movie and of course lots of candy. Megan’s basket had a rubber duck, rattle and a shorts outfit. After church we headed to visit both sets of grandparents and do the traditional Easter egg hunts. Riley, Owen, Jacob and Ethan (we missed you Zach and Kait!) had fun running through Nanny’s yard and finding all the hidden eggs. And of course we had a great meal of ham with all the fixin’s from Nanny. We left there and headed to the GG’s house to do another egg hunt and eat some more ham. Needless to say, by the end of the day our bellies were full and the baskets were overflowing. Coincidently, Riley is learning the 23rd Psalm for Awana. He’s learning it verse by verse and then at the end he’ll have to put it all together. I was explaining to him about what it meant by ‘my cup runneth over’ as he was memorizing that portion last week. No doubt our cups do run over and our blessings are abundant in more ways than one!

Our Pretty Girl on Easter

All 3 on Easter Morning

The Helton Grands
(minus Nathan who was napping and Zach and Kait)

PawPaw and Megan

The Boys at the GG's

The Foster Great-Grands

Returning to work has gone well. I’ve been back for 2 weeks now and it really couldn’t have gone smoother. Megan is taking a bottle easily and I’ve been successful at pumping plenty of milk for her in my absence. Of course I miss her, but knowing she’s at home with her Daddy and in great care has made the transition easier. I also am able to telecommute from home each Wednesday, so having that middle of the week day with her makes it much more doable as well.

This past Sunday was another awesome example of our overflowing cups. Riley was baptized Sunday morning and we had Megan dedicated in the same service. All of our family was able to attend and what an awesome day. I can’t help but get teary whenever I see anyone baptized, so it was even more special to watch my eldest son take the plunge. We tried to reiterate all week what he was doing and make sure he really understood. He was excited and I believe he really understood the significance of his baptism. Funny, as we walked into the changing room before the baptism and were met by a gentleman who had Riley’s robe ready for him to put on Riley turned towards me and said under his breath, “I ain’t wearing that, Mom!” He didn’t put up much of a fight though and everything went well.

Megan’s dedication was also very sweet. The pastor had all five of us come up on stage and then had our family (all 23 of them) stand in the congregation. He asked each of them to agree in helping us to raise Megan in a Christian home and pray that one day she too would make the decision her oldest brother had demonstrated that same day.

Our cups are overflowing! I pray yours are as well!

Spring Fever

I don't know about your house, but at our house Spring Fever is in running rampant. What a beautiful weekend! We spent most of it outside and it was so nice.

Saturday Lance headed to a shooting range with his brother while the kids and I took off to the park for the day. It was a georgous afternoon which meant that everyone else was at the park too. That's OK, it meant they boys had plenty of kids to play with. They even ran into 3 of their Awana buddies at the playground. Megan enjoyed our walk around the nature trail. Riley pushed her in her stroller most of the way. Owen took a short turn at it and I pushed her the rest of the way. We left the park and went by Chick-fil-A on the way home to redeem the boys milkshake coupons they'd won Wednesday night at the Awana Grand Prix with their pinewood derby cars.

Sunday, Riley and I went for the second hour of church while Lance hung back with Megan and Owen at home. I think we'll be ready to introduce Megan at church next Sunday. We've been waiting for her to get a few weeks age on her before we bring her with us. Riley on the other hand has been growing impatient with not attending. So this week, I had promised to get him there and I did.

After church and lunch at home, we were outside most of the afternoon. Lance mowed the lawn and sprayed roundup on the poison ivy starting to grow. Riley, Owen and I fished for a short while (no bites) with the 4 crickets Riley and Lance found earlier. The boys split the rest of the afternoon in the sandbox, on the trampoline, playing with action figures on the deck and shooing their paintball gun at a tree stump target. Megan split her time between my arms and her crib. She had a nice long nap during most of our outdoor time.

I'm getting comfortable with this stay-at-home-Mom role. It's hard to believe I only have 3 weeks left of my maternity leave. It's going by way too fast!

Our First Week

Megan Grace is doing great and so is everyone else. Although it's only been a week and a half, I'd say she is so far my easiest baby (maybe I just learned with the first 2??). She easily goes 3 and sometimes 4 hours between feedings day and night. I remember pacing with Riley trying to stretch out the time betweeen feedings, I haven't done that once with Megan. She's great at nursing. So far (crossing my fingers and toes), she's not a spitter and she's only had one 'blow-out' from her diaper and that was my fault (I had her in a diaper too big for her).

The boys both adore her. Owen has come around and is just as 'into' her as Riley. If they hear her on the monitor, they both race to the nursery to tend to her. We've had to warn them several times not to try to pick her up on their own. Today I was out running some errands and Owen went with me only because Megan was coming along. He said she might need someone to give her the pacifier in the backseat. They both want to kiss and hold her before they go to bed and Riley can't wait to get his hands on her when he gets home from school in the afternoons.

She's been home now for 11 nights and has only had 2 'bad' ones where both Mom and Dad where tired the next morning. The time between 9am and noon when both boys are in school has proven to be a good nap time to make up those hours missed at night. Even the week when Nanny and PawPaw were here to help, Nanny only had to get up during the night twice and one of those times she ended up going right back to bed.

Can you tell we're proud parents? The jury is still out on who she looks most like. Some say Owen, most say Riley. We'll soon see. When her hair is clean and fuzzy it looks to me like it'll be more blonde than dark but time will tell. Her eyes are still that newborn navy-gray color so not sure what color they'll settle on.

No doubt she completes our family. She is exactly what we were missing and we are so thankful for our perfect little blessing we call Megan Grace.

Megan Grace Foster

The waiting is finally over. Megan Grace arrived Sunday morning (3/1/09) at 6:49am. She was a healthy 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. She and I came home yesterday and are enjoying settling in at home.

The boys both adore her. Riley is the more interested than Owen but both ask several times a day to hold her or see her.

4cm....still waiting

Well we made it to 39 weeks. Only 1 more to go till the due date. I told Lance last night I thought Thursday would be a good day for her to arrive. That would mean Riley was born on the 24th, Owen on the 25th and Baby Girl on the 26th. A cool birth order thing. Of course who knows what she and God have in mind, but that's my thought.

I had a few Owen-isms I wanted to share. I know after Baby Girl arrives, I'll forget completely to write these down so thought I'd do so while they were fresh in my mind -

#1 On the way to preschool yesterday -
"Mom, I think I grew a new freckle."

#2 We'd just come from Owen's practice at another location and stopped to see the end of Riley's at the ball park. Lance was sitting in his truck (it was cold) and we pulled up beside him in my car.

Owen rolled down his window and said to Lance -
"Hey! Did you just blow in from stupid-town??"
(apparently this is a line he got from an episode of SpongeBob)
He cracks himself up. Remind you of anyone else?

#3 Watching a favorite show on t.v. last night, Dirty Jobs. Owen said,
"Hey Mom. If we have a dirty job to do and we don't want to do it, we can just call them, right?"

#4 One night this week after tucking him in bed, "I hope our baby sister comes when it's day time. Cause I don't want to be too sleepy!"

That would be a first for our family. A daytime labor and delivery. Nothing wrong with hoping, right?

3cm and Waiting

I found out at my Dr. appointment yesterday that I'm already at 3cm, so Baby Girl could come any time now. The Dr. said he would definately expect an early delivery but only time will tell. I did have several contractions last night that woke me up (several/hour). I'm not sure if it was really the contractions waking me or just my anticipation and anxiousess to meet Baby Girl. I did opt to telecommute today just to be safe, but since waking up things have calmed down. Still a few contractions, but not as consistent as they were last night.

The wait is on. I'll post as I can if anything changes.

Shower

This weekend was another busy one. We spent a good deal of time doing more prep-work for Little Girl. She will be here soon, only 3 weeks left till her due date. I can’t believe it is creeping up so fast!

Saturday we spent a good portion of the day at the ball park for Riley’s practice. What beautiful weather though, none of us minded the extra time outdoors. February practices aren’t always so pleasant! Saturday night Riley began complaining of a sore neck. We soon realized what he meant was that he had a sore throat. By Sunday morning he was running a fever and kept it off and on all day Sunday. We missed church, but it’s hard to take part of the family when Riley is the one who loves to go and never likes to miss a week. I didn’t want to go and leave him home.

Sunday afternoon I headed to Alice’s house for my baby shower she and my Mom threw me. It was so much fun. Technically it was a diaper shower, since we really weren’t needing too many other things. We ended up with plenty of diapers plus lots of cute outfits and numerous other baby things. The prize gift was from Kaitlyn, she made both the boys t-shirts. Riley’s says, “I’m the oldest. I have a new sister.” Owen’s says, “I’m in the middle. I have a new sister.” They both loved their shirts and can’t wait to wear them to the hospital and to school after the baby is born. She also made a onesie for the baby that says, “Lil Blessing.” After Riley woke from his 4 hour nap Sunday evening (that’s how I know he was really sick), I showed them the shirts and he said, “I like the way that Kait thinks!” Only trouble is I think she’s now introduced them to a new craft idea. I bet we’ll be buying puffy fabric paint and plain t-shirts very soon. In fact we received a package of solid-white onesies that I know they would love to decorate for their baby sister.

The crib is partially assembled. Turns out we are missing some of the bolts/hardware to finish, so we’ll make a stop at Home Depot today to see if we can get what we’re missing. I guess some of it was lost during our move.

The countdown continues. I have my 37 week appointment this afternoon. I don’t expect much news from that except to hear her precious heartbeat and confirm that all is going well. I’ll post if we hear anything different.

A few ism's

I figured I better post them before I forgot them entirely. Here are a couple of Owen-isms and Riley-isms:

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Riley said to me after sitting beside me on the couch one afternoon telling me about his day at school:
“After the baby is born, you aren’t going to be able to talk to me and Owen much anymore, are you?”
Of course I quickly corrected him and explained that although we’d be busy with the baby, we’d always have time to talk to both of them.

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Tuesday afternoon, as soon as I walked in the door from work, Riley greeted me and grabbed my hand. “Please come watch t.v. with me Mama. Before you cook supper or I start my homework, let’s watch t.v. together.” How could I say no?! He led me to my bedroom where he proceeded to find one of my favorite shows, Jon and Kate Plus 8. Talk about making my day!

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As Lance and I were tucking the boys in bed last night Riley said, “We had a good day today, didn’t we? None of the parents yelled and none of the kids got in timeout!” He then proceeded to make mention of the same thing in his prayers, thanking God for our no-timeout, no-yelling day.

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Owen came to the kitchen while I was cooking dinner one night last week (he’d been watching his favorite show, SpongeBob) and asked me, “Mom, how does Spongebob take a bath? His house is already full of water!” (For those of you who don’t know, SpongeBob is a Sponge and lives in the Ocean.)

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A couple weeks ago as we were walking out of Target, Owen asked me after studying the automatic exit doors, “Why do they have handles on those doors, Mom? They open all by themselves!”

Baby Girl

I haven’t done a lot of updating about my pregnancy here and several have asked, so here we go.

The pregnancy is going great. I had my 34 week check-up yesterday and ‘Baby Girl’, as she’s come to be known, is doing great. Both yesterday and at my 32 week checkup the Dr. and Nurse Practitioner were surprised at how low she is already. The Nurse Practitioner told me yesterday that she was already below my pelvic bone and had ‘dropped’. That doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about when I’ll deliver but I don’t remember that happening so early with my other 2 pregnancies. I can definitely feel pressure when I stand, after sitting for a while. Sleeping is becoming a little more of a challenge but still doable. My chief complaint has been sciatica, which as I understand it is basically a pinched nerve in my lower back that radiates down my right leg. It aches more as the day progresses and is definitely most prevalent on days when I spend more time on my feet. It’s more annoying than anything; it hasn’t slowed me down too much.

We have successfully finished cleaning out Baby Girls room. The room that is to be hers, was the 4th bedroom that has been a catch-all since we moved in the house. It housed all the nursery furniture so we had that going for us, but it also had lots of other ‘stuff’ too. Including all Lance’s photo equipment (lights, backdrops, stands, etc.), a file cabinet and stacks of photographs and paintings. It’s taken several weekends to get it all clean, but we have finally got it done. All that remains to be done is assembling the crib, which I hope Lance can get done this week, and moving out the file cabinet. The file cabinet was too big for Lance to move on his own, so we’ll tackle that the next time we have an unassuming male visitor to our house. No hurry though, it’s not in the way of anything we need to do there.

I’m looking forward to decorating, that will be the fun part. I ordered the bedding this weekend and it should be here later this week. I have a cross-stitch that hung in mine and Alice’s bedroom that my grandmother made, which will be hung in Baby Girls room. I also hope to have a print that hung in my friend Julie’s room as a baby, that her Mom has offered to let me hang in the room. So although it may not all match her bedding exactly and look like the room in the catalog, there will be some very special things adorning Baby Girls walls.

We’ve also been blessed with bags full of clothes. Most of the clothes are from a coworker, who has a daughter that will be almost exactly 1 year younger than our Baby Girl. As well as a few hand-me-downs from our niece who will be 4 this year. And we’ve held on to most of our baby gear from the boys (highchair, swing, bath tub, booster seats, etc.). Some of it is really worn and needs replacing, but most of it, after a good cleaning, still has enough life left in it for Baby Girl.

The boys are both very excited. Riley includes ‘our baby’ and Momma in his prayers every night. No one has told him (at least not that we’re aware) that childbirth is painful, but every night he prays for Momma to be OK when the baby comes out and for the baby to come real soon. Owen hugs me now and his head is right at my belly and he always says he’s giving his sister a hug too. A couple times he’s even ‘tickled’ his sister through my belly and wondered if she was moving around and squirming as a result. They’ve both felt the baby move a couple times which did not impress them as much as I expected. I guess each time it happened and I called them to come feel my belly, I was interrupting a game of army or football. They are still boys after all.

I’m still working and hope to work as close to the due date as possible. Any time I take before hand will take away time I get after the baby arrives, so I want to save as much as I possibly can. The date is quickly approaching and our anticipation is building. We are excited and so thankful for the blessing of this new little one.

(And because I know someone will ask, we do not know her name yet.)

Christmas Vacation

We've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I pray each of you have too. I'm only sad that it's coming to an end. I can't believe it went by so fast, but I've enjoyed having the time off with my 3 guys.

Christmas was a lot of fun for both boys. Their 'biggie' this year from Santa was an iPod iTouch. They love them and have played games and listened to music and videos each day since. Lance and I gave them a telescope from us. They've enjoyed that too. It was almost a full week after Christmas before we had clear skies we could look at, but it was really cool when we finally had a clear shot of the moon last night. Of course there were lots of other gifts too - nerf guns (I think we own one of every gun nerf makes now!), sketch pads, books, star wars action figures, a batman cape, x-box games, a Peyton Manning fathead for the boys bedroom (which I must say is very cool) and believe it or not I could keep going and going. They got so many cool things. Between Santa, Mom and Dad, grandparents and all our other family, my boys were no doubt completely spoiled. We tried more this year than we have in the past to really focus on the reason for this season. I hope all the presents didn't interfere with that lesson.

And since we didn't have quite enough toys in our house, we celebrated Owen's birthday today at Pump It Up. You may remember his birthday is on Christmas day, but we had his party today. Lance and I gave him a Nintendo DS, which he loves (maybe even more than his iTouch). He received several games and plenty of other toys too. Mainly though, I think he just enjoyed jumping and playing with all his friends and cousins at the party. We had a really cool SpongeBob cake made (I promise I'll post pictures soon) and Owen was very proud of his cake. It was almost completely gone when we left, which is exactly how we wanted it to be. I didn't want to bring any home.

Aside from all the present opening and toy playing, we've managed to make some progress in cleaning out closets and making room for our Baby Girl. There is still more work to be done, but we've made a good start. Lance also enjoyed an overnight trip with my Dad to South Georgia to camp and bring back a load of firewood. He's been outside off and on since then splitting a few logs here and there. He brought back a trailer full of oak, definately enough to last us a while. And we've enjoyed sleeping late, eating big breakfasts and hanging out at home relaxing together. It doesn't get much better than that.

I'm not really looking forward to returning to work on Monday and I know the boys are looking forward to going back to school on Tuesday. But ready or not, I'm afraid it's coming our way.