I love this poem...

Song for a Fifth Child

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Happy Birthday, Alex!

Yesterday was a very special day... Alex celebrated his first birthday! I can't believe that he is already a year old! Wow time flies....

Ah the joy of living in the boondocks....

For some reason today my lovely internet connection is crappy today and that is annoying the hell out of me. I have Verizon wireless internet that connects into the USB port and it usually runs pretty good but today it will only open some sites and won't open others. I'm not too happy because I keep in touch with friends and family via Myspace and that is one of the sites that it doesn't like today. Anyway, enough ranting...

Yesterday we took Alex to get his first year photo and Jaina for her announcement photo. I had a coupon for each one so it was FREE :-) We took them to the Kiddie Kandids in Grapevine Mills so afterwards we walked around the mall. Good thing we did because when we stopped at the Disney Store one of the employees informed us that if we applied for a Disney credit card that we would get a $10 gift card regardless if we were approved or not. On top of that, Tom and I had the option to apply seperately and get two gift cards. We figured why not, we could always use an extra $20 to spend there! After we were done in the store we ended up spending $12 for a ton of clothes for the girls for Christmas :-) I love freebies!

Today Tom took the girls to Six Flags for Fright Fest. Last week Tom and I went with just Jaina and Alex for a couple hours to see how scary it was because Myranda scares easy and found out it wasn't bad at all so he had a daddy daughter day while I kept the youngest two at home with me. I was worried about being bored but it wasn't too bad.


Well, I guess that's it for now... Here are Alex's photos and Jaina's photos:

3 years of happiness and counting...

Wow with everything going on I totally forgot to post about the importance of yesterday! October 20, 2005 is the day that Tom and I met in person for the very first time...

We had actually met on Myspace first when I was bored one night and decided to find people that I may know in the Abilene area. When I did the search I didn't really find anyone familiar, but I did see one profile that caught my eye. Back then I had several of those silly surveys that says your love style, personality, etc. on my profile and funny thing is that this person had the exact same surveys with the exact same results. I'm easily amused (as many of my close friends know; it doesn't take much to make me happy) so I sent this person a quick little message complimenting his profile.

This person happened to be my future hubby, although I didn't know it at the time. I had no intentions of dating anyone because my divorce from my ex was final only a couple months earlier and I was in the process of joining the Air Force. I never thought that I would get a response back but sure enough the next day I get a message from him asking if I used Yahoo Messenger. I figured that a little harmless conversation couldn't hurt anyone so we started chatting on messenger.

Soon that led to phone conversations, then finally we got to discussing where we lived and found out we were only a block apart! The evening of October 20th at around 10:30pm we were talking and finally he said that it would be easier if we just met in person and talked so being the risk taker that I am, I agreed and met him at his house. We ended up sitting on his front porch talking for a couple of hours about anything and everything. We didn't go inside because he was embarrassed about how dirty his house was at the time because he was a single dad of three girls. Once it started getting late I decided I better head home because we both had to work the next day and before I left he kissed me. We decided to meet again the next day and have been inseparable ever since :-)

Early Voting and Better Ears

I am proud of myself today! I actually showed up bright and early at 8:00am for early voting :-) I have made sure to vote since I became old enough to because I figure that if I don't vote but don't like who is in office, I have only myself to blame.

Afterwards Alex had a check up to make sure his ears were better and that his yeast infection was cleared up and they were! I'm so happy! Poor guy has had to take 3 different antibiotics to get rid of the ear infections but it finally worked...

Nothing much else to report. Tomorrow I have to be at the WIC office at 7:15am to get Jaina added as well as for Alex's 1 yr visit and for income qualification. Besides that the girls are just busy working on homework all week and Tom and I are getting things ready for Alex's first birthday and pricing items for the kiddos for Christmas.

I can't believe we're already having to worry about Christmas shopping. Wow...

Settling In

Well hello there! I've been MIA for a week now because we welcomed our baby girl, Jaina, into the world on October 11th! I know this may sound redundant to the ones who have already read my birth story, but I figured I better post it here:



When I went to my appt. on October 7th I was 3-4 cm dilated and 65% effaced so they told me to come in that Saturday at 10 am. To help things along on Friday, the family and I went to Toys R Us and the mall to walk around. It must have worked because while I didn't have contractions when I came in Saturday morning, my midwife checked me and said that I was then 4-5 cm and 80% effaced!



She then gave me my first dose of antibiotics for Group B Strep and had me use the breast pump for about 30 minutes to encourage contractions. I wasn't really feeling anything so she had me go walk at the park across the street for an hour. Luckily it was a beautiful day and not too too hot but it was warm. Towards the end of my walk I started to feel a couple small contractions and when I got back I let my midwife know. She checked me again and I was almost 6 cm and my bag of waters was bulging...



She decided to have me use the pump again for 30 minutes to help the contractions I was having and by this time it was 1:00 pm so she sent me on another walk for 30 minutes. Towards the end of that walk I had some stronger contractions but nothing major. When we got back to the birth center, my midwife discussed breaking my water and I agreed so after I got my second dose of antibiotics at 2:00 pm, she broke my water and then the real contractions began!



It wasn't as bad as I expected because when I had my son last year they broke my water right after starting pitocin and I had immediate "take your breath away why did I agree to this" contractions. This time it was different. The contractions were painful but I had time in between to relax and gain focus.



My midwife suggested I try the birthing ball to help ease the pain and progress things and so I did. I will strongly recommend a birthing ball to any pregnant mommy because it made things so much more manageable and really helped me focus on what my body was supposed to do! At one point I thought that maybe laying on my side on the bed may feel a little better... BIG MISTAKE!!! The moment I laid down I was in EXTREME pain! So as soon as I was able to move again, back to the ball I went!



After a while the contractions started coming one on top of each other and it was getting tough to focus so I wanted to try laboring in the tub. I sat on the ball some more while the tub was filling and when it was halfway filled I was going to get in but first my midwife wanted to check me to see how far I progressed. When she did she said let's not worry about the tub, we are going to have a baby! I was 9 cm!



While they were getting things ready they commented on how they couldn't believe how fast I progressed and that I was still smiling and cheerful. I said that the reason is I know that I will be meeting my littlest girl soon! After just ONE minute of pushing, Jaina Elizabeth Rose entered the world at 3:00 pm :-) Later on I found out that the cord was wrapped around her neck twice! I'm glad I didn't know that at the time.... I would have been a wreck! She was 8lbs, 11oz and 20 1/2 inches long.



Since she was born she has been nursing like a champ, has reddish blond hair, and blue eyes. After resting for a while and bonding with Jaina we were told that as long as I feel okay we were allowed to leave whenever we were ready as long as it has been at least two hours so we decided to head home at 5:30pm. We were kinda worried about how Alex would react to Jaina when we got home but when he saw her he got very excited and happy. He's still adjusting well and the only issue we have is reminding him to be gentle with her. He's such a boy LOL. The girls are doing great as well. I had no worries with them because they were wonderful when Alex was born. They love to spoil them :-)



Luckily I have recovered rather quickly. I'm still a little sore but that's expected. I can walk around for quite a while before I have to rest and as of last Tuesday I only have 4lbs to lose before reaching my pre pregnancy weight.











On another note... The girls had school photos on October 8th. That morning I put the money for the photos in each girl's backpack and sent them to school. Well, last week Samara and Andrea brought their photos home but Myranda did not bring hers. I asked her where they were and she said that the teacher did not have them. We thought maybe the teacher forgot to give Myranda her photos so we decided to wait a couple of days before worrying about it. Well, this weekend, Tom happens to walk through the hallway here at the house and notices her photo money envelope in the hall. There was our answer! Apparently Myranda's money fell out of her backpack, so this is our idea: Instead of paying a $10 late fee on already ridiculously priced photos, we are going to get her dressed in the same dress that she wore for school pictures and take her to the Walmart studio. Heck, it'll be cheaper than what we would have paid for the school pictures, plus we will get more... We decided that we'll probably go ahead and get our family portraits done as well since we'll be there anyway.



That's it for now... Nothing else going on except the girls are working hard on earning their Girl Scout badges... So far they are almost done with one and have a bunch more that they are working on. Yay!



Before I go here are a couple pics from when Jaina was born plus Samara and Andrea's school pics:

Today is the day!!!

OMGosh! We are going to the birthing center today and probably won't come home until we have a baby! Wowza!

Okay, I feel better now... I just had to get that outta my system :-P
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I've got this funny feeling of dejavu like I've done this before less than a year ago LMAO!

Okay now I gotta get ready! Only an hour until I leave!!!!

Not much longer...

I can't believe that tomorrow's the day I go to the birthing center for natural induction. It seems like it was yesterday that I found out I was expecting again! I still remember the day I found out officially. It was the end of February but I had suspicions since Valentines Day. I was super excited because we were "unofficially" trying to get pregnant but was a little nervous about having one again so soon after Alex was born. Luckily this whole pregnancy has been pretty uneventful except for the preterm labor scare, but even that was taken care of easily.

I'm a little sad because Tom and I decided that Jaina will be our last baby but then I'm excited as well to finally hold her in my arms and have my body back (except for the breastfeeding part but that's perfectly okay). I'm just ready to get back into shape, a shape other than round LOL.

I'm just wondering if I will be able to sleep tonight because I'm so excited. Today the family and I went to Toys R Us and Stonebriar Mall in Frisco to get out of the house and so I could walk around to hopefully progress things a little. I've had a few Braxton Hicks contractions since then but nothing major. Maybe I'll have a glass of hot tea to relax me before bed. That usually helps me sleep :-)

I've got to be at the birth center by 10:00 am so I will get up around 6:30 am or so that way I have plenty of time to get ready, pack last minute items and load the car. It takes us a little over an hour to get there so we are going to try to leave by 8:30-8:45. Tom's mom will be taking care of the kiddos while we are there and will bring them up there when Jaina is born.

Well, I'm off to make some tea...

So Here We Are....

After over 3 years of journaling, ranting, raving, and catching up on my lovely MySpace blog, I realized that I have not kept a good daily account of my life. Until signing up with MySpace, I actually kept a journal that I would write in almost daily. I really need to get back to a daily journal because it is almost a form of therapy for me. It makes me happy :-)

Perhaps I can accomplish this task here. Who knows... Well, for those who have not kept up with my MySpace blog, here is the link to catch up:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=15692950

Since it is so late, I must get to bed. Morning arrives much too early when up at this hour...

'Till next time :-)