27 weeks

It's fun, for some odd reason, for me to compare my pregnancies and how fat I am with each of them.  From left to right: Samuel, Aliyah, Little Peanut.  

My conclusion from these pictures?  I'd have to guess that I'm having a boy and he will be between 9lbs 11oz and 11lbs 11oz.  I feel like I am carrying this baby a lot like I carried Samuel but I'm not as big as I was (at least at this point!) with him. 

I'm getting anxious to find out if we will even the score with 2 boys and 2 girls or if the girls will dominate!!

Water into . . . what?

Samuel's Bible story at class today was when Jesus turned water into wine. He came out of his class telling me about how "Jesus turned water into grumpy". Can you tell what kind of *whine* we talk about around here?!?  He said it twice before it dawned on me why he was saying "grumpy".  I love my precious boy!!


A few other "Samuel-isms" from today:
Samuel: "Mommy, today in class we talked about the story from next week"
Me: "So what story are you going to have next week in your class?"
Samuel: "No, the one down" (meaning: last week)

We pulled into the Church parking lot today and Samuel always likes me to park next to Grandma's van.  Today Grandma's van was in the very front row right next to the handicapped spots.  She never parks up there so we were all confused about why her van was there!  I wondered out loud to the kids, "Huh. I wonder why Grandma parked up there!  We are going to have to ask her."   Samuel immediately replied with, "I think Grandma is getting old!" 
We've talked about the handicapped spots before and who they are for - Samuel must have associated those spots with older people and assumed that since Grandma was in the very front row, she must be getting old!  

Snow Fun!

I had my glucose tolerance test this morning (yuck!) so my Mom was over for a good 3+ hours watching the kids.  They headed outside right about the time that I got home, so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of the kids playing in the snow.  Samuel was supposed to be "helping" my Mom shovel but she turned around and found him sitting in a snowbank eating snow!  He loves the snow and is always the last one of the three to want to go inside.  He has a blast jumping into, rolling around, and sliding down snowbanks.  He is always covered in snow whenever he finally gives up and comes inside.  The girls also enjoy the snow but I think they get colder (or maybe just bored?) faster than what Samuel does.  Their favorite thing to do is eat icicles or snow.  They played together really well this morning - putting snow in their sleds and hauling it around, eating icicles, and "helping" Grandma shovel the driveway.  I was thankful for a little bit of time to myself after I got home from my glucose test.  I felt gross - very hungry but just totally "blah".  After eating some protein I felt much better!  Hoping and praying that I passed!

So full of compliments!

I love how kids just say it like it is!!  Today was a good example of that . . .

Samuel (laughing) to Hope when she woke up: "Your hair looks like shells" (Her hair was in 2 poofs and her sleep cap flattened them a little bit!)

Hope talking to me when I walked into the room: "Is that shirt from your drawer or from Daddy's drawer?" (And the worst part?  I was wearing a nice shirt b/c I was dressed and ready for Church!)

My Sweet Girls

Aliyah says the cutest things right now!  She is so full of spunk and fun and I never quite know what is going to come out of her mouth.  I wish I could videotape her all day long so I'll never forget what she is like at this stage because I absolutely adore her and her personality!

• Last Sunday morning, Daryl and I were having breakfast with Aliyah (she is our early bird! The other two were still in bed).  Aliyah's breakfast request was a boiled egg.  As she was eating her egg, I started pouring myself some cereal.  I hear a little voice from over at the table singing, "If you have cereal, I will have an egg!"  And then followed by, "Isn't that a great song, Mommy?"  She often does this - puts her thoughts to songs.  It is the cutest. thing. ever.  She is always singing - whether it be songs she makes up or other songs she knows.  I think she gets the idea of making up songs like that from "Daniel Tiger" on PBS.  She loves this show and Daniel Tiger always has little songs for different things that come up during his day.
• I was cleaning up the house an afternoon this past week.  My back has really been hurting me with this pregnancy.  I bent down to pick something up and when I stood back up, I grabbed my back and groaned a little bit.  As I'm walking to put the item away, I hear Aliyah say "Just go lay on the couch, Mommy!"  From the mouths of 2 year olds . . . . :)
• (Setting a cup of water on the edge of the bathtub) "This is for Samuel and Hope. I'm going to leave this here until Jesus comes."

Hope is my spunky, imaginative, and creative little girl.  She has a unique (and adorable!) way of piecing her thoughts together.  I absolutely love to listen to her and to try and view the world from her perspective!  I wish I could remember more of the cute phrases she comes up with, but here's a few examples:

• "I colored his smiler!" (after coloring someone's mouth on the coloring page she was working on)
• "My nose smells yummy!" (when she came upstairs while I was making supper)

Do they really have to grow up?

These are the things that make me wish that they could stay this age forever!  I want to slow down these precious years when my kids are young because I know they will be gone too quickly.  The days can be challenging and some days feel so very long but I love the ages that my kids are at right now!!

Learning About Australia

On Tuesday, Anna began her journey to Australia to volunteer for 3 months with Youth For Christ.  We are so proud of her and the awesome work that she will be doing!

So today . . . 

We learned about Australia! The kids were pretty amazed at how far it is from Michigan! They were able to grasp the concept of how far away it is because we compared how far away Florida is to how far away Australia is. They know that Florida is a long drive but to see how much further away Australia is was pretty amazing to them! 

Hope is pointing to Michigan and Aliyah is pointing to Australia. Samuel didn't want to join in (he was upset from injuries accidentally caused by his 2 year old sister).

Holding up their maps of Australia.
I asked them what they thought Aunt Anna would do on her LONG plan ride. They said:
Go potty (Samuel), Read books (Hope), Eating (Samuel), and "Want her to come to OUR house!" (Aliyah)
Then Samuel asked "At night time, will the airplane stop so Anna can sleep at a hotel?" They all thought it was pretty crazy that it didn't stop and that Aunt Anna probably (hopefully!) slept on the airplane.