peach pickin'

Last week I was visiting with my friend Jill and we were talking about we have a hard time doing things outside of our comfort zone. Aka, trying new things. Do you know what I mean? I really like adventures, just me and my little posse, I love roadtrips and weekends away and of course always always always Disneyland. I'm always a bit hesitant to change, I dislike the uncertainty of new things, and sometimes I'd rather SKIP out. Especially if it is going to be hot. I hate being hot.

Then I had kids. And my fear of trying new things sort of had to take a back seat to entertaining/teaching/raising these precious little babies. I can still call them babies, it's fine. The day after our little conversation, Jill texted me and said let's go to the farm! And pick fruit! We don't know what we are doing! 

So we spent some time out at Serendipity Farms in Anderson, picking not quite ripe peaches and looking at the farm animals.  Guys, it was hot... and I'm preeeeeeetty pregnant these days... but we went and we had a really good time. We saw these huuuuuuge fruit spiders in the center of really impressive webs.. Linc immediately asked, "where's templeton!?" (We just finished Charlotte's Web this week and it was fresh on his mind.) We saw all different kids of fruit and nut trees, the kids even got to pick some and sample them right off the branches. We talked about how the trees grow and whe the fruit is ready to be picked- what makes good fruit and what makes not so good fruit.

The goal was to be able to make a batch of peach jam when we got home, but most of the peaches we found weren't quite ripe. Luckily for us, a friend brought over a bunch of fresh peaches from her yard in a cute little box for my birthday. We ate half immediately, and then we made freezer jam together.

I love this kid. She is so much fun and so easy going. 

Izzie and LaNea are a couple weeks apart, Linc and Zoe are just days apart!

I loved this old scale- she said it was from a butchers shop that closed. Also that lady was basically Mrs. Zuckerman.

I hope my kids will learn that being uncomfortable is okay. Going outside of our comfort zone is okay. Being hot is okay. That's how we learn! And grow! These kids are so mold-able right now, they soak everything up like a sponge and I know it's so important for me to take them OUT and do things that I know nothing about. Our summer bucket list has been really great for new and old activities to fill our days during the summer. This time is going so quickly! School starts in 2.5 weeks. 17 more days of summer together until we start the shift back into schedules and homework and early mornings. I'm so thankful that this is my job- peach picking and splash pads and peanut butter sandwiches with the crust cut off. I'm sure I do my fair share of complaining, sometimes the days are long and repetitive... but I am genuinely grateful that I get to do this stuff everyday. These kids are my favorite kind of life.

Now we know where to go and what to do next time we want to pick fruit.. I'm thinking apple picking for fall. Thanks for the nudge, Jill!

update on Bitz

Bitzer is 8 months old now. He seems huge to me, like he was a tiny puppy for a few weeks and then bam he is an adult dog. He is 25 pounds. Max for this breed should be about 24-25 pounds so yeah he is on the big side... We knew he would be- he was the biggest in the litter. Chunky little guy. We've had him in our house for six months now and we really love him. I mean, we don't love that he chews literally everything in sight, but we love his little personality and his soft fur and his wrinkly head.

Let's start with good things. Bitzer is crate trained! Which is really convenient and nice. He sleeps in his crate from about 10-7 without making a peep usually. At night when he comes in from outside, he knows its bedtime and heads for his bed without a fuss. Also, he is house trained. We have been accident free for a long while now and I'm so thankful that part of dog training is over. Like having a newborn, I swear, we had to watch him like a hawk. If we are not home, he is in the yard or in the crate. No exceptions. (I dog sat for my Aunt once, and they had a box terrier (I think) and we left the dog in the house while we went to church and he ate the back of the couch. Like ate huge holes in the leather and then pulled out all the stuffing- it looked like it snowed. I felt terrible. )

Bitzer is super smart, super fast, super sneaky. I can't catch him when he sprints from me. Food is his love language, I can always bribe him to get outside or in his crate or to spit out the stuffed animal. Oh, also he can open all of our doors- he just uses his little raptor hands to slide the handle down. This house is more baby proofed now than it ever was for my own human babies. He is really good with the kids- Linc can get a little rough and Bitzer doesn't mind.

Alright. The not so good things. Bitzer eats everything. Anything on the floor. Anything he can reach on the counter. He is so surprisingly tall! Shoes, legos, blankets, tags, garbage, toilet paper. Anything. Aaaaand he is still nippy- he does bite the kids occasionally when they are playing. Not Izzie so much, but Linc.

The problem with Bitzer eating things is that things are always on the floor- hi we have kids- so he can't be inside unless everything is picked up. Or he goes in the crate. It's summer, it's plenty warm so he is fine outside, but he WANTS to come in and play. This week it is over 110 degrees and I can't leave him out during the crazy hot hours. We needed a solution.

So we bought him a muzzle. Guys, this is a real thing. Amazon. It's a soft little silicone muzzle, he can still breathe and drink water. But he can't eat legos. Or flip flops. Judge me if you want, but desperate times, desperate measures. We are just trying to teach him that he can't chew in the house... and then he can be inside with us while the kids have their toys out. WHATEVER.

doesn't he look happy

Here's the thing. We put his little duck muzzle on him, and it's like a tranquilizer. His hyper dog stuff mellows and he just lays with us during the hot afternoon when we are watching a show or having rest time. So he has it on for awhile, and then he chills out, and we take it off, and he does fine. I'm sure this is not the appropriate way to train him like a Real Dog but it's working pretty well for us and I'm gonna go with it. 

hes super cute when he is sleeps like a cinnamon roll.

bitzers goal when we walk is to pull as hard as he can while wrapping around me like a burrito.

Anyway. The verdict is YES we are still glad we got a dog. The kids love him. I'm pretty fond of him. He is SO SOFT. I'm thinking that once he grows out of the puppy stuff he will be a perfect spunky family dog. I know I'm going to read this later and LOL at how dumb I sound. That's okay.

31 Weeks

photo by Iz

31 weeks feeling more like 41.

I made the mistake of looking back on previous pregnancies at about this point and now I feel even more ginormous. It really is true that you get bigger every time! I was complaining about this to Morgan and she said something like, "Your body is like I KNOW WHAT TO DO LET ME HELP." Truth. I really do feel about 36 weeks though and I still have eight more weeks to go. Bending is hard. Shoe buckles are hard. Cleaning the floor is hard. And I am hot all. the. time. Yeah it is 105 outside, and our AC is working hard to keep up, but even just moving around cleaning my house and I'm SO HOT. Feel like a furnace.

Well the number of articles of clothing that currently fit me = dwindling. I'm feeling nesty- although not so much to prepare baby stuff as I am to clean house. I have a list of all these corners in the house I want to go Marie Kondo on and majorly clean out. My closet. The kid's closets. The hall closet. There's a theme there. I'm slowly working through them and it's filling that nesty side of me. Eventually I will get to baby stuff, but we still have time.

I'm still sleeping well. I do not take this for granted, and I sleep as much as I can at night. I have steve the body pillow that literally goes everywhere with me. (Once I accidentally left it at a hotel in san fran and leigh picked it up and rode the bart with it. #friendgoals). My nose feels constantly stuffed, but it's just a tiny bit swollen (this is a real pregnancy thing, I swear.) The baby moves a lot- I feel like he is my most wiggly baby but also I can't really remember... Isabelle loves to come and feel him kick and roll around and her eyes light up when she really gets kicked hard. Some braxton hicks, just uncomfortable but not painful.

I'm eating junior mints, which are disgusting in real life. Pizza always tastes good. (Mod!) Cold cereal. No crushed ice this time- remember that with Max? I ate through giant bags of pebble ice. So weird. Literally that craving went away in the hospital post-delivery. I'm trying to keep up with walking a few times a week, in the early hours before Jazz leaves for work. It's still hot, and my route takes me a LOT longer than it used to. Subconsciously I think it's just an excuse for me to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack every day.
 
Counting down weeks now..we haven't scheduled the baby's birthday yet, we are waiting to see how things look in a few more weeks to see if I can make it to 39 weeks or if we will do it a little sooner. This is my fourth c-section in six years and my OB just wants to be cautious. I love her. Have I mentioned that? Love. her. I'm not sure if this baby will be as big as Max was. Definitely bigger than Linc, I think... I feel like he is sitting right in the middle of my body, not to low and not in my ribs, but wayyyyyyy out to my right side. Always on my right. Linc was low, Max was high.

I think the kids are getting excited. I know Isabelle is. She has all sorts of questions about how to feed the baby and where we are going to put him to sleep. She also said that Lincoln can sleep in her room for awhile if the baby needs his own space. lol. She's adorable. I was so excited for them to have a sibling with Max, and all those moments have been postponed... I'm so looking forward to watching them interact.

Isabelle's favorite thing to do lately is to play DJ. She made a playlist on my phone called "Are James" aka "Our Jams." Full of Disney songs, taylor swift, adele etc. She's always asking to add another song or turn on music to the TV- she is shockingly good at navigating technology which is both impressive and scary. She loves to play with her cousins and to spend time at Grandma's house. Ballet on Thursday is still the highlight of her week. Often I can hear the kids wake up in the morning and whisper around for a few minutes before coming in to our room. They are so, so good.

Linc keeps me laughing. He told me the other day that if I let him play with the iPad he would give me "all his freckles and all his kisses and hugs." I mean, he knows how to work the system. He calls the samples at Costco "examples" and it is my favorite. He would rather be in a swimsuit, or naked, I swear I can't keep clothes on him. Still the most incredibly soft little human I have ever met. Ears made of velvet. Very stubborn, but his epic tantrums have gotten so much better. I love to watch him eat cold cereal. I don't know why, but it's so funny. Milk down his chin, big bites, and suddenly he declares he is finished. Linc always finds the older kids to play with wherever we are- pretty sure he thinks he is six or seven. He is so excited for preschool to start with his bff Ryder.

I would love to have a paragraph here about Max- how much he weighs or what his favorite foods are or how he is being totally adorable. Instead I remember how it felt to be this pregnant with him. I read the few blog entries about his pregnancy (when we thought he was a girl!) and I'm so happy I wrote some things down. Max is equally as special as Izzie and Linc is, I just don't know him very well yet. But I will! We all will.

Anyway. Things are good. Summer is happy. We are happy. So excited for this baby to join our family in a couple more months.

photo by Linc.

the san antonio sumsions

I am going to blog today! I keep meaning to do it, but the kids go to bed and I'm too tired to do anything but gestate. I'm so good at that part. Anyway.

A couple weeks ago my brother Sean and his family came to visit from Texas. Sean just completed his residency in Ophthalmology and we are so proud of him! It's been years and lots of work as a family, but they are ALMOST DONE. YAY.

You'll never guess what we did everyday.

SWIM.

Kids had swim lessons in the morning and after that we did more water activities. No better way to wear out a bunch of kids than swimming. They are so creative and invent all sorts of silly games- and we taught them dibble dabble, which was a staple from my childhood.

Bennett, Kira, Emma, Jake, Linc the seal, Izzie, Allison, Madilyn and Baylor

playing magformers

We spent a morning at Brandy Beach at Whiskeytown- it's only about twenty minutes from my house. The kids were SUPER THRILLED that Uncle Sean got all the way into the water and attacked him accordingly.

"Mom my hands are wet can you feed me"

One night we ALL got baby sitters! And went to dinner! And ate it slowly without any kids around! Actually the best part of that night was wandering Target with all of these adults being ridiculous. Little diet coke, and we are a good time.

lunch poolside. Grandma had to invest in another table.

4th of July church! Isabelle's dress is one of my all time favorites.

boy cousins reading instruction manuals. Linc LOVED having an older boy cousin around.

stars and stripes (also isabelle is tannnnn)

this baby, I want to EAT him up he is so fluffy and soft

We spent the whole day together on the 4th- major swimming, icees, and my dad smoked like six racks of ribs. Like six! Oh man they were so good though. Some kids stayed up for the fireworks, others did not.

rita's in our suits

realllllly excited about his blue icee

post swim, post bath, nintendo mario kart. Hilarious and so entertaining.

And here is Bitzer, who is turning out to be quite the Turd Ferguson.

We are so lucky to have my parents close- they sort of serve as home base. Every day we ended up over there at the pool talking about our kids and church callings and pregnancy... our kids just love to be together and when the cousins went back home, everyone was sad. Can't wait for them to finish out in San Antonio and join us here in California! 

what to expect when you are expecting... after loss

When I was pregnant with Isabelle, I as SO naive that anything could go wrong. The most difficult part of that pregnancy was the waiting- after a positive test you just basically wait. Wait for the baby to grow, wait to find out the gender, wait to go into labor. Wait.

Lincoln was second and came shortly after a very early miscarriage. Even too early for a doctor's appointment. (Was still sad though?) I ended up having a cyst removed after that and I was grateful for our loss so that we could take that cyst out before it was a bigger problem. I need my ovaries. I don't need cysts. (Is this TMI? Possibly? If my mom was reading this she would probably die inside.)

Linc's pregnancy was my easiest, and the delivery was so healing for me. Then when I became pregnant with Max, I felt confident. I knew what to expect, what to do, what would happen at the end. I knew how it felt to labor. I knew how it felt to have surgery. I knew how it felt to try to stand up after my insides had seen the outside. I felt prepared.

And then we lost Max. And everything I knew about medicine and ultrasounds and pre-natal care went out the window. We had done everything "by the book" and yet, an hour after birth, our beautiful little baby died.

Throw in two second trimester losses after that and the whole way I view pregnancy and childbirth has changed. Nothing feels like a sure thing.

This pregnancy has been...different. My seventh pregnancy. I have two living children. Those statistics are not great. I find myself torn between the upcoming JOY we are so looking forward to- and the anxiety of the unknown. I have been nervous every step of this pregnancy. Getting through the first trimester. Hearing the baby's heartbeat for the first time. Waiting for the sub-chorionic hematoma to heal. Chromosome test. More ultrasounds. Then the anatomy scan and the fetal echo- all good. I'm not a very nervous person in general. Or I didn't use to be! It is hard to plan with a series of what-ifs in the way.

And now I'm sitting here typing this, in the third trimester, feeling this kid kick and wiggle and I STILL feel like this could all go wrong at any moment. And that kind of sucks.

I miss the freedom of being blissfully unaware. That was a nice time. I miss that me just a little bit. Carefree. Setting up a nursery and labeling baskets of clothes. I'm procrastinating the baby nesty phase, buckets of onesies still in storage, blankets folded, crib in pieces. I'll get there, I'm sure. We don't need hardly anything at all, we had a whole dress rehearsal for our baby boy before so we are ready for the real thing.

I'm torn between wanting this baby out ASAP and wanting the baby to stay in as long as possible so his little lungs can mature. My expectations for this delivery are so different! The nicu no longer seems like such a big deal or a big obstacle to avoid. A healthy baby. A baby we can put in a car seat and bring home. That would be stellar. I don't want to say I will appreciate this baby more than my other babies- because I really have felt grateful for every late night and every froggy shoulder hold- but I certainly realize that every perfect baby is a gift, a blessing, no matter what the circumstance.

And my grief for little Max comes and goes, like it always does. Seeing babies that are now toddlers that would be about his age. Doing cute things like being alive and eating food and waddling around the floor. Pregnancy hormones are crazy anyway, throw in the some grief and a pinch or two of sadness and it's like whoa. Waves. I still wouldn't change anything about his pregnancy or birth, and that is really comforting. He was perfect.

The kids sat by me today and we put my phone on my tummy and they watched as the baby wiggled and kicked that phone. Their little faces lit up when they could really see the movement. Times like these I feel SO HAPPY that I can't help but weep with joy and a thankful heart. It's really happening! And that's what I am clinging to these next few months until we safely bring this baby home. Hope.

The line between life and death is just so paper thin. No more so than at birth.

summer outdoors

We had the most random break in the weather a few weeks ago. Usually it's over 100 degrees everyday, but for three days we dipped down into the 70's. It was HEAVEN. We used the nice weather to knock a few things off of our summer bucket list before it was sweltering. One day we "hiked" to some falls up at Whiskeytown. Hiked in quotes because it was paved and less than a mile. We packed a picnic and made an adventure out of it. Food always tastes better as a picnic, what is the science behind that.

Izzie's junior swim team lessons are at 9 am M-Thursday for six weeks. The last two weeks, Lincoln has had swim lessons right after that. So basically we are in the water A LOT. Hours and hours everyday. It's been so hot the last few weeks that you can't be outside without being in the pool. It's just too melty. We are so lucky Grandma's pool is right around the corner! Isabelle is learning how to dive standing up. Lincoln has suddenly flipped a switch and become a FISH. He just owns that pool and does a pretty good job keeping up with the "bigger" kids. Goggles, his tiny swim shorts, and he is good to go. Izzie always has a fuzzy swim bun and a wedgie from her suit. My favorite little people.

like a boss

Well I am losing sight of my feet these days. I just hit the whoa I can't bend over phase, stuff on the floor becomes lost forever. This was last week at 27 weeks, and now I am officially in the third trimester! Yes! Let's do this!