Ellie and Max

This morning I took Ellie to church by herself because it was time to sing, and Max is sick.

As we were leaving church, she says to me I can't wait to get home and play with Max.

Isn't that sweet. They are now playing and laughing together.

Making a beach

Yesterday when Max and I came down after nap, Ellie had created her own beach in the living room. She had blankets laid out. She was collecting things to make toys. And low and behold she hadn't drawn a sunshine and hung it on the wall.

I know it's great when she gets created. It was a little unfortunate that no one was really feeling playing in her beach. She is a cutie pie.

Rules of the game

About once a week I get the pleasure of sitting in the upper room and listening to David play with the kids. I always love listening. They really do enjoy their time with that. And he plays with them, differently then mommy for sure.

One thing that always makes me laugh is when Ellie is explaining the rules about how to do something, which often I have explained to her, and David tries to change them. Ellie freaks out on him and tells him that is not how it works!

She is such a mini me. Maybe David will successfully rub off on her and she can be a bit more flexible than I am. It would probably be a good thing for her.

Poor Max

Max has had a rough week. He's having real trouble with stuttering since he got his tubes. This week it's been even worse. He's starting to avoid talking. It's so sad. He can't really get a sentence out these days. Today, he tried whispering to me all day, in hopes his words would come out.

To top it off, he has a cold with a cough and even and on and off low grade fever.

Today I took him to Sarah's and in less then an hour she text me and told me that max just crawled into her lap and told her he missed mommy. That broke my heart because he's never said that before.

I need to figure out how to help my little boy. He has such a shining personality and relies so much on chattering. Its sad having him lose that capability. I to him today after one of his troubling attempts to talk, not to worry that the words will come back. He just looked at me. Poor thing.

Trapping the leprechaun

Ellie has a book where they try to capture the leprechaun on st paddys day. Last year she built a trap just like the book and attempted to capture the leprechaun by baiting him with fake gold coins we bought. It was a good trap, but the leprechaun made off with about half her gold coins during nap.

This year, come February she was already to make her new trap and try again. This year, She's determined she has a better trap and will capture the leprechaun am keep him for a while. We didn't have any gold coins, so she made some with paper. She says she's sure she'll catch him this year!

The evening adventure checking the trap was so exciting. I videoed it. Ellie was scared to check the trap after having a flashlight tugged on. So David had to help her. It was amazing. Unfortunately, after a couple minutes we saw he made off with most of the coins after ripping a hole in the box. He left a shred of his green clothes behind. How exciting!

When she felt it safe, Ellie walked away telling us se wasn't scared anymore.

Happy bedtime

I love when the kids crawl into our bed. Tonight after they both helped make up the bed with fresh sheets, they insisted on snuggles under the covers. They are so cute!

Exploding

Yesterday evening I wasn't feeling great. David ask what hurt at the moment. I said as I rubbed the top of my stomach, "i feel like I'm exploding." He comes over and hugs me, and says, "well, you kind of are."

32 weeks!

Baby girl Is estimated to be just under fiver pounds.

Baby 3

Today she's just 32 weeks. She's weighting in at four pounds and eleven ounces. She's a very busy little girl who didn't sit still during her sonogram, but instead tried to kick the probe off my belly busy little girl is breech for now.

She's a cutie!

Brave Boy

Today Max had tubes put in his ears. Yes, I know, this is the simplest procedure a child can have and it's supposed to help him feel better. However, that didn't help make me any less nervous or worried. I worry about the .001% chance of what bad thing can happen. That's what I do. So it made today so very hard. I managed to hide my crying from Max, I think. But I definitely wasn't able to hold back the tears. (Of which, apparently, confuse my husband?) Keep in mind, I'm also 8 months pregnant right now too.

Max was the brave one. He only cried when waking up, when he was alone without Mommy and Daddy. (Which I think it so stupid.) When he went back into the OR, he held spots tightly and Daddy carried him. As I watched, I felt it was harder watching them go, then actually walking in myself when I have had the babies (which is very very hard on me.)

David said he struggled a bit going to sleep and that he felt his heart racing. I felt so bad for my little man. I just couldn't help by cry. Dr. Yoon was right, it took 10 minutes and he was telling us it went well. I just needed to see my Max.

When the nurse finally let us go back to him, he was so confused. He had his little red cheeks and was holding spots tightly and fighting the nurse. He wanted Mommy. When I got him in my arms I was so upset, I couldn't even sing his songs he wanted. I tried. We snuggled a few minutes and then he needed Daddy. So he held Daddy tight, meanwhile fussing and crying. He felt rotten. Anesthesia is rotten and it makes you feel rotten. I wanted to just have everyone else go away and give me some time to hold him and rock him back to sleep, but they said we should just go and take him home. (That was a mistake.)

We started our trip home and Max got sick on the way. I stopped in a parking lot to clean him up as best as I could. He was unhappy about everything, which I can understand. I was 8 months pregnant squeezing into the back of a mini-van between the seats trying to keep him warm, change him, clean up everything, and get us back home. It was a struggle to say the least. We finally left, Max tried to rest but couldn't sleep. He was patient while we got his medicine for his ears and finally made it home about 2 hours after the procedure.

Once home, he was happier and more relaxed, but you could see the effects of the anesthesia slowly wearing away.  As the day progressed, his biggest complaint was ear pain when the ear drops went in. Otherwise, he ate and drank well and enjoyed playing in the house with Ellie most of the day. At bedtime, he appeared back to normal.

As I watched Max throughout the day today, I think I gave him about five times as many kisses and hugs as normal. I was so thankful that there were no crazy side effects and this day was over.

I spent the evening dissecting and attempting to clean puke from all crevices of the car seat, which was frustrating. However, my little man is finally asleep in his bed upstairs and I'm so grateful for that! I basically think Max was braver then me today!

More pictures

I just can't help myself. I absolutely lie getting pictures of the kids taken. I decided I wanted one more round of pictures of Ellie and Max before the baby comes. So, tonight was the night.

I'm not always lucky enough to have lots of really great shots to work with, but tonight was an exception. There were so many good photos!!!

The best part of the night was having he photographer tell me at the end of her long day that "you have the best kids all day, and I've seen a lot of kids today." I never get sick of hearing that. I was so proud of them. Not only were they good, but they actually have fun there too. They both sat with me to pick out the shots after the shoot. Ellie especially enjoyed that part. I think Max more enjoyed moving the chairs around.

I am wry happy with put family night, and thankful that David tolerated it. For as much as I love photos, he feels the opposite.