Soccer 2013

This fall we took a break from t-ball and had the boys play soccer instead! First off, soccer is so much easier than t-ball.  Basic instructions: see the ball, run after it, kick it (getting the correct direction is kind of tricky), and try to make a goal.  The second perk is the only equipment is a soccer ball and water.  That's it.  No bat bag full of balls, your bat, your helmet, etc.

With that said, the boys really did love soccer, but they want to play t-ball in the spring lol.  By then baby #4 will be a few months old and maybe we'll be able to handle everything easier than being 7-9 months pregnant...we'll see.

 Roman kicking the ball during his game!  He did great at soccer...when it's a "free for all" to get the ball, he's a natural ;)

 The boys' biggest fan

 The "smurfs" with their coach

 Aidan was on the White Lightning team 

 He did great running around and keeping up with the ball!  

 He also made friends on his team and really liked practicing :)

 Seesha and Say

 Our cute, cute Aidan

 Pappy and Romie

 My little firecracker

 The boys are so blessed to have both sets of grandparents live so close and come to their games!

 Family pic...I'm huge :)

 Brotherly love

 Grandma with her boys

 Aidan's team with Coach Fred

 Roman's team with Coach Keith

The awards ceremony where they got their trophies.  Poor Say...Roman's headlock is hard to get out of...but she's starting to fight back so I'm counting down the days when the boys are going to be scared of her (this would mainly apply to Roman)!

We played through One Goal Sports and we really loved it.  The best part is the organization is more about having the kids learn about Jesus than playing soccer.  Their season verse was:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  And those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

Galatians 5:22-23

Baby #4 due November 2013!

Yes, we have a TV in our room (it's big too).

Yes, believe it or not we have figured out how "this" happens.

And yes, this baby was prayed for and planned *GASP*

Most everyone has been really excited about our announcement of our 4th baby, and that's so nice because we're really excited about our 4th baby!!  We have had the occasional comments here and there that go something like this:

"Wow, you know how this happens right?!"

"Do you have a TV in your room?  That usually helps."

"Have you heard of birth control?"

"Were you on birth control?"

"Josh didn't get a vasectomy after your 3rd?"

"Oh. Wow. Well, congrats. Good luck!"

And yes, I get the occasional stares while out in public with all 3 of my kids and my very pregnant self.  I know.  I'm crazy.  I probably look a little crazy and disheveled.  (Funny and sadly true story: the other day my pants were hurting me in the car so I unbuttoned and unzipped them so I could breathe better.  I am almost 38 weeks so I'm huge.  I pull into Publix and get all my kids out and 30 minutes into our shopping experience I realize my pants are STILL unbuttoned and unzipped, which means everyone can see my bright red underwear and my enormous belly protruding out of my pants like Mount Everest.  Yes. This happened.  So just because I love having kids and planned to have more than what some call "normal", by no means equates to being organized and put together!).

Anyway, after I had Saylor (our third) everyone told me I should be done now that I got my girl.  I felt like I should be done.  But I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't feel our family was complete.  I prayed for peace to be done having kids because 3 is a lot of kids!  But instead I got the urge to have another one.  By the time Saylor was 8 months I was already praying for her future brother or sister.  I felt like I was crazy, but then I remembered that "the world/society/culture" would think I was crazy, but the Lord would not.  I diligently prayed for peace on if we should be done having kids or if we should have more, and the Lord answered my prayer with the overwhelming response to pray for our future baby.  So that's what I did.  And that's what Josh did.  And at the end of February the Lord blessed us with baby #4 :)

Hello little miracle.  8 weeks and 4 days.  Already had a strong heartbeat (150) 

 We told our families by giving them this "Counting book" that Aidan and Roman "made."

 Haha!  My mom and Cathy pretty much knew what was coming after the first 2 pages, but my dad was caught off guard!  Roman was playing with him and I think he was kinda paying attention to Aidan showing him the book and also trying to play with Roman, so when Aidan showed him the last page he said, "oh yea, the baby makes 4....wait, what?!"  It was sweet and funny!

 Our little announcement to the world

 12 weeks

 20 weeks

 7 months

 20 week ultrasound...boy or girl?! 

 30 weeks

 35 weeks

**I'll post more pictures of me at 40 weeks (pretty sure I'll see that glorious week!), and probably 41 weeks too**

This pregnancy I was definitely the sickest.  I'm sure a lot of it had to do with having 3 other kids under the age of 4 and not getting the rest I needed; however, with Saylor I was 10 weeks pregnant and we went on a mission trip to the country of Panama for 10 days and even though I didn't feel that great, I could still go.  With this baby, there is no way I'd be able to do that!  But overall I cannot complain because I don't get horribly sick and I'm still able to function.  Zofran was my friend for a few weeks though :)

I'm also so glad we decided not to find out the sex!  This was more my idea...Josh really wanted to know, but he's pretty awesome and went along with me.  It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought, and actually it's been really easy because I can't really do anything, which is nice.  We have no nursery ready (I have used my crazy nesting energy to redo the playroom and finish Saylor's room, which included stenciling...something I will never do again!), and we're basically just "winging" it until we get settled in with our new baby.  We have 2 extra rooms to put he/she in until we figure out if it'll room with Say, or if the boys will room together, or if we'll transform the playroom into a room...either way I'm at peace that this baby doesn't need a decorated room from the time it's born.  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE decorating rooms and think it's awesome to have an all-out nursery (have you seen Saylor's room?), but 4th time around and I don't have the urge to do that :)

NAMES.  This was the kicker.  It's hard enough to figure out names when you know the sex of the baby and can only focus on either boy names or girl names.  When you have to figure out 2 sets of names, it was almost impossible for us!  First off, we had no names in mind.  Second, we couldn't use our "back-up" names that we liked, but in the end didn't get picked because then every time we'd call our child I would think, "I like your name, but not enough to name the first few kids it!" And third, we had to have the names "flow" with our kids' names.  We couldn't throw a Frank or Jan in there because it wouldn't really go with Aidan, Roman and Saylor...so that also made it difficult.  So, after about 8 months we finally settled on names.  It took us a while to tell anyone, but now it's out there:
If it's a boy he'll be Maddox Knight
If it's a girl she'll be Piper Shelley

Ta-da.  Those are our names.  The middle names are family names (all of our kids have family names as middle names), so that part wasn't as hard as the first names.  "Knight" is after my mom's dad and "Shelley" is obviously after my sister. :)

"Are y'all done?!" We get this question a lot.  Honestly, we're not 100% sure.  I would like to be done and I think Josh is done haha!  I've realized that I am not like a lot of the women out there that just "know" they are done.  I thought I'd feel that with Saylor, and I didn't.  I'm not sure if I'll feel it after this baby, but I'm praying I will.  Some people just "know" they want 2 kids and some just "know" they want 10 kids.  I don't know.  I do know that I want us to be able to provide everything for our kids.  By everything I mainly mean TIME.  Of course kids are extremely expensive (my mom has been telling me that for 29 years LOL!  I get it now!), but I want us to be able to let them do sports, dance, after school activities and I want us to BE THERE.  The more kids you have, the harder it is to do that.  For me personally, that's a priority.  And for me personally and the way I'm wired, I think I would feel overwhelmed if we had more kids on spending the time with each one of them.  Especially when it came to making it to games, plays, school stuff...you get the point.  So, are we done?  I'm not sure.  I'm pretty sure we are, but I need to pray about it ;)

So, I'm due November 10th.  That is in exactly 17 days, or a little over 2 weeks.  I would prefer to have this baby sooner rather than later, but Roman was my earliest child and he came on 40 weeks exactly.  Aidan was 4 days late and Saylor was a long 8 days late.  Mentally, I'm looking more at November 20th (which by the way, I will be in a horrible mood and probably really haggard if I see that date with no baby!), but apparently my children are always really comfortable in there and don't like to leave, so we'll see.

We're ready.  We're REALLY excited to meet this sweet baby and transition into being a family of six.  If you asked me 10 years ago how many kids I'd have I would have answered 2, maybe 3.  But I've learned that God's plan is always better than my plan.  I've learned (painfully!) to trust Him instead of paving my own, reckless path.  I've finally gotten to a point in my life to fully lean on Him, be in His Word, trust His Word, and most importantly LIVE His Word.  It's hard, it's not comfortable and it is totally against the grain of society, but it's worth it.  So, by following Jesus' plan for my life in particular, He's blessed us with 4 kids, and I couldn't be happier :)

Just the 2 of us

This was the first summer that Josh and I took a REAL vacation with just the two of us!  Since having kids our only vacations away from kids was usually for weddings, which we would merge into a getaway weekend/wedding weekend.  This year we booked a condo on the beach in Destin, Florida for 5 days with nothing to do except relax...and I can honestly say it was the best vacation I've had since our honeymoon!

 View from our condo.  We stayed at The Beach House and it was fabulous!  No kids (when you don't have your own kids with you, you don't want to be around other peoples kids either!), on the beach, free chairs & umbrella rentals, free movie rentals, near outlet mall and tons of restaurants, and our condo was perfect :)

 I loved walking down to the beach.  There's something about putting your feet in the sand and hearing the ocean that instantly relaxes you.

Fun facts:

First date: Josh was 18 & I was 15

Got back to together and really started "dating": Josh was 20 and I was 17

Got engaged: Josh was 24 and I was 21

Got married: Josh was 25 and I was 22

Had Aidan: Josh was 27 and I was 24

Had Roman: Josh was 28 and I was 25

Had Saylor: Josh was 30 and I was 27

Pregnant with baby #4: Josh is 32 and I am 29

FIRST BEACH VACATION WITH NO KIDS (except the one currently residing in me): Josh is 32 and I am 29

 I think I'm 22 weeks here

 We had perfect weather, which was an answered prayer because it rained every day this summer.  The ocean was beautiful and clear...and we saw a shark!

 Our cute, one bedroom condo

We ate breakfast and did Bible study IN PEACE on our balcony every morning.  It was amazing. We also ate out more than we have in a year, saw 2 movies, went shopping, and basically laid on the beach all day.  It felt soo nice, and soo foreign not to be chasing kids or playing referee!

First off, we couldn't have gone on this trip if we didn't have really awesome parents and siblings!  My mom, dad and Shelley watched the kids the first 2 days, and then Cathy, Mike and Emily watched the kids the last 3 days.  We owe them.  A lot.  We know watching all 3 kids is not easy, so it meant the world to us that we got a week off.  We are definitely blessed with parents and family, and we don't take that lightly.  I couldn't even imagine life without their help. (I need to also do a shout out to my cousins Kyle & Bethany, who watched our 90 lb yellow lab Herschel for the week WITH a newborn baby.  I would say Herschel is about as easy to watch as 2 out of the the 3 kids ;)

Now that we're adding another human being to our family I'm not sure if this trip will happen again, but it was so amazing and so nice and so relaxing and so NEEDED.  I would say that Josh and I have been through some intense fires and the Lord has molded us (by the way, the process of being "molded" is not fun...at all...but the finished product is worth it!), so we know how important it is to #1 have a deep, connected and glorifying relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ and #2 by us both doing #1 we get a healthy, beautiful marriage that the Lord created for us.  So this trip was a great way for us to refresh, relax and refocus.  It was a blessing.

Summer Days '13

I will admit it: I am not good with technology.  Josh will back me up on this claim.  It's a lot for me to take our camera, point and shoot, upload the pics (this is a hard step for me!), and then get them on this blog.  SO, when I realized that I take a ton of our pictures on my phone...my mind exploded with the thought of how to get them on here.  But, I did it :) And yes, I graduated from UGA WITH a degree in Advertising lol!

 Mother's Day 2013 (not technically summer ;)

 Spring day at the park

 Practicing football in the front yard with daddy

 FINALLY eating real food!  Only took her 14 months :)

 Someone is potty trained!  For a reward you get pizza and a movie!  This was late spring/early summer.  Good job Romie!

 First boat ride of the 2013 year!

 May 2013 - first family pic of the 6 of us ;)

 He loves her.  Helping Say walk

 Aidan tells me that he's doing Bible study.  LOVE that he gets excited about God's Word.  Only sure thing in this world.

 Say's painted toes for the summer

 Poor girl.  Watching/sleeping while brothers have swim lesssons

 Playing in the lake near our house

 Some light reading in the car

 We love Galts Beach!  We may have moved from that street, but we still love to play there :)

 Roman and Lila...too cute

 Crew and Saylor (their names are perfect together!)

 One of our first and MANY pool days of the summer

 Riding daddy

 Say!

 Trying to get a cute picture: Take #1

 Take #2

 Take #3

 Take #4 (there were actually 23 takes in all, but these were the best haha!)

 Celebrating mommy & daddy's birthdays (no, Roman is not on fire...it's the picture!)

 Daddy's bday with Aidan and Buzz Lightyear

 4th of July!  Actually this was later on in July for the make-up fireworks.  2013 was an EXTREMELY rainy summer...like everyday...no joke.

 Saylor feeding her "baby"

Saylor getting harassed while trying to feed her "baby"

What our car rides look like (the boys switch off who gets the front)

 Mommy & Say girl (I'm 7 months with baby #4)

 If she could talk she would say, "I'm sooo comfortable in this tight lifejacket."

 Aidan & Daddy surfing!

I LOVE THIS PICTURE.  One of my favorites.  Saylor in her sailor outfit...too cute

 Saylor getting kisses from Kaylee!

 Braves game!  We got rained on at the beginning (big surprise!)

 Say riding a pony

 One of our last pool days with friends :)

 Typical day at home

 Go Dawgs!!  Roman insisted that he wears long sleeves and cozy pants in 98 degree weather...whatever lol

Labor Day Say in her outfit :)

 Last time in the lake

 I love that they all love each other

 This girl LOVED to float!

 Aidan got a new bike for his birthday!

 Carline fun!

 Muscles!

 I love this picture. Daddy reading the Bible to his 3 kids.

 Movie day while Aidan is at school

 Nana helping Roman play piano

 Family night to see the movie Planes!

 Too cute!!

 The boys LOVED the Falcons game!!  We played the Rams and won! It was so much fun!

 She's obsessed with chalk.  Obsessed.

Too cool.

Uncle Kyle with Saylor and Kensi...they're going to be best buds! 

Summer 2013 FLEW by.  It was rainy and kind of cooler than usual, but this pregnant girl cannot complain!  It was a great summer to be pregnant!  The kids loved to play outside, swim, swim, swim, go to the pool, go to the lake, swim, play football and watch movies, and SWIM.  We're blessed with both of our parents living really close to us so we have access to a pool and the lake!  We also spent a lot of time with friends at either the beach, park or lake.  All in all, it was a beautiful summer.  Next year will be crazy with a new baby, but I am ready to not be pregnant and be able to chase everyone around! :)