Wordless Wednesday--FINALLY FINISHED!

The Strangest Thing Just Happened...

I woke up this morning remembering "Pearl", the baby I miscarried. Today was Pearl's due date so he/she would've been a year old now.

I spent a little time praying for that baby and reflecting on Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

And after that painful loss, we now have our Autumn. Part of God's perfect plan for us.

Of course I won't forget my Pearl and put on my twelve pearls this morning. This is when the strange part happened...

I was in the kitchen putting on my fancy bedazzled belt that goes with the cute pants I have on:

It's got little metal and rhinestoney studs stuck in it. As I was sticking in through a belt loop I heard one fall to the floor. I was all, "Awww, man!" 'cause they're relatively new and Dalton said, "Don't worry, Mom...I'll get it" and handed me...

...a pearl!

A pearl earring, to be exact...it was nothing from my belt at all (yay! by the way).

But here's what's weird: I still had both my pearl earrings in my ears. And the 10 on my necklace... I think I only own a single pair of pearl studs and here this goes falling on my kitchen floor on Pearl's due date anniversary:

(You can see that I've still got a pearl stud in each ear.)

Is that not bizarre?

I drove to Krispy Kreme with tears in my eyes but a little smile on my lips. A Pearl Day miracle. :)

Last Saturday was the day Gma and July left. It was also our first day of soccer. And in the evening, we got to check a bonus "new" park off our list. Our marriage group had a family night out picnic at a park we'd never been to:








It actually had two playgrounds but I didn't go over to the other one with Jason and the boys. And the boys had some behavioral issues that led to us having to leave before we really got to hang out much. Oh well.

The next day was Father's Day. We had plans for the early service at church and then Beer and Ale weekend at the Renaissance Festival...however at not even 6:00 I heard Easton calling. He had to go potty so I took him and then explained that he needed to try to go back to sleep and that he was absolutely not to wake up Dalton. Not ten minutes later, "Moooooooooom, Easton woke me up". Grrrr! So I headed downstairs with Easton for a time-out (dudes, he deliberately disobeyed...he did not accidentally wake up his brother. He 'fessed up.) When he was out of his time-out we were having a hug and I noticed just how very warm he was. He had a 102.4 degree fever. Church was out. Our other plans were out. :( Some Father's Day.


Instead we planned a lazy day at home:


I picked up Starbucks and made one of Jason's favorite breakfasts. Jason got to open the present he knew he was getting. Recently our credit card info was stolen and I was worried it was the website I ordered his gift from, so I had to tell him and our credit card company. They were legit after all but his surprise was ruined.

However he sure acted like he didn't know what it was...a surf board?


A new guitar?


A life-sized Easton cut-out?


Nah, it was a special cargo net for the back door of his new car. He was wanting one:


He got some other stuff as well...clothes and new pictures for his desk.





I don't get the impression my husband likes older photos on display. I believe he thinks framed pictures should always be current. There are virtually no baby pictures of the boys on display...in case you were wondering. :)

I think it was kind of nice to have a lazy weekend day for once. It's been awhile since that's happened. And J was finally able to brew the beer he's been wanting to brew:


We just hung out:


And then we watched "Aladdin". Oh goodness, the boys loved that one. They used to be too scared to try. But that Genie...he's a hoot:

I think we've watched that movie nearly every day since then which is odd for my boys. They don't typically do much repetition like "normal" kids like.

Monday I was feeling a little sick. I don't know what we did.

Tuesday we had our friends Emily and Wyatt (and their mom Tracy) over. The kids put on a concert for us again.

They turn off all the lights so I can't find them in my viewfinder hence the picture not being so great.

Had to take a separate one of Dalton:


Wednesday I don't remember. I think I was sick some more?

Thursday was a full day.

I had to do Autumn's 10 month pictures first thing. Easton tried being funny/getting in the way:


His friends moved to the table instead:


We had breakfast in the car on the way to gymnastics:




Then we headed down to Gramoo's. We had lunch and a little playing while we waited for my sister:




We were going swimming! And this time Jessica joined us! She arrived looking lovely in her little maternity dress so I had to take a picture. She was 25 weeks:


Then it was off to the pool for awhile. (No pictures.)

Lauren couldn't join us for swimming because she was working. The one day a week she works. So we went to visit her on the job...she nannied for a little guy so we brought some Sonic beverages and sat in the front yard:




I refused to go in these people's house. Lauren seemed to think they'd be just fine with it but, putting myself in their shoes, I just couldn't do it. Plus I have two very curious boys (one a climbing/jumping/tumbline addict) and I was afraid of them being in the house of someone I don't know at all. Luckily Gramoo brought some toys for the yard:


And the kid that lived there seemed happy just to have 3 other little kids to look at:


Eventually we wrapped it up and the kids and I headed home for dinner.

Friday we lazed around all morning. I put Autumn in the newly arrived tutu from my amazingly talented friend Adrina. (Check out her stuff! She's awesome!)


She's got a special shirt to go with it but that'll have to wait for another time. But for now I just had to snap some pics because she was just too darn cute:


I know, how cute are her little Chucks?


Then she got dressed for the day in one of the few new outfits I've ever bought her:


It's cute but I think I liked it better on the hanger. But the bum sure is adorable:


Easton couldn't let Autumn be the only one playing dress-up:


In the afternoon, the kids and I packed ourselves up for a drive up to the mountains. One of my online friends is in Colorado and we had planned to meet up that day. We were well on our way when the cops had completely shut down the highway we were on. The only highway I know of to get to that particular town (Estes Park). They offered no detour route. So I drove around a bit (a lot!). No luck getting up further north on that highway. I tried to go back to where they shut it down in case it was opened again. Nope. I called Jason who was at a work function (no computer to look for alternate directions). My map app on my phone wasn't helping. So I got in the long line of traffic being diverted just so I could ask the (mean) cop how else I was supposed to get there. Then I had to get in another long line of traffic to get to the alternate route he told me to do. At this point it was so late, we still had an hour drive ahead of us (we'd been in the car nearly an hour and a half already). My friend and I talked on the phone and I decided we'd have to meet up another day. It wasn't going to be worth it.

She let me know there was a huge fire burning up in Estes. Not sure if that's why the highway was shut down or not (never did hear) but oh well. Easton was bummed we weren't going to see "our friends" and was begging me to keep going. Dalton woke up from a car nap and wasn't happy and Autumn was so bored of being in the car for so long:


So Easton helped her watched movies on my Blackberry. Seriously.


And we ended up stopping in Boulder for some dinner at Panera. As I was clearing the table a man came up to me and said, "I wanted to come compliment you on your children...they are extremely well-behaved." Yay!!! I love hearing things like that. It means a lot to a hard-working mom like me when people go out of their way to let me know I appear to be doing a good job. A man that worked there came by later as I was gathering the children and said, "I can't even handle my 2 year old by myself...especially not all 3 of mine. You make it look easy." I don't know if he meant it that way but I decided to take that as a compliment too. :)

Saturday morning was soccer. Bright and early. E's game was at 8 and Dalton's started at 9. Easton had fun and I hear Dalton did well in "practice" but still needed some extra encouragement during the game:

(I hemmed his jersey since last week, can you tell?) :)

Easton and Autumn had fun watching D.

Dalton came over at one point and was whining that he wanted some Gatorade (Easton was drinking some.) I reminded him, "You'll get snacks and juice after your game too, Dalton" and Easton said, "It's not a big deal...he can have some" and shared. Nice boy. The "not a big deal" part made me chuckle. I think Jason says that.

Autumn had picked out her own outfit that morning. I opened her closet with her on my hip and she dove in and grabbed a hold of that one from Kaiya which also once belonged to Julie's girls:

Autumn chose the outfit but Dalton chose the flower for her hat.

The way home was Autumn's last time to ride in her infant seat:


It actually expired a few days before (from when we got it before Easton was born). We now have to destroy the seat so I had to make sure I got one last picture. Never again will one of my babies be in an infant seat. Now Autumn has a pretty, big girl seat (still rear-facing, of course!). She rode in it for the first time yesterday on the way to church:


I put that picture up for my car seat friend to take a look at in case there were problems and there was! Looking at it now I'm all, "How did I not notice how high her straps are above her shoulders???" I think because Jason and I measured so carefully in the house before he installed it I just assumed that they'd be just right and didn't think about 'em again. But thanks to her, I had Jason fix it and she's all safe now:

It's the same seat the boys have except with that lovely girly cover (yippee!). To get that cover we had to get the seat that goes up to 80 pounds (the boys' go to 65). The 80 pound version also comes with better padding. I just love those seats. Radians. Tell your friends.

After church we ran to a few stores, picked up some lunch and waited around for small group to start.

And that's been the last week. There ya go!

Autumn is 10 Months Old!

She's changed/grown a ton in this last month. She can boogie when she hears music. She cruises (walking while holding on to furniture). She claps.


She lets go of stuff she's holding onto sometimes and can stand by herself for a few seconds:




She had an unfortunate incident versus the elliptical that I feared we'd need Jaws of Life to free her:


Let's back up a bit first. The kids and I were hanging out in my room:



Autumn was looking adorable in this outfit we got new with tags from Julie's Zoe. The onesie is "Up to 3 months" from BabyGAP but the skirt was 12 month sized. So I hung onto the shirt and it still fits her just fine. She looks cute, no?

Anyway, Easton was playing the keyboard for us:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

In the second clip you can see Autumn climbing around near the elliptical. And she climbed up on it which is why I took that picture you saw above. I didn't take a picture because she was stuck, I took it because climbing up there was a first...I'm not THAT horrible of a "must-document-everything" parent. :) It wasn't till right after I took it that I realized she was stuck. Of course I went to free her. But she would not budge and she began screaming a heartbreaking scream that brought tears to my eyes. It was so awful. I sent Easton running for her pacifier. He was so calm but quick...simply asking, "Okay, where is it?" and brought it right away. Immediately after that I sent him for lotion. I was going to try to grease her chubby thigh out...she was stuck at the knee, though. So next I had him dash for my phone. He not only found it, but unplugged it from the charger and ran it up to me. I was about to call the fire department or maybe our neighbor. I needed another pair of hands. I couldn't lift her up out of the way enough so that I could also use two hands to free her leg. So, I wasn't going to call "911" just the regular ol' number. She wasn't in any immediate danger, but she sure wasn't happy. I decided to give it one more try and was able to free her finally.

I was snuggling her and Easton went to grab every single stuffed animal she has in her room and threw them at our feet to comfort her.

Easton took this picture with my phone.
I thought he'd buried the lotion with the soft friends but I couldn't find it so I asked, "Where's the lotion?" and he answered, "I put it back in my room." What an amazing kid! I'm seriously not sure how I would've managed all that without my big guy. And then for him to start the "clean up" all on his own??? He's a hero in my book!

Once Autumn was calm, she was all tuckered out and took a nap. When she woke up I took pictures of the small cut on her knee and the bruises beginning to form on her thigh:



I should take more pictures now that they're much uglier and yellower. :) Poor baby.

So that's the excitment around here for our now ten month old girl!