It's A....

God is blessing us with a second daughter, come May. This is our first picture of little Abigail Christine. She appears to be a healthy little thing- Thank you Lord!

Trampin' Snow I

Trampin' Snow II

Winter fun

Building the base for "Frosty."

"Is this how you pat it together mom?"

The finished product. If you look carefully you'll see the snow balls the kids came up with on their own for his eyes.

Scoopin' Poo

FYI, This may be too much information for some of my friends. But the story was simply too funny not to share.
My parents are blessed to have a fully producing tangerine tree in their yard. Lucas loves to pick, eat and share them.
Abrianna loves to eat them, always begging for "mora, mora!" when anyone else is eating them. Eaten in such large quantities, they have a rather cleansing effect for little ones in diapers.
Keeping that in mind...
Last night, we had a homemade corn dog feed. It had been a long day for me. I'd gone to town, for a walk, and done two hours of massage. I was tired I didn't feel like I could even lift my legs.
What happened next, usurped the tiredness.
Mitchell ( my 12 year old little brother) was lounging on a reclining/rocking floor chair. Abrianna nonchalantly walked, up to him and began scooping the contents of her diaper out and dropping it on his reclined body. Horrified, he sat there open-mouthed, not believing what was happening nor having the presence of mind to stop her.
I was in the kitchen, not knowing what had transpired other than hearing the room erupt into laughter and Mitch's horrified cries. Rick yelled, "Rachel! we need you!"
There was Abrianna, poo up her back, down the outside of her pants, in fact all the way onto her shoes.
Mitch lay gagging still on the chair decorated in her poo. My mom led him away to one bathroom, while I scooped up my disgusting daughter and headed to other. Both kids were given baths while their clothes went directly into the washing machine.
After having scrubbed her up. She sat in the tub, noticing a tiny piece of something black floating in the tub ( no it wasn't poo) she erupted once again into terrified cries and tried to climb up me to get out of the tub and away from that "bug".
Rick got to dress her, while I finished the bath with big brother. All 's well that end's well.

Arrrggghh Bugs!!!!

I do believe it's normal for each and every child to go through unreasonable fears- sometimes humorous, sometimes frustrating.
Abrianna has shown a slight aversion to bugs in the past. Since arriving at Grandpa and Grandma's in CA it escalated dramatically!

Seated on the high chair eating lunch, a fly buzzed her head. Her eyes grew large as she attempted to scramble out of the high chair and away from that terrifying bug!

Later, we were at Aunt Genni's and Uncle Jeremy's house, I was doing a raindrop treatment in the back room while Abrianna played under the watchful eye of her uncles.

Suddenly from the living room, I heard my daughter's terrified cry. Upon finishing the treatment, I asked what had happened.
Abrianna had been desperately attempting to pluck off a spider web. Uncle Kyle to the rescue and all was well... or was it?
Several minutes later, I noticed she was walking funny. I wondered aloud why? "Well," Uncle Jeremy said, " She had a spider web on her earlier."
Upon hearing the WORD spider, she emitted a terrified shriek and attempted to shimmy up my leg like it was a tree trunk. What? Now even the mention of a bug elicits such a response?

The next morning, she refused to set foot on the floor at Grandpa and Grandma's house without a panicked attempt to climb my leg and get away from the potential bugs.

I prayed with her about overcoming the fear and that Jesus would give her a brave heart. Since then, it's been a bit of a struggle. It gets old very quickly to carry her around on my now non-existent hip- pregnancy has a tendency to do that.

Today has been a bit better. Hopefully this is a short lived phase.

Riding the 4-wheeler together

With winter on us in full force and the temperatures really limiting our outside time, my children have learned that they can and do have fun being playmates. Thank you God! It's so cute!

20 Weeks

A bit nicer of a 20 week picture.

Thank you Auntie Jen and Uncle Chris

New family picture

Momma's helpers

While Lucas was busily "finishing" the mopping, I was feeding Jojo. I left for just a minute to do something else. Lo and behold, my other little helper kicked in to make sure Jojo continued to be fed. Oh, I need to encourage the helpfulness and not be annoyed when it causes extra messes to clean up. Thank you for helping Momma, Lucas and Abrianna.

Lucas

Weaning

I've been debating whether to post this or not. I think the story is worth telling but I think that some people may be offended with too much information. If that is you... Please stop reading.

Several days ago, while nursing Abrianna, I noticed thrush inside her upper lip. Again!
Last summer, we went through trying to get rid of thrush with I think 3 different medications, and 4-6 weeks of treatments. We finally figured out that I was passing back to her. So the solution was Diflucan for me- a internal yeast treatment. It worked like a charm.
Seeing the thrush this time caused pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. When I was nursing Lucas at this stage of my pregnancy, it didn't hurt. I've been in a lot of pain the past few weeks with nursing. I thought it was just time to wean. No, that wasn't it after all. It's yeast.
Digging out the gentian violet, I applied to Abrianna's mouth then painted the entire nipple area on myself.
Gentian violet is a very bright Vikings purple and stains whatever it touches. Abrianna was visibly upset that I'd painted myself.
Later on that evening, she was begging to nurse and go to sleep. Okay, no big deal. So off we went to bed. She took one look at me and wailed, "NooOOOoo!"
Alrighty then, I flipped off the light and switched her to the other side. Same response. Okay. We'll just cuddle till she goes to sleep.
During the middle of the night she eagerly nursed while sleeping. Once awake in the morning though, I asked if she wanted to nurse, "no!"
I tried periodically throughout the day. Always the same response. In fact, at nap time she wanted to lay down by herself and not even be rocked to sleep. What happened to my baby? Where did she go so suddenly? I'm sad. I know that our little ones grow up. Sometimes in a hurry too.
Last night was a repeat of the night before. She nursed in her sleep but otherwise refuses to nurse at all. I'm thankful that my milk supply has been dwindling due to my pregnancy and I don't have engorgement problems.
This is not how envisioned weaning to happen with my little girl.

Lucas is very aware that he resembles his father. When we are in stores and some lady will stop us to admire Abrianna bright orange locks, he's sure to say he has black hair like his dad.
On our weekly Sunday shopping trip, he had a different answer. "I have black hair... with white mixed in all over."
Rick's dark hair is becoming liberally sprinkled with gray. So Lucas believes his hair is too.

A walking snow woman

Our walks have been few and far between with the icy temperatures and the work of bundling up three little ones. Here is Abrianna all ready for a walk. Doesn't she look like a walking snow man?

Lucas stories

One of the most fun things for my kids when it comes to flying is to be able to pick the snack and type of juice they want.
Lucas wanted pretzels. He practiced saying it several times before the stewardess arrived. It came out as fretzels.
When she stopped the cart and asked what he wanted, the reply came out, " freckles and cranberry juice please!"

Today it was cold. Maybe upper 30's-40 if we were lucky. Stepping out the door with all three kids in tow for a walk, we could see white clouds form from our breath. BRRRR!
Lucas said, " Jasper ( our dog) has engine breath." What do you know? It did kind of look like exhaust from an engine.