A Rollercoaster of Emotions

As if the last few months have not had as many ups and downs as I could handle, this past week has been an emotional roller coaster. With our recent news of finding out I was pregnant we were actually innocently happy. All things seemed to be going our way. We found out that we had a possible "contract in the making" on our house and things were good.
Until Monday.
I began spotting that morning. The realty company called to notify me of another showing. I was confused. I thought we were under contract. All in one day I was hit with possibly losing the baby and losing the contract on the house.
Well, the contract on the house did fall through.
I started having cramps and a period. Didn't know what was going on.
Each day was getting worse. In my mind I resolved that I was having a miscarriage.
John and I decided it was for the best. He had also found out (on Monday) that the full health care coverage was not going to kick in, in October (the six month wait) like we had originally thought, but that they wouldn't make any changes to our plan until the new fiscal year. So the bad news seemed better when I decided I wasn't pregnant.
BUT, the next day I took another pregnacy test just to be sure. IT's still Positive!
What the heck. This is my fourth pregnacy. This has never happened to me before! What in the world is going on with my body?
Today I decided that I would see an OB/GYN. Well, you can't get an appointment with any new physicians around here plus with our current insurance situation it was only going to be around $400.
So I have swallowed my pride. I looked up the local health department on the internet. I will be going to the Iredell county health dept on Wednesday morning to take yet another pregnacy test so that they can tell me I'm pregnant. Hopefully, this will lead to a referal to the prenatal clinic.I realize that I'm selfishly glad that no one here knows me. That way I won't be embarassed to run into anybody that I may know. I guess I haven't lost my pride after all.
Yes, my life is an emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows right now. Why am I on this ride? I guess it's to make me realize that the only one in life I can truely trust in right now is my Lord and Savior.

Suprise!

Now that we've told the children, I feel at ease to let in the rest of the world. On our wonderful Minneapolis get-a-way, I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of "that-time-of-the-month". Well, after a couple of weeks of wondering, or rather making excuses, like ... I was late last month, I've been under a lot of stress, it'll come the one week I'm on vacation... You know the ones I'm talking about, right? I finally couldn't stand the curiousity any longer so I walked into a Walgreens, right there in downtown Minneapolis and bought a pregnancy test. I proceeded to go back to the hotel room, went straight to the bathroom and peed on the stick. Before I could set the thing down on the counter beside me there was already a vividly blue plus sign in one box. My heart lept, I grabbed the box out of the trash can to reread the instructions because after all, I had bought the Walgreens brand and this one must be different.
Who can describe the feeling of finding out you're pregnant? Everything inside you has feeling. They just happen to be really all over the map. Joy, worry, happiness, anxiety, pride, inhibition. My next concern was how I was going to break the news to John.
I was already scheduled to meet him for lunch over at the convention center. So I met him there, of course with hundreds of others. We ate lunch without much discussion. I asked if he'd like to go back to the room for a few minutes before his next session began. MEN, what can I say. I think John thought I was offering a "quicky" over lunch break. When we got to the room and I showed him the very positive, pregnancy stick, I think his first reaction was something like, "oh great".
Now, why do we women get upset when men generally have the same reactions we do? Maybe because they actually say them out loud. But for whatever reason we start asking stupid questions like, "Aren't you excited?" I shouldn't even set myself up for ones like that.
Well, a few days have passed and we have generally gotten over the shock. No we were not expecting four children but now it seems like this is the perfect piece to complete our family. We know that children are a blessing and that most importantly God has a plan for our lives.
So now we will make preparations.

Time with my husband

John and I took a trip to Minneapolis. He is here for a business conference but we also get time to do fun things together as well. It is always such a wonderful time to reconnect with my spouse with no kid interruptions. After a very busy spring and a stressful move this is just what the doctor ordered. I feel very blessed to have a husband who likes having me around. Most of the other employees do not usually bring their spouses and I was realizing that John has always wanted me to come with him. We are truely best friends and love to share our experiences with each other no matter how great or small.

Just a Normal Day in the life of a mother

This week has been more normal or maybe average is a better word. I've decided that it is time to potty train my two and a half year old daughter, Kelsey. She has definately shown interest but yesterday was not her day! We went through five pairs of panties by early afternoon. Not once did she make it to the potty. Today has been better or we at least got to the toilet twice for success. We are rewarding her with m&ms when she produces something in the potty chair.
The other bit of excitement in our life has been Emily's wiggly teeth. Her two front bottom teeth have been primed and are ready to come out. She let her daddy tug on one of them which popped right out. The second tooth she has been more reluctant to let us touch. (The tooth fairy came to reward her with five dollars, because that was the only piece of cash available.) She may be disappointed when the second tooth comes out and deflation hits.
Otherwise trips to the grocery store, the post office, and everyone for a hair cut at the local walk-in hair salon has filled our day.

Camping at Falls Lake, July 4th, 2008

We decided to take advantage of the holiday weekend and went camping. We chose a state park which was about two hours away, just north of Raleigh called Holly Point at Falls Lake. We arrived Wednesday evening just in time to set up camp and fix dinner over the grill. All was well with the world. I always seem to forget that the first night of camping is pretty restless. Kids can't go to sleep, someone always wakes in the middle of the night because they have to go potty (including me), lots of strange outdoor noises and so forth. The second night is always better, everybody is exhausted and sleeps great!
The activities while we were there included fishing, swimming, hiking, cooking over the fire and just hanging out around camp. We were all having a good time. To celebrate the 4th we decided to take a trip into the city to see the display of fireworks. We knew that if we left the park the gate would close at 9 p.m. and we would therefore not make it back in time to drive in. But the front gate attendant told us that we could park in the front parking lot and walk in after hours. So we decided we were up for the adventure.
What we did not know was that there was a thunderstorm in our future. We got to the fairgrounds with a stop for icecream. We were all sitting in the back of the pickup truck awaiting the fireworks show when the family beside us said, "hope it starts before that storm gets here". We were like, "what storm?" As the lightening began to strike, cars started heading out. John and I looked at each other. There was only twenty minutes until the gate closed at the park. There was no way we were going to make it back in time.
The rain began, the show was now canceled, so we decided to try and get out of there. It took us an hour to get to the street, raining pretty heavy by now. We were just praying that, just maybe, it hadn't started raining at the campground because the tent windows were open.
When we finally arrived at the campground around 10:30 p.m. several cars were wanting to get out of the park and several cars were wanting to get into the park. This was fortunate for us since all three children had fallen asleep and it was still raining. After calling the emergency number, a park ranger finally decided to unlock the gate and let us into the park.
When we pulled up to our campsite John hopped out to check out the damage. There were puddles in all three sections of the sleeping tent. The sleeping bags, sheets and a few pillows were soaked. John and I pulled out a few dry things that we could find and put them into the "dresssing" tent which was dry. we only had enough dry things for two people to sleep in the tent so John and Anna slept in the tent while Kelsey, Emily and I slept in the cab of the pickup truck.
This was probably the worst night of sleep I think that I have ever had!!! I woke up every few minutes but finally got up at about 6a.m. I was sore from sleeping curled up in the passengers side of the front seat but didn't really understand how soar until I stood up outside of the truck.
I could barely stand, let alone take any steps. My back was screaming in pain!
John had to pack most of everything up himself. Emily kept asking, "why can't we stay longer?" Anyhow, we are now home again. Yes, I said "home". the apartment was a welcomed site. Even Kelsey said she was ready to go to the apartment. (It sounds really cute in her two-year old voice.)
I am recooperating with some Doan's back pills. We will probably still be doing the laundry into next week but that's okay. John has been super helpful today! He has been running the wash and folding clothes and let me lay down to take a nap.
I am going to post some picture of the highlights of the camping trip. The first part really was a good time. The rain would have even been managable if we had only know it was coming and had zipped up the tents. Oh well, lessoned learned!

Apartment life, too old for this!

Okay so from about 2 to 5 a.m. this morning or what I would consider the middle of the night, the people above us were playing their music SO LOUD! Worse than that it was some kind of jazz/ rock type sound and then you would here someone practicing over and over again what I assume was a keyboard. Now I grew up with a mother as a piano teacher, so I'm familiar with the wrong note, starting again, kind of background noise but this was so bad. I couldn't believe it kept going on and on. John finally got up and banged on the ceiling with his shoe. After enough "popcorn" had fallen off of the ceiling he decided they probably couldn't hear him above all the music. What a night!
This of course topped off the day before. I had taken the girls to the pool. This was our first trip to the apartment community's pool. As we approached I thought, 'oh, this will be nice, we'll be the only ones here". But oh no, there were two other children and their teenage babysitter. A boy about twelve and his younger sister probably around six years old. He would antagonize his sister with which she would reply in ear curdling screams. The only two sounds that came from her mouth were whining or screaming. What a pleasant, relaxing day at the pool. The apartment maintenance man came by to clean the pool and asked us to step out of the pool for about fifteen minutes. We got out and sat on the lawn chairs but the other children continued to splash around and made disrespectful comments to him. I was horrified. I looked at Anna and told her that if I ever caught one of my children talking to any adult (no matter who they were) like that, they wouldn't be able to sit down for a week! She understood and was rather suprised by their behavior as well.
So this has been our two unpleasant experiences. They both just happened to be on the same day.